Soldiers who properly execute their duties are not murderers.

The BBQ Pit
81

Good post, Algher.

In a perfect world, I’m a strict pacifist. When I find that perfect world, I’ll give y’all a holler, O.K.?

But I would like **Sgt Schwartz ** to address a point he made on the first page, wherein he made the distinction between legal killing and moral killing.

A poster made the point, using the ever-handy Nazis as an example, of how legal killing is defined by governments, which can be either evil or not-so-evil.

So, by supporting “legal” killing by soldiers does not get us where we want to ge. There HAS to to be a moral element in the equation.

The closest **Sgt Schwartz ** got to answering this is by saying that he didn’t think most German soldiers supported the mass killing of Jews.

But that sidesteps the issue. The killings happened, and soldiers following orders carreid out some of the killing. They were not murderers under Sgt Schwartz’s legal definition, yet clearly they were morally guilty of murder.

Sgt Schwartz, do you see how a pure legalistic definition fails? It failed in WWII, clearly, and arguablly failed in Vietnam, and is arguablly failing in Iraq.

I also hope you will wrestle a bit with the IRA bombers scenario, because it is a very grey area that can be instructive. Please don’t write it off so quickly.

82

[QUOTE=Spiff]
Good post, Algher.

In a perfect world, I’m a strict pacifist. When I find that perfect world, I’ll give y’all a holler, O.K.?

But I would like **Sgt Schwartz ** to address a point he made on the first page, wherein he made the distinction between legal killing and moral killing.

[/QUOTE]

This gets interesting, I agree. IMHO…

Legal Killing (in war) is that allowed under Geneva Convention rules. German Soldiers killing American Soldiers in the Battle of the Bulge - legal. I don’t think we tried any of them for war crimes.

German soldiers rounding up Jews and others for the camps, and then killing them at the camps - illegal BECAUSE it is immoral.

I would hope that their is a very close link between legal & moral. The laws should reflect our morals. I realize this is not always the reality, of course.

Now, how do we treat guerrillas / insurgents / etc. Personally, if they are targeting occupation forces I think it is legal and even arguably moral. This is damned hard to parse for me, though.

If the US were invaded, I would have no problem grabbing a decent rifle and dropping enemy soldiers from a distance. I would not have a problem blowing up their armored vehicles too. HOWEVER, as I have close friends patrolling the streets of Iraq, I don’t exactly send a Christmas card to the militia groups that are doing just that to our boys.

This 4th wave type of warfare is messing up our concepts of moral killing, which then translates into legal killing under the generally accepted rules of combat. We adjusted the rules after WWII when the true impact of saturation bombing was looked at. We NEED to adjust the rules again, I fear, to recognize that it is not us vs. another large nation’s uniformed fighting forces but rather us vs. insurgent/terrorist groups.

Now, when is it moral to kill should perhaps be our starting point?
1 Self-Defense
2 National Defense
3 Defense of Allies
4 Pre-Emptive Strikes Against Future Enemies
5 Wars of aggression to improve the lot of the Nation’s Citizens
6 War to change a government to a Democracy (or other supposedly more moral form of government).

1 & 2 are easy for me - moral to kill.
3 is touchy, and goes against my personal political beliefs. I want to make sure that the allies I am protecting are worthy of my protection before I kill someone.
4 is VERY dangerous, because it depends on forecasting.
5 is bad, but I can see someone arguing in favor of it.
6 would have been the justification for Soviet invasions (communism being more moral in their eyes than our capitalistic system).

83

A number of posters seem to be falling into a couple of philosophical traps here…

  1. There appears to be an assumption that today’s moral standards can be retrospectively applied to condemn or applaud previous societies.

As J. G. Herder put it, "Wie jede Kugel den Schwerpunkt, so habe jede Nation “ihren Mittelpunkt der Glückseligkeit in sich”… in the same way that a sphere has its own centre of gravity, each nation has its own “moral centre”. Herder’s point was that you can only assess each society in its own terms.

An objective comparison can be made of the accidentals of given societies, but not a subjective evaluation of any particluar set of moral and judicial laws, except according to the internal logic of that society .

  1. There also seems to be an assumption that morality develops towards perfection, thus making our conception of morality “better” than that of our forebears.

There’s no guarantee that social morality and ethical codes will progress in a linear fashion, nor that this development (even if it did occur) is incontestably a good thing.

All we are able to say is that a given act on the battlefield is immoral according to our particular conception of morality at this time.

To suggest that an act is illegal “because it’s immoral” is only valid if it was accepted as immoral in the time and society in which the act was carried out.

We cannot say “our society views x as immoral, therefore anyone who carried out x in e.g. WW2, or ancient Sparta, or 18th century Paris, is immoral”.

84

[QUOTE=Monty]
He’s happy about training people to defend their land and also to operate within the laws of armed conflict. “Training folks to kill” is an incredibly simplistic, and not exactly above board, description of what he’s doing.
[/QUOTE]
And unfortunately, he’s training people to kill, which can be equally used in wars of agression.

Question: if a war itself is illegal and morally wrong, then who are the murders?

