Of all the long litany of terrible shit that has happened in Iraq, I think I'm actually least offended by this.

This is only true to the extent that "American society" translates to "the tiny handful of people that get to pick what is broadcast on television news programs." Plenty of American society has been noticing and getting angry and protesting for a long time, in spite of the people who are purportedly supposed to tell us these things actively suppressing and trivializing them, which to my thinking speaks well of those parts of American society that do not comprise its corporate overlords and pay-masters.

It's just the General forum, "let's all be outraged together" is fine here. It's not like we get charged by the thread or anything.

Or if we do it's Brian who gets stuck with the bill. So that's all right.

Thats because the slaughter of people overseas is justified and rationalised by the government.

"But they had WMD's. Whoops, no they didn't. But you don't need to know that right away"

"But they have a dictator. Our leader is seen holding hands with about 10, but thats not whats important"

So, I really do agree with those of you who are saying that its ridiculous how many people freak out when an animal is getting kicked, but going into a war that serves no purpose and killing innocent people is just peachy.

This pisses me off almost as much as that video by those extremists about virginia tech.

As the proud granddaughter and niece of Marines, I'm appalled at all of the things that modern Marines have been caught doing. When I was younger, Marines were the epitome of everything that made the US military great. They were the men and women that we sent in when we wanted something done quickly, efficiently, and with as little harm to the civilian population as possible. Discipline was extremely tight, and if a marine stepped out of line or engaged in some harmful behavior against an innocent, be it human or animal, punishment was harsh and usually administrated by the marine's own unit, because no one wanted the offender to tarnish the unit's reputation. Sure, it was flawed and there were plenty of bigots (my grandpa was called "damned Indian" and my uncle was called "fucking Arab"), but bullshit like this seemed to have been much more rare.

To say that Marines come back from serving without their humanity, however, is wrong, at least for the Marines in my family. My grandpa was one of the first people on the beach at Okinawa during WWII, and until he (mercifully) developed Alzheimer's severe enough that his memories of the war faded, he was constantly haunted by the screams of the soldiers that he killed (he was one of the flamethrower men, but he also used rifles, handguns, bayonets, and even a straight razor when a Japanese soldier attacked him in his foxhole while he was shaving).

I am most definitely grateful for the advances that the US military has made, especially in the recognition, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness (there's still a long way to go, but at least some people are starting to get treated for PSTD and the like), but it really seems like there's something going really wrong with modern soldiers. Perhaps that something has always been there, and I've just been lucky with my family's military experience (I've had aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents in the Marines, Army, Navy, and Coast Guard, snd so far, only my young Marine cousin has turned out to be a totally undisciplined dipshit). Maybe vehicles such as the Internet and cell phones are starting to call attention to the really bad apples in the military barrel who have been there all along.

As for the reason why Flare posted this, my guess is that she's ashamed that her fellow Marines would do something like that to anything innocent, much less a puppy.

Oh, and adamark, there are plenty of people who are outraged at the deaths of innocent civilians, be they Iraqi, Venezuelan, Sudanese, or even Polish. The US government just doesn't listen because continuing Bush's Iraqi adventure helps keep the price of oil nice and high so that they and their cronies can make huge profits off of the rest of us poor saps who don't have taxpayers paying our bills. Money talks, and those of us without any cannot and will not be heard.

I also think it's probably worthwhile to note here the huge lowering of recruiting standards that's gone on over the last six years. Shockingly the willingness of actually capable young people to sign up to serve has experienced a significant decline in the last few years so the military has started letting in a lot of people who previously would never have been permitted to serve including people who can't pass basic aptitude tests as well as those with criminal records or gang tattoos.

I don't know if this particularly relates to whatever person did this thing but it seems worth mentioning.

That is unfortunate, but it does explain a lot. My uncle Maury is probably spinning in his grave right now. He was a career Marine and proud of it. :(

I think this is a case of The Good Ol' Days. Not trying to speak for an entire generation, but war always brings the best and the worst of many people, no matter their origin or timeframe. Brutalities against Vietnamese during the seventies are pretty well-documented, for example. Especially during that time. I don't exactly remember the name of the event, but it was a televised report that showed how the Westerners killed their defeated enemies in Saigon without trial or chance for explaining themselves. If someone could help me in pointing this one out it could help a lot.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is very good at examining the psyche of soldiers who have become dehumanised by war. Totally recommend it.

marines have always been like this. I have several family members that served in vietnam, and they were more afraid of the marines deciding to shoot them for sport than they were of being killed by vietcong.

Now, as a webcrawler, I have seen far, far, far worse things done to cute animals, but it doesn't in the least bit desensitize me as each and every sight fills me with the equivalent amount of rage, pity, and disgust.

You'd think that being in a job where death is so frequent and so sudden, they'd have more appreciation for the fragility of life, not devalue it and toss it away like gold coins into the sea.

I suppose no matter how "civilized" the world becomes, once a man is handed a weapon and told that people have to die, the old instinct of becoming nothing more than a brute is inescapable.

Even in video games, the only animal I can bring myself to harm is a chicken and that's just to see them get divine retribution on my character en masse.

Tell that to Flare.


To several people, I submit the following:
I do get much more outraged at cruelty or murder toward animals than I do for the same to humans. I don't feel that animals can DESERVE death. Humans can...

But, that is a rant for another thread.


That dog is really cute...My dog just had puppies, so this kind of hits close to home for me. Its sickening.

I know what you mean, I breed them. About the same size too.

(Note: The Slimy tentacles of Cthulu are NOTHING like watching a dog give birth)