ROFLMAO!!!! I 'gotta go take a Murtha', Love it!
Don't forget the Kerry paper!
Kerry paper is good, however I think that this stuff is better. Softer too, if you can believe that!
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...
From Hugh Hewitt's web site, look at how the press has mis-reported this story:
(NOTE TO ALL: Someone is reporting on this story in the first person singular and that person is not me.
The Post has been unable to get anyone from the Pentagon on the record on the investigation, using mostly anonymous sources.
The one man they did get on the record on Friday was retired Brig. Gen. David H. Brahms, a long-time lawyer with the Marine Corps who has experience with these types of cases. His quote is in the third paragraph. See if you can guess why the prominent first-quote placement:
"When these investigations come out, there's going to be a firestorm," said retired Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms, formerly a top lawyer for the Marine Corps. "It will be worse than Abu Ghraib -- nobody was killed at Abu Ghraib." I have a feeling someone was lying in wait for an Abu Ghraib reference.
I read the quote and was taken aback because I spoke to the same Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms about the case this week, and his sentiments were very different from those presented in the Post. Which explains why he sent me this statement yesterday:
"Recent reporting on the events in Haditha, Iraq have included significant factual errors and/or misleading statements. This includes a quote attributed to me in the Washington Post this morning that was taken completely out of context and its meaning distorted. Many facts that are favorable to the Marines involved have not yet been disclosed."
When Brahms and I spoke, he made it clear that his concern is that the Marine Corps do a thorough investigation and punish severely those who did wrong, if in fact it is found that they did. He feels confident that will happen. His other concern is that the Marines involved get a fair trial in a highly politicized environment:
"The worst thing that can happen in a case of this kind is to have it politicized...that's exactly what has happened here. They're leaking a story which is yet unwritten." "It's not normal to have a Member of Congress to decide to have hearings, at least while this whole business is in flux."
"I think there has been (a rush to judgement)...This has got to impact the fairness of the procedure."
"We'll get more precise information. Let's kind of step back, let's try to realize that there's another side of this story...People accused may be guys like my son and your brothers."
"The problem is, of course, that everybody's got a political agenda...in the middle are a group of American Marines."
You lucky scoundrel, you.
I only get to hang out with FReepers and Protest Warriors, and Wounded Warriors, and Coop
..... oh wait a minute....Never Mind...
Well! See if I ever hoist you up by the buttocks again, you ingrate!
Oh yes, Europe! The very same Western Europeans who sat around sipping fine wines in outdoor cafes and brewing good beer and enjoying the affluent life while their Eastern European brothers endured decades of genocide and jack-boot totalitarianism.
That lady needs to clean her own kitchen before even thinking about the USA!
Wonder what Mzzzz Heard's view would be of General George S. Patton's actions following his troop's discovery in WW 2 of one of Germany's notorious concentration camps (I believe it was Belsen), where he ordered the immediate execution of a dozen or so guards (including females) who were still hanging around the camp at the time of liberation? He had them lined them up against a fence and gunned down.
6-"IF YOU CAN'T STAND BEHIND OUR TROOPS, THEN PLEASE STAND IN FRONT OF THEM..."and
49 IMHO one Marine is worth more than any Iraqi, dead or alive.
Not much to characterize as Shameful reactions to Haditha 'atrocity' . Of course you'd have to read the thread to know that.
Lots of criticism of Murtha and Heard though, which is the real issue.
Good synopsis. And let's not forget that she tried to attribute three statements to me (or some other random FReeper using the word "Dishonorable"), yet a simple review of the thread showed three different posters for those three posts. Quite the impressive "journalist" we have here! ROTFL!
I have been reading the Arab news and islamonline and jihadunspun etc. etc. since going on line in 2000.
It has been a real education for me in the effective use of propaganda.
I mean, who knew that cartoons could justify murder and mayhem and that justification would be widely accepted?
IMO, "writers" like Ms. Heard play a big part in the WOT.
The ME propaganda machine nicknamed "Paliwood", concoct and promote endlessly and I think the American people need to know more about who they are and what they do.
