Soldiers Gone Wild?
- Monday, July 10 2006 @ 06:23 AM CST
- Contributed by: filbert
- Views: 1,578
When Snookums and I were at my sister's place in rural South Dakota, our main worries were eating too much and setting off the tinder-dry grass with the fireworks. We returned to Kansas City and turned on the news, and were assaulted by a lengthy series of stories featuring rape, murder, car crashes, and (yes) fireworks-related death and mayhem.
This may partially explain why I'm not particularly moved by the continuing drip of stories alleging rape and murder by U.S. forces in Iraq. I don't doubt that some of that goes on. You put 150,000 people anywhere, and a small fraction will be bad people who look for opportunities to do bad things. But bad things happen everywhere, on a regular basis.
Throw in a tribally-based culture where blood money is expected and (let's be honest) lying is considered acceptable behavior in certain circumstances, and, in retrospect, this seeming parade of miscreants in military uniform should have been expected. I also have a strong suspicion that some of these accusations are a coordinated propoganda campaign. The many inconsistencies of the Haditha case, for instance, not only cast doubt on the accusations but point back towards an organized conspiracy among the accusers.
The response of good people is the same. Find the truth, punish the guilty (whoever they may be), console the victims (whoever they may be). As far as I can tell, that's exactly what the U.S. military is doing.
This may partially explain why I'm not particularly moved by the continuing drip of stories alleging rape and murder by U.S. forces in Iraq. I don't doubt that some of that goes on. You put 150,000 people anywhere, and a small fraction will be bad people who look for opportunities to do bad things. But bad things happen everywhere, on a regular basis.
Throw in a tribally-based culture where blood money is expected and (let's be honest) lying is considered acceptable behavior in certain circumstances, and, in retrospect, this seeming parade of miscreants in military uniform should have been expected. I also have a strong suspicion that some of these accusations are a coordinated propoganda campaign. The many inconsistencies of the Haditha case, for instance, not only cast doubt on the accusations but point back towards an organized conspiracy among the accusers.
The response of good people is the same. Find the truth, punish the guilty (whoever they may be), console the victims (whoever they may be). As far as I can tell, that's exactly what the U.S. military is doing.