First, from Hot Air, an email encouraging supporters of “Hadji Girl” songster Cpl Belile to resist the PC sensibilities that have turned an ironic, fictional narrative set to music into the newest incarnation of the Danish Mohammed cartoon gambit—a way to delegitimize criticism of “Islamic culture” by claiming “offense” and decrying the “insensitivity” of the offender:
I just got off the phone with [a source in the Pentagon]. The Cpl. reported to me that they were all VERY appreciative of the support and that this was a “Brass†decision… He said they were already getting calls and that it was helping, but they needed to get a lot more to make a difference. It really is helping the Marines to know that they are not alone and that not everyone hates them… He said these calls were making everyone’s day.
I have emailed “The Sweater Kittens†and offered to assist them with any legal representation (should it be required) and highly suggest that the Milbloggers and others make this a STRONGLY CONTESTED issue with the USMC Pentagon bureaucrats for the next week or so. Evidently, according to what I’m being told, how this situation turns out will have far reaching implications within the USMC and with the Marines who are forward deployed. It seems they are discussing a possible new “PC Policy†now for the Marines.
This sucks and I’m willing to go to the mat to fight on this. If we don’t, we’re going to be overrun with a level of PC that will completely destroy the Constitution.
”Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”
Too bad Nabokov isn’t around so that Bill O’Reilly could tie him to NAMBLA and have his teaching credentials pulled.
Anyway, for those of you who aren’t so keen on seeing the idea of free speech surrendered to a philosophically pernicious multiculturalist ploy that would disallow criticism of a given culture by anyone not sanctioned as “authentic” by the culture itself—that is, an idea of speech that would make discourse contingent upon a formulation of “tolerance” subjectively determined by the group being criticized (and so, for all practical purposes, a formulation that will enable such groups to turn any speech not to their liking into “hate speech”)—please express your misgivings by using the following contact information:
Commandant of the Marine Corps
Phone: (703) 614-1034
Fax: (703) 614-2358
Second, Stephen M points me to a story that’s been a long time in coming: “Marine may call Murtha as witness”:
A criminal defense attorney for a Marine under investigation in the Haditha killings says he will call a senior Democratic congressman as a trial witness, if his client is charged, to find out who told the lawmaker that U.S. troops are guilty of cold-blooded murder.
Attorney Neal A. Puckett told The Washington Times that Gen. Michael Hagee, the Marine commandant, briefed Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, on the Nov. 19 killings of 24 Iraqis in the town north of Baghdad. Mr. Murtha later told reporters that the Marines were guilty of killing the civilians in “cold blood.” Mr. Murtha said he based his statement on Marine commanders, whom he did not identify.
Mr. Puckett said such public comments from a congressman via senior Marines amount to “unlawful command influence.” He said potential Marine jurors could be biased by the knowledge that their commandant, the Corps’ top officer, thinks the Haditha Marines are guilty.
“Congressman Murtha will be one of the first witnesses I call to the witness stand,” Mr. Puckett said yesterday.
Mr. Puckett represents Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, an eight-year Marine who was a key participant in the Haditha operations that resulted in the 24 civilian deaths.
In an earlier post on certain political responses to Haditha, I wrote:
I suppose it is easy enough to see soldiers as emblematic of the war you despise, and so to forget that they are individual Americans whose lives hang in the balance. But the ease of such politically-charged boundary blurring between the individual and what the individual represents to you does not excuse it. These soldiers are not simply ribbing on the condom that lubricates what many in the anti-war crowd have come to think of as President Bush’s imperialistic war penis; and so their actions are not “proof†that the neocon oil-worshipers have “raped†a sovereign nation simply because asserting such matches your preconceived notion of the war and its “legality.†Unless, that is, you are one of those people who believes it is okay to sacrifice the individual at the altar of a highly-contested “greater good.â€Â
Such arrogance is more than unbecoming, however: it is anathema to the very idea of individual rights.
It seems to me that what Rep Murtha and a number of other anti-war politicians and spokespeople have done—trying and convicting these Marines in the court of public opinion with the express purpose of using that (dubious, and certainly premature) conviction to condemn the entirety of the war by either implicitly or explicitly suggesting that what happened in Haditha (the particulars of which are still under investigation) is emblematic of the criminality of the entire Iraq adventure—is politics at its most vile.
Because what Murtha and co. have done is reduced the lives of real flesh and blood Marines, men with families and whose freedom will now hang in the balance, to a nodal point in an already hackneyed narrative whose goal it is to connect Iraq to Vietnam, and Haditha to My Lai.
And if you are going to make those kinds of claims, you should be prepared to face certain consequences should it turn out your claims are motivated by something other than available facts.
