Zebo
Elite Member
- Jul 29, 2001
- 39,398
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Hersh is a damn moron. It's just the opposite. Our Military is too careful, puts themselves in way too much harms way trying to stop Shia/sunni from killing each other, feed them and otherwise kiss thier ass. Read up on how we destroyed whole towns and all the peoples in them in WWII and WWI. We even killed 1 million Germans after the war. Thats the right way to war - You destroy your enemy as quickly and brutally as possible and avoid a long protracted conflict. We havnt done that since WWII. The last war we won! In this war the Fallujah catastrophe stands out as a perfect example of pussy assed policy as we warned and let the city drain itself of most hardend before action. Fallujah and every living thing in it should have been vaporized the same day they butchered those American contractors. Our invasion of Iraq was too "surgical", too low-casuality with no message other than guerilla warfare is successful because it carries no family responsibility along with it.
And I'm no Neocon, Iraq was a mistake (actually any war we engage in is, as we won't win it with current war thoery) but I fight to win, not stale mate spinning your wheels or otherwise wasting good young lives.. I admire these young men serving under these perfume Generals and politicans who expose them to so much risk. Certainly these kids have more balls than 99% of this forum to risk themselves like that.
And I'm no Neocon, Iraq was a mistake (actually any war we engage in is, as we won't win it with current war thoery) but I fight to win, not stale mate spinning your wheels or otherwise wasting good young lives.. I admire these young men serving under these perfume Generals and politicans who expose them to so much risk. Certainly these kids have more balls than 99% of this forum to risk themselves like that.
No. The "right" course of action during war is the one in which there is the least amount of casualty. Innocents are worth more. Therefore, your comment about destroying whole towns and the persons in them is not only bunk, it's immoral.
Zebo
Elite Member
- Jul 29, 2001
- 39,398
- 19
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LOL Find me one moral war? You are imposing your will on others through organized violence. The only question is are you willing to complete the task or let the other side out violence you.
I won't respond to the rest of your tripe until you've read and understand how insugencies were delt with from Alexander even up until Philippines. Immoral yes of course..maybe our fearless leaders should think about that before pissing away lives, dollars for temporay political gain... people arnt just going to roll-over on thier own warriors just because they see big bad US army coming. In fact they laugh and take advantage of our "least amount of casualty. Innocents are worth more" feel good war tactics.
You're the one that used the word 'right' first. What did you mean by that if not the moral right?
Bush is quite possibly the worst president we've ever had, but to call this army the most violent or whatever shows a lack of knowledge of history.
Why not go back and look at things American soldiers did in the war with mexico, and the "war" with the Indians in the 1800's?
To even compare what was done then with the mentality of the common soldier today is just .. well .. odd
Most soldiers today are good and moral people just trying to do their jobs, REGARDLESS of who is in office. There are some who are...less than human, just as there are some civilians who are less than human.
Why not go back and look at things American soldiers did in the war with mexico, and the "war" with the Indians in the 1800's?
To even compare what was done then with the mentality of the common soldier today is just .. well .. odd
Most soldiers today are good and moral people just trying to do their jobs, REGARDLESS of who is in office. There are some who are...less than human, just as there are some civilians who are less than human.
Zebo
Elite Member
- Jul 29, 2001
- 39,398
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Young Imigrants from Bagladesh, Mexico, etc shower praise on US troops while a POS native Americans like Hersh spits on them
If they were as bad as Hersh says, Hersh would be dead. I know in Mexico and in most parts of the world he woould be 'necktied' if he wrote slander like this.
If they were as bad as Hersh says, Hersh would be dead. I know in Mexico and in most parts of the world he woould be 'necktied' if he wrote slander like this.
Zebo
Elite Member
- Jul 29, 2001
- 39,398
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Originally posted by: extra
Bush is quite possibly the worst president we've ever had, but to call this army the most violent or whatever shows a lack of knowledge of history.
Why not go back and look at things American soldiers did in the war with mexico, and the "war" with the Indians in the 1800's?
To even compare what was done then with the mentality of the common soldier today is just .. well .. odd
Most soldiers today are good and moral people just trying to do their jobs, REGARDLESS of who is in office. There are some who are...less than human, just as there are some civilians who are less than human.
Good post..peoples are totally ignorant of history. How about the Indians? Millions! Southerners? Couple hundred thou! Philippinos? Million. Japs? Millions. Germans? ~3 million.
Hersh not "odd" but a total moron like I said. Hersch has made a long career of bad-mouthing the U.S. in general, with special attention to our military. Like Chomsky but with real credentials.
palehorse
Lifer
- Dec 21, 2005
- 11,521
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- 76
since when? 1946? We are currently fighting an evil on par with, or worse than, the armies of the Hitlers and Stalins of history. So why was it "ok" to completely wipe out our enemies in 1945, but not in 2006?
one answer: overly-sensitive politically correct panzy-a$$ed bullsh*t and too many know-nothing civilians trying to run the show.