IIRC, the second intifada was started with a faked film of a Palestinian boy being cradled by his father while shot and killed by soldiers
Also FYI, Al Gore had an article that was featured on the website jihadunspun for quite some time. -lol-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Adler
Felix Adler
Felix Adler (August_13, 1851–April_24, 1933) was a Jewish rationalist intellectual who founded the Society for Ethical Culture in New York City.
Chronology
Adler's family immigrated to the United States when he was six years of age on the occasion of his father Samuel Adler receiving an appointment as head rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in New York.
Felix Adler graduated from Columbia University in 1870 and moved to Germany where he received a doctorate from Heidelberg University. Starting in 1874 he spent two years at Cornell University before his "dangerous attitude" caused him to leave.
He returned to New York and preached some sermons at the Temple Emanu-El in New York City where his father was still the head rabbi. He was noted for omitting reference to God in any of his Sermons, an unorthodox approach which made him suspect by many in the New York Jewish community and ended any thought of him succeeding his father.
Then, at the age of twenty-four, Adler founded the New York Society for Ethical Culture in 1876. Adler's belief in deed rather than creed led his society to foster two innovative projects. In 1877 the NYSEC sponsored Visiting Nursing, where nurses, and doctors if necessary, visited the homebound sick in poor districts. This service was eventually incorporated into the New York City health system. A year later, in 1878, a Free Kindergarten was established as a tuition-free school for working people's children. It evolved over time into the Ethical Culture Fieldston School.
In 1902 Adler was given the chair of political and social ethics at Columbia University, which he held until his death in 1933.
Well known as a lecturer and writer, Adler served as rector for the Ethical Culture School until his death in 1933. Throughout his life he always looked beyond the immediate concerns of family, labor, and race to the long-term challenge of reconstructing institutions like schools and government to promote greater justice in human relations. Within Adler's ethical philosophy, cooperation rather than competition remained the higher social value.
Adler became the founding chairman of the National Child Labor Committee in 1904. Lewis Hine became the committee's photographer in 1908.
In 1917 Adler served on the Civil Liberties Bureau, which later became the American Civil Liberties Bureau and then the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
In 1928 Adler became president of the Eastern division of the American Philosophical Association.
Adler served on the first Executive Board of the National Urban League.
Tenement house reform
As a member of the New York State Tenement House Commission, Adler was concerned not only with overcrowding but also by the increase in contagious disease caused by overcrowding. Though not a proponent of free public housing, Adler spoke out about tenant reform and the rents which he considered exorbitant. Jacob Riis wrote that Adler had "clear incisive questions that went through all subterfuges to the root of things."
In 1885 Adler and others created the Tenement House Building Company in order to build "model" tenements that rented for $8–$14/month. By 1887 six model buildings had actually been erected on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for the sum of $155,000. Even though critics favored restrictive legislation for improving tenement living, the model tenement was a progressive step forward.
American foreign policy
By the late 1890s, with the increase in international conflicts, Adler switched his concern from domestic issues to the question of American foreign policy. While some contemporaries viewed the 1898 Spanish American War as an act to liberate the Cubans from Spanish rule, others perceived the U.S. victories in the Caribbean and the Philippines as the beginning of an expansionist empire. Adler at first supported the war but later expressed anxiety about American sovereignty over the Philippines and Puerto Rico, concluding that an imperialistic rather than a democratic goal was guiding U.S. foreign policy. Ethical Culture affirms "the supreme worth of the person" and Adler superimposed this tenet on international relations, believing that no single group could lay claim to superior institutions and lifestyle.
Unlike many of his contemporaries during World War I, Adler didn't feel that the defeat of Germany alone would make the world safe for democracy. Peace could only be achieved, he thought, if the representative democratic governments remained non-imperialistic and if the arms race was curbed. As a result, Adler opposed the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations. As an alternative, Adler proposed a "Parliament of Parliaments" elected by the legislative bodies of the different nations and filled with different classes of people, rather than special interests, so that common and not national differences would prevail.
