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shakran · 06-07-2006, 06:23 AM

I think it's important not just to ask "What will we do about this," but to also ask "Why are soldiers doing things like this?"

Don't get me wrong - I'm not excusing their behavior. But doesn't it seem odd to anyone that there have been so many flagrant cases of abuse in this war? Sure other wars have just as many, but other wars also had more troops on the ground, and were overall on a much larger scale.

So either 1) we're recruiting full blown thugs and hellions for our military (a possibility I frankly find somewhat doubtful) or 2) we're abusing our military so much that they're snapping and doing things they would not ordinarilly do.

And with tours of duty lasting far longer than they should, with vast shortages in troop strength, with our government saying flat out that it doesn't care about the lives of the troops (because if it did, it would have supplied them with nifty things like armor) and in fact has in many cases forced the troops to put themselves at unnecessary risk (forbidding troops to use non-government-issued body armor even when the soldier's privately-purchased armor is superior to the military armor, and even when the soldier has not been supplied with any government-issued armor).

I certainly can't speak for anyone but myself, but it seems to me that I can see where someone might snap when they're dealing with conditions like that.

So rather than just playing the "They screwed up, let's punish them and then the problem is solved" game perhaps we should instead search out the root causes of these abuses and stop them at their source.

06-07-2006, 06:23 AM	#10 (permalink)
shakran Tone.	I think it's important not just to ask "What will we do about this," but to also ask "Why are soldiers doing things like this?" Don't get me wrong - I'm not excusing their behavior. But doesn't it seem odd to anyone that there have been so many flagrant cases of abuse in this war? Sure other wars have just as many, but other wars also had more troops on the ground, and were overall on a much larger scale. So either 1) we're recruiting full blown thugs and hellions for our military (a possibility I frankly find somewhat doubtful) or 2) we're abusing our military so much that they're snapping and doing things they would not ordinarilly do. And with tours of duty lasting far longer than they should, with vast shortages in troop strength, with our government saying flat out that it doesn't care about the lives of the troops (because if it did, it would have supplied them with nifty things like armor) and in fact has in many cases forced the troops to put themselves at unnecessary risk (forbidding troops to use non-government-issued body armor even when the soldier's privately-purchased armor is superior to the military armor, and even when the soldier has not been supplied with any government-issued armor). I certainly can't speak for anyone but myself, but it seems to me that I can see where someone might snap when they're dealing with conditions like that. So rather than just playing the "They screwed up, let's punish them and then the problem is solved" game perhaps we should instead search out the root causes of these abuses and stop them at their source.