Thread: The military Board: Purgatory / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
Some of the discussion on the Aleppo thread has made me think (again) about the military and the status they have.

Just to make it clear, I am not knocking the role they play, that is for another place.

But those who enter the forces have at least some idea of what they are joining. It is an organisation whose role is killing and being killed. While we hope that there is as little of this as possible, it is part of their role.

So they are sent into dangerous places, heavily armed and with knowledge and intelligence about the situation, and they take carefully calculated risks. When they are killed, they are accorded a huge about of honour and respect because they have "died for our country".

I think there is some evidence that being in the military in many parts of the world is far safer than being at home. When schoolteachers (particularly in the US, but not solely) are killed protecting the children in their care, when someone randomly decides to shoot the school up, they are not given the same level of honour. And yet they have no real idea of their danger, they are not trained or prepared for a gunman arriving. They are not armed (thankfully). They also die for the country, for the people they are looking after.

So to argue that "we shouldn't send our forces into xxx because they might be in danger" seems like a strange idea. If, by going to xxx they will make us safer, that is what they are for. And the danger is part of it. If they are going the xxx and it doesn't make things safer then they shouldn't go because it is a wrong strategic decision, not because it is dangerous.

I am not suggesting we should ever return to the WW1/WW2 approach of sending tens of thousands of men into a slaughterhouse. But that is not what it is about these days. The chances of death are not 50%+ as they were.

The chances of dying seem to be more if you are poor or disabled or black than if you are in the military. In fact, there seems to be all sorts of roles that are far more dangerous. And yet these don't get the level of respect or honour that people who have chosen a dangerous profession get.

And I think it is wrong.
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
Many years ago, a time when one has a different clarity of thought, it did occur to me that the military, (not conscription), is just a job like any other. Apart from the fact that it can be rather a horrid job. This is provided we look beyond all the flag waving, jingoism and wobbly chin bit.
In the 60s and 70s we felt free, and maybe were even encouraged to think in such a way. Then came the Falklands and later the Iraq business. Now, with all that has followed, little by little we are moving ever closer to restoring pre 1914 sentiments where the military matters are concerned.
 
Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on :
 
what military services are you talking about?
 
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Many years ago, a time when one has a different clarity of thought, it did occur to me that the military, (not conscription), is just a job like any other.
There aren't many jobs where "get killed" is practically in the job description. The police and fire department put their lives on the line, but AIUI, their rules of engagement place a higher emphasis on their personal safety than the military at war. And there are certainly plenty of jobs that are dangerous - ones where accidents happen quite often.

I don't think you need to go all rah rah jingo or dulce et decorum est to think that the military at war isn't "just another job".
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
“Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.” Samuel Johnson
 
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Many years ago, a time when one has a different clarity of thought, it did occur to me that the military, (not conscription), is just a job like any other. Apart from the fact that it can be rather a horrid job. This is provided we look beyond all the flag waving, jingoism and wobbly chin bit.
In the 60s and 70s we felt free, and maybe were even encouraged to think in such a way. Then came the Falklands and later the Iraq business. Now, with all that has followed, little by little we are moving ever closer to restoring pre 1914 sentiments where the military matters are concerned.
My views on the military are coloured by having spent twenty years between 1957 and 1977 trailing round after Dad as a forces brat (or a "scaley" in RAF terms). In my lifetime he spent four years at the main base for Thor ICBMs, to the north of Lincoln, three at Akrotiri on Cyprus working on Vulcans then his last two years at HQ Strike Command at High Wycombe. We didn't feel free, but there was a fatalistic approach because we knew damn well that these were three of the top ten, if not the top five British targets if the balloon went up, and we'd turned to glass in seconds.

It does rather affect ones attitude to boring stuff like school work, especially when an afternoon at the beach is an alternative. That was our kind of freedom.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
When schoolteachers (particularly in the US, but not solely) are killed protecting the children in their care, when someone randomly decides to shoot the school up, they are not given the same level of honour.
I've seen plenty of TV and newspaper reports, and lots of stuff on social media, which give as much, if not more, honour to the bravery of school teachers (and other civilians) who have been killed or seriously injured protecting children. But, those are honouring individuals who protect others, the honouring of members of a profession doesn't happen in quite the same way - teachers in general don't get respect and honour just for being teachers in the way that soldiers in general will. You probably get closer with emergency services. The first responders in NY to the 9/11 attacks would be held in high honour, and that honour extends to the whole NY fire department and probably beyond.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
I have significant trouble with "died for our country", and calling military people heros. Almost all soldier dying is elsewhere, serving some strategy to do with economics, and most often more non-military are killed than military.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
To me the real problem with military service is the requirement to follow orders no matter what-- to basically turn your ethical and moral reasoning over to the generals and other higher ups.Except, of course, when you don't and are held morally/ethically responsible for your actions. The difference generally not parsed out until after the fact.

I recognize it would be pretty much impossible to run a military force any other way, but that seems to be an incredibly problematic system in terms of any development of moral and ethical reasoning. And we can all see how well that works out all too often.

The only solution I can see if conscientious pacifism, but that's a pretty hard sell.
 
Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :
 
I think the justification for treating soldiers who die on duty differently from others comes down to the fact that many of us are unwilling to sign up for a job where we will routinely be in mortal danger. We honor the fact that this person took on a job most of us wouldn't.

The teacher who dies is a totally different kind of tragedy. The teacher didn't take the job with an expectation that being killed was part of the job. So we react differently, out of a different kind of sorrow.

I also think that a lot more goes into deciding when to take action than is suggested above, and the balancing of civilian safety, soldier safety, ability to make a difference, and likelihood that you will lose political support for the action before you have cleaned up the mess is the only reasonable way to go about macro-level military decisions. Anything else would be extremely irresponsible.
 
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
cliffdweller:
quote:
To me the real problem with military service is the requirement to follow orders no matter what-- to basically turn your ethical and moral reasoning over to the generals and other higher ups. Except, of course, when you don't and are held morally/ethically responsible for your actions.
Yes, but of course some soldiers do retain their ethical/moral sense of responsibility and will refuse orders that they think are wrong - such as

James Blunt who refused an order to attack Russian troops in Kosovo (admittedly, this order came from a US general who was in overall charge of the action but not his commanding officer).

Or Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov who did NOT launch a nuclear strike on the United States in 1983 because he (correctly) thought that his early warning system was malfunctioning. If he'd been wrong, there wouldn't have been enough of him left to carry him home in a bucket... if he'd had an itchy trigger finger and launched a retaliation... well, we probably would have had more pressing concerns by now than Brexit or Donald Trump, if there had been any of us left in the smoking ruins.

Soldiers are supposed to follow orders, yes, but they're expected to use their judgement too. Of course, even if you do all the right things you might still end up being screwed over by the court-martial, as Admiral Byng found to his cost (no, I don't mean Admiral Byrd).
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
cliffdweller:
quote:
To me the real problem with military service is the requirement to follow orders no matter what-- to basically turn your ethical and moral reasoning over to the generals and other higher ups. Except, of course, when you don't and are held morally/ethically responsible for your actions.
Yes, but of course some soldiers do retain their ethical/moral sense of responsibility and will refuse orders that they think are wrong - such as

James Blunt who refused an order to attack Russian troops in Kosovo (admittedly, this order came from a US general who was in overall charge of the action but not his commanding officer).

Or Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov who did NOT launch a nuclear strike on the United States in 1983 because he (correctly) thought that his early warning system was malfunctioning. If he'd been wrong, there wouldn't have been enough of him left to carry him home in a bucket... if he'd had an itchy trigger finger and launched a retaliation... well, we probably would have had more pressing concerns by now than Brexit or Donald Trump, if there had been any of us left in the smoking ruins.

