You make an interesting point about prisoners being more trouble than they are worth Joe. While I haven’t studied it, from what I’ve learned and read, it seems to me to be the oppositie case. There have been very few instances of prisoners escaping and causing trouble. Many more of them being valuable war prizes and bargining pieces. Now, I would assume that if they were more trouble, a lot of people wouldn’t bother taking them.
Maybe oldscratch, but most wars that I can think of were more trouble than they were worth for both sides, yet we still have wars right?
I wouldn’t say so. I would say that most wars were quite worth the trouble for at least one side. It would have been better if they could have gotten it without war, but war is the last resort generally.
which again begs the question: if you’re driven to your last option, making war, why burden yourself with artificial rules on how to conduct your mass destruction in a civilized manner?
Why is it ok to drop thousands of conventional bombs resulting in millions of deaths, but dropping a single nuclear bomb – which a) is less expensive, b) presents greater psychological (read: fear) value, and c) costs only in the hundreds of thousands of lives – is considered atrocity and dooms you to go into history as a monster?
Why is it ok to fire rockets or 5" explosive shells at a tank, but you can’t use depleted uranium?
Why can you torpedo a ship, but you can’t use tactical nuclear weapons? After all, there’s no more environmental impact from a small nuclear explosion than from sinking a nuclear powered ship.
Why is it ok to shoot, bomb, burn, or bayonette large numbers of men, but gassing them is not ok?
Why do we go to such great lengths to pretend that we are civilized, while we are in the midst of committing the ultimate uncivilized act: killing our fellow human beings en masse?
Again, don’t misunderstand. I’m not an anti-war hippie. I don’t generally have any quarrel with military action (so long as it has a reasonably justifiable cause). But I do have an problem with the hypocrisy of tying our military’s hands with senseless rules and guidelines, rather than allowing them to do their jobs effectively and efficiently, and put an end to the conflict as quickly as possible. So where do you draw the line? What makes one method of killing somebody good and another method bad? How efficient it is? Well then why don’t we outlaw artillery? It kills exponentially better than small arms. In fact, why not outlaw any type of firearms in military action? We could force everybody to go back to swords and clubs. See how nonsensical it is?
How quickly did Japan surrender when they saw that a single bomb could destroy several square miles and damage a good portion of an entire city? The two nukes caused, what, a couple hundred thousand deaths, all told? How many people died when they were Island hopping? In the great naval battles we study? In the bombing, shelling, and rocket attacks on London? The deaths in World War II numbered in the MILLIONS (and those are military deaths. That doesn’t even begin to count the attempted racial and religious exterminations in Europe). How many of those would have been saved if Little Boy and Fat Man had been available and used in 1939 instead of 7 years later? So what was more atrocious?
Too many armchair generals, too many political-correctness types, too much pretense. These are the problems we have currently. We refuse to let our forces do what they are sent to do.
We civilians want to sit and pat our own backs in self-congratulatory bliss, thinking about how sophisticated we are, because we can watch war on TV, and talk to our families about how pretty the Maverick missiles look when they hit office buildings. We burden our men with stupid and arbitrary rules of “civilized warfare” that endanger their lives and missions, as we send them to do our killing for us because we don’t have the stomachs to do it ourselves. We prefer to order them to do it.
Our elected officials serve no real purpose other than to get re-elected, so they pander to this mentality and enforce the rules. After all, it’s not their sons and daughters who will be killed or captured in action.
Our generals hope eventually to become elected officials, so they are happy to go along with the status quo without a fight…after all, they are not the ones who will end up with bullets in the heart or head. They aren’t the ones who will come home in wheelchairs or body bags.
Our media exist only to increase ratings, thus bring in more revenue, so they candy-coat the coverage of what happens and show us essentially state-sponsored propaganda films of the war that look more like fireworks displays, so that we can think to ourselves, “wow, this war business isn’t so bad after all! Why were we against it? Besides, it’ll make our gas prices go down, and we can do some flag-waving at the same time!” After all, war sells. Especially if it looks good on camera.
And the best part is this: Whoever kills the most people the most effectively wins the war, and (ready?) gets to put the loser on trial and in prison for KILLING THE WINNING SIDE’S PEOPLE!!! Isn’t that great?
