10,000 US troops dead - Page 3

Somaton · 11-06-2005, 19:28 PM

Dying at young age far away from your land and loved ones, killed by someone or something you don't really care jack **** about. Involved in an agenda stitched by the government, making you a puppet serving their cause in a foreign land.

And as a puppet you have no heart, and that is why the death of those men is disturbing to me.

Leader · 11-06-2005, 19:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Somaton

Dying at young age far away from your land and loved ones, killed by someone or something you don't really care jack **** about. Involved in an agenda stitched by the government, making you a puppet serving their cause in a foreign land.

And as a puppet you have no heart, and that is why the death of those men is disturbing to me.

So I was right.

Somaton · 11-06-2005, 19:45 PM

Whatever.

**Shek** · 11-06-2005, 23:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Somaton

Dying at young age far away from your land and loved ones, killed by someone or something you don't really care jack **** about. Involved in an agenda stitched by the government, making you a puppet serving their cause in a foreign land.

Somaton,

Every single US servicemember volunteered. Not all are thrilled to actually have to place their lives in harm's way to prosecute the foreign policy of the nation that they serve, but the overwhelming majority believe in the cause they are fighting for. I'm curious where you are getting your information from, because it appears as if you are projecting your own antiwar views as the thoughts of soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen that are serving in Iraq, which is intellectually dishonest, as well as being incorrect.

As far as the agenda "stitched by the government" making servicemembers "puppets," you are obviously ignorant to the fact that Saddam Hussein was a menace to the Middle East and then the world.

Somaton · 11-07-2005, 04:18 AM

shek:
I think the overwhelming majority don't care about Iraq more than they care about Cambodia, Niger, Libya, Lithuania etc.
They might do now, but only because they're right in the middle of it. If you’d asked any soldier six years ago what they thought of the situation in Iraq, I guess the answer would have been pretty much the same, as if you've asked them today, about the countries I listed above.

The soldiers do what they are told to do and get paid for, how many soldiers do you think would be in Iraq, if they didn't receive a pay cheque every month?
Maybe as many as all of those who are fighting for the cause.

Of course I'm projecting my views, anti-war or not but as the thoughts of my own, using myself as a reference.

edit: regarding the threat you say Saddam was, honestly I didn't feel very threatend. I mean, Iraq wasn't able to win a fight with Iran alone. But he did have a sword an and a gun.

Leader · 11-07-2005, 04:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Somaton

shek:
I think the overwhelming majority don't care about Iraq more than they care about Cambodia, Niger, Libya, Lithuania etc.

How would you know this exactly? Do you know any US soldiers? How many books have you by US soldiers? How much news do you read that is by people that are with US soldiers in Iraq?

Quote:

They might do now, but only because they're right in the middle of it. If you’d asked any soldier six years ago what they thought of the situation in Iraq, I guess the answer would have been pretty much the same, as if you've asked them today, about the countries I listed above.

ROFL He could ask himself!

Quote:

The soldiers do what they are told to do and get paid for, how many soldiers do you think would be in Iraq, if they didn't receive a pay cheque every month?

How many people would do anything if they won't being paid?

Quote:

Maybe as many as all of those who are fighting for the cause.

You know not of which you speak, obviously.

Quote:

Of course I'm projecting my views, anti-war or not but as the thoughts of my own, using myself as a reference.

Are you in the military? Have you even considered it? If not it's obvious your a terrible model for a soldier.

Leader · 11-07-2005, 04:47 AM

Quote:

Regarding the threat you say Saddam was, honestly I didn't feel very threatend.

That's not supposed to be convincing I hope.

Quote:

I mean, Iraq wasn't able to win a fight with Iran alone.

he only killed a few hundred thousand Iranians in the process. Not a problem for you though.

Somaton · 11-07-2005, 05:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leader

How would you know this exactly? Do you know any US soldiers? How many books have you by US soldiers? How much news do you read that is by people that are with US soldiers in Iraq?

I know all of them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leader

ROFL He could ask himself!

I have.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leader

How many people would do anything if they won't being paid?

Everyone fighting for a cause.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leader

You know not of which you speak, obviously.

How do you know?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leader

Are you in the military? Have you even considered it? If not it's obvious your a terrible model for a soldier.

Why does it matter how good of a soldier I am?

Somaton · 11-07-2005, 05:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leader

That's not supposed to be convincing I hope.

I am not trying to convince anyone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leader

he only killed a few hundred thousand Iranians in the process. Not a problem for you though.

The conflict was a problem, did I feel threatend? No.

Leader · 11-07-2005, 06:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Somaton

I know all of them.