Oh really?
How many kids died due to the regime change policy of the US prior to Gulf War II? A heck of a lot more than under Saddam's grip. Try roughly a million. The US had the gull of blaming Saddam for that too.
Before you blab off about how I'm wrong you may want to think about the weapons inspectors. No thanks to the US they managed to disarm Saddam almost completely. In fact they managed to do it despite the US's efforts to the contratry. It was US policy to remove Saddam. Not disarm him.
So if you want to start comparing numbers of dead due to policy you better start looking in a mirrior. That's just Iraq. The regime change policy goes back many decades and covers much of the globe. Iran is a good example. How many were tortured and brutalized by the puppet dictator the US put into power there?
If you want to even get close to the number of people "they" killed, tortured and brutalized you better go back to the 1300 and 1400s to come up with a comparable number.
So you may wish to consider changing your bullsh!t statement.
Hey Genx87, open mouth... insert foot.
I was stationed on the USS Valley Forge from 2001-2004. I was there for the war as part of the Constellation battle group, and while I wasn't a front line soldier by any means as part of my ships boarding team we spent almost a month in Um Qasr dealing with Iraqi POWs. (okay, we pretty much sat around with pistols and stuck our thumbs in our butts. Guess that still makes you about 100% wrong though doesn't it?) Thanks for playing.
Way to not grasp what I was saying though. People in the military tend to be there due to a lack of other options. They are nearly always young people without any meaningful education past high school. This is frequently their first time away from home. This makes them ill equipped to deal with this sort of stress. That is why these sort of atrocities happen.
To take what Hersh said and think that he means every single soldier is a murdering maniac requires a huge level of willful ignorance. What he does mean is that these attacks are far more common then anyone thinks, and that our troops are displaying a casual disregard for innocent life beyond what they have ever shown in the past. This would not surprise me in the least. Hell, don't even take my word for it. Just poke around Google for stories of Iraqi civilian deaths. It will take you days to read through them.
Repeat: Criticism of actions by the military does not mean 100% of soldiers are murdering bastards. If you really think that is what Sy Hersh said, you should reread his comments, or reconsider just how blinded you are by your idology.
I don't know why people are so shocked by this. The scenario that he suggests is 100% plausable. I'm not certain he's right... but if he is it would be no surprise. Armies of occupation involved in fighting protracted insurgencies tend to commit atrocities. Not blaming this on American forces... this is any forces, anywhere. Nobody can get attacked all day every day and not eventually retaliate. It's just common sense.
I was stationed on the USS Valley Forge from 2001-2004. I was there for the war as part of the Constellation battle group, and while I wasn't a front line soldier by any means as part of my ships boarding team we spent almost a month in Um Qasr dealing with Iraqi POWs. (okay, we pretty much sat around with pistols and stuck our thumbs in our butts. Guess that still makes you about 100% wrong though doesn't it?) Thanks for playing.
Way to not grasp what I was saying though. People in the military tend to be there due to a lack of other options. They are nearly always young people without any meaningful education past high school. This is frequently their first time away from home. This makes them ill equipped to deal with this sort of stress. That is why these sort of atrocities happen.
To take what Hersh said and think that he means every single soldier is a murdering maniac requires a huge level of willful ignorance. What he does mean is that these attacks are far more common then anyone thinks, and that our troops are displaying a casual disregard for innocent life beyond what they have ever shown in the past. This would not surprise me in the least. Hell, don't even take my word for it. Just poke around Google for stories of Iraqi civilian deaths. It will take you days to read through them.
Repeat: Criticism of actions by the military does not mean 100% of soldiers are murdering bastards. If you really think that is what Sy Hersh said, you should reread his comments, or reconsider just how blinded you are by your idology.
I don't know why people are so shocked by this. The scenario that he suggests is 100% plausable. I'm not certain he's right... but if he is it would be no surprise. Armies of occupation involved in fighting protracted insurgencies tend to commit atrocities. Not blaming this on American forces... this is any forces, anywhere. Nobody can get attacked all day every day and not eventually retaliate. It's just common sense.
A few other things. I constantly see comparisons between Al Qaeda and the insurgency in Iraq with Hitler. I don't see how this even remotely applies. If you are going to count combat and civilian deaths along with the Holocaust, Hitler caused... say.. a ballpark of close to 50 million deaths.
September 11th was about 3,000... and about 3,000 more of our soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. As far as I can tell Osama is about 49,997,000 deaths behind. Not only that, but Hitler in control of all of Europe was slightly more capable of world domination then a bunch of people in a cave on the Afghan border are. I wouldn't stay up nights worrying about them just yet.
Also the firebombings of dresden and other German and Japanese cities for the sole purpose of slaughtering civilians and creating a humanitarian crisis are widely regarded as horrific crimes by the rest of the world. We regard Hitler's bombing of civilians in Londan as bad... and it wasn't 1/100th the devastation.
