Second Australian VC awarded in Afghanistan.

Being at the wrong end of a machine gun is really something that scares the living s*** out of you. I have seen people crapped and pissed in their pants in sheer panic. I've seen the effects of a heavy MG on a human body. The person almost disappeared in a purple cloud. To go against a MG require a lot of self-discipline and go for three, it's strength of character at the very highest level. The military's finest virtue is discipline. It is the dedication which afterwards appears as courage. That´s what makes the soldiers continue forward even if they know there is a great danger that they may be killed

With regard to the Taliban as warriors.
They come in all levels. From those who ran away when we fired warning shots to those who gave us some of the toughest battles, and they clearly had military training

But I don´t understand you LeMask. Where does the contempt for us come from?
We that have been in these situations are trying the best we can to explain what’s it like, but you consider us as uncivilized freaks
 
Once again. Lemask, this is a military forum. You haven't put up, so shut the **** up. And if you think I am scared of you coming out from behind your keyboard, you should keep dreaming. When you take down one machine gun I may listen to you
 
Well, I hope I will never have to do that. I can live without that. But I'm not sure I can survive a machine gun... So no thanks once again.

Sorry if I had offended your sensibilities... Not that I dont care, but the first description I had here doesnt sound so impressive...

brinktk and GHR intervention give potentiel explanations to what must have happened... And I thank them for taking time to explain the possibilities.

Prapor, where did you see me praising the Taliban?

And by the way, I dont share the "evil Taliban" theory at all... They are primitive people, indoctrinated by a closed culture, a violent history, trapped by a harsh environment full of corruption etc... I'm not mad at them.

Hard to shine in such environment... It's a piece of **** country...
 
LeMask, by the "Christmas Island" flag om your ID, am I right in guessing that you're one of those Malaysian muslim parasites sponging off the Australian taxpayer? Or are you one of those "boat people" looking to enter Australia illegally so you can sponge of the taxpayer?
 
Nah... It was Christmas, and I was sick of comments about France... So I found "christmas Island" in the list, and I took it.

And your comment is retarded... Boat people trying to sponge people? Muslim parasites?

Using this same logic, the military presence of Australians in Afghanistan is a big problem, because they are racist criminals who hate Muslims and want to destroy them...

But I dont think that all Australians are intolerant fools like you... Calling human beings parasites like a god damned Nazi...

Shame on you sir... I hope you are not allowed next to live ammo with you f*** up mind and medieval ideas...

It's people like you who are terrorists... The only difference is that they are born in the other side of the conflict.

You should show some respect to one of the major civilizations of mankind. It's not easy to do today, as they are "destroyed" and crushed by the Western system... But you have to understand that once, when your ancestors were crawling in their own filth, the Muslims were a civilized people light years ahead of us...

And I dont have to be Muslim to think that, it's called history buddy... It's a science.

And it's very risky to think that because I'm X that I think Y... People are individuals, not men coming out of a factory.

You have some thinking to do sir...
 
Spartan613 said:
LeMask, by the "Christmas Island" flag om your ID, am I right in guessing that you're one of those Malaysian muslim parasites sponging off the Australian taxpayer? Or are you one of those "boat people" looking to enter Australia illegally so you can sponge of the taxpayer?
Click to expand...

Spartan; It was an unnecessary remark.
An attempt at a blow below the belt. :(
 
It's okay to come up with a harsh response to someone who oppose themselves against better knowledge.

But this was, in my eyes, a provocation!
 
GHR said:
It's okay to come up with a harsh response to someone who oppose themselves against better knowledge.

But this was, in my eyes, a provocation!
Click to expand...

Agreed.

I thought the debate was pretty much resolved at this point.

LeMask is right about the Muslems, while Europe was in the throes of the dark ages, Islam was generations ahead in science, literature, architecture, commerce, and quite tolerant of Judaism and Christianity...They managed to pull it off for about a thousand years at that! That's one of the reasons we are having problems now, adherants to Islam are having to deal with the religious transformation that Christianity and the West went through during the Rennasaince/industrialization...It really wasn't all that long ago that you could be burned at the stake for heresay or witchcraft in Europe...
 
brinktk, I'm very interested in discussing this topic... But it would be completely offtopic. I just want to invite brinktk to rethink what he said.

