You "fought for my freedoms"? which ones?

[RTA]

In these days of polarized war talk, there's a line of thinking I've been hearing a lot lately and it has crawled into my subconsious and taken root. Generally it comes from someone who is pro-war and/or pro-Bush, but definitely pro-military.

It goes something like this: "Well I/we/they fought in Korea/Vietnam/Iraq to defend your right to say such a thing about what our President is trying to accomplish over there."

Actually I don't think so. I don't recall any of our freedoms being really under attack in Korea and Vietnam and Iraq - unless you mean the freedom to drive big honking SUVs. In the case of Vietnam, I would venture that many of our freedoms were under attack right here at home, much like today. Korea was a faraway police action and the "domino theory" has been proven wrong and discarded.

Now if you are a veteran of WW2 or the Civil War (either side) or the Revolution, then yes, I would say, you fought for my freedoms (particularly the latter). 1812, yes, you too I guess. WW1 vets, probably not. The Indian wars? they fought for land, which I suppose brought some degree of freedom though not of the "rights" variety, unless you mean "property rights", which our Native American citizens might differ over. And so on.

So I invite all those who unilaterally assume that every serviceman and woman is out there "defending my rights and freedoms" to consider for a minute which of my freedoms are and have been under assault, and by whom. Isn't the rationale that one is "defending American freedoms" in many cases just a jingoistic catchphrase? Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Duck Duck Goose]

Yes--that by serving the same government that fought for your freedoms during WWII and the Civil War and the War of 1812 and the the Revolution, they are by extension participating in that government's defense of your rights and freedoms.

The same way that today's Supreme Court justices are fighting for your civil rights, even though none of them may have personally participated in, say, Brown vs. Board of Education.

[december]

Great answer, DDG. Also, Korea and Vietnam (mistaken though it was) were part of a war to prevent world domination by the Soviet Union. Winning that war did indeed preserve the freedom of Americans. It also gained freedom for around a billion people.

[Munch]

december, how did the Korean and Vietnam Wars gain freedom for 1,000,000,000 people?

[Gjorp]

I think the idea is that they "thought" they were fighting for our freedom. Even if the domino theory is now considered wrong, back then it wasn't, and when those troops were sent into Vietnam and NK, they were fighting to keep the communists from spreading their influence all the way to your homeland.

[zigaretten]

RTA………..

I think you need to think about your position in a little more depth. If we don’t fight in Korea and Vietnam then we haven’t just lost South Korea and Vietnam, we’ve also lost Laos and Cambodia (remember that Vietnam considered itself to be the proper rulers there). But we’ve also sent the message that we won’t fight. So you can almost certainly kiss Taiwan and West Berlin goodbye and very likely Japan and West Germany.

France and Italy also had pretty strong Communist Parties, with a little help from the Soviets, and remember we won’t fight, they could easily have ended up in the Soviet Bloc as well. The same could be said for the Philippines and Indonesia. And if the Vietnamese and Koreans proved as willing to send troops to Africa as Cuba was, why then you can pretty much kiss the better part of Africa goodbye too.

One way or another we either had to fight at some point or else you're looking at a world dominated by the Soviet Union. And the argument that we would have fought over Japan or France because they were somehow important while Korea and Vietnam weren’t doesn’t wash, after all, we didn’t fight over China or Czechoslovakia and a lot of folks would argue that they were pretty important. A line had to be drawn somewhere and we just happened to draw it in Korea and Vietnam.

But how would a Soviet dominated world affect our “rights and freedoms?” Couldn’t we just keep the same “rights and freedoms?” Maybe, as long as the Soviets didn’t object too strongly. But maybe the Soviets would object to a “freedom of speech” which allows newspapers to write some pretty nasty things about the Soviet Union. Maybe they would look at our "“property rights" as an anachronism in a modern “civilized” “Soviet” world. And remember, they don’t necessarily have to invade to change things. “You wanna import titanium from Africa? You gotta do things our way.” And maybe our leaders would have "compromised."

Now I realize that this probably seems like a pretty far-fetched fantasy. But maybe that’s because we did draw a line and we did fight. And I, for one, am glad we did. And I, for one, thank every single one of those who sacrificed in the effort.

[Latro]

1812, that's where you declared war on Canada, wasn't it?
How was that invasion "fighting for your freedom" again?

[december]

Originally posted by Munch
december, how did the Korean and Vietnam Wars gain freedom for 1,000,000,000 people? The entire containment policy, started by Harry Truman and completed by Ronald Reagan, did result in freeing all those living under Soviet domination. Korea and Vietnam (flawed though they were) should be viewed as a part of that effort.

[Neurotik]

Originally posted by Munch
december, how did the Korean and Vietnam Wars gain freedom for 1,000,000,000 people?
I think he meant that the Korean and Vietnam Wars were part of the larger Cold War and that the "victory" by the US in that war freed a billion people. Even in that context I question the number, but it's a less atrocious statement than the Korean and Vietnam wars freed the billion.

[CuriousCanuck]

I just question the fact that December said that the USA "won" the wars....

Vietnam was lost. Korea was a draw to be diplomatic, with no peace treaty EVER agreed upon. Technically, N. Korea is still at war with S. Korea....

[RandySpears]

zifaretten:

You are right. It is a far-fetched fantasy.

Actually your whole argument is identical to the "domino theory", which two posts, pro- and con-, have admitted proven wrong above.

As for Vietnam considerering themselves to be the "proper rulers" of Cambodia: it is true that Vietnam, after the end of the vietnam-war, invadedn Cambodia. Cambodia was at the time called "Kamputchea", ran by Pol Pot and the Kmer Rouge, and in the habit of persecuting the Vietnamese minority (as well as its own population). A "humanitarian intervention" if there ever were one.

Still you may be suprised to learn that your government took the side of one of the most despicable dictators in world history, Pol Pot! Supposedly because of the doctrine "the enemys enemy".

[An Arky]

You have to stretch it quite a bit to say our (meaning people in the US) freedoms are being fought for. Those freedoms have never been under any threat by anyone other than our own government since they were written into law over 200 years ago. The War of 1812 is the only thing even close. Instability in other parts of the world do not constitute threats to our (people in the US) freedoms until we have the enemy on our land, having overthrown the government and putting new laws (martial or otherwise) into effect. So, put me down for "jingoistic catch phrase".

[december]

Originally posted by Neurotik
I think he meant that the Korean and Vietnam Wars were part of the larger Cold War and that the "victory" by the US in that war freed a billion people. Even in that context I question the number... Perhaps it's high. The former Soviet Union has a population of 291,652,566. http://www.russiannewsnetwork.com/religion.html To that must be added all the countries in the Soviet bloc -- Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, the Balkans, etc. Whether or not that adds up to a full billion, the end of the Soviet Union meant freedom for a helova lot of people.

CuriousCanuck, I did not mean to say tha the US won in Korea or in Vietnam. I meant that the US (along with the entire free world) won the cold war.

[december]

Originally posted by An Arky
Those freedoms have never been under any threat by anyone other than our own government since they were written into law over 200 years ago. I mereby nominate An Arky as president of the WHYDFML Club. Millions of people sacrificed their lives to prevent the worldwide domination, which was the aim of the Fascists and the Communists.

I would bet that An Arky is younger than 20. At least, I hope so.

[JRDelirious]

Still, the OP is not about "winning" wars but as to whether anyone serving in the US military is/has been/will be "fighting for our freedoms" -- meaning, presumably, the freedoms of USAmericans, to judge from RTA's location. Let's not get so hung up on catching december in an overstatement as to lose the topic.

As an extension of DDG's post: it is a figure of speech, by which is meant that all those who serve in the US military have the proximate mission of preserving the continued existence/security of the state known as the USA (formally phrased as "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies"); and that since said state/Constitution is the operational instrument the Americans use in order to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty", thus the servicemen ultimately protect that goal. Even if what one particular serviceman or group thereof was ordered by the President to actually DO had nothing to do with that defense.

[Monty]

Randy: North Vietnam also violated Cambodia's territory by using it for the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

[CuriousCanuck]

Originally posted by december
CuriousCanuck, I did not mean to say tha the US won in Korea or in Vietnam. I meant that the US (along with the entire free world) won the cold war.

Fair enough.. though there are compelling arguements that The other side "lost", rather than the US "winning" the cold war, but that is not a debate for this thread. :)

[An Arky]

December, to paraphrase your boy Reagan, "There you go again". The fact that the Germans and Russians had their misguided eyes on world domination doesn't mean they had the realistic means to do it. Yes, it was a threat to worldwide safety and well-being, but I don't think I'm reaching to say that, in practical terms, a takeover of the US and suspension of the Constitution and Bill of Rights was ever as realistic a threat as the threat of their insidious undermining that we face from Bush/Ashcroft.

And you completely misunderstand my opinion of the military, which I actually didn't give in my post. I have a tremendous amount of repect and admiration for those who serve and have served in the miltary. I just question the wisdom and motivation of those who send them off to fight/die.

As for the old saw you infer by assuming anyone who's "liberal" is either under 20 or an idiot is just plain laughable. I could just as easily say that if you're a "conservative", you either have neither a heart nor a brain, and it would be just as wrong.

Excuse me for not going into an orgasmic frenzy over politicians' pissing contests.

[gobear]

Actually, the US did win in Korea. ( or more properly the UN, although the US provided the lion's share of forces in the Korean War). The North Koreans invaded 25 June 1950 in order to conquer South korea. They were thrown out of the South and kept at bay by the ongoing US presence, hence we won.

[december]

Originally posted by An Arky
As for the old saw you infer by assuming anyone who's "liberal" is either under 20 or an idiot is just plain laughable. I was not talking about liberals in general. The Containment policy was started by liberal Harry Truman. We fought the Nazis under liberal FDR.

BTW, how old are you?

[RandySpears]

Originally posted by Monty
Randy: North Vietnam also violated Cambodia's territory by using it for the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

And in what may at best be called a response to this, the US bombed cambodians (viet congs and others alike) back to the stone age. A supposedly CIA-backed coup-detat disposed of the King for allowing vietnam to "violate" cambodias teritory. These events paved the way for the rising of Pol Pot and the Kmer Rouge.

[An Arky]

I'll be 40 next week:eek:

And I can write a check with 4 digits, form my own conclusions and am fully cognizant of our country's past and present leadership's so-called ideology.

And I'll be what is commonly refered to as a "liberal" until that term is further corrupted into something I'm not.

[Shodan]

Originally posted by Latro
1812, that's where you declared war on Canada, wasn't it?

No, Great Britain. Canada wasn't a separate country until 1867.
Originally posted by Latro

How was that invasion "fighting for your freedom" again? The British were stopping American ships and forcing American sailors to serve on British ships - an early version of the draft, and committed on American citizens.


Cite. (http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0861858.html)

Regards,
Shodan

[astro]

Originally posted by An Arky
Instability in other parts of the world do not constitute threats to our (people in the US) freedoms until we have the enemy on our land, having overthrown the government and putting new laws (martial or otherwise) into effect. So, put me down for "jingoistic catch phrase".

The world is considerably smaller than you might think in this respect. "Instabilities" can have profound effects far beyond their borders.

[zigaretten]

Originally posted by RandySpears
You are right. It is a far-fetched fantasy.


You are, of course, correct. There’s virtually no way that things would have happened just as I described. But remember, although it’s true that the “domino theory” never materialized, it failed to do so in the face of constant, continuous and sometimes ruthless opposition.
Take away that opposition and Vietnam falls by 1960 (if not 1954) rather than 1975. Laos and Cambodia would have followed shortly given Ho Chi Minh’s desire for an Indochina united under Vietnamese rule.


……..the (Indochinese Communist Party, founded by Ho Chi Minh) held it’s first national congress in Macao (1935)……and called for the future creation of an Indochinese federation under Vietnamese guidance that would be similar to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics……..”
Ho Chi Minh, a Life; by William J Duiker

"The Vietnamese Party reserves the right to supervise the activities of its brother parties in Cambodia and Laos.....later, if conditions permit, the three revolutionary Parties of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos will be able to unite to form a single Party..."
from a document released by the Indochinese Communist Party, Second National Congress, 1951

Given a communist Indochina unified under Vietnaese rule by 1960 and you’ve changed the history of south east asia rather significantly.

By the way, I’d be a lot more impressed by the “humanitarian” aspect of Vietnam’s intervention in Kampuchea if they had invaded as soon as they learned of the atrocities being committed instead of waiting until Kampuchea began staging attacks on Vietnamese territory. (see “The Pol Pot Regime by Ben Kiernan)

Another aside; after the Vietnamese intervention my country supported a loose coalition of opponents of the Vietnamese and expressed regret at the time that there was no way to support these groups without some of the money finding it’s way to the Khmer Rouge.

But a question for you; if the US had shown itself unwilling to fight, what would you say were the chances of Taiwan and West Berlin remaining free?

Originally posted by RandySpears
A supposedly CIA-backed coup-detat disposed of the King for allowing vietnam to "violate" cambodias teritory. These events paved the way for the rising of Pol Pot and the Kmer Rouge.


You’re correct. The actions of the US certainly helped destabilize Cambodia. But Pol Pot began fighting at least as early as 1962 when the Khmer Rouge (or KPRP as it was then known) assassinated Tou Samouth. And Sihanouk’s regime was already badly destabilized by 1966 due to the theft of literally two thirds of the Cambodian rice harvest by the Vietnamese which, since the Cambodian government relied on a tax on rice for it’s revenues, left Sihanouk bankrupt.

[Jackmannii]

Originally posted by RTA
I don't recall any of our freedoms being really under attack in Korea and Vietnam and Iraq - unless you mean the freedom to drive big honking SUVs.
I think it was Grenada that we invaded to protect the freedom to drive big honking SUVs. :rolleyes:

[Spavined Gelding]

Originally posted by december
I was not talking about liberals in general. The Containment policy was started by liberal Harry Truman. We fought the Nazis under liberal FDR.




Stop the presses! December tacitly concedes that some Democrats, and liberal Democrats at that, have done something praise worthy. Second Coming imminent.

[Latro]

Originally posted by Shodan
No, Great Britain. Canada wasn't a separate country until 1867.
The British were stopping American ships and forcing American sailors to serve on British ships - an early version of the draft, and committed on American citizens.


Cite. (http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0861858.html)

Regards,
Shodan

Thanks for the cite Shodan. It didn't state any reasons though.
I knew Canada wasnt a country yet, hit submit too fast.

From what I remembered of it, the impressment was just a minor irritance. The main drive behind the war was expansionism and the presence of Tecumseh, which bred fears of indian uprisings.
With Britain engaged with Napoleon the US saw its chance.


Anyways, here's just some cites on the reasons for the war of 1812.

http://amh.freehosting.net/1812.html
http://www.city-net.com/~markd/roots/history/us_war_of_1812.htm
http://www.galafilm.com/1812/e/intro/index.html

[RandySpears]

zigaretten:


Take away that opposition and Vietnam falls by 1960 (if not 1954) rather than 1975. Laos and Cambodia would have followed shortly given Ho Chi Minh’s desire for an Indochina united under Vietnamese rule.


First of all i wonder which opposition you are refering to, since this word is usually used of other groups of citizens in the country. It seems that you mean to say American opposition to Soviet influence in Vietnam. Whether Vietnam would "fall" or not is, apart from still being speculation, a take on what you put into the word "fall". The Vietnamese seem to have been more concerned of "falling" to US military, as suggested by their willingness to fight the same.



Given a communist Indochina unified under Vietnaese rule by 1960 and you’ve changed the history of south east asia rather significantly.

This opinion, believe is at best, heavily controversial, even if you try to back it up with heavily segmented quotes. The latter of which i believe only mentions the communist parties in those countries uniting (in unspecified way).

By the way, I’d be a lot more impressed by the “humanitarian” aspect of Vietnam’s intervention in Kampuchea if they had invaded as soon as they learned of the atrocities being committed instead of waiting until Kampuchea began staging attacks on Vietnamese territory. (see “The Pol Pot Regime by Ben Kiernan)

Kampuchea staging attacks on Vietnam still amounts to more agression than Iraq has shown towards the US. That doesnt stop pro-war debators from pointing out the humanitarian benefits they hope will come out of an intervention.

Another aside; after the Vietnamese intervention my country supported a loose coalition of opponents of the Vietnamese and expressed regret at the time that there was no way to support these groups without some of the money finding it’s way to the Khmer Rouge.

So they gave money effectively making it's way into Kmer Rouge pockets, they knew it, but they were sorry about it. At present the US reserve the right to freeze the assets of any organization the US suspect has a link to Al Qaida in any way. Need i mention that Pol Pot was responsible for deaths of numbers hundredfold to that of Bin Laden.

As a side note, US administration is right now excersising a boycott of foreign aid to any organization that is in any way related to abortion.


But a question for you; if the US had shown itself unwilling to fight, what would you say were the chances of Taiwan and West Berlin remaining free?


In the case of West Berlin, very high.


You’re correct. The actions of the US certainly helped destabilize Cambodia. But Pol Pot began fighting at least as early as 1962 when the Khmer Rouge (or KPRP as it was then known) assassinated Tou Samouth. And Sihanouk’s regime was already badly destabilized by 1966 due to the theft of literally two thirds of the Cambodian rice harvest by the Vietnamese which, since the Cambodian government relied on a tax on rice for it’s revenues, left Sihanouk bankrupt.

