FanFiltration said:

Poor excuse. I don't buy it. The military leadership does not condone or excuse that type of animal abuse action, and I don't ether. But it seems a few of you do. It's that old "boys will be boys" mentality. I wonder why the Marine Commander did not come out with an excuse like Lordjedi's for his men? Could it be because it's nothing more than a bullshit excuse? I think so.

I don't. I think it's because it came to light. If the video had never been seen by anyone outside Iraq, we would've never heard anything about it. The commander didn't come out with that excuse because it's not 1) politically correct and 2) good PR. If he had said what I said, he would've gotten the smack down from someone even higher up.

FanFiltration said:

People had more of a problem with the U.S. killing innocent children and burning down villages in the Vietnam War, and rightfully so.

Yeah, because they were killing women and children!

And like it or not, we would've won that war if we had stuck it out. The "high as a kite" protesters and people like Hanoi Jane who still have never apologized for what they did during the war (treason) are what finally forced us out. The north vietnamese knew they couldn't win. They knew they had to drive morale down at home in order to get us to withdraw.

I was trying to draw a parallel to show the kind of shithole those guys are in and what it must do to your mind. I was not trying to draw a parallel between killing a dog and killing a person. In my mind, killing an innocent person is much worse.

FanFiltration said:

I for one feel the Internet is a great tool in an age where political leaders (such as Bush) have tried to curtail the media from telling negative stories from behind the lines.

And some of those men have also been reprimanded for giving away troop locations. There's a reason those videos should be screened. Not only to keep unwanted things from being seen, but to keep the enemy from knowing where you are.