Afghan girl raped, killed by US troops

reply to post by Gorman91

What?
I read your post. Slayer has this and has that, and he "rights" well..., but mostly he has friends here on ATS. That is good. I am happy for him.
Maybe you read his first post to me on this thread, maybe you didn't, but it helps to read it to gain some perspective. He addressed me with some pretty strong words, and I responded civilly, but I guess you missed that.
It is easy to be a tough guy on ATS, but that is not the point of this post.
I do not believe a person should hold beliefs just because they are popular, or widely held. My beliefs are not popular, nor widely held, but they are strong beliefs. I can get a bit fired up, I admit.
This country is being bled dry by the military industrial complex, and young people are having their lives destroyed. I do not think that I have to bring "sources" for this statement. If you don't know how bad these wars are for everyone involved, even people like me that refuse to have anything to do with them, they YOU are just NOT paying attention. What we are doing is nothing short of criminal. Period.
I will pay the price for this foolishness, just like you and Slayer will. But, you see, I came out against it from day one, and this is not my first. I have been around since Vietnam, and maybe you know how many young people were screwed up by that war, or maybe you don't. War is murder. It is a crime. Saving people by killing them is not really much of an answer.
So, get back to admiring the latest weaponry, I just thought I would clear up some things for you.

reply to post by Stewie


Man, you sound pretty principled there, being all self-sacrificing like you are and stuff here on ATS.

Perhaps you could apply some of your hard-earned wisdom and worldliness by joining the United States Army now, or maybe the Marine Corp, just to show all of those silly knuckle-dragging ground-pounders just how one of you stature and intellect would solve international terrorism.

reply to post by Stewie


Also, I might add that the servicemen and women who served in VietNam were the most well-educated, most highly trained and best adjusted fighting force that had been fielded in the history of warfare to that point.

Disparaging them here by falling back on the lie that they were all drug-addled murdering psychopaths won't get you much traction here.

Sorry.

reply to post by Stewie

You may have been around since Vietnam, but from my read, you were the same back then.

Since you're so enlightened, so erudite, your diction so demanding, so experienced over the decades, why don't you tell us some things about Vietnam that we aren't familiar with.

Do tell us of these lives that were irrevocably ruined. How. Why.

War is murder?

This was my first clue that you were FOS.

Accusing folks of murder in war is like handing out jaywalking citations at the Boston Marathon, or handing out speeding tickets at the Daytona 500.

The last time someone called me a murderer to my face based on my combat patch and decorations, was in the San Francisco International airport, and I can assure you, they never again called any soldier a murderer to their face.

I do look forward to the next time. It was so much fun the last time.

You don't need to go around calling soldiers murderers. Accusing them of murder.

They may not be as patient and understanding as me.

reply to post by MMPI2

I am too old to join. I do plenty here back at home, but if I told you, it would just come across as internet bravado. I will leave that to others.
We had the draft in Vietnam. We had a lot of people that didn't want to be there, but were drafted to fight big corps war. The army and marines were not cream of the crop Americans, sorry, but that is the fact. Nevertheless, they didn't deserve to be shipped off by force to fight and die for nothing.
I am principled. I have stood toe to toe arguing by side of the story with people over the years. Often, we have come to agree, war is hell and the little guy gets nothing but scars and maybe a thank you. The point I try to make is, why? Why go there? Why lie to yourself for the rest of your life that you did some good? And it is a lie.
On ATS there are numerous threads about how we are constantly lied to by our government and TPTB, yet people want to believe them when it comes to Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran. Kids like weapons of war, but they really don't want to see the casualties, the victims of war. That's no fun.
Lot of kids on ATS.

reply to post by FarArcher

It was wrong to call you a murderer, unless they had some proof that you killed someone in their own country for no reason other than the fact that you were following orders in a voluntary military.
I suspect, and correct me if I am wrong, but you would get violent for a lot less, right? I mean, if someone said that war is murder, you might get a little "sideways" with them?
That is the common response for a lot of the young military guys, violence. Hang out with some old Vietnam vets that got screwed over by our government, hell even Iraqi vets. They are not hard to find.

reply to post by Stewie

Your beliefs and the strengths you clench to them are irrelevant. There are 6 billion people on the planet. And that's divided, extremely roughly, to 1/3 Christian, 1/3 Muslim, and 1/3 Asiatic religions. Clearly somebody is wrong. And no matter how much they clench, they probably are going to hell. Unless everyone's wrong, and in which case, who cares about beliefs anyway? If you don't have proof, you don't have a claim. You have a belief. And belief's are as relevant in a discussion as the Pope is in Iran.

