For someone to say they are happy because their sarcasm upsets people is sad to me. There is just no good reason for it IMO.
As an ex Special Forces Soldier that spent 18 months in the Gulf War, seeing the things that I saw, and not being able to do anything about it, (not from a soldier's standpoint, but from a human rights aspect.) is what is really upsetting.
The newb is kind of right, SF units are actually 12 men that can break off into smaller teams for "recon" and such. However, this does not mean that they can just kick in doors and spout off oneliners like Hollywood makes it seem. In the situation with Zarqawi, more than likely it was a full 12 man unit that was doing the tracking but again, that does not mean that they were sneaking around under the windows with the ability to see each and every movement that went on within. Most likely they were 1 to 2 miles away surveying the area and situation, especially in a tracking mode. It all happened very fast! Due to this, most likely they were tracking through visual and satellite surveilance from varying distances from over a mile away. All they had to do was "see" Zarqawi go into the house, verify this information and call in the strike. The call went to two fighters that were patrolling another area. Now this brings a point, for as fast as an air strike can happen, especially from f-16's, there is no way possible that a man loaded down with at least 80+ lbs of equipment, fatigued, needing water, and such could ever run or move fast enough to get far enough away to gain cover from a combined blast impact of 1,000lbs worth of explosives. This suggests, like I mentioned that they were quite some distance away while making verification that Zarqawi was in the house. Now if that was the case there could be a million different reasons for the soldiers NOT even knowing a child was inside, there was actually a woman killed in the blast as well. Like I said this whole thing went down within a matter of minutes. In a situation like this there are just too many diff variables to take into account to just say yes they knew and did it anyway.
The loss of life period is tragic, but all the more when it is a woman or a child. Sometimes this happens for what ever reason, it just depends where you stand as far as what you WANT to believe. But you should understand that we are fighting people that don't see it that way. For them to die for the cause is far more important than living for it, regaurdless if you are woman or child. This from men that have and will use women and children as human shields to save their own lives but say the child they just held up in front of them to take rounds to the face and head died a hero for their "cause". Or they say the woman they forced to insert C-4 explosives into her vagina so she can make it past a checkpoint explosives undetected to get into a marketplace so someone else could push a button and kill her and countless #'s of women, children, and elderly was an icon for the cause. That's right, not soldiers who could defend themselves, women, children, and elderly that were merely shopping or trying to make a living (I came in for support on the clean up for this one.).
So sometimes women and children do get caught up in the awful senario of war. Although it is a travesty that this happens, sometimes it is unavoidable. After all, How many times has Zarqawi and others escaped capture due to there being too many civilians (women, children, and elderly) being near? Now think, from the first time capture was avoided 'til this guys death, how many innocent people lost their lives period?
In the Gulf War, I had the misfortune of pulling recon in and around Bagdad....While doing this I saw public beheadings of women, children, and elderly, not for heinous crimes, but because they said something against the governing powers or their God. Or they just knew someone that did. Children were pulled from their beds and murderrd just because their parents thought a certain way or read certain books, and the dictatorship figured that the child will grow up to have the same beliefs as the parents. You know, seeing an elderly ladies eyes gouged out with a screw driver by hussien himself while hundreds cheered and not being able to do anything to stop it, any of it! This was and is fucked at best! And then having to pull out and watch this bastard kill thousands more innocent people over the next 11 years can really frustrate a persons idea of what he believes his Governments true motives are. This being said, there are OBVIOUSLY personal interests in Iraq, but it really does go beyond that, and in simplest form, how do you think the oil situation would affect the world populous if someone like hussien had control over the worlds oil supply?
It was stated that the U.S. is forcing it's beliefs on another nation.....So untrue! The implimentation of a democratic government for better or worse is not forcing ones beliefs on anyone! However, dictating what someone should read, listen to, believe, who they should worship, and killing them if they don't comply is.
Unfortunately in a war situation people die on both sides and even more unfortunately I have seen it up close. I do have to say that the U.S. does everything it can to avoid civilian casualties, sometimes it's unavoidable. Hell, in WWI you didn't see anybody warning civilians well in advance to vacate certain areas before a strike, some just need to be smart enough to get the hell out. Now what kind of advantage does that give the opposition? Because they hear the warnings too.
The comment was also made that there was gratefulness for a grandfather losing his life in WWI, then stating that if his country was "occupied, at least there would be water and power.".......Sorry, but that statement just destroyed and negated everything your Grandfather died fighting for! Of course this war is not for the exact same reason, but separate all of the whitewashed media whining and bullshit, and you'll find that hussien and hitler were really not unlike each other in the things they believed and the actions they had taken to enforce those beliefs on others.
If you are happy to be a civilian then be happy. Thats your choice and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. But by making that choice, don't assume that one government is any lees corrupt than another, when it comes to governmental corruption there really aren't degrees, it just is. And sorry to say but there really will never be a government anywhere ever that will not be corrupt for one reason or another in someones eyes. Hell, there never has been either.
The electricity thing weather you believe it or not is not a matter of the U.S. "needing" Canada's electricity.....Due to the deregulation of utilities in the North West region of The U.S. it is possible for States to allow other companies in to offer their product/service at a competetive rate and Canada is no different. The hydro-electricity that is supplied is actually excess electricity that gets sold to U.S. States because at times it is cheaper to buy from Canada than it is to produce it here, I won't forget to mention the fact that at certain other times Canada buys electricity from the U.S. for somewhat the same reason. So it's actually a fair trade off that keeps costs as low as possible instead of having drastic hikes in price (more than there already are.) throughout the year.
And the lumber thing is just good economic sense. I worked in a lumber supply store in Wisconsin when I was in college and about 30% of product came in from Canada. Now think, 30%, where would these companies be if they lost 30% of their revenue? How many jobs would be lost? What would happen to certain aspects of Canada's economy? IMO, it's win, win. The U.S. provides a demand and Canada fills it for a great cost. I mean the Canadian dollar hasn't been worth as much as the U.S. dollar since what the mid 70's.
I didn't write this to fuel a fire or to take sides, or even to declare one country is better than the next. I wrote it to add some tangible evidence to an exchange that was missing some facts. I have made a lot of great friends in Canada some from EF and I have even been there many times. I'm sure some of what I wrote will spark other questions, and possibly even some hostile return but oh well, that's part of what's great about FREEDOM!
Just don't think you are untouchable as Canada either....
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/06/news/canada.php
Because if and when something like this happens, Who ya gonna call!
This taking forever to write and I hope is not too jumbled as I am at work and typing when I get a chance. I'm sure I am leaving out some info. but I am also sure others will fill in the blanks.
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you guys down south need our water and electricity