None of which is meant to suggest that the Haditha Marines didn’t act inappropriately; not being there, I have no idea—but I’m certainly not prepared to convict them based on what has been revealed thus far. Rep. Murtha is and has—and so it makes perfect sense that he be queried by the defense attorneys for the Marines whose honor he has called into question, and who he has accused, publicly, of having committed “cold-blooded murder.”
****
update: Courtesy of Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive, a press release on “Hadji Girl” from “the PAO at MCAS Cherry Point where CPL Bellile is stationed”.
Consequences?
He’s a congressman son, there’s no such thing.
So now it’s imperative to defend a song about killing Iraqi civilians? It’s not “political correctness” to denounce that shit; it’s sensible because the Marines have a hard enough job without that kind of negative PR. I can imagine this “ironic, fictional narrative” getting lots of play on Al Jazeera. Somehow, I doubt most of their viewers will get the irony.
tw: obvious
Buttom line: 2500 KIAs, Over 15,000 wounded and no end in sight.
No progress either, unless you call setting up a puppet government progress. A powerless one at that.
Like that old Pete Seeger tune:
Waist deep, in the big muddy and the damn fool says to push on….
I think we should request a list of all the irony, satire, straight reporting, etc., that the Islamists won’t get and make sure every man, woman, and child in the US be given said list and made to learn it so as to avoid giving offense.
Or else, maybe we can just have CAIR mail everybody in the US a Koran. Paid for by the govt., of course.
lo ping wong: The song is about Iraqi “insurgents” killing a civilian; not about Americans killing civilians.
Bit of a difference there chief.
Ah, Carl “Mr. Sunshine” Goss is back, I see, with his tired claims about hopelessness and lack of progress.
Measures of progress have been provided to you dozens of times, Mr. Sunshine. That you still fail to recognize them proves little more than that your ilk have lost the ability to recognize, much less provide, progress.
That we continue to call your group “progressive” proves that we have a healthy appetite for delicious irony.
I sent the commander an e-mail expressing my support for the troops and my disdain for cair various others. I’m not very good at expressing myself but I just had to put in my 2 cents. I just hate the way they are being treated.
Unfortunatly with the successes in Iraq/Afghanistan I think we’ll see a lot more of this from the msn/leftwing blogs.
God bless our troops
Stop it with your “facts,” Beck. It ruins the story people like lo ping wong like to tell themselves.
And because that makes them uncomfortable, you are dealing in HATE SPEECH!
Here’s the email I just sent (thanks for the email address, Jeff):
“I must protest the treatment of Cpl. Belile and the criticism of his song, “Hadji Girl.†It seems that your command has reacted to the false allegations made by those with agendas that conflict with the best interests of your Marines (and, in some cases, I fear, with our country). The lyrics clearly give lie to those allegations, which some in the media were so quick to believe and spread before checking the facts.
Please support the men and women whose blood and sweat protect our country before the so-called offended sensibilities of anyone.”
God bless our troops.
Idiot troll sez:
No, it’s imperative to defend a Marine who’s done not a damned thing wrong from leftard PC fucknuts and islamist apologists like you who want for us and the Iraqi people to lose for your fucking political gratification.
You’d be wrong. Suck a nut, punk.
It’s turned into a war from within where it should not be. Not that any critical debate should be silenced it’s just that any debate tends to be more of a mud slinging/political posturing contest than true issues. It’s folks like GROSS above that prove to me some people are just fucking clueless. His bottom line will always be a negative no matter the progress made. Sad
It occured to me after reading Carl’s comment that you could save all these leftards some trouble and your regulars some time.
Since you’re handy with signifiers and such, Jeff, maybe you could create an emoticon or something representing a steaming pile of crap and place it alongside Carl’s and others posts. That way we could quickly identify the shit posts and skip over them. Sure it would be ridiculously time consuming but, hey, think of us, man. US. Show us you care.
TW: all the best
I’m sorry Dr. Goldstein, but if the song’s NOT about killing civilians, where’s the “irony?”
Me, I’m on the side of the Marines: ”The video is not reflective of the tremendous sacrifices and dedication demonstrated, on a daily basis, by tens of thousands of Marines who have assisted the Iraqi people in gaining their freedom,” said the Marine Corps spokesman.
Hate speech? Nice straw man ya got there.
Carl, you’re the real author of that email that Sullivan has on his blog, aren’t you? (h/t AoS):
Carl will keep right on badmouthing our progress against the terrorists in Iraq. Why? Because he MUST. If we win, he and his ilk lose.
Its just that simple.
I know all the kool kids are doing lit-crit these days, my letter was more mundane:
lo ping won, for one, would benefit from, you know,reading the lyrics for hisself.
.
