I am so sick of our pussified military.

Not much drinking, just pissed off. My criticism here is much deserved. It has more to do with enlisted guys getting fucked over for the littlest (politicized)infraction while officers do much worse and it gets swept under the rug. That is still a sore spot with me and probably always will be, but this was not a good example.

The country is a religious battleground. Obviously the people there care deeply about their faith, and to have a US soldier offend such sensibilities in such a blatant way is not a minor indiscretion. I'm fairly sure the troops were instructed not to pull such a stunt, so it's right that the culprit has been given a telling off. The last thing the US needs is to have the authorities turn on them, as well as the militants. So a grovelling apology was needed and it appears to have appeased the Iraqi's. Seems to me the generals have got it spot on.

This soldier needs a dishonorable discharge for being stupid no benefits and lets mark him for being stupid making him for to move to canada in long run with dishonorable discharge conduct on his record. THis soldier costed us lives.

Actually enlisted person is right. Why should the victor submit to those who were defeated?

If anything the US army should make a point by burning every Koran they get their hands on, thus freeing those people from a backwards mindset.

Speaking of backwards mindset...

You're about 12 hours too late for keeping this going.

I don't see why people have to resort to personally insulting someone just to prove a point. But whatever.

My idea is that if the mistake was made, the military should deal with it privatively. That would save lives too.

I'm pretty sure dumb shit happens all the time over in Iraq. Difference is you heard about it this time.

No. He's not. This isn't about them being the enemy, we're far past that save a handfull of diehard kill all who oppose Allah cocksuckers that find it in their best interests to continue to fight for their livelihood and status.

Knuckleheaded feats of stupidity like this sniper pulled do not in any way shape or form help.
We are attempting to get the job done and get the hell out of Dodge. Dumb fucks like this sniper need to keep their asses in check because their job is to do what the're told and abide by the rules set forth for the theater. If they can't do that, and do something so monsterously stupid as this asshat did, then they need to be kicked to the curb with extreme prejudice and made an example of.

You are welcome to that view, but know you show extreme ignorance in this statement.

Life is hard. It's harder when you're fucking stupid. Don't do stuff to make it harder the it has to be.

I mean, you're in a land full of Muslims that you are trying to win the hearts and minds of so you can end the insurrgency and go home. To do that, you piss them off by destroying their holy book. Yeah, that's some good forward thinking, Private.

No, but they DO have to respect the culture...Something you're not getting into your thick skull.

I'm sorry, I was not aware that their were rules when it came to posting times.

It's a desperate attempt to prove a failed point.

No, it's about them being the conquered. We should do as we please.

How so?

Because you're calling Muslims, rather than Baathists, "conquered".

Now you do.

Just a random aside, but alot of Iraqi households have a burned Koran hagging in some kind of cerimonial bag. Never understood that.

More than likely it was a worn out copy or they got a copy that was a mistake in some way..pages out of order, for example.

They don't just toss them as waste, they have a few acceptable ways of disposing of them and burning it is one of them. These folks you saw probably kept the remains in veneration.

In Iraq I found an old semi-damaged Koran once in a building near our airfield
when I was scrounging for heavy-duty electrical wires. I think I gave it to a guy on my crew, a Muslim from Senegal.

I don't believe for one second they give a rat's ass about the Koran. They've just found themselves in a sticky political situation with an ally and threw one of their own under the bus to get out of it.

That's really no surprise.

He wasn't thrown under a bus. Everyone in Iraq is given explicit orders not to do anything to piss off the locals, who we are trying to win over. He ignored the orders and he'll swing for it, and rightly so.

Tamar already responded but since you still seem to think it is kind of odd it isn't that difference to a lot of practices done in other places.

For example the burning of palm crosses in some Christian services that goes against the normal taboo of burning a cross.

Or even more similar the protocol behind properly disposing of a flag, where the preferred method is to burn it ceremonially.

I guess they're going to win a few more over by making him swing publically.

He's the stupid fuck that caused this mess and coming down on him hard might show the locals we do care.

If the original incident was public then how would a private response accomplish anything?

In a word, yes.

Righteousness deems it needs to.

There wouldn't have been a mess if the military would have dealt with it privatively.

How does letting everyone in the whole fucking world know about it help?

If the original incident was public, sit down with the guy who did it and the people who saw it, and deal with it privately.

When you have the tribal leaders, the people who command the various factions of the tribes there on your ass about it, you're damn skippy it needed to be out in the open.
You can't possably be this dense, it's a put on, a troll, right?

So sit down with the tribal leaders and talk about it.

Crucifying someone who made 'one' mistake is ridiculous. Especially if the guy has been in Iraq for a while, and can does his job better than his replacement now will.

No, point is he can't do his job if this is the job he's doing. This is not his job, this undermines his job, his commander's job and the job of the poor sap who'll have to take his place. His job is to shut the fuck up and do as he is told.
If he want's out then this is a piss poor avenue to take to do that, though it did indeed get him stateside. Drawback is, he'll be courtmarshalled and probably face a dishonorable and perhaps a stint in Levenworth, all over being s dumb shit with the mental capacity of a baboon.

If he were doing his job we wouldn't be discussing this right now.

Well, he would be much better served to not make a mistake like this, but if you've bothered to read Micheal Yon's dispatches from Iraq, you'd notice that much of the progress that has been made, has been because Gen. Petraeus and his people are encouraging the military to become personal with the people. Hopefully, someone DID take the time to sit down and talk with the tribal leaders about the incident. Simply crucifying the guy isn't enough.