Two US soldiers tortured to death, where is the outrage from the left now????

Gonna chime in here - it's an odd tendency one sees coming from the dogma of the right: that the "left" SUPPORTS the terrorists. I remember hearing Rush Limbaugh talking about how most of the passengers on the aircraft at 9/11 didn't fight the hijackers, and he blamed it on the left, and I was completely puzzled. Being on the left has nothing to do with whether or not you defend yourself, but if anything in such a situation, how and why you do so. As you've seen here repeatedly stated, the "left" point of view isn't about endorsing the terroists actions, but about understanding our (the US's) complicity in the situation. Do we approve of the torture and mutilation of our soldiers? Of course not - you however suggested that it exonerates us of our own misdeeds regarding the treatment of prisoners, and it doesn't.

It's just very weird to watch the right wing rhetoric - they talk about the left wing as though we're some strange creature they haven't actually seen, but have heard rumors about. "I hear they all wear feathers in their ears, walk on their hands and eat babies!"

Torture and execution of prisoners? It is outrageous. It's unconsionable. Period. However, it can easily be addressed - bring our troops home and stop playing games with other countries politics. We have engaged in a long term program of consistently destabilizing the region to our own fiscal advantage, and it just keeps snowballing: we supported the despotic Shah, which bred the Ayatolha in response, which caused us to support..what was his name... Saddam something or other ... to fight the Ayatolha. Small wonder a desperate grass roots army engages in unorthodox tactics against the world's most powerful army. ... wait..where have I heard that before.. oh yeah... they were called minutemen - shooting at the well organized troops of the crown from every hedge and ditch, then hiding in the forest - dastardly behavior according the the highly civilized english soldier. Before you get on me for that - I had two ancestors who lent their names to the bottom of that most amazing declaration, and based on what I know of them historically, they would be appalled by our current international shenanigans.

As to the Koran - while I haven't studied it at any depth, I understand from a variety of reliable theological sources that it does indeed share a fair amount of material with the Old Testament, and that the real big difference is the new testament - the part with that hippie who suggested that we might want to be nicer to each other and not focus on money so much...and was manuevered to his death by the religious/fiscally conservative powers that be.

our GI's were executed in WW2 and we gave them GC rights. not to mention Vietnam.

Now as far as Somalia goes, you do realize that we were trying to feed the people there, and then the warlords began to hijack and steal the food from the masses, so we replied with troops to protect ourselves and make sure that the food and aide was distributed to the starving people.

So the fiasco in Vietnam was a result of US altruism as their aid workers got victimised by teh warlords, and had nothing at all to do with the Bay of Pigs then? Is that what your politicians are telling you?

sorry my post was a little jumbled, I will edit and make it more clear for you.


Now a request

Can yall from now on in this thread please include the last name when you use "Billy"

All I want to say about this tragedy is that I feel sorry for the family and friends of these soldiers. It is one thing to hear that your son was killed serving his country and defending freedom. It is quite another to learn that your son's body was mutilated by a bunch of animals (yes I said animals because no one who can commit such dispicable acts has the right to call themselves human and to call them so is an insult to real human beings everywhere.) Not to mention the fact that their bodies were rigged with traps. Thank God the traps failed to kill anyone.

We wouldn't have invaded a sovereign nation with no provocation.

Nope. That's YOUR view. There were many other ways to achieve REgime Change in Iraq without commiting our troops to a "peace keeping" mission.

Calling them animals, as if you "humans" are incapable of doing such things, is, at a deeper philosophical level, part of the problem. By dehumanising them, making them appear as animals, it becomes far easier to justify killing them. They should know this well, as that is exactly one of the mental strategies they use to make their own barbarity easier.

Fight back? Certainly if that is the most efficient approach to win this war on terrorism. But to use that mental strategy is to become no better than the enemy you're trying to beat. And if you underminine the western moral ethos for them, they really will have won this war.

really? this I gotta hear

*shakes head* you still dont get it do you? Its not that I as a human am incapable of doing what they did, its simply the fact that I have never done such a thing. There are certain acts that a human is capable of but once they commit such an act they in a sense lose their humanity and are cast out of society.

Secondly calling them animals is not a "mental strategy" it is a fact and no one can change that fact. Also we are not trying to be better than our enemy since if they are our enemy then we should already know that we are better. The idea behind war isnt to prove who is better, its to defeat your enemy and we will do so as we always have.

Keep telling yourself that. As long as you can create a label for them which shows they are your inferiors, you'll feel happier about justifying their deaths and their families' deaths. I realise its just a mental defence strategy for you, and it'd be too painful to face up to what it is you are condoning, so I won't press the issue.

