Ted Rall for April 14, 2010

It’s time for the troops to come home.

Well Im not clicking any links senorbullwinkle posts on his comments. Including that one.

You know Church if Canada invaded the U.S. I’d bet my bottom dollar you’d take up arms against the Canucks. That is, of course, if you aren’t chicken and immigrate to Mexico.

Embedded, church? I rather doubt Reuters are that close to insurgents, despite what Fox may say about them. Sure, they took a risk by getting near to make pictures, but that’s what journalists do. It’s not like they were shouldering weapons or firing. I guess you’d be cool with it if the Taleban bombed a US base and killed a couple of cafeteria staff?

The guys were obviously at the wrong place in the wrong time. Someone made a mistake or didn’t care. Same as the guys in the van. Sure, it was possible they could be insurgents (as could anyone). They happened to not be.

But stupid strips like this ignore the reality of the war to make pointless “points”. The reality? The American military is so overwhelming politically correct these days that they didn’t even get rid of a clear jihadist in their midst down in Fort Hood, TX. The military is putting up regulations ALL THE TIME about what circumstances must exist for our soldiers to engage the enemy. If soldiers just randomly kill civilians and journalists like this strip is claiming, they would be put up on charges the day before yesterday.

Kill all you can kill, join the US Murder Corp.

I heard about the video and I opened it but I closed it before I saw anything violent. I’m horrendously squeamish and knowing it’s “real violence” and not movie violence (which I still don’t do well with) made it worse. I only know about it, thus far, though, cause the owner of WikiLeaks was on the Colbert Report.

“Onward Christian Soldiers”…..

Any attempt to defend “W’s and Dick’s atrocity is madness.

The scary thing about this is that it is not a case of rogue soldiers, it is policy. The wing nut sound bite 2 posts above about the military being politically correct is absolutely ridiculous. Too many wing nuts want the military to shoot first at a brown person who talks funny and worships the wrong imaginary strict daddy in the sky, and then not bother to ask questions later.

I got dem ol’ Vietnam blues again, mama.

“heard about the video and I opened it but I closed it before I saw anything violent. I’m horrendously squeamish and knowing it’s “real violence” and not movie violence (which I still don’t do well with) made it worse.”

There’s little in it that is visually shocking, Jade. It’s black and white, grainy footage with small figures. Figures are moving, shots, dust, figures no longer moving. It’s all in the meaning. You have seen more blood and gore in a meat shop.

“The military is putting up regulations ALL THE TIME about what circumstances must exist for our soldiers to engage the enemy.”

Regulations may exist, the problem is if they mean much in practice. I’m pretty sure the military had regulations against, say, the stuff that happened in Abu Ghraib.

Not to mention the part I saw had 1 figure that I think had an AK, a few had something on their backs that was supposedly intepreted as a RPG, then at some point it was reported there were several Kalashnikovs…

why aren’t you doing something about this!!!

If we had a reason to go there in the first place maybe people wouldn’t be so outraged by this. Then, they would accept war for what it is.

A different video shown a few weeks ago from a Predator drone showed IR target selection, then GROUND troops under new rules of engagement radioed that the “combatants with a heavy weapon” the IR showed were actually four kids collecting firewood. Nobody got killed under the new rules.

In a past life, using long rifle, our targets were clearly ID’d before we pulled. In one incident in a helicopter it felt good to return fire coming from a hootch, until the source stopped. What did NOT feel good was finding out there were only 2 “hostiles” and 9 “civilians under duress” in the same hooch- all were killed.

War sucks. Those who start them without cause, remorse, or the intellect to understand what it is, or glorify it, suck worse.

Machado recounts ”I.E.Most reporters during WWII -D-DAY’s landing were killed, and the footage lost, that’s why you always see the same marine reaching land, most of this battle’s footage was collected from the camera of dead reporters……” Can you provide a source for this rather amazing anecdote, a body count perhaps? Names of the war correspondents, especially photographers, killed that day on those various beaches would be a great start.

Methinks Machado is retelling an urban legend. Perhaps he’s heard of Robert Capa’s legendary 10 photos and has confused matters?

I suggest you take your axe, Machado, and grind it elsewhere.