85

What? He’s training people to perform their duties in a lawful manner. Your example is like saying that the kindergarden teacher who teaches a child to count is teaching him a skill that the child can use to count the cash when he commits a robbery.

86

Just and Unjust War

Don’t fool yourself, Monty. No laws in war except for the ones the winners’ make.

To begin with, WTF is “lawful” about the Iraq invasion?

87

[QUOTE=Spiff]
Good post, Algher.

In a perfect world, I’m a strict pacifist. When I find that perfect world, I’ll give y’all a holler, O.K.?

But I would like **Sgt Schwartz ** to address a point he made on the first page, wherein he made the distinction between legal killing and moral killing.

A poster made the point, using the ever-handy Nazis as an example, of how legal killing is defined by governments, which can be either evil or not-so-evil.

So, by supporting “legal” killing by soldiers does not get us where we want to ge. There HAS to to be a moral element in the equation.

The closest **Sgt Schwartz ** got to answering this is by saying that he didn’t think most German soldiers supported the mass killing of Jews.

But that sidesteps the issue. The killings happened, and soldiers following orders carreid out some of the killing. They were not murderers under Sgt Schwartz’s legal definition, yet clearly they were morally guilty of murder.

Sgt Schwartz, do you see how a pure legalistic definition fails? It failed in WWII, clearly, and arguablly failed in Vietnam, and is arguablly failing in Iraq.

I also hope you will wrestle a bit with the IRA bombers scenario, because it is a very grey area that can be instructive. Please don’t write it off so quickly.
[/QUOTE]

Spiff, I understand your point, but I do not want murderers in my Army. I know it may seem like the taking of human life may seem like murder. I also believe that accomplishing the objective may require killing. If the bad guys would allow us to accomplish our objectives without a shot fired I am all for it. I also believe that the winners make the rules. The point I am trying to make is that a Soldier who is defending himself, his Nation, or his Constitution is not a murderer. I agree that murders are committed in war. I don’t believe that the average Joe on the battlefield is doing that. I hope that they are killing for one of the three reasons I listed are not judged as murderers.

Regardless of whether the war is just or not, I train my soldiers to follow orders. If the order involves committing a crime, I also train them to disregard the order and to report it to higher up.

Finally, Algher, thank you. I salute you for your service.

Sgt Schwartz

88

[QUOTE=Sgt Schwartz]
Spiff, I understand your point, but I do not want murderers in my Army. I know it may seem like the taking of human life may seem like murder. I also believe that accomplishing the objective may require killing. ** If the bad guys would allow us to accomplish our objectives without a shot fired I am all for it. I also believe that the winners make the rules.** The point I am trying to make is that a Soldier who is defending himself, his Nation, or his Constitution is not a murderer. I agree that murders are committed in war. I don’t believe that the average Joe on the battlefield is doing that. I hope that they are killing for one of the three reasons I listed are not judged as murderers.

Regardless of whether the war is just or not, I train my soldiers to follow orders. If the order involves committing a crime, I also train them to disregard the order and to report it to higher up.

Finally, Algher, thank you. I salute you for your service.

Sgt Schwartz
[/QUOTE]
– bolding mine.

Fine post there, Sgt Schwartz, I agree with almost everything you said – and I mean it. But for the bolded part. Simply bullshit to define as “bad guys” the guys you’re fighting. It could just as easily be your side depending on your POV. Which is what pisses me off the most about the military: you’re not supposed to have one and/or even if you do you just have to follow orders as insane as they might be. Give it a thought.

I’d also question your three reasons vis-a-vis Iraq ('nam and many other examples too) for I can only agree with the first. WTF did/does either one have to do with your nation or constitution?

89

[QUOTE=RedFury]
– bolding mine.

Fine post there, Sgt Schwartz, I agree with almost everything you said – and I mean it. But for the bolded part. Simply bullshit to define as “bad guys” the guys you’re fighting. It could just as easily be your side. Give it a thought.

I’d also question your three reasons vis-a-vis Iraq ('nam too) for I can only agree with the first. WTF did/does either one have to do with your nation or constitution?
[/QUOTE]

Point taken, RedFury. I tend to slip into semantics when I talk about soldiering. I train my soliders that the bad guys are the current enemy. The enemy may also be a scared nineteen year old kid, but it is more motivational calling them “bad guys” than saying the guys we are at war with. I don’t know that I can properly argue about defense of the Nation or the Constitution regarding the war in Iraq, but US Service Members are in harms way, and are targeted for being US Service Members. That tend to make self-defence a valid arguement for the killings.

Sgt Schwartz

90

[QUOTE=RedFury]
Don’t fool yourself, Monty. No laws in war except for the ones the winners’ make.

To begin with, WTF is “lawful” about the Iraq invasion?
[/QUOTE]

The issue of the validity of the Iraq invasion is irrelevant to your fist query. There are laws in war, and those were made years ago. Our military personnel are terained in what those laws are and are supposed to act accordingly. Those that don’t act that way can be prosecuted. There are prosecutions right now, and even convictions, of some of our military personnel for violating the laws.

