Tuesday, July 04, 2006

We have to get the troops out of Iraq

So, a girl was raped by our troops and then killed along with her family. I can totally believe it. Look I am a huge fan our our troops. But lets be realistic here. These guys are doing a job they were not trained for (occupying a country), most have been there way too long (multiple manditory tours), and I would imagine that they have no idea why they are still there.

These are men who are trained to see other humans as targets and not as people. We want them to be this way, that makes them good at what they are supposed to be doing, but if you sit them in a town under immense stress and over long periods of time, can you even fault them for not behaving as normal humans in society?

But we don't care do we? The BWH will do it's best to kill this story and I would imagine that the troops involved will be court marshaled and that will be the end of it. No discussion on the real reason why it occured. No discussion on the effects of this occupation on our troops and the Iraqis. We have to get them out of there. Admit we made a huge mistake and pull them out. It is time.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm curious to hear what you think we shoud do about North Korea. Maybe a blog about that is in order?

Unknown said...

I sort of alluded to the Korea issue a while back in this post. As for them shooting the missles, I say let them. They are a soverign nation and can do what they want to do. I don't see why we are the worlds police all the time. We should fight them the same way we fought Russia in the Cold War.

Oh.. and if were so worried about the nuclear threat we shouldn't be selling the technology in the first place (or trading it for mangoes).

Anonymous said...

Ummm...here is a case of leaping before looking. The soldier being charged with the rape and murders was discharged from the service for having a social disorder (before this case was brought to light). It is not the service overseas, or more specifically Iraq, that necessarily makes people commit heinous acts. Some people are just mentally unfit to serve.

And while I do not argue against the fact that many (if not most) of those deployed in Iraq will suffer some kind of post-traumatic disorder, that does not necessarily entail they will do bad things to others. (There was a study recently released that indicated that more Iraq vets will experience some kind of disorder because there is no "safe zone" like there was during the Vietnam conflict.)

And I wouldn't take the liberties you are taking to assume that "they have no idea why they are still there," or "these are men who are trained to see other humans as targets and not as people." There are fewer civilian casualities in this war than in any other war the U.S. has waged. Our military is largely fighting a battle of trust - they go into these towns, they feed the Iraqi people, they protect these people, they make friends. And when they earn the trust of the people, the people start to tell them things. Like where people like al-Zarqawi are hiding out. There is more evidence to prove you wrong in your assumptions than otherwise.

Unknown said...

There may well be more news to the contrary, but I'll tell you what, it's quite hard to find it. Actually it's quite hard to find any real news (positive or negative) about this war or any serious issue facing America today and that's quite sad.

My point is that with such little information, as a citizen all I can do is form my own opinion from the little bits I can find on my own. If our government chooses to keep us uninformed then they will have to deal with rampant speculation.

I actually would love to refute your claim that in Iraq fewer civilians have died than in other conflicts (first I would ask you how you are measuring, then I would try to dispove you using real statistics), but I really don'thave the time. I will have to jsut say that I disagree with you and leave it at that.

This blog is a blog of my opinions and I choose to base them in the facts I can gather quickly and with little effort. Occationally I will do a seriously sourced post, but they are few and far between. I'll leave that to the professional writers.

Sorry you disagree with me.