Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind

You do have a point , Mike, just don't think I can fully agree with you.

a) The purpose of an army is to kill people and break things, preferably while doing it in your best interest.

b) Firemen and soldiers have vastly different jobs. Firemen save lives, soldiers take them. So that example is... well, stupid. Okay, let's just say less that apropos.

c) I don't agree that we are the enemy in Iraq. That would imply that you believe the insurgents are in the right and that the majority of Iraqis who actually want us there know less about what they want than you do.

a) Agreed. It's poor taste for a general to go around squalking about how much fun it is. Particularly if you're the guy on top of training marines.

b) Both soldiers and firemen do their jobs, and both risk facing death -- firemen moreso, perhaps, but their cause is much more clear. Sometimes each offer the opportunity for remarkably heroic acts. Maybe I've read too many comic books, but I don't think General Happy Boy expresses the heroic ideal very well.

c) It's pretty damn clear that the majority of Iraqis neither want American soldiers on their homeland nor trust the American government. They just want to run their own country -- which, given the religious seperation, is going to be very tough. But given their history, let alone American interests and paternalism, Iraqis have every reason to want us out. Even if the Li'l Bastard and President Chaney were trustworthy, they stand in the way of Iraqis running their own country. That's what Iraqis want, that's what the election last week was all about, and that's what Iraquis deserve.

It's like the French and Germans hanging around after the American Revolution telling us how to set up and run our government. I don't think we would have liked that very much.

c) It's pretty damn clear that the majority of Iraqis neither want American soldiers on their homeland nor trust the American government. They just want to run their own country -- which, given the religious seperation, is going to be very tough. But given their history, let alone American interests and paternalism, Iraqis have every reason to want us out. Even if the Li'l Bastard and President Chaney were trustworthy, they stand in the way of Iraqis running their own country. That's what Iraqis want, that's what the election last week was all about, and that's what Iraquis deserve.

Okay, EVEN IF I agree that the majority of Iraqis want us gone, which I do, calling us the enemy is just...wrong. WE aren't the ones walking around strapoping bombs to ourselves and walking into a crowd of people blowing ourselves and themselves up. WE aren't the ones taking prisoners and putting them on the websites while beheading them. It just irks me that people are calling these thugs "freedom fighters". That's bullshit. Where were they when Saddam ruled things. Where were the beheadings of people who cooperated with Saddam? Where were the car bombs in retaliation for all the mass executions by Saddam? Where are all the schools and hospitals that they're building? And worse, where was the world outrage when all of this was going on? Hell, you don't even hear world outrage when someone is beheaded. But let the US put a bunch of women's panties on someone's head and we've just commited the second holocaust.

I know it will never happen, but if I had my way, I'd give the Islamic extremists and the rest of the world exactly what they want and pull back all my troops world wide and have them only in this country and not send them out even for rescue missions like earthquake and tsunami disasters. I'm almost willing to bet that if that happened World War Three would occur within one year. Not that it would matter, but that would be blamed on us too.

re: "let the US put a bunch of women's panties on someone's head and we've just commited the second holocaust."

If you're going to claim the moral high ground (one of Bush's revolving reasons for invading Iraq), then you have to expect to be held to a higher moral standard than the other guy. Otherwise, you're just another thug with a gun.

"If you're going to claim the moral high ground (one of Bush's revolving reasons for invading Iraq), then you have to expect to be held to a higher moral standard than the other guy. Otherwise, you're just another thug with a gun."

Perhaps, but let's have a little perspective as well. Surely you wouldn't equate putting women's panties on a man's head to cutting a man's head off ?

Most people consider theft to be wrong. You would send a ten year old to jail for stealing a couple of cookies along with a bank robber who stole ten million dollars?

Uh, Mike, the Germans were fighting for the British during the Revolutionary War. But I digress (sorry, Peter). The fact is, the French hung around until the British threat was minimized. Conversely, we are going to hang around in Iraq until the insurgent threat is minimized.

As far as general's comments go, they surprised me, and I spent 20 years in the military. But the vitriol you're spewing isn't much better, and your blanket condemnation and lack of respect for an institution that has paid in blood a million times over for you your right to spew is a pretty sad commentary, don't you think?

