<<And Michael seems the way to end it is to slur all soldiers as if they were Turner clones.>>
Michael's way to end it is to put up a candidate who promises to end it NOW , in two months, by pulling all troops out and abandoning all bases - - not some candy-ass anti-war fake who wants sixteen months or 14 months and talks only about evacuating "combat troops" and all the rest of his phony bullshit.
Michael thinks people who support the war should know about Turner, his buddy and his unit commander, who shoot civilians in cold blood for target practice and promise 4 days leave to the first guy who STABS someone to death.
Michael is not fooled by phony propaganda pictures of GIs cuddling kids or the totally
asinine assertion that a few such phony cuddles counterbalance the crimes and atrocities of Turner and his pals.
Michael is not stupid enough to believe that in finding Turner, his buddy and his unit commander,we have identified the source of all the evil in the U.S. occupation forces, and that these guys are unique, one-of-a-kind monsters found only in that one little pocket of military depravity while all the rest of the US forces spend all their time in Iraq finding teddy bears for orphans and snuggling up to cute little kids.
Turner seems like a fairly typical U.S. Marine and his story doesn't seem much different from other stories of U.S. atrocities I have heard. I don't think he's the only one, and I don't think he's a particularly rare breed. In only one way is he unusual - - he's willing to 'fess up to what he did, at least for the moment, and at least without charges pending. In that, also, I don't find his conduct unheard-of or bizarre.
I believe that for each Marine compelled to admit to his crimes and expose them, many more will cover up. I believe the military encourages cover-ups - - it makes sense, no organization wants bad PR.
I think there are lots of Turners in the USMC, lots of crimes and atrocities committed by them in Iraq, most of them covered up permanently, some exposed exactly in the way we have seen Turner expose his. Just like the rape and murder of the 14-year-old Abeer, for which two GI's were tortured and murdered in Iraq and for which Stephen Green is now going to stand trial in a US criminal court. That crime also was exposed through the bad conscience of a very limited number of eye-witnesses, and it took the torture and murder of two of their comrades to shake them up enough to admit to investigators what had happened.
There are some apologists for war crimes and atrocities, and for this army of criminals - - people who, no matter how many times evidence of the crimes surface, against all odds - - will say on each occasion, "isolated event," and ridicule any suggestion that the problem is systemic, institutional or widespread. "Where is the evidence?" they ask, as if totally ignorant of the extent to which the participants and their superiors would go to make all the evidence disappear, and of the difficulties which people not in the military would experience in ferreting it out. Where is the evidence?
It's all around you - - in the coverups attempted, in the crimes that nevertheless surface, in the numbers of charges brought, charges dismissed without going to trial, charges reduced, sentences imposed, sentences reduced, and in the evidence of the perps themselves, the brazenness of the crimes, the complicity of the superiors - - how much evidence do you really need? It's more than enough evidence for me, and it should be more than enough for anyone else who isn't a damn fool.
