Do you believe it's immoral to willingly enlist in the military?

Great Debates
81

Of course taxpayers have a choice. They can choose to go to prison as a tax protester or, because I know that must not sound appealing, they can choose to earn less money and accept a lower standard of living to pay fewer taxes and thus be less culpable.

But I don’t really think they should have to do that, particularly if they didn’t vote for the people making the decisions (but if they did…)

As to the idea that the military is some monolithic entity, a “killin’ team” as you say, and then go on to compare to one who drives a school shooter to school… What about a school bus driver for the Dopes School District, one who knows that some fraction of students nationwide will go from a bus, into a school, and then shoot the school up, is the bus driver morally accountable as a functionary for school transportation if some other bus driver working for the same district (knowingly or unknowingly) delivers a child to one one of many DSD schools and goes on to carry out a school shooting? I mean, after all, the bus drivers for a given school district all work together as a team to accomplish the same goal. If one is guilty, then he others are too, right?

With that as a preface, let me say I spent a good part of my 20’s (and the Iraq War) overseas, in Japan. My days, when out to sea, were spent conducting anti-submarine warfare exercises, floating around waiting for shitty little North Korean missiles to launch, and just generally showing the flag in the Western Pacific. Which is basically the same thing the Navy had done prior to the GWOT and continues to do today (and may still after this current unpleasantness in Iraq is settled, even if it takes a hundred years). Like it or not, the peacetime functions of the military, great power competition, and the need for deterrence (if you grant there is one, I realize that’s not a given) did not disappear overnight just because the US invaded Iraq.

But then I did spend a year of my twenties in Iraq. From 2010 to 2011, I was an advisor with the Iraqi Navy. My job was to help reestablish a sovereign Iraqi government, of which a military capable of defending its borders and infrastructure is a part. Iraq doesn’t have much of a coastline, but it does have one, and it’s a critical outlet for getting their oil out into the global market, which is in turn essential for the economic well-being of the country (just as soon as they can get over that whole endemic corruption thing). I sincerely believe that my presence in Iraq was necessary, or at the very least not a harm, to the stability of a free and independent Iraq, whether or not it chose to remain aligned with the US post-war (and 2011 was the year the Iraq government decided not to renew the SOFA, and so when I left in August of that year, no one arrived to relieve me).

So, without knowing what I was “willing” to do (and we can discuss that in a later post if you like, and ), was my service during those years “immoral”? Particularly while I was in Iraq, even if someone somewhere else in Iraq was completely off the reservation, taking actions to the detriment of Iraq, why should my moral stake depend on their independent actions?

82

Me personally? Yes. But what you’re actually asking is whether a person can feel that volunteering for military service is justified, and the answer to that is a) of course a person can feel that, have you seen this thread, and b) this has nothing to do with whether somebody who hasn’t volunteered is party to the military’s actions.

I thought about mentioning draftees as specifically not sharing moral culpability (what there is of it) with volunteers, but figured that this was incredibly obvious and in fact had been an underlying fact of the thread since its inception, and thus didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to insult anybody’s intelligence.

I’m glad you agree that this argument is absurd, and that persons who do not volunteer, support, or endorse the government actions in question are in fact not culpable for what is done with money they are coerced out of on threat of dire punishment.

Absolutely! However none of them are guilty. The DSD is not culpable for actions that non-affiliates with the DSD chooses to carry out, and if one of the other DSD drivers goes rogue and rebels against the DSD goals that is not the DSD’s responsibility.

Maybe if the DSD had in its mission statement to slaughter any kid who the DSD thought had gotten out of hand you might have had an analogy.

I’d just like to restate that I have explicitly stated in this very that I do not consider volunteering for military service immoral, unless you do it specifically because you’re looking for opportunities to slaughter people.

But regardless of how immoral a person does consider volunteering for military service, I maintain that civilians who are forcibly separated from their money on threat of incarceration are not responsible for it when the government decides to do things with that money that they don’t approve of and wouldn’t have paid for if they had the choice.

83

The way I see it, there are basically three types of soldier.

The first joins voluntarily putting the good of his country before himself. And this person might be good, or might not be. Someone who volunteered to fight for the good of Nazi Germany probably wasn’t very moral. Someone who volunteered to protect England against the threat of Nazi invasion probably was moral.

The second type is conscripted, forced into a fight against their will. The fight they are involved in might well be immoral, but they aren’t there by choice. And these people can be excused their actions … up to a point. I can have a lot of sympathy for them. I would also say I employ a loose definition of conscription in this argument. For example, a few years ago I heard a lot of people claiming that they enlisted after 9/11 to fight against Bin Laden, but were then ordered into Iraq instead. They tell me, “this isn’t what I enlisted for, I didn’t want this.” They were forced into a fight against their wishes. And that is sort of like conscription.

