Atrocities anyplace, anytime, are still atrocities

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

...the body then was dragged behind an automobile "through the main street of the city and then saturated with gasoline and burned at one of the principal business corners... while thousands of persons looked on."

"...tied the corpse behind a car and dragged... more than 50 cars paraded the mangled body around the city. "

"...doused it with gasoline, and set it ablaze. They stoked the fire with doors, windows, and furniture from nearby buildings... Indiscriminate gunfire occurred all night."

Soon more than 70 troops armed with rifles, fixed bayonets and tear gas arrived. They were greeted at the intersection by a man directing traffic with a charred arm that had been broken off of the body.




Falluajh?



yesterday?




no.....




Little Rock, 1927

<http://www.arktimes.com/000804coverstory.html>

[bryant69]

1. The tricky part of this argument

Is getting me to feel guilty because of something that happened before I was born.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[LeahMira]

2. Is that the point?

Is getting me to feel guilty because of something that happened before I was born.

I don't think the point is to make you feel guilty, Bryant.

While I think it takes a certain barbaric mindset to behave the way the post describes, I think the point is to remind us that anyone is capable of the same kind of thing under certain circumstances... if they let themselves give in to that sort of emotion and forget about our common humanity.

[Aidoneus]

3. well, British occupation forces were hanging POWs off forklifts

just a few months ago.. close enough?

[Sir Craig]

4. Not so tricky, actually...

What the poster was demonstrating is that atrocities can happen anywhere at anytime. He draws a parallel between Fallujah from a week ago and America from decades ago - the America of today certainly would not tolerate something like that happening here today (witness the national outcry when James Byrd Jr., a black man from Texas, was killed and his body viciously dragged behind a pick-up truck), but it did happen here (and as illustrated sometimes still does): America is not a nation of innocents.

What happened in Fallujah was indeed barbaric, and there will never be a justifiable reason for what happened. At the same time, however, our history has shown we have had no shortage of barbaric acts of our own, and to claim righteous indignation is hypocritical on our part.

What I feel needs to be brought first and foremost in our minds is who put our people in that position, and why there is such enmity towards Americans in that region: BushCo is as guilty of what happened to those men as any of those who partook in the atrocity of Fallujah. Our men and women are at risk over there based on a network of lies and false pretenses, and we have killed many Iraqis as a result of those lies. It is no wonder the Coalition presense is not regarded as "liberators"; the liberation has become an occupation, based solely on the greed and avarice of Shrub* and company.

I hate what happened to those men, but I hate even more knowing it never had to happen.