Why are we still in 'Vietghanistan?'

[rug]

By Scott Camil, Special to CNN
updated 6:23 PM EDT, Sat May 5, 2012



Scott Camil pictured in a cemetery in Dai Loc, Vietnam in 1967

(CNN) -- As a veteran of combat in Vietnam, I am often asked about current wars. Recently I have been asked about soldiers posing with corpses or urinating on corpses in Afghanistan. The "patriotic" media wants us to understand what it is like to be a soldier in war, not to condone the conduct but to ask "who are we to judge?" They want to know about rules of war: "Are there rules about taking pictures with dead bodies?"

When I see these pictures, I am not shocked. I have similar pictures from Vietnam. And I'm in them. Such pictures are part of our warrior culture. Not everyone takes them, but they are not in any way unusual.

Look at the famous photos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The U.S. soldiers aren't looking over their shoulders. None of them appears worried about being caught doing something wrong. They all look comfortable, often smiling for the camera. This tells me that the behavior captured in the photographs was S.O.P. (standard operating procedure).

What I find most disconcerting is all this attention to what is done to these dead bodies and absolutely no question or curiosity about why they are dead in the first place. No questions about why U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan at all.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/05/opinion/camil-vietnam-afghanistan/index.html

Editor's note: Scott Camil is president of the Gainesville, Florida, chapter of Veterans for Peace, a veterans' organization that aims to raise awareness about the costs of war. He is a former sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps and served four years in Vietnam; his decorations include two Purple Hearts, a Combat Action Ribbon, two Presidential Unit Citations and Good Conduct Medal.

[TedBronson]

1. It's all relative...

... and there is a spectrum.

Abu Ghraib was a freak show of a perfect storm of an incompetent CDR and 1SG who never visited their areas of responsibility and some twisted middle and jr enlisted who were allowed to run free. So many things had to happen ahead of time before that tornado of failure could happen. One in a million.

Pissing on corpses.... Doesn't surprise me but a competent leader would have nipped it in the bud. Nothing good was coming out of it.

I have a hard time working up any outrage about the last salvo of photos with the Soldiers holding remains of a premature detonator. In their minds, that is a good day because the asshole only took himself out before he could harm them or civilians. Again though, a decent leader would push that professionalism and tell them to wipe the damn smiles off their faces and document the scene properly.

[EFerrari]

2. Abu Graib was not a freak show but one facility in a global torture program. nt

[coalition_unwilling]

3. +1,000,000,000 x 1,000,000,000 - n/t

[rug]

7. You miss the point.

"What I find most disconcerting is all this attention to what is done to these dead bodies and absolutely no question or curiosity about why they are dead in the first place. No questions about why U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan at all."

It's like debating the use of a synthetic sponge versus a natural sponge in electrocution when the issue is capital punsishment.

[coalition_unwilling]

9. Served, pwn*d and owned, all in a single post. ZING! - n/t

[TedBronson]

12. They are there because the leadership in this country, over multiple Presidential terms...

... has decided it is in our national interest to stay there.

Easy.. see?

[rug]

13. "Because I said so" is an answer that should satisfy only children.

[TedBronson]

14. Sorry, thought it was more obvious than that.

Some leaders think that it is beneficial to have a military/diplomatic presence in that area of the world.

Some think that there is a benefit to stabilizing the population/region through democracy or a simulacrum of it.

Some think there are resources and other physical benefits that we could gain.

Many think that it is not acceptable to appear that the US was defeated by a gang of religious zealots.

These are just a few of the reasons and are the most general, hence the reason I didn't mention them before. Now, you may not agree with them but that account for much of the reasoning.

America is transitioning to a more proactive and less reactive force. (See parts of Africa; Syria; bits of South America and select parts of the pacific) but we still have responsibilities from before those policies were put into place.

I'd recommend the National Security Strategy (NSS) and the National Defense Strategy (NDS) if you really are interested.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security_strategy.pdf

http://www.defense.gov/news/2008%20national%20defense%20strategy.pdf

[n2doc]

4. $$$$$$$$$

It always comes down to that.

[musical_soul]

5. I think we're still there......

simply because there isn't as much outcry out it like in Iraq. I think if the outcry started, then we'd be gone.

We need to go though. Their leaders are persecuting minorities like the Taliban did. We shouldn't stay to protect that government.

Abu Ghraib is not standard. The troops didn't feel a need to watch their backs because they knew who was there. They didn't expect to get caught.

[coalition_unwilling]

6. We had to destroy Afghanistan (and Iraq) in order to

save it (for those of you who remember Tet '68).

[saras]

8. There are minerals there. We're going to steal them. It's that simple.

When Russia first got involved, they were just after a pipeline route for oil. Afghanistan has become MUCH more important than that.

They have the mineral wealth to bring them back to the first-world level of development they had before the wars started. If global corporatism lets them.

[Zorra]

11. Yep. No mystery here. That's the primary reason why we are in Afghanistan,

in service of the 1% globalists.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. Because saying "We Lost" doesn't make a good campaign slogan.

The reason we went there and are still there is all about politics and PR.