http://www.readexpress.com/printedition ... 192012.pdf
I find this hard to swallow.
A 'murdering bastard' kills 9 children and 7 adults, in cold blood and then sets fire to bodies - and yet there is a call by some to 'cut him some slack' and a list of excuses for the massacre.
Wow, I can only imagine what the torrent of abuse and indignation would be if anyone tried to excuse the killings in Toulouse, for example.
Salon.com has a good article on the excuses/explanations for the massacre in Afghanishan:
Discussing the motives of the Afghan shooter
(Salon.com)
Here’s a summary of the Western media discussion of what motivated U.S. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales on March 11 to allegedly kill 16 Afghans, including nine children:
† He was drunk.
† He was experiencing financial stress.
† He was passed over for a promotion.
† He had a traumatic brain injury.
† He had marital problems.
† He suffered from the stresses of four tours of duty.
† He saw his buddy’s leg blown off the day before the massacre.
Et cetera.
Here’s a summary of the Western media discussion of what motivates Muslims to kill Americans: they are primitive, fanatically religious, hateful Terrorists.
Even when Muslims who engage in such acts toward Americans clearlyand repeatedly explain that they did it in response to American acts of domination, aggression, violence and civilian-killing in their countries, and even when the violence is confined to soldiers who are part of a foreign army that has invaded and occupied their country, the only cognizable motive is one of primitive, hateful evil. It is an act of Evil Terrorism, and that is all there is to say about it.
Note, too, that in the case of Sgt. Bales (or any other cases of American violence against Muslims), people have little difficulty understanding the distinction between (a) discussing and trying to understand the underlying motives of the act (causation) and (b) defending the act (justification). But that same distinction completely evaporates when it comes to Muslim violence against Americans. Those who attempt to understand or explain the act — they’re responding to American violence in their country; they are traumatized and angry at the continuous deaths of Muslim children and innocent adults; they’ve calculated that striking at Americans is the ony way to deter further American aggression in their part of the world — are immediately accused of mitigating, justifying or even defending Terrorism.
There is, quite obviously, a desperate need to believe that when an American engages in acts of violence of this type (meaning: as a deviation from formal American policy), there must be some underlying mental or emotional cause that makes it sensible, something other than an act of pure hatred or Evil. When a Muslim engages in acts of violence against Americans, there is an equally desperate need to believe the opposite: that this is yet another manifestation of inscrutable hatred and Evil, and any discussion of any other causes must be prohibited and ignored.
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/19/discuss ... /singleton
Cheers,
Shafique
ed at the excuses being given for this guy. He's had problems with the law in the past and I think he was completely unfit for the military in the first place. It is amazing the kinds of people who get into the military and are allowed to hold loaded weapons in their hands. The people he killed weren't given any "slack", they will never get their lives back. He should be punished to the full extent of the law.