Soldiers are supposed to follow orders, yes, but they're expected to use their judgement too. Of course, even if you do all the right things you might still end up being screwed over by the court-martial, as Admiral Byng found to his cost (no, I don't mean Admiral Byrd).
Yes, it's quite ambiguous, which certainly can't help matters. But the whole notion of "following orders" and "chain of command" is itself ethically problematic and, despite notable exceptions, not well suited for good outcomes. Yet it's hard to imagine how an alternative would work. Add to that the life-and-death stakes-- that you are literally trusting your very life to these few souls who are making the Big Decisions-- and it's a system uniquely designed for Very Very Bad Outcomes.
 
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
*remembers the occasion when Respecting The Chain of Command enabled Captain Sheridan to get Babylon 5 out of a very sticky situation*

(well, with the assistance of a fleet of Minbari battle cruisers)
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
You probably get closer with emergency services. The first responders in NY to the 9/11 attacks would be held in high honour, and that honour extends to the whole NY fire department and probably beyond.
That is a good point. Only a heart of stone could not feel a sense of admiration for those guys heading upwards into the two infernos when everyone else was trying to get down. They put their lives on the line, and forfeited them, in order to save others.

If I compare this with the feeling I get from thinking of the 20,000 British soldiers who died on July 1st 1916 there is a subtle and significant difference. Indeed it is very sad that such a large number were misinformed as just how impossible their assignment was. But this has to be tempered with the fact that had they reached opposing trenches then their job was to kill others.
 
Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on :
 
Treating soldiers as heroes is a prehistoric piece of social engineering.

One individual will make relatively little difference to the outcome of a battle (especially with larger populations), yet taking part carries a huge risk for them. This means nobody will fight but then you're all screwed when you come up against a culture which does. It's the free rider problem.

Glorifying warriors is part of how humans have dealt with this. High status, statues of heroes, victory parades - they're the carrot which persuaded men to act against their immediate self-interest. (The stick is shaming them for cowardice - white feathers in WWI, Spartans being told to come home with their shields or on them, etc.)

You can see similar behaviour in monkeys.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
“Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.” Samuel Johnson
Exactly - status and shame rolled together.
 
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
I think the justification for treating soldiers who die on duty differently from others comes down to the fact that many of us are unwilling to sign up for a job where we will routinely be in mortal danger. We honor the fact that this person took on a job most of us wouldn't.
I see more to honour in deep-sea fishermen. They do a difficult and dangerous job to put food on our tables. The death and injury rate is pretty awful. Even the local boats round here have people lose fingers or get into difficulties at sea.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I remember 9-11. My daughter was 16. On the following day, September 12, she said to me, "The world is screwed up." I had to agree; it was obviously true. She went on reasoning, "It's adults who have messed it up." Also true, I had to admit. Who could argue it? And she went on, "It has to be fixed." And then her conclusion: "I have to fix it."
And at this moment I should have weighed in with the wussy and Barbie-doll comment. Something like, "Oh but darling, boys don't like girls who rule the world with a rod of iron," or "Honey, math is hard," or "Being smart will impact your social life!" Instead, like an idiot, I said, "You do that, dear."
And she said, "I will." From that moment she set herself to become Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare. She graduated from Stanford, joined the US Army, and is now a major, an Afghan war vet. Only the kindly intervention of the Navy Seals kept him from her vengeance; I trust that even on his rock in Hell bin Laden is grateful, because she's a terror.
So why, precisely, did she (and my son, too) become a soldier? It was not patriotism, exactly. I think it was a desire to combat evil in the most effective way. You can certainly argue that there has been mission creep; the military is not always effective. But few mortal entities are.
 
Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
I think the justification for treating soldiers who die on duty differently from others comes down to the fact that many of us are unwilling to sign up for a job where we will routinely be in mortal danger. We honor the fact that this person took on a job most of us wouldn't.
I see more to honour in deep-sea fishermen. They do a difficult and dangerous job to put food on our tables. The death and injury rate is pretty awful. Even the local boats round here have people lose fingers or get into difficulties at sea.
If you want to play that game, we could go into statistics about dwindling fish populations in our deep seas from over-fishing of species that are not evolved to reproduce in numbers necessary to keep up with human demand.

But what's the point of taking broad potshots from the safety of our own desk, other than to make ourselves feel smug? Maybe get out and talk to folks who do enlist, figure out what they wanted to accomplish, and then see if you still want to tell them that they should do something a bit more honorable with their lives.
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
Schroedingers Cat

Have you looked where the military recruit from?

Jengie

[fixed link]

[ 20. December 2016, 16:47: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 
Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :
 
Chris Hedges, a war correspondent, has written a book titled "What Every Person Should Know About War", which is relevant to this discussion. It is written in a question and answer format and it is immaculately footnoted. If I knew a young person who was thinking of enlisting, I would provide a copy.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
Chris Hedges, a war correspondent, has written a book titled "What Every Person Should Know About War", which is relevant to this discussion. It is written in a question and answer format and it is immaculately footnoted. If I knew a young person who was thinking of enlisting, I would provide a copy.
Excerpt here
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
This is also useful. Written in a cheeky manner, but is backed up by references to articles you may click on and at least read the abstracts.
 
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:

But what's the point of taking broad potshots from the safety of our own desk, other than to make ourselves feel smug? Maybe get out and talk to folks who do enlist, figure out what they wanted to accomplish, and then see if you still want to tell them that they should do something a bit more honorable with their lives.
I don't recall telling anyone what they should do with their lives, merely questioning the necessity of "honouring" them for their choices. And I've known plenty of aspiring soldiers, and they have a variety of reasons, from the noble to the terrible, to the mundane. I also appreciate the job the military does with some kids for whom school didn't work.
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
The Military serves a purpose both in offering a satisfactory career to those who choose it, and as an an instrument of those who wield ultimate power. I can't see that anyone could deny that, not even a pacifist.

But does that alone make it a different job from someone working and risking their life in the rescue services? Or indeed someone working and knowingly risking the onset of an industrial disease?
The difference seems to come when the public of a particular country gets behind it's military in an emotional way. We saw it here with the Falklands war 1982, something that we hadn't seen through a previous whole decade of military involvement in Northern Ireland.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
The purpose of the military is to defend our nation by killing people. It spends millions and millions of dollars a year training people to kill, and buying hardware whose only purpose is to kill. No other occupation has that distinction.
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
H'mmm , put like that MT I'm suspecting that much of the flagwaving and burning tingle in the depths of the emotions is partly down to the fact that killing has the potential to be a massive turn-on.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
H'mmm , put like that MT I'm suspecting that much of the flagwaving and burning tingle in the depths of the emotions is partly down to the fact that killing has the potential to be a massive turn-on.
I have talked with two former soldiers, 20 years apart, who both said that the ultimate power rush was to kill another man.
 
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The purpose of the military is to defend our nation by killing people.
I'm not sure about the 'defend our nation' part. 'Defend our national interests', okay, but then we get to the difficult debate as to what precisely constitutes 'our' national interest. (I've no interest in bombing the crap out of Iraqi conscripts, and I'm not in any danger from them either.)

So I've probably come to this point of view rather late, which is all to do with having relatives in the military (mainly WWII, and national service thereafter. Also, reader, I married her).

The problem - and I think it is a problem - is that with every serving soldier I've ever met, I've got on just fine with them. We've talked and joked and eaten together and sometimes got drunk together. But while I did that, I should have had a thought in my hindbrain which ought to have told me that this man/woman would kill me if ordered to do so. Their own feelings and beliefs would be immaterial. It wouldn't matter if I was on the right or the wrong side of history. It wouldn't matter why I was now the enemy, whether I presented an existential threat to the soldier, or whether I was simply in the way. This person should kill me if they were ordered to do so.

