Soldiers taunt kids with water...

[mconvente]

Run time: 03:56 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LvsCyHHQQA   Posted on YouTube: April 17, 2015 By YouTube Member: YouTube Help Views on YouTube: 6933742   Posted on DU: November 28, 2006 By DU Member: mconvente Views on DU: 2721

 
Pretty sad stuff here - really pathetic. I'm sure not all soldiers are like this, but this just is plain wrong.

[april]

1. it makes me sick /what sob's

[mom cat]

2. Those sick fuckers!

[lebkuchen]

3. They get all the water they want when they're water boarded

A Vietnam vet told me that Vietnamese kids would put rocks in the streets so that they would be crushed by US convoys passing by and used for mortar. The vet told me that drivers would try to hit the kids, and they were sometimes successful.

[frankly_fedup2]

12. My dad, whom we lost this past May 17, 2006, was a WWII Veteran and

very proud of his service, as are we. He had a full military funeral as he wished.

He was over in Japan after the bombs to help with the cleanup. I remember before he died we would talk about the way that our soldiers do not know who they are fighting and my dad told me that was the way it was in Japan. Women, little girls, little boys, teenagers would walk up to them with live grenades. My dad even got to meet a Kamikaze Pilot whom they had captured. He said the pilot said it was all volunteer that no one "made" them volunteer. They did it for their honor and for the government that promised to take care of their families (which could include several generations) ten times better then they could on a pilot's pay. He told my dad that they would have their funerals with their families before they left on their missions. They would be given hero's funerals and their wife, mother, father, whatever would get to keep their medals. It sounds warped but it's the same principle as the suicide bombers.

[lebkuchen]

17. I met a Kamikaze pilot as well

He said the night before the flight, pilots would do one of three things: pray, cry or get drunk.

[frankly_fedup2]

20. They would also write their family a final letter and I read some on some sight.

Pretty much all of them said they didn't want to die.

You know the famous picture of that Vietnamese general walking around behind the young Vietnamese man and the picture was taken as soon as the bullet hit his head? He lives in Virginia Beach and owns a small restaraunt. Or he did at least. I read it in the paper a long while back. He could be dead now.

Due to what he did, particularly in front of a camera and the boy's family, shouldn't his execution of this young man been a war crime and shouldn't he have been brought forward for charges? I really don't know, just asking?

[lebkuchen]

22. You'd think.

The DoD is having enough trouble keeping its own troops in line here in Germany. Some members of the Stryker Brigade, which recently moved into Vilsek, Germany, were arrested for beating up German youth in Amberg, Germany, a small town in the east near Vilsek. The Germans had to spend time in the hospital.

When barracks were searched, collapsable batons and brass knuckles were found. The command is considering raising the drinking age to 21 (it's 16 in Germany for beer and wine) and are policing the small villages in the area more. Germans there are now afraid to go out at night, and are particularly afraid when they see American soldiers approaching them.

If we can't win hearts and minds in remote parts of Bavaria, how can we expect to do so in war-torn Iraq/Afghanistan?

[IndyOp]

4. K&R. Bring them home - they obviously have no fuckin' clue. (n/t)

:grr:

[saigon68]

5. Time to taunt a few "camel jockeys"

</sarcasm>

[Counciltucky]

6. Most soldiers probably aren't like this.

At least I would hope -- most of them are decent people.

This, however, is a sad exception. Dishonorable discharge, anyone?

[silverojo]

10. Sadly, most soldiers ARE like this

That's why they're die-hard Republicans, while the Democratic soldiers are a minority. :(

[eridani]

14. Has nothing to do with being a Dem or a Repub

It has to do with exposing people with a whole bunch of firepower to totally dehumanizing conditions.

[Mrs. Overall]

7. This needs to be shown on a news show so that the average joe

gets a clue as to why the US is not viewed as compassionate liberators.

[Anakin Skywalker]

8. Instead of Water, Hows ' Bout Some Freedom Fries? According to NeoCons, Everybody the World Over

wants Freedom Fries. Democrazy 'Murkin style, yeah!

[BrightKnight]

9. Winning hearts and minds - n/t

[frankly_fedup2]

11. Is that "Evian" water? You mean to tell me we have to buy "Evian" bottled water

when there are so many less expensive bottled waters out there. If I'm wrong, sorry; however, if it is Evian, just another way to burn money.

As for the soldiers taunting the children with water, that makes no sense to me. The kids are splashing water in the side streets. No, it's not clean but it could be boiled if they were so desperate for water.

I didn't know water was such a hot commodity for the people of Iraq (especially in Baghdad). The bottle looks empty to me and in some states here in the U.S. you get money if you return the empty bottle. Maybe that is why the kids are chasing for the bottle. If those kids are chasing because they are being taunted with the water, then our troops need to find something else to entertain themselves. Of course, if this is their third or even fourth deployment, they probably all are a little whacked out by now, like any of us would be in that situtaion.

Sad to see if it is true.

[noamnety]

16. WTF

Summary:

1. Why would Iraqi citizens want bottled water when they can just boil raw sewage?

2. It's likely the kids just want the empty bottle so they can get a deposit back, thanks to Iraq's very active recycling program.

Seriously, WTF.

[Smarmie Doofus]

19. Please...... stop already. nt

[frankly_fedup2]

21. I honestly didn't see any water in the bottle. As far as "raw sewage" I didn't

mean that. I meant they were running through puddles of water so it must have just rained or rained recently. Seems to me if there is a shortage of water, somebody would be collecting the rainwater. As for the recycling, I honestly was thinking more about the money getting for that without thinking it through. No WTF about the Evian (if that is the brand of bottled water).

[kdpeters]

13. So much for supporting the troops. *sigh*

All of us suffer from a "luxury of distance", as Michael Ware put it. We're all just as capable and just as likely to behave the same or at least let it happen.

Wikipedia the Stanford prison experiment and Milgram's experiment if you don't understand why. Pressure from authority and social expectations are powerful factors influencing our actions. These actions were encouraged and condoned by no less authority than the President of the US and the Secretary of Defense. Random volunteers role playing in an experiment behaved a lot like these soldiers trapped in a real life nightmare. Do you expect better when the circumstances are so much worse?

They're not bad soldiers or bad kids and none of us would have done any better. None of us know if we'd be clinging to our humanity or have the capacity for any emotion counter to survival. War does that to people. If they come back at all, they're never the same.

A shameful minority of us tried to stop this from happening and everyone else shares the blame. The Senators, the Administration, the entire chain of command, and all citizens that supported it. Until some of these people start taking responsibility for their role in making it happen, I'll defend the soldiers from being scapegoated.

[mconvente]

15. I was just about to post on Zimbardo's prison study

As well as Milgram's conformity study. When people are placed under authority, and are removed of accountability, they will conform to whatever they are told to do. It's basic psychology, and it's been demonstrated time and again. Yeah, some of those soldiers may just be wacked out, but that behavior is acceptable because no one would get in trouble for it.

[GrantDem]

18. Truly sad...

I'm sure that soldiers like these are indicative of the military as a whole. It is soldiers like these that give a bad name to others.