Thursday, May 20, 2004

 

A Small Group of Soldiers!


Over the past few weeks, we have been repeatedly told by US officials that the people doing those horrible things to Iraqi prisoners were a "small group of people" who do not reflect the character of the American society or its values.

But in Iraq we also know of other "small groups of people":

• Small groups of soldiers stole money from houses they searched (I alone have heard of dozens of these incidents). There must be hundreds of these cases.

• Small groups of terrified soldiers, when faced with anything like a threat, start firing at random…killing women and children in the process.

• Small groups of soldiers forced open doors of stores and government establishments to looters. I did not believe recurring stories of such incidents…until I witnessed one myself first hand.

• Small groups of soldiers , for want of something to shoot at, and in the absence of any real resistance, shot at streets light poles in Baghdad during the invasion. The poles and the holes in them are still there!

• Small groups of soldiers shot and killed thousands of innocent civilians in their drive to take over unresisting Baghdad.

• Small groups of soldiers forced old, retired people and disbanded army officers to stand in line for most part of the day under the Iraqi summer sun and used truncheons to keep them “well-behaved” when receiving their pensions.

• A small group of soldiers shot and killed 17 people in a peaceful demonstration protesting against the use of a local school as military barracks… because they thought someone had fired a shot at them. This incident (which took place last year) was the origin of all the bad blood in Fallujah!

• A small group of soldiers in Fallujah bombed and killed more than 200 women and children and more than 700 people in total (and injured many more) to "rid them of foreign terrorists and remnants of the previous regime" and in revenge for an atrocity committed by a handful of villains!


So many “small groups of soldiers”!!

Hundreds and hundreds of such incidents all heard (sometimes distorted) by "large groups" of Iraqi people.

The American army does seem to have quite a number of “small problems”!


Comments:

There are lots of idiots on both sides - what's your point? Every person is capable of great evil, or great good - what's your point? Did you think that Americans had a lock on discipline, or righteousness, or anything else? Why would you think that? The soldiers there are just people that are being asked/told to do some really crappy things - and some do the right thing, and some do the wrong thing, just like Iraqis - and people from every other corner of the globe.

What's your point?

If you wanted to be balanced, you would also acknowledge that many of the Americans that are in your country are trying to do righteous things, good things - just like Iraqis (whether or not they succeed is not the point). Sometimes, the very people that do really bad things at one point are the very same people that do really good things at other points. That applies to Iraqis just as it does to Americans, and everybody else.

So, again, I ask you, what's your point?

Some Americans glory in evil. Some glory in righteousness.

The same thing absolutely applies to Iraqis, and people from all over the globe. From top to bottom. And even sideways.

What's your point?
 
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