The longer version of the quote:

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

Taking that into context, I don't have a problem with it. This is the Marines, not Girl Scout camp.

re: "Surely you wouldn't equate putting women's panties on a man's head to cutting a man's head off"?

No, of course not. Nor would I equate putting a woman's panties on a man's head to sleep deprivation, beatings, forced sodomy, threatening naked prisoners with vicious dogs, and various other abuses that sometimes resulted in death.

Which of the pictures from Abu Ghraib led you to conclude that panty humiliation was the worst of the abuses?

"No, of course not. Nor would I equate putting a woman's panties on a man's head to sleep deprivation, beatings, forced sodomy, threatening naked prisoners with vicious dogs, and various other abuses that sometimes resulted in death.

Which of the pictures from Abu Ghraib led you to conclude that panty humiliation was the worst of the abuses?"

Didn't say I had concluded that Rick. Please don't put words into my mouth. I was merely commenting on the fact that people were including the panty thing as torture when there are drunk college guys in this country that would PAY for that kind of abuse.

As for the rest of it, do you remember a program in school when you were growing up called "Scared Straight"? We used to do that to our school kids until we realized that it wasn't working.

And feeding suspects soda and then not letting them go to the bathroom for a while is a current police interrogation PROCEDURE.

And yeah, if the situation is dire enough, such as lives at stake, even if it's just one, not only would I condone those tactics, I'd do them. But if it makes you feel better, I wouldn't enjoy it.

re: "Please don't put words in my mouth."

Okay, but only if you don't try to play semantic games like my 16 year old daughter. Your statement was, at best, misleading.

As for condoning "those tactics" if the situation is "dire enough", who defines "dire"? Many/most of the Abu Ghraib prisoners are guilty of little more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But, hey, they might know something. So let's push them to the breaking point and see what we get. What the heck. It's worth a shot. After all, remember 9/11! Oh, wait, that's right. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Oh well, too late now!

"As for condoning "those tactics" if the situation is "dire enough", who defines "dire"? Many/most of the Abu Ghraib prisoners are guilty of little more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But, hey, they might know something. So let's push them to the breaking point and see what we get. What the heck. It's worth a shot. After all, remember 9/11! Oh, wait, that's right. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Oh well, too late now! "

Oh, now who's playing misleading games? Most of the Abu Ghraib prisoners weren't being abused.

BTW, my statement wasn't misleading, it's a fact. There are people who are calling the panties on the head "abuse".

Who defines "dire"? Geez, you liberals and your word games. Let's just use the one in the dictionary, "Dreadful or terrible in consequence" I would consider loss of life. even if it's just one of those "enemy" US soldiers, to be sufficient enough to meet that definition. What's your definition?

Based on your criteria, it would seem that anyone in Iraq is basically fair game -- but even if that was not what you meant (because, gosh, I don't want to put words in your mouth), here's the issue as I see it:

We are a nation of laws. It's one of the things that make us civilized. Many of our laws are based on moral principles. Let's say someone kidnaps my daughter, and the police nab some guy that they're pretty sure knows who/where the kidnapper is, but he's not talking. Personally, I'd be all for torturing the information out of him, because for me, personally, the situation is pretty dang dire. But our laws prohibit that, for a variety of reasons, one of which is that the guy may actually not know anything and may be completley innocent.

Our laws and our society prevent me from acting on my baser instincts. I can't throw out the laws just because they're inconvenient for me at the moment.

Now maybe none of our laws technically apply to what happened in Gitmo and Abu Ghraib -- but the moral principles still apply. And, as I said at the beginning of this thread, if you're going to claim the moral high ground, you have to expect to be held to a higher moral standard.

Actually, General Mattis' comments were taken out of context and chopped to sound as terrible as possible. General Mattis has spent the majority of his life defending this country, unlike so many of the reporters and bloggers who have NEVER fought for or defended their country and who have spent weeks attacking him and scorning him. I thank God for men like Mattis. In fact, this is exactly the kind of man I would want my daughter to marry - a man who despises women-beating bastards and says what the rest of us feel. Regardless of how you may feel about his comments, which I trhought were dead on and OUTSTANDING, this country needs real men like Mattis. They are few and far between. We NEED men like Mattis. God knows, the reporters and bloggers aren't going to protect us. Three cheers for Mattis!!! IT'S A HELL OF A HOOT!!!!