I am so sick of our pussified military.

If they stole the koran then that was a crime, but if they aquired it legally then it was theirs to do with as they saw fit. Of course, if they spent government rounds then that is also against the rules. I feel for those boys being over there and always under the scrutiny of our own press blowing any minor thing out of proportion. Yeah, they screwed up, but it should never have gotten to a general.

Hell, them enlisted guys that shot a fucking book will get more time than the officer flying that plane got for cutting that gondola car cable in italy that time that caused all those people to fall to their death.

You don't have to respect a religion to not shoot up a Koran.

I am an atheist. I have several freinds and co-workers that I respect that are Christians. Because I respect them, I don't go around shoving my world view down their throats and I don't rip up Bibles. If I did, I guess I'd have to understand it if they didn't want to associate with me anyore.

It's really a no brainer if you think about it.

Hey...people who join the military know they best behave or it goes much harder with them than civilians.

Pretty stupid to risk disciplinary action just to shoot a book.

Jeez, man! It's not about respecting religion.

It's about not doing shit that could piss off the people who could be our allies. And guess what? Whether you like it or not, the ones that could help out our American government could very well be Muslim. If they see soldiers shooting up the Koran, some of them might react the very way YOU are right now.

One of those things was unintentional.

Of course it is.

Those men and women are representing America over there and shooting up the local holy book is their idea of demonstrating the US freedom of religion and how we respect other people's right to worship as they see fit?

Thanks, guys.

I think that's ep's disconnect.

One of those killed people an the other did harm to a book.

Fixed that for ya'.

Well, if thats all it takes then those people are not worth saving. We need to pull out and bomb the shit out of them. Fucking winning their hearts and minds, we will never do that anyways, but we can put them into the stone age for a long time.

Those people kill each other for desecrating that book, let alone how they will react to outsiders not even having the decency to acknowledge that they hold that book sacred even if we do not.

Cling to some imagined "right" they have in a foreign land to endanger their comrades to blow off steam....but it just makes you look ignorant and hateful.

How dare they have their own beliefs and be offended if some asshole desecrates their religion in front of them. How dare they be upset that people who claim to be there to help would have so little regard for something that means everything to them.

Some little shit should have the right to do what he wants because....why?

I thought that this was a rant about women in the military...

*slowly backs out*

But if they piss on your sacred Bible, then it's time to drop a nuke on them, right?

Do you not see the hypocrisy in this line of thinking?

Where can I get a pamphlet?

And the truth of the matter comes out. See, this is what you really want, deep down in that vacant cavity you call a heart, isn't it? Any excuse to create 170,000 square miles of glass.

Well guess what - I might not agree with the military having been sent in there, but I sure as hell want them there now, if only to ensure that people like you can't glass entire nations.

And do you really want to know something hilarious? Something that I don't think your reptilian mind ever even thought about? That if some Iraqi coalition members were taking pot shots at a Bible, you'd just use it as more evidence of their need of a good bombing, no matter how the military handled it.

Every little incident like this chips away at any faith the people over there have in us. And it therefore negatively affects the success of what we're trying to do. Because like Tamar said, that could be one fewer person willing to turn over information about terrorist activity. One more suicide bomber. All because some dickhead decided that he just had to shoot up a Koran.

And here's the thing that I don't think you'll ever understand. Shooting that Koran wasn't just disrespecting the beliefs of the Iraqis we are working with. It was disrespecting the Iraqis themselves. Because if you truly respect someone, then you don't actively give a good ol' hearty "Fuck you!" to something they hold dear, especially a fellow soldier. You keep it in. You express it elsewhere. Because they don't need your shit.

Get that, EP? 'Cause let me tell you something - have no illusions about it, I certainly don't respect you. You're frothing at the mouth, and each drop of spittle represents a hope for someone to screw up so you can justify your fucking prejudices. You need it. You need that someone to hate, because it makes you look less like the disgusting human being you are.

So pack up your rhetoric and your Chinese-import flag-waving patriotism and shove it up your ass, because the men and women over there, Christian or Muslim, American or Iraqi, don't need you advocating risks to their lives so that some fucking idiot like yourself can fulfill his deep-seated need to give the finger to something he doesn't understand.

Fuck you.

He probably wants to glass Iraq because he hasn't the balls to stand up to the wife he loathes and pretends to love.

Of all the times to be out of rep...

Whether you're shooting at the Koran, ripping up Bibles, setting fire to Bidle, Heine, Galen or Kaestner, outlawing Marx or outlawing Nietzsche, or even banning as horrid a treatise as "Mein Kampf", you're working for the other side, and historically, you're on the losing side.

They are not worth saving if all it takes to make them angry is to desecrate their holy book.

Yet, all they have to do is be offended and expect us to act like adults for you to want to glass their country and kill millions?

By your own criteria you are far less worth saving then they are.

Why don't all of you shut up?

This is how this thread looks:

Why do I get the smiley?

Because I divined it.

Guy acts like he owns the place or something.





Too soon?

Wow EP, you never fail to entertain.
You're giving hillbillies a bad name here, put the shine down and understand the sniper fucked up and risked fucking up the mission big-big costing more lives and insureing us having to be there longer yet. He needs to be point man for the rest of his tour for this. He''s a bigoted ignorant man who's machoness and stupidly put together arguments for his insanely dipshitted actions help no one.
He needs to be slammed hard.

First off, apologies if I re-cover some ground already gone over, but unlike my usual practice, I skimmed most of this thread.

I'm thinking that, war/civil unrest zone/ occupation zone/ choose your own euphemism zone, that one shouldn't be discharging their weapon needlessly.

And the general is, I'd imagine, well within his purview to command situational standards of conduct for the area of operations. And the soldiers know full well that they set aside certain civil rights when they sign on to be soldiers, so they shouldn't be surprised at any situational conduct requirements. Kind of like how Volpone, while on station in Thailand right now, can't leave his hotel in the evening without a "minder" due to local concerns.

And while there may be a first amendment right to shoot the Koran, doing so makes you look like a redneck jackass.

Wow, I was pissed off something bad when I started this thread. Sometimes I leave all reason behind when I get that mad. I had a point in there somewhere.

So I was right about the drinking.