Something to ponder as U.S. military personnel are investigated in the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the killing of her family, as well as the Haditha incident: Is it a case of too few good men? The Southern Poverty Law Center says recruiters are increasingly willing to sign up neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists, such that Aryan Nations graffiti has been spotted in Baghdad. “Recruiters, desperate to meet their quotas, are sifting for warm bodies among those who are less talented, less disciplined and, in some cases, repellent,” wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert. Obviously, multiple tours of duty put stress on those of sound character, too.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- Phantom on Open thread 11/23
- JimJohnson on Open thread 11/23
- Monkeyhawk on Open thread 11/23
- CapnAmerica on Open thread 11/23
- JimJohnson on Open thread 11/23
- Monkeyhawk on Open thread 11/23
- CapnAmerica on Open thread 11/23
- ANTI on Open thread 11/23
- cosmos_originally on Open thread 11/23
- CapnAmerica on Open thread 11/23
30 Comments
“War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”….William Tecumseh Sherman
The troops are not at fault.
The fault lies entirely with our commander in chief who forgot the lesson of history, or in his case, never learned it to begin with.
IR ememberA notherQ uagmire
The longer the war drags on, the longer the troops are stationed there overextended, the longer they recognize that Bush has no plan, the more atrocities are bound to occur.
“If we don’t quit sending troops all around the world in nation-building exercises, we’re looking at problems down the road.” Candidate George W. Bush, Sept 30, 2000.
Let the cruelty be among the soldiers and leave the innocent out of it. As long as men walk upon the earth, there will probably be war.The men who are guilty of this atrocity should be handed over to the Iraqi authorities and be subject to Iraqi punishment.Don’t bore me with “the soldiers are under so much duress, blah, blah, blah”. NO EXCUSES.
The troops are not at fault.
The fault lies entirely with our commander in chief who forgot the lesson of history, or in his case, never learned it to begin with.
IR ememberA notherQ uagmire
The longer the war drags on, the longer the troops are stationed there overextended, the longer they recognize that Bush has no plan, the more atrocities are bound to occur.
“If we don’t quit sending troops all around the world in nation-building exercises, we’re looking at problems down the road.” Candidate George W. Bush, Sept 30, 2000.
Again, NO EXCUSES.
“Obviously, multiple tours of duty put stress on those of sound character, too.”
What? I hope you are not implying that stress could cause someone “of sound character” to do what is being alleged.
Why do U.S. troops do bad things?
Because they are board and pissed off that they are there… they resent being there and some just find a way to take it out. If they are in an area who dont get to fight, they pick the fight to get their aggressions out.
That’s part of the reasons behind why the pentagon doesnt want women on the front lines. If soleders get to worked up they might want to take their aggressions out on one of the women there in the form of rape or abuse.
I can only blame the solders to a point, it takes a lot of mental stability to endure months of front line combat, most of which these kids dont have. The rest i blame on our government. They sanctioned things like prisoner abuse in Cuba and Iraq, why cant those solders do it too?
The fact that the President declared jihad didn’t help. That made it much easier to dehumanize the ‘enemy’ and make the entire population of the occupied country the ‘enemy.’ Wars of occupation, with the local citizens against us, are like that.
Throw into the mix a bunch of “Christian Identity” types and you have a recipe for disaster.
The soldiers involved in the rape/murders should be extradited. Let the government of the sovereign state of Iraq try them.
“Throw into the mix a bunch of “Christian Identity” types and you have a recipe for disaster.”
Not to mention the skinheads and nazis that have invaded the ranks.
And with the lowering of acceptable standards, we are rapidly approaching the quality of recruits we had in mid seventies.
The choppers leaving Saigon about 1975 come to mind.
Farm Gal,It gets even worse; I saw on the news the other day that gang graffiti is now showing up on walls and mosques in Iraq. Before long, the skinheads and the gangs are going to stage an all-out race war in Bagdad, with weapons we paid for. See? We really are bringing them our American way of life!
Aryan nations graffitti has been spotted in Iraq According to the pentagon. Recruiters are just grabbing warm bodies to fullfill thier quotas. compound this with the fact that when put into a horrible situation people unfortunatly do horrible things. I can forgive those who have killed our soldiers, i cannot forgive george bush for making our young men and women into monsters.
“Before long, the skinheads and the gangs are going to stage an all-out race war in Bagdad, with weapons we paid for.”
Ha ha. Yeah. Sure.
This is why we need a fair draft now. And it isn’t because I suppor the war. Lowering the standards for new recruits is perfect – as long as there are “undesirables” to go get killed by IEDs so much the better- two problems one solution. And, I am in no way saying that the vast majority of our military men and women are anything except some honorable people who really want to serve our country and a lot of equally honorable morally sound average people who wanted a good job and a way to pay for college. But, instead of all our leaders and brightest future (instead of just those who choose it) being at risk to pay for our sins, when we are running short on what has been the bulk of the military – average honorable people, we are willing to pay our debt with those we might be happiest to see go.