If the (alleged) rice theft was a major factor, how come then Pol Pot rose to power a full decade later?

Phew!

[Purplefloyd]

It seems to me that most of this post has been spent discussing communism and how the US "stopped the communist invasion and thwarted world influence by soviets and other communists yadda yadda yadda" Now the US may be against communism and not believe in it and I must admit that i dont like the idea myself, but i dont think we really had any right to fight over it. It seems that there is a double standard where the US can spread its influence anywhere it wants and we can call it "freedom". But if some other group tries to spread its belief we object to the point that we will use force. So now we are the superpower with fairly dominant influence in much of the world(relatively), but how are we any more honorable? Can we ever just mind our own busness and take care of ourselves?- seems to me our resources would also be better spent that way.....

[RTA]

Some responses:

DD Goose: I hear your point but I don't see how the Supreme Court does any "fighting" for anything. They review cases passed along from lower courts, and I believe there have been some recent decisions which make the assertion that they are all about defending our civil rights quite debatable. In any case activist courts are generally frowned upon in the US. Now JRDelirious' further explanation of your response is praiseworthy and very reasonable in a legal sense, yet I still question how a Gulf War vet can honestly make the claim that he "fought for my freedoms". I just don't see it.

zigaretten: except we did lose Cambodia, see all above under "Khmer Rouge". India and Indonesia used to get most of their weapons from the USSR, and now both are ostensibly democracies, without us having to lift a finger. I simply can't envision a scenario where France and Italy would have gone Communist if not for US pressure, France especially, who to this day prides herself on not being in anyone's camp but her own.

Shodan explains well why I say the 1812 war preserved American freedoms.

I think it was Grenada that we invaded to protect the freedom to drive big honking SUVs.

Really, eye-roller? I thought Grenada was Reagan's convenient and feelgood response to the Beirut bombing of the Marine barracks. If you think those US med students' freedoms were under clear and present danger from those Cuban runway contractors, well I just don't know what to say other than I disagree. Is it your position that the troops who invaded Grenada were fighting to preserve American freedoms? Which ones? What about the troops who died invading Panama just to nab Noriega?

[RandySpears]

Well, really, i think (hopes) Shodan was being ironic. You're on our side, right Shodan ;)

[sqweels]

Tha fact that we lost Vietnam but did not lose any of our freedoms (in fact the counterculture and protest movement arguably won us some freedoms) is demonstrative.

Gjorp is on the right track. At the time it was deemed that inaction would entail greater risks of eventually losing our freedom. Plus you might say that they were fighting for freedom in an idealistic rather than actual sense (exept for the people in the countries we defended/liberated).

The real question is the actual intentions of those we feared to be threatening our freedom. Don't be so quick to make WWII an exception to the OP. I could go so far as to as to claim that the notion that the Axis powers would have conquered the US is the greatest myth of the 20th Century. Hitler's primary goals were to destroy the Soviet Union and create lebenraum in the East. Japan's were to create an empire in East Asia--but the US was starting to interfere. They figured that eliminating our "chess pieces"at Pearl Harbor would compel the US to back off.

Hitler hoped to avoid war with Britain and France and in fact they declared war on Germany, not vice versa. After the fall of France, Hitler offered "generous" peace terms to Britain, and there are claims that the preparations for Operation Sealion were an elaborate bluff--indeed the Krauts never developed a truly adequate capability to invade Britain. As for their attempts to bomb the Brits into submission, "submission" in this case meant aquiescense, not occupation.

Hitler declared war on the US in hopes that the Japs wouls reciprocate against the USSR, and to clear away the sticking points that US neutrality was creating for his U-boat campaign. He figured that Pearl Harbor meant the US now lacked the naval strength to challenge the U-boats and project its power into Europe. Both Axis figured that once the US got its "fingers burned" across both oceans we would lose the stomach for war and be content to dominate our own hemisphere. Hitler went further in figuring that the US and GB would adopt a can't-lick-em-so-join-em attitude to divvy the World up among the "Big Five" dominant powers.

As the war progressed, Germany and Japan did indeed seek ways to attack the US, including the possible use of WMDs. But at all times the goal was to knock us out of the war in order to give them a free hand in their respective spheres of conquest. An invasion of North America was out of the question. The military problems posed by such an undertaking would have been insurmountable, even with Germay and Japan working in tandem (I could go into a bit more deatil).

Not all of the above is readily citable; it's a summary of what I've gleaned from a lifetime of stuying WWII, but I stand by it. No threat to US freedom in WWII.

[Jackmannii]

I may have to rethink my policy on irony and sarcasm, since too much of it is flying over the heads of other posters. Even the whooshing sounds must be subsonic, like those produced by a dog whistle.

Regardless of RTA's rather inane invoking of the SUV Bogey, I think I see a bit of what's bugging him. Statements about "I fought the war to protect your freedoms" often carry an undertone of "I bravely carried the flag in our country's military so that little knee-jerk hippie swine like you could give aid and comfort to the enemy". The idea that freedom to protest should exist yet not be used by patriotic Americans tends to surface at times like these (there's a pit thread (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?&threadid=163568) seemingly devoted to this very theme right now).

And yet in general, I think that veterans' thoughts on imminent conflict deserve respectful attention. I'm not comfortable with cherry-picking the wars in which participation means having fought for our freedoms. We should listen to the views of those who served in the military - not necessarily agreeing, but listening.

[Duck Duck Goose]

I still question how a Gulf War vet can honestly make the claim that he "fought for my freedoms". I just don't see it.Like JR said, it's a figure of speech. It isn't meant to be taken literally.

Example: The Decatur Kiwanis Club paid for building a really nice park down by the lake. People who joined the Kiwanis Club since then--people who had no part in the original decision--are nevertheless allowed to take credit for the Kiwanis Club's having built that park. They're allowed to say, "Yes, we [meaning the Kiwanis Club] built that."

And by the same token, then, a Gulf War vet, who is a member of the "club"--the armed forces--of the government that sent its armed forces to defend your freedoms in 1776, 1812, and 1941, is allowed to say, "Yes, we [meaning the United States armed forces] defended Freedom."

Here's a list of some of the other important civil rights decisions the Supreme Court has handed down.

http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/crights/scdec.htm

The current members of the Supreme Court, even though they may not have been personally involved in any of these decisions, can still take credit for them. They are allowed to say, "Yes, we [meaning the Supreme Court] handed down the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling", which was the one that outlawed segregation in schools and guaranteed equal access to education for all American schoolchildren, regardless of skin color.

If you really don't see how the Supreme Court is "fighting for" your civil rights, then I can't help you. I suggest you look through the link above and consider how your life might be different without those decisions.

If Brown vs. Board of Education hadn't been handed down, you would have gone to school in an all-black or all-white school. If Heart of Atlanta Motel vs. the United States hadn't been handed down, when you stayed in a motel or hotel, it would have been an all-black or all-white motel or hotel.

The Supreme Court was responsible for deciding that private colleges like Bob Jones University aren't entitled to any federal funds if they aren't going to uphold federal standards of non-discrimination.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally posted by zigaretten
But remember, although it’s true that the “domino theory” never materialized, it failed to do so in the face of constant, continuous and sometimes ruthless opposition.

Pssst, zigaretten, wanna buy some elephant powder? Good stuff: I've been using it continuously, and the elephants ain't got me yet!

Daniel

[Shodan]

Originally posted by RandySpears
Well, really, i think (hopes) Shodan was being ironic. You're on our side, right Shodan ;)

The War of 1812 was fought at least partially to preserve the freedom of the US. The impressment of American sailors occurred most famously in the Chesapeake incident.

And the freedom of Americans from kidnapping by a foreign power is pretty fundamental.

Very few wars are fought entirely for pure and noble motives, but the defense of American freedom is generally one of the reasons America goes to war.

Unless I've been whooshed.

Regards,
Shodan

[msmith537]

Originally posted by An Arky
Instability in other parts of the world do not constitute threats to our (people in the US) freedoms until we have the enemy on our land, having overthrown the government and putting new laws (martial or otherwise) into effect. So, put me down for "jingoistic catch phrase". [/B]

How about making sure that those instabilities in other parts of the world don't grow into a threat that can actually end up in our land?


Originally posted by sqweels
Not all of the above is readily citable; it's a summary of what I've gleaned from a lifetime of stuying WWII, but I stand by it. No threat to US freedom in WWII.


And yet I can't help but feel the world is a better place for not being dominated by the Third Reich and Imperial Japan.

[zigaretten]

Originally posted by RandySpears
First of all I wonder which opposition you are refering to, since this word is usually used of other groups of citizens in the country. It seems that you mean to say American opposition to Soviet influence in Vietnam. Whether Vietnam would "fall" or not is, apart from still being speculation, a take on what you put into the word "fall".


Yes, I’m referring to US opposition to Vietnam becoming both communist and a member of the “Soviet Bloc.” In the absence of such opposition this “fall,” or call it what you will, seems to me to have been inevitable given the Viet Minh victory over the French at Diem Bien Phu in 1954.

I’m sorry if you don’t want to believe that Ho Chi Minh envisioned a greater Indochina under Vietnamese rule. It was a fairly basic part of his overall philosophy. Any decent biography should cover this point. And in fact Vietnam did invade Kampuchea in 1978 while Laos, whose politics are considerably more complex, was well protected by the 30,000 Vietnamese soldiers stationed within its borders.

And given that the Communist Party was the actual ruling body in the Soviet Union and in all Soviet Bloc nations, talk of uniting the three parties amounts to uniting the three governments.

As for the influence of a 1960 communist Indochina on the history of SE Asia, I can, of course, only speculate. I doubt, however, that it would have been to the benefit if the US. And given the difficulties that Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, amongst others, had with communist insurgencies during the 70s, despite constant, continuous and sometimes ruthless support from the US, I suspect that it could have been very much to our disadvantage.

Originally posted by RandySpears
As a side note, US administration is right now excersising a boycott of foreign aid to any organization that is in any way related to abortion.

Yes, I’m willing to go somewhat off-topic but this is too much.

Originally posted by RandySpears
In the case of West Berlin, very high.


Well. I admire your optimism if not your reasoning, but given the following………

June, 1948 to May, 1949……………Soviets cut off all ground traffic to West Berlin, Truman begins to airlift food and supplies.

November, 1958……..Krushchev issues an ultimatum giving the western powers six months to withdraw from West Berlin, after which they will have access to West Berlin only at the discretion of the East German government.
After meetings between the “Big Four” powers he withdraws the ultimatum and agrees that the Berlin problem and “……all outstanding international questions should be settled, not by the application of force, but by peaceful means through negotiation."

August, 1961……….the Berlin Wall is built.

…….I’m afraid that I can’t share that optimism.


Originally posted by RandySpears
If the (alleged) rice theft was a major factor, how come then Pol Pot rose to power a full decade later?

Destabilized regimes often last for quite some time; and this one was being propped up by the US, remember?

Oh, and for the "alleged" theft of rice see How Pol Pot Came to Power: A History of Communism in Kampuchea by Ben Kiernan

[RandySpears]

Originally posted by Shodan
The War of 1812 was fought at least partially to preserve the freedom of the US. The impressment of American sailors occurred most famously in the Chesapeake incident.

And the freedom of Americans from kidnapping by a foreign power is pretty fundamental.

Very few wars are fought entirely for pure and noble motives, but the defense of American freedom is generally one of the reasons America goes to war.

Unless I've been whooshed.

Regards,
Shodan

Well, Shodan, I was commenting on your statement that the Grenada war was for your liberty to ride big shiny SUV:s! Or at least I thought i were?

[RandySpears]

zigaretten:


I’m sorry if you don’t want to believe that Ho Chi Minh envisioned a greater Indochina under Vietnamese rule. It was a fairly basic part of his overall philosophy. Any decent biography should cover this point. And in fact Vietnam did invade Kampuchea in 1978 while Laos, whose politics are considerably more complex, was well protected by the 30,000 Vietnamese soldiers stationed within its borders.


I'll have to look that up my friend! I admit to not reading that many Ho-Chi-Min biographys. Still even if that was so, as history goes old Ho never pursued what he "envisioned" to any greater effect, than invading Kamputchea after, as you pointed, out being attacked.

The the pertinent fact remains: Vietnams intervention resulted in the end of a regime responsible for the death of 2 million of it's people. The US effectivly supported that same regime, financialy and politically in the UN. American intervention killed 60 thousand americans and many more Vietnamese (a figure someone). All of Indochine still became communist, as pointed out by earlier posts.
Thailand, Indonesia and the Phillipines did not.

This is how the domino effect was proven wrong.


And given the difficulties that Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, amongst others, had with communist insurgencies during the 70s, despite constant, continuous and sometimes ruthless support from the US [...]


One example of the "sometimes ruthless support" you are refering to here would be that of Suharto in indonesia, whos coup-detat killed between 500 000 and a million. The 500 000 estimate is the official Indonesian one. He went on to, in 1975, invade and occupy East Timor, which resulted in an estimated 200,000 deaths in a population of only 700,000.

But still "Indonesia has remained a key US ally and the recipient of billions of dollars in American military and economic aid over several decades" as discussed here:

http://www.motherjones.com/east_timor/features/usaid.html

An account of US policy on how Suharto handles his internal affairs as recent as 1998 (during the Clinton administration), right before his fall from power because of domestic economic difficulties can be found here:

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9801/11/malaysia.cohen/

As to the Bush administration boycot of foreign aid to organizations who is associated with abortion; This was stated in the context of the US admitting that its economic contributions was unfortunatly finding their way to the Khmer Rouge, and that that was regretable, but necessary.

My point was that in other contexts there seem to be no problem in keeping money from ending up in "unsuitable" places, if the will exists. The organisations that are associated with abortion are often also the ones trying to provide condoms, for example in AIDS sticken nations. But i can aknowledge that my other example was more pertinent here.

Finally, West Berlin, and the rice theft. Actually I was somehow thinking of Western Germany, but i did write about West Berlin. My bad. What you have there is pretty well-founded speculation. But speculation it is.

And the rice theft: well again i'll have to look that up. I simply haven't heard anything about that incident. I still don't get how an event a decade earlier can be more of a foundation for the rise of Pol Pot than the bombings carried out in the years before.

[zigaretten]

Originally posted by RTA
zigaretten: except we did lose Cambodia, see all above under "Khmer Rouge". India and Indonesia used to get most of their weapons from the USSR, and now both are ostensibly democracies, without us having to lift a finger. I simply can't envision a scenario where France and Italy would have gone Communist if not for US pressure, France especially, who to this day prides herself on not being in anyone's camp but her own.


zigaretten: except we did lose Cambodia, see all above under "Khmer Rouge". India and Indonesia used to get most of their weapons from the USSR, and now both are ostensibly democracies, without us having to lift a finger. I simply can't envision a scenario where France and Italy would have gone Communist if not for US pressure, France especially, who to this day prides herself on not being in anyone's camp but her own.

But…..we lost Cambodia in 1975 as opposed to the early sixties or even the fifties (as a worst case scenario), the same with Vietnam and Laos. Also, by the time we lost them they were war torn nations which needed to concentrate on rebuilding their infrastructure rather than spreading revolution. And then, much to our delight (I’m sure) they turned on each other and we were able, by supporting Pol Pot (actually the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea which included the FUNCINPEC of Prince Sihanouk and the KPNLF of Son Sann) to keep Vietnam, and it’s puppets Kampuchea and Laos, busy until the Soviet Union began to collapse and the Cold War ended.

But as I say, take away the Vietnam War and assume a united communist Indochina at a much earlier date and you’ve got a whole different scenario. And if you’re not aware, Pol Pot staged a series of attacks on Thailand as well as on Vietnam and the attacks on Thailand were often carried out in cooperation with Thai communists. If Pol Pot had hated the Vietnamese just a little bit less things might have been very different.

I don’t know Indonesian history all that well, but I am under the impression that they got their arms from Britain and that both Britain and the US were, at the very least, “involved” in the coup which brought Suharto to power (at least Chomsky says we were). And I believe he got US cooperation in crushing the communist movement in Indonesia.
(On preview I see that RandySpears seems to have posted some material on Indonesia which supports my point, that it didn't just turn out peachy keen for no reason but was, in fact, a bloody mess.)

Now it’s true that in the case of Indonesia and “supporting” Pol Pot after the Vietnamese invasion we did our “fighting” without the actual use of American troops. But it’s all part and parcel of the same package as Vietnam and Korea. Namely containment. And I certainly don’t believe that we could have gotten away with not using troops in Korea and I doubt that we could have delayed the Vietnamese for very long given the size of the communist infrastructure.

As for France and Italy going communist, you may have a hard time envisioning it but the post-war US government certainly didn’t. In Italy’s first election in 1946 the communists received the second most votes and if you combined their votes with those of the socialists they would have won. So when the communists and socialists combined to form one party in 1948 Washington was worried. I won’t go into a lot details but we basically held up a lot of foreign aid (which war torn Italy needed very badly) and launched a propaganda blitz making it clear that if Italy leaned to the left they were out of luck as far as we were concerned. Yet the communists/socialists still were able to come in second.