I don't know about you all, but the idea that someone has given another that much authority over them, that they would do that? I don't like that. I'm uncomfortable with that. I look on that as a flaw, a vice, not a virtue. I don't see that abandonment of responsibility, of agency, of conscience, as at all laudable.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The purpose of the military is to defend our nation by killing people.
I'm not sure about the 'defend our nation' part. 'Defend our national interests', okay, but then we get to the difficult debate as to what precisely constitutes 'our' national interest.
National interests seem to align rather closely to economic interests. Which means those of large companies who will profit from it. And very weirdly they get the people they sell to, to pay for their wars.

Better is to not. Universal Soldier lyric.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The purpose of the military is to defend our nation by killing people.
I'm not sure about the 'defend our nation' part. 'Defend our national interests', okay, but then we get to the difficult debate as to what precisely constitutes 'our' national interest.
National interests seem to align rather closely to economic interests. Which means those of large companies who will profit from it. And very weirdly they get the people they sell to, to pay for their wars.

Better is to not. Universal Soldier lyric.
I think it is truer to say that the purpose of the military is killing people. It is necessary (or rather, that is another discussion), but distasteful. Which is why I ask the question.
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I have talked with two former soldiers, 20 years apart, who both said that the ultimate power rush was to kill another man.
Not knowing any soldiers personally, many documented accounts I have heard from former soldiers does,(though not always), more than bear this out.

It has even been suggested that Germany, as a Nation, only really gained it's real *taste* for battle and total war as a result of the Somme slaughterhouse.
Straying into controversial territory here it does seem, to me anyway, that such lust and fatal attraction is only really challenged when death is served up wholesale, in the form of Hiroshima, Nagasaki or Dresden.
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
Anecdata - the RSM at school once told me how he'd enjoyed emptying a semi-automatic into a couple of people. You could also see how much he enjoyed my distaste of his bloodlust. He was making me uneasy and thoroughly enjoying that as well. But he already loathed me anyway because I couldn't make boots shine. A complete knob.

It was at that point that I became to all intents and purposes a pacifist.

N=1 and all that.

[ 23. December 2016, 10:07: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
It has even been suggested that Germany, as a Nation, only really gained it's real *taste* for battle and total war as a result of the Somme slaughterhouse.
That doesn't seem to take account of the Franco-Prussian war or the wars enlarging the German empire in Africa and Samoa which show a taste for battle and conquest already.

Or the role of the economic conditions leading to fascism following WW1 rather than an inherited national taste for battle as the cause for WW2.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
I can understand the desire to shoot up "the bad guys". I resist it, because I have to live in a civilised society. But I cannot deny that I understand the appeal, and the sense of power that it gives you.

They don't do it "for us". The politicians direct them on our behalf, but they do it because they find it a fulfilling role to play surely? Is there anyone in the forces who really doesn't want to be there, but feels that they have to do it to serve the nation? I doubt it.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
My guess is that most people are in the army for the peace-time life rather than wartime. Many probably find that their mix of abilities (or in some cases lack of abilities) fit them for life in the army, and I expect many regard being sent to war as an inevitable price to pay for that rather than anything they relish.

I don't doubt that some develop a taste for shooting people on exposure, but I doubt that is an initial motivator for many.
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
I don't doubt my own morbid fascination with the Great War is also a form of blood lust.
However the most telling documentary that I have watched to date was about the vast collection of photographs taken by soldiers themselves, (from both sides), who were amateur photographers.

Interesting were the similarities of young men on all sides, broad grins and posing in front of the latest weaponry. Also common we're pictures of shattered trees and destroyed buildings.
Most revealing of all, as these images were unpoliced, and what war censorship couldn't hide was the way in which the expressions on those soldier's faces were changing. Little by little the early glow of excitement and adventure was being replaced by the gaunt grimace of resolution, together with the profound realisation that most of them were not going get out of that predicament unscathed, or even alive.
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I can understand the desire to shoot up "the bad guys". I resist it, because I have to live in a civilised society. But I cannot deny that I understand the appeal, and the sense of power that it gives you.
I don't. Really, really I don't. For me, the biggest deterrent against joining the army, the thing I most dreaded about being called up if there were a war, would be that they'd want me to kill people, which I know I can't do.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I remember 9-11. My daughter was 16. On the following day, September 12, she said to me, "The world is screwed up." I had to agree; it was obviously true. She went on reasoning, "It's adults who have messed it up." Also true, I had to admit. Who could argue it? And she went on, "It has to be fixed." And then her conclusion: "I have to fix it."
And at this moment I should have weighed in with the wussy and Barbie-doll comment. Something like, "Oh but darling, boys don't like girls who rule the world with a rod of iron," or "Honey, math is hard," or "Being smart will impact your social life!" Instead, like an idiot, I said, "You do that, dear."
And she said, "I will." From that moment she set herself to become Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare. She graduated from Stanford, joined the US Army, and is now a major, an Afghan war vet. Only the kindly intervention of the Navy Seals kept him from her vengeance; I trust that even on his rock in Hell bin Laden is grateful, because she's a terror.
So why, precisely, did she (and my son, too) become a soldier? It was not patriotism, exactly. I think it was a desire to combat evil in the most effective way. You can certainly argue that there has been mission creep; the military is not always effective. But few mortal entities are.
A nice slice of life. But Osama Bin Laden is in paradise. Not a boulder in Tartaroo. And not with seventy virgins (are they perpetual?). But with Jesus.
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
Yep.
Heaven is universally big enough to take the military and it's harvest. Also every scrap of human folly and endeavour/failure that ever existed, or will exist.
Thank God for that.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Yes, thank the Lord, the fate of the deceased is Not Our Problem.
But there is certainly a military metaphor in Christianity. All those hymns ("A Mighty Fortress," "Onward Christian Soldiers"). All the hosts of Heaven. Michael with his angelic sword. Even if we argue that this is a faulty mortal metaphor, drafted to depict a Heavenly reality that we can't otherwise grip, there's something there. Christ was silent as a lamb to be slaughtered, before His oppressors. But he also kicked over the money-changers' tables.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I can understand the desire to shoot up "the bad guys". I resist it, because I have to live in a civilised society. But I cannot deny that I understand the appeal, and the sense of power that it gives you.
I don't. Really, really I don't. For me, the biggest deterrent against joining the army, the thing I most dreaded about being called up if there were a war, would be that they'd want me to kill people, which I know I can't do.
The great evil is that they'd train you with operant conditioning and other behavioural techniques to do exactly that. Plus the pressures placed upon you by those ordering you so to do, and the desire to defend your buddies, the other soldiers. I wish we'd all realize that we are all capable of the hatred necessary to kill. And not just assume we have only nice motives.
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
?... there is certainly a military metaphor in Christianity. All those hymns ("A Mighty Fortress," "Onward Christian Soldiers"). All the hosts of Heaven. Michael with his angelic sword. Even if we argue that this is a faulty mortal metaphor, drafted to depict a Heavenly reality that we can't otherwise grip, there's something there. Christ was silent as a lamb to be slaughtered, before His oppressors. But he also kicked over the money-changers' tables.
He's also advising the disciples to take up swords ahead of the Gethsemane showdown in one Gospel account. In fact a large part of the NT is ambiguous to the point that it can quite easily be used in support of militarism any day of the week.
Probably the reason that most major world Powers have been keen to foster it. Didn't even Rome embrace Christianity after some general or another had proved it's effectiveness in psyching his troops for battle?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Didn't even Rome embrace Christianity after some general or another had proved it's effectiveness in psyching his troops for battle?
No. He saw a miraculous chi-rho in the sky and heard a heavenly voice say "In this sign conquer" as he was readying his troops for battle. Just a wee bit more than finding it useful for psychological bolstering.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
There are very few things that you can't find a Scripture, somewhere in the Bible, to back you up on. There are whole websites devoted tho lists of questions like, "If God commands us to kill our neighbors do Canadians count or can we only kill Mexicans?"
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
Wow, Brenda. This is a version of "peace on earth, goodwill towards all people" that I wasn't aware of.

