# Pacifists **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 15, 2008, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867 "2008-11-15T15:57:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/21 "2008-11-16T04:32:51Z")
> [@](#): > > **Shagnasty** : As mentioned above, humans are an exceptionally aggressive group when it comes to our own species. Wars will never end because of our nature. I think you are wrong. Man is exceptionally aggressive because of testosterone. It is not the species. It is the male of the species. > [@](#): > > We protect our own which is good because foreign invaders are always around the corner based on previous history. It is time we start thinking of ways to see all peoples as “our own.” They are our species. I do not blame just the soldiers or the decision makers in government. I am a pacifist and have been for most of my life. Yet I pay my federal income tax. I’ve never had the courage not to pay it. Am I not just as responsible? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/22 "2008-11-16T04:54:10Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > I think you are wrong. Man is exceptionally aggressive because of testosterone. It is not the species. It is the male of the species. > > It is time we start thinking of ways to see all peoples as “our own.” They are our species. > > I do not blame just the soldiers or the decision makers in government. I am a pacifist and have been for most of my life. Yet I pay my federal income tax. I’ve never had the courage not to pay it. Am I not just as responsible? Damn **Zoe** , I have always adored you but you just took a serious break from reality. The reason females have not always been as aggressive and violent as males is because they weren’t allowed to. There are plenty of females in both the officer and enlisted ranks these days including some bomber and fighter pilots. Have you ever worked in a seriously tilted female environment? I have including now. Nothing was directed towards me because I was one of the only males but the level of aggression that females can direct towards each other is brutal. I have to coach my wife against such aggression because the screaming telephone calls wake up the kids. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/23 "2008-11-16T05:42:26Z")
yup. Anyone who thinks that only males are violent is delusional. Females can be vicious. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/24 "2008-11-16T06:50:53Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > Culpable: meriting condemnation, censure or blame, especially as something wrong, harmful or injurious; blameworthy Note where it doesn’t say anything there about society’s support > [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > Destroying an identified enemy, as defined by the governing body employing the soldier, does not merit condemnation, censure or blame. You’re sort of arguing by assertion here. The hidden assumption being that what society wants is equivalent to what is moral. Which is so often not the case. > [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > Given the role of a soldier, NOT destroying the enemy is the definition of culpability. Moral actors never give up their moral culpability for voluntary associations. It is only those who are compelled (conscripts) who lose some (but not all) culpability > [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > My Lai continues to be used in military education as an example of all kinds of military discipline breakdowns. Thanks for bringing it up, because it demonstrates the need for soldiers to be rational, thinking professionals and not killing machines. But they (the grunts, that is) were following orders, like you want them to. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/25 "2008-11-16T11:49:47Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > I think you are wrong. Man is exceptionally aggressive because of testosterone. It is not the species. It is the male of the species. He’s a game. Think of all the female leaders that have ever been. Then see how many had peaceful, uneventful reigns. Take your time. ---
**Author:** ![\_Undecided\_Adrian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/eada6e/32.png) [@\_Undecided\_Adrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Undecided_Adrian)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/26 "2008-11-16T12:54:22Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > You are a smart enough guy yet I don’t agree. Someone is always going to be there to take your place and if you have a family, you might as well do it yourself. As mentioned above, humans are an exceptionally aggressive group when it comes to our own species. Wars will never end because of our nature. Soldiers have to do what they are told. The U.S. Civil War was especially brutal because we fought brother against brother but it still had to be done. If I could go back in history, I would personally fly to Japan to drop the nukes. It needed to be done and that is simply the last cog on a very large wheel. I wouldn’t feel bad if I was one of the scientists developing the project either. > > One soldier essentially defecting is not going to get anyone