Don't buy the jingoistic hysteria. This is not a war for the fate of civilization. Iraq is a botched strategic power play in the middle east. I don't blame Bush for trying to exert influence there, and it was a decent idea to try and get ourselves a club that we could wield over most of the crazy regimes over there. He just didn't think it all the way through. I'm okay with that, but I'm not going to believe his lies that he invaded Iraq to save us all from the evil brown menace.
September 11th was about 3,000... and about 3,000 more of our soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. As far as I can tell Osama is about 49,997,000 deaths behind. Not only that, but Hitler in control of all of Europe was slightly more capable of world domination then a bunch of people in a cave on the Afghan border are. I wouldn't stay up nights worrying about them just yet.
Also the firebombings of dresden and other German and Japanese cities for the sole purpose of slaughtering civilians and creating a humanitarian crisis are widely regarded as horrific crimes by the rest of the world. We regard Hitler's bombing of civilians in Londan as bad... and it wasn't 1/100th the devastation.
Don't buy the jingoistic hysteria. This is not a war for the fate of civilization. Iraq is a botched strategic power play in the middle east. I don't blame Bush for trying to exert influence there, and it was a decent idea to try and get ourselves a club that we could wield over most of the crazy regimes over there. He just didn't think it all the way through. I'm okay with that, but I'm not going to believe his lies that he invaded Iraq to save us all from the evil brown menace.
ProfJohn
Lifer
- Jul 28, 2006
- 18,161
- 7
- 0
The truth about Hersh
What he said at first
One of Hersh\'s allegations made during a speaking engagement in July 2004, during the height of the Abu Ghraib scandal, was later amended by Hersh. He alleged that American troops sexually assaulted young boys: \"basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children, in cases that have been recorded, the boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking. That your government has. They?re in total terror it?s going to come out.?
How he then changed his story
In a subsequent interview with New York Magazine, Hersh admitted, \"I actually didn?t quite say what I wanted to say correctly...it wasn?t that inaccurate, but it was misstated. The next thing I know, it was all over the blogs. And I just realized then, the power of?and so you have to try and be more careful.\" [18] In his book, Chain of Command , he wrote that one of the witness statements he had read described the rape of a boy by a foreign contract interpreter at Abu Ghraib, during which a woman took pictures.
Wait! A woman took was taking pictures? What about the soundtrack of the boys shrieking?! He claimed to have heard this himself. What a total POS.
Finally a comment by Hersh on speaking verse writing
\"Sometimes I change events, dates, and places in a certain way to protect people...I can?t fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say.\"
So much for his cedibility.
What he said at first
One of Hersh\'s allegations made during a speaking engagement in July 2004, during the height of the Abu Ghraib scandal, was later amended by Hersh. He alleged that American troops sexually assaulted young boys: \"basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children, in cases that have been recorded, the boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking. That your government has. They?re in total terror it?s going to come out.?
How he then changed his story
In a subsequent interview with New York Magazine, Hersh admitted, \"I actually didn?t quite say what I wanted to say correctly...it wasn?t that inaccurate, but it was misstated. The next thing I know, it was all over the blogs. And I just realized then, the power of?and so you have to try and be more careful.\" [18] In his book, Chain of Command , he wrote that one of the witness statements he had read described the rape of a boy by a foreign contract interpreter at Abu Ghraib, during which a woman took pictures.
Wait! A woman took was taking pictures? What about the soundtrack of the boys shrieking?! He claimed to have heard this himself. What a total POS.
Finally a comment by Hersh on speaking verse writing
\"Sometimes I change events, dates, and places in a certain way to protect people...I can?t fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say.\"
So much for his cedibility.
palehorse
Lifer
- Dec 21, 2005
- 11,521
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all of that just goes to show that the American populace lost its collective will to destroy our enemies after 1945.
PS: Hersh is a traitorous windbag whose statements are gross exagerations and outright lies (fantasies?) meant to demoralize our own troops and boost the morale of our enemies.
Red Dawn
Elite Member
- Jun 4, 2001
- 57,529
- 3
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Yeah instead you are just going to level charges of treason. I don't agree with his opinion but I don't for a second believe that he's a traitor.
BTW if I was in Iraq in the same situation as those soldiers I'd probably shoot at the first Iraqi who looked at me cross eyed, especially if my buddies were getting blown to smithereens. I'm sure a lot of those soldiers don't even look at those Iraqi's in the sense of them being a person, thus the nickname "beloved patriot" they give them. It was the same in Viet Nam when they use to call the Vietnamese "Gooks". It was meant to dehumanize them which made it easier to kill them.
palehorse
Lifer
- Dec 21, 2005
- 11,521
- 0
- 76
that term may be used to the same effect as "Gooks" to label all of them, but it's actually not an insult in their culture considering it's the name given to those who make the Haj (pilgrimage to Mecca).
That said, I do see Hersh's lies as borderline traitorous as they seriously undermine our morale and give the enemy great soundbites to leverage against our efforts.
There is simply no excuse for his statement:
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