Bomb-Sniffing dog returns from Iraq with PTSD

Hibbleton

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100803/ap_on_re_us/us_ptsd_military_dogs_4

War is so F*cked up that even dogs are coming back traumatized.
I have a soft spot for dogs so I find this sad...:(
 
Sad, but far from the saddest thing that's happened in that war.

War, even when well-intentioned, is so fucking pointless and ruins so many lives. I honestly can't think of a war since WWII where I can say that the war made things better than they were before the war. And no, I'm no hippie, just an increasingly-cynical guy.
 
Sad, but far from the saddest thing that's happened in that war.

War, even when well-intentioned, is so fucking pointless and ruins so many lives. I honestly can't think of a war since WWII where I can say that the war made things better than they were before the war. And no, I'm no hippie, just an increasingly-cynical guy.

The Gulf War
 
The Gulf War

I think Korea could be added to that. Instead of all the Korean peninsula being like NK, just half of it is. But really, the years since WWII are a very small part of the history of war in terms of quantity, though quite significant.

I feel sorry for the dog, especially since it can't communicate its issues. But I also agree, it is nothing compared to the full cost of the war.
 
The Gulf War

Debatable. Didn't get rid of Saddam and helped produce Bin Laden (whose original rallying cry was "get the US out of Saudi Arabia").
 
The whole "war is bad" attitude is more a product of Judeo-Christian religion and Greek philosophy than anything else. Peace being preferred over war is a specific development of our culture, not a constant across all cultures.
 
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The whole "war is bad" attitude is more a product of Judeo-Christian religion and Greek philosophy than anything else. Peace being preferred over war is a specific development of our culture, not a constant across all cultures.

Please define a: Judeo-Christian anything and b: how the ' "war is bad" attitude ' in any way whatsoever a product of it. Christianity was spread through war and the jews are hoping for it when their messiah comes ffs
 
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Reading some of the stuff in threads like this, I really get the wish for some people here on this forum to be drafted for a war and then come back traumatized...

Just to add personal experience to all the bullshit they're talking. Because some are clearly missing firsthand experience of how it is to live in a country, that used to be a battlefield not too long ago.
And how it is, when each year hundreds of duds still have to be defused on building sites, with people still getting killed by them in the process from time to time. When you grow up with noticing there are very few middle-aged men around and many of those few are missing an arm or a leg...

I get the feeling that some folks take their inspiration from pictures like this here, showing German soldiers happily on their way to the front at the beginning of WW I, eager to give the Frenchies a bloody nose:

2fl1-3v.jpg


They didn't look so happy anymore 4 years later, though.

The current generation should be glad, and I mean "falling to their knees and thank God" glad, that they are the first generation in history, which grows up without being affected by a major war and its repercussions. Sometimes I think they are completely ignorant about how pampered and sheltered they really are, growing up in absolute safety.

I always laugh, when commentators refer to ghettos in big cities as a "war zone", just because a bunch of guys is running around with guns and occasionally shoot someone. That's no war zone, that's trifles. Even 9/11 was trifles, compared to what's happening in a real war. It was terrible but put into perspective, it really wasn't that a big deal. The CIA was responsible for more deaths in the first few years of its existance -- in times of peace of course.

Also Iraque and Afghanistan aren't really wars, mind you. That's just the daily routine of an occupying force in a foreign country. And that is already getting soldiers traumatized.

Wars are never useful or necessary. They have never been. Be glad that you probably won't experience one in your lifetimes.
 
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Reading stuff in threads like this, I really get the wish for some people here on this forum to be drafted for a war and then come back traumatized...

Just to add personal experience to all the bullshit they're talking.

The current generation should be glad, and I mean "falling to their knees and thank God" glad, that they are the first generation in history, which grows up without being affected by a major war and its repercussions.

Iraque and Afghanistan aren't really wars, mind you. That's just daily routine of an occupying force in a foreign country.
I can understand where you're coming from. Especially considering that in the last century Europe was utterly ravaged by war while the US was relatively safe and sound. But knowing people who have been to war, both in my own generation and older generations, I wouldn't wish it on anyone who doesn't make the choice to serve.