Must have led a sheltered life.

But seriously, the church militant is a bit of challenge to folks from my part of the Christian rainbow. It's a pretty short step from defending the faith to fostering aggressive attitudes. Despite the universal awareness of "love your enemies", which appears in many minds to have been relegated from an "impossible possibility" (Reinhold Niebuhr, on the Sermon on the Mount) to just "impossible", or even perfectionist naivety.

In my part of the rainbow, we do our best to keep that "impossible possibility" possible; at least worth striving for.

[ 25. December 2016, 08:31: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I don't see that abandonment of responsibility, of agency, of conscience, as at all laudable.
That's how I feel about fundamentalists...

But conversely, some of the most successful business partnerships involve a salesman type who's good at seeing the big picture of what products there's a market for with an engineer type who's good at the detail of how the product could be made to work. And the engineer trusts the salesman that the product development is worth the effort and the salesman trusts the engineer to make the technology do what he says it will do.

And the relationship between the soldiers and the army commanders has something of that mutual trust and specialization of role, as well as something of the blind faith of fundamentalism.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
He's also advising the disciples to take up swords ahead of the Gethsemane showdown in one Gospel account. In fact a large part of the NT is ambiguous to the point that it can quite easily be used in support of militarism any day of the week.
There are three possible attitudes toward armed conflict derivable from the NT - pacifism, just war and crusade.

A case can be made for the first two, but there is not a single verse in the NT which sanctions the third, ie armed coercion to defend or propagate the faith.

Any attempt to extract such approval from Luke 22:36, which can be taken ironically or figuratively, and which, if taken literally, flies in the face of everything else which Jesus taught, would guarantee you a fail in Hermeneutics and Exegesis 101.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Yes, thank the Lord, the fate of the deceased is Not Our Problem.
But there is certainly a military metaphor in Christianity. All those hymns ("A Mighty Fortress," "Onward Christian Soldiers"). All the hosts of Heaven. Michael with his angelic sword. Even if we argue that this is a faulty mortal metaphor, drafted to depict a Heavenly reality that we can't otherwise grip, there's something there. Christ was silent as a lamb to be slaughtered, before His oppressors. But he also kicked over the money-changers' tables.
That's the problem, the fate of the deceased is Our Problem: Does Christianity have anything to say to the bereaved?

The fact that we are a martial monkey means that God symbolically deals with us as such. It has nothing to do with God's being violent in any recognizable way. Ooh, apart from when He was a bloke He turned some gangsters' tables over and shooed some big thick skinned animals away. Doesn't quite compare in any category of violence any of us ever encounter really does it? Mild physical aggression to inanimate objects and cattle desecrating a highly sacred place? Not exactly the Battle of Antietam?
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
?... there is certainly a military metaphor in Christianity. All those hymns ("A Mighty Fortress," "Onward Christian Soldiers"). All the hosts of Heaven. Michael with his angelic sword. Even if we argue that this is a faulty mortal metaphor, drafted to depict a Heavenly reality that we can't otherwise grip, there's something there. Christ was silent as a lamb to be slaughtered, before His oppressors. But he also kicked over the money-changers' tables.
He's also advising the disciples to take up swords ahead of the Gethsemane showdown in one Gospel account. In fact a large part of the NT is ambiguous to the point that it can quite easily be used in support of militarism any day of the week.
Probably the reason that most major world Powers have been keen to foster it. Didn't even Rome embrace Christianity after some general or another had proved it's effectiveness in psyching his troops for battle?
That was to fulfill prophecy, as He said. There is nothing in Christ that sanctions the use of violence in His name.

We do violence on our own recognizance. Some of which is Christianly mandatory in self defense and protecting the weak of course, duties of citizens of the state in being automatically deputized in the state monopoly of violence and even in, most rarely, taking up arms against the state. Which does take us in to military territory as citizens in between those positions at least I now accept.
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
Just thinking back to a time, a long long Century ago when the pews were full and so were the marching boots.
To be fair the churches didn't initially back the impending bloody nose contest on mainland Europe. They were though directed by a governmental decree to amp up the 'I do not bring peace but a sword' bit when it became clear that a call to arms was imminent .

I have every respect for a pacifist, or indeed someone who can identify a predominantly pacifist narrative in the bible. However, apart from certain aspects of the Gospel, along with St Paul's campaign of non-violence, it seems a bit of a stretch to me.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
I have every respect for a pacifist, or indeed someone who can identify a predominantly pacifist narrative in the bible. However, apart from certain aspects of the Gospel, along with St Paul's campaign of non-violence, it seems a bit of a stretch to me.
So, if you take out the pacifism, you just can't find any pacifism? Stands to reason.
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
Pacifism is in there yes but with so much else to contradict it, esp OT and Revelations, it isn't difficult to understand how soldiers were motivated to advance, bayonets fixed with Bibles pressed close to their chest.
Were the few conscientious objectors of WW1, and greater number of WW2, motivated by formalised religion? My guess is they were not.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Were the few conscientious objectors of WW1, and greater number of WW2, motivated by formalised religion? My guess is they were not.
Some certainly were.

My father-in-law, when called up for WWII, refused on Christian grounds to bear arms, but agreed to serve in a medical unit, where he finished up nursing a few Japanese soldiers as well as those on his own side.

He was by no means the only one.
 
Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Were the few conscientious objectors of WW1, and greater number of WW2, motivated by formalised religion? My guess is they were not.
I know some of the NZ conscientious objectors in both wars were motivated by their Christian beliefs. Some were also motivated by political beliefs.

James K Baxter, a NZ poet noted how his father, Archibald Baxter* (a CO) shared a prison cell with early Labour Party supporters in WWI, while his brother Terence was imprisoned by the Labour Government for being a Pacifist in WWII.

*Archibald Baxter wrote We Will Not Cease which was am autobiographical account of this treatment by the military. Well worth a read if you can get hold of it.

Huia
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
I am afraid for Rolyn that the evidence is rather contrary and that the majority were motivated by Religious belief.

The most decorated soldier in WWI was a conscientious objector almost certainly motivated by his belonging to a Congregational Church. Pacificism is a strand within Congregationalism that runs deep and Congregationalism was far bigger in the first half of the twentieth century than it is today. If you look up Constance Coltman you will find that she too was strongly Pacificist.

Another major thing is that many conscientious objectors were Quaker where Pacificism is far stronger.

The problem is that these parts of Nonconformity often does not give the vocal statements about their beliefs but phrase their faith commitment statements in rational form. You give the reason of your faith, not simply restate your faith. Nobody comes a conscientious objector suddenly, it often comes of a life lived within the community that supports it.

How deep does it go? Well as a teenager one of the issues that my congregation put in front of me was whether I would sign up for the armed forces in case of war. The encouraged line was to be an objector. This really was overdrive; not only am I female but because of my parentage, I am unacceptable to the military (I am not British enough).

Jengie
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
I am beyond the age of call-up but have generally felt I would have answered it, (albeit with trepidation), provided the cause was just-- vague though such a definition has proved to be.

