Brought to you by guest blogger LisaJ:
Canada lost two soldiers serving in Afghanistan this week. This marks the 89th
and 90th Canadian soldier to be killed since starting our peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan in 2002. Master Corporal Josh Roberts leaves behind his fiancé in Manitoba, and Master Corporal Erin Doyle leaves behind a wife and a young daughter. These stories are just heartbreaking. They are both very young men, and they’ve had their lives just ripped right out form underneath them. Their families’ lives have undoubtedly been shattered. What’s more, breaking news this morning tells us that a female British-Canadian aid worker, along with two American and Trinidadian colleagues, were also killed in a militant attack in Afghanistan yesterday. This is sickening. This is three of my own fellow citizens in one week, and I know that doesn’t even compare to the countless others, largely civilians and American soldiers, who will have lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq this week.
Everytime I hear of one of these stories I just find it so tragic, and so I should. These people have selflessly given up their lives for the rest of us. In this case, I find it especially selfless since it’s not really our war that the Canadian soldiers serving in Afghanistan are fighting. I imagine that most people here will agree with me when I say that I find the death of any soldier, of any nationality, serving in Afghanistan or Iraq right now to be an awful, tragic, horrible, sickening, unfair and unnecessary loss. It just makes me so angry every time I hear of another death or injury, because what the hell are they all doing there anyways? (Note: the previous statement was not meant to imply that I don’t know what their role is in Afghanistan. I understand that they are there to protect the Afghan citizens, and I am not trying to undermine their role here in this statement. I just think it’s unfortunate that they were sent there in the first place). I have so much respect for these soldiers, and I just cannot imagine how heart breaking it must be for themselves and their families every day, not knowing what may happen to them at any moment. Just imagining having to say goodbye to a loved one who is heading off to serve in such dangerous battlefields makes me sick to my stomach. The pain and grief they must feel everyday must be unimaginable. For all of you here who have served or who have loved ones serving, my hats off to you, you are strong, wonderful people and I feel for you everyday.
I know a lot of us here have strong opinions that this war shouldn’t even be taking place. It’s this aspect of the whole damn thing that, for me, makes these deaths all the more horrible. What saddens me more is that even I, who is so horrified every time I hear of another dead or injured soldier, find myself grieving pretty quickly and putting the faces and details of these soldiers lives to the back of my mind. This is an unfortunate adaptation of the escalating death count in this war. I guess as the numbers pile up it just gets harder and harder to remember them all, so their stories slip away much more quickly. This is a sad fact, but not entirely unnatural. I mean, we can’t all walk around grieving for our lost soldiers every day, that would prohibit us from functioning normally, but it’s just sad when their names and faces start to get lost in the shuffle. What we should be able to take some tiny amount of solace in, however, is that soldiers who are badly injured will be well taken care of when they return home by the government who sent them to war in the first place. Now I’ve heard a lot of stories of injured American soldiers who have to fight tooth and nail to get any kind of medical compensation for their injuries, and many don’t ever get the payments they are entitled to. But this can’t also be happening in Canada, right? Well reports this week show that Canadian reservists, which reportedly make up 20% of the 2500 Canadian troops deployed in Iraq, who suffer significant body trauma, such as the loss of a limb, receive sub-par long term medical care and compensation upon their return home. Apparently they’re getting it right with some soldiers, the ‘career soldiers’, but not these reservists who have apparently made the mistake of just selflessly stepping in to help out in this particular war. It looks like they’re working on fixing this issue, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Just another example of how our society and government has its priorities really screwed up. These soldiers should get nothing but respect from our governments. You lose a limb for your country, you should be adequately compensated and given as much care as you need, end of story.
Anyways, here’s to all of our soldiers and their families who are giving the ultimate sacrifice in this war. And here’s hoping that our governments get it together one day and treat these soldiers, aid workers, diplomats, and everyone actively involved in the war and relief efforts the respect and honour that they deserve.
One of my dearest hopes is that Bush, Cheney, Rove, et al are brought to trial for their criminal actions in starting an unnecessary war in Iraq, turning their backs on our service men and women, and for pretending that the situation in Afghanistan isn’t important. Well, I actually hope that they are brought to trial for all of their illegal acts from the last eight years, but these are the biggest issues in my mind. I won’t hold my breath waiting for this though.
Long time reader, first time poster…
Imagine my delight to see a mention of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan on my favourite blog. I’m a Canadian who has lived in the US for over 9 years now and it can be quite disheartening to realize how little the efforts of other countries in Afghanistan are recognized here.
I’m also a former member of the regular army and reserves so it comes as little surprise to see the reservists are having a hard time getting proper medical care after their tour. I know from an ex-wife/mother-in-law of current Canadian army regulars that it is only recently that they have started getting the treatment they deserve. The US is certainly not alone in militaries being slow to take care of the mental health issues.
I just hope the reservists start getting the same kind of care soon. Putting the matter in the public eye can only help.
Thank you for bringing this matter to everyone’s attention.
We are defending a country that punishes people for imaginary crimes:
http://propterhoc.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/this-is-what-77-canadian-lives-buys/
(NOTE: This was written 13 Canadian lives ago)
This war is important, but I’m not going to vote for a party that sends our soldiers to a country that thinks defaming a sky fairy should be punishable by death.
You say “…I know that doesn’t even compare to the countless others, largely Americans, who will have lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq this week.”
Actually, the people who lose their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq are largely Afghans and Iraqies!
Americans are a distant third.
Personally I am upset over the conflict in Georgia more than any other conflict. Afghanistan I understand and support the reasons we fight, but Georgia, that was just an invasion.
It is sad to read about our soldiers dying, especially when they are from the local community because you grew up with that person or they are the child of someone you know. I also understand why people have to place that knowledge in the back of their minds because to dwell on it doesn’t do one any good. Just imagine what it was like during the second World War where the casualty rate was more then a hundred times that of Iraq and Afghanistan (even higher if you count the lower overall American population), or the brutal percentage of causalities in the Civil War.
I view it as a sad reality of out species, and I do not see that aspect of the human race going away anytime soon. My real worry is that far too many people still hold the mentality of mass murdering civilians, men, women, and children wholesale who simply are different ethnically, culturally, tribally or religiously. This also has been always part of our history as a species, except now we have the terrible ability to wage such genocide on a global scale. I hope we can manage to work our way past this as a race before some use today’s technology to fulfill their darkest desires.
Welcome to the blog thecdn. I had a feeling that one of the first issues to be brought up in these comments would be regarding how much attention the actions of other countries in this war actually get in the US. I had a feeling that our Canadian soldiers don’t get very much attention at all. Another sad fact of this war.
Gib at #4. You are absolutely right. I shouldn’t have overlooked that. The number of civilian deaths are atrocious and the saddest part of all of this.
“In this case, I find it especially selfless since it’s not really our war that the Canadian soldiers serving in Afghanistan are fighting.”
I think there is few soldiers that selflessly serve in the army and also I think that Americans (and canadians?) are brainwashed into this admiration for the men and women in service. This is a (more or less) chosen carrier. They choose to be soldiers, they were not drafted into this war, they know the risk. Ofcourse it sucks when people (good ones) die in war, but thats what people do, alot of them. If you want to avoid peacetime war don´t sign up.
>what the hell are they all doing there anyways?
Protecting the people of Afghanistan, trying to help them build a peaceful democracy and thus a more stable region and less reason for international terrorism.
I find the rhetoric question a bit dishonest. You may disagree with what they’re doing, and believing it’s the wrong way of doing it. But are you really not aware of why? I find that hard to believe.
All deaths that are a consequence of the situation are tragic. Not only the deaths of canadian soldiers, or other soldiers fighting for Afghanistan. But also all the deaths caused in Afghanistan by Taliban, before the US with allies interfered. These are people too, and just because they belong to a different nation than mine or yours, their violent deaths are still tragic. And it was right to do something to try to stop it.
I totally agree that every soldier and their family should get lots of respect and all the necessary help and support they need from their governments. They do a really important job, with a real high risk, and it’s not acceptable when some of them is neglected afterwards.
Religion kills! Especially that Submissionist religion, (the followers of Muhammad, piss be upon him), that they call a religion of peace.
And it’s not just the killing – there are all the lives that are blighted in other ways by this medieval ideology.
If that magic being Allah actually existed, it’d have to be the nastiest bit of work, or, the biggest feckin’ asshole, in the Universe. Why can’t its followers realize that? Because they’re feckin’ edjits!
Maybe I’m a cynic, but I have the feeling this thread could easily turn into a political rant. So, before that happens, I’d like to chime in:
I agree Lisa. It really is a tragedy, especially for the soldiers’ families, and especially for those from non-American countries who contributed in the name of supporting the US’ efforts.
As much as it seems to be fashionable for us to trade good-natured jabs, I have nothing but respect for the Canadian soldiers involved. They deserve it as much as the soldiers from my country do.
@9
A peaceful democracy that executes people for blasphemy? The president of Afghanistan, the peaceful democracy that executes blasphemers, was invited to speak in our House of Commons. That is disgusting.
Couldn’t agree more. Even if we disagree with a war, we must dissociate the war from the soldiers who fought it. They did what their country asked of them, and as much as I hate nationalism (second only to religion as the cause of hatred and bloodshed), you have to admire that.
But we don’t have to support political parties that ignore the fact that the governments we are defending (and played a large role in ‘electing’ in the first place) are doing the most ghastly things to their own people.
Andy from Sweden,
The fact that they chose this career means that we shouldn’t admire them? What? By this token we shouldn’t admire doctors either? Aid workers? Firemen?
Andy from Sweden #8 – True, they are signing up for military duty, however they are not signing up for inadequate support and equipment in battle and inadequate healthcare if they are wounded.
While I’m sure that most of the people who sign up for miliatary duty hope that they won’t see action (they’re not crazy, after all), I do admire those who are willing to serve and place their lives on the line. This is made even more significant when one reviews the list of the Chickenhawks who seem to have no trouble sending others into danger, even though they managed to avoid active duty even when there was a draft.
I realize that this is a tricky subject – I admire the guys on our side, but deplore the suicide bombers in the Middle East who volunteer to die for their beliefs.
Hmmmm. I need to stop before I launch into some kind of political-philosophical harangue
Protecting what people of Afghanistan ? It is all very well saying we are there to protect democracy, but does it depend on the nature of that democracy as whether it is worth protecting ? The Taliban were tyrannical rules, but then would seem so is the current regime in Kabul. Certainly the concept of a liberal democracy, where the rights of minorities and the powerless are protected, seems alien to them.
I am sure Lisa is well aware of the stated reasons. However actions speak louder than words quite often, and in the case of Afghanistan that is especially true. If the US was so concerned about ensuring democracy took root there it would not have allowed itself to become so distracted with Iraq, and if the Canadian, British and other governments with troops there were so concerned they would be more outspoken when protesting against illiberal actions by the Afghan authorities.
Actually, largely Iraqi but they don’t seem to count for much.
Afghanistan is a failed state with no good guys stuck in the middle ages. The average life span is 47, where ours was a century ago and running water and electricity are scarce.
It would be tempting to wall it off as a third world dump and forget about it. But when we did that, they just planted opium poppies everywhere and became a magnet for the world’s terrorists, criminals, and fanatics. Then after a while one group of Pol Pot class maniacs, the Taliban started killing the rest en masse. It would have ended up like Cambodia for sure, millions dead for no particular reason.
I don’t have a solution for Afghanistan. Neither does anyone else. Leaving them alone didn’t work and cost us 2 skyscrapers. Trying to civilize them might well work or not but it is worth a try. Given a choice, how many people really want to die at 47 while living a Dark Ages lifestyle?
These people have selflessly given up their lives for the rest of us
Well, you gotta have something is you don’t have God. If that gets you through the night.
Anyways, here’s to all of our soldiers and their families who are giving the ultimate sacrifice in this war. And here’s hoping that our governments get it together one day and treat these soldiers, aid workers, diplomats, and everyone actively involved in the war and relief efforts the respect and honour that they deserve.
I agree, they should have a fair trial before they are sentenced. As fair as the trials they help engender. And I hope the conditions they are subjected to while detained or imprisoned are just as good.
@17
A surprising number, so it seems.
But Lisa, you better save all your concern, as you obviously do until reminded, for the white people involved.
It is always sad when someone dies. It is, of course, hardest on those left behind.
Now, how to say this without getting flamed. It’s probably not possible.
A soldier is doing a job. A dangerous and important job. It is a job they chose for whatever reason. Perhaps it’s national pride, perhaps a sense of duty, perhaps naivety, perhaps financial, perhaps perhaps perhaps. Whatever the reason it was their choice.
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said. We are responsible to take care of our returning soldiers. What takes me back a bit is the over dramatization by saying things like “lives just ripped right out” and describing their deaths as “sickening”. They were soldiers. They were doing a job they probably took pride in. I think it dishonors them by describing them as victims or tragedies. It seems to belittle their sacrifice.
What is “sickening” are the innocents (non-combatants) that die due to terrorism. Talk to the families of 9/11, Air India flight 182, Pan Am flight 103, etc. If you want some righteous indignation I recommend you point it at religious and political extremists.
(.)(.)
Yes, Raven. Thanks. I was trying to figure out how to say it, and then I saw that you had. And BTW, slightly OT, but I like what Hirsi Ali says in this piece on the related issue of promoting Enlightenment values:
http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.28415/pub_detail.asp
Arnaud
Save lives or take lives… Your reasoning is blatently wrong. And don´t give me the stupid “they fight for this country and all who lives here..” fairytale.
As to the mistreatment of US soldiers by the government, this is not a new thing, stick your head up from the sand and smell the gunpowder (and the shitty care given to you after service)
#4
No, we don’t. Choosing to blame the war or the government or the jackass in the white house is easy, but every person in Iraq or Afghanistan participating in this crappy war chose to be there, or chose to allow themselves to be sent. It was an immoral choice, and I don’t understand why the same people who go on and on about “personal responsibility” want to give soldiers a pass on that. I won’t.
Joel Stein said it best in a great column called “Warriors and Wusses”. Here’s a quote from that article:
A British General stated that we are in Afghanistan for the long term, ie ’20 years at least’, so get used to it. The biggest problem with the Afghans is that we can’t isolate them – they have Pakistan and Iran as neighbours. Still, on the bright side, that’s long enough to give Bush and Blair a rifle each, transport them to Kabul, and let them get on with it…
It’s terrible for their family but remember, it’s their jobs. I hope they didn’t sign up hoping to give lollipops to children.
I’m happy women over there are a bit more free now, but it’s still a country that makes me sick.
Still, lots of support to the families…
The conflict in Afghanistan seems justified to me. That was a foreign ‘government’ (the Taliban) that was deliberately harboring people who had attacked the United States and were demonstrably planning on doing so again, refusing to hand them over despite repeated polite but firm demands. And, as expected, our militaries did their usual professional job and took over the place in short order without undue destruction.
As a bonus the ‘international community’ either supported our actions or did not oppose it. (I say ‘bonus’ because we should not condition our national defense on the opinions of other countries, but diplomatic considerations are not negligible either.)
We also pledged to reconstruct the place, and put in a democracy. The people there were already tired of the Taliban and were in no immediate danger of falling back into an Islamic theocracy. The infrastructure was in shambles thanks to years of Soviet bombing – any improvements we made at all would be positive steps, we wouldn’t have to spend billions just to get things back to pre-war levels. The people even remembered that we’d helped them against the Soviets. (More in an enemy-of-my-enemy kind of way, but still…) The aforementioned approval of the ‘international community’ meant we could ask for and expect a certain amount of support from other nations. No more fertile soil for a reconstruction project existed in anywhere in the region.
Then… nothing. The Bush administration forgot about it (they literally put no money – $0.00 – for Afghanistan reconstruction in the 2004 budget), and even forgot about pursuing al Qaeda (you know, the people who actually did attack the United States?), and decided to use the situation as an excuse to attack Iraq, which many ‘policy wonks’ had wanted to do for years.
