I don’t really think it’s an important distinction when you’re at the business end of the gun. But increasingly the distinctions are disappearing altogether.
Bruce Hoffman in the Atlantic
A “uniter, not a divider”. Today, more than ever, the truth of these words comes through. Give GeeDuyba just a couple more years, and he’ll have the Dalai Lama chunking grenades at us.
Praise the Leader!
Just driving by to thank Coldfire…
Two things:
- The guards at Abu Ghraib didn’t seem to feel much constraint, either. Sure, after the fact they will–but after the fact, the murderers who beheaded captives might feel some constraint, too. I’m not sure how significant this kind of ex post facto constraint is gonna seem to the victims of atrocities
- This sort of guilt by association seems a very flimsy thing to me. In my example above, the insurgent who resisted the US may be doing so because he thinks the US is an evil invader; maybe his sister was killed by an errant US bomb. If he’s gonna fight the US, the insurgency is going to be his best option for doing so. Because, in this loosely organized confederacy, there are some people doing evil things, you’re tarring him with the Evil Brush? Yet you don’t tar the US soldier for the evils committed by other US soldiers because still more US soldiers will hold the second group of soldiers responsible?
I don’t see it. Either someone is heroic for killing a lot of the enemy during wartime, or they’re not. If you’re going to base their heroism off the actions of their leaders, then you’ve got to accept criticisms of their heroism based on the actions of their leaders as well.
I’m perfectly willing to say that neither the mass-killing US soldier nor the mass-killing Iraqi insurgent are acting in an admirable fashion–or that if it is admirable the overwhelming part of the story on which we focus should be the tragedy of the many dead, not on the coolness of the one who killed them.
But I think it’s a double standard to praise one side for its videogamelike slaughter of the enemy if you wouldn’t be willing to listen to similar praise for the other side.
Daniel
I’ll listen. But please don’t sully the tributes to these men I’m posting.
If you want to commemorate an Iraqi insurgent, start anoither thread.
“sully”? In what way are they “sullied” by suggesting that the men they are dutifully trying to kill might have some notions of courage and honor as well? And what, precisely, is the agenda you seek to advance, here? That the American soldier is one of the best, if not the best, fighting man on the planet, the best trained, the best equipped and the most nobly motivated? Granted. So stipulated.
I will then press you to admit that squandering the lives and limbs of such good men in a foolish, vain, and futile endeavor is an obscenity. That the men who sent them on this vapid military adventure by dint of exaggeration, obfuscation, and outright lies are worthy only of our contempt, and should be chucked out of office at our earliest opportunity, if only because they lack the courage and honor to resign in disgrace.
Wrap a turd in red, white, and blue bunting and its still a turd.
Oooooh, a spelling flame. You’re such a big man.
Well, we’re approaching this from diametrically opposed values, I think, but at least I can respect you for not having a double standard.
I don’t want to glorify the actions of Iraqi insurgents: I don’t want to glorify the actions of anyone for killing 20 people at once. That is, at best, a horrific necessity: it is repugnant that people (not including you, I note) compare such horror to a computer game.
When someone is in a situation where he feels forced to take the lives of twenty other people, we should mourn the dead, and we should try to ensure that no one else finds himself in a similar situation. We should not hold the killer up as a model to emulate.
I deliberately didn’t post in your MPSIMS thread, so I’m not going to “sully” it. But I don’t think it’s possible to sully it: it is already corrupt to begin with, inasmuch as it glorifies a horrific tragedy.
War is hell. Never pretend otherwise.
Daniel
I don’t pretend otherwise.
But out of that hell come men and women who conduct themselves with bravery and heroism. They should be recognized for their actions, as they are an example to us all.
And thanks to Mr. Moto as well. I’m glad to see there are still people like this in the armed forces.
Regards
Testy
I’m afraid I don’t understand the distinctions you make at all. They seem like arbitrary rules that we happen to like at the moment because we can afford to abide by them without reducing our effectiveness too much. Are you saying these conventions are objective lines of demarcation by which we can determine if various parties to armed conflict should be “worthy of respect?” By the way, why should any party to an armed conflict care if they have “respect” from anyone? If I’m fighting for a cause then I surely wouldn’t care if my enemies, or pretty much anyone for that matter, respected me. All I’d care about is if the cause was advanced or not.
The US has shown a willingness to target civilians(firebombings of Hamburg and Dresden in WWII), disregard the accepted rules of combat(guerilla fighting in the American Revolution), use covert(non-uniformed) forces to achieve military goals, and work on ways to commit torture while still remaining within the letter of the law(while clearly violating intent). These are the ones which were publically accepted. If we cross the lines into territory where the act was not widely accepted but happened nevertheless we start bringing in acts like My Lai. We also have the US steadfastly refusing to cease the practice of using land mines even though the majority of the rest of the first-world countries have already signed treaties outlawing their use because they produce far more civilian casualties(and longer-lived effects) than military casualties. What criteria did you use to determine your lines of demarcation by which one can tell if a fighting force(be they regular army or insurgents) is worthy of “respect” or not? Can you describe why land mine usage was or was not one of those factors?