The Military Industrial Complex, historically, has always made a nation better. In fact historically, once the nation begins to become just an industrial complex and lose the army's support and stop caring for it, it falls. Examples include Rome, Ancient dis-unified Greece, Persia, Russia, revolutionary England and France, Revolutionary America, pre-60s America, Ottoman Empire, Byzantium Empire, even Nazi Germany. More on that later. Could go on. I'd say that an enlightened, educated army with ties to the industry of a nation and her militia can effectively render freedom a constant, and the government a hostage of the people. I'd say George Washington was the best manager of such a system. he made sure his enlightened philosophy emulated throughout the ranks. People like Alexander Hamilton, arguable America's first psychopath, were locked out of power as a direct result of the strong unity between the Army and the enlightened industrialist. Now I know the words "beware the military industrial complex" can ring a strong echo to the modern age, but I think that's because the 60s, in general, were a miserable failure in government, military, and industry. You had a government overrun by cocky people who thought that because they won WW2 they were on top of the world, then you had the paranoid people who thought Communism would kill their way of life, and then you had the democrats of the day, whom were more or less very bad people, calling from a tradition starting in the 1870s. By the 70s and 80s it was massing into something very bad which the direct result is the government we see today.

However, historically, the military industrial complex was the best bet for the people's continued freedom and education. Ancient Rome had "the mob" rule. In their republic era, the mob was the real power of Rome. Some knew this, and so did what the people wanted in order to gain power. And they feared for their lives. Even into Imperial Rome, Rome feared the people. The emperor became a viceroy to serving the people. If he did not, another man rallies the people and knocked him out. Eventually Rome decided to cut down on the army's position, and the cocky leaders began taking what they wanted. It all gets hazy there after, but the results were the Dark ages, with the army became just a tool, rather than a force of the people with responsibility. The idea regained power later on, and for some time that was how Italy was ruled. Families did what the people wanted, or they were kicked out. Women and men who were with the knowledgeable people. The elites, more or less the church of the time, were worried. They were losing the power they'd had since the Dark ages. But as times went on, the elites lost the ability to maintain power. And so they fell from grace in many nations. Eventually it culminated in America into the revolution. Washington and his army were responsible for protecting the people's rights. And the government answered to the people, or were at risk. Washington had to even tell the army to calm down a bit when they were's getting payed. He really was a kind of peace keeper between the elites and the army. This was known as the Newburgh Conspiracy. Arguable the first time that the elites and the enligtened people peacefully worked together in America for a common goal. Anyway, that system began to collapse by the time the 1900s rolled around. And by 1960 was in full disarray. Today it continues, and to be honest, the future is quite clear on the matter. Eventually someone of an enlightened stature is going to take back the army, and that will come around the same time that the Generals now start dieing off or retiring and get replaced with a new generation of generals whom, as far as I can tell, are beginning to become more enlightened again. Not to mention the Army itself is increasingly becoming such. Since the 1990s, the army has been arguable becoming more so into the same intelligence and knowing that the continental army was. The pieces haven't quite lined up yet, but rest assured, when they do, this particular individual, or group of individuals, is going to probably have a very revolutionary event for him to take back what was once America. Now this could become violent and a sort of civil war, or it could be quite peaceful and imagined as tanks and US army personnel marching on Washington, burning down the federal buildings like the Federal Reserve and what not, and telling congress to get lost, then new elections with a ban on anyone rich or an incumbent.

Now, that's all I have to say on that issue, so I'll move on.

Yes, what we are doing is Criminal. Because it's war. Like I said, war is a crime. Killing your fellow man is a crime. To say it any other way is wrong. There's just one catch, the side that loses gets to go free, so long their soldiers didn't do as the original topic at hand was about. And rest assured, if there is evidence, they are put on trial.

