I can't believe this article is painting Robert Bales, the soldier that slaughtered 16 afghan villagers including 9 children as anything but a horrible psycho murderer.

“He is not some psychopath. He’s an outstanding soldier who has given a lot for this country.”

Really...

Why is anyone "trying" to humanize and understand him is beyond my understanding. There is no way that any excuses about his pathetic problems of losing a job and a house can compare to the families whose children he murdered and many of whom he set on fire. Kill yourself if your life is so bad buddy. you don't have to kill a bunch of innocent women and children. Any public rationalization makes us sound even more disturbingly supportive of his action.

I say screw the trial and drama, screw the punishment in some military court. if I was the afghan gov't I would demand he stand trial in Afghanistan and then just set him free in the streets and see what happens. If we don't treat him as the disgusting cold blooded murderer he is, it is only going to invite more terror attacks. To be honest I wouldn't even blame them. Will he have to undergo an international war crimes trial?

Can you imagine if it was the other way around and some afghani man in the US shot up and burned a bunch of women and children here. And people can cry 911 all they want but it's not the same in any way. This is such a direct and cold blooded murder. He had to look those children in the face.

These are all quotes from the article

While Bales, 38, sat in an isolated cell at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.’s military prison Saturday, classmates and neighbors from suburban Cincinnati, Ohio, remembered him as a “happy-go-lucky” high school football player who took care of a special-needs child and watched out for troublemakers in the neighborhood.

His former platoon leader said Saturday Bales was a model soldier inspired by 9/11 to serve, who saved lives in firefights on his second of three Iraq deployments.

“He’s one of the best guys I ever worked with,” said Army Capt. Chris Alexander, who led Bales on a 15-month deployment in Iraq.

“It’s our Bobby. He was the local hero,” said Michael Blevins, who grew up down the street from him in Norwood, Ohio. The youngest of five boys respected older residents, admonished troublemakers and loved children, even helping another boy in the area who had special needs.

He is finally dead - they got him in Afghanistan. Apparently, it happened a week ago but they were waiting to confirm the DNA. Will this finally mean the end to war? Or is it only the beginning of vengeance?

Anytime I have a real bad day I think, at least its not this.

WASHINGTON - The United States on Saturday unleashed a barrage (110) of Tomahawk missiles against the Libyan regime's air defenses but ruled out using ground troops in what President Barack Obama called a "limited military action"

Here we go again with another war. I can't freakin believe we are attacking Libya. I don't believe this mission is about protecting anyone - its about Britain, France and the US protecting oil. How many fronts can their be? If its about protecting people, where were we in Dafur? The only reason we are there is because there is oil and we need to make sure its safe.

Seriously another $37 billion for war?

What are we fighting for anymore? The war already stole all our money. It took all the tax money pillaged from the middle class and placed in in the hands of the huge companies that profit on these stupid wars. It almost seems like they are trying to start another one in Korea. Didn't we learn the first time.

I am starting to feel that every dollar we waste on these stupid wars is like another dollar the terrorists stole from us. And by terrorists I don't just mean the kind that fly into building on airplanes. I also mean the big military industrial complex company scum bags and their friends that rape us.

I just found this blog randomly searching for stuff about the army. You might find it an interesting perspective.

That question is "not going to face this government," Bush said, chuckling slightly at a news conference with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, "because we made up our mind. We've made that part clear. It'll face future governments. There will be future opportunities for people to say, 'Well, it's not worth it. Let's just retreat.' "

Since then, nearly 700 more American soldiers have died in a war that has now lasted more than four years, lost the lives of more than 3,600 U.S. troops, cost $10 billion a month -- and cost Republicans control of the House and Senate.

I love how it costs 10 billion dollars a month. I wish it was better phrased top money was transfered from the people to a select group of mega corporations. I am sure some of it is for the troops but a whole heck of a lot of it is for war machinery and infrastructure, which results in big companies getting richer and the American People losing money that could otherwise pay for a fucking hell of a lot of services. Imagine if our government had an additional 10 billion to spend on domestic programs.

I can't wait to read about how terrible Bush was in history books. Unfortunately, I will be one of those people that children ask why I didn't do anything about it.

I just saw thi on google news:

Nine US warships in Gulf for show of force

Reuters Canada - 38 minutes ago
By Mohammed Abbas. ABOARD USS JOHN C. STENNIS (Reuters) - The largest daytime assembly of US warships in the Gulf since the 2003 Iraq war prepared on Wednesday to hold drills off Iran's coast in a major US show of force that unnerved oil markets.

What is the war now if not the Iraq war. I wonder when they study this in History class how they will explainhat George Bush declared the war over at least 4 years before the troops were done fighting. It seems like a holdover from the past that if you capture the leader of another country, the war is over. Did that ever ean anything?

Is the war over now? I wonder if we will ever witness the execution of an American Leader in our lifetimes. I am sure the iraqis never thought they would see Saddam Die.

I wonder what will happen with Iraq now?

So (e:joshua) [inlink]joshua,119[/inlink] before you have a heart attack that I am a serial soldier hater, I thought I would explain why I am partcularly outraged with (e:be).

My attack on (e:be)'s journal may have seemed like some random attack on some poor little solder boy who didn't know better and just wanted to defend his country. Well that is not the case. Maybe you don't rememeber be|brandon that used to be the dread locked, hippy granola, anti-war boy that worked at coop.

You may, however, remember him when he lived as a woman. You would know him because he wore the skankiest mini skirts and looked a lot like a prostitute. I disliked him back then because I felt as though he was making it harder on gay people by living like she did for what I perceived to be pure shock value. Then, after a while, I felt bad for her because I thought, oh man maybe he is really a woman trapped in a man's body and I tried to learn to not hate him. His newest metamorphosis just makes me sick.

I am outraged not by the choice of a human to defend their country but by the choice of that particular human to become a solider.

And just as (e:be) has the right to make the choice he did. I have the right to criticize him and call him out on his disturbing choice. In fact I think I have a particular responsibility to do so as I am the one providing him with the public vehicle to brag about his new killing power.

I don't want to feel repsonsibile for giving someone a voice who is choosing to kill people just to see what it feels like.

Here is his repsonse to my comment.

Damn, that's some harsh shit. I wouldn't call it ignorance, really. I know full well that I work for an organization that does "bad things." I went into it knowing that. How much did I know it though? I've been anti-war and government forever, but what did I really know of such things? I'm going through alearning experience here that may very well cost me my life. This I also am aware of. Really, as I believe
I've wrote, I'm fucking over myself -seeing how it feels to betray completely everything I thought I had that made me "me." It's not something that most sane people would do, but I'm into it for an aspect of the depths of human experience that would be otherwise impossible to, well, experience. This puppet theatre of world events is going to keep playing out no matter which side I'm on. The sacrifice I make now will allow me to be able to converse intelligently about things that
before I could only have opinions about.

This is reality. If it weren't me, it'd be someone else, and they could've just as easily been me. I have so little time on this planet, and I need to see from as many viewpoints, and learn as much as possible. So, here I am, spending some time finding out firsthand about part of society that people either love or hate. Myself, I don't love or hate. Life is too short.

And shit man, you may as well laugh, because that brain matter dance isn't likely to happen any time soon. I'm more of a minor wound type. However, should my head succumb to entropy before the rest of me, I would invite such revelry. Just try not to feel too sad, just appreciate the absurdity of corporeal existence.
Rock n' roll...