France adds a little irony. In the first post-war election in France the Communist Party was the single strongest party with 26% of the vote, but they were unable to form a coalition and so had to settle for the office of Vice Premier. The Irony lies in the fact that Truman had initially been pressuring France to act on Vietnamese independence. The French communists realized that the people were worried about losing the Empire and that this was a weak point for those parties which sided with the US, so they came out in favor of the Empire even though colonialism was generally anathema to communists. It was concern over strengthening the French communists that caused Truman to support French colonial claims in Indochina and that is really the beginning of our real involvement there. Sad, but ironic.

By the way, you’re correct about the French. The French communists probably had the weakest ties with Moscow of any communist party in Europe. If they had gone communist they would probably have been another Yugoslavia, but there are no guarentees.

Originally posted by RTA
I thought Grenada was Reagan's convenient and feelgood response to the Beirut bombing of the Marine barracks.

I thought that Granada was about the fact that the Cubans were building an airport which could handle Soviet long range bombers there.

[amarone]

Originally posted by Shodan
The War of 1812 was fought at least partially to preserve the freedom of the US. The impressment of American sailors occurred most famously in the Chesapeake incident.

And the freedom of Americans from kidnapping by a foreign power is pretty fundamental.

Look at the links posted by latro for the real reasons. Plus the British had agreed to stop impressment before the war even started.

[RandySpears]

zigaretten:

So should we percieve your general stance on the morals of US foreign policy "defending our freedom" as: any means used was justified, even if that at the time meant any means possible?

[Scylla]

RTA:

As a young man my father served two tours as a Recon Marine in Vietnam. In one tour he was a forward observer infiltrating enemy territory to direct artillery fire from ships a hundred miles away. Forward Observors tended not to live very long, but my father got lucky. He attributes his survival on this first tour to the ract that he was so sure he was going to die, that he was no longer panicked by the prospect. His second tour he served as a Sniper with a Recon unit, was briefly captured and had most of his teeth beaten out of his head with a rifle butt before he was rescued.

My father went because he was told that communism was a threat and that his country needed him. Back then, if you were my father and your country called on you, you did not question it. You answered the call for help and you served.

Whether or not you agree with Vietnam, Communism was a real threat, and my father trusted his country to use his life wisely when he put it in his country's service.

So, if you ask what rights of yours my father fought for for you, I'll tell you that it was all of them. Every one. If you feel our country did not use our men wisely that may or may not be a valid argument. I honestly don't know. I do know that it's a moot point. Whether or not our country failed or made a wrong decision or used our men unwisely reflects not at all on the quality of the men who answered the call.

I can respect people who protested the war. Men like Mohammed Ali protested openly and accepted the penalty for their convictions that led them to civil disobediance. I see honor in that.

For those that ran and hid, or partied, or enjoyed the age of Aquarius while others did their duty, I have nothing for contempt.

Oddly, my father does not share that contempt. Though he's never said as much, my father does not words on the cowards, or the shirkers, or those who rationalized their way out of answering their country's call, of doing their duty, and decided they's rather have fun and let somebody else worry about it. I've always felt that my father's absence of malice was pretty much akin to the same absence of malice he displayed when the dog ate some food off the kitchen table. He didn't blame a dog for being a dog. In the same way, those who refused to serve and simply enjoyed the liberties my father fought for did not deserve contempt. Contempt was something you reserved for equals. For men.

I'll answer your question again: My father fought for all of your rights and liberties, because when he was called upon to do so, he went.

Their is a huge gulf of athority and integrity between those who answered and those who ask what they were fighting for. The very fact that you should ask and not understand is all the proof that's needed that they succeeded.

[Sam Stone]

Shodan explains well why I say the 1812 war preserved American freedoms.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think it was Grenada that we invaded to protect the freedom to drive big honking SUVs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Really, eye-roller? I thought Grenada was Reagan's convenient and feelgood response to the Beirut bombing of the Marine barracks.


How ridiculous. Is this an example of what passes for critical thought on the left these days? You're seriously suggesting that Reagan got 'revenge' for a bombing of American troops by a terrorist in the Middle East by attacking a small island country thousands of miles away, overthrown by Communists? Does that make ANY sense?

For the record, Grenada was subject to a bloody coup by a Marxist dictator, supported by Cuban troops. Not only were the 1000 students at risk, but if the coup had stood, the Soviet Union would have had yet another client state in the U.S.'s back yard. It was clearly an unacceptable situation, and allowing that coup to stand would have signalled the Soviets and Cuba that the U.S. would not oppose military intervention in the hemisphere. The result of THAT would have been a larger military action somewhere else, and the U.S. would have been forced to respond. When are people on your side going to learn that the way to peace is to oppose aggression, rather than to appease it?


If you think those US med students' freedoms were under clear and present danger from those Cuban runway contractors, well I just don't know what to say other than I disagree.


Cuban 'contractors' with military training, each armed with an AK-47, and supported by 184 Cuban special forces armed with 12.7mm AA guns, heavy machine guns, and mortars.

Last time I drove past a construction site here in town, I noticed that the guys driving the asphalt machines weren't armed with assault rifles. Funny that.


Is it your position that the troops who invaded Grenada were fighting to preserve American freedoms? Which ones?


Well, in the case of 1000 students, how about the right to not be arrested and held hostage, or executed as spies, or... We have no idea what might have ultimately happened, because thank God Reagan didn't let that aggression stand. As for whose freedom the U.S. was fighting for, how about the Grenadans who cheered in the streets when the American troops arrived?

Or do you seriously think that Grenada would be a better country today if the Communist dictator had remained in power?

[Sterra]

Originally posted by Scylla
My father went because he was told that communism was a threat and that his country needed him. Back then, if you were my father and your country called on you, you did not question it. You answered the call for help and you served.
If your father had been told that RTA was the threat what would your father have done?

I've always felt that my father's absence of malice was pretty much akin to the same absence of malice he displayed when the dog ate some food off the kitchen table. He didn't blame a dog for being a dog. In the same way, those who refused to serve and simply enjoyed the liberties my father fought for did not deserve contempt. Contempt was something you reserved for equals. For men.

I suppose only fighters and men deserve freedom. Because that is what your father was fighting for. Not the people of America, but for himself and his worldview.

[Measure for Measure]

Well, I'd say Scylla's Dad made a good-faith response when he was called to serve.

Still, I was puzzled by one part of Scylla's post.

---------"For those that ran and hid, or partied, or enjoyed the age of Aquarius while others did their duty, I have nothing for contempt."

Ok, I understand the "ran and hid" argument. The other part is unclear to me. You're saying I'm hypothetically suppose to volunteer for a war that looks nuts to me? Or if I don't, I'm suppose to devote myself 24/7 to opposing it? I know you didn't say the forgoing, but my problem is that I'm not sure what you are saying.

[AvidReader]

Originally posted by Sam Stone
How ridiculous. Is this an example of what passes for critical thought on the left these days? When are people on your side going to learn that the way to peace is to oppose aggression, rather than to appease it?




Really? Merriam-Webster defines aggression as:
1 : a forceful action or procedure (as an unprovoked attack) especially when intended to dominate or master

That being the case you right wingers. in order to keep the peace, had better start opposing that philistine in the White House for the aggresive action he is about to take on Iraq.

[Nocktober]

Originally posted by RTA
In these days of polarized war talk, there's a line of thinking I've been hearing a lot lately and it has crawled into my subconsious and taken root. Generally it comes from someone who is pro-war and/or pro-Bush, but definitely pro-military.

It goes something like this: "Well I/we/they fought in Korea/Vietnam/Iraq to defend your right to say such a thing about what our President is trying to accomplish over there."

Actually I don't think so. I don't recall any of our freedoms being really under attack in Korea and Vietnam and Iraq - unless you mean the freedom to drive big honking SUVs. In the case of Vietnam, I would venture that many of our freedoms were under attack right here at home, much like today.

I'd ask the Vietnamese about that. Of course, the only ones free to speak are over here ...

Korea was a faraway police action and the "domino theory" has been proven wrong and discarded.

I must have missed that mathematical proof that the domino theory was wrong. So we learned the communists weren't out to spread communism after all?

... So I invite all those who unilaterally assume that every serviceman and woman is out there "defending my rights and freedoms" to consider for a minute which of my freedoms are and have been under assault, and by whom. Isn't the rationale that one is "defending American freedoms" in many cases just a jingoistic catchphrase? Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

No one has a right to stifle your dissent.
OTOH, military might is, realpolitik, pretty much the assurance of our rights. If we didn't have the military, we wouldn't have rights.

[HubZilla]

Very few of them actually "fought". Most were behind the lines in support positions, etc.

[RTA]

It did occur to me Hubzilla that the majority of those in the military are rear echelon types who never see or do any "fighting" per se but I am open enough to charges of being anti-military and anti-veteran without referring directly to those who, to quote Patton, "shoveled shit in Louisiana" and asking how they can with a straight face claim that they "fought for my rights".

People like Scylla's father are to be commended for their valiant and good-faith service but if you don't mind I will continue to profess that unquestioning obedience and the dewy-eyed reverence for same are not necessarily virtues. That is a Victorian mindset. Hair-raising details of service aside, there is a disconnect between talking about how the father went because he was called upon by his country to fight Communists and how the father was fighting for our freedoms because he went. As far as unmitigated contempt for those who partied their way through the Age of Aquarius, what of Mr. Bush himself? (I know I know, "He was a fighter pilot"; sure.)

Re: Grenada. I remember the time well. We had the bombing in Beirut, which provoked much anguish in the US and second-guessing about our role overseas. Just a few short days later, we pulled an overwhelming blitzkrieg on a little speck of an island nobody had ever heard of, and it was sold to the public as the biggest military triumph since D-Day and as a major wellspring of American pride.

I really don't place a lot of stock in the alarmist intelligence reports that the Reagan White House released about why they had to jump in there so all of a sudden. I believe the indications that Reagan and his handlers were very angry and frustrated about Beirut and pulled the foreign-policy equivalent of kicking a small dog across the room.

DD Goose's "Decatur Kiwanis Club" analogy is quite good and makes perfect sense though I still question how club membership grants full credit for past accomplishments, that is, how club members can honestly claim full credit for events they had no participation in. By honestly I mean self-honesty. (Take me for example. I served in the peacetime Army four years and you better believe I fought - I fought to stay warm and dry while in a hole in the ground out in the forest! No thanks for my service to my country are necessary.)

As far as the Supreme Court, again, there is never any fighting involved. The Supreme Court does not fight anyone. It is the nine-pound hammer that ends all fights and brooks no discussion.

[Duck Duck Goose]

Okay, I withdraw the word "fighting".

"Sticks up for" your civil rights?

[msmith537]

Originally posted by AvidReader
That being the case you right wingers. in order to keep the peace, had better start opposing that philistine in the White House for the aggresive action he is about to take on Iraq. [/B]

Yeah..let the Iraqis fight for their own freedoms!

[sqweels]

Msmith:
And yet I can't help but feel the world is a better place for not being dominated by the Third Reich and Imperial Japan.

No argument there, of course. The irony is that the US was being more selfless and altruistic than they gave themselves credit for.

[The Flying Dutchman]

Freedom, as we in the west know it, is far more fragile than most of us would think. We were born into it, assuming our sense of it to be the norm and entrenched.

It is a quirk of history that on a far flung island of humanity the seed of democracy and citizen right,the precurser to freedom, dormant for over a thousand years was reborn on the pages of Magna Carta. Through a series of unique historical events the concept bloomed and spread to this island's progeny and close neighbours.
Most of the rest of the world's countries however, it appears are ruled by dictators or oligarchies. That is the normal fallback condition of a country.

Whenever and wherever American soldiers fight under their flag, they are fighting for the freedoms within their own country by attacking the thugs who intend to subvert the path to freedom in the world. The security of an American's freedom in the world is enhanced by opposing every small measure that challenges it. It is enhanced by every removal of dictatorship that enslaves people and thereby creating opportunities for freedom to spread. There is safety in numbers. America has never attacked a country/government during my lifetime that had democracy/freedoms comparable to its own.

I shudder to think what the world would be like if America never projected its power. I just can't envision one plausible favourable scenario.

[zigaretten]

Originally posted by RandySpears
Still even if that was so, as history goes old Ho never pursued what he "envisioned" to any greater effect, than invading Kamputchea after, as you pointed, out being attacked.

I’m afraid that isn’t quite the case. Though let’s forget about old Ho, cause he died in 1969. So let’s just talk about the Vietnamese, cause they went ahead with his plan without him.

Now, let me be blunt, international relations, even those between rather small nations, get very complicated, and they aren’t exactly my specialty. Which leads to two points, in order to really convince you of Vietnams intentions toward Cambodia and Laos I would have to write a book (or several books), and I’m not competent to write that book even if you had the patience to read it. But I’ll do what I can. Hopefully, if you really doubt my point, you’ll do some research on your own, which is all I could possibly ask.

So, Vietnam definitely received a set-back in Cambodia when Pol Pot came to power and he turned out to be anti-Vietnamese. But this definitely came as a surprise to the Vietnamese. In support of this I would point out that Pol Pot received a great deal of training and supplies from the Vietnamese and if the Vietnamese had realized Pol Pot’s true sympathies then they would have supported some other Cambodian faction. As a result of Pol Pot's antipathy they made no progress in Cambodia until they finally invaded, regardless of their motives, and were able to set up what I believe even you will admit was a “puppet regime.”

But let’s look at Laos, where the Vietnamese had no such problems. And keep in mind what I have stated was the goal of the Vietnamese; to create a single Indochina united along the lines of the USSR. The importance of this is that the USSR always pretended to be a voluntary association of 16 separate and independent republics. So the plan was never to unify Indochina into a single country, but rather into an “association” of countries dominated by Vietnam.

Now Laos: I’ve already pointed out that as late as 1979 the Vietnamese had 30,000 troops stationed within Laotian borders. This alone raises questions about Laotian independence. But let’s see what Martin Stuart-Fox has to say in his A History of Laos. After Vietnam and Laos became communist, which happened at virtually the same time because the Pathet Lao were always dependant on the Vietnamese, a series of agreements were signed between the two countries which I won’t even try to detail; but here’s how Stuart-Fox describes the situation in 1978 after Vietnam invades Cambodia:


On December 25, 1978 Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia to overthrow the Khmer Rouge government of Pol Pot. Two weeks later Laos was the first country formally to recognize the Vietnamese-backed People’s Republic of Kampuchea. In March, Suphanuvong (my note: former prince whom the Laotians used for diplomatic missions, etc.) paid a state visit to Phnom Penh, during which a cooperative agreement was concluded with the new Vietnamese-backed Cambodian regime. This, though less comprehensive than the treaties signed by each country with Vietnam, effectively completed the formal basis for a new “solidarity bloc” linking the three states of Indochina, in which Vietnam clearly was primus inter pares.

So the suggestion that the Vietnamese never pursued “Ho’s vision” doesn’t really hold water.

Originally posted by RandySpears
All of Indochine still became communist, as pointed out by earlier posts.

Thailand, Indonesia and the Phillipines did not.

This is how the domino effect was proven wrong.

I think I covered this in my reply to RTA, but I’ll make the point again just to make sure………You’ve pointed out that my suggestion that, in the absence of a US willingness to fight, the Soviets would have taken West Berlin is just speculation. You are absolutely correct. We can’t know what “would” have happened. But, by the same token, you’re suggestion that Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines wouldn’t have fallen, and that is what you’re suggesting, is also speculation. We do not and can not know what would have happened in the absence of American fighting because America did fight.

And each of the above countries had rather ugly communist insurgencies on their hands in spite of American fighting. Do you actually believe that those insurgencies would have been lessened by America’s absence? I’ll admit it’s possible, but I have serious doubts.

Originally posted by RandySpears
So should we percieve your general stance on the morals of US foreign policy "defending our freedom" as: any means used was justified, even if that at the time meant any means possible?

No, my position is that that is an issue for another debate. In this debate I am only arguing that our actions served the purpose of maintaining a strong US “world presence” and that that “strength” did serve a purpose in preserving our “rights and freedoms.” Whether our actions were the “best possible actions” or even “justified given the circumstances” are irrelevant to this particular debate.

Originally posted by RandySpears
And the rice theft: well again i'll have to look that up. I simply haven't heard anything about that incident. I still don't get how an event a decade earlier can be more of a foundation for the rise of Pol Pot than the bombings carried out in the years before.


I think I’ve given a wrong impression here. You’re not looking for “an incident.” You’re looking for an ongoing problem which began in 1966. I hope that by now we can all agree that, despite lots of denials at the time, by the mid-60s Eastern Cambodia was pretty much overrun by the Vietnamese. And those Vietnamese needed rice. And they didn’t particularly feel like paying taxes on it. And the Cambodian government pretty much depended on those taxes. But this was a problem that extended from 1966 until the fall of Cambodia.

You can find it mentioned in the second paragraph here (http://www.seasite.niu.edu/khmer/Ledgerwood/Part1.htm). Here they mention “over a quarter” of the rice crop vs my “two thirds.” I’ll anticipate your objection by pointing out that the amount varied from year to year and is based on “estimates,” so we’re both correct, give or take a little.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally posted by Scylla
For those that ran and hid, or partied, or enjoyed the age of Aquarius while others did their duty, I have nothing for contempt.


