Exhibit #1 Why The Military Wants To Keep Our Boys Off YouTube

Yep. Hearts and minds, sweets and flowers.

This makes me sick… what they did and how they laughed about it. My kids saw it and I’m not able to explain to them why they would have done that, much less why they felt so happy and proud of themselves.
Does anyone really still claim that morons like these are in Iraq to HELP the Iraqis?
I’m sure this video will be a big plus for the insurgents and the mujahideen. So yes, this is certainly a striking example of why the military needs to keep these guys from posting their videos. In their eyes, destroying the mosque is probably not a problem. Publicizing it is.
Just for the record, contrary to what many people think, there are many churches and Christian communities throughout the Arab world (except for Saudi Arabia, which is a special case). According to Islamic law, churches and synagogues are considered to be houses of God and are not to be touched.

To put some more perspective on this: Google Earth search for “Al Taji, Iraq” leads to an American airbase operated by the 1st Cavalry Division. There is a large 1st Cav insignia painted on the tarmac of the base and dozens of helicopters are visible. (In case you don’t remember, this was the group lead by Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now.)
Camp Taji is one of “14 enduring bases” of Iraq, slated to be combined into four “mega bases”. Check the Wikipedia entry [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taji] — this base is known for its fast food restaurants and for the fact that just north is a road leading to Balad “now referred to “ambush alley” or “Sudden Death”. IED attacks, small arms fire and complex attacks on convoys and patrols remain an almost nightly occurrence.” [from Wikipedia] Sounds like an updated version of Apocalypse Now.
To update Sherman: “War is hell run by senile politicians.” The troops in this video are in the meat grinder. I wonder if that laughter combines equal parts of anger, fear, relief, and insanity, and some other ingredients I just can’t decipher. Whatever, we are destroying Iraq, bit by bit, and will be there for years. God help us.

You’re right. And the problem is, war porn like this changes nothing. Not at this point in the discussion. The 28% get something close to sexual excitement at stuff like this and the rest of us are just repelled. Nothing changes.
In a century people will still be debating the depth of the harm george bush and the republican party did to this country.

I find this fascinating — I think there really is a few very strong books or documentaries to be done about War as recorded by the Warriors in Iraq, and not just the US. We don’t see much of what the insurgents or other Iraqis are recording and saving… and when we do, we’re usually angry.
This isn’t even the worst of these sort of videos. But I do think most Americans are disgusted — there certainly is maybe the 18% who still “strongly agree” with Bush’s Iraq policy who enjoy it — but a good number of the Bush/War supporters are still those who Just. Can’t. Bring. Themselves. To. Disagree. with a war during wartime. Or a president during same. It’s hard to muster, but patriotism is tied to religion and family and values for so many Americans, it must be hard to shake. And it makes the current bottom-scraping poll numbers all the more remarkable.
History will not look kindly on these videos. I can’t imagine how a future Iraq will reconcile them. (And imagine if there was similar tech in Vietnam! I can’t imagine there would be the good relations with that country we enjoy today.) But I also wonder what happens to these kids in our services when they come home. What kind of young mind can turn back after these months and years of indifference, fear, inundation with violence and, for many, guilt — and go back to being everyday Americans shopping at Walmart and voting for American Idol?
The country has always played down the difficulty for soldiers to return from war. The last time we hard sustained urban warfare was WWII, and we still haven’t yet gotten a real picture of what happened to “The Greatest Generation” when they came home. In my family, the ex-soldiers came back changed, one great Uncle became obsessed with rebuilding family. The other pushed away and became, as my Great Aunt says, “mean and raw.” We never knew the extent until he passed away, and still we’ll likely never know how “mean.”
I guess what I’m saying is that there are many ways we will view the war in Iraq, even after it is “over.” The army can ban YouTube all they want. The images will get out. And similar videos will continue to be made no matter what country these amateur filmmakers reside in, for years and years to come.

