Marine ordered to execute Haditha women and children

You love your country so it's alright to be a racist asshole who sees a whole country as uncivilized cave people and can't even bring himself to express a twinge of sympathy for the kids who were brutally murdered by marines.
 
You love your country so it's alright to be a racist asshole who sees a whole country as uncivilized cave people and can't even bring himself to express a twinge of sympathy for the kids who were brutally murdered by marines.

Sure, my condolences to the innocent families murdered by us.

A big **** you to the cocksuckers blowing themselves up.
 
You're not a good American, go back to the KKK.

That's too harsh. I think it's scary that someone who openly admits to being racist towards the Iraqi people is being given a gun and sent over there to fight for them, but that doesn't makes him a terrible person. Just a bit of a dumbass put into a position of extreme responsibility - hence the scariness. If these are your true feelings, xlucidx, you are clearly not ready for the job and should not be allowed into Iraq. It is a failing of the army that people with views like yours are allowed to fight fullstop.

There is no difference in calling Iraqis cavemen to when my grandad used to refer to Africans as monkeys.
 
That's too harsh. I think it's scary that someone who openly admits to being racist towards the Iraqi people is being given a gun and sent over there to fight for them, but that doesn't makes him a terrible person. Just a bit of a dumbass put into a position of extreme responsibility - hence the scariness. If these are your true feelings, xlucidx, you are clearly not ready for the job and should not be allowed into Iraq. It is a failing of the army that people with views like yours are allowed to fight fullstop.

Feelings don't really matter; performance does.

"Do what you are meant to do, burn and die in foreign fields."
 
If you really want to die for your country, become a police officer or fireman. At least then your life (or death) might make a difference.
 
15357 this is an intelligent discussion so could I please ask you to stay out of it.
 
Waffen-SS were shock troops and racists with guns.

What are the Marines?
 
Clearly they are valiant and honourable defenders of American freedom.
 
That's too harsh. I think it's scary that someone who openly admits to being racist towards the Iraqi people is being given a gun and sent over there to fight for them, but that doesn't makes him a terrible person. Just a bit of a dumbass put into a position of extreme responsibility - hence the scariness. If these are your true feelings, xlucidx, you are clearly not ready for the job and should not be allowed into Iraq. It is a failing of the army that people with views like yours are allowed to fight fullstop.

There is no difference in calling Iraqis cavemen to when my grandad used to refer to Africans as monkeys.

He said that whoever said he wasn't a good American and/or said that he should go back to the KKK could go **** himself, so I did.
 
Waffen-SS were shock troops and racists with guns.

What are the Marines?

Quite. Marines, particularly those with a training programme like that of the USMC are possibly the worst choice for occupation troops one can make. They're trained to attack very heavily defended positions and hold them if need be. And, well, thats it really.

In a situation like the Siege of Fallujah (such a situation is unlikely to arise again, as the insurgents there got utterly annihilated and so the ones about now are unlikely to make the same mistake) yes, they're a fine choice, but for day-to-day occupation they simply don't work. They're trained with a "I'm gunna go kill me something" attitude, because in their intended role its essential, but in low intensity/counter insurgency warfare it becomes a liability.

The occupation of Iraq should be left the US Army, who are better trained to deal with the challenges it presents.
 
Well, I'm sorry if I offended anybody.

I don't see why I shouldn't post my thoughts on the matter and hide the fact that I am basically racist against the Iraqis

The sad thing is you admit to an uneducated, baseless and irrational point of view.


I love my country, and I'm willing to ****ing die for it.

What is country? A lump of dirt with a flag. Ask yourself, do you REALLY want to die in a war with no cause or purpose?
 
If I had to die for my country, it would have to be in the face of a threat to my country's continued existence, and all the people and values I hold dear, like WMD that can be targeted at London within 45 mins - wait, scrap that one...

not dying to increase the margin of "Bush and Cheney Inc."
 
So now the actions of a few psychos are being used to downplay the Marines as a whole? What part of the intelligent discussion does that fall under exactly? Seems like a prime example of rational at its worst.
 
I don't believe for a second that the Marines as a whole are an evil, morally diluted group. The bad apples that slaughter innocents are just that: bad apples.

That said, it is a good point not often brought up that Marines are not trained for long occupations and nation rebuilding. They are trained to attack the enemy, wipe them out, then call it a day. When you start having them play such a big part as "peacekeepers" amongst foreign civilians, you put them in unfamiliar environments that they have no expertise in. The common result is that people die needlessly. That is enough for me to dispel the notion that most US soldiers are violent simpletons with itchy trigger fingers.
 
I don't see why I shouldn't post my thoughts on the matter and hide the fact that I am basically racist against the Iraqis

Is this really an attitude you should be going out to war with?
 
So now the actions of a few psychos are being used to downplay the Marines as a whole? What part of the intelligent discussion does that fall under exactly? Seems like a prime example of rational at its worst.

Well, I certainly don't believe most marines are like that at all.

EDIT: Also samon, what happened to your post count? D:
 
Is this really an attitude you should be going out to war with?

My attitude may possibly change in the near future.

It's long wait until August of next year.
 
Meh, I think I was overreacting earlier. I still don't like your mindset, lucid, but I can see how it would be... necessary in some ways over there. Civilians are going to get killed and you can't get choked up over it all the time when in a combat situation.

Note: What happened in this case is just sick and I hope those men are punished in some way. (Would they be?)
 