That's some nasty shit. I can respect your father's decision, even though I think it was a terrible, morally flawed decision, because he's an equal. He's a person trying to make ethical decisions in an ethically murky world.

My own father avoided going to Vietnam by claiming a skin disease. I consider this a much more ethical decision than choosing to go to war in Vietnam.

Less brave? Whatever. Bravery and ethics are kissing cousins, nothing more, and I respect an ethical coward more than an unethical bravado.

Duty? Whatever. From where I stand, it was the duty of every American citizen to work against the war effort, to impede it, to prevent its success. Your father, who saw things differently, believed it his duty to go to war.

Maybe you should check in with your father, learn why he respected people who didn't cooperate with the war effort, rather than making smug assumptions about them and your father both. I suspect he may be wiser than you're giving him credit for.

Daniel
:mad:

[gobear]

My own father avoided going to Vietnam by claiming a skin disease. I consider this a much more ethical decision than choosing to go to war in Vietnam.

Lying is hardly an ethical act (Just ask Kant!) Your father should have imitated Gandhi, Bertrand Russell, and Thoreau by openly defying the draft law and taking the penalty.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

First, Gobear, I deliberately left it vague as to whether he'd claimed the disease falsely. That's because he wasn't sure: he developed a rash, went to a doctor and told the doctor he thought it was psoriasis, and took the doctor's prescription for psoriasis medication to the draft board.

Second, I see no dishonor in lying to an unethical bully. If person A intends threatens to harm person B if person B doesn't commit an evil act, person B is under no obligation to accept person A's threatened harm.

If you tell me, "You better go shoot Frank over there, or I'm gonna lock you up in my basement for two years," and I say, "Gee, sorry, love to go shoot Frank, but I'm late for an important date," I've done no evil by lying to you about an important date. I certainly don't need to limit myself to your two arbitrary choices.

You only have a moral duty to accept the consequences of your actions if the person creating those consequences is also behaving morally. If they're using unethical coercion, then they've forfeited a right to your honesty.

That's my take, anyway. Of course, Thoreau and Gandhi decided to go an extra step: they decided to use martyrdom as a political tool. But nobody is obligated to act the martyr.

Daniel

[Scylla]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
That's some nasty shit. I can respect your father's decision, even though I think it was a terrible, morally flawed decision, because he's an equal. He's a person trying to make ethical decisions in an ethically murky world.

No. He's not. It's not a morally relativistic ethical decision or whatever bullshit rationalization you want to call it. It's simpler than that. If you live in this country, enjoy it's freedoms and advantages, than it is a part of the basic societal contract that you do your duty when you are called upon to do it.

If you fail to do so, you're not a man. You're not even a dog. You are the same as a person who would run and leave his children in danger. You are the same as a person who would cower and hide while others fight and die on your behalf.

My own father avoided going to Vietnam by claiming a skin disease. I consider this a much more ethical decision than choosing to go to war in Vietnam.

I consider it contemptible.

Less brave? Whatever. Bravery and ethics are kissing cousins, nothing more, and I respect an ethical coward more than an unethical bravado.

It has nothing to do with cowardice. Lots of cowards go to war. It has to do with character. If a man feels that he cannot ethically fight for his country than the path a man of character takes is the same path Ali and Thoreau take. You stand up to the government. You object, and you take your punishment.

There is no ethic in enjoying the fruits of society by evading and lying so that you don't have to bear your share of the costs.

Duty? Whatever. From where I stand, it was the duty of every American citizen to work against the war effort, to impede it, to prevent its success. Your father, who saw things differently, believed it his duty to go to war.

Fair enough. And some did. And, they paid the price. Others hid or went to Canada or claimed diseases and exemptions and let other people fight for them.

You cannot both claim the ethical highground by objecting to the war while at the same time lying or running to avoid your duty and the consequences of your decision.

Maybe you should check in with your father, learn why he respected people who didn't cooperate with the war effort, rather than making smug assumptions about them and your father both. I suspect he may be wiser than you're giving him credit for.

I think I know my father a little bit better than you do. He respected people who stood up for what they believed in.

The key point is the standing up. If you are unwilling to stand up for what you beleive in your beliefs don't matter, and neither do you.

So, I think I understand quite clearly his respect for those who disagreed but stood up for their beliefs, and I'm pretty damn certain about his contempt for those who wouldn't and didn't.

Someone who objects to the war but hides, lies, or runs to avoid the negative consequences of both war and his personal beliefs has no ethos.

The ethics of self-interest are not ethics at all.

[AvidReader]

Originally posted by Scylla




The ethics of self-interest are not ethics at all. [/B]

Gee...all this time I thought it was normal to think of myself and family first. Oh, HORRORS, I'm a sinner in a sea of Saints!!!! :smack:

[burundi]

Originally posted by Scylla


No. He's not. It's not a morally relativistic ethical decision or whatever bullshit rationalization you want to call it. It's simpler than that. If you live in this country, enjoy it's freedoms and advantages, than it is a part of the basic societal contract that you do your duty when you are called upon to do it.[/B]

I call it "respect for people who make ethical decisions with which you disagree." I won't spit on soldiers and call them babykillers, even though I think it's murderously wrong to fight in an unjust war. And I won't respect people who call a decision to avoid an unjust war "contemptible."

Nobody has any duty to fight in an unjust war. Talk about duty is immaterial. If anything, every individual has a duty not to fight an unjust war.

But I understand that you've got a kickass armchair from which you can soldier, so maybe I should be more understanding.

Daniel

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

D'oh! Naturally, that was me and not burundi snarking at Scylla for his holier-than-thou attitude.

Daniel

[Scylla]

Originally posted by burundi
I call it "respect for people who make ethical decisions with which you disagree."

Evading one's responsibilities is not an ethical decision. It is one that demonstrates a lack of ethics.

I won't spit on soldiers and call them babykillers, even though I think it's murderously wrong to fight in an unjust war. And I won't respect people who call a decision to avoid an unjust war "contemptible."

Nobody has any duty to fight in an unjust war. Talk about duty is immaterial. If anything, every individual has a duty not to fight an unjust war.

You're doing a marvelous job of evading the central issue. Here it is again:

If a person enjoys the benefits and freedoms of a society he is ethically responsible to uphold them.

If he is called upon to fight in a war there are three and only three ways in which he might ethically respond.

1. He may decide that the war is just and fight willingly.

2. He may decide the war is unjust, or not know if it is just or not but feel that as a member of society it is his duty to go.

3. He may feel sure that the war is unjust, engage in civil disobedience and openly reject the call to arms, accepting the penalties for his ethical decision.

Lying or misrepresenting or evading in order to escape one's responsibilities while still enjoying the liberties and freedoms of society which you have not earned and refused to pay for is not an ethical decision. It is lying and stealing.

It is lying and stealing from every person who fought or died for this country.

It is lying and stealing from every person who refused to serve under ethical grounds and accepted the penalties for their decision.


You keep refusing to address this issue. There are no ethics in simple avoidance, in lying or manipulating in order to escape your responsibilities without penalty.

I have nothing but contempt for it, be it a draft dodger, or a man who cheats on his taxes, or a father who refuses to pay child support.

There are no ethics in evading responsibilty.

[An Arky]

Well, I think that moving to Canada to avoid the draft was an ethical thing to do, if you were against the war and/or the draft. If you don't want to fulfill your "duty" as an American, then move somewhere else, if you will.

Which got me thinking about a scenario (sorry for the tangent):

Let's say you're drafted, and you show up at the induction and tell them "I'm against this war and the draft, but I'm reporting because it's the law. Go ahead and induct me, but my heart's not in it, therefore I wouldn't be an effective soldier or support person. You still want me, Uncle Sam?"

I'm sure this type of thing happened back in those days. So what happened to those folks? Did they get jailed? Released from obligation? Made to work in a hospital or something?

[AvidReader]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Scylla


. If you live in this country, enjoy it's freedoms and advantages, than it is a part of the basic societal contract that you do your duty when you are called upon to do it.

If you fail to do so, you're not a man. You're not even a dog. You are the same as a person who would run and leave his children in danger. You are the same as a person who would cower and hide while others fight and die on your behalf.



I consider it contemptible.



This is not the most asinine, emotionally insensitive, and confrontational statement I have ever encountered. But it's gaining on the others.

How utterly inane to believe that just because the "government of the day"'s policy is such and such, that the populace should blindy follow that policy and go to war (or whatever) like unthinking sheep.

Does the writer of that truly astonishing comment really believe that the government in power (be it Johnson's, Nixon's, Reagan's, Clinton's or Bush's IS the United States? I certainly hope not.

I shudder to think what kind of a country we would have today if in our history we would not have doggedly "stalked" and questioned and many times prostested against each of our 43 "governments". There are numerous examples. Some that come quickly to mind are: slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights/segregation. the House Unamerican Activitis Committee hearings led by Joseph McCarthy etc. ]

Scylla would have made a good German back in the 1930's and 40's. According to his philosophy of the social contract between the people and their country........he would of "just followed orders"

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally posted by Scylla
[B]If a person enjoys the benefits and freedoms of a society he is ethically responsible to uphold them.

I agree. But if a war does not uphold the benefits of a society, then a person is not responsible to fight in the war. If there's a group of people in the society who threaten the person with harm if she doesn't fight in the war, they're behaving unethically, and they've forfeited the right to her honesty.

She's not shirking responsibility: there's no responsibility here to shirk. There's no such thing as a responsibility to fight in an unjust war.

There may be a responsibility to protest an unjust war, FWIW, my father was active in the antiwar movement, and did a tour in the Peace Corps.

But the responsibility to protest an unjust war does not derive from membership in any given society: it is a responsibility shared by all human beings.

And Thoreau is a silly example of someone who accepted the responsibility of protesting an unjust war. Read a bit more about him, and you'll find out that, while well-intentioned, he was a well-off mama's boy who hardly suffered for his beliefs.

Daniel

[Dumbguy]

Originally posted by Scylla
If you fail to do so, you're not a man. You're not even a dog. You are the same as a person who would run and leave his children in danger. You are the same as a person who would cower and hide while others fight and die on your behalf.

I consider it contemptible. [/B]No offense Scylla, but when I hear righteous raging about our duty to risk our lives for our country, it generally seems to be coming from someone who hasn't done it themselves. Citing your father's service and then telling us how you think he feels (coincidentally mirroring your own views) is a little half-assed.

Both of my grandfathers fought in WWII (one was at Normandy, the other was in the Pacific), and I never heard either one of them make the kind of judgements you're making. Frankly, I don't know how they felt about it. I wish I'd asked them. I won't presume to speak for them.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

2. He may decide the war is unjust, or not know if it is just or not but feel that as a member of society it is his duty to go.

I just want to comment on this surreal interpretation of ethics.

John says, "You know, poor old Hnom hasn't done anything to me [the war is unjust], but I live in a society in which I have a color television and free public libraries, and that society tells me I should go kill poor old Hnom, so I guess I'll go shoot him." And John is behaving ethically?

I just don't see it.
Daniel

[Scylla]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
But if a war does not uphold the benefits of a society, then a person is not responsible to fight in the war.

Whether or not a given war is ethical is an entirely different discussion than how one discharges one's duty to society. I accept that an individual in a society may decide that a given action is so unethical that his higher duty is to refuse to take part in it.


If there's a group of people in the society who threaten the person with harm if she doesn't fight in the war, they're behaving unethically, and they've forfeited the right to her honesty.

This is the important part, Dan. Honesty is not something you owe to another person. Ethics are not something you owe to society. These are things that you owe to yourself.

Because one believes a war is unjust does not allow or excuse that person's unethical behavior.

Honesty is not something you give to society or to somebody else, it is something you give to yourself.


She's not shirking responsibility: there's no responsibility here to shirk. There's no such thing as a responsibility to fight in an unjust war.

This person is shirking several responsibilities. First there is the responsibility to the society he is a part of. You seem to agree that we are responsible to society and the people in it.

This person has acted unethically and through that person's failure they have damaged those soldiers who did not evade or lie and are now fighting and dying in this person's place.

This person has damaged those people who believed the war was unethical and refused to fight, yet who stood up to society and accepted the consequences of their actions and had the courage of their convictions. He should be in jail with them.

A person who says "I am prepared to discharge my duties to my country, but I refuse to serve because I will not fight in an unjust war," and accepts the consequences of that statement, has acted ethically.

A person who runs or hides or lies in order to evade their responsibilities and the consequences of their own actions has not.

They have demeaned themselves. They have damaged the society that they refuse to help, those who protest in good faith, and those who serve.

As I said earlier, they are contemptible, as all people who evade their responsibilites and refuse to accept the consequences of their own actions are contemptible.

[/quote]There may be a responsibility to protest an unjust war, FWIW, my father was active in the antiwar movement, and did a tour in the Peace Corps.[/quote]

The way to protest the war is to be a conscientious objector. You show up at the draft board when you are supposed to. You don't lie. You don't misrepresent, and you don't evade. You say "The war is unjust and I refuse to fight, and will not serve."

By doing so, you are recognizing that you have a debt to the society of which you are a part. You have made a protest that matters.

But the responsibility to protest an unjust war does not derive from membership in any given society: it is a responsibility shared by all human beings.

What does "protest" mean anyway? It's like "denounce," or "renounce." They are empty words, signifying nothing but an unwillingness to engage in meaningful action. It's saying "I don't like this, but I'm not willing to do anything but complain."

Protesting means nothing. Resistance is meaningful. Going to jail for your beliefs is resistance. Partying against the war as a protest is a joke.

And Thoreau is a silly example of someone who accepted the responsibility of protesting an unjust war. Read a bit more about him, and you'll find out that, while well-intentioned, he was a well-off mama's boy who hardly suffered for his beliefs.

I'll bet I know a lot more about Thoreau than you do. Whether or not you consider him a hyprocrite is a moot Ad Hominem. It has nothing to do with the validity of the arguments he put forth in "Civil Disobediance."

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

I don't consider Thoreau to be a hypocrite; that's not what I said.

I don't agree that anyone has any responsibility to society; I don't believe in a collectivist ethics. We have moral duties toward other human beings, whether or not the are subjects of any particular state.

Honesty is not something I owe to myself; I have no idea what that would mean. Honesty is a means of not inhibiting other peoples' freedom: if I tell you the truth as I understand it, I do not impinge on your ability to make free, informed decisions. But if you're already impinging on my ability to make free, informed decisions (e.g., threatening to throw me in prison if I don't kill on your behalf), then you've forfeited your right to honest dealings from me.

If I lie and don't go kill on your behalf, then I'm not violating some responsibility to other soldiers. By killing on your behalf, they're violating their responsibility toward the people they're killing. If you've forced them to kill on your behalf, then you're violating your responsibilities toward the people they're killing, too.

The Good of the State doesn't trump the Good of the Individual, and when people acting under the guise of a state engage in unethical action, they're individuals acting unethically.

Once more: there is no debt, no duty, no responsibility to "society." THere is only debt, duty, responsibility toward other individuals.

Before you can convince me otherwise, you'll need to show me that society is a moral agent and a moral subject.

Daniel

[Scylla]

Dan:

I don't agree that anyone has any responsibility to society;

Earlier I said: "If a person enjoys the benefits and freedoms of a society he is ethically responsible to uphold them."

You quoted me and said: "I agree."

Now you say you don't recognize the ethics of collectivism.

Which is it?

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

I see what you're saying. I was unclear and should have elaborated:

If a group of people is engaging in a set of activities that promote freedom, then a person who benefits from those specific activities should assist in them when asked. An individual who benefits from a group's activities in other ways should, if asked by members of the group to assist in obtaining those benefits, either (if feasible) opt out of those benefits, or help obtain them.

Fighting in an unjust war like Vietnam doesn't fit under these criteria. It didn't promote freedom, so no individual needs to assist in it. And it didn't provide other benefits to generic members of the public (by which I mean, people who didn't work for Boeing, the Pentagon, etc.), and so generic individuals didn't need to opt out of the nonexistent benefits if they chose not to fight.

If, for example, I go to the public library every day, then I should pay library taxes. If I drive on public streets, then I should pay road taxes. But if I live as the subject of a state that doesn't restrict my freedoms too much, I don't owe that state anything -- and I have a positive duty NOT to go kill other people on behalf of that state.

Normally, I have a positive duty not to lie to the people who comprise the state: to do otherwise is to restrict their freedom of decision. But if those people threaten to restrict my own freedoms, then I have every right to defend myself against that threat in a commensurate manner. Lying to them to deflect their threats is certainly commensurate.

Daniel

[Scylla]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
I see what you're saying. I was unclear and should have elaborated:

No autopsy, no foul.

If a group of people is engaging in a set of activities that promote freedom, then a person who benefits from those specific activities should assist in them when asked. An individual who benefits from a group's activities in other ways should, if asked by members of the group to assist in obtaining those benefits, either (if feasible) opt out of those benefits, or help obtain them.

I think it goes farther, but I'll provisionally agree with you, so far.