Imagine where Afghanistan would be if we hadn’t opened up a two-front war. We’d still have had ‘foreign fighters’ coming in to Afghanistan, but they would likely have had less local support for the above reasons.
(BTW, even if people think that we’re ‘committed’ now in Iraq, what I don’t understand is why anyone thinks it’s a good idea to keep the same leadership in place that got us into that mess. I mean, with a corporation, if the CEO commits the company to a disastrous endeavor, you get rid of them and find a new CEO, even if you don’t declare bankruptcy and still pay on the debts. Oy.)
People are people. The average person probably wants electricity, clean water, and a better life for their kids.
Who are making the decisions in Afghanistan right now are men with guns. And they could care less about civilization or anyone else. What is pathetic, they do target aid workers. In many areas building a medical clinic is pointless. The warlords and gangs would just loot it, burn it down, and kill the employees.
That all sounds like good fun but what happens when they get in a fire fight themselves or step on a land mine? Oops, with no medical care, they just die.
Andy From Sweden (#8), I think you misunderstand where this respect is aimed at. Sure, sacrificing your life in the name of some good is worthy.
However, firemen don’t really get put into situations where they have to fight fires they personally disagree with. You might be able to suggest some blaze at the Nazi Museum of History, but it’s not even comparable to being in combat.
In essence, the soldiers’ job is to do what they’re told, no matter what that involves. They *must* kill civilians if that’s the order, they must save little kids, they must bomb targets in heavily populated areas.
It doesn’t matter if the reasoning behind the combat is faulty or bad or immoral (sic) – they must fight. THIS is why the respect is deserved; there is honor in the willingness to sacrifice your life for your country (right or wrong).
Andy From Sweden (#8), I think you misunderstand where this respect is aimed at. Sure, sacrificing your life in the name of some good is worthy.
However, firemen don’t really get put into situations where they have to fight fires they personally disagree with. You might be able to suggest some blaze at the Nazi Museum of History, but it’s not even comparable to being in combat.
In essence, the soldiers’ job is to do what they’re told, no matter what that involves. They *must* kill civilians if that’s the order, they must save little kids, they must bomb targets in heavily populated areas.
It doesn’t matter if the reasoning behind the combat is faulty or bad or immoral (sic) – they must fight. THIS is why the respect is deserved; there is honor in the willingness to sacrifice your life for your country (right or wrong).
Everyone signed up for a reason. What those reasons are, No one but the individual soldier really knows, even even they do… but no one who signed up in the last few years can possibly be under the impression that they are not going to go fight in Iraq or Afghanistan, or another of the places we so easily forget people are fighting and dying.
Those who joined right after the Sep 11 attacks may have been unaware of what was coming, and many have been involuntarily extended so that they are essentially slave soldiers with no option but to fight. Most, however, joined since then, and either believe that the fight is correct, or believe that it’s not wrong enough to stop them from joining.
I can’t judge any particular individual, since I don’t know them, or their case, but I am certain that there are those who deserve imprisonment for their actions, and there are those who who do the right thing. Some who do the right thing are punished for doing it, as in all wars. Refusing to follow orders, even evil ones, carries stiff penalties. I don’t envy the soldiers the difficult choices they face, and I am saddened by the numbers who choose to do wrong… but my heart will always cry for the families of the fallen, on all sides in all places. That is the great tragedy of war: The uncounted tears of those whose fathers, mothers, brothers, sister, daughters, sons, husbands, and wives are never coming home.
@13,
I think it is apples and oranges to compare professional soldiers to doctors, firemen etc. The faulty intelligence against the war has been readily apparent and available for several years now. There is no draft, thousands and thousands of soldiers have signed up readily and willingly to this cause.
If you want to look at the Iraq War as a humanitarian cause, with the toppling of a dictator and the vanquishing of the terrorists (because that’s where the idea that the soldiers are protecting our every freedom comes from) just remember that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi/Aghanistan civilians have been killed in the name of this humanitarian cause.
If the draft was still in effect and thousands of young men and women were forced to action beyond their wishes, then I could understand your sentiment. It is a difficult idea to consider as I know quite a few people in the military but I wonder just how complicit they are (and Americans in general, news media, everyone) in the deaths of not hundreds of thousands of Mohammed Attas but women, children, aunts, uncles.
I’m sorry, did you say peacekeeping mission? First time I’ve heard it called that…
Err, no – they offered to hand them over (to a neutral third party such as the ICC), and were summarily refused.
And what, exactly, gives “us” the right to decide what “they” need?
Thrice bedamned corporate firewall :p
#31
That’s not true, whateverman. They are not only entitled to ignore an illegal order, they are supposed to ignore it. And killing unarmed civilians would be an unlawful order in most circumstances.
The sad part is that they almost never do resist an order, however horrendous – their moral compass has been so bent that they not only will kill unarmed civilians, they will do it WITHOUT orders. Then they will lie about it and cover it up. When it comes to light anyway, the military will ignore it or help with the coverup. It’s happening all the time in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There is no honor there.
Most of the people dying in Iraq and Afghanistan are Iraqis and Afghans.
@29
No doubt, but consider the statistics that Sam Harris quoted in ‘The End of Faith’; a shockingly vast majority of people in Islamic countries support martyrdom in at least some circumstances. Let’s be clear on what this means: it means that a majority of the ‘average’ people in these countries (even, as Sam points out, in relatively secular Turkey), who supposedly want only for electricity, running water, and a better life for their kids, believe that killing yourself and others to achieve ends that are consistent with the Koran is justifiable under at least some circumstances.
Moderate Islam, my arse. ‘A better life for your kids’ means something completely different when you really, truly believe that this life is but the staging area for a much better ‘life’ after death. If you really, truly believe this, as a majority of ‘average’ people in these countries do, we are talking about a serious problem, indeed.
If people like Pervez Kambaksh are ever to live in a country which recognizes freedom of speech, it will be because of the reforms initiated by the overthrow and eventual extirpation of the Taliban. Though all blasphemy laws are pointless and disgusting, it should be noted that Kambaksh would be long dead by now but for repeated Western intervention.
We can all agree that Afghanistan is not yet where it should be in terms of civil rights, but I cannot concede that the soldiers (American, British, Canadian, Danish, etc.) fighting against the rise of the New Dark Ages are doing so in vain. The free peoples of the world will only be defeated on this battlefield (as elsewhere) if we give in to the spirit of self-doubt and defeatism which is altogether too rampant on the left and on this board. Don’t think freedom is worth fighting for – don’t volunteer. But please let those of us in uniform to do our jobs. If Afghanistan is ever to be reformed, the Taliban must be put down. There is no middle way here.
There was something that I listened to recently (Mitch Benn’s Podcast) where it was pointed out that the current objective in Iraq and Afghanistan is to get it to sufficiently peaceful that the locals can take over the policing job. Yeah, we Britons did that in Ireland. It took 38 years.
@39
And this forgives the death sentence imposed by this government? This forgives my government inviting the president a country that even considers this type of action to speak in our House of Commons, as though we, imperfect as we may be, have something to learn about freedom and democracy from this person?
The very notion of having a blasphemy law at all means that we are fighting for a country that, in reality, has no intention of forming a truly pluralistic, open, and free society.
No question, but let’s not replace an iron age regime with a merely dark ages regime.
I’m glad someone had the cajones to mention the innocent lives we’ve destroyed in these pointless and warrantless wars. I might have a little sympathy for the white soldiers going over there if we mentioned the far greater loss of non-military brown people that we’ve caused (no, not the pre-war deaths, but the ones WE CAUSED, as well as a few particular examples of towering heroism called Abu-Ghraib and Guantanamo). Our losses next to theirs are like a hangnail next to a broken leg and we have no one to blame but ourselves and our own gullibility.
To tell the truth, I find it astonishing that so many militarists can continue to support this crap despite the fact that their leaders have little more interest in keeping them alive than the “enemy”. Wake up, guys, and realize you are nothing but pawns to these bastards. They lied to get you there, and once they’ve sucked you dry and taken what they want they’ll leave you to die in a gutter with no damn legs. It’s so obvious it’s sickening, and that’s why I refused–and will continue to refuse–to ever enter the military for any reason.
I’m sorry, but I have a hard time respecing Don Quixote. They aren’t dying to protect me–they believe they’re dying to protect me. No better than a fundy protecting me from hell. We’re in far more danger from the Christian Taliban they’re enabling and empowering on this side of the fence.
One issue I think is overlooked is how both Iraq and Afghanistan were failures on the part of the military leaderships of the US, the UK and others.
Why did the US military not say no to Rumsfeld and Bush when asked to invade Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for after Saddam was removed ? Rumsfeld could have sacked them, but there would have been ways for ensuring the public knew the reasons for the sackings. The military leadership in the US, and the UK, were guilty either of failing to stand up to their political bosses, or of making the same mistakes their bosses did in underestimating what dealing with Iraq would take.
I know of a JP (Justice of the Peace) who doesn’t believe in speed limits. He still enforces them and sentences offenders. Soldiers are citizens, yes, and as such have a say in the wars their country engages in, but as soldiers they have to obey legal orders and the will of the people who send them to fight (and don’t try to sell me lies: the great majority of the US public was for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq).
I will try another analogy, do you, Jeeves or HeebyJeeby, sabotage military installations or try actively in any other way to forcefully terminate your country’s involvement in these wars? Why do you expect your soldiers to do it for you? You are both citizens after all, your responsibility in that regard is exactly the same.
“If you want to avoid peacetime war don´t sign up.”
The irony meter just broke again…”peacetime war”.
That is all? Pretty quick. But what was the alternative to 38 years of havoc?
I would expect progress in Afghanistan to take a generation or two at least.
This forgives my government inviting the president a country that even considers this type of action to speak in our House of Commons…? Such sins are not mine to forgive. A more pragmatic (and less theologically loaded) question might be whether building diplomatic relations with Karzai might lead to a much-hoped-for presidential pardon for this student journalist. I assume, of course, that you’ve been following these events in The Independent.
The irony meter just broke again…”peacetime war”.
Maybe it’s Verner Vinge posting in disguise. ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peace_War
Xianity has the same belief. Heaven, angels, right hand of god and all that.
There are 240 million Xians in the USA. How many of them are in a hurry to die and meet Jesus? Practically none. They might talk about it a lot but everyone seems to want it to happen later rather than sooner. Given a choice between watching TV, mowing the lawn, etc. or dying, Suzy or Mohammd always seem to choose the former.
The very notion of having a blasphemy law at all means that we are fighting for a country that, in reality, has no intention of forming a truly pluralistic, open, and free society.
There is no hope for a “pluralistic, open, and free society” unless a new nation gets it everything right from the word go? Britons of all people should know better than to fall for such a perfectionist fallacy, having midwifed so many fledgling liberal democracies along for generations.
#44
That is one crappy analogy. Sabotage? Force? I advocated neither. I advocated not letting one’s self used. I protest the war, I write my congressman. Were I so misguided as to enlist and then one day I found my conscience returned to me, I would refuse to fight and file for conscientous objector status. And yes, I have seen reports and news stories of what happens when a soldier tries that. It’s horrible, and it requires far more courage to refuse to fight than the average soldier has.
And you completely miss the point when you speak of “letting your soldiers do it for you”. I explicitly reject that they need to do anything violent for me, until such a point as our country is invaded by a foreign army. That would make them legitimate, but that hasn’t happened.
Well, the problem was that about 43% of Northern Irish were Catholic and wanted to join Eire, while 57% were Protestant and wanted to stay in the UK. I know that’s a generalisation of the political motives with regard to religion, but the split was pretty much along those lines, and Ireland as a whole is quite… devout.
Look at this lot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles
Police stations were actually built to resist mortar shelling in Northern Ireland.
Hope about just making it clear to Karzai that unless his government starts showing a massive improvement in its respect for human rights it can no longer expect the support of the foreign military ?
#39
Bull. Plain unadulterated bull. Mischaracterizing opposition to an unjust and immoral war by calling it “defeatism” doesn’t make it so. I’m not opposed because we can’t win – I’m opposed because of a little thing called self-determination, which I believe the Afghanis should have. It should be their war, if they want one at all. They kicked out the Russians, after all. If they wanted the Taliban gone, they would be.
BTW – self-doubt? In small quantities, it’s a good thing. It might have prevented this whole mess if our fearless leader wasn’t such a monster of certainty.
Question: Is it moral to force the citizens of a nation to finically support the casualties of a war that they did not vote for?
*financially
I do not know about Canada, but in both the US and the UK the legislatures voted to support military intervention in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Now there is a debate to be had over how much they reflected the will of their constituents, and how well they were informed by their governments, but I would say that if a majority of your representatives vote for something then the electorate have a moral duty to bear the cost. If they object they can always remove those representatives at the next election.
It is not ideal but in a representative democracy probably the best we can do.
A lot of people seem to be under some misapprehensions.
1) Was there actually any evidence that the Taliban government were harbouring people wanted in connection with the crimes of September 11, 2001? Other than, say, the US government’s say-so, which is maybe worth the paper it’s printed on.
2) LisaJ, we are not doing “peacekeeping” in Afghanistan; we’re doing “counterinsurgency.” Look it up. I’d be much happier if we were doing peacekeeping. “Counterinsurgency” means “picking a side in a civil war and shoring it up.” That’s no business Canadians should be in, especially since Canadians talk a good game about valuing self-determination.
3) Nobody apparently remembers that 10 years ago or so, the Taliban was the West’s bestest friends (screw those human rights violations!) because they were at the time virulently anti-drug. Everyone was saying what a boon the Taliban was for Afghanistan because they would eliminate the drug trade and bring “much-needed stability” (or some such shit) to the region. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California who was one of their biggest backers (to the point where he had his picture taken numerous times with Taliban leaders) is, by the way, still in office.
In other words, there is no good reason whatsoever why we should be involved in any way in a military conflict in Afghanistan, nor why that military conflict should have begun in the first place. I knew it was all over, though, when I was watching CNN on the morning of September 11, 2001, and heard Orrin Hatch describe the events as “an act of war.” I said then what I’ll say now: “No, you ass, it was an international crime,” and should have been handled as such…
#55;
I would say that it is moral to support them – it is not their fault – but not moral to support anything else in the aarmed forces. I would say that the best thing to do if troops need to be deployed is to try to use as few troops as possible and give them the best possible assistance, to regulate military procurement contracts (to stop someone like haliburton or the “military – industrial complex” in general from overcharging), and to ensure that they are involved for te shortest possible time.
Oh, and not give President Gump the ability to get the country into a war. It might even be a good subject on which a referendum should be called.
As someone who has served in the Canadian Military and having been in a war zone, I agree that the deaths of these soldiers is tragic. The pain and sense of loss their families are experiencing is heartwrenching. The pain endured by anyone losing a loved one is never easy but the most we can do in these situations is offer our sympathy and condolences.
To often though, we seem to forget those who are still there. The ones who must soldier on with the loss of a comrade still fresh in their minds. There is no other bond like the bond between soldiers and when that bond is severed, it is especially difficult to those left behind. But it also unique in that the pain that is shared between all of them is transformed into resolve to carry on, to complete the mission. This is what they want us to remember. Not just the loss of life, but the continuation and support of why they are there.
Every single comrade of mine who is serving in Afganistan tells the same story, “Why doesn’t the news ever report about the great things we are doing over here.”
The answer is both simple and sickening. News reports thrive on negative perspectives. And in doing so, perhaps this is the greatest injustice of it all. In allowing ourselves to be focused solely on a soldier death, we dishonor the memory of what good they did while they were there. The reason they chose to serve in the first place.
If we can remember that, if we can consciencely look past the negative news we are fed, if we actively seek out the good being done, then no soldier will ever have died in vain.
DrUnscrupulous, #42
Only about 2 million or so. If they all marched by you in a line it would only take about 25 days for them to pass. Only about 666 9 September 2001 attacks.
My sister spent three years in Afghanistan, working for Doctors without borders. She told me a lot about what she saw happenning over there.
Basically, yes, it starts wth a good intention, the American army and their allies want to help to stabilize and develop this country.
But in practice, it fails, most Afghanis consider that the troops are not helping, and making the situation worse.
Why does it fail ? Mismanagement, cultural problems, corruption, too many reasons to go in the details. Now it’s so bad that unless the whole thing changes completely from what is essentially seen as an occupying force to a something with completely dfferent management, organization and goals, it will just keep on failing and getting worse.
No, it’s not. Sabotaging the war is what a soldier would do if he refused to fight it. As a citizen a soldier is entitled to their opinion, as a soldier he or she is the instrument of the common will. Refusing to fight is an action against the war.
Your country (I’ll assume) went to war, the responsibility is yours. Do not try to discharge it on other shoulders by saying you would have done differently in their position. There are few more cowardly things than a statement of hypothetical bravery.
Not that I like soldiers being over there, but airlines are apparently adding insult to injury.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/08/13/troops.baggage/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Suddenly I feel that the Troubles are positively schoolboy compared to this. 2 million? if that keeps up there won’t be many people left in the Middle East. My word, there was outrage in GB in the 80s when it was suspected that maybe the security forces were not trying to capture the heavily armed insurgents, but might just be shooting them. (n.b. the SAS did do nastier things during this time. 3 men (who had been disarmed or were not carrying weapons) in Gibralter.
How is it that this, over five orders of magnitude worse, has not incited (OTT) riots against the government, screams, wailing, gnashing of teeth or the discussion of less bloody alternatives like nuking the mountains? It would surely have led to less death in the long run. (/OTT)
Oh, and there was something in the UK news a few months ago about Prince Harry serving in a line regiment in Afghanistan until found out and reported on. (after that, he was flown back, as it was considered unfair to his fellow soldiers to basically have a magnet for enemy firepower standing next to them.) Can’t we put a member of the Bush family in the front line?
JB @ #9. Sorry, I know that they are there protecting the Afghan citizens every day. What I mean is that it’s unfortunate that the war started in the first place.
“…the death of any soldier, of any nationality, serving in Afghanistan or Iraq right now to be an awful, tragic, horrible, sickening, unfair and unnecessary loss.”
Get a grip. Soldiers volunteer for service and know exactly what the consequences are in the worldwide fight for freedom. They chose to fight for their countries, and you dishonor their memories with your head-in-the-sand comments.
“Soldiers are citizens, yes, and as such have a say in the wars their country engages in, but as soldiers they have to obey legal orders and the will of the people who send them to fight (and don’t try to sell me lies: the great majority of the US public was for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq).”
So, wait…might makes right? Again, there should be a distinction between peace time soldiers who were thrust into Iraq and the ones who signed up post Sept 11. Because you don’t have follow a colonel’s every order if you haven’t put yourself in that situation in the first place. As for your second analogy, the wolf is not at the door. This is not the Revolutionary War or War of 1812, where the enemy is advancing at the farm. As an average citizen, I can protest, I can curse Congress and Fox News and I can say that the Iraq War’s stated and (presumably) unstated goals have lead to a resounding failure due to lack of communication, knowledge and a few too many scoops of hubris.
I think it’s sick how people here wine about people that have CHOSEN to go into the war die of it, what about the thousands upon thousands Iraqis that are murdered every day because some people of their country think that insulting their imaginable friend. I don’t think that you would feel too sorry for the people attacking you if they killed thousands and thousands of you because they think Bush is an a-hole. Well it’s as easy as you don’t go over to aphganistan to kill people you don’t get killed…
Many news organisations already knew about Harry being in Afghanistan but were not reporting the fact in order to avoid his being targeted. Matt Drudge it seems decided he did not care who he endangered and put a report in his website.
@49
Which is why a majority of people in Islamic countries (again, I’ll have to dust of The End of Faith to get the actual numbers in specific countries) believe suicide bombing to be justifiable in at least some instances? Which is why we see a concerted effort on the part of ‘moderate’ Muslims to condemn these acts without qualification?
As Sam has pointed out time and time again, we forget what it must be like to truly believe the things that religious people profess to believe. There is no doubt that Christians, by and large, do not pose the same threat that even so-called moderate Muslims do (I shouldn’t have to point out that ‘moderate’ Muslims do not hold significant political power in most of the world, perhaps explaining their ‘moderate’ views). But that does not change the fact that faith is the root problem here.
I have no doubt that many Muslims would love to have a world in which they (a) held significant political power and (b) non-believers were subjugated, taxed, or simply killed. I have no doubt of this because this is the teaching of the book that most profess to be the guiding principle of their lives, and because, when given the chance, even ‘moderate’ Muslims refuse to provide an unqualified renouncement of these views.
Following these principles would be one sure way of ensuring their continued access to electricity, clean water, and a better life for their children, no?
#20. Oh, give me a break. I obviously had the story of soldiers on the brain when I wrote this. I feel badly that I left the Afghan and Iraqi citizens out of this. But truthfully it’s a post about the soldiers, so it’s easy to see how I cold have done that without any mal intent. I am not racist, it was an honest mistake.
Get a grip. Soldiers volunteer for service and know exactly what the consequences are in the worldwide fight for freedom. They chose to fight for their countries, and you dishonor their memories with your head-in-the-sand comments.
Even if we were fighting for worldwide freedom, it doesn’t make any of our deaths any less tragic, does it? I for one am happy people find this war sickening. It’s WAR. You should find it fucking sickening. If more of you did then perhaps you’d think for a minute before sending us off to fight another one. Anyone who thinks war (regardless of the cause or whether or not it’s honorable) is anything but sickening has likely never been in one.
The only people who are really dishonoring us are the ones who insist that any public dissent about the war equals not supporting the troops.
#63
BullSHIT! I voted against the jerk who got us into this mess. MY representative that I did vote for, he voted against the Iraq war.
As for the individuals, what I am saying is that I would never have gotten myself into the situation of being a soldier, as I have always thought that handing your conscience into the keeping of another is completely immoral. I’m not saying I would have done different, I’m saying I DID do different. I did not enlist, despite considerable financial incentives I was offered.
Nor was I congratulating myself for hypothetical bravery. I was congratulating those few who actually do declare themselves to be conscientious objectors for their bravery, which is commendable and inspiring.
Not that I might not do the same, but it wouldn’t be out of bravery, I’m not claiming that – it would be out of sheer stubbonness and anger. I won’t do things I consider wrong just because someone tells me to.
This is what you seem to not want to understand. Every citizen is an average citizen. A soldier, you, his/her mum. The worse thing you can have in a democracy is an army that think by itself and determines its own goals. Because the next step after “No, I won’t fight that war, even if Congress and a huge majority of my fellow citizens think I should” is “Mmmm, I’ll fight THAT war instead…”
Whateverman
No, I did not misunderstand but that’s not important. What you suggesting is that someone who does as he’s told (no matter what) deserve my respect. Why? As to your example with the fireman, that really don’t make any sense.
there is honor in the willingness to sacrifice your life for your country. WTF? You buy that shit? Sayin’ again, brainwashed… I don’t respect soldiers for there choice of carriers but that doesn’t mean I cant respect a person that’s in the army.
HeebyJeeby,
You still pay your taxes? You support the war.
(You certainly don’t support decent health care for all…)
And if you think just voting the right way exonerate you from responsibility when the vote goes against you, think again. That’s not how a democracy works. That was the point of my JP comparison.
It’s always a shame when more well-meaning citizens die for a lie. But I was with a million other hippies in the street saying, “Don’t do this.”
“Because the next step after “No, I won’t fight that war, even if Congress and a huge majority of my fellow citizens think I should” is “Mmmm, I’ll fight THAT war instead…”
I must say, Arnaud, you are correct that this is something that I fail to understand. For my money, the next step after the first example, (No, I won’t fight the war…”) would be a rationalization for why I have not chosen to enter the war using research of Senate hearings, books on the subjects, empirical facts etc.
In fact, my neck hairs would be up if I thought that the majority of the government, the media and Larry, Darryl and Darryl were all for it. It would make me skeptical is what I’m reaching for.
Also, the next step, (I’ll fight that war, instead) seems to be the position that Americans have been in for the last several years, what with intelligence pointing to a war buildup with Iran or North Korea which would be good for nobody.
Another thing that your example is it seems like the first quote would be from a objector to the war and the second quote from someone who is for the fight, but the whole thing is written like it is the same person or someone with a similiar mindset.
Not your respect; respect in general.
And we’re not merely talking about someone who does as he/she is told. We’re talking about someone who puts down on paper something to the following effects: “I pledge to do whatever my country asks of me, up to and including the sacrificing of my own life.”
This certainly doesn’t suggest any kind of value judgement on such “requests” made of that soldier. It could involve multiple pushups, fighting in a war the american public disagrees with, or serving as a police force in some other country.
The fact that the soldier pledges his service no matter the consequences – that is honorable.
This obviously doesn’t require you to grant that honor, but to deny that some measure of honor is due seems spiteful and “uninformed”.
And as for the fireman argument: the point was that although they too deserve honor, the soldier risks his life in a fundamentally different way. Firemen get to save people’s lives by saving them; soldiers may have to kill to do so.
“The worse thing you can have in a democracy is an army that think by itself and determines its own goals. Because the next step after “No, I won’t fight that war, even if Congress and a huge majority of my fellow citizens think I should” is “Mmmm, I’ll fight THAT war instead…””
I call bullshit. By international law, every soldier is REQUIRED to refuse to fight in a number of circumstances. When ordered to fire on unarmed civilians, for example, or to attack a hospital, or to torture POWs.It is the legal and moral responsibility of every soldier everywhere to not fight when it is wrong to fight. Soldiers are NOT slaves to the whim of the majority, nor to their representatives, and they should not be. That way madness lies.
You know what I find even more sickening than the deaths themselves? How they are exploited by the extreme left to make a cheap political point. Say what you like about Iraq, but we have a UN mandate in Afghanistan and we have a very important job to do there. I think all those who are opposed to the operations in Afghanistan should damn well try living under the Taliban. For one thing, you wouldn’t be able to be an atheist or hold a blog.
Just so much damn hypocrisy from the extreme left…
Rystefn,
The Iraq war was legal by US standards. Your objection doesn’t apply.
Whateverman
Do whatever we say, disregard your own sense of what’s right and/or wrong, disregard your own sense of moral, give up your right to protest, and I will respect you? You know what you got there? Religion. But that’s no surprise given that religious nut runs the army where you live. To quote Pat “Peace”
Canada is reaching a very regrettable landmark statistic. At present 90 of the 2005 Canadians killed in all peace-keeping activities have died in Afghanistan. This rate will see us topping the 50% figure by Remembrance Day this year. The Peace Keeper memorial here in Calgary was designed to hold several more decades of names of fallen soldiers – it is now full.
Good post.
However, all wars are nasty. They may be just, but they’re all nasty.
@negentropyeater
Hey, I give to Doctors without Borders! That’s an incredibly dedicated group doing some really, really hard stuff the world over. My hat’s off to your sister.
@Josh
Amen.
@Jonathan
Emphatic NO. If there’s a real mission, send the resources to execute it successfully, or don’t do it.
When military personnel swear in, they say, in essence, “I’ll put my life on the line for my country. I trust my country and it’s agents to make good decisions with that life.” That’s a huge, huge, *huge* commitment; all we ever wanted out of that commitment were just goals and intelligent decisions.
@Andy from Sweden
How so? The soldier *is* the individual. It’s not a job, it’s a profession, and a very dangerous one. Parallels to other professions (police, firefighting, doctors, etc) are apt.
Jeeves, what you fail to understand is the separation between a soldier and a private citizen, even when they are one and the same person. The army (I am talking about professional army, conscription is different. And in my mind preferable) in a democracy is a tool. It has and should have no say about the goal for which it is used. Because if it does, then it supersede the will of the people.
Was that clearer? Sorry, I have to go. House is on the telly…
Josh
“It’s not a job, it’s a profession” You say potato I say pot@to? And It wasn’t me who brought the firefighters in…
I’m against the Iraq War, but the war in Afghanistan was justified. That country was run by the Taliban which provided training grounds for al-Qaeda, which orchestrated the attacks of 9/11. The invasion of Afghanistan was a justified and reasonable consequence of those terrorist attacks.
Sure, Canada doesn’t have to be there, but you should take that up with your own government.
Arnaud, my point stands. You weren’t making an argument about this specific war, you were making a general argument about democracy and soldiers. You point was wrong in general, so it does not apply to this specific.
Moreover, while the war itself might be legal (though it was begun because of a fraud, so that’s up for debate), many specific acts within that context are not. “I will not fight this war,” “I will not fight this battle,” and “I will not pull the trigger at this moment” are all the same basic principle and significantly different from “I’ll kill that person over there because I feel like it.”
LisaJ:
The outcomes of this war may not matter to you, but it matters a lot to those who languished under the theocratic rule of the Taliban. Sure, the Afgan government contains vestiges of Islamic rule, but it’s nothing compared to the Taliban. As sub-optimal as the current situation in Afganistan is, it’s better than that.
It also matters to me, because we’ve shown radical Islamist governments that we will come directly into your front yard and stay as long as it takes to eradicate you. That goes equally for Iran, Pakistan and our so-called friends in Saudi Arabia. State-sponsored terrorism against the U.S. has been frozen in it’s tracks. There hasn’t been a significant attack on an American interest at home or abroad since 9/11. This is because we are killing Jihadis on the battlefield instead of our workplaces.
Every lost, disfigured or emotionally scarred soldier is an incalculable tragedy. But, our all-volunteer force is fighting for nothing less than the saftey and security of the homeland. It’s not the role of armchair soldiers like us to determine whether or not this is worth it. The soldiers themselves make that decision when they join our forces of thier own free will.
I’m grateful to them. Thier lives were not wasted.
Arnaud, #83:
The US Constitution requires that congress declare war.
Congress never declared war. The war in Iraq is illegal by US standards.
It may now be better, but is it good enough ? The Taliban are not really a good group to use as your benchmark for ethical and moral standards.
Yuck.
The war in Afghanistan is not Canada’s war? Sorry, the war in Afghanistan was not a war of choice. This could be argued for Iraq, but not for Afghanistan. We waged war in Afghanistan in response 9/11. Where are your tears for those heinous acts? Where is your terse actuarial tally for the dead, maimed, widowed, parentless mass? You are ahistorical and don’t deserve the soapbox you’ve been given.
Spout off all you want about the religious fundies running America – but don’t spout this tripe about it not being Canada’s war. Afghanistan is everyone’s war. You’re welcome the Taliban wasn’t given a chance to attack you and yours.
Good riddance.
@50
Cultural relativist, much?
It is not an excuse to essentially say “they’ll get there, once they figure out how to ‘do’ democracy”.
We KNOW how to do democracy, and not one iota of it involves having laws against blasphemy. Allowing for this would be like permitting slavery on the grounds that they simply didn’t get it right “from the word go”. Slavery is wrong; it took us a while to figure that out, but the cultural zeitgeist has advanced to the point that we know slavery is wrong; as are laws prohibiting free speech (i.e. “blasphemy”). Afghanistan has the benefit of our experience, and should be doing better. The fact that they are not suggests that, perhaps, they don’t want to. And I for one would not like to see a single Canadian life wasted protecting a government that doesn’t “get” that blasphemy is not a crime.
Arnaud,
The fog has lifted. Our differences in opinion are no longer a matter of clarification. We agree that the army should not possess a voting bloc capable of preventing a operation or throw up their hands and go on strike or some such thing.
However, this will of the people business is troubling. What if the will of the people is supplied by false intelligence and fear of the Other, couched in a democracy spreading mission? I don’t mean to write that there shouldn’t be an army ready for deployment but….well, there is a difference between a foot soldier and a 3 or 4 star general who has a distinct view of the conflict and a mountain of primary evidence who is brushed away by the president and other cabinet members in order to continue with the original contigency.
There are numerous examples of military higher ups (with current battle experience in Iraq) being patted on the back and shown the door without a suggestion taken.
