your thoughts

[Mick-Boy]

Ach! You posted while I was typing and I see now some of my comments were poorly aimed. I apologize for that.

And yes, factually a Hadji is someone who has made the Hajj (5th pillar of Islam). It is also used as a pejorative to describe any/all arabs (bad guys and other wise).

[tmckay2]

Did you serve in the sandbox? I know (speaking correctly) that a hajji is someone who has gone on the Hajj, the trip to Mecca to walk around the big black cube. I also know that it's used as slang in the same way that Nip and Gerry were used in WWII. My question is, for anyone who actually served in Afghanistan/Iraq, is the term used for any Iraqi, or only for confirmed enemy combatants?

There are thousands of images, and since Der Spiegel is the German equivalent of Time magazine I will make the assumption for now that they have sufficient proof to make the claims they're printing. I don't think this would be, in any way, representative of the US armed services at large, and would say this is likely another case of a "few bad apples", but I will bet this will result in more retribution killings than Wikileaks dumps.

H.

when my military buddies are back they use it to talk about militants. not normal everyday folks

[ChunkyMonkey]

Did you serve in the sandbox? I know (speaking correctly) that a hajji is someone who has gone on the Hajj, the trip to Mecca to walk around the big black cube. I also know that it's used as slang in the same way that Nip and Gerry were used in WWII. My question is, for anyone who actually served in Afghanistan/Iraq, is the term used for any Iraqi, or only for confirmed enemy combatants? .

You are correct, however, in 2003 after the iraqi army melted away - they would literally walked in the middle of nowhere w/o any supplies (afraid to be ID'd as militant/military member) and whenever stopped and asked what they were doing. They would say they were doing the pilgrimage or Hajj (similar to the actual Hajj where guys were to only wear two piece of clothing and nothing else)... hence the nicks for these guys as Hajji.

As in many other part of the world, we called bad muslim Hajji (I am from the S.E. Asia), because whenever a muslim got caught in a bad/illegal act, his first defense typically is that he is a hajji - as in I have done umrah/hajji and I could not be guilty because I am a good muslim.

[Hoosier]

The mission of a Marine Corps rifle squad is to locate, close with and destroy the enemy through fire and maneuver. In the defense it's to repel the enemy's assault with fire and close combat.

To most people those are just words. To a lot of Marines even, they are something you have drummed into you in basic and then regurgitate verbatim in order to impress promotion boards.

But at the pointy end, words like fire and close combat begin to have meaning. They mean yelling and screaming and dying. They mean lives that are changed forever in fractions of a second. No matter how much chest thumping some people want to do, killing another human being isn't something you just shrug off.

Based on what I've read, their actions rank up there with the Mahmudiyah killings in 2006. Despicable acts that should be punished under the UCMJ.

This was a really good response that I enjoyed reading.

Some photos of dead Afghans in a German rag have little/nothing to do with that though. The American people have had greater access to the face of war over the last decade than we have at any point in our history.

Do you think that there will be additional blowback because of these pictures?

Obviously neither of us were old enough to remember the press reports from Vietnam, but it seems back then there were Journalists who were getting close enough to the action to bring the horrors of war back home, and in so doing changed the course of that war.

In the current atmosphere of embedded reporters and sterilized news reports, it seems to be the soldiers themselves with todays small cheap camcorders and Youtube that are bringing the reality back to the general population.

H.

[Hoosier]

As in many other part of the world, we called bad muslim Hajji (I am from the S.E. Asia), because whenever a muslim got caught in a bad/illegal act, his first defense typically is that he is a hajji - as in I have done umrah/hajji and I could not be guilty because I am a good muslim.

That's more than a little ironic. Another reason I detest religions and most of their zealous adherents.

H.