Meh, I think I was overreacting earlier. I still don't like your mindset, lucid, but I can see how it would be... necessary in some ways over there. Civilians are going to get killed and you can't get choked up over it all the time when in a combat situation.

Note: What happened in this case is just sick and I hope those men are punished in some way. (Would they be?)

And again, I apologize for my sadistic mindset... I've been in the young Marines for about 10 years now, so I'm really just itching to go overseas.
 
Did stern also post the one where the soldiers killed the family, raped the 14 yr old girl, and then killed her too?

I forget where I saw that one, that was even more horrid.
 
War ****s people up. Marines are probably just normal people, but the training, violence, loss of friends in combat, and the enemies turn them into monsters. Or at least, in this case it did. Lucid doesn't sound anything like the people who slaughtered that family. I suppose they all handle the war differently internally.
Bob_Marley sounds about right. I don't know what the better alternative to marines is, but there probably is one. I don't know why the US sent marines in in the first place, though... is it something to do with money?
 
I would leave the country if there is ever a future draft
 
Whats so wrong with draft? Many countries use it.

Its immoral for starters. Why should I fight in a war I didn't create, don't believe in and downright am against? You woulnd't get george bush or gordon brown fighting in the iraq war. So why should I?
 
Whats so wrong with draft? Many countries use it.

It makes sending troops abroad much more difficult as the use of conscripts is almost universally unpopular. Also, it creates a less professional fighting force, which the exact opposite of what you need in a counter insurgency war, the vast majority of troops will simply do their time then leave the service so it would have a very low retention rate compared to a fully professional army, which is bad because it means that once soldiers get experienced they leave (a major problem for the US during the 2nd Indochina war).

All in all not too handy for the current conflicts.

A better alternative may be the establishment of a force styled after the French & Spanish Foreign legions. There are plenty of people who want to live in the US, simply say to them "Join up and you can apply for US citzenship after X years of service". Then you'll have a force that is largely expendible and politically easier to use in foreign interventions, you take a chunk out of the number of illegal immigrants coming into the country and you can create a better trained and more professional force than one consisting of conscripts on short contracts (which, iirc is a consititutional requirement in the US, you can only hold someone in service for about a year or some such.)
 
It makes sending troops abroad much more difficult as the use of conscripts is almost universally unpopular. Also, it creates a less professional fighting force, which the exact opposite of what you need in a counter insurgency war, the vast majority of troops will simply do their time then leave the service so it would have a very low retention rate compared to a fully professional army, which is bad because it means that once soldiers get experienced they leave (a major problem for the US during the 2nd Indochina war).

All in all not too handy for the current conflicts.

A better alternative may be the establishment of a force styled after the French & Spanish Foreign legions. There are plenty of people who want to live in the US, simply say to them "Join up and you can apply for US citzenship after X years of service". Then you'll have a force that is largely expendible and politically easier to use in foreign interventions, you take a chunk out of the number of illegal immigrants coming into the country and you can create a better trained and more professional force than one consisting of conscripts on short contracts (which, iirc is a consititutional requirement in the US, you can only hold someone in service for about a year or some such.)



to add to your points:

go to iraq, win an ipod


Lucid, you'd fit right in, many marines see iraqis as subhuman ..probably why there's a disporportionate number of atrocities commited by the marines over any other branch of the military ..oh and a little slice of reality from soldiers in iraq:

BAGHDAD: Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is surreal.

Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched

As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day.

..

Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are - an army of occupation - and force our withdrawal.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/19/opinion/ediraq.php
 
Hmm, I dunno. Maybe dying in a war most people don't particularly agree with.

Ah, lol.

Its immoral for starters. Why should I fight in a war I didn't create, don't believe in and downright am against? You woulnd't get george bush or gordon brown fighting in the iraq war. So why should I?

But you have rights, and now you have your duties. And if one of them is to gear up then why not? If George Bush was younger, then he'd be fighting too. His son/ or duaghter would be required to fight as well.

It makes sending troops abroad much more difficult as the use of conscripts is almost universally unpopular.

Perhaps, yes.

Also, it creates a less professional fighting force, which the exact opposite of what you need in a counter insurgency war, the vast majority of troops will simply do their time then leave the service so it would have a very low retention rate compared to a fully professional army, which is bad because it means that once soldiers get experienced they leave (a major problem for the US during the 2nd Indochina war).

But you can counter that by more traing, and experience for those who are not experienced. Also, non-conscript specialized forces could be used as the main force in modern combat/counter insurgency.



A better alternative may be the establishment of a force styled after the French & Spanish Foreign legions. There are plenty of people who want to live in the US, simply say to them "Join up and you can apply for US citzenship after X years of service". Then you'll have a force that is largely expendible and politically easier to use in foreign interventions, you take a chunk out of the number of illegal immigrants coming into the country and you can create a better trained and more professional force than one consisting of conscripts on short contracts (which, iirc is a consititutional requirement in the US, you can only hold someone in service for about a year or some such.)

That is one helluva awesome idea, however, but wouldn't using non citizens as your army cause a lack of troop cohesion as well as a lack of belief/enthusiasm in combat?
 
But you have rights, and now you have your duties. And if one of them is to gear up then why not? If George Bush was younger, then he'd be fighting too. His son/ or duaghter would be required to fight as well.

Nah you don't understand. I hate my country. Pure hate. Theres no way I'm dieing for it.
 
For some reason the only pictures we get of Bush as a young man are of him in uniform.

Oh, and drunk in the floor? :naughty:
 
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