Hypocrisy is our biz-ness,
and biz-ness is goooood!
PS.
I am not criticizing trials of German officers and officials who ran extermination camps. The thought of what happened there makes me physically sick and I wish every man who had a hand in that could be squicked to death by mad goats. I’m talking about wartime atrocity trials: people being tried for shelling towns, killing soldiers rather than taking them prisoner, manufacturing gas, developing nuclear capabilities (which half the civilized world already has), etc. Dealing with the realities of war in a more pragmatic fashion, rather than following the “rules”.
Joe Cool: <<Why is it you can fire rockets or 5 inch explosive shells at a tank, but you can’t use depleted uranium?>>
Well, it’s pretty clear you haven’t done your homework. Depleted uranium shells are the shell of choice against modern main battle tanks. Old fashioned HE just ain’t gonna cut it against reactive armor.
Firing DE shells at enemy armor is perfectly legal, under the law of land warfare.
quote: panzermanpanzerman
Airmen bailing out of disabled aircraft are not fair game, and must be allowed to land safely unless they attempt to resist capture.
Joe Cool:
So you are supposed to allow an active combatant and aggressor (from your POV. speaking of battlefield conditions, not political causes & effects) safe passage to the ground, at which time you are required to take him prisoner or let him go about his business of causing you as much damage as he is humanly capable while he escapes to friendly territory?
Exactly. Pilots escaping disabled aircraft are not considered active combatants until they resist under the Law of Land Warfare.
<<Even a pilot is still a soldier.>>
No, a pilot is a pilot. The only grey area is Army aviation. Fixed wing pilots are all either Sailors, Airmen, or Marines. Not “soldiers.”
<<Why can you torpedo a ship, but you can’t use tactical nuclear weapons?>>
Because we have signed a “no first use” treaty. It would also spark a massive arms race among second world countries seeking to build a deterrent effect vs. the U.S. It would be stupid to use tac nukes.
<<But I do have an problem with the hypocrisy of tying our military’s hands with senseless rules and guidelines, rather than allowing them to do their jobs effectively and efficiently, and put an end to the conflict as quickly as possible.>>
Then support the strict adherence to the Law of Land Warfare. Our general adherance to it has saved many thousands of American lives.
<<Too many armchair generals, too many political-correctness types, too much pretense. These are the problems we have currently. We refuse to let our forces do what they are sent to do.>>
Aren’t you an “armchair general?”
<<We burden our men with stupid and arbitrary rules of “civilized warfare” that endanger their lives and missions>>
The burden is upon you to show that the Law of Land Warfare is “stupid and arbitrary,” and how it endangers our lives and missions. I’m a professional soldier telling you it does not. It’s clear you don’t even know what’s in it.
<<And the best part is this: Whoever kills the most people the most effectively wins the war>>
Wrong. If that were true, the Germans would own Russia twice over (they would have won WWI as well.) If that were true the Confederates would have won the civil war.
Killing is not the aim of war.
<<Dealing with the realities of war in a more pragmatic fashion, rather than following the “rules”.>>
How about you first acquaint yourself with what’s actually in the Geneva, Hague, and Oslo conventions before you start the lecture? The Law of Land Warfare is extremely pragmatic.
Joe…about surrendering soldiers.
You accept surrender for practical purposes, not idealistic purposes. If enemy troops can’t surrender to your army, then they won’t try to surrender…they’ll fight to the last man, since they know they’re dead if you get their hands on them.
If you allow them to surrender, you save your own troops lots of headaches. You can exploit prisoners for propaganda purposes. You can exchange them for your own prisoners. You can use them to try to convince the enemy to surrender.
Also, if you don’t accept surrender, you won’t be offered surrender. Admittedly, this is a statistical thing. You never know when you’re going to run into a psycho. But even if your side is winning, soldiers are surrounded. If they can surrender, they can escape, they can be repatriated, etc. If your soldiers can’t surrender without being shot, then they’re going to be much more careful of whether they follow orders or not.
