[Kazan]

one must remember that some orders are illegal, and when issued an illegal order it is the responsibility of the soldier to disobey that illegal order

all other orders are to be obeyed

[aldo_14]

There's a difference between illegal orders and illegal policy, though.

[Fergus]

And if they're orders are to degrade POW's in Abbu Grave?

As ever valid and good points Riktor, I feel any words I can add are superflous.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Fergus
And if they're orders are to degrade POW's in Abbu Grave?
 

Then they're illegal, simple as that.  

I'm not saying the army is blameless and should have carte blanche in the way it acts, just that it's unfair to blame it for deploying in Iraq when that is a government policy decision.

[Rictor]

Originally posted by aldo_14


That's not the job of an army, though.  The job of conscience, reason, etc is performed - or should be - by the elected government.   If you allowed the army to decide who, when and where to fight, you'd be dropping into the region of a junta.  

woah woah, hold on. The job of conscience and reason is performed by every individual, everywhere. No one can abandon the responsibility that comes with being a human. You are responsible for your actions.

Have we truly come to the point, as a society and a race, where certain delegates are tasked with acting as the public conscience? The government's job is not to make all the decisions so that everyone else can sit on their hands and shrug away all responsibility. This is, in effect, giving the government the job of deciding what is right and wrong, and we all just fall in line. And you see no problem with that?

Originally posted by aldo_14
If you allowed individual to make the same decision, you'd have a military whose capacity for both attack and defense was completely unknown.  You could not be able to make any plans, because you don't know who will fight and when.

Yes, those damn individul decisions, so uneffective. Ideally, we would have a military modeled after the Borg perhaps, they know how to get things done.

Okay, I'm bull****ting, but the principle that we must transform people into resources, into what essentially amounts to robots, who follow orders without a single thought firing through their minds, is, to me, sickening. Soldiers are people, and any organization that we impose on a group is secondary to every individual's role as a human being. No one is exempt, simply because of their affiliation with a certain group, such as the military.

The concept that we should have one group who's job it is to dictate policy, and another's who job it is to enforce it (or for that matter, to tolerate it or to suffer the consequences of it), regardless of individual beliefs, is insane. Thats a master/slave system right there.

Originally posted by aldo_14
The military is the tool of the government.  It is the government who makes the decision to use that tool, and it is they who hold responsibility.  If the army becomes more than a simple tool, it becomes a danger to democracy itself.

Look, people are not tools. Machines are tools, even animals can be tools, because they are not conscious, but people are not tools. Read what I said above.

The role of the military is to protect a nation against invasion. Fine, dandy. When the nation is threatened, people will voluntarily take up the cause of defending it, without having to be ordered to do so. From there, it may be necesarry, even beneficial, to organize this voluntary group into a cohesive army with a chain of command an all that. But this chain of command only accounts for HOW the war is fought, not WHY it is fought, which is the major difference.

Thus, the army would be incapable, or at least severly impared, from taking offensive action, since you could never get enough people to voluntarily sign up for somethng other than defence, without the artificial order imposed by a thoughtless, ever obedient military.

[Rictor]

Originally posted by aldo_14
There's a difference between illegal orders and illegal policy, though.

Any action taken as a result of illegal policy is also illegal. Any order carried out in pursuit of illegal policy is illegal.

You must differentiate between HOW an army fights, and WHY it fights. The why is the driving force behind the how, and thus, equally if not more important.

Great actions carried out in pursuit of an invalid (or immoral, illegal, have your pick) goal are not good.

[Ransom]

Ransom agrees with everything Rictor just said and has nothing to add, so he speaks in third person to make this post mildly more interesting.

[Clave]

You must obey without question, the alternative is not viable.

[Night Hammer]

Originally posted by Rictor
Also, and I hope you don't take it personally, you being a Cuban exile kind of explain your political beliefs. The Miami cuban exile community is notoriously right-wing (and among the most militant groups in the US).

I'm not exactly a Cuban exile, my parents and grandparents are, but I am just a Cuban. Not really militant though, but yes we are a pretty conservative family.

[Kazan]

i wasn't talking about policy - i was just reminding people not to make blanket statements about unconditionally following the chain of command


Night Hammer: being a war monger is not "conservativsm", subscribing to bush's policies is _NOT_ "conservativism" - it's right-wing authoritarianism

[Rictor]

Originally posted by Clave
You must obey without question, the alternative is not viable.

do...do you listen to yourself?
have you lost your mind?
read that sentence again, slowly, as well as your previous post. If you don't understand whats wrong, I'm afraid all words will be lost on you.

read Animal Farm. the horse, Boxer, who was the workhorse of the entire farm, had two mottos, which roughly correspond to that of the military.

One was: "Napolean is always right". Napoleon being the Stalin-like dictator of the farm. Anything he says is always right, even if it is contrary to historical fact, to common sense and decensy or to the personal interests of the animals.

the other was "I will work harder". Whenever something needed to be done, Boxer always worked harder to pick up the slack.

[Night Hammer]

First i was militant, now im a war monger.....great

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Rictor


do...do you listen to yourself?
have you lost your mind?
read that sentence again, slowly, as well as your previous post. If you don't understand whats wrong, I'm afraid all words will be lost on you.

read Animal Farm. the horse, Boxer, who was the workhorse of the entire farm, had two mottos, which roughly correspond to that of the military.

One was: "Napolean is always right". Napoleon being the Stalin-like dictator of the farm. Anything he says is always right, even if it is contrary to historical fact, to common sense and decensy or to the personal interests of the animals.

the other was "I will work harder". Whenever something needed to be done, Boxer always worked harder to pick up the slack.

What is the alternative, then?  No military?  How would that work in this world?

You'll note the problem was not Boxer, but Napoleon, anyways.

