Word from a Combat Medic..

[inaki]

Folks interested in overseas goingons may want to read this. A combat medic and fur local to the Bay Area named zassa is stationed in Baghdad, and writes an interesting piece on what happens, when his medical skills are put towards a Terrorist.

Knowing that there are people like this over there give me a big boost of hope of some small good happening over there, and remind me that my anti-war stance is a beef with the administration, NOT the troops themselves.

Comments

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

That is indeed a great and humane story. There's just one little quibble that I don't dare bring up over there, because I don't want to start trouble with a decent person:

How is somebody who has apparently only been known to launch attacks on military targets a "terrorist"? When did the definition of "terrorist" slide down to "anybody who dares attacks one of our targets during a time of war"? That doesn't change the fact that it sounded like a fairly brutal and unfair form of attack, and I accept that as a general rule the American rules of engagement, however I feel about us being out there, are orders of magnitude more humane than the ones being used by the insurgency there. But still... back in my day, if you're in the middle of an actual military conflict with somebody, and you're armed, and their armed, locals trying to pick you off were called "guerrillas" -- or, if the USA liked their government, "freedom fighters." I'm just a little suspicious of people trying to implicitly claim that attacking military targets in wartime is "terrorism" now. And if attacking soldiers in your own homeland is "terrorism," then... why the hell isn't dropping incendiary devices that you know will harm civilians as "collateral damage," as part of a strategy you explicitly call "shock and awe" -- as in "strike fear into the hearts of the locals" -- also terrorism?

I know, I know, maybe even preaching to the choir here. Just had to get it out of my system. :) I think Zassa is doing a great job in a tough situation, and deserves lots of praise and good feelings for such an act of compassion. Besides, I really, really, really, really like his take on this guy's motives for the attack, and his concerns about religious extremists here at home. It's not his fault other people have manipulated the language to try to cover up little moral inconsistencies like these. It's just something I wanted to point out to SOMEBODY. :)

Understandable

[negasus.livejournal.com]

You're words mean alot to me, honestly. Let me get that out there first. I do wanto to address this issue about calling him a 'terrorist'.

Naturally, I can't give the location where the IED went off, who (if anyone aside this teen) were injured, the damage cause (if any) or what. That would be leaking operations security, I'll leave that to CNN and such *snicker*.

But lets say the device was placed burried under the middle of a street, in a civilian sector that's under US patrol. There are children playing in the street, running up to greet the troops and run along side the convoy while laughing and continueing to play (which has and will happen).

This teen, sees the convoy, sees the children, but still detonates the device. Lets say he takes out some troops, but in doing so, the explosion combined with whatever chain explosions (gas tanks, ammo crates, etc) kills most of the children, and some of the parents while everyone else watches in grim horror.

Yes, he targeted a military target. But look at the resulting damange to the civilians.

It's due to situations like this that have, and will continue to happen; I have labled him a terrorist.

Re: Understandable

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

Ah, see, that's a good explanation, and I really appreciate your response! I've kinda appointed myself linguistic cop for the current era because, as they say, the first casualty of war is the truth. But it goes both ways -- categories, like "military" and "civilian" sound really good on paper, but they tend to fall apart in the utter chaos of field operations, I'm sure. Especially if it was anywhere near an urban area, especially, yeah, I can see how the distinction wouldn't be real clear -- and though I haven't been keeping on tactics stuff like I probably should, it sounds like the insurgency isn't paying a lot of attention to the niceties of rules of engagement.

Just checking. :) Take care of yourself and get home safe, OK?

[maelynd.livejournal.com]

As is my anti-war stance... I hold no ill will towards our soldiers; they're following orders, and doing the jobs they were trained to do. It's the administration, and the reasons for this war, that I'm protesting, and will continue to protest, until all our troops are brought home, and the insanity ceases.