*promote

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Thursday, April 8th, 2010 7:58am PDT - promote requested by original submitter burdturgler.

Blood on Obama's hands.

All I know is each of us have one life to live. If your life choices land you in a Afghan prison begging for your life...well shit son, you've made some pretty poor choices on how to spend the single most important thing you've ever been given.

Some people learn, some people never learn, and some people learn the really damn hard way.

*fail.

^ If there were a perfect world, with perfect people, all smart and beautiful....

And in this world, you were there (which you are not) you might get a glimpse of how ribald and petty you really are, at heart.

How small, and mean, and punctual you are.

What time is it, Stellar?

Do you really know?

@rougy

This guy made the choice to fly across the world and try his hand killing the inhabitants of some third world country for money, they captured him and suddenly he wants forgiveness? If he wasn't captured he'd still be out murdering someone on the countryside. Why should I pity this guy, or care whether he makes it home? Why would it make me wrong, and why am I responsible to grieve for a mercenary? He doesn't respect his own life, much less the lives of others.

You say you don't like war, you don't like invasion, you don't like killing - yet you support the soldiers who execute the order? Doesn't make sense to me what is your morality and what is your life for? What kind of world do you want to live in? How do you live in this world with respect to the world you want it to be?

What time is it? Its time for me to live and be happy. What time is it for him? Who knows, looks like his time is about up...I get to live and he gets to die. Why? Because he chose war and I chose peace.

You couldn't get me to pull the trigger if you put a gun to my head -- this guy volunteered.

I think I mostly agree with you @imstellar28. The war, both wars, are in my view, completely immoral and cannot end well for anyone (except maybe Halliburton). Also like you, I can't see any way I would have ended up in this position. I would never have willingly been a soldier...a decision I first reached when I realized I wasn't far from getting my draft card, and even new contemplations with each war since have never led to a different conclusion.

That said, I'm not willing to condemn this young man yet. I don't know him, I don't know the circumstances that led him to enlist. Without that knowledge, I think condemnation would be jumping to conclusions prematurely. Perhaps I'm being overly generous, but if so it's because I have a nephew over there right now, and I know he's a good kid. But he had a family to support, and I do believe he honestly thought he was serving his country at the same time. I've never had the heart to tell him that I think he was actually serving a different master. I spend far more energy hoping his child will have a chance to remember him than I do worrying about which of us is right.

@Stormsinger

There are roughly 2.5 million people serving in the US military, so almost 1 in 100 people. I think most people have at least a few people in their lives who are either active duty or veterans. I can't think of anyone in my family, but I do know a few people over there and have at least one guy I see on a regular basis that is an Iraq war veteran. I have never said anything to him, but I have spent about 6 hours trying to convince one of my friends not to go into the Navy SEALs. If one of my close friends tried to enlist, I would definitely try to talk them out if it - and if my young nephew, who will be 18 in a few years thought of enlisting I would definitely do whatever I could to get him out of it. I think the most reasonable thing you could do at this point with your nephew is make sure he doesn't re-enlist after his 1st term is up.

I think it is more important to condemn the overall philosophy rather than individual people - unfortunately for this guy, when you are in a video being spread akin to a news report, you sort of become the embodiment of the philosophy outside of your individual self.

I think the line in the sand needs to be drawn somewhere, because our current culture practically worships soldiers. People would gasp, if not lynch you, if you said such things in certain groups. If there was a paradigm shift, I don't people would be so quick to enlist - especially those that are young and impressionable.