I came, I saw, I pissed on: American Soldiers in Afghanistan

I "pissy" the fool!  You know it's interesting when photos such as this one emerge.  It begs the question of what encourages this type of behavior. I can imagine that being in a situation where you can lose your life at any moment is extremely stressful, but we can't just dismiss all subsequent actions as unfortunate effects of this stress and downplay them.  I mean the guy all the way to the right clearly has a smile on his face and he is enjoying this immensely-a human being is receiving joy by urinating on the face of a corpse-an enemy whose country he has invaded.  Reminds me of a quote by one Genghis Khan:

“The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.”

I am not surprised though.  I have encountered many American soldiers, as well as others from NATO countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium and France, while living in Crete where there is a NATO base.  I have heard horror stories including from a friend who works at the so called "American Bars"; the area where Americans and NATO soldiers go to hang out.  He told me about a Dutch soldier who was showing him a cell phone video he took of himself in Afghanistan, in which he was using a knife to cut the throat of an Afghani.  My friend recalled how he was appalled while the guy was laughing uncontrollably remembering his actions.

Another former marine told me the story of how his company was on patrol in an  Iraqi city when they drove by a crowded market and where shot at by a man with an automatic weapon.  They quickly pointed their guns at the market and unable to find the man just "cleared the whole market" as he told me.  Upon returning to the base, his commander told him that they shouldn't have killed that many people because it causes unwanted pressure and to be more careful next time.  Curiously he asked his commander "What is considered the limit?" and the commander responded with "Anything over 13". In other words kill as much as you want, just don't kill more than 13 people at a time.

With stories like these, as well as the videos released by Wikileaks and pictures like these, we get a clear picture of what's really going on in these warzones: straight up slaughter and massacre.  They're not pissing on these people.  They're shitting on them.

Ron Paul's "Electability" and the Dumb Masses

The following is an excerpt from the "Young Turks" program on Current.com.  The third commentator's opinion  regarding Ron Paul's "electability" was very interesting:

                    

"Well, I don't think he would be more electable only because we operate in a two-party system; unfortunately both parties don't want him, there's not a majority in either party that wants to endorse him and I think he faces the same problem in the party system as he does with journalists, which is that he's trying to run a substantive campaign on ideas and people don't actually...the majority of people aren't appreciative of the fact that he's actually introducing some substantive thoughts into the dialogue.  The're much more swayed by horse-race types of analysis and that's unfortunate for Ron Paul.  Its unfortunate for our political dialogue."

What he is basically saying is that the majority of people who vote are stupid and vote only for superficial reasons. This is a thought that I've entertained ever since George W. Bush's reelection in 2004 and it was a question I was asked by a friend in Greece.  It is understandable that people would vote for George W. Bush once, but why would they vote for him the second time?  It just didn't make any sense why you would vote again for a proven liar, inarticulate nitwit. A close relative told me before the 2008 Democratic Primary that she was voting for Hillary Clinton because she was a woman like her.  Many black people voted for Obama just because he is a black man. The truth is that people don't vote based on issues.  People vote because of their passions and because of superficial reasons.  I've always tried to see the best in people but if a person who is as clear on his positions as Ron Paul is somehow "unelectable" we're in a sorry state of affairs.