The Kill Team

[flintlock]

I am a bit surprised this hasn't had more traction here on Itulip.


http://www.rollingstone.com/kill-team

How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses – and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: an exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon

Shades of My Lai?

[don]

Re: The Kill Team

All "colonial" wars end in barbarism. The indigent people become the enemy.

Exterminate the Bastards has been with us for some time.

[metalman]

Re: The Kill Team

I am a bit surprised this hasn't had more traction here on Itulip

itulip is not a wardoomertertainment site...

not the predictable consequence of sending the debt serf's kids to war site...

after all the realest forecasters exit in despair, will anyone miss them?

[flintlock]

Re: The Kill Team

itulip is not a wardoomertertainment site..

True!

But these type "incidents" will probably have a lot more impact on all our lives than the global warming or Illuminati conspiracies often discussed here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_(intelligence)

[Jay]

Re: The Kill Team

True!

But these type "incidents" will probably have a lot more impact on all our lives than the global warming or Illuminati conspiracies often discussed here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_(intelligence)

I appreciate the post. It is one more important data point. I use itulip among other sources to collate my news and to get intelligent feedback on it. Thanks flint.

[chr5648]

Re: The Kill Team

Blowback is just human nature, its kind of funny how there is an attempt to quantify and/or make a concept such as blowback an academic topic.

In regards to colonialism, I would argue the 'colonialism' that is occurring today is not the type of 'colonialism' of the past. The main point I make here is that in the past colonial/imperialistic tendencies came from homogenous european empires. This was extensively exploited by various leftist/marxist groups to 'shame' American and European history. Today's colonialism comes from countries who are far from homogenous, in fact diverse to the point where the historic majority is purposefully being replaced. Confusing today's colonialism for that of 200-300 years ago is a mistake we should not make.

[flintlock]

Re: The Kill Team

Thats true. Academic types will always try to quantify, label, and put into a little box something as simple as human nature. It's their nature!

But the fact is, more than a few Americans don't see any relation between how we treat others and why we have to face groping when going through an airport. I'm not anti-American, but I can't continue to pretend we are acting in good faith in how we deal with the rest of the world. We continue to make a lot of enemies, with what gain?

That many have succumbed to the brain-washing is apparent in ads like that Navy one. "Global force for good". People really believe that shit. Of course nobody wants to hear a catch phrase like, "The Navy, a force that will kick your ass if you act in ways contrary to our national interests". Which I find accurate and perfectly acceptable. We have a right to defend ourselves and our interests. But in my opinion, we've crossed that line by a wide margin. The fact they feel they need to sell the Navy as "a force for global good" tells me they know they are being perceived as anything but. Our military is rapidly becoming used as global corporate muscle. But then its a lot harder to recruit, and service loses its luster, if you tell it that way. So better to tell the average grunt he's saving babies in Kansas than billionaires in Kuwait.

I know Al Queda is a bunch of cold hearted scum. And they deserve whatever they get. But we don't have to fuel their recruitment and make it so damn easy to hate the US. The Army my father served in would absolutely never have tolerated this kind of crap. Something is wrong with discipline when those things start happening. Some of it is the mission they are being asked to do. Its futile, a la Vietnam. But there seemed to be no fear of punishment on the part of these soldiers who participated, some real lowlife types.

[Jay]

Re: The Kill Team

The fact they feel they need to sell the Navy as "a force for global good" tells me they know they are being perceived as anything but. Our military is rapidly becoming used as global corporate muscle.

The Army my father served in would absolutely never have tolerated this kind of crap.

The US military has been acting as corporate muscle for over 100 years.

[flintlock]

Re: The Kill Team

The US military has been acting as corporate muscle for over 100 years.

You are correct, of course. But I don't find, for example, the fact we helped defeat Hitler as having that much to do with corporate politics. Even though many did benefit from that war, at least they still provided jobs for Americans. Economic gain for some global corporation was not the catalyst for US involvement in that war. I guess I should say, "we have stepped up drastically our military/corporate connection". Wars have almost always been about economics. But generally they were fought with the economic benefit of the general population in mind.(secure food, trade routes, fishing rights, etc) At least superficially. Today our military could be accused of fighting for global corporations that are not even always based in the USA. And sometimes their interests are directly opposed to US national interests. Thats the real difference I suppose. How many still believe we need US troops in Europe to defend it against aggression, or that "self-defense" is why we have hundreds of bases worldwide? I don't. And even if it can be argued they protect US interests, how much of those interests filter down to actual American workers anymore?

[Jay]

Re: The Kill Team

Today our military could be accused of fighting for global corporations that are not even always based in the USA. And sometimes their interests are directly opposed to US national interests. Thats the real difference I suppose.

I agree with you there. Although, you can make an argument that most of the high end upper managment profits and ancillary finance profits end up in US hands (or at least Westernized nations.) And they tend to make policy.

[c1ue]

Re: The Kill Team

But I don't find, for example, the fact we helped defeat Hitler as having that much to do with corporate politics.

Hitler's rise was greatly assisted by the German 'Economic Miracle' in which US FDI played a gigantic part.

In some sense, the later fight against the titanic Hitler became was a cleanup of the original corporatist moneymaking.

[Jay]

Re: The Kill Team

Hitler's rise was greatly assisted by the German 'Economic Miracle' in which US FDI played a gigantic part.

In some sense, the later fight against the titanic Hitler became was a cleanup of the original corporatist moneymaking.

Similarities, if on a smaller scale, to Saddam.

[flintlock]

Re: The Kill Team

Yes I saw this book while browsing my library shelves one day.

http://www.amazon.com/IBM-Holocaust-...2551993&sr=1-3

Was IBM, "The Solutions Company," partly responsible for the Final Solution? That's the question raised by Edwin Black's IBM and the Holocaust, the most controversial book on the subject since Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners. Black, a son of Holocaust survivors, is less tendentiously simplistic than Goldhagen, but his thesis is no less provocative: he argues that IBM founder Thomas Watson deserved the Merit Cross (Germany's second-highest honor) awarded him by Hitler, his second-biggest customer on earth. "IBM, primarily through its German subsidiary, made Hitler's program of Jewish destruction a technologic mission the company pursued with chilling success," writes Black. "IBM had almost single-handedly brought modern warfare into the information age [and] virtually put the 'blitz' in the krieg."

I suppose almost any successful international company in recent history could trace some connection to bad guys somewhere.