freecounterpoint: The few, the proud

Saturday, May 27, 2006

The few, the proud

20 comments:

The Darkroom said...: I'll give you that the disaster in iraq is partly the result of there being too few of them.; 5/28/2006 3:15 AM
The Darkroom said...: but what is it about you and young bucks in uniforms?; 5/28/2006 4:52 AM
Tecumseh said...: OK, in the interest of inclusiveness, here's a pic of a woman marine. The green uniform nicely matches the eyes.; 5/28/2006 10:16 AM
The Darkroom said...: Something for the few not to be proud of.; 5/28/2006 11:45 AM
Tecumseh said...: Of, yeah -- the Gray Old Lady's wolves are salivating.; 5/28/2006 12:16 PM
The Darkroom said...: With this one top of Abu Ghraib, your boys aren't looking too good right now and there is little doubt that such incidents will further erode public support for this silly war.; 5/28/2006 1:22 PM
The Darkroom said...: I do wonder though how many such incidents would cause you to desolidarize (is this english?) yourself from this endeavour. Or is it that no matter what they'll do, you'll still support them ?; 5/28/2006 1:25 PM
Tecumseh said...: This is a rhetorical question, and loaded to boot. So let me just say that isolated incidents like this one, while unfortunate, do not shake my confidence in our young ones in uniform.

As I said elsewhere: à la guerre comme à la guerre. Or, in plain English: war is hell. But the only alternative is the default solution adopted by the French a long time ago: abject surrender. Thank you very much, but I'll stay with William Tecumseh.; 5/28/2006 3:18 PM
The Darkroom said...: there is actually a wide spread pattern of human rights abuse in the so-called "war on terror" which makes it difficult to refer to all these as "isolated incidents". Complete disprespect for human life, particularly when it comes down to muslims is how this is looking to many.

By "abject surrender", you are chosing to refer to the French during WWII, i presume, but not the americans in viet-nam ?; 5/28/2006 6:15 PM
The Darkroom said...: and in somalia, lebanon, ...; 5/28/2006 6:16 PM
Tecumseh said...: America never surrendered in Vietnam. Do you care to provide a reference to the contrary? On the other hand, the French did formally surrender, eg, at Dien Bien Phu.

As for Somalia and Lebanon, those were merely humanitarian missions, not wars. Trouble happened there, but that was not the same thing, not by a mile, as the mass surrender of the French in set-piece wars such as 1870, WWII and Vietnam (not to mention Algeria).

As for "complete disrespect for human life," I would refer you to this.; 5/28/2006 6:48 PM
The Darkroom said...: i was not arguing that the us was alone in its disrespect for human life; 5/28/2006 7:09 PM
The Darkroom said...: i do not see what was shameful about pulling out of algeria where we shouldn't have been in the first place.; 5/28/2006 7:14 PM
The Darkroom said...: going back to the-few-the-proud, just as disturbing as the killing is the military cover-up. Arguably, this is going up the chain of command and involves more than just the perpetrators.

This points to a culture of murder and deceit among the-few-the-proud, not so few and with little to brag about.; 5/28/2006 8:43 PM
Tecumseh said...: A comment from Ilario Pantano, an ex-Marine.; 5/28/2006 10:24 PM
The Darkroom said...: Sure, but fyi check out the witness accounts.

And even at the pentagon, people seem convinced that the story is true.

But you are right: technically, they are still innocent...; 5/29/2006 8:03 AM
Tecumseh said...: In the meantime, here is another day at the office for the guys the Marines and the Brits are up against.; 5/29/2006 6:08 PM
The Darkroom said...: yup. no wonder they are deserting.; 5/29/2006 9:57 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: It would be amazing if a unit of France's finest, under their own flag or under the even prouder flag of the UN, could get through a little Ivorian riot or Zairean child brothel without committing acts that would dwarf that of those bad Marines of Haditha. And the provocation from those rioters and children are, shall we say, somewhat of a less sanguinary character than our forces face daily in Iraq??
Le Pepe is very brave and wise before his bottle of Beaujolais.; 6/06/2006 12:55 AM
Tecumseh said...: Hey, le Nouveau n'est pas arrive! But let's wait for the Margaux 84, it should be reaching its peak any day now.; 6/06/2006 1:01 AM

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