We need a draft, if we are talking about fighting a genuine war that is in OUR NATION’s interest, but we aren’t going to get one. Here is why: once you start drafting kids from the middle to affluent classes, you’ll have well organized young-people’s war protests, and a lot of influential parents lobbying to end the war, thus foiling the administration’s scheme to get control of Middle East oil.
Remember, according to Ann Coulter we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.
Why? Because they are human beings, placed in a bad situation.
They are little different than any soldiers, anywhere, anytime. In fact, their behavior is probably far better than almost any other armed force, anywhere, anytime.
“US troops” don’t do bad things. Individuals do. And I agree, for those individuals, there are NO EXCUSES. The individuals are responsible, and should be held so. If their commanders are complicit, they should be accountable as well.
But the vast majority of America’s warfighters do their job effectively and withing their roles. Warfare is a nasty business. Mistakes will be made; for all our technology, friendly fire is still a major part of a battlefield, for example. And we are fighting an cowardly enemy which thinks nothing of hiding among women and children.
BTW – why are we calling them insurgents? Insurgents would target the occupying forces. They don’t. These cowards target civilians, women, and kids. Those are terrorists, plain and simple.
Yes, fools and idiots will do bad things. But the vast majority of our forces do not. Please don’t paint all our warfighters with the broad brush of a few idiots. Individuals are responsible for individual acts.
WHOA! The whole blog is down most of the day and when it comes back this entire thread of posts is gone except for the last from GMC! I hadn’t posted this one before. So we got skin heads and gang bangers joining the military now. That is just great. They get military training, access to military weapons and technology, and hey toss in some combat experience! Maybe when they come home we will get to see terrorism up close. Remember Tim McVeigh?
Yea, JR, I noticed that last night when I posted. About 15 comments, including one which advocated no excuses in dealing with soldiers engaged in abuses, got wiped. Don’t know how or why.
Some others that got wiped had to do with all the skinheads the military is loading up on. I’m sure a bunch of Ann Coulter-loving Aryan Brotherhood types will do a great job representing out country in Iraq.
FYI
Kansas City Star:
“Typepad service outage”"Sorry for the lack of posts today but Typepad was down. The outage also seems to have wiped out the one post we did make.”
C’mon Ben,
The military is not “loading up” on “skinheads.” Do some of those idiots get into the military? I’m sure they do. The military is a reflection of the larger society in many ways, and since those morons are out here among the larger society, I’m sure they are also reflected in the military.
I also have no doubt that the military has little tolerance for that kind of the behavior. I KNOW the Marine Corps. has zero tolerance for it.
Smear the guilty; not all those who wear the uniform.
Our military has been infested with illegal immigrants and black and beaner gang members for years so don’t sweat the skinheads. Our military has been going steadily donwhill since that scumbag truman desegregated the forces during the Korean War.
v.L.R.B!!
Ian, you mean beaners like yourself?
GMC – I had posted a link documenting that yesterday.
Let’s see …
The liberals are blaming the problem on beaners, spics, n*ggers, dago’s, whops, chincs, huns, muszzies, micks, limeys, japs, and the french.
Good thing there are no republicans here to turn this into a racist or small minded topic. That’s for sure.
LRB
Please don’t mistake Ian for a liberal. He’s just a nut.
WOW
LRB posted a second thread!
(Affecting my singing voice)
She’sComingOut
But I note the usual pattern followed. Totally outrageious “opener”. And not accurate by half as usual.
Unless my “old friend” GMChas become a liberal!
GMC meet LRB
She knows everything. Just ask her!
I figured it was a type pad thing.
And the thread.
Well, we understand that due to the need for bodies the standards have been relaxed for some of the services. I hope this does not include relaxation of the psych standards. That one who raped and murdered (alledgedly) the 14 year old girl had been released for being mentally unfit. Surely they screen recruits for this?
DON”T they?
Calling Ian a leftist liberal probably pisses him off more than calling him an beaner immigrant who hates beaner immigrants. After all he only can to this country after he got fired from his job as Castro’s personal fluffer.
It doesn’t matter. The military recruiters only go to those neighborhoods where poor “third-worlders” are so they can usethem to fight for a country that despises them anyway.
AS I read the comments here, I’m concerned by one thing. It had appeared we had learned one lesson from VN; that is, while we may oppose the policies which put them there, we still honor and respect the soldiers put into harm’s way.
Is that changing? Am I seeing the turning of that respect into the kind of open contempt for all things military that was seen during/after VN?
I had hoped we’d learned that lesson; perhaps not. Maybe I’m misreading things. I hope so.