What we have done in the Western world after the renaissance and the industrialisation was OUR path. Made by Westerners for Westerners...
We invented governments to replace the corrupt clergy and the corrupt kings we had... And we didnt cut the roots of these organs, they evolved to give us the governments we have today, with it's police, it's military forces etc... Our system is the product of OUR evolution.

And in the colonisation, we did the mistake to try to bring "civilization" to the other civilizations, and we destroyed their civilization in this process. We didnt learn about their ways, we went there guns blazing... Slavery and all these crimes were done in the name of "helping" the victims of these crimes...

I dont like the idea of this western man involving himself in the lives of people he doesnt even understand... This western arrogance is a HUGE problem for our civilization, we are dying because of that. We are closed, we dont like difference... We force the others to be our enemies... And our enemies learn from us, while we despise them too much to learn anything from them.

We are in Afghanistan waging a modern ware on cavemen with AK47s... We sent people to teach them terrorism. They dont have the politics we have to think about terrorism. It's something coming from the unholy mix between Western politics + religious guilt + warlord ruthlessness... This **** wouldnt happen if we werent involved so much in their lives somehow...

But even if I dont support the war. I dont hate the individual soldiers. I just dont share their political positions.
And a political view isnt just "left or right". Joining the military is a political choice... Even taking a shower is a political choice if we look carefully...

Let's be accurate. I didnt call anyone a coward here. I just asked about the circumstances behind the medal. On the paper, taking out a few militia forces with gunship/artillery support isnt that impressive... Machine guns are somehow common on the battlefield... And this is conventional warfare. Professional soldiers (and SAS especially) are very good for this kind of things...

Some people with more insight explained how this was an incredible piece of work... I have nothing to add.

So please, spare us the "you support Taliban" and other "are you a parasite Muslim hating Australians" etc...
 
That's not the only problem. We are seeing the teething problems of a civilization trying to come into the modern world while still holding on to ideals that were more appropriate 200 years ago. The West made this tough transformation with Christianity over 300-400 years..modernizing and transforming parallel to one another. Islam has been slapped in the face with it, particularly in the past 120 years.

There is just as much harshness in the words of the bible as there is in the Qu'ran. The difference is that the West had to come to terms with the fact that to progress, they had to "let go" of a lot of things that were held to be true within the words of the bible. I.E. not killing someone who causes you to question your faith. Which was perfectly acceptable previous to the 16th century. Particularly to non-Westerners. Also, with the rise of a representative government, the West was afforded much more individual rights that made the hold of the church much weaker.

Islam on the other hand continued to go unhindered really until Napoleans invasion of Egypt. After handely getting beaten with an inferior sized force they realized that they had to modernize. This here lies the problem. It broke into two schools of thought. One side, the secularists, decided that modernization should be achieved by using Western ways...education, commerce, industry, etc. The other side was to fall back on Islam, the holy way, the way that lead them to greatness for a millenium.

Unfortunately for both schools of thought not much could be done because this realization was made about the same time the imperial era went into overdrive, thereby hampering their own progress. It wasn't until after WWI that efforts could really be made to modernize, but once again, they were literally hundreds of years behind while the West continued to advance at an exponential rate.

We are facing a civilization that was revered for a thousand years as one of the most advanced and successful in history. The barbarian West falling by the wayside in the wake of the spread and success of Islam. Over a relatively short period of time the tables have turned and many Muslims feel humiliated as a result. This is what we are dealing with and will continue to deal with until they can be brought into the modern era.
 
brinktk, there is not church in the Muslim world... Maybe a little clergy like organisations for the Shiites and the Souffis. But these guys are what? 5-10% of the Muslim population?

It's not wise to speak about the "modern world" or to compare the history of Islam with the history of christianity. This is exaclty the mistake we have to avoid at all cost.

These are two different worlds, and they are maybe sharing a few points... But that's about it. Christianity followed it's own path, and the Islam and its people HAVE TO follow a different one.

We are trying to guide them in a path we made for ourselves.

The result of this is terrorism... Terrorism doesnt come from an evil parallel universe. Its comes from a world we built ourselves. And if it's not enough, it's a product directed at us.

Do you think that a dictator like Saddam would be annoyed if a bomb blew up in a market somewhere in Saddam's Iraq? As long as his sons arent shopping there... He doesnt care. But when a bomb kills one old lady in the Western world... It's a crisis.

