BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds

Subject: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 12:07 AM

Winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan:

U.S. marine general says 'it's fun to shoot some people' in Afghanistan

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: Peace
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 12:31 AM

He runs this place.

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:FqDAC1KydiQJ:www.quantico.usmc.mil/about_quantico.htm+Quantico&hl=en

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 05:25 AM

The thing is, some people really are like that, and they think being like that is the normal way to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: gnu
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 05:53 AM

NOT a general. Grunts are killers, plain and simple. That is their main goal. They are recruited, trained and deployed to kill. But for a general to speak such utter... I am so aghast, so angry, I can't find the words.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 07:06 AM

Geeze gnu, he was telling like it is from his viewpoint. He learned how to construct an "us versus them" and demonize the "others', and take your life in your hands. He just should not have shot off his mouth. But the tragic piece of it is he is a reflection of his training.
Your tax dollars at work.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 07:19 AM

Now there is the corps d'esprit some of us have come to expect from those "honorably serving" and "defending freedom"!

Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out.

Oh wait, that's the 101st Airborne.

Well, anyway. Gotta love them troops, doncha!

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 09:36 AM

Dont have a cow, man. He was talking about killing the worst members of the Taliban. These are nasties who are killing marines and terrorizing their own people, and gave harbor to Al Qaeda.

"Kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out" is from a T-shirt.

You wanna deal with the Taliban your own selves, give 'em an account here and let 'em laugh themselves to death? At least you'd be able to hold every word they say against THEM.

I hope the general continues to enjoy his work and I'm one of the people paying him.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: artbrooks
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 09:59 AM

What he actually said was this: "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." The Commandant of the Marine Corps immediately commented on his "poor choice of words"

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: PeteBoom
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 10:03 AM

I don't know. My DM from the pipe band is ex-British Army - moved to Canada because his kids moved there. Served in Aden and several other places where nasty things took place. He has an interesting take on such things. Soldiers are trained to do certain things. When they are allowed to do those things there is a fair amount of satisfaction. When part of that is being an "avenging angel" you're a hero. When part of that is saving the lives at the expense of other people's lives (your enemy) you get a medal pinned on your chest.

When you're a witness to horrific acts acted out on your unit and horrific acts your unit retaliates with, neither of which make the papers or the TV or the history books, it becomes a question of survival - and the survivors write the accounts.

In his case (my DM's) the enemy would brandish body parts of dead soldiers or civilians to frighten the soldiers and encourage their fellows. So, a marksman would shoot the brandisher in the knee. Not to kill, but to seriously injure. When a culture honors courage and valor in a leader above all other traits - that leader tends to loose credibility when rolling on the ground screaming in pain from a wound inflicted by the very fellows he was threatening to emasculate.

The "Angel of Mons" and other myths serve a purpose - the reality of battle and combat is incredibly horrific and most folks really do not want to deal with it.

The general was speaking a line from training - one that is used in training people to kill others - to hunt others hunting them. Those who have survived it get to talk about it quietly, if at all. Those who don't, don't talk about much. Those who were never there talk about people saying things like that.

Pete

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 10:05 AM

I heard this guy on the radio the other day. I thought they introduced him as in charge of the DOD's Department of Forced Transformation, which I thought was a funny name for Iraq and subsequent projects. Turns out it was Force Transformation.

He spoke very well. Newspapers say he first saw combat as a battalion commander in Desert Storm. I don't know how many bullets, if any, he may have put in to people. But Marines are deadly, and they won't work well under a pantywaist. In his Patton-like prep speech before Kandahar, he told them: ""The first time they [Taliban and Al Qaeda] run into U.S. Marines, I want it to be the most traumatic experience of their miserable lives," Mattis told his Marines. "I want them to fear us and never want to engage us again."

A kindler, gentler machine gun hand can't properly be mandated for Marines.

All that said, he slipped, no doubt. He said a stupid thing that he will regret, a bit of language that does not transfer from Marine Corp culture to the civilian world.