“No, it’s imperative to defend a Marine who’s done not a damned thing wrong from leftard PC fucknuts”
So the Marine Corps brass are leftard PC fucknuts? Seems they disapprove of this sort of thing because it only makes things worse for the Marines on the ground…
Sucknuts? Oh, Pablo, I didn’t know you cared.
TW: anyone, as in ‘anyone’ who thinks this song is a good idea is a poltroon.
Thus my saying, about a year to two years old:
“It’ll be another Vietnam” is a threat, not a prediction.
“lo ping won, for one, would benefit from, you know,reading the lyrics for hisself.”
Oh, the song only makes fun of Iraqi language and culture, while talking about using a child as a human shield. My bad. What’s all the fuss about? Geez, those Iraqis are so touchy
tw: zipper, as in “Jeff’s going to threaten to slap me with that thing behind his zipper.”
“Mr. Murtha, would you take the stand, please.” Could be interesting to watch.
Good idea? Probably not.
The individual Marine’s right? Hell yes.
And shove the “poltroon” crap, asshole
How thick are you, lo? Jeff’s comment referred to “irony, satire, straight reporting, etc.”, so your gambit of selecting one category and asking “where’s the irony?” is pitiful.
And the fact that you think endorsing a reflexively defensive statement by a Corps “spokesman” puts you “on the side of the Marines” is further proof of your cluelessness.
And anyone who thinks that’s what the defenders of said Marine are claiming is a moron or and idiot.
Take your pick.
No, but Generals by and large are political animals, and so will bow to the leftard PC fucknuts, even if they know better. If I was CMC, I’d be pointing out that CAIR is a terrorist front group, not a “civil-rights” organization, and that they should go fuck themselves. But I’m not.
(I don’t really have a problem with the song, personally, but I will say that it probably wasn’t the best possible idea to post it on the internet. Send the Marine in to have a little talk with the battalion XO about exercising better judgement and let it go, would be my suggestion.)
“Buttom[sic] line: 2500 KIAs…”
If you’re going to obsess about numbers, Mr. Goss, at least get them right: as of this morning there were 1972 KIA in Iraq. The 2500 number includes 528 deaths classified as non-hostile– helo crashes, truck wrecks and so on.
From: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf
“And anyone who thinks that’s what the defenders of said Marine are claiming is a moron or and idiot.”
There’s no explicit call in Jeff’s post to defend Cpl Belile, and no condemnation of him in the Marine Corps’s statement. It’s the content of the song that’s the problem. Nobody is saying Belile didn’t have the right to say what he did. The problem is, what he said is stupid, inflammatory and bad for the people on the ground in Iraq.
Wait. Are you talking about Murtha or Bellile?
lo ping wong:
You do realize that part of the lyrics are from a movie, right?
Since when did the concern for the troops on the ground become a buzz-word for you lo? Just when it’s convenient?
“You do realize that part of the lyrics are from a movie, right?”
Yeah, and who gives a shit? They’re in this video, sung by a Marine. He should have kept his fictional, ironic narrative away from where it could be used as a club against Americans in Iraq.
Don’t you dare question lo’s patriotism.
HE SUPPORTS THE BUREAUCRACY!!!
“Since when did the concern for the troops on the ground become a buzz-word for you lo? Just when it’s convenient?”
Since I never posted here before this morning, the point is brought to moot, as Rick Springfield once said. It’s not like you ever heard of me before, Sparky. But, as a decent human being, I -am- concerned with the troops on the ground. Their safety is further compromised when irresponsible attempts at humor like this make it out into the “Arab Street.”
I agree w/ LPW. I mean, seriously. Words mean things. The next thing you know our elected leaders and opposition party spokespeople will start saying the troops are fighting for a lie, for Halliburton, for a “puppet government”, etc. all while terrorizing Iraqi families in their own homes. I don’t know if that would be quite as damaging as a song, but golly, it wouldn’t help those on the ground.
I guess you don’t know that the lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner are set to the tune of an English drinking song … Americans are funny that way, coming up with new lyrics to ribald songs.
And, yes, it is your bad.
Unless you were being all ironical and nuancy and stuff like that.
In which case it’s still your bad, just not in the ironical, nuancy sense.
Cheers.
The Nabokov ref made me think of something, a twist in “authenticity” that’s…exactly the kind of thing I always say. But still:
There’s another writer, of near-Nabokovian stature among his fellow writers (though not among academics), who’s actually been hounded and prosecuted based on his pedophilic fiction, whose works are banned in many countries (Canada, for example), whose porn-raid railroading set an era-defining legal precedent (the very idea of “child pornography” as a distinct legal entity arises from it).
The reason you’re not all filling his name into this description is because despite his rock-solid artistic rep he’s not a cause, he’s totally undefended by the usual “free speech” suspects, and he’s undefended because he, unlike Nabokov, is taken to mean what he writes. As in, he’s a pedophile. Authentic. Probably.
