Just shut the fuck up aready https://archive.is/22DSY
We’d killed other guards at this exact intersection multiple times over the last three months, yet the Taliban kept ordering young men back to it again and again. (My amazement at this practice — and at the fact that fighters would dutifully return — may explain why this particular strike lingers in my mind.) After we identified a rifle sticking out from under the shawl of one of the men, we were legally cleared to kill them, but doing so would be tricky while avoiding the civilian traffic at this busy checkpoint.
Jesus
Self defense from the Taliban, Al Qaeda/Nusra or ISIS? Nah no such thing...
im wondering why non-combatants would be concerned about self-defense behind my own 100 foot thick titanium
skullwall myself, actually
What a harrowing tale of feeling a big sad, after training your replacement to kill as many of the turban men, if not more, as you did. To have to wake up, everyday, for 9 months, just to have to search only a few seconds for a warm meal, for a nice shower. And to do all of this in the most comfortably air conditioned situations.
When the tears only start rolling down after the 250th bombing. The bravery it took, to finally break down in front of a loved one, after 304 kills. Words are unable to describe the sacrifice of this man. The mental and physical toll it took on him to point and click on a screen, and kill dozens in the blink of an eye.
I'm sure he was absolutely hounded into this by some evil military recruiter, who told him a man without a Dodge HEMI is no man at all. And for that, this man, no, this child, should be forgiven.
I love how at every stage he choose the most ghoulish fucking option.
- Join the military to pay for college
- Go to fucking Westpoint
- Switch from the Navy to the the Marines
- GET STATIONED ON A FUCKING BOAT DOING NOTHING AND THEN VOLUNTEER FOR A JOB BLOWING PEOPLE UP EVERY DAY
- Blow people up every day for nine months and then realize you feel kind of bad
Whole article is the age old issue of Americans refusing to confront their insecurities. Like it's a fucking cliche how the whole thing reads. Guy joins Navy thinking its easy but realizes he's a pussy for not being a hard man when he sees these tough as nails cold as ice marines. So to prove that he's no longer "bitch made", he decides that the next step is to join said marines, and then look some guy in the eye and kill him because someone said he's the bad guy.
Instead he gets to drone them, and goes home to cry to his girlfriend, who probably checked out while he was away. Then he dresses up all the insecurities by writing an WaPo opinion piece to tell us that if he could've, he would've, but they didn't let him. So now the course of the war was changed because he was remote instead of on the ground. You can see this with how many times he needs to tell us the Afghan army folded like wet tissue, as if supercop here would've been able to affect that.
Honestly it's an astonishing display of hubris and insecurity
It's wapo so would never happen but the article would be so much better if they'd been a little more detailed like "I was driving lockheed drones and commanding Grumman helicopters" and make it clear who he's really helping
Betteridge's law of headlines: Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.
:gui-better: ill tell you if you step under this truth-sickle friendo
Hmm.. does me only killing civilians and the reactionaries to our invasion/actions in the regions through drone strikes thousands of miles away mean I am out of touch?
No. It’s the victims of imperialism and slaughter who are wrong.
I’ve seen the same article before it probably does get to them mentally but mostly due to the fact they would have much rather faced combat head on and feel guilty that they didn’t. But that’s as far as their guilt goes I doubt most have sympathy for killing civilians
I assume killing is a lot easier in the heat of combat, when you can tell yourself "it's either him or me". Replace those strong emotions and instinct with cold numbers and it's harder to justify
It's insane just how mask off they are being. Usually, they launder the death and destruction through flowery language.
There is at least 40 articles about veterans feelings for every one actually talking to Afgans... the ratio is absurd
