Standards for Being a good Peaceful or Xian soldier

Because they try to kill me on a regular basis? Most of the Iraqis want us here to help them rebuild their country. US Troops = money in local economies. However, we will pull out most of our forces when the Iraqis are able to police themselves. I've seen 8 beheading videos. They aren't doing it just for something to do after movie and pizza night.

---

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

quote:

---

Now, as to the helping them martyr themselves joke. That is not a joke, as that is what most of those yahoos want.

---

Yeah, and the darkies like to be slaves.

quote:

---

Generally the leaders send their guys to do their dirty work.

---

What do you think one of those "yahoos" would say if you asked them why they thought the US was occupying their country?

quote:

---

Abu Grhaib is an example of bad soldiering. Although I don't blame the soldiers. There are no bad soldiers, only bad leaders. That issue was a leadership failure.

---

I agree it was a leadership failure, but there were still immoral, very wrong actions done by individual soldiers.Every soldier knows, I presume, that torture is wrong.Why did they torture prisoners, then?Because they are bad soldiers, led by bad leaders.

quote:

---

Because they try to kill me on a regular basis?

---

But don't you try to kill them on a regular basis?Over 100,000 Iraqis have died since the invasion.

quote:

---

I've seen 8 beheading videos.

---

They have seen thousands of photos from Abu Ghraib.Should they then assume that the US military relishes sexual torture and humiliation of Iraqis?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 01-01-2005 09:44 AM

Are you honestly telling me that this is the description and attitude we are training Iraqis to have about their jobs? Good luck to Iraq ever getting off the ground.There is a difference between having that as part of your job and that being your attitude and overt job description. The sheer ignorance within this statement is appalling. Do you take risky missions? Would you be willing to take on a mission you are almost guaranteed to die in, if it meant a chance at victory for your cause? Do you feel you will go to heaven? Do you do what your commanders order?There is a vague difference between you and them with regard to how missions are carries out but not much. The important difference is the end goal of victory. Our victory is desirable to me and you, theirs is to them. I think we have a better case. It's not a sin, and it is not wrong and I totally get the context of the gag. I am just surprised that you would be amused by a guy saying the religion these guys have faith in is because of their lack of material goods and pleasures. I mean you get that this could easily be rewritten against fundamentalist Xians, just without the sand? I didn't say that. I said the various insurgent groups are seen to be without a moral compass. I totally disagree with this assessment. Clearly they were bad soldiers, yes the bad soldiering does move back up a chain of command, but that does not absolve them of anything. Some soldiers had the guts to do the right thing and they were under the same command. I am trying to get at what is the appropriate persona we want identified as a US soldier, and for Xians as a Xian soldier? I think the question is pretty straightforward.This message has been edited by holmes, 01-01-2005 09:55 AM

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I am a member of a PSD (Protective Service Detail) for a general. My job is to get him from point A to point B safely. And? Most of them have been killed by the insurgents. We have kept civillian casualties as low as possible, whilst the badguys drive VBIEDs into crowds of children. The 2 are not morally equivelant and I've already stated my opinion about Abu Graib.Now, stop dancing around the bush and come out with your point please.

---

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

There is a HUGE difference in how they carry out their missions vs ours. They send multiple VBIED bombers a day to blow up Iraqi civillians and us, if they can catch us off guard. These terrorists are like water, they seek the ungaurded path. They go for the place they can use a weapon of mass effect (VBIED to blow up 60 Iraqis, both to demoralize Iraqis andgain a media victory.) But we have cable and toilet paper! Oh yes, the soldiers are to be held accountable. But it is the fault of the leadership that it happened at all.