MacGuffin said:
I always laugh, when commentators refer to ghettos in big cities as a "war zone", just because a bunch of guys is running around with guns and occasionally shoot someone. That's no war zone, that's trifles. Even 9/11 was trifles, compared to what's happening in a real war. It was terrible but put into perspective, it really wasn't that a big deal. The CIA was responsible for more deaths in the first few years of its existance -- in times of peace of course.
Labeling something a "war" or "security risk" just makes it easier for republicans to get their heads around. Labeling something as such allows you to get away with a lot more than you'd be able to otherwise.
 
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Wars are never useful or necessary. They have never been. Be glad that you probably won't experience one in your lifetimes.

I think the word you're looking for is "rarely." Nine out of ten wars I think of were pointless bloodbaths that brought about nothing good. World War I is precisely one of those wars. Both the politics and the tactics were utterly senseless.

But occasionally, just occasionally, a war prevents a greater evil. WWII is the prime example in recent history. Hitler had to be stopped, and all attempts from within to stop him had failed. It took external force, aka war, to stop him and his maniacal plan. As a Jew, I'm glad that war happened.
 
But occasionally, just occasionally, a war prevents a greater evil. WWII is the prime example in recent history. Hitler had to be stopped, and all attempts from within to stop him had failed. It took external force, aka war, to stop him and his maniacal plan. As a Jew, I'm glad that war happened.

Oh, I agree that Hitler had to be stopped (and don't forget Japan in your equation). And I fully agree, that it was only possible through force, since Germany (and the whole of Europe) didn't have the power to do so. I also fully recognize the atrocities done in the name or Germans. In fact even my generation still feels the burden of it.

But WW II cost 50 million human lives (6 million Jews included). That's a five with seven zeros or equal to about the complete population of France. And I'm not convinced, that so many dead people were really necessary to stop Hitler. WW II is always sold as the "good war", the "right war" but if you dig a bit deeper into the matter, you'll soon realize that it was also a very dirty war and that good and evil are not as clearly defined, as you might think.

For example large parts of the American political and economical elite were huge fans of Hitler and supported him, until the USA joined the war. Anti-semitism and racism was established and normal all over Europe and even today countries still have to come to terms with the dark sides of their roles in World War II -- and are struggling massively to do so, because the Nazi regime was (and still is) such an ideal villain to put all blame onto, that it's hard to accept own faults, guilts and atrocities.

If you're honest to yourself, you'll admit that the so-called free world would have done nothing to prevent the Holocaust, as long as they wouldn't have been threatened by the Wehrmacht. England, America and France wouldn't have come to rescue the Jews from the Nazis, if Hitler hadn't attacked them first. There is no moral higher ground behind the motivations to fight Hitler -- just self-defense or rather self-preservation.

Also many of Hitlers allies, supporters and friends switched sides half way down the road only after they saw, that Hitler will probably lose it all in the end.

The allies also committed war crimes (and not only the Russians!). The argument that the war was just, cannot hide the fact anymore these days, that not all of the actions taken by the "good ones" were justified, too. Today historians from all over the world are beginning to draw a more differentiated view on WW II and I think that's a healthy process -- as long as the horrible crimes are not relativized.

It's easier to forget and to be ignorant, when you were not directly involved and when your country wasn't damaged. But each time someone digs a hole here to build something new, a car of the bomb squad is parked next to it -- just in case they find another dud. A new container seaport is currently being built here and not long ago, a large excavator was heavily damaged, when it hit an old WW II bomb in the mud. Luckily no one got hurt then. But not long ago three bomb technicians were killed in the city of G?ttingen, when they tried to defuse an old British or American aircarft bomb.

The war is still here in a way and we get reminded of it every day. Maybe that explains, why we have had enough of it and weren't eager to follow George W. Bush into his silly Iraq adventure back in 2002.
 
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But occasionally, just occasionally, a war prevents a greater evil. WWII is the prime example in recent history. Hitler had to be stopped, and all attempts from within to stop him had failed. It took external force, aka war, to stop him and his maniacal plan. As a Jew, I'm glad that war happened.
While I of course agree that it was a good thing Nazi Germany was defeated in WWII, I somehow think (perhaps I'm just too tired) that your reasoning there doesn't acknowledge the fact that the Nazis started WWII. It wasn't like any of the allied countries chose to intervene because there was something wrong inside Germany.
 