Yes, of course trying to surrender is always dangerous. Lots of soldiers trying to surrender are killed. But having a policy of allowing enemy soldiers to surrender is a good idea.
Also, you don’t seem to understand the purpose of war. You think, “Well, we’re fighting, the goal is to kill the other guy by any means possible.” But no. You are fighting for a purpose. If your only purpose is to kill the other guy then you are just a psychopath.
If the other guy is invading your country then your goal is not to kill the enemy, it is to convince him to leave you alone. One good way to do that is to kill him…but that is a means, not an end. Maybe you are trying to conquer the other country (lets say you have good reason…like the Allies in WWII). Will slaughtering civilians help you in your goal? No, it will make him fight harder, and create partisans. Did you know that the Ukranians, the Balts, even many Russians welcomed the Nazis with open arms? They were happy to be invaded by the Nazis! But the Nazi policy of looting, killing civilians, murder, torture, etc turned them against the Germans. The Nazis could have beaten the Russians by using the rules of warfare…many Russian subjects would have willingly joined the Nazis if only they could.
War is war. War is not killing and destruction, although killing and destruction are used as a tool in war. The rules of war help you to win the war.
from Joe Cool:
[q]How quickly did Japan surrender when they saw that a single bomb could destroy several square miles and damage a good portion of an entire city? The two nukes caused, what, a couple hundred thousand deaths, all told? How many people died when they were Island hopping? In the great naval battles we study? In the bombing, shelling, and rocket attacks on London? The deaths in World War II numbered in the MILLIONS (and those are military deaths. That doesn’t even begin to count the attempted racial and religious exterminations in Europe). How many of those would have been saved if Little Boy and Fat Man had been available and used in 1939 instead of 7 years later? So what was more atrocious? [/q]
Oops, what I meant to say is that Japan, even after two atomic bombs, did not immediately surrender. In fact, the generals were plotting a massive revenge attack, perhaps involving every Japanese citizen, when Emperor Hirohito put a stop to the talks and ordered the generals to surrender to Montgomery.
My mistake. I was commenting mainly on the huge amount of bitching and whining about how evil uranium rounds are, and all the crap about its being a possible cause for GWS. Not on their “legality”.
I’m not talking about the law of land warfare. I’m talking about reality. Does a pilot go through basic training? Is a pilot trained in combat and the use of arms? Does he carry a sidearm (this one is not rhetorical, I genuinely don’t know)? Is he capable of resisting capture or engaging in combat without his aircraft? Granted not as effectively as a SEAL or even an infantryman, but I’m willing to bet the answer to all of those questions is “YES”. So regardless of whether your law defines him as a soldier, he is one.
again, this is psychological. Everybody is terrified of “nuclear” anything. A low-yield tactical warhead is just a more powerful shell/torpedo/missile. It does not spell the end of the universe. And the fact that we adhere to a no-first-use treaty puts us at a disadvantage to those who will ignore it. If we put so much trust in the treaty, then why don’t we dismantle all of our nuc weapons? Because we know that the only thing backing that treaty is the fact that our nukes are more and better than anybody else’s. The words on treaties aren’t worth the paper they’re written on without the law of Force backing them (no typo. I did not mean force of law). No matter how many agreements and laws we have, the bottom line is that we live in the world of peace through superior firepower. What I am saying is why not just admit it?
Where under the Law of Land Warfare is it legal to bomb the embassy of an (at least officially) uninvolved third-party? I’d say our strict adherance to the Law took a nosedive when we did that last year.
As a matter of fact, no I’m not. I advocate taking the details of war completely out of the hands of politicians and putting it completely in the hands of the military. Politicians decide to have a war and decide what the objectives should be. It should be left to soldiers to carry it out without interference by civilians, except to end hostilities. This more so when we have CinC’s who diligently evaded any shadow of possible combat or military service.
Out of curiosity, what is it that you do? I mean no disrespect, it’s just that “professional soldier” is a broad brush. That could be anything from a Merc (based on your opinions, I’m guessing that’s not you) to a career Colonel, to an E-1 fresh out of boot camp. It’s just that the experience and professional opinion of a high ranking officer/strategist carries more weight than that of a private or a sergeant whose job it is to carry out orders without regard for or knowledge of the greater picture.
