CelticBear’s Musings

The terrorists win. Congrats.

Over at BoingBoing I found a couple of items regarding draconian and paranoid security measures:

Blowing Up Scientific Equipment in the Name of Security

And these videos of US soldiers in Iraq making it pretty easy to see why we’re so hated by the world:

Soldiers taunting and tormenting Iraqi children.

Soldiers shooting up and crushing an Iraqi civilian’s car because they can.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-military. My grandfather was a Marine Lieutenant in WWII and I have nothing but respect for that man who taught me a lot about principles and honor. And I know there’s a lot of good people in today’s military. But it’s very hard to see crap like this, read about US soldiers raping young girls and slaughtering their families, Abu Ghraib prison, and not also think about Viet Nam rape and murder charges, Zippoing of villages. It may only be a few bad apples in a bunch, but this is what happens when you have thousands of young testosterone fueled men with weapons in a position of power over people they’re indoctrinated to hate and too much time on their hands because they’re being used as police when they’re trained for combat. And then these punks with guns and monster trucks with 40cal guns and idle hands do more damage to our image and efforts than all the many times more good guys can do to improve it.
We need…to get…the f**k out of Iraq, now!

CNN: Bush: “Nothing less than victory in Iraq”. And the question remains: What the hell is a “victory” in Iraq? When that $1.5 billion US town embassy is completed? When the entire country is ravaged by civil war sectarian violence? What is a victory? It’s a great word the administration is bandying about with absolutely no concrete definition of what it is!

UPDATE: It appears that the proud-of-themselves amoral soldiers who posted these videos are being investigated by the Pentagon: http://dreamsofliberty.blogspot.com/2006/11/u.html

Well, that’s something at least.