Hell Yeah, Bill! [UPDATED]

In other, sickening news:

Kim Murphy, in the Los Angeles Times tells the story of SFC Walter Taylor who, in the middle of a firefight saw a black car pull up in the middle of the engagement, a figure dressed in black emerge from the car which appeared to have wires hanging from it. SFC Taylor thought the figure was about add a massive explosion to the confusion that comes with war and shot the figure, who turned out to be a doctor, Aqilah Hikmat, a mother of four who was coming to the fight to render aid.

SFC Taylor is facing murder charges as a result;

We’ll just let our friend Bill Quick take lead here:

This is insane. Get our people out of that Islamist shithole right now, so they aren’t facing heads-you-lose, tails-they-win crap like this any more. Let Afghanistan rot.

And there’s more, but that about captures the gist of it.

His Imperial Majesty couldn’t agree more. This is ridiculous. No, it’s not ridiculous. It’s a fucking travesty of galactic proportions.

And this is where we need to vent, so we’ll stick that below the fold.

Do we care that Dr. Hikmat was killed? Yes, we do. It’s a tragedy. WAR is a tragedy. That’s why we try our damndest not to get into any if we can avoid it because there is no such thing as a “clean” war. Wars are dirty, messy, horrible, tragic, horrifying and a number of other adjectives we could think of, but we’ll try to be short (you can stop laughing now), and here’s the kicker: SHIT HAPPENS.

SFC Taylor, knowing only too well what the M.O. of the subhuman pisslamist beasts we’re fighting is, most likely from personal and equally tragic experience, and so he did what a soldier is supposed to do in a situation where you have only fractions of a second to make a decision and the wrong one can cost you and your buddies their lives.

And now he’s facing murder charges as a result?

Are you fucking KIDDING us???

Only the pervasive myth that treasonous pacifist lefties has built up over decades since Viet Nam, the myth that our troops are a bunch of sadistic, cold, heartless killers jonesing for some killing can possibly explain why those charges are brought in the first place. Does any sentient being really, honestly believe that SFC Taylor wanted to kill that woman? That he clearly had no reason to shoot but, being the heartless baby killer that everybody in uniform is according to the leftist catechism, decided to just shoot the heck out of her anyway?

If not, then what the everloving fuck are the grounds for those charges?

Hey, why don’t we bring up every single member, from navigator up to the commander in chief, of the WWII 8th Air Force on charges for every single civilian who died in the bombing campaign in Germany? Clearly they deliberately murdered every single one of those civilians. That’s the only reason they released those bombs anyway.

We hope that you can see the implied sarcasm tags up there. If not, go the back of the class.

It’s fucking hard to be a sheepdog, you know. We do know that SFC Taylor knows by now. You risk everything you have to protect the ignorant, bleating fucks because that’s who you are, you even volunteer your own life to keep them safely within the comfortable cocoon they live in where unicorns dance in the meadows and nobody ever dies unless they really need killing, and then you end up on charges for doing your job. The job that they didn’t have a fucking problem sending you out to do so THEY didn’t have to.

What of it, sheep? Do you think that SFC Taylor, even though he did NOTHING wrong, ISN’T going to have nightmares for the rest of his life about that incident? Do you think that he’s NOT going to spend the rest of his life second-guessing himself, even though he knows better, wishing that he’d had some magical, god-like insight so he hadn’t pulled the trigger? Do you? If so, you’re too fucking ignorant to be allowed an opinion.

You see, that’s the kind of reality that SFC Taylor and every other warrior like him has to live with every last everloving day of their lives. All so that YOU don’t have to. Which is alright, because that’s what the job is all about: To shoulder a burden so thousands of others won’t have to shoulder it. It’s worth it. It really is, even though it’s tough.

But you’re not making it any fucking easier by being such a bunch of ungrateful, bedwetting fucks. When you do that, you make it unnecessarily hard at times for troops on the line to figure out just who or what they’re fighting for. And in a life-or-death situation where microseconds count, you can’t AFFORD that.

But we suppose that you’d rather have a thousand sheepdogs die than risk hurting somebody’s feelings, right?

What the fuck is it to YOU if SFC Taylor goes to jail for the rest of his life, loses his future, his family loses a father, a brother, a son, as long as YOU can keep living your dream in which nobody innocent ever dies? It’s not like YOU’RE paying the price, is it?

And that’s just how you like it, you pasty-faced, cowardly shits, isn’t it? Let somebody ELSE pay. You want your Oprah, your mall trips, your personal safety, the surety that you won’t be beheaded by some cave-dwelling savage, your illusion that the world is a wonderful, harmless place where no bad things happen to good people, and you don’t give a flying fuck if somebody else has to pay the price for that because, hey, you’re ENTITLED to that, aren’t you? So you’ll happily sacrifice somebody who makes less than a fry cook at Mickey D’s in order to keep that nice little cocoon of yours nice and warm as long as you can maintain your self-righteousness.

