Support our troops?

posted by jack at 10:00 CET in / politics

Hmmm. For a long time, I've consistently held the opinion that even though the U.S invasion of Iraq is wrong-headed, that the troops who are stuck in the mess over there are worthy of support, since none of them created this war and are presumably trying to make the best of a tough situation.

But then again, there are things like this Don't Loot video that are just scary as all get-out. For those who haven't/can't/won't view that clip, here's an executive summary of this brief clip from frontline:

• Somewhere in Iraq, looting is occurring. Reporters arrive on the scene.
• U.S. soldiers are there, and have arrested some men for looting. The men have apparently taken a couple armloads of lumber and stacked it on top of their car.
• One soldier explains for the camera that "We tried to stop them from looting, they don't understand, so we'll take their car and we'll crush it."
• A couple of soldiers shoot at the car with pistols a bit.
• The soldiers crush the car by driving a tank over it.

I think that the mental exercise of reversing roles can be a useful thing to do here. What if my country was on the verge of civil war after an invading army had removed a brutal dictator but simultaneously destroyed much of my country's infrastructure? Perhaps lumber would be hard to come by. Perhaps I might take advantage of available resources, particularly if it seemed like they were going unused. I sure don't that that punishing me for this "crime" by crushing my only means of transportation would be a noble endeavor on the invading army's part.

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