You guys know the story of The One, right? Navy SEAL who cast the decided vote on wether or not to kill the Afgans who stumbled upon them. The vote was no, and not coicidentally the world soon came down on them. I'll try to find a link.
Tassled - in the WaPo within the last month, IIRC.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR2007061001492.html?hpid=topnews&sub=new
Yep
I remember along time ago having a beer with a snake eater who said that he was taught that if he ever got in a firefight it meant he fucked up. Snoop and poop was their game.
correct me if i'm wrong about this but: didn't that seal dude, lutrell, commit the grave sin of submission to dhimmitude?
damn. if only he'd been as brave as a right-wing blogger. none of them would ever have done that.
Wow, I guess he became a Quran Alone muslim...
That story just makes me want to scream. You had to go through all that to realize that foreigners are human beings?
Is this guy replacing Stanley McChrystal?
well, it's like the british say about their death-trap cars: there are no atheists in vauxhalls....
12: I laughed.
What're gonna expect if you read that pinko rag, The Army Times?
Good story, but, "Part of his calculus was practical. 'I didn't want to go to jail.'"? Since when has anyone gone to jail for killing civilians? He's obviously using this as cover for his decency.
If you have to kill someone, then for God's sakes, kill the right people
I have to say, this quote has it all. Words to live by.
Re the Post article: I really hope a good director makes that book into a movie. It has it all -- adventure, moral complexity and shades of grey, etc.
If people took that advice seriously, no one would ever kill anybody. But that is impossible. Therefore, the principle is invalid. The killing must not stop.
Yeah, all Rumsfeld's fault. None of those snake-eaters could ever think for themselves. Impressionable young men one and all. Ethical and principled and all that enlightended shit. From my perspective within the military, they went forward of their own accord. None opted out. They enjoyed the added benefit of conducting their murderous business under the cloak of darkness and the cover of anonymity. All the while, these special operators demonized those who taught and promoted existing regulations which defined such misconduct as immoral and illegal, namely for the Navy SEALS and Marine RECON, the defining obligation to the Geneva Conventions as describe in U.S. Navy Regulations. So, yeah, blame it all on Rumsfeld. I'm curious, why didn't Eric Olson say no and why does he get promoted for this failure?
If you have to kill someone, then for God's sakes, kill the right people
This is a TERRIBLE place to put the emphasis. The proper emphasis, as any Keyboard Kommando would tell you, should be: if you have to kill someone, then for God's sakes, KILL THEM IN THE COOLEST POSSIBLE WAY. Numchuks, piano wire, Hellfire up the tailpipe of their Toyota, GPS coordinates to an F-18 that takes out their entire fucking village. Or thumbs through their eyeballs. You don't get any bonus points for just shooting somebody at range with an M2. What are our armed forces coming to?