His “probably” defaults to indefensibility because he’s just some guy, not an academic, not a sexy royal-line emigré, not even merely French (which alone is enough to get Guyotat off the hook for same); he’s uppity Midwestern trash, not granted the plausible deniability of irony, of artistic distance.
So A Marine sings an ironic song. It’s universally grossly distorted in the press. The distortion displaces the actual song in institutional consciousness. He’s in trouble with the brassâ€â€for art refused the moral indemnity that Art grants…to some.
How did this happen? Why the presumption of authentic baby-killing evil, even in the face of obvious irony?
Look at him.
(Pretend you’re a “liberal” when you do it. Clears things up.)
“Don’t you dare question lo’s patriotism.”
Did someone question my patriotism? I didn’t notice.(can’t take a step in this place without knocking over a straw man) At any rate, it’s -because- of my patriotism I think this song is a bad idea. Your mileage may vary. After all, songs about using Iraqi children as human shields may ENDEAR us to the Iraqis.
So stop using it as a club. There, solved that problem.
Next!
“Yankee Doodle” was intended as an insult. Wasn’t taken that way. Funny, innit?
Or, the Iraqis might be capable of distinguishing between those who sing songs about it and those who actually do it.
Clearly CAIR and the American left can’t.
Remember lo, as you sit there and stroke your over-inflated sense of self-worth, we’re laughing at you because you are proving to be completely clueless.
Then perhaps you should take a few minutes to look around before crapping on the rug.
“I guess you don’t know that the lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner are set to the tune of an English drinking song … Americans are funny that way, coming up with new lyrics to ribald songs.”
Nice non-sequituer ya got there. Or do you mean to say that, once the English punters get wind of our national anthem, we’ll be attacked by angry British pub goers? Please clarify.
If this story has legs I’m writing (I wish that I had) Hadji’s Girl.
Just sayin’.
You mean, the content that you blatantly misrepresented in your first post, because obviously you hadn’t even read the content of the song, even though you admit that “that’s the problem”?
Tell me, are those goalposts heavy or do they have little wheels, or what?
Somehow I don’t think you’re the clear-thinking type. And while the Left embraces futility as a badge of honor, I don’t.
Have a nice day.
“Then perhaps you should take a few minutes to look around before crapping on the rug.”
I spent plenty of time looking around before my first post, Tom. The rug was, uh, pre-crapped, shall we say.
LOL, Rick Springfield.
GreekHomey: “the content that you blatantly misrepresented “
Right, I said it was about shooting civilians when it was about using civilians as shields, who then get shot. What a gross misrepresentation.
“Somehow I don’t think you’re the clear-thinking type. “
-you- start rattling on about the national anthem, and I’m the one who can’t think clearly? Go back, I liked the part where you called the kettle black.
Well, fuck me. I guess we should lose a Marine in order to save one, huh? Point in fact, if any Marine, soldier or sailor, or airman, grrr, says anything the least bit insensitive, we should can them.
Then our valiant Corps of 12 hippy womyn can engage the enemy with silk-embroidered pamphlets for the PC sock-op. Because we care.
Are you actually claiming “partial credit” for saying, in effect, that Abraham Lincoln assassinated John Wilkes Booth? Sorry…no. You could try to be more wrong, but you would not be successful.
Does anybody from SadlyNo have a friggin’ clue what a strawman actually is? It seems to mean “a word or phrase I don’t really understand” to them.
No, they’re not leftards. Just PC fucknuts, as PR flacks are wont to be. And for that matter, it’s not really the brass you’re hearing from, it’s the spokesmouths. What the brass wants, we’ll know at the end of the day. And it seems they’ll be taking public opinion into consideration, as you might like.
But, for clarifications sake, YOU are a leftard PC fucknut. So are you gonna call and tell the Marines to hammer CPL Belile, punk?
So then you’re just dense.
Because if you had spent ANY time at all reading this site before today, the point of my post wouldn’t have gone wizzing over your head.
I’d have to belive he’s got his customized with a V-8 and some kick ass wheels.
Maybe some dice hanging from the mirror.
Pimp My Goalposts
Because what Murtha and co. have done is reduced the lives of real flesh and blood Marines, men with families and whose freedom will now hang in the balance, to a nodal point
As opposed to the Marines in question, who reduced the lives of real flesh and blood civilian bystanders to lumps of bloodstained flesh.
But, of course, when a US Marine sees an Iraqi civilian in the vicinity of a recent explosion, he is justified in assuming the civilian is guilty of something and deserves to die. Whereas, when we American citizens learn that US Marines killed Iraqi civilians, we must assume that the Marines are guilty of nothing and acted entirely properly and in self-defense, even in the face of mounting evidence (reported in TIME magazine and elsewhere) that the Marines shot the civilians in an irrational fury of revenge.
