Maybe I'm just a sap, but my eyes got watery when I read this...

[shirenomad]

Iraqi girl with a serious heart condition gets treatment. (The start of the story can be found here; scroll down to "Days 11-16."

Anyone who still thinks American soldiers don't care about the Iraqi people can bite me.

Comments

[mountainranger.livejournal.com]

"it certainly does not show that our soldiers are any more or less human than anyone else"

Rather than kill or rape the girl, they helped her.

I am pretty sure that makes them more "human", depending on what you mean by human, than some other people.

[shirenomad]

*cough*mass graves*cough*

[mountainranger.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to assume that "the other side" would do that, if you mean the other side in Iraq.

I mean there America, and Americans, at least some of them, are still more noble than some other countries. There have been, as CMZ mentioned, mass graves. There has been a Holocaust. There have been prison/death camps (you can compare Guantanamo Bay if you wish, but I suggest that such a comparison would be ridiculous). There are suicide bombers. Haven't people been driven over by tanks in China in the past? And jailed for speaking against the government? And haven't certain cultures (Taliban, for instance) demeaned and oppressed women?

You can say the U.S. does similar things, or is -going to- in the future, but I'm just saying there are certain large differences in the United States' heritage and history as compared to most other countries in the world.

[mountainranger.livejournal.com]

Slaves, yes, but even then people who wanted slaves didn't just want to collect them in mass to kill them.

I'm not very familiar with the Japanese thing; was it comparable to some of the practices I mentioned?

[shirenomad]

This sums it up pretty well. Essentially a mass racial arrest, and totally unacceptable, even if there were real spies among the arrested (as I have little doubt there were). But to my knowledge, no deaths or direct torture.

[shirenomad]

Yeah, I mean we only had slaves and concentration camps for the Japanese -- what do they matter?

So you're saying that we haven't improved at all since then? Yes, we have a dark history, and we're right to regret it, but this generation shouldn't have to bear the sins of the father. We're improving -- we're not perfect, and never will be, but we're improving.

Meanwhile, the other side is still sawing the heads off civilians and publically celebrating when they do it. Saddam was gassing Kurds this decade (and would have continued to if he hadn't been removed); insurgents are deliberately blowing up civilians and rescue workers right now. Don't put our troops in the same boat as them.