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"All the terrorists went to Iraq so I had to go there in order to shoot them." You are an idiot.

• compay 18y ago
  I'm guessing (hoping) that that was tongue-in-cheek.
  • joubert 18y ago
    It didn't seem sarcastic to me; he did join a violent organization, after all.
    • Maktab 18y ago
      It seems to me his comment was a tongue-in-cheek nod especially meant for people like you, who evidently can't see the military as being anything other than a 'violent organisation' whose enlistees must be violence-seekers themselves. I'm not surprised you missed the humour.
      • jscn 18y ago
        Uh, what exactly is the military if not a "violent organisation"? If the military doesn't qualify as a violent organisation, what does? I found the article to be pretty good aside from that comment, which was a little too on the nose to be funny for me...
        • Maktab 18y ago
          So is your local police force, in that it's an organisation with the capacity and authority to commit violent acts on behalf of the state. But neither the military nor the police have violence as their sole objective; it's merely a tool to be used in the attainment of certain goals and policies such as national defence or community safety. But we're arguing semantics here. I wrote my response because the way in which joubert dismissed the possibility of the author's comment being sarcasm strongly implied that he regarded the military as an inherently violent organisation to which only violence-loving terrorist-killing wannabes would aspire. I resent that.
          • bad_user 18y ago
            Not to mention that politicians and the American people sent those soldiers in Irak ;)
          • jscn 18y ago
            "So is your local police force, in that it's an organisation with the capacity and authority to commit violent acts on behalf of the state." We agree so far. I don't think it's just semantics, but my "politics" probably differ radically from most of the crew here (and I don't expect to change anyone's mind), so I'll leave it at that. I get that his list of reasons was largely sarcastic. But that suggests he's (at least somewhat) cynical about the military. Given that, I don't understand why he'd join up. Especially when he implies that he had/has specific knowledge that he'd likely be sent to Iraq and told to kill people. I just don't find it funny. Maybe I missed the point.
            • jimbokun 18y ago
              "But that suggests he's (at least somewhat) cynical about the military." He is cynical about the opinions many civilians have about the military.
            • anamax 18y ago
              > But that suggests he's (at least somewhat) cynical about the military. If you don't know that everyone in the military is cynical about the military, you know very little about military folks. Projecting seems to be especially common among the "intellectual" class.
      • logjam 18y ago
        "Shooting people" isn't funny.
        • staunch 18y ago
          His comment didn't shoot anyone.
          • Herring 18y ago
            Presumably he did & he's joking about it. Yes, it's really quite funny. If you're an American & you can't see the humor, try visualizing China invading Iraq instead.
        • tdavis 18y ago
          It can be when you're in the Military, believe me. Lots of things are funny that the average person wouldn't consider to be. I found absolutely nothing strange about that bullet point. Although, he joined the Marines, which means as a member of the Army I have to hate him.
        • poptarts 18y ago
          It might be. If these "people" were clowns.
        • quantumhobbit 18y ago
          Humor is a way of dealing with psychological inconsistencies. It can be an outlet to deal with the unpleasant. So killing in the military can becomes humorous. 1st year medical school students routinely joke about dead bodies in anatomy lab. Hackers have this site: http://thedailywtf.com/ http://thedailywtf.com/ .
      • Allocator2008 18y ago
        The military and war generally is "politics by other means". I don't think it is fair to say people who go into the military have a "need to shoot people", though I'm sure one could find those cases. I think a lot of people join the military just for the benefits - education opportunities, and so on. Broadly, from a public policy standpoint, for example with the Iraq war, that was not motivated by "violence per ce", though one could make the argument that everyone has a need for violence just from evolution. Iraq is just an issue of economic control. Either Iraqi's can control Iraqi oil, or we can. In fact it has nothing at all to do with terrorism, that is just for the weak minded to buy into. What it has to do with his privatizing oil. American companies do not benefit from publicly owned oil in Iraq, but if multinational or American-owned corporations own Iraqi oil, then the American people benefit. Think about it: would you rather have the Iraqis own the Iraq oil, or would you rather have the benefit of American companies owning it instead? Personally, I have a slight moral gripe about taking away people's natural resources and giving it to multinational corporations, but hey, that's just politics. War is politics by other means. Always been that way, always will be that way. Japan was right (from their point of view) to do Pearl Harbor, because it eliminated the threat caused by the American navy, and solidified their economic control of the Pacific rim. Similarly, the US was right (from our point of view) to do the Iraq war, because it got oil out of the hands of the indigenous peoples of that region and into our hands, benefiting us, not them, and eliminating the threat caused by Hussein at the same time. Please note I say "right" not as in morally right, but just right from the point of view of economic dominance. Violence is incidental. It is just a necessary part of war. The real point is economic control. True with Japan. True with the United States. Is that "moral" or "just". I don't know. I would like to think not. But apparently the 50 million people who voted for President Bush would disagree with me.
• Retric 18y ago
  We fucked up Iraq. We replaced an Evil despot with a chaos and now there are terrorists and ethnic cleansing and a whole host of nasty shit. So depending on the time line he could be sarcastic and literally accurate at the same time. Situation Normal All Fucked Up is a classic military saying and places like Iraq are the root cause of a lot of messed up situations.
• fauigerzigerk 18y ago
  "Idiot" is a harsh word. But I do agree that his reasoning is pretty hard to understand considering the terrorists only went to Iraq after the US invasion. Maybe he went to Iraq only later when the terrorists were already there, thinking whatever the reason for them being there I want them out (which is a worthy goal in my opinion).
  • david927 18y ago
    What terrorists went there after the invasion? How do you define a terrorist? As someone who shoots at an American?
    • fauigerzigerk 18y ago
      Al-Qaeda and similar groups went there after the invasion. I define terrorists as a group of people who deliberately target civilians in order to instill terror in their peers.
      • david927 18y ago
        That's what the U.S. Military says. I think you should check a better source. This discussion isn't appropriate for this forum; feel free to email me if you want to discuss this further.
        • fauigerzigerk 18y ago
          I'm referring to the findings of the US Senate, widely reported in the media. I don't know what their sources were, but I think there is little doubt that beheadings and bombings of civilians in Baghdad started after the invasion.
          • david927 18y ago
            You can be sure that the US Senate got their information from US Military and intelligence sources. I'm asking the source for a good reason: what's the more likely scenario? A) The US invades Iraq and suddenly tens of thousands fly there (not the US) to do their bombings and beheadings. or B) The US ends a dictatorship that kept the 65% Shiia majority down and there's civil war, which includes bombings and beheadings, and the US Military declares it to be Al-Queda to give soldiers the idea that they're "fighting evil" rather than just killing the people that live there.
• deleted 18y ago
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