True. Killing is not the aim of war, but it is the primary tool. Destruction of property and monetary resources are up there too, but killing is the order of the day in wartime. Did soldiers in Vietnam wake up and say “I can’t wait to destroy a production facility today!” or “gotta deplete some enemy financial resources before chow!”? Nope. He was more likely to wake up and say “Gonna kill me some gooks today!” You dehumanize the enemy, and you kill him. That is the way of things when you’re in combat. As a professional soldier, I’m sure you know that.
That is a good suggestion. I believe I’ll do that today.
A couple of things I want to toss out:
Joe_Cool
The only soldiers who say that are the psychos and the cherries. The average soldier is much more likely to say “Oh shit, I hope I get through this day.” or “God I hope I don’t get my ass shot off today.”
As for taking prisoners-panzerman has nailed most of the practicle reasons why you take them - now you’re worried about the difficulty of prisoners. Most soldiers who surrender are in no shape to resist, mentally or physically, and are damn glad they are no longer being shot at (actually, in my limited experience, all of them fit this description). If they were able to resist, they wouldn’t be surrendering.
(BTW even that lowly infantry private has info you may want-what unit is he in, unit strength, moral, supply, commander, etc., and various scuttlebutt that the enlisted pick-up - all valuable intelligence)
My credentials, I was an infantryman (4 year enlistment) with the 3rd Armor Division in South-West Asia (Mil talk for Saudi).
Well-trained, diciplined soldiers neither think in terms of “Let’s kill some Gooks” nor terms of “I hope I don’t die”; They think in terms of missions. A mission can be “We have to take this hill” or “We have to destroy this installation” or “we have to hold this ridge”. Killing the enemy is usually part of it, yes, but it’s not the main purpose. Soldiers usually put the most importance in getting the job done and keeping their friends alive. Oh yes - and of no getting killed.
Oh, and panzerman - your distinction between different branches of armed forces is very localized and American. Where I come from, if it flies, it’s Air Force, which is just another branch of the army. If he’s wearing a uniform, he’s a soldier. Any other definition is just beurocratic.
My credentials - three years in the Israeli army, Infantry, Nahal (933) Brigade. I’m currently a squad leader in a reserve infantry unit.
True, people are more afraid of the word “nuclear” than they should be. However, there are definite practical concerns about using nuclear weapons, one being ecological impact. Nukes release a good deal of radiation, as I’m sure you’re aware. It does not just go away once the war is over. Conventional war has its unexploded munitions, but at least you can remove them, and they can’t drift through the air to neighboring countries. And while we can make “neutron” bombs, they have reduced radiation, not zero radiation.
Secondly, you talk rather carelessly about dropping bombs on population centers. Are you really thinking about this? Do you think that because the US did it in WW2 it’s OK to do it in any war? I would argue it was not right to bomb population centers conventionally or otherwise, but I can understand their predicament. They did not have precision bombing, contrary to what you might have heard about the Norden bombsight. Yes, we still have problems today identifying targets from miles above, and you are going to have incompetent officers from time to time who make mistakes, but we have become much more accurate in comparison. Do you think it would have been morally justified to just nuke Sarajevo when we have these new capabilities? There’s a difference between accidentally bombing innocents and intentionally destroying an entire city. Yes, some are going die during war anyway, but think about what you’re suggesting. Put yourself at the receiving end of the bomb once and consider the situation.
This thought makes me shudder a bit. Others can debate this better than I can, but…
Political leaders share responsibility for the conduct of a war, as they initiated it. Our country operates by a division of power, so that no one portion of government can wield total control. Because the military holds the power to kill indiscriminately, it is critical that civilians keep some control over them. I’ll agree that the President has far too much power in this regard (undeclared wars), but I’d argue that Congress should be more involved to balance the whims of a single man, not scrapping civilian control. War by committee may not the most efficient method, but it does help prevent an individual from making a bad call.
Oh, and I think you misunderstand the term “armchair general”–it can probably be applied to any civilian suggesting any type of military strategy. It’s not necessarily derisive, though it can be in certain contexts.