Posted on 05/29/2006 4:46:05 PM PDT by Coop
...
In the meantime, my column had been posted on a well-known right-wing American website, where it attracted 119 comments. Oddly, none of them displayed any hint of disquiet over the behaviour of the Marines under investigation. Rather, their outrage was reserved for John Murtha and yours truly.
One poster's reaction was to "nuke the Middle East" adding "thank you very much Dishonourable Rep. Jack Murtha". He was later to write "if you can't stand behind our troops, stand in front of them".
A few of his co-posters rushed to the website of Murtha's Republican challenger Diana Irey to donate campaign funds.
The fact that this murdering troop has the support of even those 119 posters is worrisome. Surely, nobody should defend the indefensible based on some false notion of patriotism.
Military personnel should act as ambassadors for their country and behave according to international rules of law and the Geneva Conventions that were drawn up as a result of atrocities committed during the Second World War. There should be a difference between real soldiers and ruthless thugs with public opinion the final arbiter.
If the public, as represented by the 119 posters on the Free Republic website, condones such behaviour or seeks to excuse it, then not only is its members giving their country's soldiers a license to kill arbitrarily, they are altering the fundamental psyche of their nation.
To quote a well-known rationalist intellectual Felix Adler "Love of country is like love of women - he loves her best who seeks to bestow on her the highest good."
The "Freepers" - as members of the Free Republic website have come to be known - may also like to contemplate the words of theologian Howard Thurman who said "During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism."
In short, people who glorify soldiers who purposefully assassinate women and small children are as misguided as those who glorify the blowing up of crowded buses, trains and marketplaces.
Does the donning of a uniform render its wearer impervious to justice? The Nuremberg trials indicate not...
BTTT
Thanks Coop :)
Bingo! It would be like shooting a gun through a door in an abadoned house without first checking if kids were playing there behind it. Later finding out it actually was safe does not make your initial behaviour any less despicable.
"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast." William Tecumseh Sherman
Bumping toward 1900 posts.
Thank you for the kind words. It was an honor and privilege.
I saw. Gave me a headache and made me nauseaous.
Patriotic bttt!
Bump right backatcha!
In support of our troops, **BUMP-ING** this post To the top!
BTTT
If proven true, FReepers will be the first to condemn those acts. When can we see your post condemning the 44 million, that's correct ... F_O_R_T_Y - F_O_U_R M_I_L_L_I_O_N babies (small children) in America that were slaughtered by non-military women like yourself?
Jack Murtha, ex-Marine 'rat politician, and Linda S. Heard, Brit expat Arabist Jihadi mouthpiece, having abandoned the Tet template for Iraq, are now collaborating on a remake of My Lai, with the objective of demonizing the United States Marine Corps, horrifying the American people, inciting the Muslims to riot, and forcing premature withdrawal from Iraq.
EXCELLENT SYNOPSIS OF THE SMURTHA/HEARD OPERA ! !
BRAVO !
This story coming up on H&C
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thanks. Please keep us posted.
You have appointed yourself Judge and with a jury of one, John Murtha. You and Murhta have indicted, convicted and sentenced US Marines before the Pentagon is even half way through it's investigation.
But the worst part is you think you hold the high ground. Pathetic.
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