Fighting in an unjust war like Vietnam doesn't fit under these criteria. It didn't promote freedom, so no individual needs to assist in it.

You know, I do talk to my father about it, and while growing up, most of my father's close friends were veterans. I can understand people having difficulty with the conditions that led to the Vietnam war, and questioning those, but there is little doubt that our soldiers were fighting for freedom. Lest you forget, we were fighting alongside Vietnamese soldiers who were fighting for a Democratic State. Not only did our Vietnamese allies want us there, they were depending on us to help them secure their freedom, against the Communists.

And it didn't provide other benefits to generic members of the public (by which I mean, people who didn't work for Boeing, the Pentagon, etc.), and so generic individuals didn't need to opt out of the nonexistent benefits if they chose not to fight.

If you mean that we were not fighting for our own freedom than I would disagree. We promote our own freedom by helping to secure it for others.

If, for example, I go to the public library every day, then I should pay library taxes. If I drive on public streets, then I should pay road taxes. But if I live as the subject of a state that doesn't restrict my freedoms too much, I don't owe that state anything -- and I have a positive duty NOT to go kill other people on behalf of that state.

It goes further than that. As a part of society, you pay taxes that do not directly benefit you, but rather benefit society as a whole of which you are a part. To use your library tax example, not everybody who pays library taxes may necessarily use the library. But, they still pay the taxes because the are a part of a society that has determined that a library is worth funding. Similarly you may drive on a road all day long, but pay only a small part of road taxes. Your disproportionate use of the roads is funded by those who use the roads rarely if not at all, and others' disproportionate use of the library may be funded by you in turn. As a member of society who enjoys it's benefits you are responsible for upholding even those benefits that you do not personally make use of, and even those that you may disagree with.

Normally, I have a positive duty not to lie to the people who comprise the state: to do otherwise is to restrict their freedom of decision. But if those people threaten to restrict my own freedoms, then I have every right to defend myself against that threat in a commensurate manner. Lying to them to deflect their threats is certainly commensurate.

Let me ask you this: According to this previous statement let us say that you witness a horrible murder. The police question you, yet you know that if you answer truthfully you will be subpoened and required to testify in a court of law. You freedoms will be restricted by this requirement and as a key witness you may be held in protective custody.

Therefore you believe that it would be ok to lie to the police and say that you saw nothing in order to avoid the restrictions of freedom that your mandatory testimony would entail.

Is this a substantially correct interpretation of your ethical stance?

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Scylla, that's not a correct interpretation of my position. In the case of the murder, by lying to the police, I'm aiding a murderer in her escape. By aiding a murderer, I am causing indirect harm to lots of people: both to any future victims of the murderer, and to any victims of any other murderer who is emboldened by the first murderer's escape. Such a lie is harmful.

If I lie in order to escape an unjust war, I am avoiding harm to the people whom I might otherwise end up killing, and to people who might be killed if the war goes on for longer because it's got one more soldier. I could avoid harming more people if I worked actively and passionately against the unjust war, either through civil disobedience or guerilla action, it's true -- but in any case I'm acting more ethically by lying than I would be by killing someone in an unjust war.

I do not believe that Vietnam was a war on behalf of freedom. South Vietnam was not a democratic government except by the most bizarre stretch of the term. But I also don't think this thread is the place to debate whether Vietnam was a just war. Stipulating that it's unjust, I think anyone who avoided killing people in it was acting more ethically than anyone who participated in it. Those who worked actively against the war effort were acting even more ethically than those who neither aided nor hindered it; but the real obligation people had was not to fight in the war at all.

Nevertheless, I am just barely humble enough to recognize that I'm not the arbiter of ethics; I passionately believe that the war was evil, but I cannot be sure of that. I believe that other people can legitimately arrive at different ethical conclusions. And even though I might have to work against those people, that won't stop me from respecting their decisionmaking. That's why I don't hold soldiers in contempt.

Daniel

[mystic2311]

US soldiers fought wars to liberate people from Soviet domination so that they could live under US domination. Judging from their experience, most of them preferred Soviet domination. We murdered 3 million Vietnamese to liberate them from Communism. In a Buddhist sense, they are liberated because their spirit is no longer trapped in a material body. Now we are about to murder millions of Iraqis to liberate them from Saddam Hussein. Being Arabs, they will be grateful to us for sending them to paradise and liberating them from their suffering in the stinking oil-soaked desert. We will also liberate them from their oil, land, and water. They won't need it in paradise.

But the joke is on the US military. During the cold war they went around the world battling communism and socialism. In doing so they were living under a system of blind obedience to central authority, low pay, free health care, subsidized rent and food, etc. In other words, they were living under a communist system. Ha ha, I think that is really funny.

I also laugh everytime I hear a military type talk about freedom, when they have no freedom in the military. Anybody who would so readily give up his or her freedom obviously never had it in the first place. The military going around the world defending freedom is like a bunch of blind people extolling the virtues of sight while jabbing hot needles into everyone's eyes.

Life is a grand comedy.

[lekatt]

Originally posted by RTA
It did occur to me Hubzilla that the majority of those in the military are rear echelon types who never see or do any "fighting" per se but I am open enough to charges of being anti-military and anti-veteran without referring directly to those who, to quote Patton, "shoveled shit in Louisiana" and asking how they can with a straight face claim that they "fought for my rights".

People like Scylla's father are to be commended for their valiant and good-faith service but if you don't mind I will continue to profess that unquestioning obedience and the dewy-eyed reverence for same are not necessarily virtues. That is a Victorian mindset. Hair-raising details of service aside, there is a disconnect between talking about how the father went because he was called upon by his country to fight Communists and how the father was fighting for our freedoms because he went. As far as unmitigated contempt for those who partied their way through the Age of Aquarius, what of Mr. Bush himself? (I know I know, "He was a fighter pilot"; sure.)

Re: Grenada. I remember the time well. We had the bombing in Beirut, which provoked much anguish in the US and second-guessing about our role overseas. Just a few short days later, we pulled an overwhelming blitzkrieg on a little speck of an island nobody had ever heard of, and it was sold to the public as the biggest military triumph since D-Day and as a major wellspring of American pride.

I really don't place a lot of stock in the alarmist intelligence reports that the Reagan White House released about why they had to jump in there so all of a sudden. I believe the indications that Reagan and his handlers were very angry and frustrated about Beirut and pulled the foreign-policy equivalent of kicking a small dog across the room.

DD Goose's "Decatur Kiwanis Club" analogy is quite good and makes perfect sense though I still question how club membership grants full credit for past accomplishments, that is, how club members can honestly claim full credit for events they had no participation in. By honestly I mean self-honesty. (Take me for example. I served in the peacetime Army four years and you better believe I fought - I fought to stay warm and dry while in a hole in the ground out in the forest! No thanks for my service to my country are necessary.)

As far as the Supreme Court, again, there is never any fighting involved. The Supreme Court does not fight anyone. It is the nine-pound hammer that ends all fights and brooks no discussion.

I would like to remind you that during World War II the Germans had superior tanks, planes, solders and about everything else. What the US had was a lot of willing workers and assembly lines to outproduce Germany in tanks, planes and such. Were it not for the people who worked 12-16 hour days building these things we would have lost the war. Don't for one moment think the people in the background weren't fighting for your freedoms. I saw it, I know. In one case Liberty ships, large cargo vessels were built at the rate of 1 every 10 days, in one case a ship was built in 5 days. Some of these ships were given flight decks and became baby aircraft carriers. In all 1700 of these ships were built during the war, along with 60,000+ aircraft, etc. Don't ever discount the man behind the scenes, without him we would have lost.

Love
Leroy

[zigaretten]

Originally posted by RTA
Re: Grenada. I remember the time well. We had the bombing in Beirut, which provoked much anguish in the US and second-guessing about our role overseas. Just a few short days later, we pulled an overwhelming blitzkrieg on a little speck of an island nobody had ever heard of, and it was sold to the public as the biggest military triumph since D-Day and as a major wellspring of American pride.

I really don't place a lot of stock in the alarmist intelligence reports that the Reagan White House released about why they had to jump in there so all of a sudden. I believe the indications that Reagan and his handlers were very angry and frustrated about Beirut and pulled the foreign-policy equivalent of kicking a small dog across the room.

You may well be correct that Grenada was “a little speck of an island nobody had ever heard of,” but if so, it’s only because “nobody” was paying attention.

In March of 1983 President Reagan went on national television and warned: “the new airport being built in Grenada is intended as a military facility for the Russians and Cubans. It would have a 10,000-foot runway………although "Grenada doesn’t even have an air force. Who is it intended for? … The rapid build-up of Grenada’s military potential is unrelated to any conceivable threat. … The Soviet-Cuban militarization of Grenada … can only be seen as a power projection into the region."
He also displayed aerial photos of the construction site.
New York Times, 3/26/83

One month later, on April 10, the Beirut bombing occurred.

Six months later, on October 4, there was a Marxist military coup on Grenada accompanied by the murder of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop.

Six days after that, on October 10, the US invaded.

Reagan certainly could have been influenced by Beirut, but you’ll forgive me if I remain unconvinced.

[Scylla]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
Scylla, that's not a correct interpretation of my position. In the case of the murder, by lying to the police, I'm aiding a murderer in her escape. By aiding a murderer, I am causing indirect harm to lots of people: both to any future victims of the murderer, and to any victims of any other murderer who is emboldened by the first murderer's escape. Such a lie is harmful.

So a lie is bad when it harms others?

If I lie in order to escape an unjust war, I am avoiding harm to the people whom I might otherwise end up killing, and to people who might be killed if the war goes on for longer because it's got one more soldier. I could avoid harming more people if I worked actively and passionately against the unjust war, either through civil disobedience or guerilla action, it's true -- but in any case I'm acting more ethically by lying than I would be by killing someone in an unjust war.

I doubt that you wish to argue that t he ends justify the means, but that looks to be what you are doing, i.e that it is ok to engage in unethical behavior for ethical ends, like lying to a draft board to avoid and unjust war. The fact is that this lie also does harm. By avoiding the draft, the draft board goes and inducts the next person in line. He goes to war and fights and dies in the place of the person that lied. No good has been done. There is not "one less soldier fighting" as you would like to believe. No fewer people are subject to war. If you dodge the draft, you have harmed the person who is forced to serve in your place.

You have also harmed those conscientious objectors who have accepted the penalty of refusal. Their cause has been undermined, by your selfish motivations.

You have also harmed the society. You have received it's benefits, but you have both refused to either fight, or actively disobey and effect change. No fewer people die, or are subject to war. In fact the potential for a moral man to make a difference in that war and act compassionately is gone.

Of all the possible choices one can make who objects to a war, lying, running and avoiding your responsibility is the lowest most contemptible choice.

One could serve, one could object, one could serve as a medic, running away and lying serves only oneself is a poor way to discharge responsibility. I feel comfortable dismissing higher motives in one who would rationalize such a low and contemptible action.

Stipulating that it's unjust, I think anyone who avoided killing people in it was acting more ethically than anyone who participated in it. Those who worked actively against the war effort were acting even more ethically than those who neither aided nor hindered it; but the real obligation people had was not to fight in the war at all.

Be a medic. Object conscientiously. Lying for your own self-interest so you can party at Woodstock and pretend that it means your acting ethically is the most transparent of rationalizations.

Nevertheless, I am just barely humble enough to recognize that I'm not the arbiter of ethics; I passionately believe that the war was evil, but I cannot be sure of that.

It's like the library. You may not like the library, but society as a whole has deemed it necessary. As a member of society you are required to pay taxes to support it. You don't get to pick and choose what you get to support. You contribute to the whole.

It's the same with war. If our society decides to fight, you don't get to pick and choose and say "I want to continue to enjoy all the good things my society offers, but I'm not going to fight in the war." You either go to war, or, if you are so sure that the war is wrong, you go to jail and object conscientiously. That's having the courage of your convictions. That's acting ethically. Making others serve in your place so that you can hang out with girls, drink booze, do drugs, listen to rock and roll, and call it an ethical protest is fooling nobody. Making somebody else fight and die in your place is not ethical behavior. Accepting the benefits of society without its responsibilities is not ethical behavior. Running hiding and lying is not ethical behavior.


I believe that other people can legitimately arrive at different ethical conclusions. And even though I might have to work against those people, that won't stop me from respecting their decisionmaking. That's why I don't hold soldiers in contempt.

Moral relativism is a convenient tool of rationalization. Good ethics aren't so malleable.

Ethics are what you do that's not in your best interests. Ethics occur when you accept the consequences of your actions, when you have the courage of your convictions.

If we wish to use your "do less harm" criteria for ethics, the war protest wasn't exactly a good thing. We had the ability to win in Vietnam. We didn't use that ability in part because of the unpopularity of the war.

Our soldiers in Vietnam fulfilled their ethical responsibility by going. Our society failed them by not supporting them.

So I have quite a bit of contempt for the anti-war protesters of the sixties that harmed our soldiers, those scum who had neither the courage to fulfill their duty nor the conviction to accept the consequences for their beliefs.

[RTA]

Re-check your dates, zigaretten. The Marine barracks bombing happened on 23 Oct. 1983.
www.beirut-memorial.org/history
The invasion of Grenada started about 48 hours later.
www.historyguy.com/Grenada.html

But I do remember the Reagan speech you cited; most people didn't give a second thought to the Grenada mention because that was the same speech where he first trotted out the Strategic Defense Initiative. But before mentioning Grenada, he discusses at some length how Cuba was crawling with Soviets. Cuba is vastly closer to the USA than Grenada, but Reagan never did jack squat about Castro. Why were thousands of Soviets 90 miles from our coasts not a threat, but a few hundred Cuban lackeys 1000 miles away were?
www.townhall.com/hall_of_fame/reagan/speech/sdi.html

And so long as we're talking about dodging the draft with dubious medical excuses, and how everyone who did so are supposedly such rotten ingrates: www.snopes.com/military/limbaugh.htm

I saw it, I know. In one case Liberty ships, large cargo vessels were built at the rate of 1 every 10 days, in one case a ship was built in 5 days.

Oh I'm hip to all that stuff, believe me. Note in my OP how I include WW2 among the conflicts where I concur that our freedoms were threatened.

[RTA]

But the joke is on the US military. During the cold war they went around the world battling communism and socialism. In doing so they were living under a system of blind obedience to central authority, low pay, free health care, subsidized rent and food, etc. In other words, they were living under a communist system. Ha ha, I think that is really funny.

Troublemaker!

[Measure for Measure]

Scylla:

Thank you for clarifying your position.

---------Scylla says, "Lest you forget, we were fighting alongside Vietnamese soldiers who were fighting for a Democratic State. Not only did our Vietnamese allies want us there, they were depending on us to help them secure their freedom, against the Communists."

Uh no, that's not my understanding. Diem was not a democrat. His American-backed replacement General Nguyen Khanh was not a democrat. Thieu was not a democrat (http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=806184) ("In 1965, when the first American troops went into action in support of the South, Mr Thieu was the head of the military government. Two years later he became president in a fixed election.")
---
Actually, there are more than 3 options. You can go about your life and see what happens. Here's a thought experiment. Say the US Govt desperately needs a near-sighted underwater statistician with poor situational awareness for a hush-hush operation in Iraq. Flowbark is just the man for the job. But flowbark has dyshydrotic eczema. In remission. What does he do?

He (frickin) tells the USGov of his medical condition and let's them do what they want. Draft me or don't draft me. (Details: When my eczema is bad, my hands cause cashiers to turn they eyes away from my hands; they grimace and I itch and ooze. At other times, it is a complete nonissue.)

Frankly, I think I could serve with my eczema. But I also don't think that it's my call to make.

There are variants of this approach. You can go to college. You can go to grad school. It's not like you're wasting your time and its not like you wouldn't do it anyway. If Big Gov offers deferments, I don't see why you shouldn't take advantage of them. Especially for such dubious enterprises as fighting in Vietnam.

I suppose the tax analogy is appropriate. There is something called "tax evasion" which is immoral and something called "tax planning" which is acceptable, expected and even encouraged by Congressional statute.

[Measure for Measure]

:smack: Try again flowbark.
Frankly, I think I could serve with my eczema. But I also don't think that it's not my call to make. [The army knows or should know what it's manpower requirements are. Better than I.]

[Measure for Measure]

Great. My correction makes no sense. Never mind.

[Scylla]

Originally posted by flowbark
Scylla:

Thank you for clarifying your position.

You're welcome.

Uh no, that's not my understanding. Diem was not a democrat. His American-backed replacement General Nguyen Khanh was not a democrat... Two years later he became president in a fixed election.

I didn't mean to imply that our Vietnamese allies were a model of Democratic process.

Actually, there are more than 3 options. You can go about your life and see what happens. Here's a thought experiment. Say the US Govt desperately needs a near-sighted underwater statistician with poor situational awareness for a hush-hush operation in Iraq. Flowbark is just the man for the job. But flowbark has dyshydrotic eczema. In remission. What does he do?

It appears to me that your experiment is taking the example beyond the scope of what I was replying to.

I was replying to a scenario where a person deliberately lies or misrepresents to gain a deferrment they are not entitled to.

Frankly, I think I could serve with my eczema. But I also don't think that it's my call to make.


I suppose the tax analogy is appropriate. There is something called "tax evasion" which is immoral and something called "tax planning" which is acceptable, expected and even encouraged by Congressional statute. [/B]

I would tend to agree.

[Scylla]

flowbark:

That's a $2.95 cite!

[zigaretten]

Originally posted by RTA
Re-check your dates, zigaretten. The Marine barracks bombing happened on 23 Oct. 1983.
www.beirut-memorial.org/history
The invasion of Grenada started about 48 hours later.
www.historyguy.com/Grenada.html

I was speaking of the Beirut Embassy bombing (http://www.terrorismvictims.org/terrorists/beirut-marine-barracks.html) on April 18, 1983.

If you’re suggesting that the invasion of Grenada was in response to the bombing on October 23 then you’re giving Reagan a lot more credit than he probably deserves, seeing as how the orders for the invasion (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1992/KLM.htm) were issued on October 22:


On October 22, the JCS issued their Execute Order for Urgent Fury (the code name for the invasion) to Admiral W. L. McDonald, CINCLANTCOM. He was to "conduct military operations to protect and evacuate U.S. and designated foreign nationals from Grenada, neutralize Grenadian forces, stabilize the internal situation, and maintain the peace. In conjunction with OECS/friendly government participants assist in the restoration of a democratic government on Grenada.

Originally posted by RTA
……..most people didn't give a second thought to the Grenada mention……..
It is unfortunate that you are probably correct, most people didn’t pay any attention. But my point still stands; President Reagan was paying attention, he was concerned about Grenada and it’s airport and he expressed these concerns, on national television no less, before any bombings in Beirut.

Originally posted by RTA
Cuba is vastly closer to the USA than Grenada, but Reagan never did jack squat about Castro. Why were thousands of Soviets 90 miles from our coasts not a threat, but a few hundred Cuban lackeys 1000 miles away were?

I don’t believe Reagan ever said that that the Cubans were not a threat. But you may recall the Cuban Missile Crisis?
At the end of which the Soviets agreed to remove their missiles and bombers and the US gave assurances that we would not invade Cuba. Are you suggesting that Reagan should have violated that agreement?

[Evil Captor]

Originally posted by zigaretten
RTA………..
Now I realize that this probably seems like a pretty far-fetched fantasy

Yes, it does. Very much so. Let's go even farther back and ask, "What if Spartacus had had a Piper Cub?" What would that have meant for our freedoms?

[Evil Captor]

Referring to the original topic of the thread, the thing that gets me is that the very people who swell up and say, "I fought for your freedoms!" are almost always the ones who are pissed off at you for exercising those freedoms. I should think they'd be proud to hear radical speech challenging the Congress, the Supreme Court and the President, because it means the freedoms they fought for are still around. But this is almost never the case -- the ones who brag about their defense of liberty are almost always complaining because someone is exercising those liberties.

[mystic2311]

The only freedom the soldier has fought for is the freedom of the capitalist to rob and exploit. Try read "War is a Racket" by Smedley Butler (or is it Butler Smedley....or worse yet Bedley Smutler?--it's getting late...)

I made the same observation as Evil Captor did above, in another discussion board in a galaxy far far away:

"I thought soldiers took an oath to defend the constitution. So how come they get so bent whenever someone actually exercises their constitutional rights? I guess we have to destroy the constitution in order to save it, eh?"

Great minds think alike.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally posted by Scylla


So a lie is bad when it harms others?

[/b]

I doubt that you wish to argue that t he ends justify the means, but that looks to be what you are doing, i.e that it is ok to engage in unethical behavior for ethical ends, like lying to a draft board to avoid and unjust war. The fact is that this lie also does harm. By avoiding the draft, the draft board goes and inducts the next person in line. He goes to war and fights and dies in the place of the person that lied. No good has been done. [/B]

Look, if you point a gun at me, and I duck, and you shoot the person who was standing behind me instead, it's silly to place the blame on me because I ducked. Had you not been shooting that gun around, nobody would be dead.

It's the draft board, the military, that's to blame for the draftee who dies, not the person who recognizes that they've got no obligation to kill or be killed in an unjust war.

Just because a government says something should be done doesn't mean it should be done. Libraries are a good thing, I believe, and so I'll support them. Unjust wars are a bad thing, I believe, and so I won't support them.

As for an obligation to conscientious objectors: I think you'll find that most COs would much rather people dodge the draft than fight the war. Indeed, most antiwar folks I've heard speak, give instructions for avoiding conscription along with instructions for actively protesting an unjust war. I've never heard an pacifist activist condemn people who find a way out of an unjust war. I'm not saying that such pacifists don't exist -- just that they're a tiny minority, and the vast majority of pacifists (including ones who've done prison time) don't see their cause undermined by draft dodgers. It's nice and everything for a hawk to tell pacifists what helps and what doesn't help their cause, but it's not terribly relevant.

I don't think the end justifies the means -- on the contrary, I think the idea is meaningless. What is an end? What is a means? We are responsible for what we do, and telling a lie to a draft board is a tiny ethical lapse compared to fighting in an unjust war. If it's an ethical lapse at all -- just as it's a priori unethical to beat the hell out of someone, but ethical to do it if they're trying to kill you, it's a priori unethical to lie to someone, but ethical to do so if they're trying to force you into a much greater evil act (i.e., killing people unjustly). Neither one represents the ends justifying the means; both represent evaluating outcomes of your decisions and choosing the course of action that results in the least harm.

Daniel

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Also, I'd be interested in how well you know your dad. Why not ask him why he doesn't show contempt toward draft-dodgers?

Daniel

[AvidReader]

Originally posted by mystic2311
["I thought soldiers took an oath to defend the constitution. So how come they get so bent whenever someone actually exercises their constitutional rights? I guess we have to destroy the constitution in order to save it, eh?"

Great minds think alike. [/B]

Absolutely!!!! I just sent Evil Captor an email saying as much. I had not yet scrolled down to Mystic's comment which is as succinct and incisive as Captor's.

As I said in an earlier comment:

How utterly inane to believe that just because the "government of the day"'s policy is such and such, that the populace should blindy follow that policy and go to war (or whatever) like unthinking sheep.

Scylla would have made a good German back in the 1930's and 40's. According to his interpretation of the social contract between the people and their country........he would of "just followed orders"

[An Arky]

Yeah, I think that a lot of people who rave about loving America and proudly serving it's interests would've been Tories at the time of the Revolution...

[sqweels]

While we're on the subject of draft dodging during Vietnam, it's worth pointing out that the President of the United States (Carter) issued an amnesty for all drafter dodgers in 1978, IIRC, which affects the responsibility to society angle somewhat. That plus the fact that the US government wasted no time in rescinding the draft after the cease-fire in 1973 comes very close to an admission of wrongdoing on the part of the government, IMO.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally posted by AvidReader
Scylla would have made a good German back in the 1930's and 40's. According to his interpretation of the social contract between the people and their country........he would of "just followed orders"

I forget: when Godwin's Law is invoked in a debate, is it the entire side that invoked Godwin's Law that loses by default, or just the poster that invokes it who loses?

FTR, while Scylla may or may not have made a good German back in the 1930s and '40s, he certainly makes a typical nationalistic American today, and would have made a perfectly fine American back in the 1930s and '40s as well.

I think his ethical priorities (it's better to kill an innocent person because your government tells you to than to use dishonesty to duck out of such a killing) are absurd. But it's unfair to pretend like that makes him a Nazi.

Daniel

[Scylla]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
Also, I'd be interested in how well you know your dad. Why not ask him why he doesn't show contempt toward draft-dodgers?

Daniel

I thought I explained this already. I know him very well. Have you ever heard the term "beneath contempt?"

[Scylla]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
[B]
FTR, while Scylla may or may not have made a good German back in the 1930s and '40s, he certainly makes a typical nationalistic American today, and would have made a perfectly fine American back in the 1930s and '40s as well.

I kind of characterized the Nazi comment as being beneath contempt as well. It's so vile that it does not merit response.

I also object to being typified as a nationalistic American. You don't know me. I am speaking of ethics which should apply universally regardless of Nationality.

Show me the courtesy of asking me rather than telling me what I am.

I think his ethical priorities (it's better to kill an innocent person because your government tells you to than to use dishonesty to duck out of such a killing) are absurd. But it's unfair to pretend like that makes him a Nazi.

Your mischaracterization of my argument is an outright lie. I have not said or implied any such thing.

Do not make things up and pretend that they are my arguments.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Yes, Scylla, you're helping my understanding of the term admirably. But you also said that this was conjecture, that you'd never talked with him about it. Why don'tcha?

I wonder if maybe he's wiser than you're giving him credit for.

Daniel

[Scylla]

Ok. I'll call him now.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Much as you'd love me to be a liar, sweetheart, you got it all kerfluzzled in your head.

You said that one ethical response to a call to war was to fight it out of a sense of duty, even though you believe the war to be unjust.

Let me quote:

2. He may decide the war is unjust, or not know if it is just or not but feel that as a member of society it is his duty to go.

What does it mean to "go", if not to fight the war? And if you fight in an unjust war, are you telling me that you're unlikely to kill an innocent person? Though you didn't say it outright, your position that #2 is ethical certainly gives a strong implication that killing someone unjustly is more ethical than lying to avoid killing someone unjustly. If not -- if you believe it's less ethical to join a military (intending to obey orders) in an unjust war than to deceive to get out of joining the military -- I'd love to see the clarification.

I know that you have trouble debating people without calling them contemptible liars: I know how you love the misplaced ad hominem. But honestly, give it a try. It'll be good for you.

Daniel

[Scylla]

Ok. Here's my notes.

Me: Dad, what do you think about draft-dodgers, people that refused to serve during Vietnam.

Dad: (direct quote) I think they are despicable human beings. ::pause:: the funny thing is... they look the same they act the same.... they're all smug... like the people protesting the war now.

(my paraphrase of continuing comments) You have to remember at the time when I was a kid, when I served, if your were a man, and you were healthy, you had a military obligation when you turned 18. That was the deal. You had to do your deal. We all knew it growing up. It wasn't a surprise.

Why are you asking me this now?

Me: I'm talking about the war with this ***** who doesn't believe my insight into your opinion is valid, and he asked me to ask you directly about your opinion of draft dodgers.

Dad: What did you tell him?

Me: That basically you think they are beneath contempt.

Dad: That's fine. I don't hold those people in high regard.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

I stand corrected. Your father is not any wiser than you depicted him.

As for that, your holier-than-thou attitude and conflation of moral humility with moral relativism is doing nothing for my blood pressure. Were you willing to hold the debate without arrogant namecalling, I'd be happy to continue; but now I'll let you have whatever last word you want, and I'll bow out. I've said my piece.

Daniel

[Scylla]

Daniel

it's better to kill an innocent person because your government tells you to than to use dishonesty to duck out of such a killing

I have not made this argument. It does not follow from the arguments I have made. It is a deliberate misinterpretation and a lie.

Your torturous to attempt to justify it is equally bullshit. Argue what I say. Quote me. If you feel that something follows from one of my statements, ask me if it is my argument as I have had the courtesy to ask you.

But do not just go ahead and falsely attribute crap to me as if I have said. I am not your sweetie and don't go playing games pretending I said one thing when I did not.

Stop lying, and stop playing games pretending I said one thing when I did not.

[Scylla]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
Were you willing to hold the debate without arrogant namecalling, I'd be happy to continue; but now I'll let you have whatever last word you want, and I'll bow out. I've said my piece.


Falsely attributing an argument to me that I did not make is a harmful lie, and I am quite right to point out your dishonesty. I'm not wasting my time on the sensitivities of someone who insists on putting false statements in my mouth, especially when they lack the class or the courtesy to retract them when it's pointed out.

A spade is a spade.

[december]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
You said that one ethical response to a call to war was to fight it out of a sense of duty, even though you believe the war to be unjust...What does it mean to "go", if not to fight the war? And if you fight in an unjust war, are you telling me that you're unlikely to kill an innocent person? Though you didn't say it outright, your position that #2 is ethical certainly gives a strong implication that killing someone unjustly is more ethical than lying to avoid killing someone unjustly. If not -- if you believe it's less ethical to join a military (intending to obey orders) in an unjust war than to deceive to get out of joining the military -- I'd love to see the clarification.There's a matter of nuance. Daniel, your argument assumes there is a bright dividing line between just wars and unjust wars. This is not so. Was the Vietnam War "unjust." Many think it was proper. Many think it was badly led or poorly thought-out, but not unjust.

Military actions seem to go best when soldiers aren't merely invited to participate. Armies just don't work that way. It's important for all of society that our military be effective. The people at home are counting on the military to defend us. If they fail, disaster could be the fate of all of us.

What does it mean that an individual believes a war to be "unjust?" How do we know if the individual has made a properly informed decision? How can we distinguish a legitimate belief in a war's unjustness from a mere unwillingness to make the sacrifices involved in fighting? We can't. That's why the US doesn't allow individuals to make that judgment. A true pacifist can get out of serving; otherwise you don't get to pick your wars. It won't work to allow each soldier to decide whether to obey every order.

There are very rare situations when soldier should not obey orders. E.g., when he's told to commit genocide. However, the much more common situation is that the soldier is frightened or would just prefer not to fight. That's just not good enough. That position deserves no respect. In other words, the benefit of the doubt should always be given to obeying legal orders.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally posted by december
There's a matter of nuance. Daniel, your argument assumes there is a bright dividing line between just wars and unjust wars. This is not so. Was the Vietnam War "unjust." Many think it was proper. Many think it was badly led or poorly thought-out, but not unjust.

Lest I be accused of saying I'd bow out when I didn't, I'm glad to talk with folks civilly on this issue, as I said before.

I agree that there's no dividing line between just and unjust wars; this is true in virtually every ethical decision. I do not trust my government to make that decision for me: I trust an individual to decide whether a war is just long before I'll trust a government to decide.

I'm aware that this would make it much harder to muster an army. I see that as a feature, not a bug.

I do not believe that, absent a bright line division, we should give the benefit of the doubt to obeying orders. Quite the contrary: if we are unclear whether a war is just, we should err on the side of neither killing nor facilitating the killing of people. In other words, I believe we should give the benefit of the doubt to NOT joining the war effort.

Daniel

[Slithy Tove]

While I admire the passion of all the arguments presented here, I have to question the overall validity of this discussion

Last night I listened to a recording of the Commandant of the USMC's speech at the National Press Club. He insisted that while the corps honors the memory of its battles on Beleau Wood and Iwo Jima, that sort of combat is no longer necessary.

America now fights its wars with highly trained volunteers. This isn't 1776, where some of you are running out of your houses with your hunting rifles while others won't, with the expected results in neighborhood relations.

Besides, World War One was the last war where military casualties exceeded civilian. Whatever our convictions or ethics or whatever, we're all on the front lines from now on.

[AvidReader]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
I forget: when Godwin's Law is invoked in a debate, is it the entire side that invoked Godwin's Law that loses by default, or just the poster that invokes it who loses?

FTR, while Scylla may or may not have made a good German back in the 1930s and '40s, he certainly makes a typical nationalistic American today, and would have made a perfectly fine American back in the 1930s and '40s as well.

I think his ethical priorities (it's better to kill an innocent person because your government tells you to than to use dishonesty to duck out of such a killing) are absurd. But it's unfair to pretend like that makes him a Nazi.

Daniel

I step away from my computer for an hour and come back to find the above comment.

You completely misconstrued my meaning. It is not your fault nor mine, although I take responsibility. It is the problem with message boards and the written word in general. It is so difficult to judge one's character and the meaning of his words, absent the body language, tone of voice and eye contact of one on one conversation.

I did not mean to imply that Scylla would have made or is now a Nazi. Although as I re-read this thread and his use of vile language to characterize any and all who disagree with him, I have my doubts.

All I meant by my comment of his making a good German was simply to draw an analogy between his mind set and belief system and the herd mentality of the German people who marched lockstep into WWII and the Holocaust. And remember the majority of the German people were not Nazis in the strict sense of the word. No, they just believed in their government and that they had to comply with it's wishes to fulfill their ethical responsibilities to that government. Sound Familiar?

No, Dan, I was not trying to lose the team debate. I was simply trying to point out a very nuanced concept of how easy it is for good people to be led by demagoguery (combined with a narrow and closed mind on their part) to do very evil and bad things. A nuanced concept which is extremely difficult to convey via the written word.

[december]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
I do not believe that, absent a bright line division, we should give the benefit of the doubt to obeying orders. Quite the contrary: if we are unclear whether a war is just, we should err on the side of neither killing nor facilitating the killing of people. In other words, I believe we should give the benefit of the doubt to NOT joining the war effort. [/B]I guess it depends who "we" is. It's one thing if you want to take that POV in conversation or on a message board. You have that right, although I don't agree. I don't respect that opinion. Nevertheless, you're not involved in the war effort, so your anti-social opinion is not a big problem for society.