anywhere except for a transient sense of self-rightousness. There are 20 year olds underseas in nuclear subs ready to launch nuclear warheads right now as well as those in land bases. I have met many of them. They aren’t bad people. The U.S. has the honor or being the biggest clan in the world. We protect our own which is good because foreign invaders are always around the corner based on previous history. That is absolutely wrong. Following orders is no excuse, that was established at Nuremburg. The individual soldier might not have the big picture, and of course you tend to trust your command, but if it is you pulling the trigger or pulling the switch you ARE responsible. How often do the politicians or the public not even know what bad shit is happening? Do you really think SS troops executing Jews were not responsible because Hitler ordered the exterminations, regardless of capital punishment or other people willing to do the job? NB: I’m German, and I’d like to think that we learned something from our past. The Europeans in general seem to have. And we were the ones in the foreign invader environment, not you guys. As of now these days are hopefully over. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/27 "2008-11-16T13:06:00Z")
> [@'\[Undecided](#): > > Adrian;10454519’]That is absolutely wrong. Following orders is no excuse, that was established at Nuremburg. The individual soldier might not have the big picture, and of course you tend to trust your command, but if it is you pulling the trigger or pulling the switch you ARE responsible. How often do the politicians or the public not even know what bad shit is happening? Do you really think SS troops executing Jews were not responsible because Hitler ordered the exterminations, regardless of capital punishment or other people willing to do the job? > > NB: I’m German, and I’d like to think that we learned something from our past. The Europeans in general seem to have. And we were the ones in the foreign invader environment, not you guys. As of now these days are hopefully over. Which is exactly what U.S. soldiers are taught and have been for at least as long as I have been involved with it (20 years). Soldiers are taught that their responsibility to not follow a lawful order is at least as important as their duty to follow lawful orders. But the notion that soldiers should be able to decide when and how they are used is ridiculous. Civilian control of the military is a much better idea then soldiers deciding for themselves. You can vote out the civilians. You can’t vote out the military. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/28 "2008-11-16T13:25:45Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > yup. Anyone who thinks that only males are violent is delusional. > > Females can be vicious. Pavlichenko … 309 confirmed kills And god save the SS units that ran into the female infantry units armed with PPSH … hell hath no fury as a woman defending her children…Not to mention the 3 all female bomber units, and the tanker units. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/29 "2008-11-16T13:45:33Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > MMmmmnnnnno. Don’t think I addressed collateral damage directly, and I think you would be hard-pressed to demonstrate that collateral damage doesn’t play a role in modern warfare decisions. We don’t carpet bomb cities anymore. Just because you switched from carpet bombing to so-called “intelligent bombs” doesn’t do away with collateral damage. Did your news not report about the many dead Iraqui civilians? From WWII on, the US military has heavily relied on the use of Air Force to save US soldiers lives over the lives of foreign civilians. > [@](#): > > So…no soldiers, no wars? I’m pretty sure that’s not what you mean. The fact the My Lei is still relevant, and the existence of the ideas of “lawful” and “unlawful” orders answers the moral obligations of soldiers to be accountable for what they do. If I’m in a combat zone, I am obliged to kill certain people, and obliged to try NOT to kill others. I don’t think I ever implied, “Woo Hoo! It’s a war and I get to check my soul at the door!” That’s the kind of crap **constanze** was advancing. I wasn’t advancing it. My Lei is still relevant because the US Military didn’t learn anything about and from it, and so it’s being repeated. See Abu Ghrabi. See endless reports out of Iraq about soldiers attacking and raping and killing civilians. The stress int he army is on obeying orders from above, that comes first. And how many times are US Soldiers taught about the Geneva convention, for example? I’ve never seen any of the US military dopers here mentione that “we wouldn’t do that, that’s inconceivable because of the Geneva convention” - apparently, they don’t know about it. The only mention is how the UCMJ would punish certain behaviours - but I didn’t find any mention on how to treat civilians. As for being mindless killers - I guess those reports I saw of US soldiers that play hard rock while firing on people from their tanks are all lies, or tendential, or something? Fact is, the more of the “designated, lawful targets” a solider kills, the better a soldier he is, right or wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/30 "2008-11-16T13:50:38Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Pavlichenko … 309 confirmed kills > > And god save the SS units that ran into the female infantry units armed with PPSH … hell hath no fury as a woman defending her children…Not to mention the 3 all female bomber units, and the tanker units. Yah, like Boudicca defending her children by massacring the civilian populations of Colchester, London and St Albans. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/31 "2008-11-16T13:55:21Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > That being said, I basically agree with you, **Inigo**. Unless you believe there shouldn’t be an army at all it’s pretty silly to compare soldiers to murderers. If you believe there should be an army, even if only for national defence, then no moral culpability attaches to soldiers, only to politicians who start dubious wars. An Army where every mission had to be vetted by every single soldier would be worse than useless. Better not to have one at all. So whose fault was My Lai and Abu Ghraib? Who ordered the bombing with Napalm in Vietnam? Who ordered shooting at buses during road checks - the politicans or the Army officers? And there’s a big deal of difference (though you might not know that from your own army) as to how you train your soldiers, and how you decide to lead your war, once the politicans found it necessary to start one. If you see armies as a kind of “World Police”, there are differences to what cops do, too. You can say beforehand, from politicans and from the constiution, that even in war, certain kind of methods won’t be used to win, that some costs are too high if you want to stay “good guys”. That’s things like the Geneva convention, which the US doesn’t seem to have heard about, judging from actions in the Vietnam war up until Iraq. You can train soldiers to be effiecient at killing, and to obey their officers and the UCMJ, and nothing else. Then things like My Lai and Abu Ghraib happen, where two scapegoats are punished, and the rest goes on as usual. You can promote boot camp and macho culture as being ultimate in soldiering to be hard and tougth and not have sentimental emotions for the enemy (who is after all really bad guy, otherwise you wouldn’t fight them). Or you can train soldiers to obey orders and what the Geneva convention means and that certain orders are not allowed. You can tell them that the other side are people too. Then you have a standing citizens army (since it sadly is necessary in todays world) of people who want to obey the constitution, not an army of professionals who sign up for money to possibly kill people. Or ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/32 "2008-11-16T13:59:49Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > The U.S. has the honor or being the biggest clan in the world. We protect our own which is good because foreign invaders are always around the corner based on previous history. Um, what? I must have missed that part where the US was invaded or in danger of being invaded in the last wars. WWI? WWII? Vietnam? Afghanistan? Iraq? Or do you believe that nonsense “If we don’t fight them over there, we fight them here?” ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/33 "2008-11-16T14:07:55Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Which is exactly what U.S. soldiers are taught and have been for at least as long as I have been involved with it (20 years). Soldiers are taught that their responsibility to not follow a lawful order is at least as important as their duty to follow lawful orders. So My Lai and Abu Ghraib and the dozens of incidents in Iraq that journalists report on (but the Army doesn’t prosecute) happened on lawful orders. Since only a handful of scapegoats not responsible for giving orders were put on trial afterwards. And since one of the politicans in administration (Dick Cheney or Rumsfeld, I think, but I can’t remember) said before the attack on Iraq that the “gloves would come off”, the soldiers knew that torturing people was acceptable to the US. So is following lawful orders the problem - since the UCMJ doesn’t seem to forbid these actions against civilians - or that the soldiers don’t recognize that some orders are unlawful? In either case, real occurences that keep happening again and again certainly say to me that the moral training of the US army is deficient. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/34 "2008-11-16T14:41:02Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > Culpable: meriting condemnation, censure or blame, especially as something wrong, harmful or injurious; blameworthy > > Destroying an identified enemy, as defined by the governing body employing the soldier, does not merit condemnation, censure or blame. Given the role of a soldier, NOT destroying the enemy is the definition of culpability. Uh. Remember those times when the governing bodies employing soldiers decided that “All those civilians over there” were identified enemies? Likewise, I suppose that we should cease the practice of handing out medals to soldiers, and instead give them to the politicians? After all, if no blame is attached when fighting men commit acts of villianry, why should praise be given when they perform acts of heroism? It is morally bankrupt and more than a little silly to claim that soldiers cease to become moral agents once they become soldiers. If a soldier commits an immoral act, it is an immoral act, whether or not they were ordered, and whether or not the order was lawful. Soldiers can at times be under terrible pressure to commit immoral acts, yes, but as you say, soldiers are volunteers. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/35 "2008-11-16T15:01:01Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > So My Lai and Abu Ghraib and the dozens of incidents in Iraq that journalists report on (but the Army doesn’t prosecute) happened on lawful orders. No they didn’t. They happened when soldiers followed unlawful orders. And the soldiers and those who gave those orders were prosecuted. In the many JAG briefings and classes I have had over the years My Lei has usually been used as the main example of an unlawful order. You couldn’t be more wrong. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/36 "2008-11-16T15:09:35Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > No they didn’t. They happened when soldiers followed unlawful orders. And the soldiers and those who gave those orders were prosecuted. In the many JAG briefings and classes I have had over the years My Lei has usually been used as the main example of an unlawful order. You couldn’t be more wrong. What about Abu Ghraib? Hell, what about the firebombing of Dresden, the concentration camps, the gulags, and every other time the legitimate government said “Kill 'em all!”? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/37 "2008-11-16T15:10:12Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > No they didn’t. They happened when soldiers followed unlawful orders. And the soldiers and those who gave those orders were prosecuted. In the many JAG briefings and classes I have had over the years My Lei has usually been used as the main example of an unlawful order. You couldn’t be more wrong. I’m sure the lawyers weren’t responsible for this, but William Calley got a slap on the wrist and was out of prison in what? – less than a year IIRC. Nobody else was convicted of anything. Didn’t he get a presidential pardon? And while I’ve not followed the news stories about court martials related to crimes in Iraq, there seems to be a lot of wrist slapping there too. And I’m not referring to Abu Graib, but to cases of murdering civilians, in some cases prisoners and in some cases out in the street. I’d be very interested to see the results if anyone is collecting data about the outcomes of courts martial for Iraq-related events. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/38 "2008-11-16T15:10:58Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I am of mixed emotions about that. Inigo, you are basically saying it is right and proper for soldiers to surrender moral judgement to to the state, and let the state decide who is a legitimate target for death. Of course he is. How the bloody hell could you have an army other than on that basis? You’d just have a group of individuals wandering about, debating when it’s right to kill and who it’s right to kill. They’d still be debating when the enemy slaughtered them. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/39 "2008-11-16T15:19:13Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Of course he is. How the bloody hell could you have an army other than on that basis? You’d just have a group of individuals wandering about, debating when it’s right to kill and who it’s right to kill. They’d still be debating when the enemy slaughtered them. You as an individual cannot escape moral responsibility for your acts because someone else told you to do it. Period. You certainly may escape legal responsibility and therefor punishment, because society has set the rules as they are. So, what does moral responsibility amount to? If I were religious I would say some kind of divine retribution, but I’m not religious. So for many soldiers the punishment is PTSD, and feelings of guilt for the rest of their lives. And this even for soldiers who felt their cause was just and their actions justifiable. I wonder if it’s any different for soldiers who didn’t particularly identify with their “cause”. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867/40 "2008-11-16T15:34:43Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I’m sure the lawyers weren’t responsible for this, but William Calley got a slap on the wrist and was out of prison in what? – less than a year IIRC. Nobody else was convicted of anything. Didn’t he get a presidential pardon? If you have a problem with what happened to Calley you don’t have a problem with the military. He was convicted of murder. He was not pardoned. He did however win appeals at the Federal District Court. The Army appealled it higher. He had the right to appeal just like any other convict. He used it. I don’t agree with what happened but then again I don’t agree with the results of a lot of appeals and judges decisions. But it wasn’t a military judge. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pacifists/472867.md?page=3)