Well that's a dumb thing to say because it's a lie.

Quote:

I have.

That's not supposed to mean you are a US soldier I hope because I'll call a big BS on that right now.

Quote:

Everyone fighting for a cause.

nice circular reasoning there.

Quote:

How do you know?

Because I know what I'm talking about. It's rather easy to pick out those that don't have a clue.

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Why does it matter how good of a soldier I am?

"good of a soldier" I went though you posts there's no way you’re a soldier so you can drop that ****. I don't even think you're an American.

Quote:

The conflict was a problem, did I feel threatend? No.

Does it matter if you feel threatened? No. You're "feelings" couldn't have less to do with the foreign policy of the United States.

**Shek** · 11-07-2005, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Somaton

shek:
I think the overwhelming majority don't care about Iraq more than they care about Cambodia, Niger, Libya, Lithuania etc.
They might do now, but only because they're right in the middle of it. If you’d asked any soldier six years ago what they thought of the situation in Iraq, I guess the answer would have been pretty much the same, as if you've asked them today, about the countries I listed above.

The soldiers do what they are told to do and get paid for, how many soldiers do you think would be in Iraq, if they didn't receive a pay cheque every month?
Maybe as many as all of those who are fighting for the cause.

Of course I'm projecting my views, anti-war or not but as the thoughts of my own, using myself as a reference.

edit: regarding the threat you say Saddam was, honestly I didn't feel very threatend. I mean, Iraq wasn't able to win a fight with Iran alone. But he did have a sword an and a gun.

Somaton,

Your analogy is nearly worthless. The only country that had anything in common with Iraq is Libya, who used to be connected with terrorism. Of course, right after the invasion of Iraq, Qhaddafi ended his nuke program and shipped all the equipment to the US.

Next, you speak of what threat Iraq was six years ago. How old were you then? Were you serving then? I don't where my unit at the time was on the TPFDL (it ended up being responsible for northern Iraq during OIF, which was the same area it operated in after ODS), but we definitely had Iraq in mind. Just read the following since you were either too young to know anything about the world around you or have chosen to ignore history since it doesn't fit your worldview. Here's a little address from December 1998 from the 42nd President of the United States. Google "Clinton Desert Fox Speech" if you want to read on.

Quote:

Good evening.

Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.

Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.

Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.

I want to explain why I have decided, with the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, to use force in Iraq; why we have acted now; and what we aim to accomplish.

If you did serve, you are certainly welcome to harbor whatever viewpoint you want, as dissenting opinions are one of the foundations of the US. However, don't denegrate the service of others whom you disagree with by calling them puppets. BTW, what unit did you serve with and where?

**Shek** · 11-07-2005, 09:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Somaton

The soldiers do what they are told to do and get paid for, how many soldiers do you think would be in Iraq, if they didn't receive a pay cheque every month? Maybe as many as all of those who are fighting for the cause.

Just in case you thought my earlier response validating this argument; it doesn't. I just forgot to ensure that I labeled it as a strawman argument.

While we are on the subject of soldiers supporting wars, let's bust some myths in a pre-emptive strike on any analogies that you may try to bring into the argument as well as correct some falsehoods that others may have about the American soldier's experience in Vietnam. Here's some information from Lewis Sorely's "A Better War," which was published in 1999.

Quoting a 1968 Gallup Poll:

“While only 26% wanted to go to Vietnam in the first place, 94% having returned, say they are glad for the experience. What kind of citizens will they be? Judging by the cross-section we talked to, the answer is: superior.” (Sorely 302)

Quoting Susan Katz Keating, who wrote an extensive article on “The Draft” in a 1992 issue of the Washington Times:

“By the time the dust had settled in the 1980s, 91% told Harris pollsters they were glad they served; 74% said they enjoyed their time in the military; and two out of three said they would serve again, even knowing the outcome of the war” (Sorely 303)

Finally, a beautifully self-written obituary from the Vietnam War.

Quote:

http://www.1stcavmedic.com/hottell.html

"I am writing my own obituary for several reasons, and I hope none of them are too trite. First, I would like to spare my friends, who may happen to read this, the usual clichés about being a good soldier. They were all kind enough to me, and I not enough to them. Second, I would not want to be a party to perpetuation of an image that is harmful and inaccurate: "glory" is the most meaningless of concepts, and I feel that in some cases it is doubly damaging. And third, I am quite simply the last authority on my own death.

