Angry Rant #39: Shock, Horror.

Top news story of the week - "Dedicated Soldier, Husband and Father, dies fighting for his mates in a country that he shouldn't be in fighting for a cause that I don't even think he knows about after being told that if he doesn't, we'll be left screwed when we get invaded by North Korea."

Royally Screwed.

It's a different view, I'll give you that much, but it's not a view that's ever discussed. Wayne Swan even came out in the statement to the media and said "we're staying", in reference to the death of another soldier - but they died because they were told to go and fight. The Government are the ones who promote joining the army as something that is noble and patriotic when really it's just giving people a license to kill anything wearing a Turban so that the big older brother, *cough* THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA *cough* will keep us on their good side.

As terrible as war is, death is something that naturally comes with it. You can't have a war without someone dying - it's illogical - unless it's a flame war. Those are brutally non-lethal and rob you of your dignity.

Why do I get the sense that people feel surprised by the death of another soldier? The toll for US troops who have died exceeds our number of 29 by a little over 1200. If anything, the Australian troops are lucky there haven't been more. I usually hear this response though - "they're on a peace keeping mission" a.k.a the nice way to say we're killing people, but because we're better equipped with our enemy, we shouldn't expect our soldiers to die.

Peace keeping mission eh?

Peace Keeping - now with added Machine Guns!

If you're a soldier, in a war where thousands of people are being killed, and bullets flying around everywhere and IEDs at every intersection, someone will, unfortunately, eventually bite the bullet.

If Australian soldiers are still there in following months and our awful full of shit Prime Minister is seen "crying because of it" sit back and think that the solider died because YOU sent them there and YOU used manipulative recruitment tactics to make said solider join and fight for your mysterious cause.

More lies, more spin... *sigh*

JM