The conviction of the conscientious objector at the early stage of WW1 is to be admired because many of them faced brutality and humiliation due to their disobedience.
Having read a little more on wiki I discovercovered that CO's who objected on religious grounds were treated somewhat more sympathetically by the public than those acting purely for political motives.
Presumably this was a time when nothing was viewed lower than an apparent coward who also turned out to be an atheist.

[ 28. December 2016, 22:25: Message edited by: rolyn ]
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
There's a frightening article in today's NY Times about how Stephen Bannon (notorious right-winger, formerly head of Breitbart News and now consigliere of the Mango Mussolini) spoke to a Vatican conference about the Church Militant and how to politicize it. I can't post a link but the headline is "Church Militant Theology Pu to New and Politicized Use."

Would that the Church could indeed be a tool for peace; there are those who want to use it for war.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
There's a frightening article in today's NY Times about how Stephen Bannon (notorious right-winger, formerly head of Breitbart News and now consigliere of the Mango Mussolini) spoke to a Vatican conference about the Church Militant and how to politicize it. I can't post a link but the headline is "Church Militant Theology Pu to New and Politicized Use."

Would that the Church could indeed be a tool for peace; there are those who want to use it for war.
Psalm 120 verse 7:

I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.
 
Posted by Avey (# 18701) on :
 
This site is oddly like the Army Rumour Service website (to which, apart from being registered there, I am otherwise unaffiliated)

There is even an identical "Dead Pool 2017" thread. They are good deal more sweary but not at all unlike this site.

Good threads on various subjects including Christianity and cover all things military.
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Avey:
This site is oddly like the Army Rumour Service website (to which, apart from being registered there, I am otherwise unaffiliated)

There is even an identical "Dead Pool 2017" thread. They are good deal more sweary but not at all unlike this site.

Good threads on various subjects including Christianity and cover all things military.
there's more cross-over than you might think - I post on both and I can think of a couple of others (obviously I'm not going to name names).

I find ARRSE has a broader political spectrum than on here (there's a thread which has been running for several years where hardline Soviet-style socialists have been going at the Ayn Rand followers - and vice versa - hammer and tongs), and also like the way that it seems to work much more on trust - you're allowed to cross lines that on here would have people screaming about lawyers, and moderators only seem to get involved once in a blue moon. Nevertheless the sky doesn't seem to fall in...

On the other hand, the ship is clearly the place for more breadth of religious focused discussion, hence membership of both.

I'm projecting here massively, but I think members of the ship would be surprised how much they've got in common with Arrse members. Having said that, I think Arrse posters would find it easy to get along here, whereas Shipmates would need to be asbestosed up beyond Hell levels to survive in Arrse's more no-holds-barred atmosphere. Probably a place on the internet for both of them.

The short way to keep this on thread is that I think there can be a tendency to "other" members of the military - either because it takes a certain sort of person, or "they have something done to them during training" - both of which attitudes have come across on this thread from time to time. 5 minutes on Arrse would make it clear that, aside from the swearing Barclay James Harvest had it right; Everyone is Everybody Else.
 
Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on :
 
I've always thought that it takes a certain kind of person, namely a brave person. I am not a pacifist and generally admire the courage of the armed forces, but it is very other than me, as I am not brave at all. I don't think that seeing people as different has to mean that you regard them negatively.
 
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
The short way to keep this on thread is that I think there can be a tendency to "other" members of the military - either because it takes a certain sort of person, or "they have something done to them during training" - both of which attitudes have come across on this thread from time to time. 5 minutes on Arrse would make it clear that, aside from the swearing Barclay James Harvest had it right; Everyone is Everybody Else.
I'd like to agree with you, but I can't.

In no other walk of life would someone I considered a friend be compelled by someone else (a more senior officer) to shoot me.

You might like to maintain the fiction that 'everyone is everybody else', but in this specific situation, they're not. We should all remember that.
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
Quite right DT.
Which is why Hitler ordered the burning the copies of All Quiet on the Western Front . He knew that a powerful scene, (in which a young German soldier was filled with remorse at stabbing someone who 'could have been his brother'), had the potential to seriously undermine his plans for remilitarisation.

Military personnel have to be conditioned, with the ultimate conditioning coming from actual experience in battle. Often it is the readjustment which is the problem, more for some than others.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
In no other walk of life would someone I considered a friend be compelled by someone else (a more senior officer) to shoot me.
The caricature of all soldiers as automatons, who mindlessly and murderously obey any order, makes me think that most of the contributors to this thread have had very little first-hand knowledge of the military.

I did eighteen inglorious months of National Service as a medic back in 1972-3, spent mainly conducting sick parades, or sitting in an ambulance reading a book out at the rifle range,, where the presence of a medic was required but never needed.

My closest relationship to anyone who had experienced combat was with my father, who volunteered for WWII, saw action in the infantry in North Africa, the Greek mainland and Crete, and spent the rest of the war in a German POW camp.

He was a humane man, who hated violence, such as hunting, but believed that it was necessary against Nazism.

Of course there has to be a degree of discipline and obedience in any army. but everyone except doctrinaire pacifists recognises that it is the lesser of two evils when it comes to confronting totalitarianism and tyranny.

There are some very instructive passages in Homage To Catalonia when George Orwell (another humane individual) has to force Spanish Republican volunteers to face the fact that it is impossible to fight fascism with an army based on a libertarian, individualistic and democratic command structure.
 
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
In no other walk of life would someone I considered a friend be compelled by someone else (a more senior officer) to shoot me.
The caricature of all soldiers as automatons, who mindlessly and murderously obey any order, makes me think that most of the contributors to this thread have had very little first-hand knowledge of the military.
Firstly, you appear to have neglected to include any argument in your reply.

I've not suggested that soldiers are mindless, murderous, or automata. I've stated baldly that they are trained to kill another human being when given the appropriate order. This is not a contentious issue. This is a simple fact.

The only complicating factor is that a serving soldier can be ordered to kill someone they know, and are even friends with. The person giving the order presumably expects them to obey. Whether they do or not is then down to the individual soldier's conscience, bearing in mind they might be shot themselves if they refuse. But that's the position the soldier has placed themselves at the very start of enlistment. Again, not a particularly controversial statement.

Secondly, I married an army officer. I don't know how much 'first hand' knowledge you might think that gives me, but it's considerably greater than zero.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Quite right DT.
Which is why Hitler ordered the burning the copies of All Quiet on the Western Front . He knew that a powerful scene, (in which a young German soldier was filled with remorse at stabbing someone who 'could have been his brother'), had the potential to seriously undermine his plans for remilitarisation.
Not quite rolyn. The Nazis banned books they considered to be Marxist, Jewish and defeatist. Remarque's book was not much different, except for the author's nomination for the Nobel Prize, and the beheading of his sister because Hitler couldn't get to Erich. This article regarding Hitler and Remarque is worth the read.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
There's a need, I think, to emphasize the ultimate immorality, incompatibility with Christianity, and thus the need to refuse anything military. Something I was raised with by a surviving father, twice a refugee. Something emphasized by watching napalm on TV news when a teenager.

I ain't marching anymore (Phil Ochs):

quote:
For I marched to the battles of the German trench
In a war that was bound to end all wars
Oh I must have killed a million men
And now they want me back again
But I ain't marchin' anymore

 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Again, not a particularly controversial statement.
It's a particularly silly statement.

For a start, only soldiers in rare and extreme quasi-gangster, warlord/myrmidon situations sign up with the intention of killing anyone they are told to, no questions asked.

The average soldier signing up in the armed forces of most countries, certainly most Western countries, does not do so on the understanding that they will kill anyone they are told to in contravention of of all the international laws of war.

Next, soldiers are not unique in facing the possibility of having to kill someone they know.

The same (very remote) contngency could also arise for members of police forces.