Philosophy
Adler came to promote a philosophy which he termed Ethical Culture, an essentially Kantian moral philosophy which prized public work and the use of reason to develop ultimate ethical standards. Adler published such works as Creed and Deed (1878), Moral Instruction of Children (1892), Life and Destiny (1905), The Religion of Duty (1906), Essentials of Spirituality (1908), An Ethical Philosophy of Life (1918), The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal (1925), and Our Part in this World. He made use of the ideas from his religion, the philosophy of Kant & Ralph Waldo Emerson, mixed with certain socialistic ideas of his time. He believed that the concept of a personal god was unnecessary and that the human personality is the central force of religion, that different people's interpretations of religions were to be respected as religious things in themselves.
If this representative of the liberal MSM, were writing about a child rapist, she would offer the benefit of the doubt. Words like "presumed" would modify "guilt". Questions about societies role in forming the rapist would be examined... Is the rapist also a victim?
If it was a Kennedy involved, the "benefit of the doubt" would be raised to an art form - with those who dared to question the rape or murder being cast as ignorant mouth breathers.
The press has it's standards -- and here they are: if you're a liberal on the Kennedy or Clinton level, you get a pass. If you're a common criminal, you get a pass. If you break into this country, you get a pass. If you're a conservative, a Christian, or a member of the military, you don't -- you're assumed guilty until proven innocent. There is no pass.
Here's the difference between them and us. I believe all atrocities are wrong. Those committed by our guys, and those committed by them... We don't have a double standard. Journalist do. And yeah, we react to that double standard -- and sometimes overreact, but we know who gets the pass, and who doesn't. And that our side never "gets the pass." Never.
And if our guys did wrong, we'll object. As we should. But please, could our guys, the men who protect us get the same MSM consideration given to the average ax murderer, child killer, or criminal? Can the MSM hold back their glee at "getting" some soldiers?
"Surely, nobody should pronounce guilt without knowledge of the facts. .....as you and Murtha have done. Let the process play itself out."
I have been waiting for the "full story" to come out.
I don't like to think that American soldiers are capable of such a thing. But we know from isolated incidents in Viet Nam and other wars that sometimes our guys can lose their control.
An American soldier who was called in to photograph the bodies is claiming he saw a young girl killed by a bullet to the forehead.
I'm having a hard time understanding the circumstance where a soldier would deem it necessary to shoot a child in her home.
Yeah, well that won't stop the Linda Heards and those like her from condemning FR as the playground of the Devil himself!
Hi guys!
I have spent most of my life outside the UK and worked variously in Cyprus, Algeria, France, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon and the Gulf. I spent some 17 years in Dubai, 10 of which as the Editor of the Emirates Inflight magazine and the Dubai Airport publication.
I am currently an editor, writer and columnist, specialising in the Middle East and US-Europe relations. I have recently moved from Athens and am now living in the centre of Cairo with my wondeful husband and well-travelled cat Oliver.
I am looking for friends who knew me during my days in Pontypool where I was a pupil of Park Terrace from around 1954 to around 58 when we left Wales to move to London.
In London, I attended William Pattern in Stoke Newington and John Howard in Clapton.
I particularly remember Christine Wash as we spent many an hour in her house at lunchtime practising the twist (God! That's s dating) and I would absolutely love to get back in touch with Marcia Joseph with whom I went on my first trip abroad - to Italy, where we were targeted not only by the local lotharios but also by mosquitoes.
Sadly, my other dear schoolfriend Barbara Standrin died of cancer some years ago.
If anyone thinks they know me, then please do get in touch so that we can catch up on old times.
Linda
Yes folks, the big journo role she mentions was editing an inflight magazine for the Emirates airline.
Looks like she knows that getting hired by the Beeb (BBC) will take something more inflammatory on the resume?
Why do you presume a) that an American Marine shot this innocent victim? and b) that an American Marine deliberately shot her?
Yes, sometimes atrocities are committed by Americans during war. Now ask yourself - which is more like to have occurred? A group of U.S. Marines, over a period of FIVE HOURS, executed women and children, including a 3-year old girl? Or a group of terrorists executed women and children, including a 3-year old girl?
Makes the presumption of innocence pretty important, doesn't it?
I have a colleague serving in Iraq right now. We asked what he wanted in a care package. Anything, anything at all! His response?
"We're fine, but could you send some gently used stuffed animals for the Iraqi children?"
Jack Murtha and Linda Heard, I cordially invite you to rot in Hades.
Very well said!
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