oyuki

Friday, June 23, 2006

The Burdens of Soldiering

Cox and Forkum have a new cartoon up that pretty well sums up all the difficulties the modern American fighter has to endure as he seeks out the enemies of democracy.

The articles they link to should give everyone food for thought. Are we allowing ourselves to be hemmed in with restrictive rules of engagement along with our soldiers own moral code to not shoot if in doubt? That the murdering thugs infesting Iraq are using news of the Haditha allegations hanging over everyone’s head to paralyze for an extra instant the reactions of American soldiers to give them the edge in murdering those soldiers? Perhaps so.

The NRO article though I think is the most telling. American media outlets have trumpeted that Haditha is another My Lai while facts are still being correlated on Haditha. NRO is right, who remembers Hue? Everyone like John Kerry should because Hue was a scene of butchery and brutality reminiscent of Genghis Khan. During Tet 1968, Viet Cong forces over-ran the ancient capitol city most known for its centers of learning. It was a scene of fierce fighting as South VietNamese and American forces struggled to recapture the city. Hue was retaken and then the horrors were discovered. Bodies in shallow mass graves along the Perfume River were found with hands tied behind their backs and then shot before being tossed into those graves. In one instance of the Viet Cong eliminating an entire family unit, even the goldfish was killed.

Now we are accepting the bodies of two brave Americans who fell protecting the country they loved, the ideals they cherished, and family/friends who adored them. These two brave men were butchered by cowardly thugs and then their desecrated bodies were then abandoned in an area filled with booby-traps by these cowards who hoped to claim more American lives.

But in Iraq as in VietNam who is being vilified as truly evil? The American soldier is because a few put panties on the heads of prisoners in Iraq while in VietNam Lt. Cally lost control of his unit at My Lai.

The true evil lays on the other side and so does the blame. They are the ones who enjoy driving cars loaded with explosives into crowds of women and children in the hope they also kill the Americans who are handing out food. They are the ones who revel in sadistic pleasure as they saw the heads off captives while recoding it on video. They are the ones who need to be hunted down like diseased animals and killed before their disease spreads.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am getting so frustrated and depressed at the left's view of our soldiers. They have no idea what is happening over there and they claim that the garbage printed in the NYT is fact.

Anonymous said...

What frosts my ass, if you pardon the expression, is that the MSM plays up for weeks, with front page banners and headlines, every little splinter or bruise that these jerks in Gitmo get. Oh, Mo Ham Id is on a hunger strike, Abu Dirtbag got an American fingerprint on his precious Koran and Abu Jihad is so depressed that he is away from home. Excuse me, but who gives a hairy rat's little butt? Have you read about the mutilation inflicted on the two soldiers that were captured (if you haven't, don't do it if you have a weak stomach)? I just did. It's disgusting. But where is the outrage, where are the front page pictures, and where is the call for increased American resolve? If I were a soldier over there, I know that it would be awfully hard not to go off and slaughter every one of the "insurgents" that I could capture. I'm sorry, but to hell with their "holy book", their "holy places" and their Muslim "sensitivities". It's time to kick ALL media people out of the country, seal the borders, and increase our troop strength at least double. Let our troops do what they were trained to do and what they can do so well when not hobbled by lawyers and politicians. Is Iraq another Vietnam? Not yet, but it is on a fast track to becoming one, thanks AGAIN to our wonderful news media and politicians. Time to start hanging traitors, both poplitical and media from light posts and stop acting like little sissies. If we are going to be the police force of the world which seems to be what we are, it's time to start acting like cops and not like the spineless people who we are protecting and therefore hate us so much.

Sorry, I'm just pissed off by all of this.

AndyJ

Anonymous said...