And defining soldiers as people who might be called upon to kill someone they know is as bizarre, lurid and tendentious as defining nurses as people who just conceivably might be called upon to help kill a baby twin (or at least cause him/her to die) in a crisis birth situation in order to let the ther twin live.

Both situations are imaginable, but abnormal and certainly not definitive.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Secondly, I married an army officer. I don't know how much 'first hand' knowledge you might think that gives me, but it's considerably greater than zero.
Presumably he/she hasn't been compelled to shoot you yet?
 
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Again, not a particularly controversial statement.
It's a particularly silly statement.

For a start, only soldiers in rare and extreme quasi-gangster, warlord/myrmidon situations sign up with the intention of killing anyone they are told to, no questions asked.

The average soldier signing up in the armed forces of most countries, certainly most Western countries, does not do so on the understanding that they will kill anyone they are told to in contravention of of all the international laws of war.

Next, soldiers are not unique in facing the possibility of having to kill someone they know.

The same (very remote) contngency could also arise for members of police forces.

And defining soldiers as people who might be called upon to kill someone they know is as bizarre, lurid and tendentious as defining nurses as people who just conceivably might be called upon to help kill a baby twin (or at least cause him/her to die) in a crisis birth situation in order to let the ther twin live.

Both situations are imaginable, but abnormal and certainly not definitive.
I'm sorry, but I think you've just outed yourself as someone who knows next to nothing about the military. You've refuted precisely none of my arguments.

The phrase "If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined" is oft used. Even those soldiers who have ostensibly non-combat roles are trained to, and are expected to, fight. When you're running around with an SA80, fighting = killing.

No one's said anything about contravening international law. I'm simply talking about obeying a lawful order from a superior.

We can dress up war fighting in all kinds of fancy language. 'Calling up air support' does generally mean 'bomb the crap out of the target, killing everyone inside'. 'Posting a grenade' does actually involve 'throwing an explosive into a room which you know contains other people and hoping it kills or maims them'. 'Clearing a compound' does mostly involve shooting everyone inside if they look a bit shady.

And yes, armed police officers are under no illusion that they will be required to kill someone if they're ordered to do so. I know one. He hopes never to have to do it, but knows he might.

So I'm bemused by your objections. This is the armed forces we're talking about. A bit of realism about what they're trained to do is the first step to an honest discussion about whether we want them to do it.
 
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Secondly, I married an army officer. I don't know how much 'first hand' knowledge you might think that gives me, but it's considerably greater than zero.
Presumably he/she hasn't been compelled to shoot you yet?
Give it time.

(We decided fairly rapidly I'd never make a good army wife)
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
No. But if needs must I guess. Perhaps showing her the thread might spark something off?

To be serious though, I can see how Kaplan might be reacting to different ways of reading your post. What you say is, to my reading, technically correct but our posts often mean more than the straight technical reading.

You could be read as saying that soldiers are fundamentally a different sort of human being owing to the necessity of needing to shoot people, and we should consider them at arms length and not like the rest of us because of that.

In a sense that is all correct, and clearly soldiers do need to kill, and one can't have a democratic command structure in determining who and when to kill if one wants a functioning army. My view would be that is the reality we have to consider in having an army, and unfortunately in this particular iteration of the world we seem to need it.

But the emphasis and way one reads it could be as a defence of "othering" soldiers, which is the context of the thread at that point.

[ 03. January 2017, 10:23: Message edited by: mdijon ]
 
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
I see your point. I don't think I'm arguing that soldiers are fundamentally different people, but that they have made a decision that does fundamentally separate them.

How they arrive at that decision is through various pathways which may or may not involve various degrees of critical thinking (I've encountered a wide variety of reasons given for signing up). And the training - based around loyalty to your immediate comrades, and more loosely to the company and regiment - does actually reinforce the othering, but from the soldier's side, not the civilians.

Most people, if pushed to the extremes, would probably pick up a weapon and kill. People being willing to kill other people is not the othering. It's the decision to allow yourself, consciously, to be used in that way by someone else, against someone you probably don't have a particular argument against and who isn't threatening you in an immediate way.
 
Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :
 
Your original objection seemed to be stronger than that:
quote:
In no other walk of life would someone I considered a friend be compelled by someone else (a more senior officer) to shoot me.
Would you say they've all agreed to be OK with being ordered to shoot their friends (or people who think they are friends)?
 
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Your original objection seemed to be stronger than that:
quote:
In no other walk of life would someone I considered a friend be compelled by someone else (a more senior officer) to shoot me.
Would you say they've all agreed to be OK with being ordered to shoot their friends (or people who think they are friends)?
So where's the line drawn? Where does "faceless enemy" finish and "next door neighbour" begin?

Ordinary soldiers don't get to draw that line for themselves, do they? While I'm certain that most soldiers don't ever think about that possibility, and it's never likely to appear on a recruitment poster, it is still a logical end-point to the command structure and military discipline.

If you can argue otherwise, I'd be interested to hear it.
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Your original objection seemed to be stronger than that:
quote:
In no other walk of life would someone I considered a friend be compelled by someone else (a more senior officer) to shoot me.
Would you say they've all agreed to be OK with being ordered to shoot their friends (or people who think they are friends)?
So where's the line drawn? Where does "faceless enemy" finish and "next door neighbour" begin?

Ordinary soldiers don't get to draw that line for themselves, do they?
Yes, they do - it's the point where they won't do it. Soldiering, like policing (in the UK model anyway) is done by consent (in this case the consent of the commanded to do the bidding of the commanders). Some orders are best not given because its both embarrassing and deleterious to military discipline when they don't get obeyed.

Anecdotally, Wilson was quite keen on dispatching the RAF to do a few bombing runs on Rhodesian military installations following UDI - it was made quite clear to him that the RAF wouldn't be doing that, because they were friends with too many of the people in those installations.

Since we're trading experience in support of opinions, ex RN officer, served in conflict, instructed in a basic training establishment handling and inducting the latest classes off the streets and immersing them in military life.
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
admittedly the Rhodie example isn't perfect, although the brass were as worried about the response of the non-commissioned riggers, armourers, etc as they were about the officer aircrew - but it's the only time post 1945 when I could think of someone in the UK being silly enough to contemplate a "go over there and punch your mates" order.*

*with the possible exception of Bloody Sunday (on the grounds that they were at least fellow British citizens, whether some of them wanted that status or not) - but as I said in my first post, that comes under the heading of "crazy enough to spark a multimillion pound inquiry and acres of adverse newsprint." Not to say multiple funerals of innocent people.

[ 03. January 2017, 13:50: Message edited by: betjemaniac ]
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
I can't think of an example where where British squaddies have had to shoot friends, apart from WWI firing squads - who executed around 300 men - and I doubt men in the same company (a hundred odd) actually did that. Battalion probably (a few hundreds). The same goes for US, Commonwealth, French and all European forces including WWII German I'd have thought.

The ghastliness is not diminished: Victor Silvester was a member of one firing-squad in 1916: "The tears were rolling down my cheeks as he went on attempting to free himself from the ropes attaching him to the chair. I aimed blindly and when the gunsmoke had cleared away we were further horrified to see that, although wounded, the intended victim was still alive. Still blindfolded, he was attempting to make a run for it still strapped to the chair. The blood was running freely from a chest wound. An officer in charge stepped forward to put the finishing touch with a revolver held to the poor man's temple. He had only once cried out and that was when he shouted the one word mother. He could not have been much older than me. We were told later that he had in fact been suffering from shell-shock, a condition not recognised by the army at the time. Later I took part in four more such executions."

Source.

