board77

So this is what US security guards get up to in their free time in Iraq..

Video of Random Shootings in Iraq

Winning their hearts and minds?

U.S. Occupation is Worse Than Hussein

[quote]“[Authorities] are doing the same as [in] Saddam’s time and worse,â€

Video: US Troops Bemoan Not Being Able To Shoot Iraqi Kids Who Threw Rocks

Why do you think they're throwing rocks in the first place? Because they want trigger-happy scum like these guys out of their country.

White House never told of pre-Iraq war intelligence doubts - Powell

This is a blatant lie, as shown by the WH effort to discredit Joe Wilson.

Even if it were true, it would mean there was an unforgiveable lack of communication between the WH and their intelligence services. Can anyone really believe that on such an important issue the WH was never fully briefed on the intelligence?? Powell obviously hopes we're all idiots who will swallow such a ludicrous suggestion.

http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2005/12/21/70212.html

How does a newsfromrussia site publish a story like this, but no US media does?

halplm wrote:

http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2005/12/21/70212.html

How does a newsfromrussia site publish a story like this, but no US media does?

Possibly because the US media are checking the sources.

Or possibly because it's nothing important.

How is that not important?

A Huge cache of weapons, aparently still being accessed, in an area full of terrorists, who use such weapons to build their suicide bombs?

No, that's not important at all...

Because I assumed that something like that has been happening from the start. It's not exactly breaking news to me. But hey, if you think it's an important revelation, it doesn't take long to email the story to a few US media outlets.

Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal

[quote]“Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of ‘Disabled Vets’ means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems!â€

Disability versus death is an interesting stat in the war, but I'm not disputing the DU link.

The interesting part of the stat is that injuries that, in the past, were fatal, are now debilitating. We have fewer mortal casualties, but that doesn't mean we have fewer overal casualties.

Then there's the DU. Evil stuff, that.

Army Orders Soldiers to Shed Dragon Skin or Lose SGLI Death Benefits

Yet another indication that the upper echelons of the US military have the best interests of the troops at heart.

Bush 'plotted to lure Saddam into war with fake UN plane'

Wonder if this will get any mention in the US media..

More winning of hearts and minds, this time by the Brits:

Exposed.. squad of British soldiers beat teenage Iraqis and shame their country

See the video here:

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/armyvideo.shtml

(the running commentary by the cameraman is particularly sick)

Pretty disgusting.

Whenever you go elsewhere, you are representing yourself, your family, *and* your country.

If a foreign country you go to has some sort of stereotype for you or you find people not talking to you and shunning you away, chances are that developed due to a bunch of drooling monkeys from your country's military who were staying there at one point. I'm not joking when I that either. It's like that in Japan, and it's like that anywhere else.

Way to go guys. You sure showed them - at the cost of not only your dignity and pride, but your family's and country's as well. Bravo!

And it is so easy to be condersending towards soldiers from nice, safe comfatable armchairs in nice safe western democracies, watching the video and seeing how bad it is when sipping tea and worrying about the weather.

Having met, known and worked with some of the 'drooling monkeys' who were out in Iraq, and hearing first hand the stories, I am really not surprised to see the footage at all. Far worse was being done back, the shit bombs, the granades these sorts of kids were throwing, the beatings and the random kidnappings, the bombs and teh assasinations.

Those drooling monkeys as you so aptly put, were just kids doing a job. You really think they wanted to be there, to come back every day covered in human excriment, or cuts from bricks or full of shrapnel? I doubt it.

You may not agree with the regime change, if done in war it is never nice. But remember who it is you are shouting at. Just people doing a really nasty job under unpleasent conditions ina place thousands of miles from home. Same as soldiers for generations beyond count.

The really disgusting thing here is the 'News of the World', leading with a story that they doctored (well the footage is), and attacking our own troops. Yes it was bad, nobody likes to see anybody being beaten up, but it happens. But now the Newspaper who has made a fortune on the back of this with incresed sales and licencing deals has once again dragged the reputation of the UK military through the dirt.

Expect reprisals, expect revenge killings, expect more body bags full of dead teenagers who only wanted to serve thier nation.

In a decent world, the 'News of the World' would have passed the video onto the MOD, there would be an investigation, the problem would be solved. Now the world is full of dim witted, yet angry, folks who know nothing about the incident, and who will want revenge, thier own way.

Way to go.

Oh, and incase you hadn't realised, the Neews of the World is not a quality newspaper. It is THE gutter press, it just pays well for stories like this occassionally, sensationalises them, and uses them to pad out the rest of the paper which is gossip about which Z list celeb is sleeping with who now. They were not after a story, but sales.

Quote:

Just people doing a really nasty job under unpleasent conditions ina place thousands of miles from home.

Which was their choice. It was their choice to commit to doing a job correctly under tough conditions.

Do you defend the comments of the cameraman too?

Iavas_Saar wrote:

Quote:

Just people doing a really nasty job under unpleasent conditions ina place thousands of miles from home.

Which was their choice. It was their choice to commit to doing a job correctly under tough conditions.

Do you defend the comments of the cameraman too?

When someone signs up for the army in the UK it is a contract with obligations on both sides, some of these obligations are obvious, some are less well defined,but fundamentally there is a degree of trust,

on the side of the soldier - that they will conform to the rules of engagement

on the side of the Government that the rules of engagement are appropriate

on the side of the soldiers - that they will operate within the law

on the side of the Government- that they are fightting in a legal conflct.

When the trust brakes down that is when problems arise.