However, it's a different story for people who are involved. If a citizen refused to pay taxes because he considered the war in Iraq to be unjust, he should be treated as just another tax cheat. If an enlisted soldier refused to obey orders because in his judgment war against Iraq was unjust, he deserves harsh punishment.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Well, what can I say? I disagree, and I'd rather have a society in which everyone who fought in an unjust war was held culpable for its actions -- a society in which the injunction against killing was taken seriously. Although I can't respect the decision to fight in an unjust war, although it chilled me to hear a Gulf War soldier talk about being lulled to sleep by the sounds of falling bombs, I can respect the people involved. They're doing their best in this world, and even if their best leads them into horrific acts, they're still doing their best.

Daniel

[Scylla]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
I agree that there's no dividing line between just and unjust wars; this is true in virtually every ethical decision. I do not trust my government to make that decision for me: I trust an individual to decide whether a war is just long before I'll trust a government to decide.

You've already conceded that others may rationally consider Vietnam a just war. There is also the fact that many soldiers have acted morally in an unjust war, as well as the corrollary that many soldiers have committed atrocities for the best of the reasons.

Contrary to your hyperbole our government wasn't asking our soldiers to go out and kill innocent people. Suggesting that it did and that is what soldiers did is another harmful mischaracterization that you have made. It is a slander against all of our countrymen who fought and died with honor. The only reason I can see for making such a statement is to seek to rationalize an act of deceit and cowardice, a shirking of responsibility.

It's a thin line that you are trying to walk. You don't want to come out and talk shit about the men who fought and died for this country. On the other side you don't want to give them much credit because then it makes lying and evading the duty to serve look that much worse. You choose to attack the government (which is generally safe,) instead.

It doesn't work though. You're saying those that didn't refuse (or chose your ethical lying and running way while sucking off of society's tit strategy) have agreed to murder.

The difference here is that you're playing a rhetorical game trying to figure out how make deceit and abandoning responsibility out of cowardly sef-interest look good. Now you're trying to act all offended and say I'm not playing anymore when it becomes clear how ridiculous your position is.

On the other side of the coin I'm talking about the ethics of being in an individual in a society, how a man of moral stature seeks to live his life. He does not run from his responsibilities. He seeks them out and fulfills them.

He most certainly doesn't intentionally decieve so that others must fight and die in his place, and then attempt to belittle those that conducted themselves with honor just so his betrayals don't look so reprehensible.

I'm aware that this would make it much harder to muster an army. I see that as a feature, not a bug.

Yes, and a car that won't start sure saves on gas.

[b]I do not believe that, absent a bright line division, we should give the benefit of the doubt to obeying orders. Quite the contrary: if we are unclear whether a war is just, we should err on the side of neither killing nor facilitating the killing of people. In other words, I believe we should give the benefit of the doubt to NOT joining the war effort.

I beleive that any ethical person who lives in a society and receives it's benefits has an obligation to fulfill his responsibilities to that society and live by it's rules.

I think that it is inherently obvious that if he is able and unwilling to fulfill these clearly defined responsibilties, than he has no business accepting the benefits.

Things have a price. If you are unwilling to pay the price, don't take the thing. It should be a simple enough rule to understand.

You don't sit down at a restaurant, eat a dinner and refuse to pay for it.

You don't steal. You don't force other people to carry you. You fulfill your responsibilities.

If you feel the war is unjust, be a medic, or go to jail, or serve honorably and try to bring honor to the war, or, if you feel we are wrong, go and fight for the other side.

These are not fungible relative points. This is basic ethics. You don't steal. You fulfill your responsibilities. You don't lie.

If you're an adult and you don't get it, there's little I can do to help.

[An Arky]

Oh for chrissakes, why don't you two get a room?

This is supposed to be a debate on whether soldiers actually fought to directly preserve the freedoms our country enjoys, not a debate on the ethics of fighting or not in a war. Hell, that debate will never end...

No offense intended, I think it's an interesting debate, just not what the thread was originally about.

Parse, parry, thrust, repeat...

[An Arky]

Oh, my God! I just pulled a Mini-Mod, didn't I? Sorry about that.

:smack:

[RTA]

I've come to the conclusion that it's actually the protestors and demonstrators who are the ones really out there fighting for our rights and freedoms any more.

For my money, some hippie burning a US flag in Central Park is doing a hell of a lot more to protect our first amendment rights than some Marine calling in artillery strikes on some village 10000 miles away.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

I'd halfway agree with you, RTA. That hippy is doing a little bit more to protect our first-amendment rights than the Marine, but not much more. OTOH, they're certainly not endangering me as much as the Marine is doing: no terrorist is going to strike the US because they saw a hippy burning a flag, but you betcha terrorists are gonna strike the US because they saw a village bombed by the military.

And sorry to disappoint, but ain't no way I'm getting a room with Scylla. Someone as confused as he, who misrepresents my motives as bad as he does, and then turns around and calls me a liar, is bound to be a lousy roommate. :)

Daniel

[december]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
OTOH, they're certainly not endangering me as much as the Marine is doing: no terrorist is going to strike the US because they saw a hippy burning a flag, but you betcha terrorists are gonna strike the US because they saw a village bombed by the military. So America deserves to be attacked, because our defence provoked the attackers? The World Trade Center, Pearl Harbor, the USS Cole, various embassies were all our fault? If we just played nice, no other nation would bother us? The way to deter terrorism is to stop defending ourselves? Attacking terrorists is counter-productive, because it just engenders more terrorism? :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

"Deserves" to be attacked appeared nowhere in my posts. "Gonna" be attacked did. I'm not so interested in assigning blame as I am in increasing safety.

We liberals are realists, don'tcha know.

Daniel

[Scylla]

Originally posted by RTA
For my money, some hippie burning a US flag in Central Park is doing a hell of a lot more to protect our first amendment rights than some Marine calling in artillery strikes on some village 10000 miles away.

What a horrible statement to make. If you knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't make such a statement.

I'll do my best to give you the unvarnished facts of the matter.

FOs took very high casualty rates. The reason that they did was becasue it usually took several barrages before they were able to zero in on their targets. After the first barrage the enemy would know that there was an FO hiding somewhere on high ground directing the artillery and they would go looking for him. It was a race between the FO to hit the target and escape before he was found.

Try to imagine yourself in that situation. I can't imagine anything more hellish.

Your accusation is that FOs were in the business of bombing villages of civilians, and it's a stupid and ignorant one.

The Viet Cong would intermingle with civilians and use them as human shields and they would place supplies and ammo dumps inside village or adjacent to villages to hide them.

Our troops never new what was a friendly village, or what was a front for the enemy.

In that kind of an environment things happened. Sometimes they happened on purpose. Nothing excuses those exceptions

But, they are exceptions, and for you to categorize them as the role of an Fo is a falsehood.

FOs took extremely high casualty rates and one of the reasons they did so was because they let the human shields work. Instead of saturating the area with fire and saving their own ass and getting the job done quickly, the FOs were trained to hit their targets without inflicting unnecessary casualties.

They did not place the civilians at risk, the Viet Cong did by hiding themselves and their supplies among villages.

Nevertheless, what the FOs did time and again was fire their initial volleys away from the target and then walk them in. They did this so they would hit their target precisely without killing civilians.

What this meant was that instead of one or two or possibly three volleys, it often took an FO five or six to hit his target.

So, picture yourself with minimal support in an area saturated by the enemy. They are actively looking for you to torture and kill you. They're using civilians as shields. Nevertheless you stay put and risk your life taking your time so that you don't kill civilians.

A lot of times that care, that humanity, that reluctance to take an innocent life, meant that the FO was killed or captured. These guys knew it, and they did it anyway. They sat there with their slide rules and their radios and directed the fire with humanity and regard to the civilian lives at stake.

They showed a humanity and a regard for civilian lives that their enemy did not, and they died for it.

[Scylla]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
Someone as confused as he, who misrepresents my motives as bad as he does, and then turns around and calls me a liar, is bound to be a lousy roommate. :)

Daniel

Cry me a river. Don't lie and I won't call you a liar. Suck it up like a big boy.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

This is fascinating - another instance of Scylla asserting rights to have contempt for others because a relative engaged in selfless acts of heroism. Please, Scylla, have contempt or don't have contempt, but stop trying to justify it or provide legitimacy for your beliefs because of the heroism of your ancestors.

My father fought in WWII, being sent in as a replacement just before the Battle of the Bulge. He was awarded the Bronze Star. He never really spoke of what he did there, except to say that he won that particular award for getting his pants caught on barbed wire. He also respected rights to free speech and to protest. May I have contempt for those who have contempt for protesters? Does my dad's heroism outweigh yours? (I won't even go into my grandfather's views on race.)

As to the OP, I respect that any American soldier is fighting for his country, and in that sense, for me and my rights. That is to say, I believe wholeheartedly that any individual's personal justifications for their actions in war would include primarily issues of protecting and defending American ideals. Yet, I also believe that all military actions do not necessarily serve to advance or maintain my rights, and in some cases actually serve to undermine my rights. Perhaps my distinction is illusory; nevertheless I have a great respect for those who serve their country in the military.

"You wear a peace button and write 'Born to Kill' on your helmet? Is that supposed to be some kind of sick joke?"

[Scylla]

Originally posted by Hentor the Barbarian
[B]This is fascinating - another instance of Scylla asserting rights to have contempt for others because a relative engaged in selfless acts of heroism.

You build good strawman. This is not what I've said or argued.


[b]My father fought in WWII, being sent in as a replacement just before the Battle of the Bulge. He was awarded the Bronze Star. He never really spoke of what he did there, except to say that he won that particular award for getting his pants caught on barbed wire. He also respected rights to free speech and to protest. May I have contempt for those who have contempt for protesters? Does my dad's heroism outweigh yours? (I won't even go into my grandfather's views on race.)

Well shit Hentor, you're free to believe what you want, and have contempt or not as you see fit. I can't recall suggesting otherwise. I don't recall arguing against free speech or the right to protest either.

As I've said several times I have no problem with people's protesting or dissent. I can respect a man who stands up for what he believes in, who shows the courage and seriousness of his convictions and is willing to go to jail or otherwise pay the price for them.

I find the man who lies and who runs from his responsibilities and the consequences of his beliefs contemptible in any regard. A man who says "I will not fight, and goes to jail for it does not deserve contempt for the strength of his beleifs. One who simply lies and cheats to dodge his responsibilities without consequence does whether they are a draft dodger, a deadbeat dad, or simply a common thief.

As to the OP, I respect that any American soldier is fighting for his country, and in that sense, for me and my rights. That is to say, I believe wholeheartedly that any individual's personal justifications for their actions in war would include primarily issues of protecting and defending American ideals. Yet, I also believe that all military actions do not necessarily serve to advance or maintain my rights, and in some cases actually serve to undermine my rights. Perhaps my distinction is illusory; nevertheless I have a great respect for those who serve their country in the military.

Fair enough.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

I have not lied once in this thread, nor do I intend to. You have used the accusation, among others, as a cover for your poor reading and reasoning skills.

There is a remote possibility that I misunderstood you -- that while you consider it ethical for a person to fight in a war she considers unjust, you would consider it unethical for her to follow orders in that war that are likely to result in the deaths of people she considers innocent. I don't understand how one would accomplish such feats of ethical contortionism, but maybe you have a way a person could do so, and I misunderstood you.

But given your contemptible recourse to insults rather than explanations, I'm not inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Daniel

[Scylla]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
I have not lied once in this thread, nor do I intend to. You have used the accusation, among others, as a cover for your poor reading and reasoning skills.

Well then I apologize. I was under the impression that saying people said something that they didn't in order to make them look bad was a lie.

Obviously I don't understand these things, because I am also confused as to how those who lie and shirk their obligations with the consequence that otehr people not so dishonest must fight and die in their place is an ethical choice.

I guess I'm just not very good at believing in these sophisticated rationalizations.

There is a remote possibility that I misunderstood you -- that while you consider it ethical for a person to fight in a war she considers unjust, you would consider it unethical for her to follow orders in that war that are likely to result in the deaths of people she considers innocent. I don't understand how one would accomplish such feats of ethical contortionism, but maybe you have a way a person could do so, and I misunderstood you.

I would hope that if you were going to backpedal and concede something you'd do it in a straightforward manner rather than playing games.

Here's how it works. The war can be unjust. The soldier fighting in it doesn't have to be. By the same token being on the side of right doesn't excuse unethical behavior.

A defense attorney may not believe in the innocence of his client, nevertheless he may comport himself ethically and properly and wield the best defense possible because he believes in the process and his role in it.

There are many cases of people comporting themselves ethically in situations which themselves may seem unethical from a larger perspective. In fact, this is largely the way that life works from top to bottom.

There are jut and unjust things going on all around us, and we are involved in them. What we can hope to do is to control the only thing that we can control, ourselves.

I'm extremely surprised that I have to be making this argument. Do you really have a problem with this? Not everything is black and white, you know? What I'm saying is not exactly a novel idea.

We are truly only responsible for those things that we can control. And the only thing we truly control is our own behavior.

But given your contemptible recourse to insults rather than explanations, I'm not inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt.
l

I hear you. I understand that you are offended I called you a liar. I called you a liar because you falsely attributed an argument to me that I did not make. As long as you continue to state that your misattribution is a fair restatement of my argument, I will consider you to be lying. Especially as your rationalization above to justify it is simply absurd. After I pointed out that you had lied, I got over it and moved on.

[Scylla]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
I have not lied once in this thread, nor do I intend to. You have used the accusation, among others, as a cover for your poor reading and reasoning skills.

Well then I apologize. I was under the impression that saying people said something that they didn't in order to make them look bad was a lie.

Obviously I don't understand these things, because I am also confused as to how those who lie and shirk their obligations with the consequence that otehr people not so dishonest must fight and die in their place is an ethical choice.

I guess I'm just not very good at believing in these sophisticated rationalizations.

There is a remote possibility that I misunderstood you -- that while you consider it ethical for a person to fight in a war she considers unjust, you would consider it unethical for her to follow orders in that war that are likely to result in the deaths of people she considers innocent. I don't understand how one would accomplish such feats of ethical contortionism, but maybe you have a way a person could do so, and I misunderstood you.

I would hope that if you were going to backpedal and concede something you'd do it in a straightforward manner rather than playing games.

Here's how it works. The war can be unjust. The soldier fighting in it doesn't have to be. By the same token being on the side of right doesn't excuse unethical behavior.

A defense attorney may not believe in the innocence of his client, nevertheless he may comport himself ethically and properly and wield the best defense possible because he believes in the process and his role in it.

There are many cases of people comporting themselves ethically in situations which themselves may seem unethical from a larger perspective. In fact, this is largely the way that life works from top to bottom.

There are jut and unjust things going on all around us, and we are involved in them. What we can hope to do is to control the only thing that we can control, ourselves.

I'm extremely surprised that I have to be making this argument. Do you really have a problem with this? Not everything is black and white, you know? What I'm saying is not exactly a novel idea.

We are truly only responsible for those things that we can control. And the only thing we truly control is our own behavior.

But given your contemptible recourse to insults rather than explanations, I'm not inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt.
l

I hear you. I understand that you are offended I called you a liar. I called you a liar because you falsely attributed an argument to me that I did not make. As long as you continue to state that your misattribution is a fair restatement of my argument, I will consider you to be lying. Especially as your rationalization above to justify it is simply absurd. After I pointed out that you had lied, I got over it and moved on.

[Latro]

Scylla I'm not following your reasoning.

On the one hand you say that there are no moral/ethical obligations but to ourselves.
Then you turn around and say that is ethical to obey orders from a government, while you don't believe those orders to be ethical or morally just. Or rather; un-ethical to disobey.

So what is the ethical thing to do?
Do you avoid/fight things you consider unjust or obey orders like a good citizen?



The war can be unjust. The soldier fighting in it doesn't have to be.
So, should he disobey an order that is unjust?
Disobeying an order is not very ethical, according to you, is it?
Should he burn the village?

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Scylla, there's some sort of big irony in the wind. You snark about my "sophisticated rationalizations," and then turn around and tell me that I'm seeing everything too much in black and white, and say that a war can be unjust but a soldier in the war can be just?

I honestly have no idea what you mean by that. I wonder if you and I have fundamentally different ideas of what an unjust war means.

I don't believe that there has ever been a war in which innocent people didn't die. AFAIK, that's a fact of war. And those innocent people die because soldiers kill them, and soldiers kill them because they're following orders.

With me so far?

In the case of a just war, we can argue that the deaths of those innocent people were tragic necessities -- that the war's ultimate goal is so important that it outweighs the deaths of these specific innocents. Obviously, you want to minimize innocent death in a just war, but you can't avoid it entirely.

But in an unjust war, the war's ultimate goal doesn't outweigh the deaths of those innocent people. That's damn near the definition of an unjust war.

How, then, can an ethical person fight in a war he chooses to be unjust? Once a soldier agrees to join the army, he gives up much of his own decisionmaking: he agrees to turn that over to his military superiors. That means that, since it's an unjust war, there's a good chance that he'll be given orders that will result in the unjustified deaths of innocent people.

Still with me?

Are you suggesting that a soldier may ethically fight in an unjust war, but may not ethically obey orders that might result in the unjustified deaths of innocent people?

Other than that possibility, I really can see no possibility beyond that you believe a soldier may ethically fight in an unjust war, and may ethically obey orders that might result in the unjustified deaths of innocent people.

