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November 30, 2004
Why Do They Hate Us, Continued
This shirt is being sold with the following text:
In addition to helping a worthy cause, it's important to make sure the public does not forget about this brave Marine, who acted swiftly, in defense of his brothers.We're proud of what this Marine did. At MetroSpy we believe terrorists should be hunted down and killed. And we're as happy as a room full of November 3rd Republicans every time that happens. Enjoy!
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The Marine who killed the wounded insurgent in Fallujah deserves our praise and admiration. In a split second decision, he acted valiantly. CAPTION READS:"The Gods of War Hate those who Hesitate"
I don't need to explain much here, all you have to do is reverse the situation. Imagine a wounded, unarmed marine being left to die in a church in, say, rural Montana by, say, the occupying army. A day later another group of occupier soldiers come back, notice one of the wounded marines is still not dead, and shoots him, point blank, on camera. Then, all they talk about is how the shooter had the right to defend himself from the unarmed, wounded, dying man on the ground. What if he was booby-trapped? What if he was about to lunge?
Then they sell shirt celebrating the shooter. And their columnists keep blabbing about how uncivilized we are, and how we don't value life like they do.
Posted by zeynep at November 30, 2004 05:09 PM
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Comments
Hard hitting. I stared at the t shirt with the deepest respect and full humility.
Posted by: solar at November 30, 2004 05:40 PM
The shirt is disgusting. It is inhuman. It reflects a near total lack of morals in this country.
As for the Marine that shot the wounded man: he was in a war, and that means a big pile of dead humans. That is what war is about. That is why war should not be allowed to happen, particularly optional wars for bogus reasons. That is why the fault lies not with the Marine, but with the low lifes who started this immoral war.
And, if it was a wounded (and looking unarmed) Marine was lying in that mosque, and an Iraqi rebel shot him point blank, I would feel the same way. That is war: kill or be killed.
Posted by: Susan - USA at November 30, 2004 06:15 PM
I can't believe that shirt is not a spoof. I thought that zeynep was linking to a bad joke. Who would wear a shirt like that? I've surely been living outside North America too long, because I had no idea that such extreme facism had taken root.
Posted by: Mike at November 30, 2004 09:12 PM
If they can be convinced the wounded, unarmed man is Satan (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4037009.stm), they can be convinced to kill Satan.
Posted by: Eric at December 1, 2004 12:37 AM
susan, we have the geneva convention so that personal opinions are trumped by the most basic human rights. what the marine did is a CLEAR violation of that convention. and *i* would feel the same way no matter who did the shooting. it's not legal. period.
don't allow your hatred for the policies to lead you into sweeping pardons of individual people who are participating in them. individual responsibility still counts for something too, at least in my book.
Posted by: liz at December 1, 2004 06:05 AM
Even after more than 3 years hate crimes are still
perpretrated against Sikhs. (just because they were a turban and have beard).
http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/dec/01sikh.htm
So the story of the T-shirt is hardly shocking.
Posted by: Raj at December 1, 2004 10:08 AM
Just found this Associated Press pic taken by Jim MacMillan on the following site... http://cryptome.org/mk3/mosul-kill3.htm
It's in the second-from-last row of pics on the page.
The caption for the pic reads: "A US Army soldier checks for possible booby-traps and explosives after the bodies of four murdered men were found in a cemetery in Mosul, Iraq..."
So let's all get this right once and for all, okay? There's an established method put down to deal with dead or dying people who you suspect of being rigged with a booby trap.
That method is to run a metal detector over the body, or sniff it for explosives (helpfully illustrated for our benefit in the picture above).
That method does not include screaming "he's fucking faking he's dead! he's faking he's fucking dead!" and then shooting the body at point-blank range.
The marine in question is being let off the hook by corporate media on grounds that he might have been acting to pre-empt (remember the last time that term was used), even prevent, the chance of grievous injury in the event of the body being booby-trapped.
Well, since there's other ways to ascertain that prospect (see above picture again), on what precise grounds is the marine acting within the bounds of acceptable behaviour? In what exact terms is he not subject to the Geneva Convention? And on what pretext does corporate media believe he might have been acting in self-defense?
One wonders whether America's "moral values" voter has a take on this issue that's radically different from the rest of the world's?
(http://india.indymedia.org/en/2004/12/209914.shtml)
Posted by: Gene at December 1, 2004 11:48 AM
Aside from everything else, note that the ad copy refers to the Marine as "brave." Killing an unarmed, wounded person is in fact what decent people would call an act of cowardice, not bravery. Thus does the defense of empire produce inversions of meaning that are, I think, literally insane.
Posted by: john burke at December 1, 2004 06:25 PM
How disgusting. Wow..it's great that Marine was so brave that he could "defend" himself from such a "dangerous" attacker. Uggh. I need some french fries....something french.
Posted by: Toddini at December 3, 2004 01:48 AM
"The Gods of War"?!
*Surely* this is a spoof.
Posted by: Disillusioned kid at December 6, 2004 07:52 PM
Sigh. A tasteless t-shirt. Stop the presses.
What the marine did may have been dumb, it may have been a violation of orders, it may have been a violation of the rules of engagement, but it was most certainly not a violation of the Geneva convention.
As others have surely pointed out to you by now, playing dead does not qualify as surrendering. If you watch the whole video you can even see a demonstration of the difference when another Iraqi realizes he can't fake death and jumps up and surrenders.
Posted by: greg at December 7, 2004 02:37 AM
first i dont support the us cause in irak because its not to kick a dictator and by no means they used the wrong way but bombing innocent people imagine we dont like the bush clan and their way of so called democracy is it legitemate to bomb america the soldier on that shirt is so stupid how would they like it if we print some shirts with a burned us marine pulled by somalians how far would we go on this kind of expressions
Posted by: tetef at February 12, 2006 04:47 PM