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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (141804)	7/28/2004 7:38:57 PM
From: Suma	Respond to of 281500

They themselves.... it was something they told unabashedly .... not big deal. I was shocked but I was very young... 22 years old and could not fathom it all. I was growing up in WW II and we gave chocolate bars, had flowers thrown as our feet when the troops entered Paris. It was completely different. I thought later that it might have to do with the prejudice against Asians... at the time. Our treatment of Japanese was quite different from European prisoners.

To: Ilaine who wrote (141804)	7/28/2004 7:57:59 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Did the men you speak of tell you that they, themselves, committed these acts, or that they knew about them? Cobalt, it's not about whether we can find any way to try to discredit such reports; such actions are a sad part of human nature and we ought to recognize it. Not having experienced the level of death and fear that some of those men experienced, I can't say where my breaking point would have been, or even if I'd have had a breaking point, but it's the height of ignorance to continue to believe that American soldiers don't get "klll crazy" after exposure to hatred, death and fear. Instead of looking for reasons why "our soldiers" don't do such things, why don't we look at the set of circumstances that have, throughout history, consistently and inevitably resulted in such abuses. History doesn't exempt Americans from the foibles of human nature nor the horrible pressures of dealing out and absorbing death and destruction. I suspect we all have a breaking point where we just say "burn MFer, burn," and explode against anything and anyone that we associate with the painful deaths of those we have come to view as family. And learn to endorse the killing we've done wholeheartedly, rather than to admit to ourselves that we've become a little too much like the monsters we learned to hate in a saner world. War is hell for those who see real combat. Those who think it's just a little bit of hell need to work on their wisdom, common sense and empathy. Thank you Suma, for stepping forward and stating an ugly fact.