---

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

You are doing what is called shifting the goal posts. The subject was their willingness to enter combat with an eye that if killed they will go to heaven.As far as techniques of attack, they do differ. My question to you is if the positions were reversed economically and militarily, wouldn't we be doing almost the exact same things?They are using their equipment using methods that are pretty effective, and we are trying to do the same with our own. Heheheh... Mmmmmmmmm. This will probably be a tomayto tomahto issue. Or maybe a chicken and egg. We can certainly agree to disagree on this one. I will not claim my opinion is more than just that, as long as we do agree that the individual soldier's do hold blame for their own actions and cannot pass the buck to commanders, even if those commanders receive equal or more blame in general.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Elaborate a tad what shifting the goalpost is and how I did it? If it were shifted economically and militarily, I wouldn't be here. Al Qeada is a loose network of like-minded individuals who use 21st century-techonology to spread their vision of a 7th-century paradise.In short, I would have been nuked a long time ago.To make the analogy more accurate, we would also have to religions. It is definatly the leadership's fault because a leader SHOULD know what his/her soldiers are doing, even if he/she didn't know.

---

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

Oh I don't want to interject too much in a debate started by schraf. This is not exactly accurate. The majority have been killed by us during the invasion.You are correct that we did not drive our weapons into crowds of children, instead we dropped them from large heights into crowds of people (including children). We specifically targeted some wholly residential areas. The justification each time was that we new high level targets were there. Each time they were not.There are also examples of soldiers opening up on civilians just because they are scared.The difference between them and us on this matter is the frequency and reason for targeting civilians. They view civilians as targets in and of themselves. We do not.We do owe a debt to the Iraqi people for what we have done.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Holmes:I did not believe this thread was going to be specifically related to Tal, or I would not have commented. However since you have addressed my comment I will reply. Exactly I do have different methods, and I find that for the most part my methods have been successful. I do not know if you are implying this towards myself, however should such be the case, I will state.

You do not know me, or my methods.

You do not know the way I treat atheists, or others.

No-one else can perceive exactly as I do, and I cannot perceive exactly as anyone else does.

​

Holmes writes:

​

Do you see a difference at all between a secular and Xian soldier?

​

Personally, the attributes that I noted, are ones that I believe anyone could hold regardless of race, creed, or gender. It is a matter of individual choice.

​

Holmes writes:

​

Oh by the way, on the "respect other cultures" angle, did you go to Tal's site to hear the joke about Islamic terrorists?

​

I am not sure exactly what point you are making here, or if there is any. Should you believe that seeing the site will alter my attitude toward the person, then I reaffirm to you, that you do not know me.
For the record though: I find no enjoyment in jokes about Islamic terrorists. Nor do I need to justify to anyone what factions my sympathies may lie toward, or even if they lie toward any.

​

Holmes writes:

​

...another piece in the puzzle which is Tal's persona

I was unaware that such was your intent.

Does this apply to all 'newbie's', or is it only particular ones?

Does someone's persona need to fit your logic, like pieces of a puzzle?

Is my persona, also being addressed in the same manner?
If it is, then I will add; it is futile to take one sentence of mine, and use it to define 'what I am'. I am much more complex than that.

​

Shaz

Here you are mistaken. I will try to find a non-classified source for you, but I see the numbers everyday.But if you have a source, I would like to see that also. /sarcasm on
Your intelligence (on these events) is amazing!
/sarcasm off Bonk again. We do not target civilians with any frequency. We are so on the side of caution about this issue that we take casualties because of it. An example that I have seen numerous times would be insurgents ambushing a convoy with small arms and RPGs. The convoys call in the Apaches. When the insurgents hear the Apaches, they drop their weapons on the ground and run.The Apache gets there and just sees running bodies. He knows that these people were firing at US troops a few minutes before, yet he cannot shoot them. They have no weapons. If the Apache pilot had seen them shooting though, he would be authorized to engage them, even if they dropped their weapons and ran.

