Ofcourse, that's fantastic, heroes don't only exist in fairytales, the also exist in the U.S. army, that's true and the people who give their all to defend innocent people get my utmost respect.
However, we're talking about a different case.
This man has raped a 14 yr old and killed her parents and her younger sister for crying out loud, and you're coming here promoting the good side of the American army in Iraq?
My feelings go out to the poor souls resting in their graves.
I hope this man experiences the worst scenario's prison could actually offer someone like him.
I was in post-Saddam Kuwait and yes, I know how oil-laden air breathed and tasted after Kuwait's oil fields were set afire from Saddam's orders. There were many checkpoints throughout Kuwait City as we were uncertain if all Iraqi Army elements actually left with the main force or if any remain, from being abandoned or from orders to do 'something' else. Tensions and suspicions were high for many weeks.
But immediately after coalition forces had a tentative security rule over Kuwait, the atrocities committed by the Iraqi Army came out of the proverbial woodworks. I say Iraqi Army, not Iraqi soldiers. There is a difference and I will elaborate later. Anyway, a woman limped towards our station and everyone tightened up on their weapons. Someone with a binoc reported that she was holding her bloodied dress together at her groin area. A friend, a USAF medic, approached her alone, briefly examined her and radioed back she was a true 'civie' and that she was seriously injured. No guessing from all on what could have happened to the poor woman. Several more of us carried her back to the station but when she saw there were no female medico around, she wanted to leave. We had to restrain her while one ran off to wake up a US Army female nurse. The lieutenant worked all night treating many other cases like this woman and she managed to convince the victim to stay for medical care.
What is an 'army' and what is a 'soldier'...?
An 'army' is an organization while the 'soldier' is an individual. No organization make decisions without inputs from its members, from high or low. I never knew what happened to the woman after she left with our nurse. I could have tried to find out but I did not. It is not that I do not care about the victim but that I was confident and that I have faith that she would be in the care of sympathetic and empathetic human beings, not savages with just enough sophistication to wear uniforms, carry guns and call themselves an 'army'. It was the decision of that 'army' to set on fire Kuwait's oil fields, to loot the city and the citizens, and to not only allow but
ORDERED its soldiers to commit the worst act a man could do to a woman. Judging from the way the woman limped and the amount of blood, how many men were involved?
The US military is an all volunteer force while much of the world have their militaries composed of conscripts. But both types draw its soldiers from their respective societies and as such the military is an inevitable reflection of that society. There will be diverse personalities and temperaments, from the psychologically stable to the pathological.
Who ordered this US Army soldier to commit those horrific crimes ? Was it his superiors? Was he encouraged by his fellow soldiers? Or was his outside the accepted norms pathology the sole source of compulsion for those crimes, an internal source that we can only hope to control through moral standards and peer reinforcement?
I have no doubt that
NOT ONE Iraqi soldier was punished for the crime he did to that poor woman I saw that day. Why should he when it was the organization he served -- The Iraqi Army -- that sanctioned his deeds? What were the moral standards and peer reinforcement that version of the Iraqi Army possessed and doled out to its soldiers? Now what is ours -- The US Army -- that prosecuted one of our soldiers for the exact same acts?
For every misdeed an individual US soldier committed and broadcasted for everyone to use as a convenient rhetorical club to hold over America's head, there is at least one hundred acts of compassion and kindness that receive nowhere the attention, like the acts produced by the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP) funds where the local commander has the authority to use 'petty cash' as he sees fit to benefit the Iraqi locals, from sewage repairs to toys for tots. Why do these acts not so well known? Because it is
EXPECTED. And if certain behaviors are expected, then naturally only aberrant behaviors, the ones outside the norms, will be considered newsworthy. In contrast to the Saddam Iraqi Army, we expected Kuwait to be devastated out of sheer spite as it leave Kuwait, we were surprised only at the scale. Does the world expect the US military do the same type of atrocities to Iraq when we leave the country?
In no way am I saying America is perfect but I have been around ME militaries enough to have little respect for them. There is an unwritten agreement among US instructor pilots to lower the standards whenever any MEastern air forces come over for training. The more oil his country has, the lower the standards. Make the guy happy, give him an achievement award he can boast to his friends and relatives in high governmental positions. We have no problems publicly elevating his perceived skills above that of our own flyers.
USA
