Seems to me, however, Tarantulas, that at first you preferred the "thumbs up" to be the original - or wha did you start and call this thread "Proof that the Iraquis like US soldiers"?
(Obviously you didn't know that the pic(s) is (are) one year old.)
My thread title was an intentional bit of misdirection to catch people's reactions to Iraqi kids holding a pro-Bush sign. The response was not disappointing.
I'm glad you are mature enough to be satisfied that your little falsehood was exposed.
I exposed it myself about halfway through the thread.
I thought it was clever, Tarantulas.
Those kids looks like they were paid food or money to hold up that sign.
That sign was obviously not written by those kids. It looks like that soldier wrote it himself. How corny are those thumbs up signs. That soldier reminds me of the soldiers holding a thumbs up near the naked bodies of Iraqi POWs. Disturbing to say the least.
Yes. As craven pointed out, the original story is deeply disheartening (given its accuracy). Particularly so because this could have been almost a Norman Rockwell moment of shared humanity. The present context of the cases where American and Brit militaries have (allegedly) committed deeply degrading indignities on Iraqis doesn't help.
It's highly unlikely those cute little kidlets wrote that sign. This is Tokyo Rose-styled propaganda.
Shame on tarantulas for posting it and aiding and abetting the US military in exploiting children.
Given that tarantulas did expose it himself, and I'll take his word that he initially intended to do so, then I don't find the posting offensive. In fact, it's a fun thing in and of itself (I tried to post a version, but failed, where the sign would have read, "This is the size of craven's weenie.")
You might take tarantulas to task for other posts (please do), but not this one I think.
Tarantulas wrote:I exposed it myself about halfway through the thread.
Ah, I must agree with kickycan on how clever you are. Generally, one must go to the collective works of Pee Wee Herman for the old "I meant to do that strategy". A classic, an outright clinic for clever response.
Such things are not unusual. During GW I the "thing to do" was to pose dead Iraqis in simulated sex positions, or to take snaps of them with cigarettes in their mouths.
Whether you like it or not, soldiers do bad things sometimes. They are hired killers, for christ's sake! Does anyone really expect them all to be sensitive Oprah types? A lot of them are young and not so bright. When you train young, not so bright people to kill other young, not so bright people, there are inevitably going to be a lot of shocking stupid actions.
kicky, It's not that they are not "bright people." Wars bring out the worst in humans. Many university research shows how any average joe (with relatively high intelligence) can be turned into a sadistic individual.
Well, I agree: such happens and happened.
(The Geneva convention, btw, is taught within the first weeks on any German consript and professional soldier.)
As an -not really- aside, this true story [= confirmed by USArmy, published (partly) in (local] history magazines]:
two days after my parents got married (28.03.45), the US troops closed the 'Ruhrkessel' (Battle of the Ruhr) exactly in my hometown.
My father, a surgeon lieutenant, didn't hear to my grandfather ("Bury the uniform in the garden - you are still officially a student"), but painted red crosses on the local hospital, organized white clothes and convinced the former mayor, went to the former mayor's hidden place (because this one was a Jew) and asked him to join the him [father thought, he was the highest rank in town] passing a letter of surrender to the allied troops.
While doing such, they shot at him three times at different places, the last time, when he had 'hand-up'. (Remember: my father was wearing a surgeon's uniform and unarmed.)
Three days later [the battle of the ruhr was still going on, , he and half a douzen more soldiers with non-combatant status were carried in valley near a close-by village: the US-soldiers made something, which had a distant likeness to a trial. Then, they gave the Germans a spade, and they had to dig a hole, as long as a man and more than a meter deep.
After that, each of them was ordered to stand in fronnt of that whole, maschine guns were brought into position ..... and all Americans started to laugh.
The next day, my father was deported to France and returned in 1948.
However, this soon circled around Germans ... and since there were German speaking American troops, around Americans as well.
As far as I could find out, all these soldiers were send back to the front, to suicide squad.
The HQ's of a bataillon were in our house. My mother, a volunteer nurse, got a personal guards 24/24, every morning, she got "anonymous" a big rucksack with cigarettes, chocolates etc for the hospital, all antiques, paintings, books etc, which had been "confiscated" from grandparents, relatives and my parents in our house, where given back within hours.
My father acted 35 years as (part-time) county surgeon in that village's county. He never ever went there, even if he should.
Yes, Walter, that is the way it is.
Unfortunately, the failure to brief these soldiers beforehand on the Geneva Convention rules (and on local Muslim values and customs) plays into the hands of those who would portray ALL Americans in this way. Stupid stupid stupid.
I have never had any formal training in the Geneva convention either, yet I still know what is right and what is wrong. To use that as an excuse is sad.
When I first saw the pictures, I thought they looked fake. No designations anywhere, no faces on the "prisoners" and no insignia on the GI shirts...I thought it was rather "convenient" for the left to have these pictures show up. Now I am just saddened by the sheer idiocy of some people...
"When I first saw the pictures, I thought they looked fake." McGentrix
<sigh> Is this what Rush and Fox News is telling the lemmings to repeat regarding the torture photos?
"I thought it was rather "convenient" for the left to have these pictures show up." McGentrix
The 'left?' Ah, the photos came from a British journalist in Iraq -- not an operative from the DNC or Kerry camp. Not everything negative about Bush's Iraq war is part of a vast let wing conspiracy.