also, quick note re ignorance…the voice mentions the whole ‘mosque’ went down indicating a lack of knowledge that this was a minaret presumably and the place from which the call to prayer emanates…sad…

The Jihadi’s use Mosques as Weapons Caches and Headquarters for attacks on our troops…under the Law of Armend Conflict a Church or Mosque is a sanctuary until somebody shoots at you from it…I’m a Catyholic but if the Pope was sniping at us from St. Peters Basilica I would call in the Arty…they are laughing because the enemy thought he could safely shoot from there…silly him

Following up to comments above, it’s the same attitude exhibited at the last publican political campaign extravaganza in So. Carolina, was it only Tuesday? When one of the candidates said Gitmo should be doubled in size there was uproarious cheering. Yet when Paul dared to say that we must look to our own actions and how we would react if another country occupied our land, he was met with dead silence and the very vocal faux outrage of Guilie, the 9-11 hero!
On TV last night a man was admitted to the ER who apparently wanted drugs, period, and took some violent action to procure same from hospital coffers. As the story developed, he had been an Arabic translator at a prison during torture of prisoners. Just one writer’s view, no doubt, but we are seeing more of this type of scenario pop up in dramas: what happens after…… One wonders when the sponsors will put their foot down: war is good for business.

The thing that is most disturbing to me is Bushco’s persistent belief that the real problem is that videos are being made, not the actions and attitudes recorded in those videos, not the fact that American soldiers are fighting in Iraq at all. These are young soldiers, far from home, risking their lives in a conflict they know is meaningless.
My father, who fought on the front lines in Germany in WW2, had some war stories that made us howl with laughter. If the reality had been filmed, I suspect those incidents might have come across as just as callous as this one. He was a young man, it was an intense time, they were trained to kill and they were trying to stay alive. We laughed at his stories because Hitler was defeated, he was still alive, after great peril, and we loved him.
The difference is the war. The Iraq war is immoral. George Bush should be tried as a war criminal.

As a retired combat arms NCO with 20 years experience in combat and counter insurgency operations I am 100% against this war. Its exactly what Bin Laden wants and is only sering to weaken our military and recruit and train more terrorists.
But consider this:
You yourself get dropped into a meat grinder of an impossible situation. You are taking hits every day, driving around and doing little more than providing targets for snipers and IED’s. Very often the pattern is that the insurgents, who routinely hide behind women and children, take shelter in a mosque and shoot at you from that mosque. Last week an RPG fired by some insurgent in a mosque killed 4 of your friends and you had to wipe their brains off your flak jacket.
Today you take more fire from that same mosque. You call in fire and the mission gets approved. So this mosque is leveled.
And you think this is an atrocity???
You truly do not have a clue what you are talking about and are just as ignorant of the realities of war and this situation in particular as the mouth breathing living room commandos who support this war.
Pretty easy to knock the troops as you sip on your Starbucks latte in your air conditioned condo huh?
I don’t in anyway support unprofessional conduct on the part of ANY soldier or Marine (I served in both). But the reaction of the soldiers to this event is entirely predictable and arguably even justified.
Get a clue.
and tell it to Jim Webb.

Sarge, I don’t give a shit if you are General Patton come back from the grave. How professional is whining on a blog? Get a clue yourself. If you want to contribute to the thread, then pay some respect.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.-John Stuart Mill
Sort of sums up the American left IMHO

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.”
I couldn’t care less about “patriotism”, but I think there are things worth fighting for. I think that if a foreign invader attacks your country; occupies your land; takes control of your natural resources; creates chaos; dictates your form of government; humiliates, shoots, rapes, tortures and kills your citizens; destroys your places of worship… well, a lot of people would think that fighting them is justified, wouldn’t they? What do you think, Sarge? Where was your experience with insurgents?

