bigmacbear (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bigmacbear) wrote2004-05-12 07:50 pm
bigmacbear) wrote2004-05-12 07:50 pm
Idiots in Iraq
Over on the Bears Mailing List, someone mentioned a New York Times article which discusses the possible release of images showing American soldiers having sex with one another at Abu Ghirab prison, and he thinks we should be on the alert for right-wingers trying to shift the blame for the abuses in Iraq onto gays in the military.
My response follows.
Uh, if they are the same two American soldiers who were depicted in the pictures already plastered all over the news media, they are a man and a woman. So there may or may not be any pictures of male-male sex.
Which doesn't make the taking of the pictures any less idiotic, in my humble opinion. Why generate evidence that can so easily be used against you, not only at a court-martial but in the all-important court of world public opinion? What really makes me angry about this whole thing is the way these photos were used to justify the disproportionately heinous murder of an American civilian job-seeker in Iraq.
My response follows.
Uh, if they are the same two American soldiers who were depicted in the pictures already plastered all over the news media, they are a man and a woman. So there may or may not be any pictures of male-male sex.
Which doesn't make the taking of the pictures any less idiotic, in my humble opinion. Why generate evidence that can so easily be used against you, not only at a court-martial but in the all-important court of world public opinion? What really makes me angry about this whole thing is the way these photos were used to justify the disproportionately heinous murder of an American civilian job-seeker in Iraq.
no subject
1. Abuse of prisoners. Why the hell would anyone take pictures of this??? I'm sure stuff like this has happened in other wars. Just talk to any Viet Nam vet and they will tell you. Did they take pictures? NO! So we either have some extremely stupid and undisciplined soldiers at which point they do need to be court-martialled along with their superiors for letting it happen, or we have someone faking the pics to stir things up.
2. Beheading of Nick Berg. I will not watch the video. Period. We knew the Iraqi's and the radical Muslims wouldn't play fair when Dubya decided to invade Iraq. The called Jihad, in which there are no civilians....any American is fair game. Killing in the name of their religeon is not only perfectly OK, it guarantees their place in Paradise, at least in their mind. Personally, I find that a pretty twisted and perverse view on religeon. But who am I to talk. I talk to trees and animals.
no subject
When people start killing in the name of the greater good, you just KNOW we are back at Animal Farm. The people of Iraq have spent so long in Animal Farm, a lot of them don't know what the outside is like. This is not really about God - this is as usual about power and who can hang on to it in post Saddam Iraq.
Any truly religious (Islamic) zealots would do well to be reminded of the example set by Salah ad-Din (an Iraqi-Kurd) who beat King Richard's Christian Crusaders - but let them retreat instead of slaughtering them like he could of.