Disgusting "comments" at Military.com

I followed a link from the Military.com newsletter to an article about an award-winning AP photographer from Iraq who's been 'detained' and imprisoned without charges for 19 months.

After reading the article I went to check out the comments (Join the Discussion) and was disturbed and disgusted by what I read.
(Because the URL is so long for the comments/discussion page here's a shortened URL http://tinyurl.com/295q3o .)

I suggest you read the article, then the comments, and judge for yourself...


Here are some examples from the "discussion":

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"I can't believe it took us this long to capture him. Doesn't surprise me at all."
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"Just an AP photographer? Hell, I think nearly the whole lot at AP is a cheering section for the terrorists."
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quote:
Originally posted by 67NOV:
Just an AP photographer? Hell, I think nearly the whole lot at AP is a cheering section for the terrorists.

"You and me both Sir."
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"Michelle Malkin has links to the pictures he's taken... all of insurgent activity, apparently without any fear on his part. If he isn't collaborating with them I'll eat my hat."
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"About time the military starts investigating all of this so called "journalists"

First AP,next CNN and finally Aljazeera "
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"Well, I've been wrong before, but I think burying this turd in a holr with his head sticking up and letting locals stone the head would probably be a good idea. I'm just old-fashioned like that."
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"Well, when you serve, maybe you'll think differently about those who are Terrorists. Enjoy being Protected by others"
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- And when someone posted a dissenting view, here's what some wrote:

"Actually, What is laughable,... no it's more like pathetic is all the clueless mouth diarrhea from liberals on this site."
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"LMAO, good show, sir. I will buy you a beer for that one. BeerGulp, ahhh.....the beer is nice and cold."
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"A corporation will stand behind it's employee regardless of the scurrilousness of the employee only to protect their own image.

We probably have tons of terrorists who have infiltrated many businesses in the U.S. ready to strike. Many others have lawn services.

I am sure the U.S. military wouldn't make these claims without substantial evidence. Of course he is probably photographing military operations and smuggling it to the insurgency in his nose. Can you imagine how many volumes of micro file you can stuff in that jobaruby?

Yikes so that is where all the air is going."
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"GEEEEEEEZ! The article states they're going to turn the AP photographer guy over to the Iraq authorities in a few days, so what are all these libs crying about!

Remember, that AP photographer isn't an American and isn't in the USA, he's in a foreign country. Things work differently over there and when under arrest you don't have any rights over there. So if they want to lock the guy up and never let him out, shut him up, or torture him to with in an inch of his life to find out what he knows....... well, that's just how it goes. That's how they do it over there. The guy is a terrorist and his efforts have no doubt cost others their lives, so......... this guy is getting what he deserves, whether you agree with it or not."
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- There's more, but that's enough to give you the general flavor. As I said, only one person showed any sense of decency (and respect for the rule of law) and supported the AP photographer.

The feeling I got when reading these comments was that they could have been written by those who committed the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. The absolute lack of humanity and the disregard for human rights goes against what I thought the US military stood for and has spent blood protecting.

I have to wonder how prevalent is this ignorant and malevolent attitude in our servicemen and women?

Is this some of what you get when you send people to fight and die in an asymmetric war?

Is it what happens to soldiers when they see their comrades get blown up daily by fighters who look just like the ones they're there to protect?

Does it come from bad leadership?

Just where in hell do these comments come from?

The News From A True Citizen Journalist In Iraq

When I hear talking heads commenting on how the surge is working, and how the media isn't covering any of the good news from 'Eye-rack' (what the hell is so hard to pronounce?), my head wants to explode in frustration. So desperate to be vindicated in some way for their support of this devastating war, yet unable to produce any tangible (and believable) evidence themselves, they continue to live in a bubble of denial.

I wonder how they'd feel if they had to live in Iraq (outside the Green Zone), or if they were the manager of this clinic cited in a book by Dahr Jamail called "Beyond the Green Zone - Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq" that I just read about over at Firedoglake:

"The boxes of medical supplies we brought into the clinic were torn open immediately by desperate doctors. A woman entered, slapping her chest and face, and wailing as her husband carried in the dying body of her little boy. Blood was trickling off one of his arms, which dangled out of his father’s arms. Thus began my witnessing of an endless stream of women and children who had been shot by the U.S. soldiers and were now being raced into the dirty clinic, the cars speeding over the curb out front, and weeping family members carriying in their wounded."

"Standing near the ambulance in frustration, Maki [the manager of the clinic] told us, They (U.S. soldiers) shot the ambulance and they shot the driver after they checked his car, and knew he was carrying nothing. Then they shot him. And then they shot the ambulance. And now I have no ambulance to evacuate more than twenty wounded people.[...]"

Gee, I didn't hear about this on the news either.

Those have to be some thick bubbles these people are hiding in.

Lets make two lists, one with the 'good' news, the other with the bad. If you survive to complete the first part you'll already have a jump on the second.

And a large part of it depends on your perspective. How much good news do you have to report if you're one of the 2+ million displaced Iraqis? Probably more than if you're still living in Baghdad. How much good news do you think Maki has to report?

It seems that the only ones reporting "good news" are the officers who still support Bush, or the ones that know from experience that anything other than good news will put you on the fast track to "retirement". Oh, and Fox'ers.