May 3, 2004
RAMBLING ABOUT THIS, THAT, AND THE OTHER THING
Confession Time: According to Blender Magazine, I have really bad taste in music. Of the songs Blender identifies as the 50 Worst of All Time, I like no less than 10 of them, including the number one worst song of all time, Starship's We Built This City.
Spring Cleaning: I spent the better part of this past weekend engaged in spring cleaning sorts of activities. I even went as far as taking my mattress and box spring off the frame so I could vacuum under the bed, and found a bunch of clothes in my closet that could be donated to Goodwill (if I can just get over that "well, I'm saving that stuff for my kids" story).
Posting Problem Solved: Last weekend I posted a notice about a problem associated with the commenting feature on the "By The Number" postings on the left-hand side of this page. That problem is now fixed, so if you're interested in making comments, post away.
Torturing Prisoners: Did it really surprise anyone when word leaked out late last week that U.S. soldiers and military personnel had been torturing Iraqi prisoners of war? The indignation that the media and military has propagated and portrayed is laughable. Itís an unjustified war to begin with, so the whole notion that ërules of warí (which is an oxymoron to begin with) would be followed at any point along the way is a total joke. Maybe Iím the only one, but I sort of expected this type of behavior from our so-called 'heroes' in Iraq.
Posted by Mikal at May 3, 2004 5:06 AM
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"Maybe Iím the only one, but I sort of expected this type of behavior from our so-called 'heroes' in Iraq."
Wow - I see the anti-war crowd is slowly, surely (and predictably) turning on the soldiers themselves. You're a numbers guy as evidence by your "by the numbers" blurb at left.
13
Number of soldiers in Iraq that have been charged as part of the Abu Ghraib prison torture abuse probe.
135,000
Total number of soldiers serving in Iraq.
As is usually the case, the contempt the left has for our men and women in uniform will eventually show itself. I expect more of this as time passes.
Regarding "Interestingís" comments and observations... first off, thanks for supplying the numbers, I've added them to the "By The Numbers" section of the site. Good point!
Second... you're darned right I'm "anti-war." Tell me this... despite one's political leanings, why would anyone be ìpro-warî? Are you really pro-war yourself, Interesting? I doubt very much that many U.S. citizens are pro-war, including yourself. (Sorry to take the debate to that place, but if I'm going to be labeled 'anti-war,' it begs the question, are not you also anti-war?)
Third... I am not turning on our soldiers. What I am doing is simply pointing out that in times like these, with military personnel under tremendous pressure and stress, it's no wonder that SOME OF THEM have resorted to this type of behavior (and trust me, friend, whereís thereís smoke, thereís surely fire, so lets not kid ourselves here and go on pretending that this is an isolated incident). Our men and women in Iraq carry guns and live ammo for God's sake. They're not over there to make friends, pen-pals, or future contributors to their Blogs. They're there to carry out orders, and despite their training, no one is there to watch over them every single second of every single day, to make sure that theyíre following all of the protocols of war (as if there really are any to begin with). My point is simply that this sort of stuff shouldnít surprise anyone. And in saying that, I am not saying, "I don't have empathy or compassion for you as a person," Mr. Or Ms. U.S. soldier. Itís the people giving the orders who Iím most troubled by; not the soldiers themselves. For the most part, theyíre just following orders and acting on natural human instincts given the circumstances. The culture of war is that there is no culture, and therein lies the perplexing nature of the indignation weíre seeing as a result of these individualsí actions.
Youíre right - I am, in general, anti-war too. I should have said anti-"Iraq war of 2003-current" to be more specific, so I apologize. I do think that the Iraq war is a just and correct war, so I guess that does make me pro-"Iraq war of 2003-current". I would guess that next to zero people are actually blanket "pro-war".
It's good you elaborated, because when I read, "...I sort of expected this type of behavior from our so-called 'heroes' in Iraq", I see you damning every soldier over there. Sorry, I didn't read "some of" or "a limited number". I saw an expectation that the soldiers in Iraq would behave badly. Personally, almost every person in uniform is a hero to me. Obviously those who took part in the abuse are not heroes - they are no better than the animals that ran that place prior to the US taking it over.
Of course these aren't isolated incidents and I don't pretend to understand the circumstances under which this happened. Yet, I'm not prepared to call those in uniform "so-called heroes" for the actions of a few. Humans have their fallible characters, but that doesn't mean they can't be heroes.
In regard to the last point about torturing prisoners, four words: "School of the Americas."
As for that list of bad songs: Dude, "We Built this City" just plain sucks. I mean, really, this is from the group that did "Don't You Want Somebody to Love," and "White Rabbit." This is the group with Grace freakin' Slick, for chrissakes! "We Built this City" is proof that too many drugs can fuck up your mind in ugly ways. Heck, that damn song will be in my head for the next week and that alone will fuck up your mind in ugly ways.
Although pretty much all of the songs on that list do suck, they did give "I'm too Sexy" a little too much credit if they took it seriously enough to put it on a "songs that suck" list.
But, then, I'm not in a position to cast stones because, well, the Eagles are my favoritest group of all time. (Don Henley, I love you, man. Call me!)
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