Eye for an Eye...

[RavenWhitefang]

This is what it results in when there is war. (http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/11/09/wirq109.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/11/09/ixnewstop.html) Useless killings, and the misplaced joys of revenge from a kill. This sickens and saddens me to hear of anyone doing this. These things happened in the movies you see about the Vietnam war, how "exhilerating" it is to make the kill, or to avenge someone. It is a HUMAN LIFE for crying out loud, how much worse does it need to get before something is done?

[dutchie]

Bullshit, Micky. These guys are plainly killing for FUN, not for a higher purpose. And this LRAS instrument they're using reduces the enemy to easy targets. "It's like a video game..."

It's not a GAME. It's about human life, indeed.

How would you have reacted when you would have seen this article in an Arab journal, talking about the fun these guys have when killing off American troops?!? I am sure you would have been outraged.

[VegasRonin]

How would you have reacted when you would have seen this article in an Arab journal, talking about the fun these guys have when killing off American troops?!? I am sure you would have been outraged. There's no need to read about in an Arab article Dutchie. We've all seen the footage of Iraqis jumping and dancing on exploded/demolished Allied vehicles, and even dragging our soldiers around after they're killed. These atrocities are committed by Iraqi non-comabatants as well as the so called freedom fighters/terrorists. Its been brought up before, and I'll say it again. When you're fighting against an enemy, its common practice to dehumanize your opponent. This makes it easier, mentally, to kill your opponent; as well as assimilating back into society once the fighting is over. Its a mind fuq, that's all. One can consider himself a soldier and not a killer/murderer. Just about everyone has heard stories of Vietnam Vets flippin out and going crazy. The burden of war is a heavy load to carry in one's psyche. I'm for whatever brings the guys home, without them being cold blooded killers upon their return. I know, it sounds like a contradiction, but irony can sometime be cruel.

[RavenWhitefang]

I understand having to be cold and hard when fighting, desensitizing and all, but this goes way beyond that. This is sheer enjoyment of it.

[Keeblergiant]

If you're gonna kill someone...why not make it fun? Hell, it's not like the soldiers had a personal attachment to the people they were shooting...I don't see why they should care (or atleast that's the way I see it...but I've been told that I don't seem to value life as much as I should). And it's not like enjoyment was the only purpose of killing them, because I do believe it is wrong to kill just for enjoyment.

[dutchie]

I understand having to be cold and hard when fighting, desensitizing and all, but this goes way beyond that. This is sheer enjoyment of it.

My point exactly.


If you're gonna kill someone...why not make it fun? Hell, it's not like the soldiers had a personal attachment to the people they were shooting...I don't see why they should care (or atleast that's the way I see it...but I've been told that I don't seem to value life as much as I should). And it's not like enjoyment was the only purpose of killing them, because I do believe it is wrong to kill just for enjoyment.

In my book killing for fun is sheer barbarism. All you guys brought out the wrong arguments to justify it, but I don't care. It's horrible. And don't talk about the US casualties being 1,200 - how about the Iraqi casualties? Almost a HUNDREDFOLD?!?

[Emerald_Dragon]

>If you're gonna kill someone...why not make it fun?

because it would desensitize you when it comes 2nd nature?
what happens when you re-enter society, return to civilation, and someone insults you? it would be out of nature, not to react appropriately.


there's an old chinese story that tells of a farmer who is harrassed by a bunch of bandits. after being beaten badly, he spends the next couple years learning martial arts at a monastery. he emerges and enacts revenge, justice, and kills his antagonists with his bare hands. then returns to farming. but well, can't.
his touch kills rather than creates. he can't go back because he's come so far.

learn from it, or live it to learn it. the choice is yours.

>because I do believe it is wrong to kill just for enjoyment.

i guess you haven't played games like Doom3, Unreal Tourney 2004, Halflife 2, etc.
'Halo', maybe?

Its just a game, but hey, what are they simulating?