MacGuffin, I know darned well that prevention of the Holocaust was just a fortunate side-effect of Allied actions, not the purpose of any of the Allied governments (none of whom seemed particularly concerned about Nazi anti-Semitism before war broke out, and none of which were willing to accept Holocaust survivors en masse after the war ended).

And of course the war could have been fought a hell of a lot cleaner than it did. All sides engaged in "strategic bombing," which in modern terms we'd call "deliberate targeting of civilians." Just the nature of war in the 1940s; a "war crime" or "terrorism" today. But the fact that it could have been fought a hell of a lot more humanely than it was doesn't change my opinion that more good came of it than evil. In counting the evil that would have come from Nazi domination of Europe, don't forget to include the Jews/Communists/gays/disabled/etc in the death camps, but the wholesale enslavement and slaughter of Slavic peoples that Hitler had planned, but never got to fully carry out. Indeed, many of those deaths you attribute to the war were Russians who would have been massacred even if they had not resisted.

While I of course agree that it was a good thing Nazi Germany was defeated in WWII, I somehow think (perhaps I'm just too tired) that your reasoning there doesn't acknowledge the fact that the Nazis started WWII. It wasn't like any of the allied countries chose to intervene because there was something wrong inside Germany.

I agree that the allies started the war, not because of oppression within Germany, but because they were attacked. HOWEVER:

(1) A "nothing good ever comes from war" belief would include the belief that nothing good ever comes from hunkering down and fighting to the end (the Soviet approach) as opposed to quickly conceding (the French approach).

(2) Had Hitler not invaded other countries, and just conducted the Holocaust domestically, I still think that more good than evil would have come from an invasion. I'd compare this to NATO's actions in the former Yugoslavia and NATO's prevention of North Korea from conquering all of Korea, both of which I think are examples of where war did more good than harm.
 
I understand your points. But I want to prevent a generalization. I want to prevent a statement like "A war can occasionally be good".

The bitch of it it is, that you do not know what the outcome of a war will be. Will history value it as a necessary evil or a complete waste of human lives? You cannot know before.

Of course the final outcome of WW II was good, because otherwise we wouldn't live in our free, modern society now and we probably wouldn't be able to communicate this way via an internet without any restrictions or censorship.

But nobody could predict that outcome and it still had a damn steep price tag nailed to it and one should be extremely cautious about suggesting another war, just because one turned out to be useful in the end...

WW II shouldn't become a role model or a justification for future wars. That's all I'm saying.
 
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So there is news about a dog who is traumatised from the war ( i feel very very sad for her as I love animals and especially dogs very much) but where is the news of my fellow country people losing their children, husbands, wives, mother, father, brother, sister and other relatives and being left traumatised for their whole life?

What has these two wars brought America? Oil filled wells? What has been achieved in Afghanistan so far? What's the fault of Pakistani people in all this?

More precisely, what is the fauly of my family in this?
 
The whole "war is bad" attitude is more a product of Judeo-Christian religion and Greek philosophy than anything else. Peace being preferred over war is a specific development of our culture, not a constant across all cultures.
This statement has no context. At all.

In fact I think you just put it here to provoke reactions and see the discussion unfold. This, by definition, is trolling.

Nevertheless I think most of us can agree on the fact that war is bad. Allways.
But I think it is also fact that there are situations in which the consequences of doing nothing would be far worse than military intervetion.
 
But I think it is also fact that there are situations in which the consequences of doing nothing would be far worse than military intervetion.

Yes but the bitch of it is, that you only know for sure in hindsight.
 
I'm sorry but it is just a dog. I like dogs, grew up with them and if I can convince my wife I want a good mutt but they are just dogs not people.
 
So there is news about a dog who is traumatised from the war ( i feel very very sad for her as I love animals and especially dogs very much) but where is the news of my fellow country people losing their children, husbands, wives, mother, father, brother, sister and other relatives and being left traumatised for their whole life?

What has these two wars brought America? Oil filled wells? What has been achieved in Afghanistan so far? What's the fault of Pakistani people in all this?

More precisely, what is the fauly of my family in this?
What? Just because there's not an active thread about Pakistan on finalgear doesn't mean that no one in the western world cares about Pakistan. There are new AP articles out everyday regarding any number of things affecting Pakistan; especially since the flooding started. Nevermind all the independent content generated.
 
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