The third type is the professional fighter. Killing people is simply a job that he does. He’s hired to fight a battle, and he does so without thought as to the right or wrong of it. He would protect my country from invasion, if told to do so. But also he would assist the invasion if told to do so. And he wouldn’t see any difference between the two. Either way, he just doing a job. Usually motivated by selfishness.

My contempt has always been directed at the third type.

Taxpayers count as conscripted. Many of them opposed the Iraq war, and didn’t want to fund it. But if they refused to hand over their money, they would go to prison. They are not to blame for the killing.

84

How do you distinguish between the first and the third category (or type) when one’s country has chosen, with the support of voters, to engage in a morally questionable campaign? Is it, in your opinion, impossible to join and continue to serve for altruistic reasons during such a time period?

85

If a person believes that their army is currently being used in an immoral way, wouldn’t signing up necessarily include an implicit agreement to actively further that immoral cause if the situation arises?

This of course presumes that you actually believe that your side’s cause is immoral. You could be one of those voters who supports the cause, or just unaware of the moral questionability due to inattentiveness or the effects of propaganda.

86

I don’t understand the question. How can someone join for altruistic reasons during a war that they think is wrong?

87

Think of excuses.
[ol]
[li] You can’t overcome your moral qualms, so you don’t. Not then. I waited until after the VietNam accords were in and Nixon was out. Or[/li][li] You hope to be assigned elsewhere than combat or support. That may be a foolish fantasy unless your family Has Pull. Or[/li][li] You overcome your qualms because bonus or career; altruism is an unaffordable luxury for the downtrodden. Or[/li][li] You think you can effect changes “from inside the machine”. That may take awhile. Have another drink.[/li][/ol]
Those thinking war accomplishes nothing should interview Carthaginians.

88

If you believe that the nation requires a military for defense, your belief in that need doesn’t necessarily disappear when the nation goes on offense. And large portions of the military are, for better or worse unengaged in the present conflicts. Your positive assertion that the military is just one big team working toward a single end notwithstanding.

89

Maybe so, but what exactly are they defending against? THe North Korean military is a threat, so we also need a strong military for defence. Do you see the key word there? The North Korean **MILITARY **is a threat. They are a threat because they have a strong MILITARY. Some of them are conscripts, and as I said they aren’t to blame for what they do (up to a point). But many are there by choice, they deliberately choose the military as a lifelong career. Do you consider them to be moral people?

I’m a realist. North Korea can hire people like you to threaten us, so we have to hire people like you to protect us. But if there were no people like you then there would be no threat.

It depends on your definition of engaged. Consider, for example, someone whose job it is to repair the computers in an office several thousand miles away from any conflict. But those computers might be used to purchase missiles which are then used in a conflict. With broken computers and nobody to fix them, the supply of missiles would stop. Our friend the computer repair man keeps the supply of missiles going. Every time a missile is shot and kills a bunch of human beings he is a little bit responsible. Is he engaged in the conflict? I say yes. In fact, he can be engaged in several different conflicts at the same time. And it makes no difference if it is missiles or MREs. If the troops didn’t get their food they’d mutiny.

And yes, many are not engaged in an actual war. They are part of a force that acts as a deterrent, as you were during your twenties in Japan. They might not actually kill anybody, but they provide the threat of being willing and able to kill on command. The threat is still an act of violence whether they actually have to carry out the threat or not.

90

Not as immoral as it is for someone to run their pie-hole on the bones of the dead who defended that right.

91

Jingoistic rhetoric

92

right now China is rating it’s citizens based on a combination of politically correct behavioral metrics. they are not alone in this behavior.

You either get it or you don’t.

93

Yes, because the Chinese government is using the military to suppress the freedom to speak. Anywhere in the world where people DON’T have freedom, it’s because of a military.

You either get it or you don’t. Obviously you don’t.

94

We’re all (americans) funding US support for genocide in Gaza and Yemen. We’ve all participated in funding/providing the radical public square beheading Islamist Saudis with cluster bombs known to have a 90% collateral casualty rate in the field. We’re all funding an endless bogus war (among others) in Afghanistan, ostensibly for 3000 killed on 9/11, while we’ve murdered 4000 innocents thus far this year in Afghanistan alone. We fund US support for 73% of the world’s dictators.

… but we always need the killing don’t we. Bombing somewhere e’ery 12 minutes.

95

Yes of course, rights are not to be actually realized. Fweedumb.

96

No, nope, absolutely not.