I'll reiterate again, for clarity - how can you possibly give the military the ability and right to decide whether the government is right without ending up in a junta?

[Clave]

Disloyalty to the State must be punished.

[Ransom]

Er... I think Clave is joking. I really hope so. He is joking, right?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Rictor


woah woah, hold on. The job of conscience and reason is performed by every individual, everywhere. No one can abandon the responsibility that comes with being a human. You are responsible for your actions.

Have we truly come to the point, as a society and a race, where certain delegates are tasked with acting as the public conscience? The government's job is not to make all the decisions so that everyone else can sit on their hands and shrug away all responsibility. This is, in effect, giving the government the job of deciding what is right and wrong, and we all just fall in line. And you see no problem with that?

One individual cannot dictate the conscience of the entire nation.  That is why we have elected representatives.  The point of the government is to decide right and wrong - people should be elected on the basis of their ability to do so, and unelected upon failure. (aside from the duty of the opposition, referendums, etc, as other ways of popular pressure)

Now, that may not really have worked in the US or UK example, but that is the principle of it.

Originally posted by Rictor

Yes, those damn individul decisions, so uneffective. Ideally, we would have a military modeled after the Borg perhaps, they know how to get things done.

Okay, I'm bull****ting, but the principle that we must transform people into resources, into what essentially amounts to robots, who follow orders without a single thought firing through their minds, is, to me, sickening. Soldiers are people, and any organization that we impose on a group is secondary to every individual's role as a human being. No one is exempt, simply because of their affiliation with a certain group, such as the military.

The concept that we should have one group who's job it is to dictate policy, and another's who job it is to enforce it (or for that matter, to tolerate it or to suffer the consequences of it), regardless of individual beliefs, is insane. Thats a master/slave system right there.

It's necessary to have a fighting force.  You cannot run an ad-hoc military, where soldiers pick and choose when & where they want to fight.

What if the D-Day troops had decided Normandy wasn't for them, for example?

Originally posted by Rictor
Look, people are not tools. Machines are tools, even animals can be tools, because they are not conscious, but people are not tools. Read what I said above.

The role of the military is to protect a nation against invasion. Fine, dandy. When the nation is threatened, people will voluntarily take up the cause of defending it, without having to be ordered to do so. From there, it may be necesarry, even beneficial, to organize this voluntary group into a cohesive army with a chain of command an all that. But this chain of command only accounts for HOW the war is fought, not WHY it is fought, which is the major difference.

Thus, the army would be incapable, or at least severly impared, from taking offensive action, since you could never get enough people to voluntarily sign up for somethng other than defence, without the artificial order imposed by a thoughtless, ever obedient military.

The military is a tool.  It is not 'people', because people have to be expendable in order to fight wars - it's a sad but inevitable necessity.  Abandoning a squad may let 10,20,30, etc men die, but what if it allows a flanking maneuver that wins the war?

History has shown that wars cannot be fought defensively, whether you want to or not.  Sometimes it is a necessity to go on the offensive, often to assist allies.  No country can survive in a vacuum, after all.

If you want a country to be defended by a volunteer militia, your asking for defeat.  It's military suicide in the event of attack, anyways - no organisation, training, logistics, etc.  It's also another thing which history has proven as ineffective - just look at WW2 (again) for an example of what can happen.

There's 2 key things here;
1) should the military be able to make political decisions over when to go to war?
2) can a country survive without an organised and commited military force which is willing to fight and die?

I'd see that the answer to both is no.

[Bobboau]

he doesn't want us to win, and given that we are the domonent military force currently he advocates militarily imposable positions.

[Rictor]

Originally posted by Ransom Arceihn
Er... I think Clave is joking. I really hope so. He is joking, right?

At this point, he must be.

aldo: Boxer enabled Napolean to rule. He is a loveble character becuase any suffering he inflicts is upon himself, for the benefit of others. So while he may be naive, he only harms himself. The naivete of US troops obviously does not only harm themselves.

The government must be subordinate to the people, never the other way around.

to answer your question, a junta would be avoided because of the simple fact that, left to themselves, people, inclduing soldiers, at least in modern America, would not wilingly attack a foreign nation. They CAN be stirred to action when the need comes, but simply be refusing to act when they feel unwarranted, soldiers could avoid aggression by their inaction.

To put it another way, soldiers would choose when *not* to attack, rather then when to attack. If the need comes, we both know that they can be made to attack without much difficulty.

Now let me ask you a question. If we use this model for the military, giving up freedom for the sake of efficiency, then why not in normal life. Why not allow the government to rule us all, so that we can achieve greater agricultural output, or less crime or whatever. Why leave decisions in the hands of ignorant, falliable individuals, when the masters know so much better?

The truth is, when the survival of a peoples is threatened, then temporary dictaorship for the sake of efficiency and survival may be justified, such as was thw case during WW1 and WW2. But Lets be honest, is the territorial integrity, much less the survival, of America, or any nation (other than a select few) currently threatened? The emphasis is on *temporary* dehumanization and what amounts to enslavement, not that that should become the status quo.

[Bobboau]

we think it is,
actualy we think the survival of us and much of the rest of europe, and north america is in question.
so, were a bit peranoied, how do you think we got were we are(most powerfull nation on the planet by an order of magnatude)?

[kasperl]

We don't let the government controll civilians, because those are free citizins. When someone signs up for the military, they agree to obey any and all legal orders. Why? What would happen on, let's say, a ship, under attack, when the captain yells "Hard Port" and the helmsman says : "You know, I'd rather not, sir, let's got to Starboard."

Or when a group of soldiers is attacked, the sarge yells "Down and return fire" and someone simply says"**** you", and takes cover without shooting back? How would that work?