A self-righteousness that you have done nothing, NOTHING to earn.

Somebody else has to earn that for you, right? Somebody else has to pay that price, right? Because you’re ENTITLED.

Fuck you. Fuck you in so many different and utterly horrifying ways that nobody would ever dare put a description of it down on paper for fear that the act of doing so would incinerate their very souls within their bodies.

You’re not worthy. You’re self-indulgent parasites aspiring to worthlessness, which would be a huge step up for you.

It used to be that Grandpa Who Fought in the War would never talk about it, and the rest of the family would understand that the reason was that he’d seen and done things that he didn’t want to burden his loved ones with. And everybody would be OK with that and, moreover, they would be grateful that he’d shouldered those burdens so that the rest of us didn’t have to.

Now it’s “he was a heartless murderer who deserves to be punished.”

Here’s the thing: All that we’re asking, those of us who served, is pretty much nothing at all. A “thank you” might be appropriate on occasion, but most if not all of us really don’t expect that either because we don’t know what to do with it. We weren’t exceptional, we just did a job that needed doing. Now, our buddies and others we’d heard about in the service, THEY deserve it, because they really did something spectacular, but we didn’t. Funny thing is if you were to ask those others, they’d say the same thing. So it’s not gratitude we’re looking for even though I and my brothers and sisters can all come up with a list of other brothers and sisters who SHOULD get some. Every single one of them deserves praise in my eyes, but I don’t, because I didn’t do anything. They did. And they’d say the same thing.

What we ARE asking is this: Could you at the very least refrain from making us worry about having a knife stuck in our backs from the ones we were protecting. Our OWN kind?

Is that too much to ask?

Obviously it is.

I’m not talking about real war criminals. They need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. They’re wrong, and they are, believe it or not, even MORE offensive to real warriors than they are to civilians. Because those bastards dishonor us all. They are everything we stand against and we hate them even worse than we hate the enemy. They violate our code, they violate our brotherhood and they are not merely offensive in our eyes, they’re in dire need of being exterminated for their transgressions.

You think I’m exaggerating for effect? I’m not. You see, war is inhuman and horrible, and the Code is the only thread that connects you with sanity. There is no way you can do the job, the job you’re trained for, in a “nice” and “civilized” manner. So you have a Code to go by. Things you just cannot and will not do. It’s what keeps you from “going Asiatic”, to use an old term. Look it up if you don’t know what it means. It became known in WWII PTO, but it applies to all wars.

And it applies to all of us, no matter who we are or where we were. At some point, we came to the horrible realization that we’d lost something through our training. We’d lost, not the unwillingness to do harm, but the inability to do so. At that moment of truth, it doesn’t matter what the circumstances were, we realized that we could and that we would. We’d lost our innocence, and we realized that we’d never get it back.

Once lost, it’s gone. And the next thing you do, once you realize that, is to make sure that your fail-safe is operational, that you still have that Code, that leash upon what has been unleashed, that safety net, that new law that you will never, EVER violate. The Code. It is your lifeline. What you have learned is valuable, it can save lives, it is not a Bad Thing, but you have to have a leash on it. And that’s what the Code is.

So anybody violating that Code is even worse to a warrior than what any civilian might think of him.

Yet you’re lumping SFC Taylor in with those?

That pisses me off. That is one HECK of a serious charge, and a whole boatload of tangible evidence that he was doing this for “thrills” is necessary for me to not take it as a mortal insult. Not only an insult to him, but to all of us. Yet the only evidence I see is that he fired shots that ended the life of somebody who really didn’t need to die without him knowing that said individual was no threat.

Would it be better if he’d taken the chance without the glory of 20/20 hindsight vision that Dr. Hikmat was a non-combatant? No it wouldn’t. He would have been a failure if he had. Hundreds, if not thousands of our troops have died because of that hesitation and it is ONLY because we now know, having knowledge that wasn’t available to SFC Taylor at the time, that Dr. Hikmat wasn’t a threat that we can now, that YOU can now feel righteous in bringing charges against him.

And again, if he is found guilty, you won’t have to pay the price that he’ll be paying, will you?

No you won’t. But you sure as FUCK will be basking the “glory” of having been “righteous.”

We hope, if that is the case, that you spend every single day and night of the rest of your lives thinking about all the things that SFC Taylor could have enjoyed if it hadn’t been for your “righteousness”, we hope that not a moment goes by without you considering just what the consequences of your “righteous” indignation were, and we hope that you live to be a thousand years old.

Because then YOU, for a change, will be shouldering the burden of what you’ve done the same way that warriors have done for thousands of years and then, MAYBE then you’ll understand just how bloody, unforgivably ungrateful you worthless fucks are.

Thatisall.

