I apologize if this is harsh, I also just felt good saying it like I see it.
No hard feelings. Let me explain why you're wrong.
Blowing up houses from your tank while listening to songs with lyrics like "we don't need no water let the motherfucker burn"?
The last tank to fire its cannon in Afghanistan was in 2010, but that doesn't make a difference - we don't shoot into houses with explosives without knowing who or what is in there.
Or shooting innocent people because they somehow seemed menacing to you while you're invading their countries?
If by "somehow seemed menacing" you mean holding an RPG, planting IEDs, or shooting with AKs then...yes? All of those are direct threats to life, limb, or eyesight (the ROE regarding first-contact engagements). You don't shoot at someone until they violate the above or shoot first, and the former will put you under a lot of scrutiny.
I can understand the appeal in trying to help a noble cause but I can't wrap my head around that "we're the good guys so let's just kill anybody in our path... for your own good. It doesn't seem right? Don't think about it, those are your orders."
Real life isn't call of duty. We don't kill everyone (or just anyone) in our path because that isn't the way things work. What is your experience on this? Movies? Television? There's no way you have first-hand, second-hand, or even third-hand experience on this from someone who is telling the truth. 90% of taking contact is just that: taking it, not initiating it. The US hasn't done any major offensives in years and those that have been were small in scale, led primarily by ANA forces with US advisers (read: special forces). We conduct presence patrols to let the Taliban know that we aren't letting them in control of the area. It's up to them to dispute it, and if they choose to, it's a lot different from "Hey, let's go here and kill these guys".
All I see in the army is the potential for people blindly following orders, doing horrible things while they think they do it for a good cause.
Really? From what perspective do you see that? Again - your comments here lead me to believe that the most perspective you have is from the internet and your preconceived notions of what life is really like both here and while deployed.
And what cause could be better than eliminating the Taliban, responsible for things like this? I suppose it's easy to say we're the bad guys when you don't know the truth.
If you read up history a bit and put yourself in their shoes, it's not that difficult to understand why they hate the west. So, instead of showing the local populace we're good people that are gonna help them, we send soldiers to bring their infrastructure down, cut electricity and water supply. We create new enemies each day then vow to fight them because they're angry at us. And we feel justified because they're the baddies. We're the noble ones!
Oh, okay, why don't you enlighten me then? See, I could've sworn - correct me if I'm wrong here - that we've built up a lot of infrastructure in Afghanistan. My squad leader on his first deployment back in 2005 spent an entire days (12 hours) for a week building irrigation ditches in the local villages (or, rather, pulling security for the engineers). They showed their gratitude by letting them know when and where the Taliban fighters were planting IEDs. Also, if anecdotal evidence isn't enough for you, you ought to watch Restrepo - specifically, you should watch the last forty five minutes where they wanted to build roads between the local villages and wanted help from the elders. Frankly, you are pulling that bit out of your ass. You don't know a thing about what goes on over there.
If you don't want the Talibans to have influence over the people living there, we should help those people instead of "kicking down the door, shooting machine guns, and fighting a war."
Do you have any - any - idea what life was like under Taliban rule before the war, when they were pushing around the Northern Coalition? I'll throw out three links.
Going to quote the middle link, since you probably won't read it:
"The Taliban imposed its brand of justice as it consolidated territorial control. Taliban jurisprudence was drawn from the Pashtuns' pre-Islamic tribal code and interpretations of sharia colored by the austere Wahhabi doctrines of the madrassas' Saudi benefactors. The regime neglected social services and other basic state functions even as its Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice enforced prohibitions on behavior the Taliban deemed un-Islamic, requiring women to wear the head-to-toe burqa, or chadri; banning music and television; and jailing men whose beards it deemed too short."
Beards. They put men in jail for having beards that weren't long enough.
We shouldn't make their lives even more miserable than they were under the Taliban's regime because we have a bunch of young people that wants to shoot guns and kick their fucking doors open in the middle of the night.
Nothing says a high quality of life like high infant mortality, lack of education, lack of clean water, malnourishment, and going to jail for not having a long beard.