Gee Margaret…I’ll bet you are gonna miss Rosie when she leaves the view huh?
there were no made up reasons…Saddam was a Terrorist Enabler…and taking him out of power was a noble cause…unfortunately Iran and Syria are now funding and supplying this insurgency…and I’m afraid that this war is just beginning…I believe Bush thought taking out Saddam would be like removing Hitler in 1936…and WWII wouldn’t have happened…Unfortunately, Islam is too radicalized and too bent on world domination…this war will only get bigger…and I’d rather we finished it now then have to have my grandkids fight it

I think that water boarding did leave its mark SnowWolf.
I can understand taking down such a building if fire is coming from it, the problem is that current American doctrine relies to much on firepower and little getting up close and personal (which is understandable considering that if I was in their place I would let a bomb or shell do the job instead of me bullets fucking hurt!) But you also have to understand that this is a celebration of war and as such is war porn pure and simple. We get to see how spiffy weapons systems work but not the results especially when it is Americans getting hurt or killed.
Show it all or not at all…..

they hate us for our freedom

What The Military would not like distributed as well.
Six Lessons for Young Men on the Edge of War http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0816-21.htm

Keep in mind the recent poll that took in the opinions of those fighting in Iraq. Recall for a moment the questions about covering for other soldiers and the majority of the respondees said they would. Add in little scenes like the video above, times ten thousand. Now, skip forward to a time when emperor bush is no longer in office and these people, these Americans, are back home.
As I said above, the damage done to this country by bush won’t be fully realized for a century and when people do look back on this time they will shale their head in horror at what we allowed to happen.

God, Snowwolf is a fricking tool.
Rosie? Who cares, she’s a talk show host. Why do you care so much about her? What bugs you about a talk show host?
and, yeah, OK, I get the fact that if the minaret was a strategic target, of course you take it out. But what good does it do to post a video crowing about it? Hearts and minds, you know. And of course George Bush says the terra-ists just do bad things so that ‘Muricans will see it on their TV screens and get disheartened.
So isn’t it counterproductive for GIs to be posting this on TV screens for Iraqi hearts n’ minds?

I live in a Moslem country and am free to go to church every Sunday, without fear; these stupid actions by our military put the whole world at risk. Grow up, and educate yourselves – our present leaders have done a bum job.
Stella

Well, the trolls have finally come to the Bag. And the typical pattern….personal attacks (by SnowWolfteen), then apologies, then probably more crude posts tomorrow.
I agree with Col Ready, this was obviously a mess-up and they didn’t mean to bring it down. The reaction of the solder is not mean,…it just expresses surprise and indifference, as soldiers do, playing with war toys. Anyone not in the field can see the whole absurdity and atrocity of this war. It’s ok for us to realize this is not a game. Laughter comes at the fall of some concrete, no biggy, but there are likely lives inside there. We have also seen enough of this war. We know the same harmless soldier laughter comes during the rapes and beatings, during photo ops of naked suspects, during interrogation, during the popular song-telling of 13 year old “haij” girl bleading and dying. So we have every right to speak out, and express what some former soldiers feel is judgement.
But there are plenty of soldiers and commanders that know it’s all wrong. Was it not General Krulak who said “This way lies defeat?”
And the ironic thing is, the fear of islamists and their way of life just brings them closer to home. While we wreck Iraq, her refugees flood Europe and even want to come to America. While we blow up mosques in Iraq, feeling a quiet satisfaction, new mosques are being built in Europe and the US. And just recently an ancient stone church in England recently got bought out by a muslim, who will now convert it. If that’s not unsettling to these farm boys, I don’t know what would be.

I’ve traveled to Iraq three times already in a civilian (peacemaker) capacity and I recently returned from visiting with Iraqi refees in Jordan.
This video is only a taste of the stories that have been documented so far. Voilent attrocities are becoming a daily occurance.
The U.S., and many soldiers, have committed war crimes as defined by the Geneva Conventions.
Unfortunately, Washington’s new policy of escalation and cutting off all western media coming out of the war zones has meant that these types of crimes are actually on the increase.
Charlie Jackson
Texans for Peace

I weep for my country.