If we delve into history a bit more we find nearly every party to virtually every conflict which has ever occurred to have violated your standards for “respect”. British colonial methods were absolutely brutal. Treatment of native americans during the US’s early years was similarly brutal. All kinds of rationales were advanced for this, almost all having to do with dehumanizing the targets of the brutuality. Anything, everything, was said and done to keep the average soldier from empathizing with the enemy. The one thing that absolutely no fighting force can withstand is the average soldier looking down their sights at someone and thinking “this poor bastard is just like me and is probably just as convinced he’s doing the right thing as I am with reasons that are probably as good as mine.”
Like Bonnie and Clyde? Jesse James? John Dillinger? These are icons of American culture and they are often accorded “respect” for “sticking it to the man” or “living life by their own rules.”
Enjoy,
Steven
If the American soldiers were constrained by military law, the torture should not have fucking happened in the first place. It’s no use saying “The law is good; see how the wrongdoers are punished” when that same law should have informed their actions at Abu Ghraib.
I agree that the torture shouldn’t have happened, Olentzero. But this assertion is ludicrous.
I could as easily say you’re not constrained by law. After all, rape, robbery and murder are committed every day, all around you.
The soldiers at Abu Ghraib weren’t wholly representative of the military. The majority of the servicemen and women I served with were good and decent people.
I’m sure, though, you want further proof than just my anecdotal evidence, that this is true. I suggest you continue to read the War Heroes threads for further examples of honorable conduct, the finest our armed services have to offer.
You really don’t have to go back that far. In the war that is going on now. The US bombed more places than one trying to get Saddam but killed nothing but civilians. They knew that if he wasn’t there civilians would die. Hell, they knew that if he was there civilians would die.
So far we have two people who killed roughly 40 people between them, and one who gave his life to save the wounded in a battle. I can only see one case of honorable conduct here.
I have to ask straight out, Olentzero, are you a philosophical or moral pacifist?
Do you regard any military action as immoral, or just this present one? Keep in mind, two of the War Hero threads were for heroism in Afghanistan.
I certainly believe these men acted honorably, and most people would agree with me. The United States government has seen fit to officially recognize their honorable conduct in the form of military decorations, similar to the way it recognized John Kerry’s honorable service and heroism in Vietnam.
As I’ve said in your threads, I’m not pointing fingers at the soldiers themselves. They’re in a war, and war compels people to act in certain ways - chief among them is killing other people, which as I’ve also noted is otherwise generally considered morally and ethically unacceptable. But to celebrate those behaviors by issuing citations, and to trumpet those citations as a Good Thing All and Sundry Must Know About, is in my opinion tremendously sick. There’s nothing worth celebrating about a war, especially a war that lacks any justification whatsoever, except its end.
As Mr. Moto has pointed out, two of the three threads so far have concerned heroism in Afghanistan. Are you asserting that the war in Afghanistan is unjustifiable?
When you say “especially”, do you mean “only”? Or are you saying that it is “tremendously sick” to honor heroic service in the fight against Nazi Germany?
And I don’t recall any instance of your condemning John Kerry for allowing himself to be honored for his service in Viet Nam. Would you say that he ought to be ashamed of himself for what he did? Do you pop into every thread that mentions his battlefield decorations to say that there is nothing worthy of honor in what he did?
A little consistency, if you please.
Regards,
Shodan
I’m making no assessments of any specific war in that post. All I’m saying is that there’s nothing worth celebrating in a war of any sort except its end.
You’ll notice, you dense motherfucking knuckledragger, that I agreed trying to save lives under fire, at the risk of losing your own life as that fellow Cunningham did, was an act of bravery. I’m very sorry he lost his life trying to get the wounded out of the battle theater, much as I’m very sorry that my great-uncle, Frederick King of Haydenville MA, lost his life landing on the beaches of St. Tropez in August of 1944. He may have shot German or Italian soldiers during his tour of duty, but I’m sure as hell not going to be proud of him for doing so, nor would I think it a good idea for the US government to cite him for doing so. I’d have been proud of him for giving his life doing what Cunningham did, and a citation by the Roosevelt Administration would have been quite appropriate under those circumstances.
'Cos I don’t condemn the individual soldiers for being cited by the government, you fuckwit.
No, because he’s a soldier in a battle theater. It is expected of them to kill the enemy. But that doesn’t mean the US fucking government should celebrate an excessive performance of what is expected of their soldiers.
Right, I forgot you were the Supreme Unchallengeable Arbiter of All That Is Required to be Anti-War. :rolleyes: