Re:This is for you..yes..YOU.
« Reply #15 on: 2006-11-22 16:45:39 »
We've all been witness to the beheadings of individuals by jihadists. We've all been witness to airliners crashing into the World Trade Center. We've all been witness to the severe, if not deadly, punishment doled out by fundamentalist Muslims for trivial offenses such as homosexuality, infidelity, etc. We've all been witness to US domestic policy that forbids gay marriage in dozens of states. We've all been witness to thousands of people being murdered by the state under the auspice of capital punisment, including children and the mentally handicapped. We've all been witness to mistakes in the battlefield that caused the loss of innocent life. I could go on.
But, the question remains:
Will the video that Mermaid posted have a resonating effect in Muslim nations especially in Iraq, such as the pictures from Abu Gharib or a video of the dead innocents from a misguided US bombing? More importantly, what will that effect be? How does a country with a military as powerful as the US look in light of such video as offered by Mermaid?
In the long run, this is another tit-for-tat string of videos, regardless of the severity, that is posted for the world over to view. I find it interesting to watch how one group or another (whether it's a couple of US GIs or a couple of insurgents) film these videos then posts them on the internet.
Both, it would seem, are meant to boost the esteem of the poster (again, whether it's a GI or an insurgent). They offer them up for others to view. It's the most base form of PR. And, the advent of the internet has made conflicts, wars, genocides, etc that much more real. We aren't disconnected from war anymore. It's transmitted 24/7 on the tv, the radio and the internet. These gruesome, cruel, and repulsive images are easy to find now, moreso than ever before.
We better get used to it because now we have communication that doesn't take weeks to go from one part of the world to the next; now we have the internet, better computing, cell phone cameras, and other new technologies, and there's no way to close that avenue of information. To the average Iraqi this video will have a souring effect. Well done, America. Your image, once again, is fucked over by a couple of idiots in your armed forces. That being said, one would think that commanders in the US armed forces would try to reiterate a very important point - for fuck's sake we are "uninvited guests" in Iraq so don't be stupid and respect your hosts. I mean, you wouldn't piss in your hosts drinking water would you?
Kind regards, Casey
*note: The US invaded Iraq while fully knowing it was under false pretense. Therefore, I prefer to call our servicemen "uninvited guests" since one of the aftereffects of our invasion has been the 100's of thousands of deaths caused by our presence in-country. Most hosts wouldn't like guests, let alone liberators, in their house if a significant amount of other household members were being killed off now, would they?
We were, of course, not invited into Iraq by a mass-murdering dictator whom we were acting to depose. We are, however, welcomed in Iraq by the democratically elected present government of that country. Also, the vast majority of those Iraqis who have been killed (those, that is, who were not Baathist killers or Mahdist death squad members themselves) have been killed by eithr other Iraqis (either Baathist remnants or Iranian financed Mahdist death squads) or by Al Qaedan jihadist foreign shaheed infiltrators crossing into Iraq over the Syrian and Saudi borders.
Casey's points about the ubiquity of global instantaneous communication concerning every facet of human life, including conflicts, are well taken. I woud, however, hazard to make a couple of further points concerning this phenomenon.
First, such rapidity and ephemerality contributes to an MTV immediate-gratification mindset, where people are unwilling to allow for the time necessary to accomplish difficult yet worthy tasks, such as the transformation of entire nations and peoples from the yokes of brutal theocracies or dictatorships to the blessings of constitutional democracies.
Second, I find it surpassingly distressing that, while the tormenting of thirsty children by holding bottles of water just outside their reach understandably would infuriate their fellow citizens and also those of other Arab and Muslim countries, that so many individuals in these same countries are visibly cheered, even to the point of handing out celebratory sweets to their children, by videos of airliners filled with people flying into inhabited skyscrapers and of people being beheaded by chanting prancing fanatics. The sort of mindset that finds such things salubrious is one that spawns the very terrorists that perpetrate such atrocities, and its education into xenophobic hatred is a process that is regimented and controlled, begins very early in life, is ubiquitous in the areas in which it occurs, and is reinforced by family, friends, school (both madrassa and state), media and mosque. Unless and until this thorough, penetrating and comprehensive childhood indoctrination into jihadist bloodthirstiness-for-Allah is ended, terrorism will remain a global problem.
Re:This is for you..yes..YOU.
« Reply #17 on: 2006-11-22 18:24:56 »
one other thing i dont understand is the real reason behind these soldiers taking pains to tape WITH sound these video gold nuggets. why..for god fuckingsakes..WHY? do they tape it so they can jerk off as they play and replay again and again?
About as likely as jhadis jerking off to infidel beheadings; I think both camps would prefer good, old-fashioned pr0n...;~)
I do note, however, that neonazis have jerked off to movies featuring Jewish women being sexually tortured...even being provided with boxes of tissues in the private theatres for the messes they made...
Re:This is for you..yes..YOU.