Before I say anything, I want to make perfectly clear that these indiscriminate suicide bombings, behedings, kidnappings and brutalities to innocent civilians by the Jihadists fill me with the utter revulsion. There is no concievable grounds, whether religious or other wise, to justify any of that. I hate them with passion but I refuse to become one of them by resorting to the similar methods. The war in Iraq, if not lost already, will be lost the day when we start doing anything like anonymous is suggesting here. I am afraid that in his frustration he has become undishtinguishable from Taliban. He is one of the victims of the war.

Mike's America said...

Pekka: You can run but you cannot hide.

And that applies also to defeating terrorists.


If we accept the defeat in Iraq that your errant opinion suggests has already or is likely to soon occur, then we will have more such brutality, not less.

P.S. I forgot this factoid in all the leftie apologia over the horrible, gruesome and savage deaths of our two fallen soldiers:

Islamo nuts have been committing such atrocities against their vicitms for centuries. It has nothing to do with Abu Ghraib, wrong interpretation of the Geneva Conventions or Club Gitmo.

They have been dismembering, disemboweling and mutilating corpses long before there was a United States, an Israel or a George Bush.

Anonymous said...

Mike, all that was implied by me was not to join those sub humans to do behedings and carbombings etc. Nothing was mentioned about fighting but I will never surrender to animalistic need in some of us to become barbaric brutalizer. If this somehow goes against you priciples, so be it. The question arises, though, what would be achieved by introducing atrocities done by our bastards instead of theirs. In the final analysis, the civilians would still be beheaded and carbombed. Our values which we keep, deservedly so, on a higher plateau should be maintained not only during a peacetime but especially during a war. Your logic escapes me, Mike.

Anonymous said...

PEKKA- If you go back and read my comment, I don't really see anywhere that I mentioned committing atrocities. Atrocities are uncalled for in any war. What I did say was that we must take the shackles off of our troops and let them fight. You cannot fight a war when every soldier has a lawyer and a reporter attached to his leg telling him when he can't shoot or when he can. Nor can you fight a war when you have to depend on the politicians and MSM back home deciding what you should and shouldn't do in the heat of battle. As I stated before, that's how we "lost" the Vietnam war. "Papa Cronkite" reporting to the American people that we were soundly beaten during the '68 Tet offensive. And Johnson shaking in his boots when Cronkite reported that. On that I call Bullshit, history has already shown that the Viet Cong were soundly beaten during Tet and if correctly reported and backed up by the American people, our soldiers would have continued to do their jobs. Even the North Vietnamese stated that they were roundly beaten during Tet. And as a personal note, in my little part of the Tet Offensive, I saw no allied defeat, but one hell of a lot of dead and running Cong.

I have become indistinguishable from the Taliban? How in the hell can you justify that statement? Did I state that I wanted to oppress a country with misguided religious ferver? Did I state that I wanted to subjugate the female population under barbaric conditions? Did I state that I wanted to destroy everything not directly connected to my twisted religious beliefs? I don't think so. I think that you should go back and re-read my comments and this time take off your rose colored liberal glasses and concentrate on the statements and not your Utopian views of what the world is and see the world for what it really is.

"Before I say anything, I want to make perfectly clear that these indiscriminate suicide bombings, behedings, kidnappings and brutalities to innocent civilians by the Jihadists fill me with the utter revulsion. There is no concievable grounds, whether religious or other wise, to justify any of that. I hate them with passion but I refuse to become one of them by resorting to the similar methods"

You know in the statement you made above, you never mentioned that you wanted to do anything about these atrocities. They "fill you with utter revulsion" and you "hate them with a passion", but what.........? What are you going to do about it? Sit there and wring your hands and let a little tear fall or maybe a little quiver in your lip (ala Slick Willy) before you return to your American Idol or your Game Boy? I'm sure that the terrorists are shaking in their boots and are ready to fold their tents and go home at the thought of Pekka's hatred and revulsion. Wake up and get a pair of gonads. If these actions of the terrorists revolt you so much and you so hate their actions, why don't you join one of the services and help rid the world of these types of people?

You're right, "MOONBAT" is an appropriate monicker for you.