[ 03. January 2017, 13:56: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Both my children are US Army officers, and my daughter is married to another officer. I would say that they are if anything notably loyal. They do not fight and die for abstract issues; they fight for their comrades.
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I can't think of an example where where British squaddies have had to shoot friends, apart from WWI firing squads - who executed around 300 men - and I doubt men in the same company (a hundred odd) actually did that. Battalion probably (a few hundreds). The same goes for US, Commonwealth, French and all European forces including WWII German I'd have thought.

The ghastliness is not diminished: Victor Silvester was a member of one firing-squad in 1916: "The tears were rolling down my cheeks as he went on attempting to free himself from the ropes attaching him to the chair. I aimed blindly and when the gunsmoke had cleared away we were further horrified to see that, although wounded, the intended victim was still alive. Still blindfolded, he was attempting to make a run for it still strapped to the chair. The blood was running freely from a chest wound. An officer in charge stepped forward to put the finishing touch with a revolver held to the poor man's temple. He had only once cried out and that was when he shouted the one word mother. He could not have been much older than me. We were told later that he had in fact been suffering from shell-shock, a condition not recognised by the army at the time. Later I took part in four more such executions."

Source.
I've read that account before - while it's very moving, historians IIRC have not been slow to question how Victor Silvester, in an army of several million men, managed to participate in 5 of the 304 British firing squads of WW1 - either he was spectacularly unlucky or for whatever reason he was engaged in embroidery....*

*rather like the number of people who claim to have been with the SAS on the balcony of the Libyan embassy, the number of accounts of WW1 firing squads does tend to suggest that each of those 304 men had a good couple of hundred people taking aim at them.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Excellent point! To claim to be involved in nearly 2% of British WWI executions is very suspect. A one in a thousand chance pentupled! This should be easily disprovable I'd have thought?
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Excellent point! To claim to be involved in nearly 2% of British WWI executions is very suspect. A one in a thousand chance pentupled! This should be easily disprovable I'd have thought?
not as easy as you might think - you'll get the report of the field general court martial on who was sentenced to death, but even unit war diaries tend not to list firing squad participants IME. You tend to get the impression that they thought it was a pretty dirty business and the less recorded the better once the sentence had been confirmed.

Basically there's no real way of gainsaying Silvester's account - other than noting that it's quite extraordinarily unlikely to be true. The number of celebrities who subsequently sexed their war service up a bit is legion - one thinks of Trevor Howard, and Christopher Lee at the head of the column.

[ 03. January 2017, 14:25: Message edited by: betjemaniac ]
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
It's important to be accurate and this sort of embellishment is nauseating. Although it's a bit of red herring in the sense that WW1 firing squads clearly did execute British soliders and quite likely that a number of soldiers felt extremely conflicted about it. Robert Fisk wrote about his Father's very mixed character and refusal to be involved in a firing squad in an account that rings much more true to me.
 
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
So where's the line drawn? Where does "faceless enemy" finish and "next door neighbour" begin?

Ordinary soldiers don't get to draw that line for themselves, do they?
Yes, they do - it's the point where they won't do it. Soldiering, like policing (in the UK model anyway) is done by consent (in this case the consent of the commanded to do the bidding of the commanders). Some orders are best not given because its both embarrassing and deleterious to military discipline when they don't get obeyed.
This is a very good point. But it does rely on common sense as to what orders might or might not be obeyed, which in turn relies on the calibre of both the officers and the wisdom of the advice they receive.

There was nothing in general terms stopping Wilson from ordering the bombing of Rhodesian assets, and nothing in general terms stopping the Air Marshall ordering his bombers to carry out the raids. It's then down to individual air crew to refuse a legitimate order.

Which is my point: they've already conceded that they might be asked to kill friends, and conceded that such an order would be lawful, and conceded that refusing such an order would see them in front of a court martial. History is littered with examples of friends ending up on opposite sides during a war, so it's not in reality an extreme case to consider.

(I am reminded of the James Blunt incident during the Kosovo War, where refusing to obey an order (and getting a fresh, sane one) averted WWIII. Whatever you think of his music, we owe him one.)
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
(I am reminded of the James Blunt incident during the Kosovo War, where refusing to obey an order (and getting a fresh, sane one) averted WWIII. Whatever you think of his music, we owe him one.)
As mentioned here along with Stanislav Petrov who we also owe.

I believe Dallaire disobeyed orders in Rwanda to save lives, and I think I remember reading in another Fisk account about British soldiers defying orders in order not to leave Kurdish refugees at the mercy of Turkish troops.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
@betjemaniac

Trevor Howard wasn't at all well it seems: Although stories of his courageous wartime service in the British Army's Royal Corps of Signals earned him much respect among fellow actors and fans alike, files held in the Public Record Office reveal that he had actually been discharged from the British Army in 1943 for mental instability and having a "psychopathic personality". wiki

Christopher Lee seems the genuine article, a seven year service record and his claim at 90 saying, "I was attached to the SAS from time to time but we are forbidden – former, present, or future – to discuss any specific operations. Let's just say I was in Special Forces and leave it at that. People can read in to that what they like", could well be true as he was in their theater, but he probably didn't fire a shot or cut a throat, just flew them about.
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
I was thinking more of articles like this from shortly afterwards. He was in a different league to Howard certainly, but the persistent suggestion was that in Lee's case he took a perfectly respectable war record as it was and buffed it up further.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Thanks mate, a superb article. We can forgive the old boy, obviously despite having a good war he thought badly of himself for not doing more at the sharp end. What about the rumours (and what's with this bloody AMERICAN spellchecker? Made me correct theatre!) about David Niven?

Just watched the first two episodes of the excellent Nobel on Netflix. I'm a tad at sea again. Having been a teenage and long term cultically mandatory pacifist (even in prepubescent war games I started to play a war correspondent!) with an insatiable thirst for things military (a bit like the Dalai Lama apparently) and really looking forward to the Second Coming with Extreme Prejudice. With deprogramming I became a born again liberal interventionist until being reproached in my reading of Brian McLaren five years ago. Stopped me playing COD Modern Warfare in my tracks. I flipped to genuine war pacifism as may have been noticed here. Right up until mdijon challenged me here recently.

I have always had the highest regard for our guys and our noble allies. My second father in law was on the greatest raid of all. For real. And their guys. Good soldiers in bad wars.

I'm trying to integrate it all and under the banner of McLaren's Christian peacemaking, rather than pacifism, as that seems to include just war, war, intervention that has to be waged to prevent worse. I can't be an armchair free rider.

The trouble is, as for Patton, I love it so. In my liberal interventionist late forties, briefly, I was THE paint-baller ... pathetic I know, but I was nastily good. Outflank, ghillied up and kill them, kill them all, point blank, from behind. Did some shooting with the army once. Marksman. And at archery. You bet I think badly of myself!

Conflicted or what?!
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
A bit of realism about what they're trained to do is the first step to an honest discussion about whether we want them to do it.
No, the first step is to get realistic about what is actually involved in being a member of the armed services.

I have been in the army, and known plenty of serving and ex-service personnel.

Yes, of course they are trained to kill other people in obedience to military orders.

But I have come across none who would automatically do so in any and all circumstances, with no regard to common decency, justice, or the international rules of war.

Crimes are perpetrated in war, just as they are in civil societies that are not at war, but that is because of fallible human nature, not because of some unique feature of the military which turns its members into some sort of "other".
 
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Crimes are perpetrated in war, just as they are in civil societies that are not at war, but that is because of fallible human nature, not because of some unique feature of the military which turns its members into some sort of "other".
I don't know. I seem to have missed the last civilian carpet bombing of a built-up area, or the part where my local council left unexploded cluster bombs in the local park.

And yes, that's slightly facetious, but it's still true. Military training is about setting people apart and making them 'other' everyone else. Because how else are you going to kill them?