All irony aside: Marines are no better or worse than other human beings. Combat is an unbelievably stressful situation, and people in combat sometimes do horrible things. Atrocities are close to inevitable in warfare. They need to be held to a minimum through scrupulous enforcement of the Geneva Conventions and the UCMJ. And, because war leads to atrocities, we should stay out of it wherever possible. The way to prevent any further needless deaths of Iraqi civilians at the hands of US troops is to get US troops out of Iraq. They’re not accomplishing anything there, much as they themselves would like to believe (often with the best of intentions) that they are.
Not a problem, tool.
Most Iraqis wouldn’t shoot their own children. You’d have to be one who would to be offended by the actual lyrics.
Is that the sort you are?
Pick up the thread where it was pointed out that ‘Hadji Girl’ was in the spirit of Team America and then attempt to recognize a tie in how Americans have a long tradition of taking other tunes and rewriting lyrics to suit our petty, vindictive bloodthirsty hearts. Or had you never read the remaining stanzas to the National Anthem?
Apparently you’re the type that needs conversations footnoted so that you can follow-along.
I’m just happy to have done my part.
“Does anybody from SadlyNo have a friggin’ clue what a strawman actually is? “
A strawman is a false argument, or a mischaracterization of an argument, that allows the strawman builder to focus on the false argument instead of the actual issue at hand.
F’r example:
LPW: The Marine corps brass has it right this time.
Asshat: LPW says we’re questioning his patriotism! What a dummy ROTFL111
Go back to your paste-tasting, MoeB.
Geez, how dare someone talk about a song, when the topic of the thread is about, uh, a song.
Got it.
I’m sticking with dense.
Not to mention non-sequitur.
Moron.
That’s for brooksfoe. Time restraints owing to calls for retreat seem to have kept him from finishing the post.
And….how do you know this?
I think that it wasn’t because they were in the vicinity…it could be because they were shooting at the Marines.
There it is. We are not accomplishing anything!! I’m too tired of correcting asshats like this….someone else will have to do it.
Riiiiight. Which is why the Iraqis want them to stay. Which is why Iraq has an elected standing government operating under a ratified Constitution, all of which was a pipe dream 40 months ago.
Absolutely nothing. Riiiiiight.
Pablo, you’re so… passionate. I know your hypermacho namecalling is an indicator of an underlying attraction to me. That’s OK. I often inspire feelings in others that they don’t understand themseleves. Email me, and I’ll give you my phone number.
TW: needs “Pablo has needs that he barely recognizes.”
Who had 49 in the pool for first troll comment to include “paste-eater”?
Pick up your brand new copy of Sean Hannity’s latest at the front desk.
Haha! I get it! He’s calling the other guy a gay!!!!!
Sheesh, aren’t the high schools still in session there?
It was ME!!! But this is the fourth time I won…so you can give it to whoever had 48 or 50.
“Not to mention non-sequitur.
Moron. “
Oh, TomB that really hurts. Someone critiqued my -spelling- Oh, I am defeated.
TW: serious
Wait, weren’t you just accusing others of non-sequituers (sic) and “strawmen”?
Hypocrite.
And the gay-tolerant drag out the accusations of homosexuality.
Wow. Paste-eating and gayness. He’s hitting all the right notes; what a pity the tune’s a piece of crap.
“Who had 49 in the pool for first troll comment to include “paste-eaterâ€Â?”
Sorry, Dr. Goldstein, but my comment is a continuation from the comment section at SadlyNo. And to be pedantic, I didn’t say “paste-eater.” To be honest, I was about to, to wit: I have to go eat lunch, so I’ll leave you guys to eat Captain Klonopin’s paste.
TW: all, as in “That’s all, folks.”
Well, when the first note out of his tune-hole is an out-of-tune screecher like
what did you really expect…Maria Callas? Dude’s more like Britney.
Well, yeah, you blithering idiot; it’s called rule by Law, not by fiat.
You know, ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ and what not. But, well why NOT deny habeas corpus to FULL American citizens in the armed forces, but extend them to foreign nationals caught on the battlefield?
Which is not actually evidence, jackass. And the public is not a court. But I forget how you panzies support the troops by campaigning for vigorous prosecution even if there isn’t a crime (Bilile) during liberty much less during combat.
Reason 5,069,984,687 to vote anything BUT Democrat.
“I had to destroy the Constitution to save it [from the fascistic BushHitler].”
Love,
The Left
I swear that the entire Left just emigrated from Australia; these ideas keep whipping back at them like boomerangs.
In liberalspeak, yes. Up is down. Black is white. Disgust is attraction. In liberalspeak.