#93:
Like I say, President Gump (A more – or – less standard name by now for President Bush in British current affairs comedy like the Now Show or Mock The Week. Look them up, they’re marvellous) gou the US into the war, and dragged his friend, Bliar, and the UK in with him. Assign Jeb Bush to the front lines in Iraq, it’ll expand his horizons.
(Oh, something by Mitch Benn you might like; his work ‘Happy Birthday War’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Vf4VbLfv8 )
hubris hurts #14 I’m sure that most of the people who sign up for miliatary duty hope that they won’t see action (they’re not crazy, after all)
Yet most of them vote for Republicans, thus increasing their chances of seeing combat. Ironic, isn’t it?
raven #17 I don’t have a solution for Afghanistan. Neither does anyone else. Leaving them alone didn’t work and cost us 2 skyscrapers. Trying to civilize them might well work or not but it is worth a try.
There are probably some moderately effective solutions, however, turning Afghanistan and Iraq into libertopian experiments and privatizing everything you can get your hands on — including security forces — is not one of them. It’s just a way for Bush Co to pay back their party’s major supporters (the defense industry, oil companies, and other transnationals).
Ray Ingles #28 Imagine where Afghanistan would be if we hadn’t opened up a two-front war.
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. According to some analyses, Saddam was planning to switch to the euro, and the dollar was already falling significantly against the euro in 2002/3. Even if the neocons didn’t believe their own rose-tinted prattle about turning Iraq into a democracy and initiating a domino effect throughout the Middle East, many were well aware that skyrocketing oil prices were potentially looming.
They really thought that we could get way cheaper oil, and a thriving democracy in Iraq, and possibly the entire Middle East. Based on those assumptions, however erroneous they were, the invasion of Iraq seemed reasonable to them. If the Iranian regime had fallen by now too, Afghanistan would not be in the shape that it’s in.
Of course, they were wrong about everything, and we got skyrocketing gas prices thanks to an oil bubble anyway.
In my estimation, the whole Afghan tragedy is rooted in America’s failure to implement reconstruction in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion was repelled. The U.S. government trained and armed the mujahedeen, then dumped these heavily-armed, well-trained religious hardliners on an impoverished, rubble-strewn country with numerous, mutually antagonistic ethnolinguistic groups. How could this situation NOT result in a failed state with a horrific human-rights situation?
And, no, I am not a “blame America first” type… I am a “blame the Republicans” first type! Think about it, the Reagan/Bush the Elder administration treated America’s allies in Afghanistan worse than Truman’s administration treated America’s enemies in Europe after WWII.
Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer, and the prospects of “midwifing” a democracy in the region are slim.
I am sure they really did believe what they said. The only problem is that they had no business believing it. Blair tried much the same argument, saying that whether you accepted his argument for war in Iraq or not, you had to accept he was sincere in making it.
Well sorry to Blair, but no, we do not. We do not have to accept the sincerity of people who have gone out of the way to fool themselves. If they want to lie to themselves and convince themselves what they say is true it does not mean when they tell it to us they are not still lying.
The only place where I could see it might matter is in a court of law, when the fact they deluded themselves might mean they could use an insanity defence.
Heartbreaking? No. Those are soldiers. And soldiers who volunteered to take the risk. Who didn’t refuse deployment, regardless of the consequences. Who made a moral and informed decision that involved, as an occupation, the killing of others as a main objective.
This is heartbreaking. A little girl blown up by soldiers like them. Who did not have a “choice.”
Moses, the main objective is NOT killing people. The METHOD is often killing, but that is NOT the objective.
The blasphemy law of the UK was only abolished a month ago, but the Americans positively insisted on including the Brits in the fight for Freedom and Democracy. The US military command must be a bunch of cultural relativists!
“Moses”
I did not think you could be more of a piece of shit but you proved me wrong! The deaths of Iraqi civilians are also tragic but they do not negate the tragic deaths of soldiers.
@Rystefn
Correct. There are laws of war. They don’t include “I disagree with this particular war, and I think it unjust. I refuse to fight.”
Yes and no, in that soldiers don’t choose the wars they fight. The civilian arm of the government does that; the military is the tool of, and subordinate to, the civilian arm. History has shown too many civilian governments that were overthrown by military coup to let the military pick their own objectives.
If you’re saying, “every individual has the right to NOT fight if they feel the cause is not just”, that is incorrect. That is one *specific* right you give up when you sign on to the service; it’s in the oath you take when you join, at least in the US.
You may be convinced this is a right they *shouldn’t* have to give up, but that’s it’s own argument. As of this moment there is no “right to not fight” if you’re in uniform.
I’m with you, in that I rather doubt this. Specifically referring to Iraq, one can make the case on several points that the action violates at least a couple articles of the UN Charter and probably more than a few other accords the US has signed over the past hundred years or so….in that, there was fraud in the cause of going to war, so the ‘reasons’ given that would make the war ‘just’ are invalid, which would make the invasion of Iraq illegal under international law.
Impeach GWB.
@Andy from Sweden
Not at all. You seem to want to differentiate the career a soldier has chosen from the individual. I submit it is more complicated than that.
Right now, my *job* is in IT. When I was in the service, I *was* a sailor.
I don’t mean this euphamistically: when I was in, I was always subject to military authority, in uniform or out. I got out because I decided I couldn’t live my life that way any more, but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect the folks that still endure or even like it.
From the OP:
…because what the hell are they all doing there anyways?…/i>
http://www.kansascity.com/news/world/story/737012.html
This is what the hell they’re doing over there. Wars suck and people die in them. Some things suck more and also kill people. While your concern for servicemembers is admirable, your naivete is not. They deserve your support, not your pity.
They really thought that we could get way cheaper oil, and a thriving democracy in Iraq,
Nobody said or suggested we get “cheaper oil” as a result of the Iraqi war. It’s like saying the US oil companies control oil prices when in fact they only have 3 percent of the market where as OPEC as the majority of the oil market. The situation is Iraq has greatly improved, the objects are now at 15/18 instead of 9/19 in Sept 2007. I didn’t like the idea of a public timetable of a pullout. They should have more careful with when making such an announcement. It appears with the public agreement between US and Iraq that things are going so well the troops in various stages should be heading home with the bulk of them coming home in 2010-11.
Of course, they were wrong about everything, and we got skyrocketing gas prices thanks to an oil bubble anyway.
No, they were not wrong about everything. Skyrocketing gas prices is a global problem. A problem which can be solved if you take away OPEC share of the market. The solution is out there already, flex-fuel engines which cost 100 dollars more than a regular car. By having a car that can use other fuels besides gas, although it’s still able to use gas, creates competition in the long run. Flex-fuel engines is the way of the future, a way to solve these high oil prices once in for all. Yea, some liberals will cry out we are now bankrupting the middle east…lol…No need to invest billions more of taxpayers money like Obama suggests, no need to worry about who is controlling the oil, we already have the solution!
How is the hydrogen made ? It takes energy to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen. Guess what, energy costs are also high.
Not using hydrogen ? Well how about bio-fuels ? Have you seen the price of cereal lately ? The high cost is down to increased oil prices and increased demand for cereals for bio-fuels.
Come back when you have some clue what you are talking about.
Not long back, a guy shared this eye-opener with me: He DOESN’T support the troops — because they’re volunteers, because the war is unjust, and because when you get right down to it, they’re the ones doing the fighting.
The fact that you can’t say such things in public, though, that you have the choice of “supporting the troops” or being seen as hateful and evil, tells me that there’s something wrong with the field of argument.
The right wing has succeeded in silencing huge numbers of people with the fear of being branded traitors and haters.
Josh, you are ever so wrong. The oath does not say “I,, waive all right to refuse to fight.” It does, however, say “I, , do solemnly swear or affirm to support and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Within that Constitution, we have the lovely 13th amendment, which bans slavery and all form of involuntary servitude. Yes, the soldier volunteers, but the moment that soldier decides he or she no longer wants to fight, it’s involuntary, at which point, every other soldier is bound by oath to prevent any person from forcing that soldier to fight or for punishing that soldier for not fighting.
Yeah, in practice, that’s not how it works, but that’s very much what the oath and the constitution say.
Lisa, nice to hear from another Ottawan grad student. You cannot imagine my jealousy of your status as a PZ Minion!
I greatly enjoyed your first post, and I share your sadness over the death of a soldier, having friends in the military (two of whom lost a close friend not long ago). However, your reasoning here disappointed me.
The rhetorical question “What the hell are we doing over there, anyway?” shouldn’t be posed so glibly, as it has an answer. The Taliban took violent control of the country and brutally subjugated the population, then provided a safe haven to men who murdered civilians on our closest ally’s territory. If international intervention can ever be justified, this was the time.
The subsequent American misadventure in Iraq and abandonment of her allies in Afghanistan was shameful, deceitful, and very possibly criminal. But don’t perform literary sleight of hand of conflating the two. They are different wars, fought for different reasons. One is justified, the other is not.
The goal is not wanton slaughter and I never said it was. So if that’s the straw-man you’re addressing, sorry, not it.
As for what I said, well our whole ‘overwhelming force firepower/attrition’ doctrine that dominates our military is just either just imaginary or, perhaps, you just don’t recognize it as you’ve got some propaganda, new-age “soldiers fro peace” crap put in your head. And all that training I had was really something else…
So, I guess, I’m not even going to get into it with you. It’s like you have some “new age, polite company” view of the military and I have a hard time dealing with those non-reality views of military doctrine and training.
I see king douche-bag is back. Zzzzzzzzzzz….
Josh K
Thx, I’ll tell her. After 13 years and 5 different missions (the last one in Uganda), she’s finally given up. Now she’s just your average MD in the south of France, taking care of old grandmothers and the usual flu.
If only the USA, UK, France, etc… would reduce their military expenditure by at least 75% and spend just a small fraction of those savings on funding humanitarian aid such as Doctors without Borders, and just avoid sending troops everywhere around the world for no benefit for anyone, I think most of these problems would be solved.
Did I say “Wholesale slaughter”? Don’t accuse of a strawman while constructing on in the same breath. Now, I’m going to spell this out using small words for you. Force, firepower, and attrition are all METHODS. They are NOT objectives. The objective is the end, the method is the means. When military men and women are trained in killing people, that is because killing is the, say it with me, METHOD by which they must often operate. This is a necessity in war. War, by the way, is also a METHOD. If the objective is killing, or war, then person pursuing that objective is evil. However, sometimes an objective can only be reached through the METHOD of killing and war. If you’re still having trouble distinguishing the two, I suggest you go check out http://www.webter.com and look up the definitions of the words.
See, my military training made all that pretty well clear, so I have to wonder if the failing is somewhere in your own mind. I won’t posit why you would think this way, but I will suggest you seek out professional help in sorting out these problems.
Michael #108:
No, they were not wrong about everything. Skyrocketing gas prices is a global problem.
I never said that the current oil bubble has anything to do with the neocon agenda circa 2002/3. That’s just incidental. The problem is that not only did their plans not work out, but we got an oil bubble to exacerbate the situation too.
Sorry, Typo. http://www.webster.com
That reminds me of a joke: President Bush is being briefed about how 4 Brazilian soldiers were killed in conflict yesterday. Bush gets unnaturally upset, and with his lips quivering, he sheepishly asks “How many is a brazillion again?”
One thing to keep in mind while discussing the ‘all-volunteer’ military forces is that the alternative choices for many enlisted members of the military, at least in the US, are pretty darn limited. Where else can someone with no post-secondary education, no skills, and no prospects get a job with great benefits, open ended employment terms, and precious few ‘weeding-out’ practices? As a result, the makeup of the all-volunteer troops are not demographically representative of the country as a whole, to the point where a case has been made for reinstating the draft, in hopes that the inclusion of white people from affluent families in this makeup might deter further hasty rushes to war. Currently, few members of congress have any personal stake in the matter, as their children, as well as the children of everyone else they know, are not volunteering to serve.
I don’t get why one would compare an international and sanctioned peace keeping mission in Afghanistan, likely saving many civilian lives compared to the previous terrorism, with an unsanctioned invasion of Iraq, which observably lead to loss of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives.
That said, I applaud the brave souls that goes to Afghanistan or any other UN peace keeping (rather, security; ISAF) mandates. They are sorely needed; but I wish it was avoidable.
Rystefn
BS. Being expected to fulfill a freely taken oath and follow the law do not constitute slavery or servitude just because you wish it so.
Yes they do. Nuremberg settled that. An illegal war of aggression, such as Germany’s in WWII, is punishable. And every man and woman who joins the US Military is trained on that unless the standards have slipped since my day. Just as they are taught to not torture prisoners.
Yet we have soldiers fighting in an illegal war that they are told is “legal,” even though it’s not. Some few have refused deployment because they feel the war is illegal.
Yet we have some soldiers torturing prisoners. Though most most certainly do not.
I imagine that most people here will agree with me when I say that I find the death of any soldier, of any nationality, serving in Afghanistan or Iraq right now to be an awful, tragic, horrible, sickening, unfair and unnecessary loss.
If it’s true that these deaths are unnecessary, how can it be said that “[t]hese people have selflessly given up their lives for the rest of us”?
If the deaths are unnecessary, then they’ve given up their lives for nothing.
It seems many of the soldiers go to fight out of desperation in their own home. As a young person with little financial backing from the family, one has a great difficulty in getting far in this country. You need to bust your ass off on horrid min wage jobs for quite a few years before you could save up just enough to cover tuition fees for university (which, I admit, is nothing compared to down south…), or starting one’s own business; an ‘owned’ (mortgaged) house is just a figment of imagination. The army promises to pay for your school, provide you with real work experience (and a good reference too, I imagine…), give you a place to live while you work, give good benefits afterwards…and generally support you after your service. So it becomes quite appealing to young men. And you become a real ‘Man’ socially and psychologically.
It’s a way out of poverty. A very hard a dangerous one, but to some, perhaps the only way out. What is truly awful is when the army fails to follow up on their promises. They try as hard as they can to find excuses not to fulfill their end of the bargain…
Social diseases like nationalism, fundamentalism, and other forms of fanaticism stike hardest when there is a large population of desparate people. In Canada this population is relatively small (and the truly desparate people have been ethnically cleansed through residential ‘schools’ and forced into a never-ending cycle of alcoholism and apathy…) so fanaticism is relatively rare here. To the South you have more desparate people (and a population 10x that of Canada), so more grounds for ideological viruses to spread. Middle East has plenty of desparate people, for various historical reasons, and fanaticism thrives in the region.
What makes fanaticism even more dangerous is the presence of desparate people with very little to lose — people willing to fight. That, I think, is a key difference between American and Middle Eastern fanaticism. America at least has economic opportunity for most people. Not very evenly distributed opportunity, not easily attainable; but it’s there. If you bust your ass off and fight towards your goal, you are likely to reach at least a part of it. Even the strongly infected people are quite unlikely to risk their lives fighting for their ideological parasite, which makes the fanatical movements in the US relatively peaceful (yet).
In the Middle East, the scarcity of resources and long history of ethnic and sectarian hatreds complicates those opportunities. Compounded by the recent wars in the region, for many people these opportunities simply do not exist. So many of those people have little to lose in this life, and are willing to fight for their ideological virus. So you get sectarian violence and wars and general chaos, involving arms and very vicious ideological parasites.
So while I despise the notion of nationalism, religion et al., and do not support any army, I can see why people would be willing to go off to another country to kill. Many of those people have been driven to this point by desparation back home; and for that I respect them.