And if you believe that, then we can tighten the phrasing: a soldier may ethically kill innocent people in an unjust war.

I'm not lying about you, any more than December was lying when he suggested I'd said America deserved to be attacked by terrorists. At worst, I'm not seeing some sophisticated rationale you're using to justify the soldier's actions.

Daniel

[Scylla]

Dan:

I have to confess to some sincere disbelief that you're still having trouble with this.

I'm seeing everything too much in black and white, and say that a war can be unjust but a soldier in the war can be just?

Of course.


Everything our country does isn't just Dan. Yet, you still pay your taxes, and therefore you contribute to the good and the bad. Does that make you unjust?

Because some of what our country does isn't just does that free you from your obligation to pay taxes?

I don't believe that there has ever been a war in which innocent people didn't die. AFAIK, that's a fact of war. And those innocent people die because soldiers kill them, and soldiers kill them because they're following orders.

With me so far?

No. Innocent people dying isn't a result of soldiers following orders in a war. Certainly sometimes it can be, but you're attempting to make a rule out of the exception.

In the case of a just war, we can argue that the deaths of those innocent people were tragic necessities -- that the war's ultimate goal is so important that it outweighs the deaths of these specific innocents. Obviously, you want to minimize innocent death in a just war, but you can't avoid it entirely.

This is getting silly. Say for the sake of argument 52,000 innocent people died in the Vietnamese conflict. So before a soldier goes to war, he is somehow supposed to calculate the amount of innocent casualties that are going to occur. and then decide whether the war is worth fighting or not? And, if he decides it's not, it's ok to lie and cheat or whatever to get out of fighting?

I think my system, which happens to be the system we live under, makes a lot more sense. That system is that we are nothing if we are divided, yet everybody has a voice. We elect representatives by exercising our proportional power when we vote. Those representatives and leaders then provide a consensus to which we are all obligated.

In the case where personal beliefs are so strong that we cannot abide the consensus we are obligated to open civil disobedience to correct the system.

We just don't get to take the parts we like and ignor the ones we don't.

But in an unjust war, the war's ultimate goal doesn't outweigh the deaths of those innocent people. That's damn near the definition of an unjust war.

I can't think of any cause that justified the deaths of innocent people. I think it's insane to look at it in those terms. Are you actually going to say "freedom in Somalia is worth 20,000 deaths, but not 25,000?"

Was stopping Hitler worth the millions dead? I don't think so. You don't commit war because you can afford the price, or you think it's worth it. You do it because you have to, because it's the only choice, not because it makes some kind of perverted sense from the standpoint of the moral economics of dead innocents.

How, then, can an ethical person fight in a war he chooses to be unjust? Once a soldier agrees to join the army, he gives up much of his own decisionmaking: he agrees to turn that over to his military superiors. That means that, since it's an unjust war, there's a good chance that he'll be given orders that will result in the unjustified deaths of innocent people.

Still with me?

No. that defense didn't work at Nuremberg, and it doesn't work here. Being a soldier doesn't absolve you from personal responsibility. Any human being and especially a soldier in the US armed forces has not just the right responsibility or duty, but the legal obligation to disobey a direct order that violates the rules of engagement or the Geneva convention. He can and will be held accountable for violating this conduct.

"Shoot the defenseless women and children!" is not an order that a soldier can legally follow regardless of the "justness" of his cause.

Will innocent people sometimes die as a result of a properly given and legal order during warfare? Of course.

Are you suggesting that a soldier may ethically fight in an unjust war, but may not ethically obey orders that might result in the unjustified deaths of innocent people?

Of course. That's the way our armed services work. That's why there are rules of engagement, codes of conduct, a Geneva convention, etc. It goes even farther than that. A soldier is not just obligated to disobey an order that results in the unjustified deaths of innocents. He is responsible to prevent that order from being carried out, by anybody, period. Just standing by is not enough. A soldier has the positive duty to protect the innocent, and stop their needless slaughter.

Being a soldier has very clear ethical duties. You should check out the armed services code of conduct, the US rules of engagement and and refamiliarize yourself with the Geneva convention.

Unfortunately whether or not a war is just or worthwhile is often just a political argument, a judgement call, or open to semantics. Personal conduct is not.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Scylla, you're simply wrong. That's all there is to it. Partly it's because you're oversimplifying the issue.

There are three, not two, possible situations we need to look at:
1) A soldier is given an order in which innocent people are not at all likely to die ("Shoot down that fighter plane!")
2) A soldier is given an order in which innocent people are very likely to die ("Shoot those villagers!")
3) A soldier is given an order in which innocent people may die ("Bomb that munitions factory next to the hospital!")

I hear you addressing situations 1 and 2: a soldier ethically must obey the first, and must disobey the second. But what about the third?

My contention is that in an unjust war, a person must disobey the third order, whether or not they're a soldier.

Your claim that a just war is one which you fight "because you have to, because it's the only choice, not because it makes some kind of perverted sense from the standpoint of the moral economics of dead innocents" is nonsense. There's no such thing as war being "the only choice": there's always other choices, and you fight a just war because you believe it's the best choice amongst many. Other choices may be engaging in mass nonviolent resistance, utilizing sanctions, assassinating leaders, acquiescing to tyranny, bribing a tyrant into cooperation, and so forth. Not necessarily good choices, but they're choices you have to weigh against the deaths of innocents.

Once more, all soldiers should of course seek to minimize the deaths of innocents, but innocents DO die in wars. You're either lying or being unintentionally obtuse when you say

Innocent people dying isn't a result of soldiers following orders in a war. Certainly sometimes it can be, but you're attempting to make a rule out of the exception.

I am saying that it's a rule that innocent people do die in wars. If I'm wrong, please name some wars in which innocent people didn't die. I am NOT saying that every order a soldier follows results in the deaths of innocent people, but I AM saying that "collateral damage" is a fact of warfare, and it often results from soldiers following orders. Note that this is different from saying that soldiers' following orders often results in collateral damage, and that the distinction is far from academic.

So it comes back to this: if a soldier is given an order that MIGHT result in the deaths of innocents ("Bomb that munitions factory next to the hospital!"), how should she respond? Does this change depending on whether she believes the war to be just or unjust?

As for another question you asked: I have abslute respect for war tax resisters, folks who delete from their taxes the amount used to fund the military and give that amount instead to a peace-activist organization. Ethics isn't a package deal: when you're born into a society, you don't choose to follow all its edicts or leave the society. You evaluate every decision you must make in that society ethically, and when the society asks you to do something unethical, you are obligated to disobey.

Daniel

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

One more note: if you think the Geneva Convention prohibits killing innocent people, you need to reread it. They explicitly allow for killing civilians, AS LONG AS THE CIVILIANS AREN'T THE TARGET. In other words, if you blow up a munitions factory (a legitimate target), and it happens to destroy the hospital next door (an illegitimate target), you're not in violation of the Convention.

I believe that in an unjust war, you're still ethically a murderer.

Daniel

[Monty]

You are misreading it, Daniel. It doesn't "explicitily allow" that. What it does is not make it a criminal act.

As for your last comment: that's an opinion, and I would like to see some valid support for it.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

"Explicitly allow" may be stating it a bit strongly. I'm under the impresion that it explicitly exempts such acts from being criminal acts, however; is this correct? If so, is there any functional equivalent between that and explicitly allowing it?

As for my last statement, I recognize that it's an opinion, but I think I've spent three pages giving my reasons for it. The only clarification that may be necessary is that I'm using "ethically a murderer" to mean, "one who knowingly engages in an act that is likely to, and does, result in killing a person unethically."

Daniel

[Scylla]

Dan:

Scylla, you're simply wrong. That's all there is to it.

I'm not taking your word for it.

I hear you addressing situations 1 and 2: a soldier ethically must obey the first, and must disobey the second. But what about the third?

My contention is that in an unjust war, a person must disobey the third order, whether or not they're a soldier.

Ok. Why would it be worth obeying in a "just war?" While we're at it, why don't we define "just war" objectively.

Don't people die inadvertently as a result of all sorts of actions? Why is this unforgivable only in an unjust war?

Hypothetical:

The war is unjust (whatever that means.) However, in a localized battle the enemy is committing grave atrocities. Let's say they are torturing captured soldiers and slaying civilians in a wanton fashion.

Your commander gives you the order to take out their C&C complex which is adjacent to a village which is harboring the genocidal commander. You know the explosion will likely kill several innocent bystanders. You also strongly beleive that executing the order will save many many lives.

Should you execute the order or not?

There's no such thing as war being "the only choice": there's always other choices, and you fight a just war because you believe it's the best choice amongst many.

Technically you are correct. There are always other choices. For example, if your enemy is seeking to wipe you off the face of the earth, you could choose not to fight, and simply die. What I meant was that it was the only choice that made sense anymore.

Once more, all soldiers should of course seek to minimize the deaths of innocents, but innocents DO die in wars. You're either lying or being unintentionally obtuse when you say

"Innocent people dying isn't a result of soldiers following orders in a war. Certainly sometimes it can be, but you're attempting to make a rule out of the exception."

It's not soldiers following orders that makes innocent people die, Dan.

I am saying that it's a rule that innocent people do die in wars.

Which is a lot different than saying that innocent people die because soldiers have been ordered to kill them.

if a soldier is given an order that MIGHT result in the deaths of innocents ("Bomb that munitions factory next to the hospital!"), how should she respond? Does this change depending on whether she believes the war to be just or unjust?

I'm uncertain as to what the objective definition of a "just" or "unjust" war is. A munitions factory is a legitimate target. The soldier needs to obey the order, putting his life at risk if necessary to do his best to eliminate or minimize the damage to the hospital and it's occupants.

As for another question you asked: I have abslute respect for war tax resisters, folks who delete from their taxes the amount used to fund the military and give that amount instead to a peace-activist organization. Ethics isn't a package deal:

But, it doesn't work that way. That tax withholding results in a general shortfall not one specific to the military. By what logic do you beleive the government will look at the shortfall and reduce the amount given to the military? In fact, it is the softer social programs that are most likely to be the recipients of the cut.

[Monster104]

I stand corrected. Your father is not any wiser than you depicted him.
DanielWithrow, you've been harping on Scylla for his alleged "holier-than-thou attitude", then you turn around and say this?

Besides, you're wrong. Vietnam was a just war. It had a just cause. People who oppose that war, or who call it unjust, are simply unwise. You're not depicting yourself any wiser than they.

See? I can go and state my opinions as fact too, and state it in a smug, "holier-than-thou attitude" as well, and like you, it doesn't make me right.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally posted by Scylla
It's not soldiers following orders that makes innocent people die, Dan.

Unless you're deliberately misinterpreting me, this statement makes no sense at all. Soldiers follow "legitimate" orders all the time that result in the deaths of innocent people: the munitions factory is just one example.

In a just war, a soldier might reasonably conclude (as you assume in your C&C example) that the deaths of the innocent people are outweighed by the good accomplished by a specific act. Even, I admit, in an unjust war, there may be specific circumstances under which this perverse calculation holds true. And in those cases, I believe a soldier may ethically follow orders.

But here's my objection. That same soldier may later be asked to bomb, say, a pwer station. The soldier may reasonably believe that the power station provides the only source of heat to many elderly residents in a nearby town; he mayalso know that the military brass want it gone because it'll disrupt communication channels. If the soldier believes the war is unjust (and more specifically believes that the removal of communication channels does not outweigh the deaths of elderly residents in a nearby town), I do not believe he can ethically obey this order.

Of course, this is not a calculation that soldier can make in the middle of battle: he won't have all the facts, and the pressure on him to obey the order, despite its apparent unethicality, will be immense.

For that reason, I think that a person ordered to fight in an unjust war may not ethically accept that order to begin with.

Daniel

[Scylla]

Dan:

The concept of "just war" seems to be central to your thesis. I therefore suggest that it is your responsibility to define it objectively, so I'll ask you again:

Can you please objectively define "just/unjust war."

As for the power station thing, suppose that the war is just yet the disruption of communications is unnecessary, as the war is basically won. The disruption is simply a matter of convenience to make mopping up easier, rather than a military necessity for victory. As such, it's probably not worth the lives of the elderly people who will die, is it?

In this circumstance, should a soldier execute an unjust order in a just war? Is the death of innocents excused by the justness of the cause if not the necessity.

My point, which I think is becoming pretty clear, is that the ethics an individual soldier displays in a conflict are not changed in quality by the justness/unjustness of the cause he fights for.

Since the justness of the cause is moot in terms of the soldiers ethical behavior, and a soldier can and is obligated to fight ethically in an unjust conflict, it is not a valid excuse.

A man cannot dodge the draft by lying under the ethical pretense that if he submits we will be forced into unethical behavior. It is simply not true.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

I'll use most of this definition (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pol116/justwar.htm) of a just war. I'm not sure I agree with the second criterion, but since that criterion is immaterial to our discussion, I'll stipulate it for now.

You'll note that in that definition, "Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target." Therefore, if a soldier is given an order in which the deaths of civilians are both probable and unnecessary, the war is not a just war -- although it may have been just up to that point. So your example of the soldier ordered to bomb a power plant during the mopping-up phase would be not be fighting in a just war if he followed the order.

(You may read this clause more loosely than I do -- you may believe that such an order wouldn't violate this definition. But I'm explaining how I approach the issue here, and it would be violating the principles that I consider to define a just war.)

The justness of the cause is by no means moot: it's central to the issue. Soldiers in just wars and unjust wars might both be ordered to engage in actions which have a reasonable likelihood of killing civilians. In just wars, those deaths are unavoidable. In an unjust war, they are not. Complying with the orders in the first case is a tragic necessity; complying with the orders in the second case is highly unethical.

I believe everyone has a positive ethical duty of the highest order to avoid fighting in an unjust war.

Daniel

[Scylla]

Which now brings us to some interesting questions:

1. Was Vietnam actually a war?

2. If it wasn't, is there some different criteria for a police action?

3. If it was how does Vietnam violate the criteria?

On a more interesting point, again, from discussion with my father.

Everybody in the armed Services did not fight in Vietnam.
At the time of the Vietnam conflict, military service was mandatory. You had the obligation to serve at the age of 18 absent a legitimate deferral or exemption.

This obligation was an ethical one incurred by the individual as a member of the society from which he derives benefits.

Whether or not an individual ethically believes Vietnam was a just war, he still is encumbered by the very valid ethical obligation of military service.

If he has dodged the draft dishonestly he was shirked that valid ethical obligation.

Even while fighting a supposedly unjust war, our country still needs a valid reserve and defense. We need soldiers at hand in case we are attacked unjustly. We need soldiers that we can use in just causes. For example, we needed to have a vast military presence available to deploy during the Cuban missile crisis. The fact that we did, clearly played a part in averting war. hat cause could be juster?

We maintain a military capable of fighting on several different fronts and serving several different purposes at the same time, and we need to have a military capacity available to use when just cause calls upon us to do so.

A person who was 18 in the 60s and 70s had an obligtion to fulfill this role in the military.

Simply because he personally believes that one of the many roles that the military was fulfilling at the time was arguably unjust, has no bearing on the many other just roles that the military was providing at the time.

It does not excuse his obligation to those just roles, nor does it excuse his military obligation in general.

It certainly does not justify lying, or shirking one's responsible.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

As I've said before, I do not believe that there is a positive ethical duty to comply with an order to join the military. My more recent posts have been outlining my belief that there is a positive ethical duty NOT to fight in an unjust war, and not to put oneself in a position where one will be forced to fight in an unjust war. If you want to go back to talking about the purported positive ethical duty to follow an order to join the military, that's fine.

As for your "interesting questions," I don't really believe they're that interesting. Of course the Vietnam War was a war. There's an old riddle that informs my philosophy:

Q. How many legs does a sheep have, if you call its tail a leg?
A. Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

The government may have used the term "police action" for obfuscatory reasons, but that doesn't make it any less of a war.

I do not believe that Vietnam was a just war, but discussing the reasons for that belief may take us even farther afield from the central point. Lemme know if you think this is the place for that discussion.

Now I've got a question for you. If I understand you, there are two ethical choices a person has: they may fight in a war (whether or not they believe it to be just), or they may go to prison to protest the war. What about people who asked for, and obtained, conscientious objector status? Did they behave ethically?

And what about people who would have obtained CO status if they lived in, say, NYC (where CO status was treated as a legitimate outcome) versus somebody who lived in, say, Charlotte, NC (where the draft board explicitly said that they didn't believe in CO status and denied it almost across the board)? If they maneuvered so that they'd be considered under NYC's draft board, would they be behaving ethically?

Daniel

[Scylla]

Dan:

As I've said before, I do not believe that there is a positive ethical duty to comply with an order to join the military.

I don't really know that we have anything further to say then. A person who accepts the benefits of society but refuses to recognize a legitimate and binding obligation to that society is contemptible from an ethical standpoint.

A person who refuses to acknowledge his obligations has no ethics.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally posted by Scylla
A person who refuses to acknowledge his obligations has no ethics.

I disagree. I think someone can, for example, fight in an unjust war and still have ethics; they just have mistaken ethics. Although their behavior is contemptible and to be condemned in the strongest terms, they themselves are not contemptible. They are just making a deadly mistake.

Daniel