Yeah, you’re a heck of a human being…in liberalspeak. I really, really like you…in liberalspeak.
Why don’t you drop back by soon…in liberalspeak.
Enjoy your Happy Meal! You’re in luck—they’ve got toys from that car movie now. Beep-beep!
I have seen too many instances this war of officers failing to back their troops. Sounds like the Commandant is another Hillary General, hoping for SecNav in the next democrat cabinet.
It might be funny except my grandson is over there right now, with no one backing him up. Sad.
Not true, Walter. I’ve got his back…and probably 99% of all the living vets along with me. We’ve got a pretty big voice when we sing in unison.
Most Iraqis wouldn’t shoot their own children. You’d have to be one who would to be offended by the actual lyrics.
Hm. Funny—I wrote a song about US Marines who have sex with each other (and with goats), sacrifice Iraqi children to Moloch, are in the pay of Jewish Hollywood moguls, and in the end have their throats slit by patriotic Iraqi women. Now, I know most US Marines wouldn’t do any of those things, so I figured you’d have to be a US Marine who was a homosexual pagan Jewish conspirator to be offended. And yet, oddly enough, Marines and other Americans were offended by my song. Why would that be, I wonder?
Plus rls, lots of vets are banging soccer moms (although not necessarily married to), so we got that going for us.
A hit! A very palpable hit! Point to LionDude
Just a guess…but they just don’t want retarded, leftist assholes writing songs about them.
We vets have to do our part. You know, there is always a “baby boom” shortly after a war. Now you know why.
the public is not a court. – Vercingetorix
I’m certainly not prepared to convict them based on what has been revealed thus far. – Goldstein
That’s correct. The public is not a court, and no one posting on this site is being asked to “convict” the Marines involved. We will, in fact, never have the evidence we would need to do so, since we are not jurors. What we’re doing in this discussion is rendering our opinions. Our opinions do not have the force of law, or in fact the force of anything—which is why we can make them, not on the basis of overwhelming evidence, but simply of the balance of the information we have.
The balance of the information we have so far suggests that these Marines killed a bunch of innocent people. And for whoever asked how I know that atrocities are frequent in war—I’m pretty sure dogs like bones, too, and that injuries are not uncommon in football games.
Well, gee, brooksfoe, maybe because twelve years ago the mailman didn’t pull out after taking your mother for the wildest twelve seconds of her life, ever since the dog gave up peanut butter, that is, and thus we were left with raising you, Moloch’s demon sire, he of the special annex of hell reserved for stupid people?
Maybe that’s it. Or maybe because whenever you get on the Karaoke stage, it takes twenty minutes for the staff to fit a condom over the microphone, to sanitize it so you don’t take that long, hard, black device and do what just comes naturally for you; stick it in your eye.
It’s only funny the first time, and then the routine gets old, bud.
Since you do know what a straw man is, I have to assume you intentionally misuse it. I always like to know if the latest leftard is dishonest or just stupid, thanks for clearing that up.
You might want to explain it to Retardo over there, he still seems a bit confused by it. But the idea of a Olberman/Retardo proxy strawman cage match has been kicking around in my head lately.
I don’t actually understand what you just wrote. I’m not sure anyone does.
Lo ping wong, Carl et al.
We are pleased with your self-loathing, your whining, your hatred of yor fellow country men, and your delusional devotion to the belief that we (The Ghost of Osama Bin Laden and I) don’t want you dead. We thank you for your untiring support for facism in all its myriad forms and your truculent oppostion to democracy, women’s rights, medical science and freedom of thought and speech. We celebrate your stupidity, your niavte, and your abject hopelessness and despair.
But we just can’t use you. Sorry, it’s not so much you as it is us. You see, our cause has moved beyond the need for simple fools and sympathizers. Mostly becuase you military, despite the constant stream of pee you pour upon them, has killed a whole whale of a lot of us.
What we need now are actual soldiers. You know, people that talk a little less than you do, and accomplish a whole lot more.
So, as much as we appreciate your application, it’s just not going to work out. Thanks so much for your time and effort, and good luck with that Karl Rove thing. Hugs and kisses to Ambassador Joe and Valerie. Tell Jack Murtha we said “Hi.” Alu Akbar etc. etc.
– What I find most interesting among the standard Libturd screeds so far in this thread, is none of them ever want to talk about “the Murtha problem”. Its probably understandable that the prospect of that lying piece of shit actually having to appear in a court of law, and account for his mendacity, scares the crap out of them. Similiar to “the Joe Wilson” problem, “the Kerry problem, “the Dan Rather problem”, “the Mary Mapes problem”, etc. etc.
– My guess is Murtha used the “briefing” with the Marine Commandant as a cover to air his own twisted politics, and slip in a few “leaks” from some left-wing moles in the government, or elsewhere. No way this scumbag wants to have to face the medicine.
