Outnumbered, Outgunned

round and round

Intrinsically the same.

Yet we yell and scream from the high heavens that these young men and women who come back broken, these are the people who are NOT what they did over there. Its seems like we want it both ways...we want to not hold them acocuntable since there damaged, yet we want to keep the shine on there commitment.

Lets just say it then...if I cannot have it both ways, then niehter can you. He does not get to intrinisically BE THE UNIFORM, when it is the uniform that asks him, no commands him to perform horrible acts. If he is the uniform then he is this as well.

I cant get drunk and punch a kid in the face, or stay sober and punch a kid in the face...and say that it was just my job. And have it be okay.

Yeah there job is to shoot people, to blow people up, to drop bombs on cities. I see that. But if there intrinisically the uniform, then I have the right to be ciritical of it.

As the police would have the right to be ciritical of me, if I punched a kid in the face.

You know there are warriors. Men and women who are differant, who go into war zones and do terrible things with honor.

Then there are idiots who join up and do really shitty things, because there only in a short time. And its only a path to a new car, or out of the ghetto, or college.

There are soldiers who hate the military, and the war, and the government. There are soldiers who hate blacks, and jews, and iraqis, and native americancs.

There are soldiers who are doing hash, and fucking there other soliders. There are soldiers who are raping female soliders, there are female soldiers who are humiliating (some might say torturing) prisoners of war.

There are soldiers who area giving young Iraqi kids milk, and food and books.

There are soldiers who are stabbing dogs with knives just to watch them die.

There are soldiers who are giving medical care to the sick people of Iraq and Kuwait.

But backed into a corner, told I cant have it both ways...that if a man comes home and I dont support him now, I cannot support him then...fine. I am pretty sure I can have it both ways. But if I cant, fine.

This is my statement...I beleive that our military is failing to hold the men and women who commit these atrocities accountable. I believe that this makes our country look bad in a global community. I believe that these acts make the war effort harder, as the enemies or people over there who seek to kill Americans see these images as well. So I think that these images get young men killed.

I dont support young men getting killed.

So I dont support these images.

So I dont support the actions in these images.

So I dont support the people doing these things.

I dont believe in the myth of the soldier, as warrior poet. Torn apart by there acts of depravity. The image of a young man crying with a dead Iraqi in his hand, thinking that the man he killed died with honor.

Nah.

We live in a disconnected world. Bombing from the next time zone. This disconnection is the very tool needed to maintian sanity apparently, and it is the very thing that makes it possible for our young men and women to not see the people they KILLED as people.

The military makes young boys and girls into women and men. I got that.

The military...is it the one who teaches the ones to do these acts? or is this in the person before they get there?

Either way, I am done commenting on this. We all know where I stand.

Posted by Radiofree at October 4, 2005 12:09 PM | TrackBack