“War sucks. Those who start them without cause, remorse, or the intellect to understand what it is, or glorify it, suck worse.”

That’s why Generalissimo El Busho deserves his title.

Wow, Ted, you amazed me with this one. This one is so blisteringly, drippingly, triumphantly cynical that even Mark Twain would be proud. “War Prayer” proud!

Keep wielding that pen like a stiletto, my man!

A truly good soldier is the one who kills the enemy with reluctance, knowing that life is like being in line to walk off the ship’s plank into the sea, and since death finds all of us eventually, it is self-delusion to find the death of your enemy worth celebrating; paradoxically it is the dead man who finally lies in an eternal silence, free from any pain or suffering. Yeah, those bullets piercing the body must have hurt a lot, but said anguish lasted only but a moment, then it is just oblivion for an eternity.

The same oblivion which awaits for us all.

Laughing and celebrating in bloodthirstiness is all but an absurdity, and delusional self-mockery. What fools, with all their due respect.

Who knows what life has in store for us? Is it not true that the one who lives is prone to suffer the more? For if anyone of us lives in joy, it is only temporary, and we will find ourselves walking the ship’s plank as well, whether through sickness and possible prolonged suffering, or having to bear the departure of a loved one. Only a fool can make a mockery of a dead man.

Yeah, the reporter must have felt his heart throb in anguish just remembering, yearning for his loved ones when death caught him unawares, as he crawled helplessly on the concrete ground, but then he was no more, and so was his grief and pain and broken- heartedness. No, the ones who still suffer, who yearn after him are the ones he left behind.

But who knows if instead of the eternal oblivion that we expect, is the weeping and the gnashing of teeth that await?

^ I was well aware of when Capa was killed but the urban legends have his death 10 years earlier on one of those beaches and his iconic photographs of that day as the only photos that survived. I had heard this tale before and it seemed you were repeating it. If Capa’s photos weren’t the ones you had in mind when you said ”that’s why you always see the same marine reaching land”, I’d appreciate it if you could be more specific rather than trusting your hearsay. ;-)

But we digress from the ‘toon’s intent.

I was struck by the justification given by one of the voices who said ”Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle”; ”That’s right,” agrees a 2nd voice. (there was a battle?) Indeed. Bloody civilians (and journalists), when will they learn not to stick their noses into military matters.

I recall an incident a few years ago when a Blackwater security detail opened fire on Iraqi civilians, and wouldn’t stop until a U.S. Army officer pulled out his weapon and threaten to shoot them.

They stopped.

Watch the whole video before you comment. Save the rest of us a head ache. Thank you.

It’s amazing how Machado (another armchair warrior?) sees things in the video no one else has.

To play off what machado was saying, what exactly was going on there with the gathering at the corner and the individual peeking around the side?

Not even right-wingers are happy about things portrayed in that video and the callousness that accompanies the actions (when the perception is that they are attacking civilians)…but in the greater context of the conflict, we, the viewers from back in our safe countries have to realize that urban conflict was an everyday occurrence in those days.

I will agree with those that complain about the Iraq war in general, though. I really don’t understand the point of “war” that doesn’t aim to completely conquer a land. I don’t think anyone truly believes in a peaceful democracy in the Middle East as a sustainable configuration.

Macky Doodle’s got those special Fox News-sanctioned rah-rah cowboys-n-indians 3-D x-ray spex!

What better explanation?….

I don’t think it’s very likely to be a RPG. It looks like some kind of bag slung over the shoulder, and I really can’t see the sighs of a tube or missile over the shoulder. Or do you mean the guy in top? He has a long object, which theoreticlaly could be a RPG… or not.

So yeah, it could be a RPG…or a bag, or anything in between. Yyyyeah. It’s quite the assumption to make.

Well, the guys in the chopper don’t want to make an assumption that gets their mates killed, I can understand that. The problem is that the other way around gets other people killed, who aren’t exactly the vaguely-defined “enemy” either. And hey, sure, it’s a war. bleeep happens. Covering it up, well, that might be more trouble than it’s worth, just for not saying “We made a mistake, sorry.”

Where is scoot? :[

Ted Rall is hitting on subject so fogged by news press and some government officials attempting to lighten the guilt they feel for doing such things only searing their conscience shut in that process. It should get exposed.