Of course, then there’s the young boys who go for the adrenalin rush and what they imagine will be like those first person shooter video games. Well, at least they’ll get a good growth experience and mature fairly quickly. I haven’t heard of too many war veterans refering to war as something like a video game…
I am however midly confused as to what the fuck we’re doing in Afghanistan. Seriously. Do we not have enough problems back home? There’s a whole race that has been abused in the shadows of neglect by the outer world. How can Canada defend ‘freedom’ when its native inhabitants have recently endured a horrific genocide PERPETRATED BY THE OWN GOVERNMENT AND THE CHURCH, and have yet to be properly appologised to and compensated. Yes, I’m talking about the abysmal abuse of the First Nations peoples. The
torture campsresidential schools happened until about a couple decades ago. This isn’t ancient history. And the government won’t stand in the way of the church’s systematic opression of anyone who dares to reveal the truth to the public. Even my own university obliged to the church.Yes, Canada has problems too. Let’s fix ’em before teaching others how to live. This applies to practically everyone in the West, actually…that’s why I despise Western arrogance towards other nations. Example speaks louder than words and theories…
-Psi-
They may have my sympathy. They have my regret. They have the care and respect I accord in principle to all, but honor is a euphemism I will never grant war.
Bryan – I quoted the soldier’s oath and told you where to find the constitutional rule. If you don’t like it, push a repeal of the 13th amendment, because until then, a soldier swears an oath that no soldier is required to fight if they don’t want to… or are you confused as to the meaning of the word “involuntary”?
Michael 108,
3% of what exactly ? What’s your source for this nonsense ?
What is going so well exactly ?
Who would take it away, the share of what, the market for what, the solution for what, greenhouse gases emmission, energy consumption, “way of the future”, can you try to express yourself clearly and refrain from all this nonsense ?
No need to worry, let’s just all believe in miracles ! What a moron.
@Rystefn
It goes on to say:
“that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice”
The reason I pointed out the oath was mostly showmanship: it explicitly referred to the UCMJ, with is a damn draconian bit of law that everyone in the service works under. If ever there was a body of law that violated the Constitution, this is it: non-judicial punishment, military tribunals, the woiks.
The UCMJ has rules for desertion, failure to fight, etc. They aren’t pretty, they’re damn harsh…they have to be, it can be a damn hard business.
Interestingly, when I was commissioned, my oath was in this format:
“I, [name], do solemnly swear, (or affirm,) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.”
But I’m still under the UCMJ.
Look, we can go back and forth about the legalesse all day long. We’re talking about conscientous objection, and near as I can tell the Supreme Court rulings on the topic can be summed up as a) you detest war in any form, and b) you’re sincere.
YOU ARE PULLING MY TESTICLES, right?????
The first comments in your post was ‘ooohhh, my poor fellow comrades has fallen’.. WHAT?!!!!
The U.S started this war, and has now killed HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of innocent men woman and children, and YOU, seriously, TALK ABOUT AMRICAN and CANADIAN Casualties?
Oh, im sorry. They are muslim, they are less worth then Christians… No wait, is that American and Canadians are more worth then filthy Iraqi scumm?
You are the slime of the sewers, truly. Your comments DIGUST me, how you can not see the big picture and clearly think of yourself as superior to does brown skinners, or is that turban head? muslim filth? whats the word YOU use oh great master?
Its digusting.
Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant that the least number of soldiers to accomplish the mission should be sent in, as opposed to the least amount of resources. As an example, Pegasus Bridge ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tonga#Coup-de-Main ) on the left flank of the D-Day invasion was captured by a bare 200 soldiers (D company(overstrength), Ox and Bucks regiment), who were superbly equipped amd motivated. That mission was accomplished easily. By comparison, a full division (10,000 men) were sent into Arnhem (the ‘Bridge Too Far’; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnhem#The_Battle_of_Arnhem) without any interpreters to allow the Polish commandos to communicate with the others, poorer equipment and an absolutely crap arrival, and they failed. It is generally considered that if D company from Pegasus Bridge had been sent in, they could have taken the bridge with great ease and then reinforcements could have been dropped more carefully.
That’s what I mean when I say as few soldiers as possible, as well prepared as possible. By comparison, the US military used to (and may still – this was less than 2 years ago) reject all applicants to the armed forces that are gay, including a large number of translators.
What was quoted was part of the oath of enlistment.
“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”
This is modified to include the appropriate state governorship for the national guards of the Army and Air Force.
Contrary to popular interwebz belief, the “So help me God” usually seen at the end is optional. I omitted this.
In practice, this means that if the orders are lawful (according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice), then swearing to follow the directives of POTUS trumps the 13th.
Sheesh, this Michael guy’s a moron!
Yea, some liberals will cry out we are now bankrupting the middle east…lol…
Teh fonny ur doin it rong!
No need to invest billions more of taxpayers money like Obama suggests, no need to worry about who is controlling the oil, we already have the solution!
Flex-fuel vehicles are a stop-gap on the way to a solution, not a solution in and of itself. Pray tell, good troll, where do you get your misinformation?
@negentropyeater
I agree. Maybe I wouldn’t go 75%, but we’ve historically gotten better results by building roads and other facilities than by blowing them up.
@Moses
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joiningthemilitary/a/oathofenlist.htm
Okay, in the US you take an oath to defend the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic.
The “domestic” was added during the Civil War.
Go to the link and read the various oaths used to swear troops into the military. Quite interesting.
Edit of #134:
@Moses
Nuremberg punished everyone who was in the Wehrmacht? My understanding is Nuremberg specifically address violations of the rules of warfare, ‘war crimes’. Holding the individual soldiers accountable for the crimes of their leadership is just as wrong as excusing the actions of the individual soldiers because they were ‘just following orders’.
Contrary to military practice, legally, the UCMJ does NOT overrule the Constitution. That’s why the Constitution comes first, and the UCMJ way down at the bottom.
AMEN
@Jonathan
Oh, I totally agree with you now, Jonathan. My bad, I misinterpreted.
That’s pretty much what I said to my Senators and Congressmen when we started gearing up for Iraq/Afganistan: I was concerned that the means (full on armed conflict with all the attendant loss of civilian and military life) would not get us what we said we wanted (the elimination of specific terrorist leaders), and pointed out we could train special forces for a fraction of the cost to achieve the same objective.
After all, that’s what a lot of the other countries dealing with terrorism do, and it works a damnsite better than full on invasion.
But some people just want to see stuff blow up, I guess. :P
I do no think intent matters that much when it comes to civilians getting killed.
During the second world war the RAF had a delberate policy of bombing civilians out of their homes in order to reduce German industrial capacity. The USAAF did not pursue that policy, but instead targeted industrial targets. Of course those industrial targets were to be found in German towns and cities and in bombing them civilians were killed.
How are the tactics of the USAAF any more or less moral than that of the RAF ?
The RAF did cause more damage and kill more people it is true, but that is because they had more planes, and each of those planes could carry more bombs.
Posted by: Rystefn | August 13, 2008 4:09 PM
“Contrary to military practice, legally, the UCMJ does NOT overrule the Constitution. That’s why the Constitution comes first, and the UCMJ way down at the bottom.”
I don’t think the military would see it that way. For instance, Lawrence v. Texas overturned the sodomy laws of the various states, but the UCMJ still has a sodomy clause which can only be changed by Congress.
And the courts have approved of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” which by its name would seem to be a violation of the 1st amendment.
My cousin died in Afghanistan last summer, in an IED explosion. It really gave a new angle to the whole war for me, I’m from eastern Europe, so the whole thing had until this been really more of an ‘American issue’. Seeing the devastating effect his death had on dozens of people, including all four of his living grand parents, it really made me think of the tens of thousands of people in America, who have lost a close relative like this.
And I can’t even begin to imagine how it felt for my grand father, who fought in WWII, to loose his first grand child like this.
@Rystefn
All I can say at this point, man, is take it on up with the Supreme Court. I don’t think a 13th Ammendment argument is a valid argument for conscientious objection, but knock yourself out.
Guess I better go get some work done today…
What puzzles me about all this talk of what is and is not constitutional in the US is that it seems to totally ignore what is and is not right. Evidence from other countries, including the UK, shows that allowing gay people to serve and be open about their sexuality seems to have no effect on the military whatsoever. Contrary to predictions the British Army has not abandoned fighting the Taliban in favour of holding hands and picking flowers.
Echoing Interrobang: AFGHANISTAN IS NOT A PEACEKEEPING MISSION.
He’s on the mark with his other comments as well. To answer his question: as I recall, the Taliban confirmed that Bin Laden was in Afghanistan, and Bin Laden had taken credit for 911, so, yeah, there was some evidence.
For all interested in what’s happening in Afghanistan, I’d recommend this lecture, given not too long ago by Rory Stewart.
Ummm, qwerty, you do know that I admitted that the military pretends otherwise in the quote you used, right?
Michael #110
“Yea, some liberals will cry out we are now bankrupting the middle east…lol…No need to invest billions more of taxpayers money like Obama suggests, no need to worry about who is controlling the oil, we already have the solution! ”
Have you checked the figure for the estimated deficit for the US for next year! The figure I’ve heard is 482 billion dollars. We are bankrupting ourselves. Iraq is projected to have a surplus of 89 billion due to rising oil prices.
Do you pay attention to the news or do you listen to the Faux network?
Oh, a soldier died? Cry me a river.
While every death is regrettable, I reserve my sorrow and anger to people who didn’t had a choice to go somewhere else and get themselves killed (while murdering other people).
According to UN numbers, the “Coalition” now has killed more civilians then the Taliban did. (And no, counting every killed male over 15 as a terrorist isn’t a valid method.)
How is that working out for the betterment of the Afghanistan population?
So stop being fucking apologists for your country’s war. The only thing it achieved is killing lots of people. So don’t expect any sympathy from me to the manly-man (and some women) with guns who are so popular in our crazy western culture.
llewelly | August 13, 2008 2:15 PM #93
The last time the U.S. declared war was December 11, 1941, against Germany and Italy.
I believe you have a misunderstanding of what a declaration of war is. A declaration of war announces a state of hostilities between certain countries, and such declaration regulates the conduct of military engagements between the forces of the respective countries. The primary multilateral treaties governing such conduct are the Hague and Geneva Conventions.
Military action against another country or an organization does not require a declaration of war. The War Powers Act of 1973 allows military action to be taken by the President as long as a resolution authorizing the action is approved by Congress. Such resolutions regarding Iraq and Afghanistan have been passed.
Jonathan #131
Having the British 1st Airborne Division landing literally on top of the II SS Panzer Corps may also have had something to do with the Arnheim debacle.
To add to what JoJo has said, there is no need for a declaration of war to be made in order for a state of war to exist under international law. There is also no need for either party to have formally recognised the other prior to the state of war existing.
When a state of war exists there is a requirement on the participants to abide by the relevant treaties to which they are signatories. Some treaties, such as the Geneva convention, are binding on a country in a state of war regardless of whether other participants are signatories or not.
With regards the US War Powers Act of 1973, it has no bearing on whether either Afghanistan or Iraq were legal under international law. It could be quite possible for the war to be legal under US law, and illegal under international law. Were that the case the US would have a problem. International treaties are supposed to be treated as law in signatory countries. If, for example, the war in Iraq was illegal under international law then the US would be required to help bring to justice those responsible for starting it, as part of its treaty obligations. At the same time there would have been no crime committed under US domestic law.
@Matt Penfold
Not that I disagree with you, but WWII analogies can be a tricky business. The U.N. was formed primarily to prevent All Out War, like WWII. It’s formation, in a way, is an acknowledgment that the price paid in All Out War is unacceptably high – even when and if it’s ethically justifiable.
A good place to start, I think, is to remember that all military action represents a failure in civilization. Whether it’s justifiable or not is a minor point compared to the imperative to resolve mass hostilities. Really, what value is there in declaring a failure “just”? Ethics will always take a backseat to pragmatism in the business of conducting failure.
Samuel at #130. Of course I don’t think that Americans and Canadians are worth more than Iraqi’s and Afghani’s. Give me a break. I’m the slime of the sewers? Are you serious? Trust me, I feel horrible for everyone who’s lost their life, be they a soldier or a civilian. I simply wanted to comment on all of the recent news we’ve been receiving in Canada lately about more of our soldiers dying – how I find it all so upsetting and to start a dialogue about it. So I apologize for focusing on the soldiers themselves, but that’s what my topic was due to the recent news. It’s terrible when anyone dies in this war. Don’t be so quick to jump to conclusions about someone’s character. I am saddened by it all.
student_b, I totally agree with you. As I said early on in these comments, the huge number of civilian deaths is the saddest aspect of this war. And I also agree with you that it’s highly debatable how this war is really benefiting Afghans. I feel like maybe no one is really winning in this war. Regarding the remainder of your post, please see my response above to another comment.
Jams,
I agree they can be tricky. I was trying to illustrate the fact that if you carry out military action knowing civilians might be killed, it is a poor defence to argue they were not the intended target. It is also often not very good from a purely practical point of view. It is hard to win over a civilian population if you keep killing some of them with your bombs and bullets. Pointing out it was accidental does not really help.
And regarding war as failure, absolutely. I am going to use another second world war analogy here, but take Neville Chamberlain as an example. When Britain declared war on Germany he had clearly failed. What is rather unusual about that situation is that others thought so as well, and he was removed from office for that, as well as for other issues involving the conduct of the war. When Argentina invaded the Falklands the Secretary of State for Defence, and the Foreign secretary both resigned, although they remained in post until after the conflict. The defence secratary, John Knott was a waste of space, but Carrington, the foreign secretary was no fool and went on to be sec-gen of Nato.
Mike first the liberals were the ones who sent the Canadian troops into Afghanistan the conservatives extended the stay but only with certain conditions.
I support the Afghan war but not the Iraqi war.
Matt Penfold #140
This is not correct. The USAAF was involved in dropping incendiary bombs on Hamburg during Operation Gomorrah in July 1943. Also the firebombing of Tokyo in March and April 1945 by USAAF B-29s killed more people than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
With this post, Lisa, you have dragged Pharyngula to a new low. You’re not much of a thinker, Lisa, are you. And your morals are atrocious.
To: Rystefn
Okay, I misread your post. Just consider my post confirmation. The Supreme Court has historically help up whatever the Joint Chiefs want.
Posted by: HeebyJeeby | August 13, 2008 11:30 AM
You’re ignoring the fact that the ones in control of national and global strategy were the very same ones who used their offices in the executive branch to mislead the public about this war. The only difference is that for a citizen, they were fooled, and they can fix that situation. For the soldier, however, the same fabrications they used were exactly what made the invasion order lawful. (I didn’t say right or justified, I said lawful – and if you don’t see the difference, you need to realize that once Congress gave the go-ahead for the invasion, they made that order lawful in the military sense.) And if you’re up on your Code of Conduct for the military, you’d know full well that the only order a soldier can refuse in an unlawful one. I couldn’t refuse to go to Iraq any more than I could refuse to pay my taxes. Both are obligations that – because of my position – I am required to perform. What I don’t have to follow, the unlawful ones, are the types of orders you’re confusing with the acceptance of the order to be sent to Iraq, which include intentionally killing civilians, damaging their property, or otherwise harming them. And where the difficult area lies is in when such things happen during the course of a soldier carrying out lawful combat orders. In these situations, a court-martial or other investigation is necessary to find out if the soldier was negligent. Painting such a broad brush over those who choose to wear the uniform just shows me you don’t have the slightest clue about the military or its soldiers and how they operate.
And as for your quote:
No you don’t – that’s simple patronization, shown even clearer by the fact that you’re equating such horrific events as the death and harm that comes to civilians while trying to do your job in a shitty situation with clicking on an inconvenient pop-up ad on your computer screen from the comfort of your own home. I can only assume you meant it as some sort of humor (if I really need to explain why, then I really don’t see any point in you replying…it will go nowhere), but even as a joke, it fails miserably. The only way that joke would work is if you had expereince with both of them and understood and appreciated – in a personal sense – the depth of emotion involved in the former and the shallowness of the latter.
P.S.: The next time you want to quote someone in support of your viewpoint, it would serve you better to choose someone who was not quickly backed into an indefensible position after writing that article, due to his complete lack of any knowledge – through research, experience, or personal acquaintance – of the very service members he sought to box into his idea of what it is to be a soldier.