« Reply #19 on: 2006-11-22 19:08:45 »
Posted by: Mermaid Posted on: Today at 16:24:56 one other thing i dont understand is the real reason behind these soldiers taking pains to tape WITH sound these video gold nuggets. why..for god fuckingsakes..WHY?
[Blunderov] Defending their psyches by dehumanising their victims. It is easier to kill non-humans.
I havent seen anything as cruel, sad or utterly depraved as this in a very very very long time..i think my heart just broke into a million pieces...what is wrong with this fucking world.
Re:This is for you..yes..YOU.
« Reply #24 on: 2006-11-23 03:29:31 »
ok. now that i am calmer, let me see if i can word this in a better manner.
am i the only one who is condemning the actions of individual soldiers without invoking 911 or saddam hussein for their depraved, immoral behaviour?
is it absolutely necessary to bring up 911/saddam hussein/moslems/islam/fundamentalism/arabs to 'understand' the mindset of two adult soldiers riding in a fastmoving vehicle, in possession of firearms while taunting children from a desert in the middle of a warzone that has very little potable water with a bottle of drinkable water? adult and soldiers being the key words.
does being an american with teenage memories* of the 911 incident give someone a free pass to be an asshole? how will the memory of being taunted** with water by those speaking with an american tongue affect these young children turn out when they become young adults? does anyone here have any painful/humiliating childhood memories? has it affected you? do you remember? do share? when one has nothing to lose, one isnt afraid of anything. for many in our world, they have nothing to lose. except self respect. strip that away and the rest of the world better watch it's back because here is a person with absolutely nothing to lose.
are certain people capable of seeing the soldiers as individual human beings instead of americans who have memories of 911?
some of those kids were probably infants when 911 occured and we now know certainly that their closest family/friends circle..their parents...their neighbours....their govt had NOTHING to do with 911. why is their water under sanction? why are they running behind uninvited foreigners who are driving around in their streets with weapons and treating them like beggars?
there are many videos on websites like youtube where footage like the ones i found are uploaded. it is uploaded by people who enjoy the antics that they have recorded with much pride and mirth. clearly they find it amusing and worth preserving the memories. there are also video footage like 'playing soccer with iraqi kids'...'talking with iraqi kids'. the cynic in me after watching footage of soldiers teasing children with water, soldiers lamenting the fact that they cannot shoot children who throw stones at army trucks is of the opinion that the 'good guys' may as well be actors acting for an audience. they are completely different from the first kind. it takes a naive person..a very naive person...to see the credibility of such a staged narrative. the former footage did not have the actors addressing an audience while the latter 'good will' videos clearly have the actors addressing the audience to communicate what they want to communicate. i hate it when my intelligence is insulted.
*most of these young soldiers...and i am assuming young because of their juvenile behaviour, but who really knows...would have been teens in 2001, 5 years ago.
**"irmi' in arabic means 'throw'. the running behind trucks was no joke between the kids and the soldiers. it was not a workout. the kid was calling out to the soldier waving a bottle of water to throw him that bottle.
I think that it is surpassingly obvous that Mermaid is clearly biased...she decides, without anything else to go on besides her anti-american disposition, that a video taken showing the US military teasing Iraqi kids is authentic, yet dismisses videos taken showing US military kindness to kids as propaganda. Her choice of which of them is and is not authentic is completely and totally subjective, and rooted entirely in her hate-filled emotional predisposition rather than in any semblance of objective intellection.
I happen to believe that they are ALL authentic, and demonstrate that, when a nation sends troops into war, some of them are more benevolent than others, while a small minority can be filled with sheer stupid malevolence - as is the case with any force sent into conflict, even when the intentions and purposes of the sending country are honorable and liberating.
Our soldiers and marines are not so dumb that they do not realize that the people who sent the terror flyers were based in Afghanistan, and not Iraq, and that the only people who have anything to do with them are the Al Qaedan jihadis infiltrators in Anbar Province, and not the indigenous kids. Yet every military has its quotient of assholes, and the noblest of causes may be besmirched by the conduct of a few twisted individuals - especially in the eyes of those who are emotionally predisposed to view such episodic incidents as characteristic of the majority, and who attempt to rationalize their irrational bias in any way that they can, however illegitimate.
am i the only one who is condemning the actions of individual soldiers without invoking 911 or saddam hussein for their depraved, immoral behaviour?
[Blunderov] I agree that the actions of the soldiers are morally reprehensible in their own right and without there being any logical necessity to compare those actions with 911, Saddam or anything else.
Comparing action A with a worse one, action B, would not in any way render the gravity of action A less than it was before the comparison was made. And such a comparison would only be justified if the discussion explicity included such comparisons as a part of the context.
It is here that I fear that Mermaid may have fallen victim to a figure of speech when she wrote "I havent seen anything as cruel, sad or utterly depraved as this in a very very very long time".
My surmise is that what Mermaid intended to mean that she was very shocked at the incident indeed. Mermaid's figure of speech can quite legitimately be understood to mean this, and very commonly is, but it also can be more literally interpreted to mean that this act was comparatively high on the scale of all wickedness. Which is where the dispute appears to have arisen.