I loved the Army: it reared me, it nurtured me, and it gave me the most satisfying years of my life. Thanks to it I have lived an entire lifetime in 26 years. It is only fitting that I should die in its service. We all have but one death to spend, and insofar as it can have any meaning, it finds it in the service of comrades in arms.
And yet, I deny that I died FOR anything - not my country, not my Army, not my fellow man, none of these things. I LIVED for these things, and the manner in which I chose to do it involved the very real chance that I would die in the execution of my duties. I knew this, and accepted it, but my love for West Point and the Army was great enough -- and the promise that I would some day be able to serve all the ideals that meant anything to me through it was great enough - for me to accept this possibility as a part of a price which must be paid for all things of great value. If there is nothing worth dying for - in this sense - there is nothing worth living for.

The Army let me live in Japan, Germany and England with experiences in all of these places that others only dream about. I have skied the Alps, killed a scorpion in my tent [while] camping in Turkey, climbed Mount Fuji, visited the ruins of Athens, Ephesus and Rome, seen the town of Gordium where another Alexander challenged his destiny, gone to the opera in Munich, plays in the West End of London, seen the Oxford-Cambridge rugby match, gone for pub crawls through the Cotswolds, seen the night-life in Hamburg, danced to the Rolling Stones and earned a master's degree in a foreign university.

I have known what it is like to be married to a fine and wonderful woman and to love her beyond bearing with the sure knowledge that she loves me; I have commanded a company and been a father priest, income-tax adviser, confessor, and judge for 200 men at one time; I have played college football and rugby, won the British national diving championship two years in a row, boxed for Oxford against Cambridge only to be knocked out in the first round, and played handball to distraction - and all of these sports I loved, I learned at West Point. They gave me hours of intense happiness.

I have been an exchange student at the German Military Academy, and gone to the German Jumpmaster school. I have made thirty parachute jumps from everything from a balloon in England to a jet at Fort Bragg. I have written an article that was published in Army magazine, and I have studied philosophy.
I have experienced all these things because I was in the Army and because I was an Army brat. The Army is my life, it is such a part of what I was that what happened is the logical outcome of the life I loved. I never knew what it is to fail, I never knew what it is to be too old or too tired to do anything. I lived a full life in the Army, and it has exacted the price. It is only just."

Somaton · 11-07-2005, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leader

Well that's a dumb thing to say because it's a lie.

No one's fooling you!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leader

That's not supposed to mean you are a US soldier I hope because I'll call a big BS on that right now.

I'm not a US soldier

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leader

nice circular reasoning there.

You made it a circle, I'm still correct.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leader

Because I know what I'm talking about. It's rather easy to pick out those that don't have a clue.

I assume it's my first statement regarding soldiers fighting abroad your referring to. That's my personal opinion, you might consider it not having a clue but you should be careful not to tread on other peoples beliefs. I'm not trying to be a missionary in here if you don't like it, tell me what you believe in and why. Respect that my thoughts differ from yours.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leader

"good of a soldier" I went though you posts there's no way you’re a soldier so you can drop that ****. I don't even think you're an American.

I am a trained soldier (I wouldn't consider myself a soldier though). I am not an American.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leader

Does it matter if you feel threatened? No. You're "feelings" couldn't have less to do with the foreign policy of the United States.

It matters as much as sheck's opinion that he was a threat.

**Shek** · 11-07-2005, 14:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Somaton

I know all of them.

It is quite obvious here that you are lying and are trying to spread disinformation about the opinion of US soldiers. This is very dishonest, and is the very reason why the antiwar left won't gain mainstream traction for a withdrawal from Iraq, notwithstanding that it would by an act of appeasement greater than the French and English appeasement of Hitler's Germany at Munich.

**Shek** · 11-07-2005, 14:36 PM

Here's another reason why the antiwar movement isn't going anywhere - lies from the poster children are being exposed once placed under scrutiny.

Quote:

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/new...7?OpenDocument

Is Jimmy Massey telling the truth about Iraq?
By Ron Harris
POST-DISPATCH WASHINGTON BUREAU
11/05/2005

Jimmy Massey former marine staff sergeant says Marines intentionally are killing innocent Iraqi civilians.

WASHINGTON

For more than a year, former Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey has been telling anybody who will listen about the atrocities that he and other Marines committed in Iraq.

In scores of newspaper, magazine and broadcast stories, at a Canadian immigration hearing and in numerous speeches across the country, Massey has told how he and other Marines recklessly, sometimes intentionally, killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians.

Among his claims:

Marines fired on and killed peaceful Iraqi protesters.

Americans shot a 4-year-old Iraqi girl in the head.

A tractor-trailer was filled with the bodies of civilian men, women and children killed by American artillery.