Now I don't know why you would say something so preposterous as saying wars are doing bad, and that they are criminal. As the same is true for any war. There is no good side and no bad side in war. Just two sides of people killing with different ideas. What counts is their ideas, not their sides. And in this particular situation, no matter how bad America has been, it's ideas are better than who we are fighting. That's all that matters. Now what happens as a result of that depends. if you go and blatantly kill civilians for no good reason, then that's bad. because they're not shooting at you. Arguably, if an area has lots of civilians but your enemy is there, they are unfortunately in the line of fire. And if a siege does not work, you have to go in. Civilians WILL die, but it will not be without cause. In which case it is just sad, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Saving people by killing others pretty much is the only way to do it in these situations. And you know who's fault that is? Everyone's. Because people just think that way. Now it's great and all that you're against that, but the fact is that nobody really wants to go to war, unless they're brain washed. And in which case, them going to war and getting killed benefits all in the long run. Not to be sounding so flat out crude, but it's true.

So yea, you can continue your beliefs in peace. That's nice. But everyone wants peace. At least the sane people do. So that's not exactly an argument. yes I know Vietnam messed people up, as has every war. But like I said, I think that has to do with the period in question, seeing as most wars did not mess people up that much. And seeing as we pretty much walked through Vietnam in WW2 without a problem fighting the Japanese, I would go so far as to argue that the government was just being dumb and didn't care enough. Now sorry for what happened there, but to be frank to you, I don't care about your homo-centric "I was there so I'm right" argument standpoint. War sucks. I'd also go so far as to argue that the normalization of violence from video games to people like me means that it's not that big of an idea for me. When I see a dead person, the honest first thought I have is to say a prayer for them. Then I don't care, because that's a corpse. It's time is over in this world. Burn or bury it so we don't have diseases. When I sleep, 90% of the time it's a war dream. And yes, they're disturbing. They haunt me. The faces of people being shredded. But if it's going to happen, then it's going to happen. Nothing you can do about death. I'm not messes up from it. I just carry on, as the British say. Or maybe I'm just born not to worry about it. First time I played paintball I never got shot until hours into the game, and it was a headshot. I was dead and down.


But hey, we degrees.

Let's get back on topic.

here is the facts. People who do things in war that are bad, like rape, are reported and investigated. if you chose not to report it, you are doing the world an injustice. And in this modern world, there will likely be proof if it happened.

So not every soldier is like that. Many soldiers are normal chaps, unphased by war. And arguably, as my generation enters into the age to go to war, very likely our normalization to it will make us ready for it. But at the same time, our violent defense for the rights of man means we will not do as this soldier, at least not commonly. In the end, my generation is a throwback, but a good one. We have the violent need to defend the rights of man, just like the revolutionaries who founded this nation. At the same time, in as much as those revolutionaries had experience because their leaders and fathers fought in the 1750 French Indian war, our generation has experience from paint ball, video games, etc etc. We are used to it. The combination of the two is dangerous, as I explained above. So the next generation of American soldier will be a very good one indeed. And although one or a few soldiers may do as the soldier here is accused of, the facts are simply. You cannot blame the many based off the few.

I don't think it even matters if this particular story is true. There has been cases like this reported by reliable news sources. Someone was even convicted for this. The thing is that this happens. I don't know how often, but it's atleast one time too many. I think it's just pathetic that people go there and kill thousands of innocent people while everyone in their homecountries act like a victim. Sure you can say "blabla terrorists hate our friidums", "but we're protecting afghans from terrorists". I've understood that you attacked first. Americans were in Afghanistan before 9/11. Not saying they had the right to attack America, but what the hell were you expecting? If some people in some country are killing eachother, I'll say just let them do it. Yes, I'm serious. If they are so damn retarded they can't get a long, then go ahead and wipe yourself out. They won't spread around 'till the other side is dead, and by then, they are too weak to cause any harm to the rest of the world. I'm all in for world peace, but I'm not offering help to someone who doesn't want it. Too bad that's not the case of this war anyway. This war is just too profitable. And they might have had a chance of actually working their things out. Can't let that happen with their precious natural recources, now can you?

reply to post by Gorman91

You say beliefs are irrelevant, but what you posted are your beliefs about history and why wars have been fought through the ages, among other things.
These are YOUR beliefs. If you brought sources, it would be THEIR beliefs about what transpired and why.
I look at whom benefits (through the ages), and who doesn't, who gets rich and who gets their wealth stolen from them. how puppets are installed in countries that have resources big corp wants to steal...
Those sorts of REAL things, the history they don't teach.
I have to go, but thanks for the exchange.

reply to post by mamelukkikala

That's just it. The real purpose for war is to further the economic interests of the very few at the top, and big multi-national corporations.
Unfortunately, war is one turd that you CAN polish, but it is still a turd.
And murder.

reply to post by Stewie


But who's belief's have proof? Beliefs by sources makes it true. Now if you want to go into philosophy and "What is truth?", you can start a new topic and invite me.