Well its official…I was correct..there was a sniper in the Minaret…one Marine lost an eye from a ricochet and another was seriously wounded…once again…Churches and Mosques are only sanctuaries until somebody shoots at you from one…now theres a dead sniper and some very happy relieved Marines…good on them

World War II tanker “Jim progressed into the town and was soon asked to assist in taking out a German sniper who was hiding in the belfry of a small church. He soon spotted him and took out the side of the church belfry with one shot. To this day one can see a slight colour difference in the stonework where the church belfry was repaired after the war. ”
It was standard practice to shell and destroy all church steeples, grain silos and other tall structures, on sight.
“Whilst we were doing this there was a burst of small arms fire from the direction of the village church about 100 yards away. A sniper had taken a pot-shot from the tower and this was returned by English soldiers nearby. A field gun was levelled at the tower and a shell put through which presumably killed him. “

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9de84469d2
Nice try, SnowWolf, but no cigar.

If the minaret was being used for a sniper perch, then why not simply post guards around the mosque? It reminds me of the American commander in Vietnam that explained that his unit had to destroy the village in order to save it.

Johanna, no they weren’t.

Oh Please…
So in your little world american soldiers blow up mosques “just because”?…you know its SO striking the paralells btween Bush and Lincoln…you remind me of the Copperhead Democrats trying to undermine the Civil War and appease the south…do Democrats only get behind the war effort when there’s a Democratic President?…I suppose we’re lucky FDR was in or we’d all be speaking german. look beyond your BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrone) and see that the jihadi’s are already feeling 10 foot tall from kickng the Soviet Unions ass in Afghanistan and if we run away too they will say they kicked ours also and things will get even worse. Western civilization is in deep trouble here…Europe is so far unwilling to fight for it…and so is half of the U.S.

So you’re saying this is a lie?…probably perpetrated by Karl Rove…
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9de84469d2

Here’s something worth fighting for:
Ending an occupation by an Imperial army.

Yeah…you’re right…I posted that video and changed the title to exonerate the Marines involved..Hell…I’m part of the bigger conspiracy…I planted the Plastique in WT-7 and removed interior walls from WT-1 and WT-2 to assist in the controlled demolition…it was MIHOP not LIHOP
yep…I’m a Liar…you Guys crack me up…*LOL*

Love the way your eyes flash when you’re angry…really cute…*LOL*
This would be a fun battle of wits if you were armed

Idiot is debateable…Liar is not…I have no idea where you are coming from…the video STATES Sniper was in Minaret…are you denying that?
The saddest part is these Guys are the only reason you have freedom of speech…and you use it to denigrate them…thats pathetiic…you will believe a proven liar like Jessie Macbeth because he fits your prejudices and attack the Swiftboat Veterans (whose points have never been disproven, by the way)…I just don’t get the American Left..sad

um…the point is…Snipers hide in Minarets…they’re tall…and you have great fields of fire..(Like WWII Snipers in Church Steeples…same difference)
and I think that goes farther to prove my point than yours…

Sorry for the double post

Joanne thanks again, so from 146 comments at Huffy a few gems
With a conscripted “citizen” army, you had better have a darn good reason for going to war, because by definition, you’re plucking them out of their lives and careers to go fight – so it’s not “their job” to fight, it’s “their duty”. HUGE difference.
By: CaptainObvious on May 21, 2007 at 12:56pm
And can somebody explain something to me? If this is truly a battle that will determine the survival of civilization as we know it, why are there only 150,000 soldiers (+ ? mercenaries) fighting? If it’s that important, we ought to have 500,000 to 1,000,000 troops in there to clean the place out
By: jettaman90 on May 21, 2007 at 12:22pm
A local boys tales of war…an extract from one of three separate long postings by LIbsrule
The people who scared him the most though were the snipers. Ours AND their snipers. He said ours killed anything that moved. They had dead eyes. They shot so many people some days that no one wanted to talk to them, even the gung ho types. They’d walk in from a roof top talking about how many heads they had removed from the rag above the ragheads.
They kept to themselves. Killing machines.
Sometimes he said, they would just blow the shit out of buildings for fun. Find deserted parts of Baghdad and just demolish buildings. It was a way to let off steam…..
LIbsrule on May 21, 2007 at 03:18pm
garyb50, given what evidence has been presented your video evaluation appears to be the more credible-fwiw.