So you assume Americans are committing atrocities without evidence, even if evidence attests to the opposite? BTW, who is the witness to this ‘rampage’? It wouldn’t happen to be women and children that were, in fact, closer to the incident than the folk that got killed, was it?
Take all the time you need in the next five seconds to kiss the ‘rampage’ theory good-bye.
“Bye, beautiful atrocity, I shall always cherish the time we spent, and how you de-pantsed the koolaid drinking, mickey-moose club Left for all of their ugliness and pettiness.”
BTW, atrocities are not exactly common in war; that is why we can speak of them individually. Just saying is all, for the slow on the uptake.
The point, obviously, Vercingetorix, regarding the song, is that to write a song about Iraqis who kill their children is imply that Iraqis are the sort of people who kill their children. Just as to write a song about US Marines who engage in certain kinds of behavior is to imply that US Marines are the kinds of people who engage in that behavior. And that’s why such songs are offensive.
That is the straight version of the post, for those who failed to understand the ironic version.
How about if, in exchange, you try a version of your posts that doesn’t involve inserting large phallic objects into orifices?
Brooksfoe,
Sorry, we’re trying not to take the functionally illerate any more. Get your GED then give us a ring. Alu Akbar etc. etc.
fwiw – ‘The Marine’s Orderly Rampage’ theory fits in well with the Left’s portrayal of Bush’s eighteen month long program to oust Hussein as a headlong ‘Run Up To The War’.
– Personally I really really hope the Democratic leadership go with the hard left on Iraq, and even more fully embrace the cut and run meme. The more they appear anti-military/anti-America, and just generally pussies in the WOT, the better they assure getting their asses kicked once again, in future elections.
– I’m pulling for you moonbats!
Sorry, that should have been illiterate. Again, it’s hard to type with your fingers all blown up and shit.
Point is, brooksfoe, what that Marine says is none of YOUR fucking business. He broke no laws, not even Article 134 (the general article).
None.
As far as describing your penchant to ride-the-tiger, I can plead only guilty to report what all the evidence points to, the report of your song being and all.
The issue in question is similar to the Mohammad cartoon flap that caused such an uproar. While it’s regrettable that the song got the wide exposure it did, exposing this Marine to crap he shouldn’t have gotten, he has every right to self-expression, just like the cartoonists did. I find it hard to believe that the islamist terrorists don’t have their own little ditties about offing Americans.
BTW, atrocities are not exactly common in war; that is why we can speak of them individually.
The reason “we” can speak of them individually is that they are rarely reported and almost never investigated. The first known US Marine atrocity of the Vietnam War occurred within a day of the initial landings near Da Nang in 1965, when, on one of the first patrols of a suspected Viet Cong village, a marine acting on orders of the company commander shouted into a tunnel for anyone inside to come out, and then, without checking further, threw in a grenade. A scared woman and her child hiding inside were killed. No one will ever know whether they understood the instructions. We know of this because a reporter happened to be accompanying that Marine patrol; otherwise, she would likely have been listed as “enemy dead”, or not at all.
The atrocities of the “Tiger Force” units in Quang Ngai province in 1967 took place frequently for at least six months, as recounted by many veterans of the force 2 years ago to reporters from the Toledo Blade. In its operations in Ha Tien province in 1969, the Army’s 9th Division produced a body count of over 9000 enemy dead, but only a few hundred weapons. There’s only one plausible explanation. And these were only the close-in encounters. Official US policies of “interdiction” shelling – lobbing artillery at random into the countryside – killed an unknowable number of civilians, as did indiscriminate bombing of the same areas. (The US never carpet-bombed Hanoi, as some propaganda alleged. But we did carpet-bomb VC-controlled areas in the south. Bombing civilians because of their political sympathies is a war crime.)
The Vietnam War was so thick with atrocity it’s hard to know where to start. The often friendly and disciplined behavior of many troops (though nowhere near all) is almost beside the point: official policy constituted atrocity.
In this respect, Vietnam was not much worse than World War II, which, besides the mass slaughter of civilians through aerial bombardment, boasted many instances of shooting of civilians by US troops. Of course, the Nazis and Russians were vastly worse. As for Korea, we know of one prolonged machine-gunning of hundreds of civilian refugees by US troops. Who really knows how many other instances we’ll never learn of.
War sucks. You do it when you absolutely have to, e.g. to stop genocide in progress. In Iraq, we did when we didn’t have to, screwed the country up almost irremediably, and are now sticking around to save face and to pursue some crackpot vision of US strategic aims. If the Iraqi government can survive, it will. If it needs us to survive, it won’t survive. We propped up South Vietnam for 20 years and it fell apart at the touch the minute we left. If that government wants US troops for another few months to get its act together, fine. But we should be out by the end of the year.
