SLM3

From his site:

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."

-Samuel P. Huntington


Ya know, if more people in the West understood this fact they might have a better grasp of all the anti-Western (primarily anti-US) sentiment in the world. It has nothing to do with being jealous of the top dog, or hating their freedoms and democracy. A "War on Terrorism" will obviously never work, and for some reason people keep avoiding the simple first step in the solution, and that is talking about the problem.

Thanks for the link.

PulpMind

they killed him because he was taking footage of the wrong things. it was not an accident.
when you go to a place where the goverment is doing things that they do not want th world to see.. and you see it, and have the ability to show the world.. they kill you. simple as that.

Fallon

PulpMind, look at the article. It says they had permission to be there. I think that he shouldn't have stopped his car, and gotten out of his vehicle, and lifted his camera to his shoulder and then start filming a tank. I bet I probably would have done the same thing if I were in their situation.

JumpinJesus

I can agree with that. Much military language is sanitized for reasons I can only assume are to expedite speaking. To us it often comes across as cold and unsympathetic. I received a lesson in this while in the Air Force.

Responding to a helicopter crash, I radioed in stating that there were 4 bodies in the wreckage. I was met with silence for a bit before I was answered with, "Correction, you mean there are four <i>souls</i> aboard?" When I returned to the base, I was informed by my supervisor and commander to never, ever again use the term "bodies" over the radio during an emergency.

Perhaps we are indoctrinated in these practices early until it becomes ingrained in us and the use of any other term besides "engaged" isn't even considered as an option.

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"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

smooth

Now we're talking .

I don't attribute maliciousness to these practices since I believe the reasons to be exactly what you just stated.

My point wasn't to assign blame but to discuss that we tend to not recognize how deeply military/political/common discursive practices shape our perceptions of reality and any consequences that arise from our particular word usage; that is, we become unable to even think about a given scenario in alternate ways.

reconmike

Even military jargon is not safe from political correctness,

The term search and destroy was replaced with locate and close with.

War is an ugly business, all kinds of people die.

I bet GW gave the fire mission that killed said reporter.

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Where is Darwin when ya need him?

Nad Adam

I can see how this happend.


Give it a bit of distance and it's an easy misstake to make. It's a bit negligent not to inform the incomming trrops about the camerateam in the area though.[

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Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. - Psalms 137:9

BigGov

And did his video tape show anything the US didn't want shown? Has the US killed any of the other hundreds of reporters like that? Do you think some commander would be stupid enough give an order like that to a gunner?

That statement is almost as stupid as the "was there a warning shot?"

It's hard to inform the incoming troops that there's one cameraman when there's hundreds in the city roaming around.

Also for troop moral. If anyone wants more understanding on this, read Black Hawk Down.

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One day an Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman walked into a pub together. They each bought a pint of Guinness. Just as they were about to enjoy their creamy beverage, three flies landed in each of their pints. The Englishman pushed his beer away in disgust. The Scotsman fished the fly out of his beer and continued drinking it, as if nothing had happened. The Irishman, too, picked the fly out of his drink but then held it out over the beer and yelled "SPIT IT OUT, SPIT IT OUT, YOU BASTARD!"