AndyJ

Anna said...

The Islamic nutjobs running loose are as evil as the NKVD apparatchiks who shot Russian soldiers retreating from the dreaded Finnish ski troops in the Winter War.

As Anna, AndyJ, and Mike said, to which I concur, let the soldiers fight their war without being fettered. If wrong doing happens, there will be consequences. Cally got prison time. Slovak was shot for running away in WWII. The Abu Ghraib idiots are being convicted by US military courts. If the military trial system fails, then drag in civilian ambulance chasers and the IWC if the event has you that ticked off. BTW how goes the Yugoslavian war crime trials? Or the Rwanda Genocide trials, only been like ten years and harldy any convictions. Unlike Gitmo. Or Nuremburg.

Tet destroyed the whole Viet Cong infrastructre in South VietNam. Victor Charlie lost thousands upon thousands of fighters. But US nightly news onl showed the Battle of Bunker's Bunker as the US retook a small building in the US Embassy compound that 19 VC occupied. Not the crushing defeats handed out to the VC throughout the countryside. And then LBJ got to see Uncle Walter destroy the will of America with just a few words about VietNam being unwinable on the news, the Chicago 7 and Kent State became almost inevitable after that.

Four years later during the Easter 1972 offensive, mostly South VietNamese forces with American airpower stopped the North VietNamese Army cold. What is the difference between VC and NVA? VC are guerilla fighters, irregular troops. NVA are troops under the Geneva Conventions of a recognized power who wear uniforms and such. Easter 1972, there were no effective VC cadres to rise up so the regular army of Ho Chi Minh took a stab. They got trounced at places like An Loc.

Overall the American sodlier is incapable of being a stone cold sadistic killer. Think of the American dogface slogging through the Dragon's Teeth and seeing this emanciated waif of a German child, offering that kid a choclate bar. Or the Berlin Airlift. Or in Kirkut where American soldiers were warning the civilians that they need to stay away from the US soldiers because some thugs might try to car bomb everyone; as it came to pass those soldiers and civlians were car bombed.

America and its citizens are not to be feared unless you gravely anger them, to which the nutjobs preaching a global caliphate have done. Yammaoto knew what tiger he toyed with but Japan demanded a miracle from him. So he gave them Operation Hawaii and due to incompetence at the Japanese Embassy in DC, the wrath of America was awakened. It would not be slaked until mushroom clouds rose over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That is something the nutjobs need to learn: their barbarity has lethal consequences for them.

Anonymous said...

OK people, I think it's time to move along! Bag my bags, roll my sleeping carpet, and run for the cover. Mike, you are relentless man, and when you don't like somebody that means for a lifetime.

My precieved crime this time is that I don't want to become like Taliban. I have no way of knowing how this sentiment could cause such an uproar, but it did! I have to be frank and say, that there seems to be an unbridgeable void between our thinking processes and no matter if I even agree with you you would make argument out of it.

Mike, I did my best to have civilized debating with you and when it turned out to be the mission impossible, I left. Now you are tangled in my hair once again and I am getting tired of you and your childlishness. You annoy me not because of you intellect but because the lack of it. I just do not want to deal with you, so, I bid you farewell once again.

Anna puna, it was a pleasure while it lasted. Solong, and don't forget to put that Gouda down and take your wooden clogs off when you go to bed! :)

Anonymous said...

PEKKA-

Are you sure that you are tucking tail and running from the right debater? Mike only made one comment and you consider that being "tangled in your hair once again"? Please allow me to "Fisk" your last comment.

"OK people, I think it's time to move along! Bag my bags, roll my sleeping carpet, and run for the cover. Mike, you are relentless man, and when you don't like somebody that means for a lifetime."

Ah, a true liberal factoid. When times get tough, time to cut and run. And where in ANY of the comments made did it state that any of the commentators don't like you? Good grief, do you have to drag out the victim role so quickly? Pekka, we all love you, you seem so warm and fuzzy. There does that make it better, does that salve your FEELINGS?