Now who gets rich? Depends on what year. Resources and money, however, is not a sufficient answer for this war. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the US $1.1 trillion, not to mention the additional trillion we dumped on the economy that is collapsing due to the war, in part.

To weigh that over, ESA and Russia have estimated that a manned mission to Mars would cost 20 billion.

So here's the fact. It would cost you something like 40 billion, half the cost of the war, to go to Jupiter or Saturn and get enough free hydrogen to fuel American cars and industry for hundreds of years.

See that? If these wars are over resources, it would truthfully be cheaper to get them from space than from iraq.

That's the facts. And from a historic perspective, when faced with fighting the Muslims to control the Silk Road, Spain chose to travel x4 the distance in the opposite direction because it was cheaper.

Therefore, your beliefs, no matter how much you cherish them, don't stand up to the monetary facts.

reply to post by Stewie

Yeah, I guess I'm a little funny that way. I much rather go and fight someone on their terrain than wait and have to fight them on mine. Just a silly preference.

And yes, someone gets in my face and calls me murderer, I tend to provide them with a bit of proper education, something their parents should have done, but apparently didn't.

My approach is to instruct in the skill set that falls under the term "social absolutes."

You get rude with someone, just because you believe you have a right to, it's usually an absolute that you're going to get an unpleasant response.

You get in the face of someone just coming back from combat, only hours removed from a firefight they successfully engaged in and won, they're likely to take offense and bob your ears at the very least, and if the following weeks you are fed through a straw - lesson learned.

Some would assume I have a short temper, which would account for my immediate action. Just not so.

In combat, fast is good, and slow is dead. Hesitation will get you killed.

So if something needs doing, there's no use in talking or reasoning with the person that seems hell-bent on a confrontation.

It's just courteous to give them what they want - an immediate reaction.

With literally hundreds of thousands of COMBAT vets walking around the nation today, it's just a real good idea to be polite and never resort to name calling.

You never know who it is you're addressing.

Rape is something a whole lot of US troops just don't hold with.

The other side doesn't have the same position.

These men should be castrated with dull instruments in the public square. 'Nough said.

reply to post by FarArcher

These phantom enemies of yours, they are everywhere aren't they? I mean, they are here at home as well as overseas. They don't have to attack us, me or you, you just have to believe they are your enemy and thus, they become your enemy. Perhaps you believe this enemy has attacked us here at home?
In fact, you are ready to attack me for saying war is murder, because you love war. It is how we as a human race solve problems because it is just THAT easy to get many people to kill. We kill the enemy before they can kill us, but YOU go even further. You are ready to "engage" people that believe you are misguided, and war is murder.
I personally respect a more honest argument, someone that actually knows why they fight and owns up to some reality. Like, the money is good, the government has commitments to our allies, and our economy needs the oil. That sounds reasonable, maybe I could empathize with your reasoning.
Then at least we could disagree based upon reason. Either way, though, the result is the same. Americans don't really need to go overseas and fight wars all over the globe unless some very powerful people NEED us to do so, to retain THEIR power. And YOU are just a pawn, friend. Dispensable.

reply to post by Stewie


stewie man

can't you see that some of these people are proud of what they've done?
don't waste your time man

reply to post by DerepentLEstranger

I agree, they WANT to be proud, and there will be those that give them what they want.
But, not me. And, i don't consider it a waste of time to try to get people to think about what they do.
They won't ask for forgiveness, and be forgiven, if they continue to ignore that voice deep down inside of them that is trying to tell them they are doing bad things. I have seen people make the change. It is worth the effort.

reply to post by Cesearesque


no need for that,
when the combined might of the depleted uranium in their systems, vaccines tested on them , PSTD, and any chem/bio war crap they were exposed to comes down on them like the hammer of justice,
when they start having deformed baby's, when they get shafted by the system they serve re veterans benefits & medical care...

then, maybe then, they'll understand that they were/are dupes
while their masters continue to reap the benefits and live it up.
in the certain knowledge that there is a sucker born every minute


megacurious should just close this thread as it's been hijacked

reply to post by Stewie


I hear you

the difference between a warrior and soldier is certainly worlds apart.

reply to post by MMPI2


sure, dude, try and solve the problem by becoming a part of said problem.

Originally posted by Cesearesque
These men should be castrated with dull instruments in the public square. 'Nough said.

Bring it.