Did US marines massacre Iraqi civilians? Options

[Retrogressive]

^Yeah... I kind of got amped up over something that I don't know nearly enough about. It was probably an over zealous post.

[*mipadi*]

More testimony on the alleged massacre from NBC.

[*I Shot JFK*]

See, it irritates me when people say 'this is just like Abu Ghraib' (that SO doesnt look like it is spelled correctly), and try to label all soldiers as villainous bastards.

at anyrate, it is not.

What went on in Abu Ghraib was a premeditated act of calculated sadism. The soldiers involved degraded and abused prisoners FOR FUN, over an extended period of time. They enjoyed it. They photographed it. And so on.

This is a seperate instance. One can only imagine the horror of seeing your friends burnt to death, and pinned under an exploded army van. The majority, or at least a hefty percentage of soldiers who enlist do it for economic reasons, and are either a) not intelligent enough to seek employment elseweher, or at best are too unedcated. And these factors combine with the fact that the soldiers KNOW that they are not wanted in Iraq, and that any person who they walked past on the street could easliy be a member of a group plotting to kill them and more of their friends, to lead to huge amounts of stress, and that stress explodes into this kind of horror when things go wrong.

One should NOT be surprised by this. horrified, but not surprised.

However, as Michael said, just because this is to be expected does NOT make it acceptable. And blame must be dealt.

The Governments of the Coalition Forces ought to be investing more in the individual soldier. To investigate the cases of post traumatic stress disorder amongst soldiers, for one.

What these soldiers did was unacceptable. but unless steps are taken, it will happen again. and again. and again.