What would it take?

[Tonchi]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

You've all seen the black and green videos of the people on the ground being taken out by helicopters. Could you make out the nationality, race or even the sex of the targets? No, they are just targets the guy on the other end of the radio says are to be eliminated. They could be waving an American flag.....no matter....targets.

Radar, according to a recent article in Vanity Fair, "To Love and Die in Iraq", that is precisely what is happening at the hands of our obedient soldiers every day. They shoot anybody or anything, having been ordered to take no chances. Even civilians under escort of other soldiers have been mowed down, further convincing the Iraqis that we are more deadly to their lives and happiness than Saddam ever was. Iraq is a perfect example of how little our troops are daring to think anymore. Even at the Abu Gharib trials they have all claimed they were "following orders", some of which were apparently from as high up as the Offal Office although there has been a concentrated effort to whitewash that.

Having been in the march on the Pentagon back in 1968, I know what it is like to have a guy no older than I aiming a combat rifle directly at my head. Being young and stupid, in pre-Kent State days, it never occured to me that he would actually shoot me. But that was because those troops were UNDER ORDERS not to shoot. Other venues made it plain that they WOULD shoot unarmed civilians with no compunctions, and I doubt they hesitated and philosophized about whether that girl watching from a distance was any physical threat. That was during Vietnam, and everything I have seen and read lately convinces me that the situation nowdays is 50 times more dangerous for anybody who is "confronting governmental authority".

[lookout123]

you can get your view of the war from Vanity Fair... or you can get it from the people that are their. i'll put more stock in the version presented by people i have known and trusted for a number of years. are Iraqi's being shot every day? yep. are US soldiers sitting around getting off on popping unsuspecting innocents? if you think yes, then you are listening to too much Air America.

[Tonchi]

No, that's not what I think. I'm talking about the worst possible case scenario, which if it is found anywhere nowdays it will be in Iraq. As for knowing where to get the right story on war or fighting, been there, done that. I lived in Albuquerque during most of Vietnam, where they had 3 air bases and the AEC at that time. I got more than enough feedback from the guys coming and going, both officers and enlisted men, about what they really did and how they felt about it. Also, I was born at Ft. Bragg, NC, to an Army family and all my male relatives have served in some branch of the service during WWII or Korea. In those days, the people who REALLY did any fighting did not want to talk about it, the more they saw the less they said. A pilot who flew many Napalm runs told me, "As far as I am concerned, I never killed anybody. I never saw anything that happened on the ground, I just sometimes flew back through the cloud because that was fun." Another friend who fought in Korea said basically the same thing, "I shot my rifle a lot, but as far as I know I never hit anybody." Obviously these kids had developed their own ways of coping with the situation.

This leads me to wonder if it is only in the last 40 year that our generals have decided we need to be systematically, professionally indoctrinated to kill, without rationalizing or considering if it wasn't justified, instead of simply being trained in the technical means to do said killing? Do you think that today's generation of kids who have been forced into heavy combat when they thought they just signed up to get the college benefits are going to kill with MORE, or LESS thought outside of hearing the command to shoot? Will the military be MORE, or LESS successful in wiping out the individual's ability to understand his actions in a personal way? I am betting they will be LESS successful nowdays in getting kids to kill somebody who is NOT of a different color, religion, culture or size in a foreign country. I think that this generation is so egocentric, self absorbed, and materialistic, so unused to serious application of their attention to anything prior to enlisting, that they will not be so easily shaped. I also believe that the rate of mental breakdowns after this generation returns home will be unprecidented, even worse than Nam, because they will not be able to cope when it sinks in what they have seen and done after being so insulated all their lives before they went over there. So Radar could even be right, but for different reasons than because this crop of young warriors is more ethical. But after all, it only takes one person to shoot you dead, and you might just be facing the one in 10,000 who actually WILL do it without a second thought.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by lookout123

are US soldiers sitting around getting off on popping unsuspecting innocents? if you think yes, then you are listening to too much Air America.

So, if an unarmed civilian is shot by a soldier, it's ok as long as the soldier doesn't enjoy it?

While the Vanity Fair view might be slanted, there is no doubt that the Fox News view is also slanted. Making tailgating and speeding capital crimes means that it is still a war zone. All of the happy stories in the world cannot change that one fundamental fact.

[lookout123]

This leads me to wonder if it is only in the last 40 year that our generals have decided we need to be systematically, professionally indoctrinated to kill, without rationalizing or considering if it wasn't justified, instead of simply being trained in the technical means to do said killing? Do you think that today's generation of kids who have been forced into heavy combat when they thought they just signed up to get the college benefits are going to kill with MORE, or LESS thought outside of hearing the command to shoot?

i seriously suggest you read Grossman's book. that is all i am going to say about it.

Rich - who said Fox WASN'T slanted? of course they are. my news from Iraq isn't coming from the tv. but from the real people there doing their real jobs - you know the real people that you seem to think are just over their popping iraqis who are innocently sipping tea. i haven't met any of them coming back excited about shooting people. i've had to deal with quite a few of them that are torn about it. not so much because they had to shoot someone, but because they ran into some asshole in the states that has the opinion that they are shooting innocents just for the hell of it.

ah, fuck it. if your mind is already made up that every soldier is only a mai lai wannabe then nothing i will ever say will matter to you.

[Tonchi]

Originally Posted by lookout123

i seriously suggest you read Grossman's book. that is all i am going to say about it.

I fully intend to read his book, now that I know it exists. And I suggest that YOU read "Blood Rites", which analyzes the human nature which makes it so frightfully easy to push us over the edge and willingly turn into killing machines.

I do not think you and I have opposite views. The difference is my nature leads me to think more about the person involved than the acts he performs. Probably because I am a woman, whatever. It matters to me who will be the last American to die for a mistaken idea and whether he enjoyed it, but it also matters just as much who was the FIRST one who got sent to die and all the unknown thousands of Iraqis we have "liberated" into the graveyards there. We are getting nowhere fast, and still following orders.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Fortunately, the expansion of gun rights has been on a quiet steady march for about the last ten years; liberalized, shall-issue concealed carry of weapons (more briefly known as CCW in knowledgeable discussion) is now the rule in 38 states, sometimes after years of struggle in the state legislatures. The more comprehensive the gun rights, the better the fundamental condition sustaining a Republic is: that the electorate be the sole source of political power. An electorate with the mass power of life and death over its government staffers (and never forget that these too are of the electorate) is about as powerful as an electorate is likely to get.

For Paul and me, the gun-rights end of the matter is somewhat clouded by the fact that we live in the gun-iffy state of California. CA hasn't yet twigged, statewide, to the social advantages of liberalized good-guys CCW. The procrime/progenocide people -- the antigun ones, that is -- are and remain uninformed about the extremely, well-nigh universally, good results of liberalized, shall-issue CCW permit policies in 38 states, not one of whom has experienced the least problem from this population.