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Uh, Iraqi prisoner abuse doesnt ring a bell?
The Iraqi prisoner abuse is some nasty stuff, but there's two difference involved.
One is that while stripping a guy naked and making him wear a leash is a cruel (and stupid) thing to do to a prisoner, it is
not an act equal to the claims these guys were making--mutilating bodies, shooting people for throwing rocks (oh, and next time you hear about prisoners or palestinians throwing rocks at soldiers, look at the film clips--these guys ain't lobbing dirt-clods; they're trying to maim or kill somebody, and if someone's trying to kill me with a rock while I'm carrying a gun, I'm not gonna put down the gun and pick up some rocks, I'm gonna use the gun. People have been killing each other with sticks and stones for thousands of years before the first gun was invented.), or breaking legs and leaving them out in 25-degree weather.
The other is that when people do these things, they're punished. The idiots leashing people in Abu Ghraib are being run through military trials (and military justice--both trials and punishment--is considerably harsher than its civilian counterpart) and are being quite rightly denounced by all sides--even the people who care nothing for the prisoners realize that this is a public relations disaster. Likewise the guy who shot a wounded terrorist in a mosque was run through the grinder--fortunately, he was aquitted, but just the chance that he had killed an innocent was enough to run him through the mill. To claim that the US Armed forces stand for abuses because a few soldiers commit them and are punished it like saying that every nation of the world stands for murder because it happens everywhere.
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And what if they said "For every one of our soldiers killed, we'll take 500 innocent out into the street and murder them.". I think the violence would slow down pretty quick. The military is here as a preventative against invasion, or forgein attack.
Herein I disagree. Ever heard of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising? The Jews confined in the Warsaw Ghetto found out what was really happening to the people rounded up and sent to "labor camps", and with something like ten guns, clubs and spears made out of table legs, and rocks, they managed to hold off the assembled might of the Nazi military for more than a month--hell, that's better than France did (Then again, we
saved France from the Nazis in about the same manner that Sir Galahad was
rescued from Castle Anthrax.). Anybody who tried to invade America would find themselves facing a lot of fairly well-armed civilians. And while many of those would be "average Joes", there would also be a huge number who grew up using guns and stalking game, and a lot of ex-soldiers who would know exactly what they're doing.
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what do i give to these people for supposedly sving my freedom? my taxes which pay for their lving quarters, food, holidays, trips abroad, training, health care, their child's school, the gun in their hand and the plane flying over head, the clubs and sports facilities, water, electricity, gas and a very very nice pension scheme.
Have you ever lived in Army barracks, ate Army food, or had Army health-care applied to you? I have, both abroad and in the US, and they're nothing to write home about unless home life really sucks. If you can pay taxes to fund studies on whether long-tailed newts are more sexually agressive or how fast ketchup flows; or to fund such "art" as a crucifix in a jar of urine, drawings of men with bullwhips in their rectums, or a painting of the virgin Mary with elephant crap smeared on her breasts; or to buy some welfare-queen's beer, then surely you could spare a little to pay for the people defending your country--especially since the pay is nothing to do backflips over either. Since the "trips abroad" usually mean "you get to live in even crappier conditions for a year or a year and a half--say goodbye to your wife and hope she's willing to wait for you", I don't count them as evidence of pampering either. Clubs and sports facilities are nice, but in the US at least your taxes don't pay for that--the military tells a couple companies that if they build this stuff they won't have to pay taxes on the money they make, and they raise the rates for it because they can.
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Oh yes I have spoken to family who has served in wars in the past, and you know what.. they never truely believed they would be the "next" to fall.
A lot of dead people never thought they would be the "next" to fall. Likewise, a lot of permanently crippled people can tell you that they never thought it would happen to them. Just because they didn't spend their entire tour of duty hidden in a corner certain that the first time they stepped outside they'd get their head shot off doesn't mean that their lives weren't at risk.