> how about the Iraqi casualties? Almost a HUNDREDFOLD?!?

some would say that's "acceptable losses". let them enlist.

[lotrfan55345]

If you're gonna kill someone...why not make it fun? Hell, it's not like the soldiers had a personal attachment to the people they were shooting...I don't see why they should care (or atleast that's the way I see it

Why should the firefighters get the little baby in the house thats burning down? Why should the police try to find the robber who stole your watch?
Why should the paramedics try to save you if you are in a car crash?
Why should teachers try to teach kids?

These people don't have any "personal atachment" do they? Really, If I was an Iraqi - I would LOVE to be shot at and killed for an allied soldier's personal enjoyment!

[Keeblergiant]

In my book killing for fun is sheer barbarism.

Killing with the only justification being fun is wrong...but I find it perfectly acceptable if you are killing for another reasonable reason and making it fun.




because it would desensitize you when it comes 2nd nature?

I see killing as more than nature, but as instinct. Any sane human would kill under the right circumstances...the circumstances are what vary from human to human, not the aspect of killing itself.


i guess you haven't played games like Doom3, Unreal Tourney 2004, Halflife 2, etc.

Yes...in fact, I love violent games. However, it's a videogame...not real life.



Why should the firefighters get the little baby in the house thats burning down? Why should the police try to find the robber who stole your watch?
Why should the paramedics try to save you if you are in a car crash?
Why should teachers try to teach kids?


The firefighters aren't killing the little baby. The police aren't killing the robber, the paramedics aren't killing me, the teachers aren't killing the kids. I was talking about taking life...not helping life. Believe it or not, people enjoy helping others...it is it's own justification. My point was that if you don't know the person, and you wouldn't have cared about them while they were alive...why care about them when they're dead? If people felt pain for everyone that died the world would be a very sad place.

[lotrfan55345]

The firefighters aren't killing the little baby. The police aren't killing the robber, the paramedics aren't killing me, the teachers aren't killing the kids. I was talking about taking life...not helping life. Believe it or not, people enjoy helping others...it is it's own justification. My point was that if you don't know the person, and you wouldn't have cared about them while they were alive...why care about them when they're dead? If people felt pain for everyone that died the world would be a very sad place.

Because I know that someone else is grieving for said dead person. I may not be truly sad, but knowing someone is truly sad deters me from killing people for my own personal satisfaction if there were no laws forbidding that.

[Keeblergiant]

Because I know that someone else is grieving for said dead person. I may not be truly sad, but knowing someone is truly sad deters me from killing people for my own personal satisfaction if there were no laws forbidding that.

Ah..that is where we differ. As long as I don't care about the person grieving, I wouldn't care.

[Emerald_Dragon]

>My point was that if you don't know the person, and you wouldn't have cared
>about them while they were alive...why care about them when they're dead?

yeah, i'd say you don't value life.

you're saying so long as you don't know who's dying, you wouldn't care whether or not they were killed. make fun while at it. enjoy it while it lasts. yeah, you're going to grow up pretty messed up. i pity you.

its good that very few people think like you, the world would be much worse than it is. i don't know who you are, but if you were killed because of terrorists, i'd care. I'd care because it could have been me and I would do what I could, to prevent strangers from having to sharing the same fate.

Just because the United States Gov't declares war on a 3rd world country, in a last ditched effort to remain the last superpower, doesn't mean that its citizens should have to die or suffer needlessly, anonymously, by the hands of the surviving relatives of Falluja seeking revenge, because a stray missile hitting their wedding party [conjecture]. They welcomed us until we shot them.

[Keeblergiant]

you're saying so long as you don't know who's dying, you wouldn't care whether or not they were killed.

Yep, pretty much. But, it is not "so long as I don't know who's dying", but rather "so long as I don't care about who's dying."


I'd care because it could have been me

...but it wasn't, so why should you care?