UPDATE: As both LC Roguetek and LC Erbo points out in the comments (LC Erbo was first, but the spamfilter for some obscure reason ate him for a snack until we could rescue him. WTF, spamfilter???), SFC Taylor was served with those ridiculous charges while in sick bay recuperating from having his face torn off by another bunch of ululating, subhuman savages.

“Thank you for your service and sacrifice, SFC Taylor, see you in court.”

OK, OK, now we literally ARE fucking speechless.

Anybody know if you can buy range targets with pictures of JAG-offs on them? Seriously!

23 comments

  1. 1
    Erbo growls and barks:

    Here’s the kicker…from the blog that Bill linked to:

    Oh, by the way, SFC Taylor has since had his face ripped off by an IED while on patrol a few days after this incident. The last thing him and his family needs is to face these specious charges in a court martial show trial to mollify the Afghan government and bolster Karzai’s government in the eyes of his illiterate constituents.

    Guess wrong one way, and you wind up horribly maimed or killed by an IED, and maybe your buddies with you. Guess wrong another way, and, it looks like, you end up on trial for your life. Taylor knows both sides of those cold equations, it would seem.

    Also, not to play “blame the victim” here, but what in the ever-loving fuck was Dr. Hikmat thinking (WAS she thinking?), driving straight into a free-fire zone while dressed like a Tango? If she’d thought to be wearing a Red Cross or Red Crescent, or even carrying a white flag, perhaps Taylor would have had enough information to hold fire. (Then again, I’d still expect him to be suspicious…splodeydopes have pulled off attacks under that sort of cover before.) At the very least, her actions constitute prime-cut, grade-A clueus lackus…and, as Bob Heinlein tells us, “Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.”

  2. 2
    Cannon Fodder growls and barks:

    I can’t wrap my head around the idea that, in the middle of a firefight, you can expect someone to quickly determine if a new player on the field is a danger or not. You always shoot first in that situation. Especially in a country where people routinely roll up and turn out to be splodeydopes. This is utterly ridiculous! :em08:

  3. 3
    LCBrendan growls and barks:

    I never thought I’d agree. We’ve lost so many of our most precious blood, our brightest and bravest, and God knows I am now in agreement with the fucking peaceniks :em04: – but yeah. The hell with them all.

    Leave and never come back. Let the fuckers blow themselves to Hell, let the Taliban have the place and turn it into an Islamic shithole(not that it needs any real improvement over whats there)…fuck em all.

    The sad part is that we will still be paying them “aid”..if it were up to me, i’d cut them off without another penny. And the UN can go fuck themselves.

  4. 4
    Farmor growls and barks:

    LCBrendan – I totally agree with you, let them blow the hole place to Hell – where they belong – and let them do it themself.
    :em08:

  5. 5
    single stack growls and barks:

    Afghanistan has always been a barbaric shithole and it will always be a barbaric shithole. There is absolutely nothing this massive waste of our finest men and women can do to change that.
    It isn’t called the graveyard of empires for nothing. Why did we have to relearn this fact for ourselves instead of learning the lessons of history?

  6. 6
    Secondmouse growls and barks:

    Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

    If the powers that be will treat our soldiers this way for their actions in the heat of battle, then we must immediately remove our troops from conflict zones around the world, or risk further, irreparable harm to our volunteer military readiness. Then we must set this shit right – I cannot believe our leaders would 1) bring such charges in the first place, and 2) sit idly by while others level such charges. Housecleaning is mandatory, starting at the CIC.

    This is symptomatic of many other ills eating away at our armed forces. The suicide rate among our active troops is high and climbing. ROE in conflict zones is a running joke that is getting people killed.

    This administration, through misuse, ignorance, apathy and poor policy, is slowly ruining our military. Maybe not so slowly.

  7. 7
    Mark12A growls and barks:

    I think it’s just about time to consider turning the weapons in a new direction.

  8. 8
    lc purple raider growls and barks:

    Pull out our troops, and nuke the place into oblivion.

    Make sure no breeding occurs.

    Send them all to the hell they richly deserve.

  9. 9
    LC Roguetek growls and barks:

    nngh. I they.. you.. RRRRRAAAAAAHHHGG HULK SMASH!

    They served him with papers while he was in sickbay, with his fucking face blown off.

    I.. fuck it, I’m going to the range.

  10. 10
    LC Gladiator growls and barks:

    single stack says:

    Afghanistan has always been a barbaric shithole and it will always be a barbaric shithole. There is absolutely nothing this massive waste of our finest men and women can do to change that.
    It isn’t called the graveyard of empires for nothing. Why did we have to relearn this fact for ourselves instead of learning the lessons of history?

    But, But, …but….OBAMA said Afghanistan was the “Good War” !!!!!!!!!!!

