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War

Started by Liquid Darkness Sep 23, 2005 at 4:32 PM 7 replies 1.8k views

Original Post

Sep 23, 2005 at 4:32 PM

I'm not a frequent thread starter and I tend to keep out of political debates but I felt this was worth discussing. My younger brother is in the US Army and was sent to Iraq about 10 days ago. I'm not going to go into details because I believe he is not supposed to give out certain info and I want to respect that. To start off, I would like to say that I am against this war. The US has much larger issues to deal with than making enemies while policing the world but I fully support my brother as a soldier and wish nothing more than for his safty. I was able to talk to him for the first time about an hour ago and he painted a little picture of what is going on out there. A picture that troubles and saddens me and I wanted to share it with all of you. Essentially the city he is in was overrun with soldiers and "cleaned" of insurgents and makeshift booby traps before his arrival. Now they guard this same city that US soldiers tore apart in an effort to rebuild it. He told me the civilians despise them for destroying their homes with tanks and artillery but he is told to just play dumb. "If soldiers attacked my home town I would be planting booby-traps too", he said. "But we have the big guns". They say that they are the good guys and they are there to help and somehow that is supposed to justify the destruction only weeks before. he told me that the soldiers harass civilians and are rude to them out of frustration with the language barrier. Out of boredom they hunt cats and chickens and as a whole are waiting for some action. "This is a terrible place" he told me. All in a days work for a soldier I guess. For the first time all of this became so real to me. It saddens me to think of what we are doing on behalf of a single nation's desire to show the world that that they dont take kindly to terrorist attacks. How are we better? How are we fixing things instead of perpetuating the violence? We aren't.

Raduprv

Sep 23, 2005 at 4:47 PM

Umm, most of us knew that before the war even started. How would you feel if China would invade US to spread freedom and communism, and liberate you and your familly?

nprz

Sep 23, 2005 at 5:16 PM

Wouldn't this be a good opportunity for your brother to learn Arabic? Are they allowed to converse with the civilians at all? I can't imagine any of them wanting to talk to the aggressor though.
I'd rather enjoy being in a boring town that got no action than worrying about whether I am going to get shot or not everyday.

stimarco

Sep 23, 2005 at 5:29 PM

I've got to go with NPRZ on this: advise him to learn the language. Only through their language can you truly begin to understand a people's culture.

Granted, he'll probably not be fluent in it within a week, but it's as much about the symbolic gesture as it is about the action itself.

Arabic is trickier than, say, French, but from what you've said, it's not like your brother has much else to do right now. Learning the lingo will help broaden his horizons: he'll have two ways of looking and thinking about the world about him. It may also help him win over the locals and I doubt it'll do his chances of promotion any harm either.

This isn't a problem. It's an opportunity. An opportunity to build bridges between two radically different cultures.

--
Sean Timarco Baggaley

coldacid

Sep 23, 2005 at 5:47 PM

I also agree with what nprz says. In fact, not only should your brother take the time to learn the language, but also encourage others in his unit to do so!

Smeagol

Sep 23, 2005 at 5:48 PM

I haven't been on here in a while, but as a serving member of her majestys armed forces i thought i'd give you my thoughts on the situation.

I'd also have to sugest that your brother make an effort to learn at least some very basic arabic. I'm not sure how the US army works but we are taught some basic saying before we go on operations, before i went to Bosnia we were taught some serbo-croat ands some albanian and given some vocab cards, with stuff like hello, how are you, my name is, etc etc etc.

Even if the US army don't teach them anything before they go then they must have translators or someone of that sort.

And as for the sitting around guarding a destroyed city full of people who hate you, is just part and parcel of the job, we all have to do it.

And finally, i can't really coment on the being rude to the civilians, but i hope its the exception rarther than the norm, all though i know from personal experience that US soldiers aren't always the most tactful, i've seen alot of rifles being waved about and threatening behaviour towards people who pose no threat in my time.

-Steve

Spoonbender

Sep 23, 2005 at 7:00 PM

Quote:
Original post by Raduprv
Umm, most of us knew that before the war even started. How would you feel if China would invade US to spread freedom and communism, and liberate you and your familly?

Are you saying the US is spreading freedom and democracy?

Anyway, yeah, must suck to be your brother right now. Being confronted with the reality of the situation like this(and having so many people around the place hate you) can't be easy.

nonnus29

Sep 23, 2005 at 8:12 PM

The Army sucks. When I was in I served with a combination of highly professional career soldiers and alot of mean, vicious, petty criminals with nowhere else to go so they stay in the Army.

Sounds like your implying your brothers in Fallujah. That was a Sunni stronghold. The Sunni's are getting the short end of the stick in the policical process because although the minority group, they were in power with Saddams baathist party. So of course the Sunni's hate their 'liberators'.

Also, I'd take your brothers comments with a grain of salt. He's one soldier in one platoon in one region; his experience is in no way indicative of the whole. Although the general tone sounds about right.

Raduprv

Sep 23, 2005 at 9:42 PM

Quote:
Original post by Spoonbender
Are you saying the US is spreading freedom and democracy?

Anyway, yeah, must suck to be your brother right now. Being confronted with the reality of the situation like this(and having so many people around the place hate you) can't be easy.

Well, that's at least what Bush says :D

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