[lotrfan55345]

A hypothetical question for you, Keebler: If I was sitting here typing this in Fallujah, with me having the possibility of being killed by "collateral damage", would you care?

[Keeblergiant]

Yes, I would care...because you would not be just a random person over there, but somebody that I've interacted with, and enjoyed a conversation (if that's what you would call this) with. In a sense of the word, I care about you (I'm trying to make that seem as non-gay as possible)...

[dutchie]

Jesus H. Christ, you're a tough bastard aren't you?!? Saying this from behind a cozy desk, holding a warm mug of cofee... I wonder how you would react when you were given a gun and ordered to enter Fallujah. I bet you'd shit your pants. I know I would. I'm certain lots of Iraqis are just as terrified as you and I would be. So if you wouldn't know them, you wouldn't mind killing?!? Man...

[dutchie]

Unknowingly - and probably unwillingly - you just posted your #1 sarcastic remark, Micky.... :Bott:

[DontBeAfraid]

dutchie, keebler is too young for coffee....

I doubt he is the killer he thinks he is.

[dutchie]

A 16 year old? Almost 17? And no coffee?

I guess you're right. Probably a killer behind the joystick.
Although... when I think back at Columbine High, there is a shiver running down my spine...

[playmaker88]

Every moment that a soldier wastes thinking about his target is another moment lost, that moment could lose him his target or make him or his comrades the target. If this is how this particular soldier deals with the gravity of his situation then so be it. The man he shot was an enemy, an armed enemy who given half the chance would have taken him and the rest of his troop out without blinking an eye, celebrated enthusiastically and then felt that he'd booked his way to eternal hero worship in the next life.

You don't have to like it but it is a part of war. I don't like the words and in ten years time the soldier himself (if he survives) might not think much of his words but I understand it, I really do...Whatever it takes, maybe it is just my military training but I understand it.

During my time in the Air Force I would've loved to catch a member of the Irish Republican Army planting a load of semtex at the foot of a barrack block and I would enjoy pulling the trigger and wasting the coward as he reached for his sidearm while spotting me. I wouldn't have made much of a soldier had I thought otherwise. I actually empathise with what the IRA was fighting for, Ireland should be Ireland, all of it, but a terrorist is a coward who runs through the shadows and kills indiscriminately, they enter quietly, leave devastation and retire unaffected.

The only way to defeat such people is to attain a disciplined mindset where your reactions are not affected by anything. If once you've done the deed you spout off some bs about how easy it was and how good it would be to do it again as a way of maintaining that mindset, so be it.

This soldier may or may not agree that the USA and their allies should be there (especially after losing close friends) but the fact of the matter is that he is and while he's there he is going to do his utmost to keep himself and his comrades alive. He is doing his best and probably believes that he is doing it for the good of the Iraqi people as a whole.

When you send journalists into these situations and want every little bit of information from them, you are going to get a picture of what it takes, even with my training I can't begin to imagine what these guys are going through. At any moment death can come and not necessarily a nice quick death either. You don't have to deal with it, these soldiers do.

I feel another Vietnam coming on, not necessarily because the USA can't win this war but because the people who offer their lives for their country in the honest belief that they are the good guys and fighting for the rights of the free people are going to get nothing but disapproval on their return. No wonder the vets go haywire. It stinks to high heaven.

[RavenWhitefang]

It seems like a skrewed up logic to me, its not some game that they are hunting for the thrill of it, but it seems as if that is what they are doing and making it out to be. "You must consider your enemy as an animal"....but they're not. I had often thought of such a thing before I took my tests to go into the military, always thought I'd end up cold hearted, with out emotion, period, if I had to kill someone, rather than reveling in their blood. All I can say is that I'm glad I never made it in, I think id shoot myself before reacting like that. Then again at the time, dont know if they do it now, women werent put at the front in the Marines.