OK brooksfoe, since you seem to be having such a hard time understanding this, I’ll explain.
We have the left in fits over a song by a Marine about a made-up killing of civilians. For some reason you want to bring the hammer down on this guy because the song might upset the Iraqis.
On the other hand we have Murtha who tells the world that Marines actually did kill civilians “in cold blood”, although there is no clear evidence of this as of yet. However, I have yet to hear anybody on the left worry what impact the words of Murtha will have on the Iraqis.
Do you see the blazing hypocrisy?
“I find it hard to believe that the islamist terrorists don’t have their own little ditties about offing Americans.”
Yeah but we’re supposed to be, you know, better than them.
tw: girls, as in “little iraqi girls make great human shields.”
Drew Ping Wang, BrooksBro, et al:
Admit it: you don’t really come here for the hunting, do you?
Why is that, one wonders? Well, sport, thanks for asking.
It seems that the Chinese and North Koreans had troops in the same refugee columns. When the 3rd Marine Division withdrew from the Chosin, for instance, the refugee column lapped the back of the Marine column and sappers knocked out several tanks. Ergo, the Marines kept the refugees back.
Was this atrocity? Not at all; civilians make up most of the casualties in every war, and in most every action. But unless your definition of atrocity is two-dimensional–any civilian death equals atrocity–most military actions are not atrocities. Like torture, you are expanding the word, atrocity, to mean what it has never meant and what it cannot coherently mean.
I fully agree that Marines probably did kill 24 civilians in Haditha. I disagree that they did so wantonly, as the evidence points out that they kept their coordination and discipline and most of all that there was an enemy presence.
On the other hand we have Murtha who tells the world that Marines actually did kill civilians “in cold bloodâ€Â, although there is no clear evidence of this as of yet.
There is clear evidence. The evidence we’ve seen in the press is less than what will be presented at the trial of the Marines in question (obviously). Murtha, in addition to the press accounts, apparently has information from his close friends and colleagues in the military.
The difference between Murtha’s statement and the song is that Murtha is bitterly regretting the killing of actual civilians. The song treats such killing as entertainment.
given the universe of the song, lo ping,
any thoughts on the following facts:
1 – the (fictional) young girl is the daughter of one of the (fictional) men shooting at the Marine
2 – she’s the (fictional) sister of the other (fictional) shooter
3 – the older (fictional) sister of the young (fictional) girl brought the Marine to her house for express purpose of having her family assassinate the Marine
As for the Marine’s use of a young girl as a human shield Martin Sheen used a young girl as a human shield in the movie ‘Dead Zone’ – yet he went on to be elected, if fictional, president.
Twice.
I know you’re having difficulty following along – we’re talking about fictional characters so I thought I’d throw in an example in fiction of a person using young girls as human shields.
To Martin’s credit, though, he didn’t lock and load a weapon and lay waste to his wouldbe assassins at the time.
Which explains a lot about the (fictional) Bartlett presidency.
Have a nice day … be sure to send in any soroity/fraternity songs for public scrutiny and vette any semi-private utterances before making them … can’t be too careful these days, what with the morons who ignore context in favor of the nit.
Cheers.
Where? Oh, wait for it.
So, your “clear evidence” is the word of Jack Murtha?
You were one of those idiots who believed Jason Leopold, weren’t you? He had “clear evidence” too.
Dolt.
First of all, war has never been used to that end; to stop genocide. Not once, not even in the Balkans. Wishing war to be something that it is not is half of your problem.
The other half is…
Oh, that and North Vietnam, supported by two Communist empires, invaded at precisely the moment we stopped supporting the South. But every other country that was invaded by a communist army fended them off quite easily without any US assistance, like Korea, China, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Angola and Africa and Nicaragua, Grenada, and on.
I understand how positively brittle South Vietnam must seem with such a pathetic Red track record of conquest. How positively FRENCH!, not being able to hold their own country!!!
*Cough* Idiot *Cough*
BURN HIM!!! BURN THE MARINE!!! IT’S THE ENVIRONMENT OF TORTURE AND THE FAULT OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND RED-STATE KILLBOTS!!!
Big love going out to Senators Harkin, Byrd, Kennedy, Kerry, Boxer and Feingold. As for the other 39 “progressive” Senators… well it’d be nice, Brooksfoe and lo ping, if you’d chat with them. I mean your bloody fanged quest to ruin one poor nineteen year old marine is commendable and all, but Senators control the purse strings of the military or so I am told. How about seeing if you can influence them. You see, that’s the sort of thing a really first rate sympathizer would lhave realized on his own. Which is, of course, why we couldn’t accept your applications. Hope the instruction helps, will be watching for results. Alu Akbar etc. etc.