Like I've said, if that's what we want and what we need, then okay, that's what we have to do. Deny that's what we actually do do is problematic.
 
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:


Crimes are perpetrated in war, just as they are in civil societies that are not at war, but that is because of fallible human nature, not because of some unique feature of the military which turns its members into some sort of "other".
Really? The command to commit some war crimes may be given because of fallible (or downright evil) human nature and because this is in the military context orders are not questioned as often as they might be in civvy street. I'm sure other war crimes are a result of the "Act first, think second" response that is required of those at the sharpend, if not elsewhere.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
...Military training is about setting people apart and making them 'other' everyone else. Because how else are you going to kill them?

Like I've said, if that's what we want and what we need, then okay, that's what we have to do. Deny that's what we actually do do is problematic.
Why do we have to 'other' to justly kill, even our friends?

The superb 1986 BBC dramatized history, New World, showed the vile necessity of killing between Christians who had sailed in the Mayflower.
 
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
We don't have to. But it helps if we tell ourselves a story that the people we're killing aren't like us.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Aye. We do. Deception is the greatest survival skill after all. Including, especially, of the self, the ego.

But I'm afraid it gets darker if we don't kid ourselves.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Why do we have to 'other' to justly kill, even our friends?
Precisely.

Comments about soldiers being required to kill their friends are just a manipulative, emotive rhetorical device.

We have already seen that police personnel could also face such a remote contingency, and in fact we can all think of unlikely but possible scenarios in which we could be called upon to do the same.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
We don't have to. But it helps if we tell ourselves a story that the people we're killing aren't like us.
I find it much more sobering to realize they are like us -- indeed, they are us -- but have been run through the wringer of military groupthink and desensitization training. Their otherness is artificially induced, superimposed on a person who is otherwise like us. They're not some form of strange monster. They but for fortune are we.

And fortune is just the right word for it. In the United States, at least, a goodly number of the enlisted are from lower socioeconomic families, and this may be their one ticket out of poverty, if they survive it, although you and I both know that they may well leave the service impoverished, or with lasting health problems, physical and mental, sometimes debilitating. But the military industrial machine doesn't give a fuck about that, only about using these people's poverty to harvest canon fodder, so they can have perpetual war, so they can sell munitions to Uncle Sam.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I seem to have missed the last civilian carpet bombing of a built-up area
Yes, carpet bombing is a relevant and unavoidable issue, but....

I would feel ashamed of judging, from my position of safety, young men who were taking terrible risks (statistically, membership of a British bomber aircrew was second only to membership of a German u-boat crew as the most dangerous job in WWII), no doubt believing that this was the one way available of hitting back at the Third Reich prior to the opening of the Second Front, and no doubt believing that they were destroying legitimate industrial and infrastructure targets, with civilian casualties an unfortunate but inevitable by-product.

It was senior officers such as Harris who knew that area bombing was the only possibility, given the inadequacies of bomb-aiming equipment.

I heard an interview with a former bomber pilot (Jewish, and therefore justifiably anti-Nazi) who claimed that the German civilian population got what they deserved for voting for Hitler.

This is not quite true - the Nazis never got more than 37% of the vote in a free election, and the huge majorities in the four plebiscites 1933-8 can be attributed to understandable fears (as in Stalin's USSR) that individual abstainers or No votes might be traced.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

(I am reminded of the James Blunt incident during the Kosovo War, where refusing to obey an order (and getting a fresh, sane one) averted WWIII. Whatever you think of his music, we owe him one.)
It is more typically referred to as the Incident at Pristina_airport and, for some strange reason, the credit is more often given to (then lieutenant general) Mike Jackson.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Soldiers are primarily recruited young so that they are more easily conditioned to obey orders in preference to thinking for themselves. This does not mean they are robots, but it does mean their thinking is formatted in a particular direction.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Soldiers are primarily recruited young so that they are more easily conditioned to obey orders in preference to thinking for themselves.
I would say rather that they are recruited young, for the same reason that football players, ballerinas and gymnasts are recruited young. It is physically very demanding to be a soldier, and to pass the requirements when you're 50 is not on.
 
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
There's a need, I think, to emphasize the ultimate immorality, incompatibility with Christianity, and thus the need to refuse anything military. Something I was raised with by a surviving father, twice a refugee. Something emphasized by watching napalm on TV news when a teenager.

I ain't marching anymore (Phil Ochs):

quote:
For I marched to the battles of the German trench
In a war that was bound to end all wars
Oh I must have killed a million men
And now they want me back again
But I ain't marchin' anymore
And an excerpt from Buffy Sainte Marie's "The Universal Soldier."
quote:
But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned him at Labau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.


He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can't you see,
This is not the way we put an end to war.
My husband is career military and I have the utmost respect for his conviction and choice, just as I do for Brenda's children and all the young troops who are willing to give their lives for their country, their comrades and their principles. I just wish the wouldn't. I wish it would all stop and we really would give peace a chance, just once.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
Gwynne Dyer in his book "War" describes convincingly that militaries always want their recruits to be less than 25, preferably 18-22, because they don't have well-developed ideas of their mortality and likelihood of dying. Because they can be convinced that they might enjoy the camaraderie, with many young people this age not feeling they fit in well, are lonely to a degree. Because they are less likely to question and more likely to rely on peer pressure.

Dyer goes on to discuss how in Korea they found that some 20% of soldiers did most of the killing, but with the development of modern behavioural conditioning, they were able to have some 90% of soldiers reliably shoot at opposing young men. He also described how soldiers were marched whilst shouting "kill" every time their left feet hit the ground, and how they were indoctrinated about how grand it would be to send opposing soldiers back to their girlfriends in doggy bags.

You cannot sweeten a manure pile by pouring on a little perfume and calling it a nice little hill. While I can have sympathy for individuals post-war who suffer from mental health problems, I also find my self thinking 'just desserts', and that they brought it on themselves. The universal soldier really is to blame.
 
Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :
 
Let's face it. Most people are not pacifists. The world would be a much different, and probably better, place if they were. But they aren't. That said, therefore most of society believes that war is, under whatever circumstances, acceptable and/or necessary. Therefore a military is necessary, to have someone to carry out the war. Soldiers are our blood sacrifice and our scapegoats for this. That is part of the reason society honors them, out of a need to atone for what we ask them to do in our names.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
Or in Jesus' name. Or any other deity.

They might be pacifists if wars and military killing visited them personally. It didn't visit me personally, but my 88 year old father talks of little else: who in the family was killed and how he and his cousin, nearly 30 years younger than he are the only ones left of his family.

A curious thing. Give a religion any power and it develops itself so as to violate the teachings of the founder. I've wondered about the fliers who dropped the bombs which created the crater which killed my father's family and how they probably got their ribbons and medals and marched yearly until they died with their children and cousins and friends around them. They probably got lots of honour. Even post-death a nice plot in the cemetery. It isn't deserved.

[ 05. January 2017, 01:41: Message edited by: no prophet's flag is set so... ]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
Soldiers are our blood sacrifice and our scapegoats for this. That is part of the reason society honors them, out of a need to atone for what we ask them to do in our names.
We honor them in name. Then when they really need us, we say, "Sorry, the rich need tax breaks more."
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
They might be pacifists if wars and military killing visited them personally.
Or interventionists if the Rwandan genocide visited them personally while UN troops pulled out.
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
...or warriors if they become fearful that their personal well being/interests are threatened by an other, outside force. Or if they want to prove themselves on the field of battle etc.

No Prophet Flag SSL --Thank you for the link on Remarque and AH. It was most illuminating.
 
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
Mostly likely, like you and me, refugees.
 


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