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kentuck Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-25-04 11:52 AM
Original message
"Shooting rainbows out of their asses.."
You wanna know what real war is like?? Read the entire article.
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http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0447/wright.php

<snip>

There were other times when the enlisted men in the unit fell into violent quarrels with others whom they felt were too aggressive and risked civilian lives. In one instance, enlisted men nearly came to blows with an officer whom they accused of firing a weapon into a house that they believed contained civilians. Despite their concern, terrible mistakes were made. I was standing next to a 22-year-old Marine from the Humvee I rode in when he fired his machine gun prematurely at a civilian car approaching a roadblock, striking the driver, an unarmed man, in the eye. The unit was subsequently ordered to drive past the car without rendering aid. I sat next to the gunner as we crept past, listening to the dying man gasp for breath. The gunner didn't talk for the next three days. A few days earlier, the youngest Marine on the team had shot a 12-year-old boy four times in the chest with his machine gun, mistakenly thinking a stick the boy had been carrying was a weapon. When the mother and grandmother of the boy later dragged him to the Marines' lines seeking medical aid, the sergeant who led the team dropped down in front of the mother and cried.

The Marines constantly debated the morality of what they were engaged in. A sergeant in the platoon told me he had consulted with his priest about killing. The priest had told him it was all right to kill for his government so long as he didn't enjoy it. By the time the unit reached the outskirts of Baghdad, this sergeant was certain he had already killed at least four men. When his battalion commander praised the unit for "slaying dragons" on the way to Baghdad, the sergeant later told his men, "If we did half the shit back home we've done here, we'd be in prison." By then, the sergeant told me, he'd reconsidered what his priest had told him about killing. "Where the fuck did Jesus say it's OK to kill people for your government? Any priest who tells me that has got no credibility."

He and several other Marines recently returned from Iraq (many from their second tours) whom I've talked to about the Falluja shooting say they are not sure they would have dead-checked the wounded man in the mosque had they been in the same position. Most say they probably would have, even though the mosque had already been cleared once. "What does the American public think happens when they tell us to assault a city?" one of them said. "Marines don't shoot rainbows out of our asses. We fucking kill people."

Another Marine in the unit I followed—a Democrat's dream, he returned home from fighting in Falluja in time to vote for Kerry—added, "Americans celebrate war in their movies. We like to see visions of evil being defeated by good. When the people at home glimpse the reality of war, that it's a bloodbath, they freak out. We are a subculture they created and programmed to fight their wars. You have to become a psycho to kill like we do. To most Marines that guy in the mosque was just someone who didn't get hit in the right place the first time we shot him. I probably would have put a bullet in his brain if I'd been there. If the American public doesn't like the violence of war, maybe before they start the next war they shouldn't rush so much."

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Fovea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-25-04 12:08 PM
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1. Consider, the might of the Marines, Army, and Air force
cannot clear out a city the size of Falluja.
What chance would they have against San Francisco?
What chance would they have against New York, Boston, Chicago, or any of the centers of Blue America.

It would be ours, if we decided to take it over.
We would own everything worth owning in a week.
Not saying we need to do it tomorrow, but it should be put in the
twisted, putrid mind of Rove. Maybe a bit of a scrum during the ' inauguration '
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SpiralHawk Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-25-04 12:57 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. A Tradition on this land of North America
As taught by the Peacemaker who came among the Haudenausenee (Six Nations) many generations ago:

A Paraphrase:
Human beings should use every effort to sit in council about, arbitrate, and negotiate their differences. Force should be resorted to only as a defense against the certain use of force.
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indigobusiness Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-25-04 12:22 PM
Response to Original message
2. Americans didn't rush to war...Bush did.
Edited on Thu Nov-25-04 12:25 PM by indigobusiness
"If the American public doesn't like the violence of war, maybe before they start the next war they shouldn't rush so much."

Most of the world marched in the streets, or voiced opposition, to stop this massacre.

That includes a goodly percentage of patriotic Americans.

edit-

Bush couldn't shoot rainbows out of his ass if he ate crayolas. Which he probably does.
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dogman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-25-04 01:09 PM
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4. And they scoffed at the comparisons to Vietnam.
Killing for corporate interests instead of self-defense is never moral. I wish Kerry from 30+ years ago had run for President. At least it could have negated the flip-flop image and would have shown he stood his ground.
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