Memo to Cactus: What part of this did you not comprehend? Dickhead.
“OK, and I promise (and apologize to BAG), this is my LAST post to you.”

SnowWolf: “The saddest part is these Guys are the only reason you have freedom of speech”
I’ve heard this before, but I guess I’m slow… could you explain to me how those guys in the video are the reason I have free speech?

Johanna, first you said: They are very different in tone from what has been said here. For whatever reason, people [at Huffington Post] were more measured in the conclusions they drew from this very brief video.
Now you say: Three out of the first ten posters on aforementioned site withheld judgment on the soldiers, not knowing enough about the circumstances. Since they did not accuse the men of Mai Lai type depravities, I call their comments “measured.”
Sorry, but 3 out of 10 doesn’t count as a majority, as you first chose to characterize it. That’s a minority. Very important difference.
To set the tone, here’s what the very first HuffPo poster, rabidrightrebel, said:
No doubt a lot of the troops like to shoot people and destroy things. They are the same guys that condon torture and think that might makes right. When they were younger they were bullies. Now they have a gun and the freedom to be the assholes they can be. Yet everyone is supposed to “support our troops”.
After four years isn’t it time to question why these people continue to sign up to fight in this ill-concieved and mismanaged war, and seriously consider if they do in fact deserve our support. Maybe we are continuing to support out and out assholes.
Calling our troops out-and-out assholes, though it may be accurate, is not at all “measured.” Characterizing people at HuffPo as “measured” is not at all accurate.
To the self promoted col. Blowa Gasket I say: It’s gonna take you longer than a couple of weeks to live down the crappy pun you saw fit to make about the picture of Cho several days after the massacre (“the right to bare arms.”)
I made a crappy pun as a counterpoint to the vitriolic expressions of ignorant mass hysteria about a seriously troubled kid. So I wanted the comment to stand out, and I’m glad to learn it did. Sometimes crappy puns are useful.
Since my crappy puns are few and far between, however, I think my promotion is well-deserved.

I am repulsed by people who think Terrorists have rights or should be treated with “measured responses”…don’t want the Mosque Blown up?…tell the Terrorists Don’t use it for Military Purposes…don’t want Civilians killed…Tell the Terrorists don’t hide amongst them…the world is truly upside down when Liberals in America think Bush is more of a threat than Al Queda…what sort of values do you have?…(I suspect none as moral relativism has rendered you incapable of recognizing good and evil when its right in front of you)
Are Soldiers perfect?…No…but the bad among them is less than 1%…I am going to give these Guys the benefit of the doubt unless shown otherwise

I’m only here to annoy you…

Okay, SnowWolf, you get credit for being very annoying, too.

I have no problem with passion or debate — just as long as intellect, respect and the image or content is not left behind. We all have too much invested here to make the discussion about the discussant, at the expense of the content or the issue. The inclination to apologize to The BAG should be indication enough something is hurting this house.

Please explain what is SOP in Iraq:
Is it: To enter the homes of Iraqi “free” citizens (even breaking down doors) without asking?
Is it: To call in air support, even in densely-populated urban areas, when fired upon?
Is it: To occupy the land, churches, mosques, and homes of an “independent and soverign nation”?
Is it: To provide disinformation and counter-intelligence to American citizens?