Massey's claims have gained him celebrity. Last month, Massey's book, "Kill, Kill, Kill," was released in France. His allegations have been reported in nationwide publications such as Vanity Fair and USA Today, as well as numerous broadcast reports. Earlier this year, he joined the anti-war bus tour of Cindy Sheehan, and he's spoken at Cornell and Syracuse universities, among others.

News organizations worldwide published or broadcast Massey's claims without any corroboration and in most cases without investigation. Outside of the Marines, almost no one has seriously questioned whether Massey, a 12-year veteran who was honorably discharged, was telling the truth.

He wasn't.

Each of his claims is either demonstrably false or exaggerated - according to his fellow Marines, Massey's own admissions, and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's unit, including a reporter and photographer from the Post-Dispatch and reporters from The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal.

"Psychopathic killers"

Massey, 34, of Waynesville, N.C., was with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines based out of Twentynine Palms, Calif. The unit went to the Middle East in January 2003 and participated in the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March of that year.

Massey was discharged in December 2003, shortly after returning from Iraq due to depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome.

He began turning up in the press and on broadcasts last spring with stories about military atrocities. Massey's primary thrust has been that Marines from his battalion - some of whom, he told a Minneapolis audience, were "psychopathic killers" - recklessly shot and killed Iraqi civilians, sometimes, he said, upon orders from their commanders. During a hearing in Canada, Massey said, "We deliberately gunned down people who were civilians."

The Marine Corps investigated Massey's claims and said they were "unsubstantiated."

From the beginning, Massey misled reporters.

In early interviews, he told how he had lost his job at a furniture store because of his anti-war activities. But when asked about the incident in an interview Oct. 19 with the Post-Dispatch, Massey said he had quit his job but never had felt pressure to leave.

"I left on good terms," he said.

He also backtracked from allegations he made in a May 2004 radio interview and elsewhere that he had seen a tractor-trailer filled with the bodies of Iraqi civilians when Marines entered an Iraqi military prison outside Baghdad. He said the Iraqis had been killed by American artillery.

He told listeners that the scene was so bad "that the plasma from the body and skin was decomposing and literally oozing out of the crevices of the tractor-trailer bed."

He repeated the story in the Post-Dispatch interview. But when told that the newspaper's photographs and eyewitness reports had identified the trailer contents as all men, mostly in uniform, Massey admitted that he had never seen the bodies.

Instead, he said, he received his information from "intelligence reports." When asked if those reports were official documents, he answered, "No, that's what the other Marines told me."

Changing stories

The details of Massey's stories changed repeatedly.

For example, he almost always told his audiences and interviewers of an event he said he'd never forget: Marines in his unit shooting four civilian Iraqis in red Kia automobile.

In some accounts, Massey said Marines fired at the vehicle after it failed to stop at a checkpoint. In another version, he said the Marines stormed the car.

Sometimes he said three of the men were killed immediately while the fourth was wounded and covered in blood; sometimes he said the fourth man was "miraculously unscathed."

Sometimes he said the Marines left the three men on the side of the road to die without medical treatment while the fourth man exclaimed: "Why did you shoot my brother?" In other versions, he said the man made the statement as medical personnel were attempting to treat the three other men, or as the survivor sat near the car, or to Massey personally.

There is no evidence that any of the versions occurred.

In another story that Massey often tells, he and other Marines in his platoon fired upon a group of innocent demonstrators shortly after they arrived in Baghdad. Massey said that the demonstrators were protesting the Marines' presence, holding signs in English and Arabic.

The Marines heard a shot, Massey said, and in panic began firing into the demonstrators.

In some versions, the demonstrators were near a checkpoint. In other versions, they were outside a prison on a road about 200 meters away, or anywhere from 5 to 15 miles from Baghdad International Airport.

Massey told a version of the story before an immigration hearing in December in support of an American soldier trying to flee to Canada. Then, Massey said he and the Marines killed four of the demonstrators. In other interviews, he said the Marines shot at 10 demonstrators and killed all of them but one, whom he let crawl away.

In interviews with more than a dozen Marines and journalists who were in the military complex that morning, none can recall such an incident.

They say that during the first week to two weeks inside Baghdad, they never saw any protesters.

Ron Haviv, an independent photographer embedded with the unit, said he never saw any protesters or demonstrators, with or without signs.

"Basically, the only people who were on the streets in the first week were there to loot," said Haviv, who has covered conflicts across the globe, including the first Gulf War, Haiti, Yugoslavia and Russia.