---

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

Just to be clear I was not talking about you I was talking about the ones who posted and I know quite well. I believe I have already stated elsewhere that I did not know what your position is. You said there should be a respect for cultures. The joke on the site is designed specifically to be offensive to other cultures, Islam in specific.I will admit I have no idea who you are, and have no idea if it would change your attitude about Tal. I would expect though that it would defy your criteria of respecting cultures. It is not my intent to figure people out. It does occur as a process of seeing what people write and how they present themselves.It happens to newbies and oldies. No one has to fit my logic. You may note that I did not see his statements fitting his own stated logic system. I do expect some amount of internal consistency.I did not use one sentence to get a picture of Tal, and I will not do so with you either. I will keep in mind you are very complex.So far so good.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This seems very strange to me. Are you stating for the record that as a member of the military you are seeing numbers of civilian casualties being kept by the military and they include civilian casualties as a result of US actions during the war?I ask this as it was the firm public position of the US military that there have been no such records kept at all. Perhaps you did not see the press announcement of this from Rumsfeld and Co? Unless this change came recently?This is not to imply that you are wrong, but it is certainly a news worthy revelation if it is true (unless I missed something somewhere). If you do have figures I would love to see them. Indeed I stand ready to to accept that civilian casualties during the war have been eclipsed by those caused by insurgents. Certainly this will have to happen at some point. I had a computer meltdown a month or so back and lost all my links to sites which tracked casualty figures. I will try to find them again if you wish, but I think you can find them easy enough googling. I believe there may still be a thread in the Coffee House which addresses that issue.For the record I am a bit skeptical of the 100K number. It is certainly possible, but I remember at the time that it was announced that the methods were not exactly accurate. Heheheh. Okay I like sarcasm, but you should at least put some meat with it. If it is your claim we did not intentionally target some residential blocks because high level targets were in them, and then it turned out not to be true I will try and get some info for you. My question is how you would not know this.Don't you remember the two major claims that we had hit Hussein? Look, I get that it is not general policy to target civilians. That is what I was trying to suggest was the difference between us and the opposite side. However we have had high level acceptance of targeting known residential areas in order to get at high level targets, and many low level incidents of guys trying to stay safe and so firing into civilians with little provocation.There is a difference between those two types of targeting, and specifically planning to kill mass numbers of civilians in order to effect a political result.While we are guilty of the first two, we are not of the third.Are you seriously going to tell me the above two did not occur during the war and occupation?

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

What I am trying to do (and so is holmes it seems to me) is to see if you have spent any time at all trying to look at your actions and the actions of the US military in Iraq from the viewpoint of a given Iraqi.If they see the prisoner abuse photos that are sexually humiliating and involve torture, why shouldn't they think that this is what happens to all prisoners of the US military?

quote:

---

I've seen 8 beheading videos.

---

quote:

---

The 2 are not morally equivelant and I've already stated my opinion about Abu Gra

---

It doesn't matter one bit what you think about it.It matters what Iraqis think about it. It's their perception of you that matters, because they will act upon that perception, accurate or not.If the Iraqis think that it is OK with the US government and people that prisoners are tortured and sexually humiliated in US military prisons, then doesn't it make sense that they might resist the occupation because they view us as, well, immoral cruel torturers?Why wouldn't anyone hate us if they thought this was true?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 01-01-2005 15:28 AM

Whoops, missed this post. Instead of my giving this to you, I will suggest you find one of the good online lists of logical fallacies (one is at infidels.org) or google on fallacies and shifting goalposts or moving goalposts.I won't get into it in detail as I just realized I was incorrect. You simply changed the subject, not the premise of the argument itself. This is simply avoiding the question. Okay, pretend that it is not AlQueda and they have all the munitions and you have very little anything but it is you or them. Now try and answer the question.As far as your ignorant stereotypes regarding Al Queda, well this is starting to get par for the course. Do you know how it began, why it exists now, and most of their current agenda?I would add that they can certainly turn the tables on us using the same argument. What is the US to them except Xians trying to use 21st century technology to spread the Xian vision of pre7th century visions of paradise?Our unquestioning support for Israel because God gave the Jews that land, and statements that our war in Iraq is carrying out God's work in the world and needs to be spread to all other nations in the region, well that pretty well clinches it doesn't it?PCKB (that's pot calls kettle black). Right, that is responsibility. However this does not make the soldiers less blameworthy or transfer any of their guilt to those higher up.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)