Footnotes (headnotes?) to the article below
A very bright friend who knows me well asked me if I'm saying the kid should be given a medal or if I think Bush et al negate his crime. So I realize I may not have been clear enough:
What I was saying:
1. He was discharged for mental instability after a tour in Iraq with the 101st Airborne -- in other words: "GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO... ooops, he broke. Let's just move him out quietly and hope no one ever wants to know what happened."
2. Anyone with actual military experience knows people flip out in war ... that in fact, war itself is a controlled flipout. So going to war on a whim CREATES people like that. Sort of like musical chairs.
3. Marines shoot entire families, plan and execute civilians, Army guys run rampant here and there, etc etc. It happens because, in a Vietnam Redux (i.e., can't tell who the enemy is, what the objectives are, etc) people finally break down and go nuts. But they prosecute ONLY this poor bastard, even though he was one of four doing the raping -- the only one to pull the trigger, but the other three told him to take the rest of the family into the other room and "take care of them."
4. I never meant to imply that ANYTHING negates his guilt, but that this is an election year public trial designed to get votes and also to show, we're prosecuting HIM so that means that anyone NOT being tried is not guilty of anything.. So the hypocrisy on TOP OF the vicious insane crime is disgusting.
5. If I implied he should get a free pass, I wasn't clear. He's right up there with the Columbine kids, but I wanted to point at WHAT IT IS that made him crazy and WHO IT IS that put him at risk, wasted his and others' lives after they were willing towear the uniform and stand up, ostensibly for America, only to find it turn out to be for Halliburton, et al, war profiteers..
6. And once again, these rec room patriots think everyone is supposed to play not-nice by the rules, but then they make their recruiters take anyone they can -- like the one who recruited an 18-year old autistic kid who had no idea there was a war going on...
7. This is like finding someone you once knew who took a vacation to Transylvania and came back a vampire. You really have to drive the stake in its heart but you also may have some compassion -- "I'm sorry what happened to you, man, but this is totally unacceptable." It's when you drag it out in public that it becomes one more monstrosity the soulless ones use for political currency.
So.
What I was saying:
1. He was discharged for mental instability after a tour in Iraq with the 101st Airborne -- in other words: "GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO... ooops, he broke. Let's just move him out quietly and hope no one ever wants to know what happened."
2. Anyone with actual military experience knows people flip out in war ... that in fact, war itself is a controlled flipout. So going to war on a whim CREATES people like that. Sort of like musical chairs.
3. Marines shoot entire families, plan and execute civilians, Army guys run rampant here and there, etc etc. It happens because, in a Vietnam Redux (i.e., can't tell who the enemy is, what the objectives are, etc) people finally break down and go nuts. But they prosecute ONLY this poor bastard, even though he was one of four doing the raping -- the only one to pull the trigger, but the other three told him to take the rest of the family into the other room and "take care of them."
4. I never meant to imply that ANYTHING negates his guilt, but that this is an election year public trial designed to get votes and also to show, we're prosecuting HIM so that means that anyone NOT being tried is not guilty of anything.. So the hypocrisy on TOP OF the vicious insane crime is disgusting.
5. If I implied he should get a free pass, I wasn't clear. He's right up there with the Columbine kids, but I wanted to point at WHAT IT IS that made him crazy and WHO IT IS that put him at risk, wasted his and others' lives after they were willing towear the uniform and stand up, ostensibly for America, only to find it turn out to be for Halliburton, et al, war profiteers..
6. And once again, these rec room patriots think everyone is supposed to play not-nice by the rules, but then they make their recruiters take anyone they can -- like the one who recruited an 18-year old autistic kid who had no idea there was a war going on...
7. This is like finding someone you once knew who took a vacation to Transylvania and came back a vampire. You really have to drive the stake in its heart but you also may have some compassion -- "I'm sorry what happened to you, man, but this is totally unacceptable." It's when you drag it out in public that it becomes one more monstrosity the soulless ones use for political currency.
So.
posted by Saintperle at
11:04 AM
