barely survived dinner
May. 10th, 2004 08:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amalthiaWell not quite that dramatic...somehow while we were eating dinner the conversation turned towards the prisoners in Iraq that were tortured by American soliders. My mom sides with the soldiers, making excuses for their behavior, while I'm on the side that there is no excuse to humiliate another human being. What our soldiers did was no better than what Sadam did to his own people. Sure, our soliders did not permantantly mutilate those prisoners but forcing them into acts which are humiliating is not exactly mentally healthy either. How is America supposed to say we are better when we don't act any better? Or that we are helping the people of Iraq when they see pictures of their male soldiers being forced to do embarrassing shit in front of cameras?
sure I can understand it was a few soliders who trangressed, but if we don't punish those soliders then the rest may think it's okay to behave in that manner. when it's not okay to torture prisoners of war, or any prisoners for that matter. Not if we want to show the world that the United States really is morally superior.
I'm just so upset with my mom for saying stuff like the soliders were really stressed out and were probably at a breaking point. They didn't look too stressed out to me, they looked like they were having fun at the expense of another living being. Maybe I am sheltered and expect too much from my fellow citizens. I'm upset at these soldiers for making the rest of the US Armed forces look bad to the rest of the world.
sure I can understand it was a few soliders who trangressed, but if we don't punish those soliders then the rest may think it's okay to behave in that manner. when it's not okay to torture prisoners of war, or any prisoners for that matter. Not if we want to show the world that the United States really is morally superior.
I'm just so upset with my mom for saying stuff like the soliders were really stressed out and were probably at a breaking point. They didn't look too stressed out to me, they looked like they were having fun at the expense of another living being. Maybe I am sheltered and expect too much from my fellow citizens. I'm upset at these soldiers for making the rest of the US Armed forces look bad to the rest of the world.
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Date: 2004-05-10 07:14 pm (UTC)My mom and you're mom would agree with each other. And I can see where they're coming from. I don't in anyway condone the things they did. But I do understand the psychology behind it. They were also following a rule of wars: winners get to do whatever they want, losers suffer.
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Date: 2004-05-10 08:05 pm (UTC)I think our mom's both grew up during the vietnam war and were used to hearing about the awful things our soldiers did in Vietnam.
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Date: 2004-05-10 08:21 pm (UTC)>>>said Roger Krueger, who served in Vietnam and is the chapter's president. "When a person is in
>>>combat, they have to do whatever they have to do to stay alive."
>And sometimes, apparently, when a person is not even remotely close to combat, in order to stay alive
>they have to take unarmed, helpless, locked-up men, strip them naked at gunpoint, pose them as if
>they're having oral sex with each other, and take pictures. Who are we to judge, who have not seen the
>hell that is war?
My husband had this commentary on his Live Journal and it really summed things up for me!
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Date: 2004-05-10 09:16 pm (UTC)