Posted on 07/12/2007 10:11:49 AM PDT by TrainSaw
Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans...described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.
...
I mean, you physically could not do an investigation every time a civilian was wounded or killed because it just happens a lot and you'd spend all your time doing that," said Marine Reserve Lieut. Jonathan Morgenstein, 35, of Arlington, Virginia.
...
Veterans said the culture of this counterinsurgency war, in which most Iraqi civilians were assumed to be hostile, made it difficult for soldiers to sympathize with their victims--at least until they returned home and had a chance to reflect.
"I'll tell you the point where I really turned," said Spc. Michael Harmon, 24, a medic from Brooklyn. ... "I go out to the scene and [there was] this little, you know, pudgy little 2-year-old child with the cute little pudgy legs, and I look and she has a bullet through her leg.... An IED [improvised explosive device] went off, the gun-happy soldiers just started shooting anywhere and the baby got hit. And this baby looked at me, wasn't crying, wasn't anything, it just looked at me like--I know she couldn't speak. It might sound crazy, but she was like asking me why. You know, Why do I have a bullet in my leg?... I was just like, This is--this is it. This is ridiculous."
(Excerpt) Read more at thenation.com ...
“The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians.”
BZZZZT. WRONG. The Nation interviewed 50 vets in an effort to find some way to urinate on the war, on America and on the military. They don’t give 2 sh*** about the Iraqi civilians.
Commie rag to its stinking core.
AKA the sons of John Kerry and the VVAW.
--VIETNAM WAR VETERAN JOHN KERRY'S TESTIMONY BEFORE THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE, APRIL 22, 1971
My two sons reved there and my brother who is a Navy Lt. Commander srved there and none say there were abuses to the civilians. This is total bull$@!!t.
Well Mr. Medic from my Hometown Brooklyn, if an IED goes off by your convoy, there’s a couple civilians there that are injured and killed, two of your guys are wounded severely, and you get ambushed, what are you going to do? Kneel by the civilians with a tear in your eye, then yell out “I hate this country!” ? Or are you going to pick up your rifle and shoot back at your attackers?
Anybody else from Brooklyn, myself included, would call this guy the P-word. Sh!t happens in war.
Oops.... Served.
I noticed how you cherrypicked
co-author Chris Hedges is one of the most vicious and demented leftist twits around, who has had a huge axe to grind against the war, so the chances that he could give an honest, fair, and accurate presentation of anything on this subject are less than zero
Just another biased, treasonous piece of crap propaganda from the left....
Thats why war is hell.
Jonathan Morgenstein, Specialist at the United States Institue of Peace. ‘Nuff said http://www.usip.org/specialists/bios/current/morgenstein.html
They interviewed John Kerry again???
Who gives a crap, anyway, about Iraqi civilians during this period of all-out war? We need to stop the tea party mentality going on over there and finish the job at hand. That will ultimately be what perserves the greatest number of innocent lives.
Sorry, but I thoroughly subscribe to the Coulter doctrine: "We should invade their countries, kill all of their leaders, and convert them to Christianity."
There's no fuzz on that peach, and I'm not being sarcastic, either.
Ok. How many really are combat vets from Iraq?
During the Senate hearings on Vietnam there were many “veterans” who never set foot outside the US nor were they in the military.
North American head of Palestine Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group responsible for the suicide bombing murders of more than 100 civilians in the Middle East
Civil liberties activist
Active in Islamic Society of North America
World and Islam Studies Enterprise
American-Arab Anti-discrimination Committee
American Muslim Council
American Muslim Alliance
CAIR
"Let us damn America, let us damn Israel, let us damn them and their allies until death."
Charged with conspiracy to support international terrorism Acquitted on 8 of 17 counts on December 6, 2005
The Nation, commiting treason still after all these years.
BS. What they're describing here are primarily the effects of the terror war against Iraqi civilians (the one being waged against them by their "fellow Muslims" and "fellow Arabs"). These are not the effects of "the occupation", they are the effects of that terror war. If the occupation ceased, does the Nation think the terror war would cease? Are they so stupid?