This is a weapon/doctrine made for us. We shouldnt try to show them a direction... We can maybe give momentum once they took a direction (with commerce-resources) and build bridges between our two worlds... but anything more than that is bad for us.

Your analysis of the situation sums it up a little... a bit pessimistic if you want my opinion, as I dont like the idea of the humiliated people tried to kick our pink rich butts... I believe that there is always hope. Humiliated people can find a new pride and chose a higher path... Rather than dumb violence...
 
Read What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East by Bernard Lewis

Easy read that makes some very interesting points on our predicament and their predicament these days.

I understand that there is no church in Islam, but there is still the Shura which causes much more of a community sense than in Christianity. Also, it is almost impossible not to compare histories because they are intertwined with one another. There are differences between Christianity and Islam, but there's helluva lot more common ground.

They do have to follow their own path, and for the most part they are trying. But, many of the zealots have a very different view of how that path should be taken and none of them have a successful West in the picture. These are the ones who are causing the most problems and when the rest of the Muslim world cannot police up these people and it spills over into our world, problems arise. Those zealots have drawn a line in the sand where there are absolutely no concessions. I hope that secular/ moderate Islam prevails in the face of these few who wish to corrupt the many. Yet, when those few bring their poison to my doorstep I draw a line in the sand too. It's a long road ahead and I'm hoping that cooler heads prevail. BUT we must be prepared for the consequences if they do not.
 
Shura is a "protocol" where an "Emir" (elected local leader) forms a council to ask for advices, like their prophet Mohammed did when he was asking experimented people for insight before taking a political/military decision...

And under the oppressive regimes in place in the Muslim world, the religious protocols (who are seen as legitimate by the population) arent active.

You take a country I know very well, like Morroco... Who got a king (a nice guy for a dictator), a parliament, ministers etc... A ministry of religious affairs, with the king as a commander in chief. a buch of religious scholars who take lectures from foreign scholars... And that's about it. There is no religious people in power except the moderate Islamists who are barely tolerated in "controlled" elections (they have a limited number of seats whatever the number of votes they get).

Their old ways arent active... We made sure that they are utterly destroyed in the colonial era. We hunted down every leader we didnt like when we were there, and we only accepted those who were "acceptable" for us.

We dont need enemies at our gates to be ready to defend ourselves... That's not even an issue...

But right now, we are enjoying our dominating position too much... and if they have to break free, it will cost a lot of money to the rich people among us.

Some of us really dont want that... This is why I question the system. Because it's serving the interests of some powerful people, and sometimes at all costs and with all available resources...
 
In my view, the problem is that Muslims read the Quran as if it were revealed by God this morning. This gives the entire text equal importance and is not filtered through the long tradition of interpretation of the Quranic verses. In many ways they are reading the Quran as the first protestants read the Bible in 1500-century. Anyone got access to read the Bible in their own language and thus to interpret it in their particular context. Quaker interpretation of the Bible at the beginning of the 1600s looks a lot like the Taliban interpretation of the Quran in Afghanistan today, except that the Quakers have always been pacifists. The same applies to a wide range of other Puritan Protestant denominations way to read the Bible.

I would argue that the problems with Islam began when the young Muslims began reading the Quran themselves. They quickly discovered that many of the things the parents called religion, really was more about the culture they came from. Then they began consciously to define what was culturally, and what was Islam. They undressed, so to speak, the culture. They ignored the parents' cultural traditions in order to find the pure religion. But they are not looking at the centuries old tradition of Quranic interpretation and the results can therefore develop into terror and here lies the dangers of ignoring the traditional interpretation.

Sorry that I continue offtopic. :type:
 
Good conclusion GHR, I wrote an essay on this very topic, or at least with a very similar conclusion.
But the big idea is that these things are also a "choice". It's up to the individual to read the Coran and to decide about the conclusions to pull out of the book.

Like the students I had with me, some focused on the verses speakings war and violence to say that it's a violent book... While others focused their attention on the verses speaking about mercy, good deeds, justice, giving a chance to peace and negociations... And their conclusion is that it was a book of peace and justice...

That's the difference between a good man or a "wrong" man. Remember that in Islam, Muslims are in earth to be tested, to know who is the excellent man and who is the mediocre man. The difference is the amount of effort made to be a good man. It's a coherent whole.