91

[QUOTE=Sgt Schwartz]
I don’t know that I can properly argue about defense of the Nation or the Constitution regarding the war in Iraq, but US Service Members are in harms way, and are targeted for being US Service Members. That tend to make self-defence a valid arguement for the killings.
[/QUOTE]

But surely if they have voluntarily put themselves in harm’s way they lose any claim to moral justification?

It’s like walking into a lion’s cage, flicking his love-spuds with a wet towel, and then claiming that you had a moral right to kill the beast because it attacked you.

92

The OP reminds me of the two dialogues in the movie, “The Big Red One” When both ‘old’ sargents one US (played brilliantly by Lee Marvin) and the German sargent tell the difference between killing someone and murder.

Lee Marvin character would kill a soldier for not doing his duty, and warned one such soldier with shooting at him. The German soldier had no such warning he shot a guy dead for not following orders.

The movie is full of metaphors like this one.

93

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Like someone once said, Godwin’s rule doesn’t apply once they start actually building concentration camps. If the subject involves soldiers who commit murder by the orders of their superiors, which group springs instantly to mind ? The Nazis; they were the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title.

Sgt Schwartz, the problem with speaking legally and not morally in this matter, is that a government usually writes the law so that whatever evil it commits is legal by it’s own laws. Legally speaking, soldiers are generally not going to be considered murderers for carrying out their duties, even if those duties are indeed Nazi level massacres - as long as their side wins, of course. As far as I’m concerned, the legal argument over whether or not a soldier is a murderer for enganging in his duty is fairly meaningless, since in practical terms it boils down to might makes right. He’s a murderer if his side loses; not a murderer if it wins.
[/QUOTE]

Are you operating under the presumption that killing = murder. Is your point that that victors get away with murder? The problem with war is that the usual rules don’t apply so you’ve got to think long and hard before you replace the laws of civilization with the rules of war. I can’t think of a single conflict where you give AK-47s or M-16s to a bunch of 18 year olds and bad shit doesn’t happen.

As different as the rules of war are to the rules of peace, there are still rules and the Nazis that obeyed orders to exterminate innocent civilians broke those rules. If you want real clean cut cases of war crimes, check out the Japanese, they get less publicity and they may not have been as efficient but they seemed to enjoy it more.

94

[QUOTE=Sgt Schwartz]
Somalia, Haiti, and Louisiana (there was a lot of peace keeping stateside if you don’t remember.)

Sgt Schwartz
[/QUOTE]

Kent State

95

[QUOTE=Princhester]
You seemed very emphatic, but now you don’t know. Your second sentence appears to suggest that one is a soldier not a murderer if one’s intention is not to hit innocents. So WWII bomber pilots bombing European cities like London or Dresden were murderers presumably, were they?
[/QUOTE]

What about Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

96

[QUOTE=What Exit?]
Well, I have a tough time with Vietnam; it appeared to be as unlawful a war as our current little fiasco. We seem to be doing a much better job of avoiding the bombing of civilians and made up for it by touching off extreme insurrection and violence and basically set off a religious war. So blame our leaders and not the soldiers in Iraq. Back to Vietnam, I believe the pilots that flew over and bombed Cambodia in particular were in dereliction of duty and following clearly unlawful orders and should have objected.

I will defend the atomic bombs for as long as you like however.

Jim
[/QUOTE]

We had much better reason to go into Vietnam than we did to go into Iraq.

97

“I lost my son, who was murdered by soldiers.”

“He wasn’t murdered. They were following lawful orders. He was killed.”

“He’s just as dead, and saying that won’t bring him back to life.”

98

[QUOTE=bannerrefugee]
If the sarge is happy about training folks to kill people that is sad.
He should try training then to do something more useful.
[/QUOTE]

I took martial arts when I was a kid and while some part of it was about learning how to solve problems with your fists, in retrospect, the larger part was learning why and when to fight (you just can’t solve every problem with your fists but until you can actually solve some problems with your fists, you might operate under the illusion that you can indeed solve all your problems with your fists if you’re enough of a badass; this is why I think that people like Bush and Cheney (and to a lesser extent people who never served in combat like Rumsfeld) screwed up this war, Warner or McCain or anyone that ever served in combat would never have tried to go in with the least number of men that they thought would be needed to do the job). Hopefully he is teaching these kids how to be soldiers not just killers, unfortunately, it is inevitable that some of them will be bloodthirsty murderers but that’s not what he’s training them to do.

99

I think the first step towards sanity is realizing that all life is sacred and that all of this crazy talk is crazy and crazy in every gradation. To kill in any justification is crazy and wrong (.period)

A killer is a murderer, and vice versa. That is the fact, Jack.

100

[QUOTE=devilsknew]
I think the first step towards sanity is realizing that all life is sacred and that all of this crazy talk is crazy and crazy in every gradation. To kill in any justification is crazy and wrong (.period)

A killer is a murderer, and vice versa. That is the fact, Jack.
[/QUOTE]

Not really because murder has always meant something more than merely killing. We have always recognized killing in self defense as something short of murder. Is there no such thing as a legitimate use of deadly force?