And as usual, against all logic, the (obvious) fact that barbarians are committing atrocities against civilians in Iraq and we're not doing enough to stop it, is treated as if it somehow constitutes an argument for running away from Iraq. Thereby leaving those Iraqi civilians even more at the mercy of the barbarians currently engaged in trying to kill so many of them. Yes, indeed, this is what geniuses like Hedges propose as a solution to the problem of Iraqi civilians being killed: run away and let the barbarians do their thing.
You know why? Because people like Hedges care so very, very much about Iraqi civilians. That's why they want to run away from their attackers.
Progressive!
“The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States”
50 Veterans from around the US does not a valid sample size make.
Actually it was "Bomb their countries" -- not invade. Also it was "kill their leaders" rather than "kill all of their leaders". And it was speaking specifically of the people who were dancing in the streets in celebration of the 9/11 attacks. For the most part, the Iraqi civilians are happy that we have deposed and eliminated Saddam and his evil spawn, and they are not the ones that rejoiced in the violence visited on our country.
The Nation also led off a hit piece on President Bush “exposing” his ties to Enron by erroneously pointing out that Bush’s team The Texas Rangers played at Enron Field. They were informed that this was incorrect and made further updates. Ken Lay (together with the libs at the Houston Chronicle) got the new stadium built in HOUSTON for the Astros (with 1% margin of the vote).
Ken Lay had absolutely no dealings with the Arlington team and his dealings with the Houston team occurred years after Bush sold his interest in the Rangers’ baseball franchise.
Why should I ever believe anything that appears in the Nation?
They are grooming the next John F Kerry.
And, just what connection is there with former Lt jg John ‘F’in Kerry and these guys? Did they just study his history in hopes of running for president one day too?
I'll bet that treasonous rag hasn't printed a total of that many GOOD words about this country since its first issue.
And what do the other 139950 combat veterans have to say. Hello, hello anyone awake at The Nation?
It's worth Googleing "Jonathan Morgenstein", who is apparently a "peace activist" and Democrat
http://www.trumanproject.org/principals.php
http://www.arlingtondemocrats.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/1019968
More treason from the commie rag Nation.
And a 24 year old medic looks at a wounded child and “knows” its 5.56 but not schrapnel from the IED? Sign that boy up to Medical School!!
As a vet, I can tell you straight up that yes bad things do happen and most of the war stories you hear are from liars trying to make themselves look better...ala John Kerry.
These are the Kerry’s who have actually done such things and then try to turn them on Honor.
—The Nation ^ | July 30, 2007 | CHRIS HEDGES & LAILA AL-ARIAN—
Any relation to Sami?
—Co authored by Layla Al-Arian, daughter of Sami Al-Arian, Former professor at University of South Florida—
Never Mind.
There are even liars who never served or never served where they claim to have observed such war crimes.
The War on Error goes on every day.
Those are the ones that really piss me off...
The Angry Left now feels it start up with the BABY KILLER smear they used in the 60's.
HEY KATRINA VAN DUH.NEED.A.MAN, WHO SAID "THEY OPENED FIRE ON CHILDREN"?
WHO SAID THAT, WHERE DID IT HAPPEN AND WHAT REALLY HAPPENED ?
Between this article calling our troops Baby Killer just like the Vietnam Veterans Against the War smeared our troops in the 60's, Alexander Cockburn's "Support Their Troops?" article in The Nation brings back the "Ho, HO, HO Chi Minh, the NFL is gonna win" rooting for the enemy.
This "Baby Killer" propoganda piece has the Vietnam Veterans Against the War fingerprints all over it. IVAW and VFP are fronts for the old, drug addled VVAW pukes.
NFL? Make that NLF.
But now their filth is starting to spread. This afternoon articles appeared on the web pages of the two largest Swedish newspapers, Dagens Nyheter (www.dn.se) and Svenska Dagbladet (www.svd.se) uncritically quoting the article in the Nation.
“For the first time it has been documented....”. You can imagine the rest. I immediately looked up FR and found this thread. Thanks!
But how to counter these lies? Before you can say John Kerry it is all over the blogs. I’ll send the link with this thread to a number of conservative Swedish blogs (yes, there are a few) but the damage has already been done.
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