And the missunderstanding of the Coran began at the very beginning. While their prophet was still alive... Many did some horrible things and the prophet had to punish them or to explain and add a few pages to the holy book so they can understand... It was a process.
And at his death, there was reports of hysteria among his people who thought that it was the end of Islam... Like if their god have died... Only a few understood that it had to happen and that it's only the messenger who died.
A bit like the christians who believe that Jesus christ was the son of god/or a representation of god on earth... But it didnt stick with the Muslims... Maybe because the Jewish monotheistic concept of god was very present in the Arabian environment...

And yeah, we are offtopic somehow, but this is exactly what we are fighting in Afghanistan... We are fighting one mix of Islam and culture... a very bad one.

And some hate Muslims because of that, even if the big majority chose not to believe this version...

And you can get called a Muslim if you just "seem" critical of a report on military affairs...
 
LeMask said:
Nah... It was Christmas, and I was sick of comments about France... So I found "christmas Island" in the list, and I took it.

And your comment is retarded... Boat people trying to sponge people? Muslim parasites?

Using this same logic, the military presence of Australians in Afghanistan is a big problem, because they are racist criminals who hate Muslims and want to destroy them...

But I dont think that all Australians are intolerant fools like you... Calling human beings parasites like a god damned Nazi...

Shame on you sir... I hope you are not allowed next to live ammo with you f*** up mind and medieval ideas...

It's people like you who are terrorists... The only difference is that they are born in the other side of the conflict.

You should show some respect to one of the major civilizations of mankind. It's not easy to do today, as they are "destroyed" and crushed by the Western system... But you have to understand that once, when your ancestors were crawling in their own filth, the Muslims were a civilized people light years ahead of us...

And I dont have to be Muslim to think that, it's called history buddy... It's a science.

And it's very risky to think that because I'm X that I think Y... People are individuals, not men coming out of a factory.

You have some thinking to do sir...
Click to expand...

Accepting that you are what you say you are, you should know only too well what it's like to have asylum-shoppers illegally entering your country and causing social disharmony.

If someone has their hand out for money and resources they have no real entitlement to, they're not just parasites, they're criminals. We've got plenty of them in Australia. One moslem imam collected over a million dollars in welfare over 15 years, despite being ordered to leave Australia (until he married a local woman and had 7 kids) as an illegal immigrant. Add to that, he was the spiritual leader of a jihadist cell that planned mass murder at a large sporting event.

Seeing as I've never targeted unarmed civilians (the way jihadists do), I'd say you are the one making retarded comments.

Want some history? The Chinese were far more civilised and advanced than the moslems ever were. And you moslems are still stuck in the middle ages.

The more of your stuff I read, the more I'm convinced you're a moslem troll.

Think on THAT.
 
GHR said:
Spartan; It was an unnecessary remark.
An attempt at a blow below the belt. :(
Click to expand...

It wasn't a remark, per se'. It was a simple enough question. I'm not convinced by his answer, either. As a Dane, you should know only too well what trouble-makers elements of the moslem community can be. Didn't they riot in your country and make death threats over a cartoon?
 
brinktk said:
That's not the only problem. We are seeing the teething problems of a civilization trying to come into the modern world while still holding on to ideals that were more appropriate 200 years ago. The West made this tough transformation with Christianity over 300-400 years..modernizing and transforming parallel to one another. Islam has been slapped in the face with it, particularly in the past 120 years.

There is just as much harshness in the words of the bible as there is in the Qu'ran. The difference is that the West had to come to terms with the fact that to progress, they had to "let go" of a lot of things that were held to be true within the words of the bible. I.E. not killing someone who causes you to question your faith. Which was perfectly acceptable previous to the 16th century. Particularly to non-Westerners. Also, with the rise of a representative government, the West was afforded much more individual rights that made the hold of the church much weaker.

Islam on the other hand continued to go unhindered really until Napoleans invasion of Egypt. After handely getting beaten with an inferior sized force they realized that they had to modernize. This here lies the problem. It broke into two schools of thought. One side, the secularists, decided that modernization should be achieved by using Western ways...education, commerce, industry, etc. The other side was to fall back on Islam, the holy way, the way that lead them to greatness for a millenium.
Click to expand...

Just an FYI mate, a lot of advancements in science etc attributed to the islamic world was actually ripped off from people the moslems conquered. IE, so-called "Arabic numerals" that replaced the cumbersome Roman numerals were actually stolen from the Hindi Indians.
 
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