We can assert such a thing, but a nation can never know. And I don’t think either will ever happen, but that is no grounds for removing national defense from a country – however morally justified you may feel in calling for such – because we still live in a world where there are those powerful enough to manipulate the means of nations in order to expand their influence. America has been a major proponent of this in the past two terms, but that in no way necessitates – or even makes it a good idea – to do away with the military and those who would choose to serve in it. The problems lie in how the power is used – not simply in the means by which criminals exert that power. Taking away the military due its misuse would create far worse problems than we have even now. You want to imagine the shit we’d be sitting in right now if all the youth of the country had your attitude towards the military, ignoring that the majority within it serves with honor and respect and instead painting all of us with the same brush on the basis of your individual moral contruct?
It is not immoral – generally speaking – to choose to sevre in the military, just as it is not immoral to join the police force in the same sense. Both are necessary functions of government, and neither, in our democracy, requires that every citizen perform them. So while some deviants may join the military to kill, as you so blithely characterize it, there are countless others who join it for positive reasons, and many more who simply disagree and choose not to participate. That is the beauty of our system of government – the right to choose not to participate in somethign you’re personally opposed to. And besides that, there are regulations in place to handle those few who step out of line. The very problem lies in allowing some of those few to ascend to the ranks of high command and work with their deviant counterparts in the civilian sector, especially when they rise as high as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in order to meet their own, self-centered objectives.
If you think it’s immoral, that’s an easy problem. Don’t join. Just know that your’re wrong, as will be proven by the continued need for and existence of a national military.
Seriously, I wish I had a dollar for the number of times I’ve seen this same, tired argument trotted out against military service. Maybe then I could get some bills paid.
JoJo,
As I recall the Hamburg raids the aiming points for the USAAF raids were railyards and shipyards, whereas the RAF raids targeted a civilian building. The effects were much the same of course, although the high number of bombs dropped meant the RAF caused more damage. The USAAF in Europe were in practice carrying out area bombing as much as the RAF were. The difference was the RAF was open about their method of attack whilst the USAAF tried to maintain that they were carrying out precision daylight bombing. The simple fact is the technology and the weather did not allow for precision bombing, except in some very specific circumstances over the Ruhr when electronic navigation aids like Gee were used.
With regards to the USAAF bombing of Japan, you are correct, the method employed was area bombing and there was not much attempt to pretend otherwise. I think the reason for the differences between the USAAF stated, as to actual, methods in Europe and Asia was down to public relations. My original post though concerned the bombing of Germany, and not Japan. As far as I know the RAF never bombed Japan itself, although plans were well advanced for it to do so when the war ended.
Broken, he wasn’t drawing a parallel between popups and war, he was pointing out that if such a small thing could anger him, he could never really understand, only imagine, what a deception so much larger and more meaningful would be like. It wasn’t a joke, it was a tacit admission that he does not, and could not, know what the people who have to deal with that are going through, but that he recognizes that it must be a terrible experience.
Posted by: Rystefn | August 13, 2008 5:41 PM
That was what I meant when I mentioned why I did choose to handle it as a joke. He somehow “recognizes” that it is a very difficult situation to be placed in (without showing even a cursory understanding of what that means, in terms of an individual and their personal convictions, beliefs, values, and emotions), while denying that the situation is complex enough to suggest that the soldier is – at the most pragmatic description of service – a needed tool that can be used both justifiably and unjustifiably, depending on who is put in charge of using them. I took it as a joke because it was the one explanation that could be – however flawed in nature – sensible for him to have. As a joke, it showed a complete lack of knowledge of the subject, but one very frequently stated. As an illustrator of his genuine recognition of the complexity of the problem, it required his actual understanding of the situation. He showed more of the former, so that’s the way I went. I got that one wrong.
The blame here lies not on the soldier, but on the person entrusted to use their capabilities within the framework of law our country has established. Take away the military, and you have taken away the tool to prevent the unjustifiable use, at the expense of not having it available for use that is justifiable, and in some cases quite necessary to survival.
I choose to support our troops by marching against their misdeployment in the service of the craven ends of our selected leaders.
I choose to support them by calling this war what it is: a lie, and their deaths what they were: a waste, and agitating for its end.
My actions directly contribute to their survival in order to fight when actually needed to defend us.
I don’t choose to “support” them by wearing flag pins, calling liberals traitors, nor enabling and defending those who put them on IED-catching duty while calling it Freedom Spread.
I also don’t think it’s particularly brave or noble to bomb wedding parties from thousands of feet in the air, drop cluster bombs on civilian areas, or torture people. Pretending you don’t know any better but were ordered to do these things doesn’t make them excusable.
Posted by: melior | August 13, 2008 6:00 PM
You’ll find no disagreement with any of that from me. I think far too few of the ones who actually commit these kinds of crimes get away clean. The leadership in the Army, which I spent a decade in before running up against the war in Iraq, has shifted since the Amry of my father in the late 1980’s. Back then, if a job wasn’t performed to standard or expectations, people were warned (sometimes) and fired for their failure to perform. And this was even more so in the areas concerning taking care of the soldiers. An officer’s job is to ensure that his or her soldiers or sailors are well, fit, trained, and prepared to do their jobs, no matter what. If they had to stand up to a superior to do it – hey, sometimes the knife hurts, but you’re still there to do the same job – then they wouldn’t hesitate to do so. Today’s Army Officer Corps has, even at the lowest levels in which I resided, a sycophantic favoritism pervading it. It focuses less on true merit and more on loyalty, whether it be to certain superiors or the Army itself. The expression of this idea can be seen already in the policies of John McCain, specifically in his suggestion that veterans’ health care should be prioritized based on both being combat wounded and your number of years of service. This shows that they are ready and willing to both misuse the military and its members while also mistreating those same service members. It’s appaling, really.
@melior
Showing the flag was always appreciated, at least while I was in. I’m with you on the rest of it, though…”Freedom Fries”, “Patriot Act”, and most especially equating objection to war with treason…gah! Doublespeak has me thinking Orwell was just off a couple of decades.
@brokensoldier
I’ve noticed that during the Bush years, too, though I haven’t had any time in harness under him. You don’t just see it in the service, this administration has been fanatical about rewarding loyalty over law or expertise.
One of the most tragic repercussions of the BushCheney Jr. administration is the damage they have caused to the spirit and honor of the US military. By this I mean what it represents in the eyes of the soldiers, sailors, and marines as well as in the eyes of civilians like me and the rest of the world.
I want our military’s reputation to be one of honor, courage, and force on the side of what is right. I truly believe they once did, and may some day again.
I truly loathe the men who instead substituted brutality towards and mistreatment of civilians, profiteering, rendition, torture, abnegation of the Geneva conventions, and disregard for international law. In doing so they damaged far more than their victims, they damaged the hard-earned reputation of all who served before them, under them, alongside them, and after them.
Afghanistan is a particularly important war that should transcend partisan political opinion.
The critics always astound me. Liberals are the one’s who should be shouting the loudest for more troops, money & political commitment to ensure a final victory in this war on 12th century, religious fundamentalism.
If in doubt – http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2008/07/14/taliban-execute-two-women_8350.html
The one argument I personally cannot stand when the Iraq war is discussed is the “we haven’t been attacked here since we’ve been in Iraq” argument.
Why should they attack us here when we have made it so VERY convienent for any anti-American in the Middle East to attack us in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
Any two-bit terrorist, Muslim, or Arab with a grudge can probably come up with the jack to get to either of these countries to plant some IEDs.
Also, having troops there didn’t prevent either Spain or Britain from terrorist attacks.
Brokensoldier,
I don’t think it’s immoral to join the military. I don’t think it’s a question in this case of good or bad morality.
I think it’s clear that the USA needs a military, simply to defend its territory in case a foreign nation or agent might attempt to attack it. That’s why some countries also call it National Defense.
But then let’s look, the USA spends roughly $ 600 billion on this highly important activity every year. But who would be interested in attacking the USA ? Let’s see, the second largest spenders are France and the UK, if I remember well with roughly $70 billion each. The rest is all below, Russia, China, etc…
What would happen if the USA spent, instead of $600 billion, $150 billion ? Would France or the UK attempt to attack the USA ? What about China, Russia, etc… ? What about its closest neighbours, usually that’s where the most imminent danger comes from, Canada, Mexico, Cuba. Is there so much of a risk there to substantiate spending more than $150 billion on this activity ?
I think it’s quite obvious that the $450 billion “extra” are not for defense of the territory, but to support this rather strange mixture of imperialist policy and protection of our allies that various administrations have kept following and has given us such wonders as the Vietnam war, the Iraq war, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc…
Also, it’s clear that with the USA spending that much, this is encouraging other nations to continue increasing their expenditure faster than their GDP growth, case in point Russia and China. Of course if Russia or China went on to spend more than the USA, I could imagine that this would be a problem, so this value of $150 billion need not be an absolute limitation, but we’re still very far from there.
So my question to you, if a young guy or girl came to see you tomorrow, and ask you, what do you think of me joining the military, what would you tell them ? Would you encourage them, or discourage them, or would you stay as neutral as possible ?
I’ve long been disappointed in how Canadian military members are treated – in so many ways it seems much worse than the US. I understand it’s gotten better for the regular military, but for the reservists it SUCKS.
A coworker of mine is a reservist and a cadet master. The amount of money he has to put out of his own pocket in order to fulfill his obligations is outrageous. He even had to buy his own kilt (a $700 purchase) because they hadn’t budgeted properly for reservists dress uniforms. They screwed up on his pay and pension (and never provided proper accounting to him), resulting in him owing them a whole whack of money, which they wanted in full on demand, instead of allowing it to be repaid over time.
It truly is sickening to see how little respect they get from the gov’t…
PaulB 167,
1. the role of the US miltary is not to defeat relgious fundamentalsm wthin foreign sovereign nations, but to defend the US territory from potential aggressors.
2. there is no evidence to support your assumption that sending troops will defeat religious fundamentalism in Afghanistan
3. how would you feel if France and the UK, exasperated by the amount of religious fundamentalism within the USA, tried to send troops inside the USA to defeat it ?
Afghanistan is a particularly important war that should transcend partisan political opinion.
The critics always astound me. Liberals are the one’s who should be shouting the loudest for more troops, money & political commitment to ensure a final victory in this war on 12th century, religious fundamentalism.
If in doubt – http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2008/07/14/taliban-execute-two-women_8350.html
Do you know, you fool. that RAWA is one of the biggest critics of the U.S. and allied invasion of Afganistan (do a little research, will ya)?
@CanadianChick
Yeah, we have an unfortunate history of underfunding our military – usually because of the romantic notion that we aren’t a war-like people that precedes the last minute decision to rush off to war. Pierre Berton does a fair job of documenting this unfortunate Canadian habit between the years 1899-1953 in “Marching as to War”. It starts with Canadian troops being sent to the Boar war without uniforms, and pretty much goes downhill from there. All things considered, things are better now than they’ve ever been.
Thanks LisaJ for posting your inane political ramblings on one of my favorite blogs, which I specifically visit because it doesn’t contain drivel such as yours. If you take a look at the masthead you’ll see the words “Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations”. Stick to the subjects at hand please.
brokensoldier
If you take care of the troops, the troops will take care of the job. Unfortunately, the officer corps and, even more disheartening, the senior NCO/petty officer corps, seem to have forgotten this.
Man oh man, I just read this blog and most of the comments and my head is about to explode. Lisa, it is clear that you care for the health and lives of our soldiers. But this was an “awful, tragic, horrible, sickening, unfair, and unnecessary” blog entry. I think the most disappointing result has been reading comments from people like “Andy from Sweden.” What a jerk. There is nothing worse than having to listen to a bunch of crap from a neutral, Pacifist, jackass from a country that never lifts a finger to do a fucking thing. Hey Andy, keep doing what Swedes do best and butt the fuck out.
LTC Paul Yingling wrote a damning article published in the Armed Forces Journal entitled A Failure in Generalship.
Wars are usually not justified. For example, we had no business going into Vietnam. The North Vietnamese were not likely to get into their little boats, sail across the Pacific Ocean, and invade California. The local police would have wiped them out if they did invade us.
Afghanistan is a bit different. They were letting what’s his name live there. He was the guy behind the 9/11 attacks which killed more people than the attack against Pearl Harbor, and most of the victims of 9/11 were civilians. Certainly we had to fight back. What is so strange to me is this is 7 years later and the war is worse than ever. We defeated Germany and Japan in only 4 years. What’s taking so long to finish this war? The obvious answer is the hopeless incompetency of the Bush Administration. Instead of starting a 2nd war in Iraq, Bush could have poured more troops into Afghanistan and finished exterminating the Taliban. Instead we’ll be in there losing lives and taxpayer money for who knows how long.
Another thing I would like to say about the Afghanistan war and Iraq war is they’re both religious wars. In a world without religions the USA and Canada would not be in any wars right now. In my opinion every religious American is at least partly to blame for the wars we are in. The Muslim terrorists need the religious Americans to justify their existence. How can we tell Muslims the heaven belief, which made 9/11 possible, is insane, when most Americans have the same childish belief. If anyone wants a good reason to eradicate all religions from the world, just count the number of our soldiers killed or wounded in our two religious wars.
Sweden is the Western country that has accepted most Iraqi refugees and many Swedes serve as UN peacekeepers. Don’t be so ignorant. Or at least work on your taunts some more. I’ll spot you one: “What Swedes do best, or at least very well, is sell iron ore and arms to dictatorships while preserving their pacifist, neutral credentials.”
Rather a mishmash of confusion there. While not wishing to diminish the service or sacrifice, the notion that they are doing it “for us” strains the imagination, as does the entire rationale for beginning and maintaining the neocon “War on Terror”. The idea was to get OBL/AQ, not protect the Afghan citizens. One might well ask from whom those citizens are being protected?
Well sorry for the taunt “windy” I just get a little pissed when someone makes despicable comments about our soldiers. And thanks for the update on how Sweden is saving the world. While you’re busy thanking UN peacekeepers don’t forget Pakistan. I think they provide the greatest number of peacekeepers to the UN. I’m not sure how many are from Sweden but my guess is it’s a pittance. And speaking of UN peacekeeping soldiers, and Canadian soldiers who “Andy” thinks are brainwashed and deserve their fate for signing up for “peacetime war” (as he calls it), Canada has lost over 100 soldiers during peacekeeping missions.
negentropyeater:
Exactly my point. This problem we’re facing now has nothing to do with the choice to serve and that choice’s resultant morality. This problem is one of dereliction of duty and severe, criminal malfeasance in government. And in some cases, war crimes on the ground have definitely been committed by soldiers straying – for whatever reason – from their orders. And I won’t contest any reasonable assertions that officers in command of large forces have ordered such action, either, but you cannot make such accusations about the entire force.
We are most certainly not professional murderers. The CIA has that one covered – no need for Uncle Sam’s Army to horn in on that deal. What the army is – in any country, democratic or not – is a group of men and women, young and old, who have signed up to serve their government for various reasons, the most basic being a citizen’s belief that they will be put to use for true defense of their nation and, in today’s global environment, defense of our allies. By the way, please pardon me if I’m preaching to the choir a bit – I’m just elaborating my point for the ones who would assert otherwise.
And calling it something else (sans the “National” part, like our Department of Defense) makes it easier to twist the concept into one of overt offense, operating under the guise of some sort of defense of “national interests.”
I definitely agree that we spend way too much of our collective national pocketbook on the military, and most of that is connected to the sheer depth of our country’s melding of the military and industrial insterests here. But if we were to spend less, and spend smarter, we could accomplish the desired mission of defense without all this current waste and abuse. But then that would infringe upon the (lately neo-conservative) obsession with global projection and expanding our shpere of influence around the world…which is why none of it has changed yet. Just like they rigged the game to make sure Iraq happened, they rigged the political game in this country to provide themselves with the means and freedom of action, both legally and practically, to do what they have done.
In all seriousness, thank you for asking this question. It is the first time someone has asked me this question in the confines of debate on this topic, and it is crucial to understand why I believe the choice to serve is not immoral. As of right now, I’d tell anyone wanting to join the services that they need to know two things:
1. Know full well going into the deal that you’l be expected, under pain of prosecution and punishment, to live up to your contract to the very last letter (which may change many time during your time in service).
