Compassion for Iraqi's?

by coincidence i was discussing that part of farenheit 911 today with the soldiers and I'd be willing to bet he interviewed hundreds of soldiers but conviently the only ones left off the cutting room floor were the ones who were out there ready willign and able to kill. which in all fairness is what they're paid to do wether you agree with it or not.

From what the media is reporting, the young man in question was shot in the face the day before by someone pretending to be dead.

A woman I work with has a son in Iraq. He's with the 159th armored division, an army national guard unit. A few months ago when he had been there for a couple weeks, they saw a truck pull up with a male driver and a woman carrying a baby wrapped in a blanket. As the truck got closer, the driver raised a pistol and as the soldier and his friends raised their guns, the woman pulled a gun out of the blanket (there was no baby) and the soldiers shot them both. My co-worker's son called her crying because he had not only killed someone for the first time, but had to kill a woman.

No one knows the fear, anxiety and danger of war unless you've lived it. Hesitation is death.

My neighbor's son was in Afghanistan and everytime they went into town and villagers approached them, they had to have one soldier with a rifle on the villager while the other frisked him because of the threat of suicide bombers. They also rotated details guarding the humvees to prevent terrorists from placing bombs in the vehicles.

what are you on about? there were two type soldiers portrayed in 9/11 --- the ones that were out there ready to kill anything and everything and seemed to enjoy the process, and ones that asked intelligent questions and were truly 'moved'..............

go watch it again

US Army PSYOP's training to be precise.

[quote="Mongoose"]Yeah, thanks goose guess I set that one up! I did have to sit through a fair bit of the psychology of warfare at Uni! …yawn wish I’d taken a decent subject now. Anyhow, I was making a bit of a wider statement, there’s stuff that happened there that won’t be written down in an Psyops manual because it contravenes the Geneva convention… However before I’m mistaken for a namby flower-power “let’s sit down and talk about your feelings… why don’t you take that heavy explosives belt off?” kind of guy, I should probably make it clear that I think the troops out there are in an impossible position.

Our soldiers are criticised time and again in the media because they are expected, to quote some 80’s propaganda to “be doing it better, and cleaner than the other guys.”
Sure, the other side can execute charity workers, use children to smuggle explosives and set up bases in hospitals and schools but a coalition soldier shooting someone who may very well pose a threat or taking out an injured party if they perceive their colleagues or themselves are in danger there is a media outcry. Would someone please tell CNN this is a war we sent soldiers there to kill people and it’s not fair to ask any human to put their life on the line when the playing field is uneven (love those mixed metaphors). Of course I’m not suggesting that we lower ourselves to a level of barbarism… but mistakes are going to happen and I don’t think slapping murder convictions on soldiers trying their best not to get killed out there is the best way forward.

The problem arises in that we have invaded them to liberate them. Hence it doesn't come across very well to the people we are liberating (& others that aren't convinced) when we committ acts that would previously have been associated with their previous leader. Unfortunately the soldiers are currently the bridge between us & them, & hence the way they act (as a liberating force) is going to have huge influences on peoples opinions of the respective countries that are liberating them.

You can't make an ommellette without breakign any eggs.

I'd have done the exact same thing if i'd been in the soldiers position and be agrieved at the idea of beign pulled out of action for basically doing my job.

This guy up until he got wounded, was trying to do the exact same thing to him and his mates, was still the enemy and would have done the same if not worse to the soldier if the circumstances were reversed.

Fair enough we should be setting an example but sometimes you've got to throw off the gloves and do what you have to do. If they're playing dirty with insurgents tryign to kill them then I don't really care.

Until they start abducting iraqi women and cutting off their heads unless the rebels stop attackign then they have my support on this issue.

nice to see you around btw Mike

I had a debate with my girlfriend about that one - & I was actually supporting your point. In a situation like that, you can't really judge. But I was talking about how the war (post war) has been conducted as a whole. I certainly don't think the full scale invasion of Fallujah has done any good. It has scattered the insurgents whilst making 150,000 or so innocent ppl homeless, no action food, killed etc.... It isn't going to make them very endeared to the liberators. & in all this time, ridiculous bouts of violence are going on all over Iraq.

Who is filming all of the US advances by the way?? I assume it is Western Media as they aren't filming insurgents. Are they doing it to feed US propoganda back home?? (Like the Malboro man headline) Because that one is shooting themsleves in the foot, when they show US soldiers shooting someone & saying pretty callous things like "He's done". Ok, most of us would probably have done the same, but it just doesn't look good on camera. It is sending the wrong message.

I struggle to see how we are going to stop the insurgency when we keep sending out this message.

Thanks - exams next week, so u should see a lot of me for the next week or so. Good to be back!!

oooh a girlfriend you can debate politics with. not many of them goign around up here

there was film from the insurgents point of view on the news at 10 last night filmed by some arab tv station btw.

and as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure once the boys get the job done and start moving out, the vast majority of iraqi's will be more than thankful for giving them a new regime and a vote.