But we are all animals. I don't have to highlight any US atrocities from anywhen do I? It's just that most of us aren't exposed to situations that bring out that side of us.

The U.S. is notoriously known to kill women and children and torture people. We did it in the Phillipines, Vietnam, Japan, and Lebanon, and Iraq. The deaths of women and children in Japan was of no concern to us. We intentionally tried to wipe out entire metropolitan areas. We only succeeded in killing somewhere over 1/2 of cities as big as Chicago, but you can't expect the rest of the world to be nice to us when we never played by the rules either. They have a weaker military than us, so we have taken the right to trash the middle east. I feel sorry for any U.S. soldiers tortured to death, but I'm not mad at a country doing what they think they have to, to earn their freedom from our control. I am a veteran, and I wish every day I had the guts to have gone AWOL. Though I'm an odd veteran. I suppose not all veterans have been in a unit where everyone hated each other and commited suicide. I respect the suicides too. **** the officers that called them cowards. They were the only brave ones among us. The only ones with enough guts to take the final steps and get away from those ****** we had to serve with. In the end, death is a release anyway. Everyone fights dirty, ecspecially us.

veteran eh? what branch? and suicide is cowardice, your running away from your problems, which by definition is cowardice.

I think their ACTIONS justify their deaths.

No human being can ever say "suicide is cowardice" to another until they have walked in their shoes and been inside their head. Period.

You cannot know and it is wrong and inhuman of you to judge.

With regard to



I was not implying that the soldiers would not have been tortured and executed if we had only followed the Geneva Conventions. Terrorists don't care about the GC. My point was that following the GC could save some in the future by enlisting the help of other countries that would put more pressure on weeding out terrorist in their own countries. They would feel more outrage and less anger toward the U.S. and be more willing to assist.

By allowing torture we have tainted our honor as a nation. Police actions and occupations like Iraq and Vietnam have caused the U.S. to lose a lot of international good will.

Had we gone into Afganistan and cleaned house and brought the Al Queda to it's knees our international relationships would have remained stable and I suspect we would have made a much larger dent in terrorism. Instead we have now lost 2500 soldiers, wounded more than 13,000, killed thousands of Iraqi's, and lost the good will of many nations.

Haliburtons profits are up 86% though.

Good stuff.

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As someone who has previously attempted suicide, I agree in MANY cases it is suicide, but not ALL. It can be a release for someone who is in chronic pain, and already dying, for example. Many people who ATTEMPT suicide, and fail are actually just seeking attention. Me? I was suffering from depression caused by a chemical imbalance, and just kinda gave up. Some will consider that cowardice. It may have been, but I don't really care.

I was in the military, I was in a unit that had issues, and I still feel that suicide is cowardice.

Question: If you were captured and you knew you would be given a drug that would make it certain that you would give away the position of your unit and would make it certain that other members of your unit and possibly other units would be captured and killed - and you had an opportunity to kill your self, would you do it?

If someone answered yes to that question, would that make them a coward?

So my point is - sucide is a private, individual decision and you cannot judge and should not.

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that is not the situation described here is it?

It dosen't matter what the situation described is - until you walk that persons shoes you don't KNOW the situation or how they see it in their own mind. You were not there and even if you were, you were not seeing it from their perspective which could have been VERY different from everyone elses. You just cannot know, therefore you should not judge.

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I would suggest that suicide is not black and white, but considering the stances taken in this thread, I'm thinking it's futile.

Elinea,

Humans do horrific things. To deny their humanity is a serious error.

They did a bestial, monstrous thing. They're still human despite it.

I have the potential for extreme violence within myself. I have had to come to terms with it and dislike it intensely, but knowing I have it and acknowledging it is necessary. It doesn't mean I have to applaud or appreciate or even accept actions that come about because of that potential for monstrousness, but I don't lie to myself and tell myself that people who do such things are evil animals and not human.

But, hey. Whatever lets you sleep at night. *shrug*

If Dictator George had never been appointed Acting President in 2000 (By a Supreme Court out of control and using powers they do not have) We would not had gone to war with Iraq (The war was to get Dictator George elected President in 2004 and it worked brilliantly) And so the 35,800 US Soliders who have died in this war would had never died at all. They would still be alive.

More like 500,000 innocent dead.

dude you seriously need to come out from under your rock and do a little research before you post random crap again.

Its a well known fact that they have changed who is considered war dead. (I think it goes along the lines if you get wounded in Iraq but die outside the country you died from hazard duty not as an act of war) and my family who had fought over there. I remember a Sergent cousin saying that the us war dead in one incident were housed in at least 6 ware houses (Huge ware houses he said) said there had to have been 10000 US Flag covered coffins.