Lt. Kevin Shea, the commander of Massey's platoon, recalls that on the morning after they arrived, about 20 Iraqis from a nearby community did approach the Marines to ask what was happening. Shea said that he had explained what the Marines were doing and that the Iraqis had gone back to their homes.

Civilians shot

The Marine Corps readily admits that some of its men shot civilians, but not intentionally, they said. The Post-Dispatch reported on the second day of the war that Marines in one battalion had mistakenly shot and killed members of a British-based television network while shooting at Iraqi attackers.

When Marines moved into Baghdad a month later, the Post-Dispatch reported two separate automobile-related incidents in which Marines from Massey's battalion inadvertently shot and wounded 12 civilians. All of the passengers survived after treatment by medical personnel.

In a fourth incident, Maj. Dan Schmitt said, Marines shot "what we believe to be a non-combatant" because when the Marines raised their arms in a signal to stop, the vehicle continued moving quickly at them.

An Iraqi doctor who helped treat the wounded passengers told them that they needed to use another hand signal because they one they were using indicated solidarity, not stop.

But none of the five journalists who covered the battalion said they saw reckless or indiscriminate shooting of civilians by Marines, as Massey has claimed. Nor did any of the Marines or Navy corpsmen who served with Massey and were interviewed for this story.

One of the checkpoint shootings is apparently the basis for one of most poignant recollections claimed by Massey in numerous speeches and interviews: The shooting of a 4-year-old girl in the head.

While touring with Sheehan in Montgomery, Ala., he told of seeing the girl's body. "You can't take it back," he said, according to the local newspaper.

But in the interview with the Post-Dispatch, Massey admitted that he never had seen the girl.

"Lima Company was involved in a shooting at a checkpoint," he said. "My platoon was ordered to another area before the victims were removed from the car. The other Marines told me that a 4-year-old girl had killed."

Girls unharmed

No 4-year-old died in the incident or was even wounded, according to witnesses including a Post-Dispatch photographer at the scene who filed photos of the incident that were published in the newspaper.

Two women and two girls were in the car that the Marines shot when it failed to stop at a checkpoint and continued to approach the Marines at high speed, said Maj. George Schreffler, then the commanding officer of Lima Company. Schreffler was there at the time.

Petty Officer Justin Purviance, who treated them, said the two women were wounded but survived. The girls were unharmed, he said.

In other speeches, Massey has said he personally shot a 6-year-old child. In some versions, the child was a boy; at other times, a girl.

"How is a 6-year-old child with a bullet in his head a terrorist, because that is the youngest I killed," Massey told a Cornell University audience in March. In a speech in April in Springfield, Vt., he said: "That's war: a 6-year-old girl with a bullet hole in her head at an American checkpoint."

In a speech in Syracuse in March, the Post Standard newspaper quoted him as saying, "The reason the Marines teach you discipline . . . is so that you can confront the enemy and kill him. . . . Or so you can put a bullet into a 6-year-old, which is what I did. "

In the interview with the Post-Dispatch, Massey said he never personally had shot a child.

"I meant that's what my unit did," he said.

He could not provide details.

Nor could he name any Marine who could corroborate any of his stories.

"Admitting guilt is a hard thing to do," he said.

11-06-2005, 19:28 PM	#31 (permalink)
Somaton Regular Join Date: 03-02-05 Posts: 100 Country:	Dying at young age far away from your land and loved ones, killed by someone or something you don't really care jack **** about. Involved in an agenda stitched by the government, making you a puppet serving their cause in a foreign land. And as a puppet you have no heart, and that is why the death of those men is disturbing to me. __________________ Walk like a priest.

11-07-2005, 04:18 AM	#35 (permalink)
Somaton Regular Join Date: 03-02-05 Posts: 100 Country:	shek: I think the overwhelming majority don't care about Iraq more than they care about Cambodia, Niger, Libya, Lithuania etc. They might do now, but only because they're right in the middle of it. If you’d asked any soldier six years ago what they thought of the situation in Iraq, I guess the answer would have been pretty much the same, as if you've asked them today, about the countries I listed above. The soldiers do what they are told to do and get paid for, how many soldiers do you think would be in Iraq, if they didn't receive a pay cheque every month? Maybe as many as all of those who are fighting for the cause. Of course I'm projecting my views, anti-war or not but as the thoughts of my own, using myself as a reference. edit: regarding the threat you say Saddam was, honestly I didn't feel very threatend. I mean, Iraq wasn't able to win a fight with Iran alone. But he did have a sword an and a gun. Last edited by Somaton : 11-07-2005 at 04:34 AM.

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11-06-2005, 19:45 PM	#33 (permalink)
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