Originally Posted by Dark Messiah

Funnily enough, military training consists of teaching people to do exactly this. Being a soldier is a responsible job. It's not unreasonable to expect a certain level of competence from the people doing it. We ask them to perform their jobs rationally not only to save civilian lives, but to save their own.

You're completely, 100% fucking wrong on this. While cops and soldiers get leeway for reasonable mistakes, it is idiotic to suggest that they can't be arrested for fucking up. It is precisely because the job is so important and high pressure that a level of order must be maintained. If you told troops it was perfectly okay to panic and just kill everyone that moves, they would tend to do that.

And blaming Bush is ridiculous. He's not on the ground, and he's certainly not appraised of the details of either incident. Why are you so vehemently opposed to the judicial system in place to keep our troops accountable?



They don't want to get caught in a crossfire between the terrorists who routinely firebomb their homes, and the US troops that routinely firebomb their homes? Look, dude, you can't get it both ways. You can't simultaneously say that our troops don't have to worry about civilian deaths and play by the rules of war and don't have to avoid doing damage to civilians, and then expect the civilians on the ground to see us as saints. Why are they going to stand up to guys with guns for US troops? What have US troops done for them? That's a serious question. What the fuck has the US military done for Iraqi civilians? They got rid of Saddam. And so far, has that been to any profit of actual Iraqis?



Study history.




We've been doing that. I don't know where you got the idea that the military has been walking on eggshells, but it hasn't. In our war against Saddam and against terrorists we have repeatedly fucked up the lives of average Iraqis. And you know what? This is the bullshit that fuels the terrorist recruitment drive.