[Bigsky770]

. . ."Playmaker88" hasn't already? There are never any EASY DECISIONS to be made, ESPECIALLY for a SOLDIER. Wartime aside, I do have something else to add, though from another perspective. Part of my past training is as a medical technician. Because of what I know, if it should be that I come upon the scene of an accident, I am obliged BY LAW to assist and aid in whatever means necessary. My wife is an acting RN, she is also 'obliged' to do like. I have been in the field (medical) for easily 15 years, my wife almost as many, and we've both seen quite a bit. People you cannot save because they are too-badly mangled from wrecks, need the 'jaws' just to be extracted/or have gone into cardiac arrest under other circumstances. One of the worst I had ever come upon was a car full of kids, drunk and partying, wrecked in a '69 Buick skylark, the girl I found in the backseat (15 years old) was dead upon impact/one of her girlfriends left alive was sitting on the sidewalk trying desperately to replace one of her eyes back into her head/what do you say to something like this? are you not diminished to some degree although you did not KNOW them? What about the ones you try to bring back with CPR, working on them so-long you feel their ribs pop, while you wait for the EMT's to get there, only to find out later they were DOA anyway? You ask yourself WTF is it all for? But you keep going, for there will be a time when your being there WILL MATTER. There's always time to cry, later. These people were somebody's child/father/sister/brother/mother, whatever, and they were loved just as much and as dearly as those who are closest to you are loved and cherished.

. . .In closing I would have to say, though I've done my best efforts at trying to SAVE lives/would I not take the life of one who, (for instance) had attempted to try to kill one of those whom I love? Of course I would, do what I had to do to save the life of one of them, as opposed to watching the defenseless die. I would feel bad (to a limited degree) that they had attempted such, and I would regret that they had tried, but nonetheless, I would KNOW I DID what HAD TO BE DONE. I think as much anyone would.

Thoughts? Joe (Bigsky770)

[Emerald_Dragon]

> but a terrorist is a coward who runs through the shadows and kills indiscriminately,

yes. i agree. but i also see why they do it.

the "brave" [suicidal] Iraqi armed forces were routed south of Baghdad, the survivors are undoubtedly still fighting the only way they know how, to get their country back. Much like the IRA bombers fought their conquerors. Even the new Iraqi army, mustered and trained by the U.S., seems to be "turning", or rather, re-turning to fight for the Fallujans.

Sure, they're cowardly, all the brave ones are dead.



>This soldier may or may not agree
>....
>It stinks to high heaven.

i agree and could not have expressed the paradox, better. they have to do what it takes to stay alive. There's an axiom that goes something like,
"the greatest evil, was born of the best [good] intentions"

what do you do, when both sides believe what they are doing, is right and just?

[playmaker88]

the "brave" [suicidal] Iraqi armed forces were routed south of Baghdad, the survivors are undoubtedly still fighting the only way they know how, to get their country back. Much like the IRA bombers fought their conquerors. Even the new Iraqi army, mustered and trained by the U.S., seems to be "turning", or rather, re-turning to fight for the Fallujans.

Sure, they're cowardly, all the brave ones are dead.

There are ways and means of going about expressing your beliefs. Plenty of good Irish people wanted the same as the bombers, however they didn't go around bombing innocent civilians going about their christmas shopping or World War II heroes attending a memorial service to remember their fallen comrades. There are choices. Don't seem to recall 'suicide' ever really being an issue with the IRA either?



what do you do, when both sides believe what they are doing, is right and just?

Ironically, in many cases throughout history, both sides didn't just believe they were right, they probably were both in the right and often enough both sides have been in the wrong too, so little, if anything is black and white. I have already said that whether they were right or not to enter Iraq in the first place is still open to debate, however, the issue in this thread that I was responding to was about allied soldiers and how they go about doing their work, the fact is that the soldiers are there and they need to kill people who want to kill them and they don't want to kill innocent civilians. We can type about rights and wrongs all day long but tonight we will sleep safe in the knowledge that we'll wake up tomorrow.