Preemptive war is wrong for many reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 11:08 AM

The military is like the police force---it's tricky get guys who are able & willing to do the nasty job, but who don't LIKE it too much.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 11:55 AM

If you actually like killing - I don't mean being able to do it, or thinking there's a time when you need to do it but like it, find it "fun", you're some kind of psychopath, maybe temporarily, maybe permanent, and you're a danger to everyone on your own side.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: DougR
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 11:58 AM

Bad choice of words.
DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 12:01 PM

General Patton said far worse things. Furthermore, combat soldiers become really cynical about battle and about what civilians know about its realities, which in the case of Americans is thankfully essentially nothing. Mattis wasn't trying to reveal an eternal truth, he was speaking to military people who are used to that kind of talk. It doesn't apply to everyday life, and he did say "some" people. People who are oppressing the innocent and trying to kill you at the same time. Anyway, not many soldiers think killing is "fun," even though they are trained killers, and Mattis or a dozen Mattises won't change their minds about that.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 12:07 PM

Many years ago, a friend who had served as an officer in the special forces in Vietnam said to me, "the best soldiers are the ones who hate war".

I believe him.

And while I know that Marines are not soldiers, I don't see how having fun while killing others really serves the mission in the long run. You can win the battles, but if you don't win the hearts and minds, you can't secure the peace.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: kendall
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 12:24 PM

Just another professional meathead.

When we sink to their level, what have we gained? How can we claim the moral high ground?
Answer: WE ARE NO BETTER THAN THE ANIMALS WE ARE FIGHTING.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: robomatic
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 12:27 PM

I don't think you want to hear everything that cops, doctors, nurses, and lawyers say about their work when they think no one outside of the craft is around. Without knowing the man, I don't think it is fair to draw conclusions about him from an excerpted comment.

The thread title does capture a point when it adds 'winning hearts and minds'. We are not just trying to kill off a bunch of folks and leave, we're trying to make a lasting sociopolitical change in a tough part of the world. If you're going to speak frankly, while in the middle of a highly charged political war, you also need to speak securely.

Several months ago we had an example of a US military leader likening his job to a crusade. That blew over but established the high visibility of so many of our troops that has become the standard of the current state of affairs. I believe the man was in his own community church and expected his words to go no farther, but he was wrong. Interestingly enough, an episode of the TV program JAG adopted this event for one of their better episodes.

Another point which we can legitimately bring in is the necessity of knowing what the Arab leaders are saying, not just for media broadcast to the west, but IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE. Thomas Friedman has made this point in his column more than once. One of the recent US news reporters caught an example of this, I think on PBS, how one of the Iraqi leaders said 'no timetable for withdrawal' in English, but 'there is a timetable, date not public' in Arabic.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 12:47 PM

If you send your public servants to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, isn't it a bit of an impertinenece telling them what their state of mind has to be as they risk their lives on patrol or in battle.

Presumably the gentleman in question knows that coming from the culture that we do, we have many inhibitions (thankfully) against taking life. However battles are not won without killing people.
It's his job to get the soldiers to overcome such inhibitions that they have.

I seem to remember seeing army unarmed combat manuals from the second world war, with similar injunctions to have no inhibitions about breaking the necks of Germans.

I am waiting for the actual debate about the war to begin - although actual debate about a war in progress is a bit bloody silly. Win it as much as you can, once the thing has started.

Instead we have thread after thread started by people going Oh Horace ain't it horrid? Yes war is bloody horrid. Next subject...?

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 12:53 PM

No need to get hysterical, we won't be at their level till we start strapping on explosive belts and blowing up kids for the sake of our God. And calling for the death of all Muslims wherever we find them (that's what Bin Laden said about Americans and Jews). Those are the guys who think killing is "fun."

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 01:03 PM

Not having inhibitions about killing is one thing. Enjoying it is something else.

A vet (I mean an animal doctor, that's what we call them) has to be ready to kill at any time, and you wouldn't want a vet who felt unable to do that - but you definitely wouldn't want one who enjoyed it either.

What is really strange is that word "fun". Excitement, exilaration, triumph, perhaps - but "fun"??? My father fought in three wars, in Ireland, in Spain and in North Africa and Italy. He never talked about killing as fun. I don't think he could have understood the very notion.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: gnu
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 02:42 PM

CC - marine not a soldier. Ahem. Don't take this the wrong way old friend, but, poor choice of words ? could you explain ?