2. Also know that the military, when pressed against a wall, will not hesitate to squirm out of their end of the deal to get what they need.
If someone can look at this and say that they still want to join (which may be driven by a need far greater than many moral objectors will ever know – i.e., the Army is where many young people go when they have no options left, and it lifts them out of their situation and gives them leverage for a better life), I then try to impress upon them the seriousness of being thrown in such an untenable situation as a member of the military in a time when our leaders have been so criminal. (If at this point they begin to tire of the discussion, I tell them not to join. It is a complex situation, and such a choice should not be made by someone unwilling or unable to ponder – at length – its possible implications and consequences.)
My basic point is that in times such as these, the impetus for people to join is not removed, but rather it is increased, but only for those people who can understand this going in and realize that they are expected to pick up the moral slack left by the actions of our leaders. Because regardless of who joins or does not join, the nation will always have a military, and I’d rather have volunteers doing the job than the government telling citizens when and how to serve. As an American soldier, if you get sent to fight in a war you don’t agree with, you do your best to make sure that you and your troops (if you’re a leader) go over there and conduct yourselves in a manner befitting a true soldier. When given a choice to fight in the midst of civilians or break contact, you break contact. When your camp is receiving mortar fire from a farmer’s backyard, you don’t just shoot back – you get out there and find them the old-fashioned way. In short, when faced with two options, retaliation at the risk of collateral damage or choosing to fight that battle on your own terms later (where you can set the terms for fighting, as best you can facing a guerilla-style insurgency), often the more courageous choice is the latter. Cooler heads always prevail, even in a hot war.
This should tell you that in times like these, our soldiers do not need to be smaller in number, but rather we need soldiers and officers that can stand up to whomever stands in their way of doing their job as it is stated in their oath. More personal courage – the intelligent kind, not the barbaric kind – is the answer, not less soldiers.
Posted by: CanadianChick | August 13, 2008 7:59 PM
CanadianChick, I’m with you on that. You could quite literally tell that same story about the US Military, only changing the names, and it would be just as true. And I do think that because some nations didn’t jump into the Iraq war as heartily as the Bush Administration would have liked them to – a choice I don’t think many of us would bemoan them, knowing what we know now – they end up getting a bum rap, which is manifested in the severely diminished recognition their sacrifices truly receive.
It doesn’t matter what country you’re from – life is life, and death is deplorable. Especially if it could have been avoided. But we shouldn’t blame the man or woman who lost theirs trying their best to serve their country, especially in such politically toxic times. We should instead blame those who disgraced the military by abusing its capabilities – and killing its own, along with the lives of innocent victims – for the furtherance of their own personal objectives.
Posted by: Josh K | August 13, 2008 6:35 PM
Yeah, I think it has just come to a head during this administration. The groundwork was laid in the 80’s, when neo-conservatist methods for spreading
democracyhegemony were being forged and tested. The Army trudged on until its officer corps was decimated and upward mobility became – once again – less about what you know and more about who you know.And that is another thing that cracks me up about conseravtives and their perpetual harping that Democrats destroy the military – they simply fail to recognize that Reagan ballooned the military, Bush I downsized it enormously after the first Gulf War, and now we see Bush II having his go at it, this time working to alter our military into one less designed to meet the enemy on the field of battle, and more designed to counter these insurgency threats in police actions around the globe. A military like that serves to protect their desires of expanding influence, and the old-style army is simply not built for that. So instead of focusing just on the military’s size, Bush II has also perverted their design and purpose, which is abhorrent in and of itself.
#128 3% of what exactly ? What’s your source for this nonsense ?
The overall world market, looks like you don’t know yourself or never bothered to think about it but like to talk about it.
Who would take it away, the share of what, the market for what, the solution for what, greenhouse gases emission, energy consumption, “way of the future”, can you try to express yourself clearly and refrain from all this nonsense ?
Answer: and it’s pretty good one, if fact it’s excellent…OPEC’s huge share of the world market of oil.
Flex-Engines are not confined to the current fuel consumption they use such as Methanol, alcohol, H2 (hytrogen) and regular gas. Further expansions of future fuels would be added. Also, add electrical cars to the mix as well. So no, not all the fuels produce “greenhouse” gases. I would like Helium3 as another source of energy either for cars or electricity in general, lots of it on the moon and no, it doesn’t produce greenhouse emissions.
Which brings me to a question for message #128, do you really think you could have changed the way Greenland (the country) got it’s name? I hope you know how Greenland got it’s name…lol
Now here comes the utter most brilliance in solving the energy situation in the long term. Having more flex-engines on the road causes the gas stations to offer different fuels. This could happen two different ways, if the consumer buys many of those cars or the government mandates other fuels at the gas station. “Who would take away OPEC’s share of the market which is huge. The consumer would, he or she would have options at the pump. Methanol for example, even though it doesn’t get the gas mileage regular gas does, you factor in the extra fuel needed and it comes out to $2.80 a gal.
Ideal for people who might not have the money you do #128…What’s your solutions? I’m certainly aware of your negativity.
I’d just like to add my agreement to brokensoldier’s comment #182.
I too served in the military (Australian) for 9 years, so I have a bit of an understanding of how it works.
When you sign up, you sign up for a certain minimum duration. During that period, you can’t just quit your job if you decide that you don’t like what the government of the day is doing. And tough luck if the government changes whilst you are in active service, and you suddenly find yourself in wild disagreement with your government.
In my particular case, I was lucky enough to finish my minimum service at just about the time the Howard government decided that it was a good idea to use armed warships and aircraft to deny unarmed refugee ships access to the Australian territory. Charming. As an added ‘bonus’ the Howard Government went on to put Australia in the position of invader in Iraq, for the first time in my country’s history. Many people that I know from the service had to participate in that war, against their will.
The only time you can refuse an order is if that order contradicts the Laws of Armed Combat, or the Geneva Convention. Neither of these bodies of law makes it illegal to launch hostilities against another nation, so if your government decides to put you in harms way for crappy reasons, well, that’s just too bad for you.
brokensoldier / demallien:
You both obviously considered the fact you wouldn’t have any say in what you would be asked to do once enlisted, and decided to join anyway.
I’m curious what convinced you it was worth it.
Desire to do public service?
Hope that you’d only end up doing things you agreed with?
Career opportunities?
Something else entirely?
Opium fields here,Taliban there,
I dont feel that any Western soldier should be dying for some medieval clan society,whether they agree to serve over there or not.Soldiers are trained to follow orders,so of course they will go where they are told to go,and do what they are told to do,no surprise there,thats what soldiers do I guess.
The mistake and betrayel lies with the political class that decides to run this war in the first place,not the soldiers that do their job in going there.
Do they want clean water,roads and schools? Sure,who doesnt? Would they cut your head off with a smile for calling your teddy bear Mohammed,or stone you to death for being a woman and looking at a guy the wrong way ? You bet !
I just dont get what we are doing in that hellhole,at all.
Brokensoldier,
thx for your honest and well developped reply, and I guess the only point I disagree with is your affirmation that in times like this, the USA doesn’t need less soldiers. I think less soldiers, better educated, and better taken care of, would be preferable.
It boils down to the fact (and this is a fact) that an average American spends 10 times more than an average human to defend its territory. Americans spend 50% of the entire planet on mlitary expenditures, with less than 5% of the population.
I think this fact is the #1 source of the problems that affect humankind nowadays (not the only one, but on top of the list). It also has consequences on America’s refusal to obbey the international consensus on AGW, and on many other things.
Not unless Americans have raised their consciousness to this fact and its dramatic consequences, not unless the USA stops behaving as the big Bully with half of all the toys, will we see any improvement.
//that an average American spends 10 times more than an average human to defend its territory//
Like your style,Neg,that was a good one…:-)
Michael,
You must be particularly thick-headed. Again, US Oil companies have 3% share of what, the overall world market of what exactly ? What’s your source for this nonsense ?
Well then if you all don’t like the wars then figure out why it happened. How secreat could it be?
The fighting is to defeat terrorism which hit on 9/11.
Iraq was said to be a threat in this way and Afghanistan certainly was.
Was this and is this untrue?
Why do these terrorists care about america?
Its all very simple if a canadian may say so here.
There is a passion in America for the Jewish cause of Israel. Jews, organized Jewish groups on behalf of Israel, groups influenced by Jews for Israel, Jewish influence in the establishment, and the establishment generally passionate about Israel, Jews in the population and some percentage of the general population that is passionate for Israel.
This has lead to intervention of American influence, money, military for many decades now on behalf of Israel against opponents over there.
This lead to most foreign troubles aside from the cold war.
This lead to 9/11.
Then a small but influential, very Jewish and pro-Israel, cabelish group in the republican sphere called neo-conservatives used 9/11 to attack militarily etc and finish off the states or groups said to be hostile to Israels interests or whims.
They targeted Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the smaller groups for destruction once and for all. WW111.
To persuade America for a agenda they suspected she was not interested in they fabricated, misled, invented , reasons for America to wage war over there.
That is the present culture in the high republican circles.
Yet it come down to president Bush decisions.
His decisions were based on acting on suspicion in a culture in the American establishment influenced by the Jews on behalf of Israel.
If a Canadian may say so.
Posted by: the great and powerful oz | August 14, 2008 4:43 AM
For me, it was the confluence of a few things. My family has lengthy history of serving in the military, with relatives in every service branch, which still matters to me, in a personal sort of way. Another of my reasons was one you mentioned – the desire to serve. While also factoring in was my need to fund my college education, I served and was deployed twice, once to Iraq in 2005 and once to Bosnia in 2001 as a peacekeeper. Strangely enough, our experiences in Bosnia – in terms of dealing with civilians amidst your operations and working with local officials and leaders – really helped us in Iraq, once we were stuck managing that shitty situation.
The last thing I’d mention is this. My decision wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment, or even mildly surprising decision. I knew I was going into service, and it was a decision that I ensured was one I could reasonably and intelligently explain. The basis for my desire to serve related to the way I see our country. I see the military, in other countries soldiers are conscripted regardless of their own desires, as a choice that is offered and only a small percentage of the population has to make that choice. Using a rough ratio of 2,000,000 army (a considerably larger amount than was currently in place) to a population of 200,000,000 (what I remember to be a generously low estimate at the time), that meant that for every citizen that made that choice would allow 100 others to make the choice not to serve. This is one of the things I love most about our country, and it is one of the main reasons I chose to be one of the ones who served the purpose of allowing others the freedom to enjoy whatever life they chose. I figured once I served my time, (regardless of the politics and conflicts may arise, I’d never look back and say I could have tried any harder to make the best of whatever we could be put into) then I could go off and make my mark on the world somehow. The only thing that has changed in all of that is that after going through the twisted situations we had to go through, now I just want to go off and have a nice quiet life and have a family. At the end of Band of Brothers, I remembered Dick Winters’ interview where he said that during the war, all he wanted to do was get done and go back to find a nice, peaceful corner of the world to live in. I watched that in Bosnia and understood it, then after Iraq I found that I knew – and could feel – what it really meant.
And BTW, I’m quite conscient about the fact that this ratio need not be 1 instead of 10 for the situation to get better.
Costs structures are different and many other things, but beyond 3, I see no reason and no benefit for that. Only problems.
Posted by: negentropyeater | August 14, 2008 5:42 AM
Again, I don’t disagree that a smaller force would be more effective, but my main point (admittedly one I was arguing with another poster and not you) was that the choice to serve is not immoral and is not the problem in this situation, and the need for a soldier simply does not go away.
But moving to a smaller force entails a lot of doctrinal change and adjustment, and that sort of thing takes time and skill to pull off successfully on a national scale. Considering how they have handled the affairs for the last two terms, I’d say it’s best to wait for an administration that’s a little more honest and open before trying to take on that task.
Brokensoldier,
things will start to change when a US President, supported by an overwhelming majority of the American public opinion, realises that they do not need to spend 10 times more than an average human on defending its territory.
brokensoldier:
At the beginning of this thread it was my opinion that, since the US has (IMHO) been on the wrong side of many conflicts in the last few decades, the decision to join a force which could reasonably be expected to do evil was an immoral one, albeit one often forced on the economically disadvantaged.
I understand the necessity of defence, but it’s glaring obvious that defence has not always been the use to which the army is put.
You have given me something to think about. Thanks.
Posted by: the great and powerful oz | August 14, 2008 6:45 AM
And thank you. I’d also mention that referencing the above quote, I can understand the sentiment to want to do away with the first-order agent of the problem at hand – it is certainly an immediate way to stop what is going on, but only temporarily. Sinister men and their intentions can rise faster than nations can, so we’d then be left without that part of our population who elects to serve and defend them – the martial manifestation of our national will to defend ourselves. And converse to your question, what would we be left with today if – during those intermittent times in which militaries were handled correctly and applied to direct national defense – we, or any country, did not have an army to defend with in such times? As brutal as our ascent has been as a species, and as far as we have come, we’re still ruled by our adversarial nature, and thus still need defense from one another.
Thanks for your remarks, brokensoldier, and for your service. I’m glad you’re one of the sane enlistees.
I want to add a short phrase that I think catches a lot of it:
– Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus
“Therefore whoever desires peace, let him prepare for war”
I’m not gonna cry over some killed or maimed american, canadian (or whatever) soldiers, that are dumb enough to fight a war that has nothing to do with what was originally claimed – finding wmd’s, hepling the Iraqis / Afghanis, spreading democracy and so on (fucking for virginity?)
This is a war of terror, not against terror, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was terrorism. Bush is a (religious nutcase) terrorist and massmurderer, so is Cheney, Rice, and so on.
They knew 911 was going to happen (perhaps even took certain steps to assure that it did happen) and then voila, their wet imperialist dreams, mass slaughter dreams could now be pursued. And now maybe Iran is up next, and McCain seems to be all for it considering him always joking about killing Iranians.
You know what, fuck the dumbass soldiers in Iraq / Afghanistan that are getting killed, no wonder, they are attacking women and children and so on! Not fighting terrorists, because you are not a terrorist for defending your country aginst illegal invaders. Period!
Thank you.
Lisa for future reference, just stick to your point. You would have been fine to say that soldiers need better care. But sharing you opinions on the war just leads to drivel from idiots like Seraph at #200.
Thank you for your advice Matt. I will definitely take that into future consideration, seriously.
I’m not gonna cry over some killed or maimed american, canadian (or whatever) soldiers, that are dumb enough to fight a war that has nothing to do with what was originally claimed – finding wmd’s, hepling the Iraqis / Afghanis, spreading democracy and so on (fucking for virginity?)
We’re not asking you to cry over us, asshole. Our morale is our problem, not yours or anyone else’s who isn’t there (yes, I’m also looking at all of you neocon twits with your “you ain’t supportin’ da troops” bullshit). Unless you’ve crawled under automatic weapons fire yourself, thanks, but I can do fine without the armchair soldiering. I do take exception to your “dumb enough” comment, however. If you really think we have a choice in where we get deployed, then you’re misinformed to the point where you might want to consider the appropriateness of making commentary. A good number of us were in the service before 9/11 and many of us didn’t sign up to go “kill ragheads.” We go where we’re fucking sent, and we try to serve with honor. But of course not stereotyping us would require you to actually think, right? So much more difficult than just painting us all with the same brush. Let me guess–you also think I vote Republitard and drive a pickup, right?
Yeah, Bush is a religious nutcase, among numerous other rather terrible things. So what? That really isn’t the point after you’ve taken the oath. I’ve had to personally salute the man, even though I hold no respect for him as either a leader or a human being. If you’re not aware of the distinction between him and the office, perhaps you should bone up on a few additional points before you offer such enlightened commentary.
Also, whereas we might actually be in agreement as to the mess that is Iraq, you might want to go back and check on why we went into A-Stan in the first place…
But that would only be if you cared about accuracy. I see no indication from your comment that you do.
Unfortunately, Seraph’s opinion is representative of the majority of public opinion outside the USA (and a minority within).
It doesn’t make it “right”, and I absolutely don’t share his opinion.