"My precieved crime this time is that I don't want to become like Taliban. I have no way of knowing how this sentiment could cause such an uproar, but it did! I have to be frank and say, that there seems to be an unbridgeable void between our thinking processes and no matter if I even agree with you you would make argument out of it."

No, your crime was accusing others of becoming Taliban. No one accused you of being or becoming one. Yes there seems to be an "unbrigeable void" between our thinking processes. We are willing to debate a topic and present facts to back up our point of view. You on the other hand want to throw out a shotgun blast of accusations and expect everyone to take them as gospel truth. And when you cannot back up your side of the argument, you pull back and cry that everyone is picking on you and calling you names.

"Mike, I did my best to have civilized debating with you and when it turned out to be the mission impossible, I left. Now you are tangled in my hair once again and I am getting tired of you and your childlishness. You annoy me not because of you intellect but because the lack of it. I just do not want to deal with you, so, I bid you farewell once again."

I sure hope that you were referring to me and not Mike when you stated that you were tired of my childishness. I think that Mike stated his argument with reason, clarity and feeling. And I can understand why you are "getting tired of you and your childness", when you come to a debate, come prepared with at least some facts and not with emotions and your "feelings". at least then, with facts, you can also play in the debating game and not just stand there and get hit with all of the pitches that are thrown to you. Again you are showing your true character by cutting and running. Thank God all of our service men and women don't have your tremendous strength and fortitude.

Oh please come back little Pekka, when you are more prepared and maybe we will play some more.

AndyJ

Anonymous said...

Well, I must apologize, after reading comments on other columns on your blog, Anna, I see that Pekka and Mike have a long and glorious history together. Sorry Mike that I stepped into your tete-a-tete with Pekka. I didn't realize that Pekka was multitasking comments on two blogs at once. Oh well, it was still fun

AndyJ

Mike's America said...

Oh Andy... Don't apologize. You got a shot of the frustration that I felt in trying to discuss these issues with Pekka:

"You know in the statement you made above, you never mentioned that you wanted to do anything about these atrocities. They "fill you with utter revulsion" and you "hate them with a passion", but what.........?

I couldn't have said it better myself. All we get from the left are complaints about what they think we are not doing right. Never anything on how they would do it better.

Pekka's trapped in a bubble of leftwing mind control that never seems to offer practical, effective solutions to the truly life and death issues we face.

And I don't know if I have mentioned this to Anna before, but the moral relevance that some on the left, perhaps Pekka as well, use to equate what happened to our troops who were so savagely mutilated in Iraq with the panty torture at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo shows a glaring and willful ignorance of history.

I was reminded of this while reading some of the descriptions by Winston Churchill of the Muslims he fought in India (now Pakistan) and the Sudan. Muslim fanatics have been committing these barbaric and evil atrocities since long before there was a United States or Israel. Let alone George Bush.

We must defeat these monsters. And we will continue to do so following rules of engagement which show the utmost respect for innocent non combatants. Sometimes even to the point of sacrificing our own troops. Incidents of US misconduct are so rare they can be counted on one hand with fingers left over.

That's what makes us different from the Taliban.

And last time I checked, women's fingernails were no longer being pulled out in Afghanistan for the woman's crime of wearing nail polish.

It's too bad Pekka packed it in. Some people thought there was a glimmer of hope there. I wonder.

Mike's America said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Mike's America said...

dang it. Dupe comments again. I wonder if it's not something screwy about this IE7 beta I am using.

IT SUCKS!

Anna said...

Well Pekka I am sorry to see you feel that way. You take care and try to stay warm.

Mike and AndyJ, I don't think there is anything I could add. We are not the Taliban and panties on the head is not the same as cutting a hand off for thievery or as Iran did in the early days of their revolution use razor blades on the lips of women still wearing lipstick.

But we have to be on guard least we do slip over to the Dark Side. And so far we are being that wary.