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: Peace
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 02:47 PM

May have been a confusion trying to avoid confusion: Marines are part of the Navy--even the ground troops.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: gnu
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 03:07 PM

Oh. To me, all are soldiers first, no matter the branch of soldiering. A small point, but one to which some Marines may take offense.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: artbrooks
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 03:13 PM

Gnu, we soldiers also take offense at marines being called soldiers.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 03:14 PM

Why did the navy have marines aboard their ships?,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,











Because sheep would be too obvious.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 03:19 PM

Gnu, a Marine will take offense if you call him or her a "soldier". From their perspective, they are not soldiers, they are Marines.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: gnu
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 03:20 PM

Why Art ? What type of soldier are you ?

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 03:20 PM

Oops. Looks like I crossposted with a couple of people.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 03:22 PM

I understood her to mean that the function of a Marine on assault is different than being a soldier in an occupying force on controlled territory.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 03:23 PM

oops cross posted as well

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: Peace
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 03:23 PM

I would guess he was a GI. Close, Art?

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: artbrooks
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 03:24 PM

Gnu, I am, or was for many years, a soldier in the Army. Marines are marines in the Marine Corps. Soldiers are not marines and marines are not soldiers any more than they are sailors.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: gnu
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 03:26 PM

Apparently, I, and Webster, stand corrected. I thought that any skilled warrior was, first, a soldier. My apologies for my ignorance.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 03:27 PM

One of my prior significant others (prior to JtS) served in the Marines in Vietnam. That's how I know.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: Peace
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 03:32 PM

My apologies:

"The Marine Corps is part of the Department of the Navy. It is not part of the United States Navy, although the two services work closely together."

BM

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: PoppaGator
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 04:45 PM

I don't believe that there is any necessary difference between the functions and roles of members of the Army and members of the Marine Corps. Both groups, certainly, may be deployed in an assault role; it may be true that the Army requires a wider range of duties of its troops than the Corps (e.g., occupation duties after the most intense combat is over).

I'm pretty sure that the basis for the assertion "I'm a Marine, don't call me a soldier" (and vice versa) is purely semantic, and an important part of maintaining a group identity and esprit de corps. Not unlike "Don't call me 'sir'; I'm a sergeant, not an officer ~ I work for a living." In another nation, another culture, I'm sure it would be entirely proper to call both groups of warriors "soldiers."

Back to General Mattis: It seems disingenuous for people to get so up in arms about this guy's pronouncement. What the hell do they think war is all about? I don't necessarily like what he said, but I can imagine what it must be like to be thrown into a kill-or-be-killed situation, and the general's attitude is entirely appropriate and very much to be expected.

For the record: I am an avowed pacifist, but I served ~ reluctantly, and only after repeated "invitations" over a period of several years ~ as a draftee in the US Army, pulling noncombatant duty while petitioning for discharge as a consciencious objector. I managed to keep myself out of combat, but I came to know many men who had been there. So I have knowledge of, and a degree of sympathy with, a wide range of positions on issues of warfare.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 05:02 PM

I only make the distinction in order to avoid giving offense, PoppaGator. If they want to make that distinction, who am I to say they shouldn't?

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 05:45 PM

"Being in the Marines is about soldiering at its most demanding" from a Royal Marines recruiting site, with a Royal Navy logo in the corner, since they are part of the Navy.

The dictionary gives the original meaning as as "soldier based on a warship".

Call them what they like to be called. But anyone who really thinks killing is "fun", doesn't belong in uniform, they belong in a psychiatric ward.

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: robomatic
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 05:58 PM

I believe that marines in Napleonic era served on wooden ships for two main purposes:

1) To keep sailors in line, because at the time sailors were often pressed into service and during frequent personnel shortages men were taken from all conditions of life.

2) For ship to ship fighting during close engagement.

The American use of marines derives from the English. Long winded article here

Robo
Son of a Soldier

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 08:14 PM

Oh, dear. I re-read the quotes. They were more boorish than I first noticed ("It's fun to shoot some people"), to include: "Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot."

Subject: RE: BS: Fun to kill people: winning hearts/minds
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 08:28 PM

They make it more fun with the Gulf War video games. Ther are quite a few.

Here is my version of an Iraq war video game...

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/bushdeserter.jpg