- Marines kill indescriminately
- People join the marines to kill other people
- Marines are killing the wrong people
To lay such a blanket statement on a self-sacrificing institution is downright unfair. Many Marines join as a means for a way out of an optionless future, many need the income, etc. Watch an episode of "Over There"* and you'll get a small idea of how dire some enlistees' situations just might be. Not every town is Berkely. Some people just don't have the options that others, like myself, have been blessed with. Others get to go to war and try to come back alive.
The U.S. military is always under the scrutiny of the world eye. Being the most powerful nation, the U.S. has to hold itself to the highest conduct standards. Media wise, this leads to the bar being set much higher for the conduct of our troops; hence why you hear more on what we are doing wrong than what we have really accomplished, or about a car-bombing in a public market in which women and children are mutilated. One slipup, and the military never hears the end of it. Hence, why the U.S. tries to go out of its way NOT to hurt the innocent. Read Stephen Coll's "Ghost Wars", and you will know that this is the only reason that Bin Laden is still alive.
Further, let's look at these "strange and exotic" peoples (i.e. "the enemy"):
- They hate everything about our way of life
- Their idealism is to die for a fundamentalist perversion of a beautiful religeon
- They are not big on human rights
Suddenly, "strange and exotic" looks to be defined a little differently. Especially when "strange and exotic" is pointing the business end of a Russian-made Kalashnikov in your direction.
We are all aware that Joker stated said quote in "Full Metal Jacket". Yeah, it was a funny line back then. Remember, Joker killed off a dying Vietnamese girl with a .45 caliber slug to the head. If he had any reservations about killing an ancient people, i am sure they were lost when the sniper killed Cowboy. And it wasn't warning fire. It was the other, malevolent kind.
O, and one more small, insignificant thing. The Marines killed "strange and exotic" peoples in WWI, WWII, Korea, etc. Protest that, you smarmy, righteous, pricks.
Protesting is a fundamental right of this country, as is freedom of speech. With such liberties comes the burden of accurately representing your cause. Screaming obscenity-laced factless information while reaking of pot/shit/patchouli will not sway me to your cause (see Protesters, Mumia-abu Jamal). Nor will I ever give credence to some of the 911 conspiracies due to an obscene lack of proof. And while I strongly disagree with the views presented in the article, the misuse of a Hollywood quote on a t-shirt to promote a relevant movement sends on of the worst kinds of messages:"Will sell out people who have been covering our asses to promote my cause".
*Only recent miniseries that comes close to accurately representing what grunts actually are put through. Thanks Q.
