Reply #13: Hmmm, some minor points

[Tinoire]

They are trained to kill and the majority are just ruthless unthinking bastards who allow themselves to fall prey to man's darkest instincts.

I'm not so sure I agree 100% with your phrasing... I would say that the majority have temporarily been turned into ruthless unthinking bastards. When they return to normal life, reality will set in and the consciences they turned off over there will really torment them. There really are a lot of basically good, frightened and confused young kids over there- most of them are in support roles where their indoctrination was a little less rigorous. I'd say, off-hand, that the mix is more like 50% unthinking bastards, 35% semi-thinking bastards, 15% thinking bastards, and 10% totally tormented-from-thought bastards.

Israeli fighter pilots have refused to engage any more in killing innocent Palestinians, Gi's have the same option.

It took the Israelis decades to get to that point.
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I personally know several young kids who were returned from Iraq because they're... not well anymore. One of them was very close to me. He just sits around all day with that thousand-year stare because he was thrice ordered to do something his conscience balked at. He doesn't care about anything anymore, not even his own kids. They didn't succeed into making him a ruthless unthinking bastard.

There are a lot of those ruthless unthinking ones, (too many!) and part of that is because of our entire society that promotes selfishness and ME, ME, ME without a thought for how we affect other people... Just wanted to make that small point for the ones who aren't.

Peace