Eric Tune writes:
You know Tim, I respect most of what you write, and I respect you in that you have your own free will and opinions and the right to express them, but what you have forgotten in your anarchistic ravings is that PEOPLE DIED IN SOMALIA, including a personal friend of mine. They were all somebody's son, brother, and friend.
So were the 100,000 Iraqi military killed by Bush, and the 1,000,000 Iraqis of all ages killed by US sanctions. So were the civilians bulldozed into mass graves in Panama, so the country would look neat and tidy for the arrival of the ReportWhores. What the world needs now is not another mass killing of Iraqis by the United States government. What the world really needs now is a fifty dollar weapon that sinks aircraft carriers.
These soldiers went where they were ordered to go, as befits a soldier, and tried to do the job they were given and accomplish the mission, and for that EVERY ONE OF THEM DESERVES Y O U R RESPECT. I am quite sure the vast majority of them thought it was patently stupid to go to Somalia in the first place, but a soldier follows orders, legal ones, and tries to get the job done regardless of personal feelings.
Most of them would probably follow "legal orders" to fire upon American civilians too.
The next time you "cheer to see the U.S. gets its tail kicked", why don't you think about the American troops who lost their lives or were maimed, or who were doing something they may have been personally and morally against, but they chose to be professional soldiers, and instead of displaying cowardice, they tried to do what was asked of them.
The universe does not view the lives of Americans as more valuable than the lives of people murdered by Americans.
Think of the innocent civilians who inevitably die in the conflicts started by the megalomaniacs like Saddam Hussein.
You mean all those melted child car seats and scorched teddy bears on George Bush's "Highway of Death" leading out of Kuwait? Unfortunately, for all the braying Americans do about freedom, Americans can never be truly happy unless someone is telling them what to do, or they are telling someone else what to do, or they are bombing someone for not doing what they have told them to do. The only thing Americans understand is dead Americans. The only thing. I've always believed that communications functions most effectively when people are talked to in a language that they understand. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"