"Single men in barracks," wrote Kipling of the British imperial armies, "don't grow into plaster saints." I am shocked, shocked to see that an all volunteer military force in a prosperous country attracts ill educated young men of the lower classes, with anxieties about their manhood, who are looking for a license to do the violent things that they are not allowed to do in civilian life, and then reinforces those traits in order to make them effective killers willing to accept the risk of their own deaths. How long has this been going on?

Kipling also wrote of bearing the white man's burden for all the dirty colored folk of the world. I think peackeeping would attract noble individuals. As it stands, we have roving street gangs with a glorified sense of authority and justification.

Aren't these men? Didn't they likely vote for Bush? Aren't they citizens? Don't they deserve to shoulder some of the blame for their actions? American soldiers of WWII didn't do the sorts of things our soldiers do now, at least not nearly as much. I''d wager the Germans did.

We've been fighting an unjust war founded on insubstantial principals. Flies are always attracted to shit.

Never make the ignorant mistake of assuming peacekeeping attracts "noble individuals." The United Nations has admitted that nearly 200 of their peacekeepers have been disciplined (but not prosecuted) for rape, sexual offenses, and child abuse, mostly in Africa.

And don't blindly assume American soldiers in WWII were anything different; we simply reinterpret the war in an opposite light. Soldiers since the beginning of time in every culture, nation, and religion have committed war crimes against opposing forces and grissly acts of violence upon local populaces. This is nothing new. The only difference between soldiers today and soldiers a thousand years ago is better weapons and more organization for the current lot. The basic instincts of humans have not changed: we are still prone to acting out when we are stressed, sleep deprived, scared, and bloodied. Blaming current ills in the military upon politics is a silly deviation from the truth of the human animal.

"An idealist," wrote Mencken, "is someone who believes that because a rose is lovelier than a cabbage, it will make better soup."

thepizzaman:

The basic instincts of humans have not changed: we are still prone to acting out when we are stressed, sleep deprived, scared, and bloodied. Blaming current ills in the military upon politics is a silly deviation from the truth of the human animal.

It's not always that involuntary. Since World War I, the only accepted moral stance for Anglo-American soldiers is victimhood -- that war is at best a terrible thing that decent men are forced to undergo, at great sacrifice, for the general good. That's a truth, but it's not the truth, and its certainly not the whole truth.

As Michael Herr wrote in Dispatches, the great dirty secret of the Vietnam War was how much so many American soldiers and marines actually enjoyed what they were doing. And the Vietnam armed forces were a broad based collection of conscripts.

A force of volunteers is necessarily going to attract young men who have no particular politics beyond tribal loyalty and who are looking for the chance to be powerful and feared. They'll be disillusioned to an extent once the bullets start flying past their ears, but a lot of them will still enjoy the their work.

you are not fit to lick the boots of any of the USMC..."flies are attracted to shit"? as my father, the marine, says" this is america, you have the right to be an asshole" you can thank him later.

The military,since the begining of time has inlisted people to do no thing.FIGHT ! How can there be an educated military with this society. Our military is a reflection of america,but if you have never been to war ,you won't get it.How long has it been going on? What a question? What planet are you from?

suzie:

you are not fit to lick the boots of any of the USMC...

Even a USMC who throws puppies off cliffs, taunts small starving children with bottled water, rapes innocent women, or any of the HOST of war crimes perp'd by American soldiers?

That IS the topic sweetheart. I'm glad you think I'm not fit to lick the boots of the wost-of-the-worst of the Marines' convicted CRIMINALS.

You dizzy bitch.

i truly wish in my heart of hearts that people who believe our troops are such lowlifes, would someday be allow to show these boys how war is done..you should go and volunteer to show them how to die....

sticks and stones, loser.

YOU are the one defending sociopaths just because they wear a Marine's uniform. YES, there are sociopath military people in the world; at the very least as there are many as there are in the general population. Hence the UCMJ.

What a WARPED sense of brotherhood your father must have to defend these people...

We're talking about Marines who do dispicable things in this thread, oicu. Can you please try to keep up? Or are you like suzie here, defending even the Marines who commit war crimes?

no, your labeling ALL as the same..as you LATER pointed out, the percentages are the same for civilian assholes....having been in war, I'm not so swift to make broad accusations...the ones RESPONSIBLE, should be tried and punished, lest they give people who like to find fault ammunition....

the people my father defended were you, you ungrateful moron, and i have not once said in this post that i condone criminal behavior, you are the one who has no respect for the military but yet enjoy all of the freedoms the military protects..."weapons guard peace"...Cicero

i am also not so naive as to believe that every tale of an american behaving badly is true, do you think that our enemies are not capable of creating their own propaganda? no, you are willing to always believe the worst of your countrymen and those jihadists, well, they are misunderstood, they don't really want us either dead or muslims, that is just hyperbole i suppose.

except, of course, the facts show that on average they are better educated than you.

thanks, "lunkhead".

LMAO!