CSM: The Iraq story: how troops see it ('We made it better than it was')

So an Islamic theocracy and thousands of families torn apart and friends broken apart is better? Napalm gas is better? White solphreous is better? Torture is better on innocent civilians? Give me a freakin break. If it was oh so better why do 80% of the Iraqi's want us gone and 43% think it's justifiable to kill his buddies?

to the fact that they risked their lives, destroyed good will toward America abroad, and killed thousands of innocent people for a lie.

And the ones who are: you certainly won't see them quoted in the press.

:hi:

This is Lebkuchen's post in GD where you can read what the soldiers REALLY think.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5481430

Stars and Stripes / November 28, 2005
European and Mideast editions

War based on a lie

Weapons of mass destruction? I’m still looking for them, and if you find any give me a call so we can justify our presence in Iraq. We started the war based on a lie, and we’ll finish it based on a lie. I say this because I am currently serving with a logistics headquarters in the Anbar province, between the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. I am not fooled by the constant fabrication of “democracy” and “freedom” touted by our leadership at home and overseas.

This deception is furthered by our armed forces’ belief that we can just enter ancient Mesopotamia and tell the locals about the benefits of a legislative assembly. While our European ancestors were hanging from trees, these ancient people were writing algebra and solving quadratic equations. Now we feel compelled to strong-arm them into accepting the spoils of capitalism and “laissez-faire” society. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching Britney Spears on MTV and driving to McDonald’s, but do you honestly believe that Sunnis, Shias and Kurds want our Western ideas of entertainment and freedom imposed on them? Think again.

I’m not being negative, I’m being realistic. The reality in Iraq is that the United States created a nightmare situation where one didn’t exist. Yes, Saddam Hussein was an evil man who lied, cheated and pillaged his own nation. But how was he different from dictators in Africa who commit massive crimes again humanity with little repercussion and sometimes support from the West? The bottom line up front (BLUF to use a military acronym) is that Saddam was different because we used him as an excuse to go to war to make Americans “feel good” about the “War on Terrorism.” The BLUF is that our ultimate goal in 2003 was the security of Israel and the lucrative oil fields in northern and southern Iraq.

Weapons of mass destruction? Call me when you find them. In the meantime, “bring ’em on” so we can get our “mission accomplished” and get out of this mess.

Capt. Jeff Pirozzi
Camp Taqaddum, Iraq

The troops who are using barbaric weapons, horrible tortures, and slaughtering innocents want to feel good about their experience, so they point to some vague notion of "progress" in the war.

The only progress I have seen in this war is the level of depravity our nation will sink to claiming justification for the immorality. I have to wonder what kind of progress our troops will feel like they are making if THEY are charged for crimes against humanity for these barbarities.

Welcome home

gosh, if only the Iraqis figured out that all they needed to do was love pens and Oreo cookies, they'd be ok. As if Iraq had somehow never seen such fantastic scifi gadgets as pens and mass-produced cookies before.

I'm not saying he's the only one; but personally I'd bet he's one of a very small minority, though I'm sure there'd be others who don't care. The average squaddie is very grounded. They're mostly working class, they see through the bullshit very quickly. It's a working-class tradition. Centuries, nay millennia, of economic oppression have sharpened their greater innate spirituality to make room for worldly nous. Even if its not normally a preoccupation - put on the back burner.

I remember reading an article - on here I think - about a visiting general or some such, and when he asked this group of soldiers, including one or two young women, if they knew what they were there for, he'd scarcely got the words out of his mouth, when they all bellowed, "Oil!" Love reading that kind of stuff! It appeals to the subversive in me.

And I just love how the article takes a single anecdote - hey, some friendly Iraqis pointed out an IED to us - to justify the occupation. And doesn't even mention that 80% of Iraqis want us to leave.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

would make wonderful nursery-school teachers. Simplistic and infantile to a fault in their spin on things that anyone can see, if they weren't completely unspinnable to begin with, have become laughably unspinnable. Unspinnable to the point of making their patter the subject of high comedy for satirists like John Stewart, for example.

But that's always been the case with them, and is a primary reason why they were always unviable in national politics in the medium-long term. Their total lack of plausibility was always the stuff of high satire. I don't believe that was quite the case with earlier Republican administrations, however villainous.