"I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.
All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?
The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.
As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell."
Shorter West: Civilian control of the military is bs. Never mind the Constitution.
ReplyDeleteYeah, just like West himself they could not control themselves within the code of conduct. He wants the same slap on the wrist he got.
ReplyDeleteThere are thousands of military personnel who can conduct themselves in a manner that we can be proud of. These guys could not.
Respect even during the stress of combat is what separates us from terrorists.
I don't buy his message and neither should citizens or those in command of these soldiers.
Hell, My Lai happened when soldiers were being shot at by the Viet Cong, does West think that was OK too.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, I can sing the Navy hymn by heart as well a Anchors Aweigh!
They should be drummed out of the service and not receive their retirement pay and benefits. No ifs ands or buts!
You're comparing the mass murder of men, women and children that numbered in the 3 to 5 hundred range to a despicable act of urinating on 4 dead bodies? REALLY?
ReplyDeleteThe fact remains that whether it be something as awful as My Lie, or something as you say despicable as urinating on dead bodies, they lost control.
ReplyDeleteIf we accept that these guys should receive the same treatment that West got for putting a man's head in a barrel and discharging his weapon into it we are sending the wrong signal to our citizens, troops and the rest of the world.
It's all a question of where you draw the line, and West does not know how to do that.
Oh by the way have you been in the service?
Your accounting of what West did is false. West fired his pistol near Hamoodi's head.
ReplyDeleteRead the transcripts;
ReplyDeleteWest ordered Hamoodi out of the interrogation room and took him outside the facility, where Hamoodi says West pointed to six soldiers who were standing in line with their weapons in hand. Through the Egyptian translator, West told Hamoodi: "If you don't talk, they will kill you."
When that didn't work, West admitted to pushing Hamoodi's head into a clearing barrel full of sand, which is typically used for clearing weapons. West then put his gun into the same barrel, near Hamoodi's head and fired.
"In my anger I do not know if I fired two shots in to the barrel or one into the air and another into the barrel," said West in his sworn statement.
Read This:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aclu.org/files/projects/foiasearch/pdf/DODDOACID000105.pdf
I remember that incident. It concerned a planned ambush that put the lives of his soldiers at rick and in imminent danger. So his men slapped some scumbag around who had knowledge of a ambush plot, West scared him with a gun. The terrorist spilled his guts and the ambush was thwarted. Who would you rather have for a president? This guy or a liberal pacifist pansy Democrat?
ReplyDeleteOle Hickory
That story about Pershing is an Urban Legend!
ReplyDeletehttp://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_black_jack_pershing.htm
Also there was no evidence that there was a planned ambush and the prisoner that West interrogated was later released without charges.
Ole Hickory is either a very sly parody of a delusional reactionary or the genuine article. That's not at all an accurate account of the incident for which West was cashiered-something the army does not do lightly.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous/John J. Pershing is spouting a different version of falsehood and foolishness:
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/pershing.asp
"May the conscience and the common sense of the peoples be awakened, so that we may reach a new stage in the life of nations, where people will look back on war as an incomprehensible aberration of their forefathers!" Albert Einstein 1879-1955
ReplyDeleteI am sorry war is wrong, it does nothing but create more future problems and West is just a warrior, not really thinking about our future and has not learned from our past. Say no to War and armies!