I think that it is surpassingly obvous that Mermaid is clearly biased...she decides, without anything else to go on besides her anti-american disposition, that a video taken showing the US military teasing Iraqi kids is authentic, yet dismisses videos taken showing US military kindness to kids as propaganda. Her choice of which of them is and is not authentic is completely and totally subjective, and rooted entirely in her hate-filled emotional predisposition rather than in any semblance of objective intellection.
HUH?
you think the video taken BY the soldiers for their private viewing pleasure..for sharing with their equally crass friends...for their video library..FOR themselves is the same as the video that looks like a propoganda video whose sole aim is to counteract the earlier videos?
and YOU are calling me biased??
Quote:
I happen to believe that they are ALL authentic, and demonstrate that, when a nation sends troops into war, some of them are more benevolent than others, while a small minority can be filled with sheer stupid malevolence - as is the case with any force sent into conflict, even when the intentions and purposes of the sending country are honorable and liberating.
you can believe whatever you want. but your claim of me being biased is not valid and cannot be taken seriously unless you can prove that the latter videos are authentic. army boots, kevlar jacket and a carbine m4 in the desert are *exactly* the gear one wears while playing soccer with iraqi kids, right? it must have been fun.
Quote:
Our soldiers and marines are not so dumb that they do not realize that the people who sent the terror flyers were based in Afghanistan, and not Iraq, and that the only people who have anything to do with them are the Al Qaedan jiha
SNIP
Quote:
Yet every military has its quotient of assholes, and the noblest of causes may be besmirched by the conduct of a few twisted individuals -
cant disagree with that..
Quote:
especially in the eyes of those who are emotionally predisposed to view such episodic incidents as characteristic of the majority, and who attempt to rationalize their irrational bias in any way that they can, however illegitimate.
oh ok..so you just dont believe with the previous statement about which i agreed with you? so i guess we dont agree on anything at all. great...suits me fine.
It is here that I fear that Mermaid may have fallen victim to a figure of speech when she wrote "I havent seen anything as cruel, sad or utterly depraved as this in a very very very long time".
i could almost feel my throat parch as i watched that kid run. i was rooting for him, hoping that the assholes will throw the bottle after all the trouble. my heart broke when he didnt get it in the end when the other new kids picked it up instead.
there is another kind..that of the prison camps...the palestinian girl screaming her anguish as her entire family is murdered by the israelis on the beach...the quite and organised clean up by the israelis after suicide bombers blow up...they evoke anger..incomprehension. because they are all acts of terrorism.
this, on the other, is an entirely different kind of outrage. this is tinged with sadness. often, we cannot 'put ourselves' in the shoes of those who are blown up, of those who have lost their entire families or those who have suffered humiliation. we know that it is not an ideal situation because we register their emotions. we hope it wont happen to us. so we condemn these actions.
but thirst is something we have all experienced. we KNOW how it feels when the parched throat is moistened by clean water. being bullied is something we have all experienced. we KNOW how it feels when we are poked and prodded by a bigger, uglier, louder person whose only intent is to hurt and humiliate us. the urge to hit back and to prove that we will not tolerate the bullying is also something we have all experienced. feeling impotent because we are too weak to punish the bully by paying back with his own coin is also something what we have all experienced.
and finally, we have all muttered to ourselves as we are left behind with the void of helplessness and shrunken by our inaction to defend our self respect. that is what i am afraid of...the kids left behind that speeding army truck is what is going to blow back on all our faces...hopefully not literally.
and yes, it is quite high on the scale of all wickedness. i think you underestimate the importance of water in our lives and our consciousness.
p.s. what is a 'misunderstanding' again? i am sorry, but i didnt quite catch that.
...and yes, it is quite high on the scale of all wickedness. i think you underestimate the importance of water in our lives and our consciousness.
p.s. what is a 'misunderstanding' again? i am sorry, but i didnt quite catch that.
[Blunderov] I agree that it is quite high on the scale of wickedness but : "not to touch the earth, not to see the sun" - somewhere inbetween. Certainly I agree that there are special circumstances to this particular wickedness that are especially emotive; children and water are very fundamental human concerns.
(The "misunderstanding" to which I referred was the mystery of how Saddam and 911 came to be a part of this particular thread. In order to avoid the possibility of a new one arising I wish to be clear that I do not mean at all to suggest that your outrage is unjustified or excessive.)
Another very unattractive aspect to this business is one that seems to me quite serious in a different way, and one that makes it more difficult for the "rogue elements" defence to trip as lightly off the tongue as it sometimes does. The actions of these soldiers was entirely consistent with the perverted morality that brought them to Iraq in the first place. This does not seem to me to be a mere stray coincidence but rather a direct confirmation of the fundamental iniquity of the entire enterprise. It is true that not all American soldiers behave in this despicable fashion but the sad fact of the matter is that anyone of them could do so at at any time they chose to. Master and slave; that simple. This too is obscene.
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