Wrong on so many levels

Just got this via Reddit. US Tank crushes Iraqi civilian’s car [youtube.com]

Please note that this is not one of my typical “funnies”. This is actually pretty disturbing on a lot of levels.

Click the “read more” link below to watch the video and read my thoughts on this.

[youtube]AT1I95dqrAY&NRv[/youtube]

Apparently, looting is an issue in Iraq. OK, no big shocker there. So some US soldiers come across some looters and catch them. Then decide to mete out some punishment.

The first of several things wrong in this video start with

• One of the soldiers in a very backwoods kinda way telling a man that his son should be in school not following him around. The irony of the ig’nant language coming from a guy telling someone else they need to be in school is not lost on me. Of course, there is no way of even knowing if the guy even understands english.
• Next up is the logic of the soldier saying “We try to stop them from looting, but they don’t understand so we’take their car and we’ll crush it.” His “US Army tankers, Huah!” and “Thats what you get when you loot” show me he’s enjoying this a bit too much.
• Then some soldiers shoot at the soon to be destroyed car. Waste of bullets and really whats the point if you’re going to run over it with a tank?
• Then they run over it not once, but twice as if the first time didn’t quite crush it enough and the guy is gonna put it back together somehow.
• They didn’t remove the stolen wood from the top of the car before running it over. So not only does the thief not get the wood, neither does the original owner either.

The kicker is that the guy who stole the wood was a cabbie. So now not only does he not have any wood that he was probably going to use to fix his roof or fence or house (how many uses are there for stolen lumber?) he now can’t even get any income in the future, so how likely is it that he will have to turn to MORE criminality in order to put food on the table?

And consider the kid who sat there watching all this. If you want to know why they hate us so much, just think what that kid will be like in 5 or 10 years after we’re gone from the region and all he remembers is the day the US soldiers took his father’s livelihood and ability to provide for his family. Heck, forget about 5 or 10 years, that kid is probly ready to strap a bomb to his chest right now.

The soldiers looked like they were enjoying this just a little too much for my taste. Don’t think that kid won’t remember that either.

Really, did anything get solved? the person who had their wood stolen still has no wood, so from his perspective the US did no good. The guy who took the wood has no wood so whatever he was taking the wood for still needs wood, PLUS he now has to figure out how he’s going to earn a living so from his perspective the US did no good.

This brings me round to a comment I made to a co-worker the other day. I originally thought it was foolish to just cut-n-run from Iraq. I was a believer in the idea of “we made this problem, we have to fix it”. You couldn’t just yank the tablecloth out and hope all the chinaware didn’t fall and break. I have changed my mind.

We need to get out of there now. As in right now. As in leave so fast that we leave stuff behind. As in leave in the middle of the night and they wonder in the morning “where did all the gringos go?”.

We are doing absolutely no good over there, and a lot of wrong. Just look at the soldiers in the video. They could potentially be solid citizens back in the states, but over there they are getting changed for the worse. They have been desensitized to the bullying they are doing, making them actually become what the radicals have always said they are. Those kids are going to come back to the US f’d up in the head. Constant fear of death by sniper or suicide bomber will tend to do that to you.

Lets just leave those people alone. If they want our help, let the newly democratic government vote to ask us for help and we will cheerily go in there. Otherwise, lets just get the hell on out.