I found some surprisingly good information about the desertion issue from a source I wouldn’t have expected: William Arkin’s blog at the Washington Post. I’ve had issues with Arkin in the past, but on this he seems dead on:
Not to hijack too far, but would the soldier be obliged to get on the plane, fly to the war zone, and then refuse to shoot people at the site? That is, does the requirement to not obey unlawful orders only apply at the final, trigger-pulling instant? What if your orders are to take off in a plane and drop bombs on an unarmed refugee/POW camp in order to kill the occupants? At which point do you refuse orders–when you are issued them by your CO, before takeoff; or when you’re airborne and over the target? If your orders are to march 3 miles and then liquidate a ghetto, do you refuse at the start of the march or once you reach town?
Not trying to start a fight; I’m honestly curious. The whole “obey without question”/“analyze every action so that you don’t commit war crimes” dichotomy has always seemed dizzying to me.
I may have missed it, but the article doesn’t seem to clarify what are “soldiers”. Are we talking only about the Army? What about the Marines? Navy?
I was in the Army and served in the first Gulf War, I never knew anyone that went AWOL during combat operations.
I did know a few Navy guys that said AWOL was a huge problem for sailors, as even during peacetime operations they deploy to sea for very long periods of time and when they put into port somewhere and sailors get a few day’s pass, they may not come back.
So the question is: does this 25,000 figure include all branches of the military, or just the Army (or just infantry)?
Home | Thomson Reuters We have a growing suicide problem we ignore too. Most soldiers say they are there for their buddies. They have a shared experience and training that links them. They fight for each other not Bush. Sometimes it is asking too much to have soldiers fighting for some obscure military ,political ,financial reason.
And add to that drug and alcohol abuse, PTSD diagnoses, etc.
There may be domestic reason for a significant number of these deserters, as well. Not all of that number is because of a political/moral objection to the war in Iraq.
Some guys run afoul of the local laws in CONUS (say, spouse abuse charges, drunk driving, bouncing checks, and so on) and go on the lam. If they are not tracked down within 30 days, they are classified as deserters.
Or lack thereof, at least through official channels.
I didn’t think we’d actually go into Iraq almost until the actual deployment.
I figured sheer common sense would keep the Administration from starting a second war before finishing the first.
I imagine a lot of these people thought the same thing.
Hell yeah. My brother is Bush’s greatest critic, not to mention the other clods who repeatedly put him in harm’s way during his last couple of deployments (Uncle Dick, Uncle Don). Fight for Bush? He wouldn’t piss on the guy if he was on fire.
But he might grab a marshmallow and a green stick.
Sorry, IMO a person has to be incredibly stupid not to know that. I have very little sympathy for people like that, including reservists who weren’t prepared to be called up. Especially since they all VOLUNTEERED.
Personally, if I had a son, I’d make it perfectly clear to him what could happen. I might even tell him to work in a VA hospital for a while. And if he wanted out after enlisting, I’d have as little sympathy for him as for anyone else.
We haven’t been shown the mangled bodies of the WTC jumpers. We haven’t been shown the Mohammed cartoons, for <jerkish word>'s sake! Tell you what: for every injured/dead soldier you show, we’ll show a WTC/Pentagon body. Of course, since most of the people who died in the WTC were pulverized in the collapse, there’ll have to be repeats. Deal?
Ah, yes, an interesting documentary.
It’s true that this possibly merits its own thread. And I’m surprised to see that nobody has come along and addressed this yet, because I’m sure if you started a thread about it it’d be two pages long before I got home from work to post in it.
I guess you could look at the “obey without question”/“analyze every action” dichotomy as a deadly serious game of Simon Says.
“Get your gear on and start marching.” Lawful order.
“Stand guard duty here for two hours.” Lawful order.
“Bring back any adult males you see on the road.” Lawful order (I assume).
“Have them dig a trench, then shoot them in the back of the head so that they fall in the trench.” Unlawful order.
All through training, soldiers are briefed on stuff like this, what’s lawful and unlawful under the UCMJ, etc. An example is fraternization. Sometimes there’ll be a news story about an officer getting in trouble for having an affair with an enlisted person. To the civilian, that probably seems like a dirty trick, because how was the officer to know that wasn’t allowed? Well, it’s not any kind of surprise to the officer, he or she knows perfectly well that fraternization is not allowed and has known that since the first week of basic training.
Refusing to deploy because you think the war is illegal, now, that seems about equivalent to refusing to pay income taxes because you think income tax is illegal. Both ways you’re likely to end up in jail, no matter how sincere you are in your beliefs.
I came close to accepting an Air Force ROTC scholarship, and later in my life enlisted in the Navy. Both times it was made quite clear to me that going into the service meant the real possibility of combat. It is explicit in the paperwork, and the recruiters don’t gloss over it - they don’t want people chickening out before boot camp.
What do the dead in the WTC have to do with soldiers in Iraq? Iraq had nothing to do with their deaths.
I know some people here are likely to sympathize with a soldier who makes that argument, especially in relation to this war. I find it to be a dangerous argument, though, because it hits at the heart of civil-military relations.
The order to go to war is legal from the soldier’s perspective because it was given by the President and authorized by Congress. We have civilian control of the military for very good reasons, and one of these is to remove this kind of decision making from the soldier and put it on the political branches of the government where it belongs.
Therefore a soldier cannot make the argument that the war is illegal if it was authorized in this way. And if he were permitted to do so, the principle of civilian control of the military would be threatened. What if a general were to refuse to deploy instead of a private, and hold up all of his troops in the process?
The war is legal because it is legal, and if the soldier doesn’t want to fight it he ought to try to get out by honest means. Barring this, he ought to spend some time in the stockade. Both of these options are honorable to a degree that this bogus argument isn’t.
My guess is that first, recruiters are not the same. And second, they are under more pressure to fill boots than they were when you got recruited. And third anecdotal evidence isn’t totally worthless, but it’s close.
And my guess is that these people join the military and are quite clear about what that means.
Why does everybody assume that the people who join the military are stupid? It’s implicit in every sentence that suggests that they were snowjobbed by recruiters or had no idea that they might have to fight (and maybe die). It’s sickening.
Perhaps the enlistment document will help back this up.
BTW, this document states clearly everything they’ll do to you, so surprise on your part is misplaced. Stop-loss? Covered. Activation of the inactive reserve? Covered. They tell you right up front that you’re enlisting for eight years.
Just as a point of orders, Special Forces has a wide variety of missions… some of them definitely do include some bad-ass killing type stuff, but SF also includes medics, dentists, physicians, and veterinarians. It sounds strange, but you can win a lot of indigenous hearts and minds by curing a few sick cows and pulling some aching teeth. No idea how it bears on this case, but the particulars are indeed important here.
Recruit: “So I might have to serve eight years?”
Recruiter: “That is there just in case some major war breaks out where we need all the soldiers we can get. But how likely is that, I mean do you think Saddam Hussein is gonna invade?”
Have you ever purchased a car? A good salesman can squash objections easily. Not everyone has sales resistance.