Debate: Marines Urinating on Taliban
Side: Funny.

No, the original point was meant to be interpreted as the general behaviour of the US military, I'm really struggling to understand how you can think otherwiseBecause I don't get all my information from 2nd and 3rd hand sources. The news isn't an accurate reflection of what actually goes on, which is your primary source of information.it's likely that you see ulterior motives in everything I type given how my views are fairly antithetical to your own.Your view isn't antithetical to mine, my views on the matter are actually pretty left of center, but you seem to take every negative thing and then exaggerate it by tenfold. Some of the things you say are true but it's so steeped in hyperbole, gross generalizations, and inflammatory statements that I wouldn't be a very reasonable person if I didn't object to it.Ok, I will conceed that there was a certain amount of abiguity in what I wrote, but your perception of me is what made you jump the the conclusion that I was talking exclusively about the pissing incident.No when you say "this kind of behavior" it almost always includes the thing that you are using as an example.It's sort of like saying "I want you to paint my walls a bold and bright color, like Red" and then screaming "No, you idiot, I meant colors LIKE red, why would I want my walls red?"How the hell can you think I'd hold such a stupid position that is patently false?Wouldn't be the first time.The evidence for my claims is freely available, see the supporting link.Your link just shows a series of incidents, it doesn't support an institutionalized anything, and therefore does not support your conclusion.Honestly what did you think you were trying to prove, by showing a timeline of friendly fire incidents, and civilian casualties? No one is denying that either of these things happen. In fact your link doesn't show anything that you wouldn't expect to see during wartime. Sometimes there is confusion, sometimes soldiers (and Marines) do things they are not supposed to do, to paint this as being the norm for all servicemen and for the entire military, is what I object to. This is apparently something you have no problem doing, which is why we clash.I'd say pissing on corpses isn't condoned if I had to guess though, that doesn't mean treating people like shit, beating them, wounding them, torturing them, killing them every now and then, that's a different story.There are a lot of things I could say about this so I will start with the most obvious.1) Yes, soldiers (and marines) kill people......Duh! That is what war is. This doesn't uniquely apply to the U.S. military, this is every military in every war since the dawn of time. Wounding people, again, this is every military in every war. Doesn't pertain to this discussion at all. Civilian casualties, again this is every war. Most of this is more of a criticism of war in general than it is of how the U.S. armed forces operates. SideNote: Are you a pacifist?2) Beating people, destroying their property, and overall treating them like shit. These things believe it or not all carry Penalties and are discouraged. If you can show me anything within U.S. military policy where these things are encouraged I will personally launch myself into the San Andreas fault.3) Call me crazy but when someone is talking behavior like pissing on corpses, I don't immediately jump to torture. This might be because pissing on corpses (or POC for short) is exactly nothing like torture, that you would even include it in the same category bewilders me. If someone is talking behavior like POC, what comes to mind are behaviors that are disrespectful. POC is disrespectful. Torture is on a whole other level. Torture is something that is decided in Washington, I don't agree with it, and I don't condone it. If you don't like torture blame the politicians who support it. If I could I'd see each of them kicked out of office. That's just me.No I've looked at the catalogued history of US war crimes available in the iraq war logsYou mean that little incident timeline you posted below? Yeah, so have I.My views are completely uncontroversial me friend, call them broad sweeping generalisation if it makes you feel better how your countrie atrocious barbaric war crimes, but the numbers, the destruction and the general results of your militaries actions don't lie.The enthralling narrative that you believe is mostly hyperbole. Mostly because what you've read, seen, and heard doesn't present an accurate picture of events, but partly because you exaggerate the negative and ignore the positive. Makes for a better story.I've the that fact that hundreds of thousands were killed in the war....yes......because that's what happens in wars. People die.Damn US Military for inventing wars in which people die. {Shakes Fist at Sky}millions more displacedAs opposed to all those wars where no one was displaced.last 20 yrs Iraq has gone from one of the most advanced societies in the ME with the best infrastructure to one of the most impoverished, fragmented, and decrepit.It's nowhere near the poorest, but generally this is what happens in wars. Although I might point out that having a dictator in firm control of the country does sometimes have that advantage of rapid infrastructure growth.On another note: Why are we talking about Iraq, the topic is about an incident in Afghanistan?starved and died before the second invasion to improper sanitation and healthcare, which was the result of sanctionsBecause the Military has anything to do with international sanctions??? Oh, wait. Nope. It doesn't. Gary can't maintain a consistent argument.And thats just Iraq, so when I say that kind of disrespectful behaviour is institutional I don't need to doubt that opinion because I have far more evidence than is necessary to back it up, nuff saidActually no you don't. So far you have presented no evidence, the Iraq war logs don't support your argument. It's basically just a list of incident reports, how the hell is that evidence that disrespectful behavior is institutionalized? It's like pointing to a crime report and saying "Hey look, crime must be institutionalized in Detroit, look at all these muggings!"When you have evidence that actually supports your argument then let me know.I could care less what you know or do not about the US military.Saying you "could care less" means that do care. If you could care less that means there are levels of caring that are even less than what you are currently at.And you're right, what does knowledge of how the military operates have to do with a debate over how the Military operates? How silly of me to think this was relevant.I made a reasonable generalization based on factsUnfortunately the facts do not support your presumptions. If your argument were that raids, friendly fire, civ casualties, and crime happen, then perhaps it would support your argument. But no one is disputing that any of those things happen. In fact you would be hard pressed to find any war in which these things did not happen.Like your other arguments you have only made vague allusions to non-specific events to support sweeping generalizations, and expect your argument to hold up to scrutiny. Let me know how that woks out for you.