Support the troops?

10 Responses to Support the troops?

1. Wren says:

   April 5, 2010 at 6:50 PM

   Hey, with the abandonment of the Nuremberg Principles by the U.S. and it’s allies, at least the German people can rest easier knowing all they did wrong was lose that war. The crime of aggression has been codified by Obama as only being a crime if you lose. The old axiom of history is written by the victors just got another corollary. The FCM will undoubtedly spin this as just a mistake that happens in war without acknowledging the irrefutable fact that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is and was a war of aggression and thus this is but one of the many crimes within that whole.
   I personally could only watch the first few minutes of this when they started firing on that photographer who was obviously only carrying a 35mm camera with a telephoto lens. Seeing the body parts flying and the helicopter gun crew laughing literally made me sick. I read that it only gets worse from there. The fact that the U.S. Army is letting those with only a high school diploma fly these death machines is part of the problem. They probably just think of killing real live human beings as nothing more than pushing the X button in a first person shooter.
   I just loathe those with the “support the troops” temporary magnetic bumper stickers. They do not even have the reasoned thought to ask what they are supporting the troops in doing beyond the jingoistic “defending our freedom” B.S.
2. Sabina Becker says:

   April 5, 2010 at 9:58 PM

   I got the distinct impression (from watching the whole nauseating thing) that these guys really were disconnected from what they were doing–that they were treating it like a live-action video game. The language they used was a dead giveaway. Maybe it’s just my two university degrees talking, but I had no trouble distinguishing a camera and a cellphone, respectively, from shoulder-fired rocket launchers! The video was probably much better quality aboard the choppers, too, so those shooters had no excuses for what they were doing.
   And yeah, I don’t think the US military is picking the best and brightest to fly their helicopter gunships, by any means. If the guys are too bright, they might start to question just what the hell they are doing, and that would interfere with all the shock ‘n’ awe. Better to get ones who only meet a minimum standard of intelligence, but have quick reflexes and are all trigger-happy and gung-ho, if all you’re gonna do is pulverize a poor country into submission. Those with a well-developed moral sense are not going to serve the purpose.
3. Wren says:

   April 5, 2010 at 10:43 PM

   I was right about the Fawning Corporate Media. No mention of war of aggression or the fact that firing on the unarmed and wounded is a war crime. Even on MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan’s show they called the killing of the wounded and good Samaritans there to render aid just “disturbing” and Ratigan kept on about how we should not “indict the soldiers” that did this.
   Robert H. Jackson must be spinning in his grave.
4. Sabina Becker says:

   April 5, 2010 at 10:46 PM

   This video needs to go viral. It only came out yesterday, and it has a few hundred views, but it should go to the hundred THOUSANDS. Otherwise, no one will realize just how criminal this is–not merely “disturbing”, but a full-on WAR CRIME.
5. Wren says:

   April 5, 2010 at 11:24 PM

   I fully intend to do some good old fashioned freeway blogging here in Indianapolis on this. “Google ‘COLLATERAL MURDER.'” can be fit to a bicycle box in damn large font.
6. Sabina Becker says:

   April 5, 2010 at 11:32 PM

   Excellent. Post pix when you do it!
7. ruralcounsel says:

   April 9, 2010 at 2:35 PM

   Looks to me like Reuters hooked up with Al Sadr militia.
   Collateral damage. Tough. War is dangerous.
   If this causes you folks to go hyperbolic and hysterical, screaming about war crimes, then that is just more good reasons to not allow you folks any voice. Rationality and realism is a prerequisite for having a vote. You’ve failed.
   But I’m sure there are some parts of the world we could drop you off in so you could get a first hand experience in making split second decisions when someone is pointing an RPG at you.
8. Sabina Becker says:

   April 9, 2010 at 3:36 PM

   Reuters hooked up with WHO? Gawd, you chickenhawks are a gas. Your nutty conspiracy theories would make Adolf Hitler blush. There was no RPG in anyone’s hands there, and if you had actually WATCHED THE DAMN VIDEO, instead of trying to defend the indefensible, you would have seen that for yourself.
   And if you’re gonna talk about only reasonable and rational people being allowed to vote, guess what…you would be the first one denied, coming on here with asshattery like that. I wouldn’t dream of denying YOU the right to vote, even though you obviously wouldn’t know how to use it. You don’t even know how to use your eyes.
   But hey, I have a much better idea…why don’t we just drop YOU there and see how YOU fare, unarmed? Then you can come back and tell us how to break eggs for your human omelet.
   In the meantime, go fuck yourself.
9. Wren says:

   April 10, 2010 at 4:08 PM

   RE: ruralcounsel
   “Collateral damage. Tough. War is dangerous.”
   And wars of aggression, especially those started with lies, are criminal.
   “War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”–Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal
   “The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power and make deliberate and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which leave no home in the world untouched. The Charter of this Tribunal evidences a faith that the law is not only to govern the conduct of little men, but that even rulers are, as Lord Chief Justice Coke put it to King James, ‘under … the law.’
   “And let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment.” — Robert H. Jackson, chief prosecutor, Nuremberg Trials.
   “But I’m sure there are some parts of the world we could drop you off in so you could get a first hand experience in making split second decisions when someone is pointing an RPG at you.”
   Or make those split second decisions to fire on good Samaritans or the wounded and dying. Even if those cameras were RPG’s, those good Samaritans in the van were unarmed. I guess it is okay for Iraqis to fire on our medics, too? Do you even realize that it was the United States that started the war and that there was no U.N. resolution authorizing force to do so? You know, the U.N. Charter that was ratified by the U.S. Congress and thus under the U.S. Constitution is the “supreme law of the land” that states a member state shall not attack or threaten to attack any other state without U.N. Security Council authorization unless first attacked or threatened with immanent attack.
   I guess you have no idea what a war crime is then. How does that make YOU qualified to vote?
10. Sabina Becker says:

    April 10, 2010 at 4:20 PM

    Wren, this dude clearly hasn’t watched the video. If he had, he’d see that it is NOT “collateral damage”, nor that there was any “split-second decision” being made. Those helo gunners were very deliberate in what they did. They had AMPLE time to track their prey and see that NONE of them were armed. They had to seek permission to fire from a commanding officer, and get it. And they WAITED for it. Split-second decisions…yeah, RIGHT.
    As I said, he’s not mentally competent to vote. He’s not even competent to use his own two eyes. And if he posts here again, I’m gonna turn the wanker over to the authorities, starting with his own ISP (which I’ve got the IP number for and everything) and proceeding to the FBI. I don’t think it’s right that fascist lunatics be allowed to roam free, threatening innocent strangers on their blogs. There are no more excuses for doing that than there are for firing on innocent Iraqis.

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