  11. 11
    LC Ogrrre growls and barks:

    Brendan, Farmor, I disagree. Nuke the place from orbit, turn the whole damned area into green glass, then tell the survivors, and especially the surrounding nations to stack arms and destroy them, or face the same. Inform them that if there is just one more instance of religious intolerance from the Pisslamists, those countries will also turn into green glass. It might even take one more country disappearing for the splodeydopes to get the message, but one way or another, they will stop being wastes of oxygen.

  12. 12
    Secondmouse growls and barks:

    OT, but thought I’d point out that apparently, President Downgrade’s re-election slogan ‘Forward!’ means ‘Forward to 1992!’, according to the Federal Reserve. A just-published report shows that median net-worth of American households has fallen to levels last seen in 1992.

    If re-elected, by my math Obama will take us all the way back to the late 60′s in his second term. At least they had some good music back then.

  13. 13
    Igor, Imperial Booby growls and barks:

    …and we wonder why we “lost” in Vietnam. I just shake my head and move on.

    Anything we can do for this guy? :em03:

  14. 14
    LC Gunsniper growls and barks:

    So this idiot broad pulls up to a firefight in progress and thinks she’s just going to start patching up the wounded without anyone questioning her? This smells way too much like a setup.

    Whomever brought these charges needs to be taken out and shot.

  15. 15
    LCBrendan growls and barks:

    She’s a doctor, dressed in black head to toe.

    No ID, no insignia, no Red Cross badge, no Red Cross armband…and what was she doing going to a firefight in progress?

    Why does a doctor drive INTO a free fire zone and not expect to get shot at when she is an unidentified potential threat?

    A doctor from where?

    Local?

    Where did she practise?

    Did the locals know her?

    Where did she come from?

    How did she know there was a firefight in progress?

    And what kind of IDIOT drives into a free fire combat zone anyway without alerting SOMEONE she was coming and getting the US troops to not fire at her?

    This smells…

  16. 16
    LCBrendan growls and barks:

    Wait wait…look at this….

    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-afghan-shooting-20120610,0,5494806.story

    His convoy was reeling from a roadside bomb, his fellow soldiers were engaged in combat with insurgents — and a mysterious black car had just screeched to a stop in the middle of the firefight. Some nine minutes later, a black door opens.

    She sat in the car for nine minutes? Doing what?

    The article says her husband and KIDS were in the car as well? She drove a car with her husband and children into a combat zone????

    WTF???

  17. 17
    Bitter Clinger growls and barks:

    LC Gunsniper says:

    So this idiot broad pulls up to a firefight in progress and thinks she’s just going to start patching up the wounded without anyone questioning her? This smells way too much like a setup.

    I won’t say setup, but what I will say is that it was an extreme lack of judgement. If you want to patch up the wounded, fine. If you’re a “civilian” (especially in an area where all the enemy combatants look like civilians) you stay the hell away until the shooting has stopped. :em06:

  18. 18

    One can only take so much before one goes speechless. I’ll get back to this one tomorrow.

  19. 19
    LC TerribleTroy growls and barks:

    I suffer from this malady called reasonable man syndrome it infects my brain and produces thoughts like ” a reasonable man, when driving INTO a small arms firefight between the US MILITARY & the local terrorists, intuitavely understands it is in the realm of possibility that one could get shot.”

    And another thing, who was she there to render aide to? Last I heard we had our own medics. I hope he shot her dumbass more than once. This calls for a true WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKETY FUCK! OVER!
    MURDER? What’s fucking next? They going to turn him over to the afghans for “justice”? Don’t think they won’t ask for that, that’ll be in the news tomorrow. Just fucking crazy……we live in bizzaro world

  20. 20
    Patriette growls and barks:

    First read about this travesty while looking for information on the death of a local hero, KIA on his first tour in Afshitistan. Still can’t believe they are actually serious about charging SFC Taylor…and yes – wouldn’t surprise me in the least if it’s recommended to “turn him over to the afghans for justice”. Up is down, black is white….crazy shit happening! Fuck the ISAF…and the Army…and politicians who allow this shit to continue.
    So in a related happening, I’ll be standing with my PGR brothers and sisters to honor 1st Lt. Mathew Fazzari, killed by enemy fire while flying in his first tour in Bagram. Where is the ‘accountability’ for this death? Can we please ‘punish his killers in a meaningful way’? I’ll help…!

  21. 21
    Mark12A growls and barks:

    Nuke them from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

  22. 22
    LC Sir Rurik, K.o.E. growls and barks:

    And today over at Lame Cherry, there are reports that Opium production is up by 61% over 2010. No good deed goes unpunished. :em08: Nuke and Nape!

  23. 23
    LC Roguetek growls and barks:

    Something just occurred to me.

    Why would someone leap into a firefight, unless there was something, or -SOMEONE- you cared about, in that firefight.

    I got 50 bucks that says she had a relative in the firefight.