But it gives me great sorrow, to realise that the United States soldiers, who once were so admired everywhere in the world for having liberated it from tirany, are now so detested.
My mother has described to me, this feeling of intense pride and joy both felt when as a little girl, she was carried on the shoulders of an American soldier when they were marching in the streets of Paris after having liberated it. Still have pictures of that scene, you should see both of their smiles, that of the little girl, my mother, and that of this American soldier, and all the people behind.
Where are such memories from Afghanistan and Iraq ?
#150
Yes. However, this problem could also have been lessened by the Ox and Bucks. At Pegasus Bridge they held out against about half of the 21st SS Panzer Div. until reinforcement (The commander of the German units that day was Hans von Luck, one of those closest to the great Rommel (with battle achievements including spearheading Rommel’s drive across France, reaching deepest into Moscow in 1941 and capturing David Stirling in Africa). If he, with a half regiment of panzers and Panzer grenadiers, could not dislodge them until relief several hours later, it is unlikely 2nd SS Pz. Corps could have, with the rest of the commandoes to fight as well. (especially if the atrocious mistake of not dropping troops all at the same time had been rectified; the troops at Arnhem were dropped after reports were reaching German commanders of an airborne operation.)
Posted by: Seraph | August 14, 2008 7:35 AM
No one’s asking you to cry for anyone. But since we’re on the topic, I’m not going to cry over a civilian losing their rights in this country when they’re spouting this insane babble you’re putting forth here. With no military, the people have no defense from anyone – and that includes the government itself. I shouldn’t need to remind you that the military is a small cross-section of our population. It is not – though some are trying to turn it into this – a hegemonic force bent on attacking civilians and doing Bush’s dastardly deeds. He told us to go into Iraq, and we had to do it. No one had recourse to refuse, save for those upper echelon leaders at the beginning of the war, a few of whom stuck to their guns and resigned over the misuse of power. The soldier on the ground did not have that option. Keep calling for the elimination of the army – just don’t expect your rights as a citizen to be far behind.
You have no idea what the word terrorism means here. The invasion of Afghanistan was as justified as the Iraq invasion was unjustified. But that does not make it terrorism. What that makes it is a horrible abuse of governmental power, and a collection of high-level war crimes.
Oh, here we go. One of these people again…
A. Aside from the war criminals that need to be prosecuted (some have, while others have undoubtedly been able to cover their own asses), soldiers are not “attacking women and children.” But that is something you would have to have valid experience or relevant data in order to understand, two things you’re seriously lacking in your argument.
B. I would say that you might understand the word terrorism here, but I think you’re reasoning is simply a typical broken-clock style stumbling across the truth in the middle of a tired and well-refuted line of argument. The majority of the people I fought in Iraq were definitely not terrorists, which is why we made every effort to make sure that we avoided getting into conflicts in certain areas – we knew where most of the pure insurgents generally were, and simply fought around them when we could. (Cobntrary to pop culture’s suggestion, most soldiers do not go into war clamoring for a firefight, and most of those who do lose that desire promptly following their first firefight. So while you may have tripped across a valid point on terrorism here, you did so only through blind luck and flawed logic.
You’re quite welcome. I hope you enjoy it everytime you see fit to spout bullshit like that, and you can rest easy knowing that such freedom rests upon the very backs of the men and women I served with overseas. So, to put it in a way I have before on a similar discussion: Fuck you, and enjoy your freeedom.
negentropyeater:
While I don’t have one that dramatic, I do have a story within the same vein. I’m off to the VA hospital for an appointment right now, but I’ll jump back on when I get back and offer it up.
@155
This is not a partisan issue. I could care less if it was the Liberals who sent the troops in the first place. In fact, I have no issue with the war per se. My issue is with the continued sacrifice of the lives of Canadian men and women in support of a government who executes people for blasphemy (or, at the very least, avoids executing people for blasphemy only because of western pressure).
We need to tell Afghanistan that either the medieval thinking goes, or we do. At the very least, the current crop of Liberals would like to end this mission in the near future. Mr. Harper and Mr. McKay would like to see it prolonged ad infinitum, util some vague notion of “peace” is achieved. How can there be peace when the leader of the country thinks that critique of a book is grounds for execution?
Is there seriously a conversation going on about why we are in Afghanistan?
PZ, you are by far one of my favorite bloggers, but to allow this tripe to spill out from your website is unthinkable and demeaning. I can always look to you for funny, spirited, and logical arguments. This, however, hardly falls under any of those categories.
I guess you could call me an atheist in a foxhole. I’m doing officer training for the army. I want to be sent to Afghanistan. Simply because we are in a war doesn’t mean it’s a wrong war. Afghanistan was a crusade to deal a blow directly to the Islamists, as well as try to bring a functional democracy to an area that gave sanctuary to essentially any terrorist group that sought it.
Read a book called “Brave New War,” by John Robb, which deals with the super-empowerment of individuals in this day and age. An Islamist who believes in the afterlife for martyrs, who is also driven and educated, (as many Islamists are in this day and age) can inflict massive amounts of damage. The Madrid bombings and 9/11 were both prime examples. By invading Afghanistan, we struck deeply at Al Qaeda. It was only by abhorrent mismanagement and the invasion of Iraq did we stray into dark waters.
In summation, the writer of this article must understand that for some individuals (Islamists), death or isolation is the only way of dealing with them. Few turn back from that path as you cannot prove the Quran and the Hadditha incorrect if the books are believed to be infallible on faith-based reasoning. So would the author of the above article reason we withdraw immediately from Afghanistan? Would the author think of what that defeat would look like to many Muslims around the world? That not only is Islamism viable, but obviously Allah is on their side as the world’s #1 military, as well as the combined forces of the West, were vanquished by the Mujahadeen. Think of the thousands of Afghans who would be slaughtered or displaced by the removal of the little security we strive to supply. Think of the thousands of Afghan cops and soldiers who would crumble and disband, only to be slaughtered in masse upon the withdraw of our soldiers. Think of Pakistan, which would soon bear the brunt of an Islamist wave now that Afghanistan is their sanctuary, and their fighters are freed to continue onwards. But no, all wars are wrong, aren’t they? We must leave.
“”He told us to go into Iraq, and we had to do it. No one had recourse to refuse, save for those upper echelon leaders at the beginning of the war, a few of whom stuck to their guns and resigned over the misuse of power. The soldier on the ground did not have that option. Keep calling for the elimination of the army – just don’t expect your rights as a citizen to be far behind””.
I agreed with much of what you say, but not this. With no military, HOW is the government going to remove your liberties?
They would have to field an internal police force, which, as you mentioned about the army, is made up of a cross-section of Americans, which, as you argue, is the buffer between an individual and government. So your statement sort of shrivels up like a scrotum in the pool, doesn’t it?
Why is America closing down bases in America and opening them up overseas? What kind of national defence are we looking at?
America has no interests overseas. Corporations have interests overseas. Why do Americans pay 20% or so of their taxes to protect corporate profits and reduce corporate risks?
If you get rid of the income tax completely, and force the reduction of the federal power structure, giving states more control over their own tax base and restoring the balance of power between the states and the federal government, these Iraq debacles would be much harder to promote and sustain. The federal government would have to go back to begging the states for money, and not the other way around.
“I hope you enjoy it everytime you see fit to spout bullshit like that, and you can rest easy knowing that such freedom rests upon the very backs of the men and women I served with overseas”…
This canard can only be spouted so many times before its paint cracks and the real picture underneath starts to show through. My freedoms were never in any jeapardy by a small, poorly trained and poorly armed Iraq. In fact, I had more freedoms before the invasion of Iraq.
I suppose it is often stated by servicemen and women to give meaning to what they have been asked to do, but it doesn’t ring true. Civilians who stand up to the usurpation of liberties being taken by the federal government, while putting less physically on the line, are actually doing more to carry the torch of freedom than an obsequious military grunt who does what they are told.
These people have selflessly given up their lives for the rest of us.
I don’t come here to read crap. I can do that anywhere.
“I just think it’s unfortunate that they were sent there in the first place). ”
Why? What was the alternative? The Taliban was not going to go away simply because we asked them nicely. (Which we did by the way.)
PZ, I love this blog and I am an active duty officer in the US Army but comments like the one above kinda make me scratch my head and wonder what you were thinking when you wrote that.
All of us who signed up after 9/11 know that we will deploy and that is a risk we face, particularly if we are in the combat arms branches.
Every soldier knows this. This is an inherent risk of our chosen profession.
Note the use of the word: chosen.
Soldiers will die.
That is a reality of our lives.
We signed up to go into Harm’s Way.
We accept it with both eyes open when we signed up.
Respectfully yours.
B
1LT BMN:
He didn’t write this. PZ has been incommunicado in the Galapagos for a week, and a guest blogger named Lisa J made this entry under the ‘PZMinion’ tag.
Your opinion is still completely valid and welcome, of course. I just wanted to make sure you were directing it to the right person :)
Thanks for clarifying that Danio. Yes people, I wrote this post, not PZ. I know some people don’t like it. Sorry, I’m not PZ and I’m not perfect. I do appreciate the constructive comments though from those who choose to disagree and offer their viewpoints respectfully.
Not to belabor the obvious in the context, but people dying is worse.
While I sympathize with your feelings, your characterization is way off. Many European nations are tired of wars because they have participated in so many. Sweden was once a global power (of the time), so have fought unjustly wars more than most.
IIRC a swedish author once remarked that Sweden has fought with Russia 5 times – won two wars, lost two and fought one to a draw.
Assuming that is true, and using your own logic, when you have done as much you could come back and be opinionated on swedes current pacifism. (Which, again obviously, means that Sweden actually is active, but mostly against aggression.)
Actually I could emphasize that description some more. One reason Swedes are tired of wars is that there was a time when wars was a make-or-break dealer for economy (and it mostly ruined it).
But mostly because of facts like that IIRC there were places in Dalarna where most young men went to war, but more than half of them died abroad. So excuse us for thinking that warfare, even the modern type, is nothing to accept lightly.
Posted by: Scott from Oregon | August 14, 2008 2:15 PM
With no military drawn from the ranks of the populace, you really can’t see how the government would hedge its bets on controlling their country? You must not have heard of Blackwater, and not just their “security contractors” that have made so much trouble for us in that country. They also recently announced plans for a new department, specializing in commerical intelligence, ranging from anything from economic spying or international espionage, they will have men ready for the hiring. But while we’re protected from our federal government’s intelligence community – supposedly – by the law that prohibits the CIA from operating on domestic soil, these new merc-spies wouldn’t even have to worry about that thin pretense. The entire idea of getting rid of the Army by declaring the choice to serve as immoral only helps them further privatize our military and ensure that the public power to change the status quo is effectively eliminated.
It does not, for the very reason that a government is not bound to only one source of martial power, which in our case is the volunteer army, but rather once they can get the public out of their business, they will have even more freedom of action to do what they please in the administration of our nation’s government. This is the very reason societies like ours broke from the traditions of having an army loyal to a commander and not the nation. Take the public out of the government’s business, and tranparency disappears – and accountability goes with it.
If you could pull your viewpoint away from current events and recent history to see that our country and its mainstays – the foremost of which was our tradition of maintaining an all-volunteer force of citizen soldiers alongside an active federal force. Though there have been a few instances of compulsion to service when the military needed rapid and massive reinforcement (WWI, WWII), along with one instance – the black stain on our otheriwse favorable tradition of a citizen army – of when the draft was used to sustain a prolonged and expensive war in Vietnam.
So long before you or I was born, the ways of our country and its government, there was the need for and maintenance of armies. And in light of the majority of the rest of the world’s nations and their military policies, ours is one where the individuals who make that choice can feel confident that they are contributing in a great way to ensuring that our population could maintain their right to choose not to serve, a decision that the majority of humans on Earth are not currently free to make. If you want tangible proof of why I think this assertion makes sense, see my earlier post about my estimates of the ratio of soldier to citizen, and how our government does not choose for us which ones of us will serve, and how we would do so.
So we do not say it to give our choice meaning – it is the very meaning of having that choice that made me, and many I served with, join in the first place.
This canard can only be spouted so many times before its paint cracks and the real picture underneath starts to show through. My freedoms were never in any jeapardy by a small, poorly trained and poorly armed Iraq. In fact, I had more freedoms before the invasion of Iraq.
I have to agree with Scott from Oregon here. I respect some of the work soldiers do, and have family in the officer corps, but “we fight for your freedom” is one of the biggest bullshit lines heard around the North American continent. When was the last time the freedom of U.S. citizens directly threatened by an outside power? (I’ll give you the answer: the last instance was the war of 1812 when the British burned D.C. to the ground). Even during World War II–the “good” war, and there are good arguments for why it had to be fought– mainland U.S. was never threatened (remember that Hawaii was a colony of the U.S.). The war was fought for very different strategic reasons (I can provide people with readings if anyone is interested). In fact as Scott points out, wars regularly restrict our freedoms and liberties. You must have heard about Woodrow Wilson’s “red scare” (when we basically had a police state and scores were put in prison, even killed), or the internment of Japanese Americans. The often quoted statement–about how we “fight for freedom”– has exactly zero empirical evidence in its favor.
Scott is also right that civil liberties are often most effectively protected against the government by domestic social movements. Indeed, most of the personal liberties experienced by people in the U.S. can be dated to some supreme court interpretations and judgments, and these in turn can be directly traced to the civil rights movement. Most of the wide ranging freedom of speech judgments were handed down in the 60s, and the cases involved can be directly traced to the Civil rights movement. So can I request people to please not use the “freedom” line to justify wars….?
Sorry about the tags….was a mistake
@Torbjörn Larsson, #215
Well said. I would add, they’ve had real experience in the consequences of war also. Fewer US citizens would be eager to go to war if more wars had been fought on US soil.
@Scott from Oregon
Agreed.
False. Before you can have something called ‘civilians’, you have to have a military (or some other force) that protects your system of government from external threats. We may someday evolve something that supercedes a standing military as the best way to preserve a system of government, but we’re not there yet.
Georgia is, right this minute, providing a rather harsh object lesson in this regard.
“False. Before you can have something called ‘civilians’, you have to have a military (or some other force) that protects your system of government from external threats”.
Ummm, False. And only in the manner that we Americans practice “the military”.
There is a difference in a military that protects our nation, and a military that participates in geo-manipulation.
They are not one and the same ideal, and manifest themselves quite differently.
A domestic military designed and outfitted to protect the US is a far different military than one designed and outfitted to occupy other countries and fight global ideological battles against poor brown people.
@Scott from Oregon
The issue I’m referring to is the legitimacy of folks in uniform to say “we protect your freedoms”. I submit, on the strictest level of definition, that this is correct.
The military we have right now is the one we have right now.
And among the other, far less altruistic purposes to which it is being put, it still serves this fundamental purpose by its very existance.
There is definitely something wrong with a culture in which “pacifist” is a form of abuse…
@ Jams, #145:
The operation mentioned in the post (from 2002) is:
There has been some discussion above as to why service personnel choose to enlist, and on what conditions. I find it confusing slightly. If the oath of enlistment is to protect the constitution from enemies, foreign and domestic, why is there so much concentration on the foreign side?
I’ve read BrokenSoldier OM comment on the deterioration of the service and corruption in officer ranks, and also read here and elsewhere about how the forces are not actually defending us but working for corporate power against our interests. I’m also glad that BrokenSoldier OM brought up the subject of Rio Negro/Blackwater as an example of what I think an ‘honourable’ military should be defending us against.
When do we get to decide that the military ought to be protecting out constitution from the real threats, not the made-up ones? I ask this as I have recently heard BBC editorials praising the turkish military for standing up to a democratically elected government with a so-called islamist agenda.
I’ve been to Iraq twice, Afghanistan once, and my views go something like this… We should not have gone to Iraq in the first place, as we attacked for made up reasons, which themselves weren’t even all that powerful. The best way to show that you support the troops is to advocate their return, alive and in one piece, as soon as possible. There is nothing to “win” and “surging to victory” makes no sense. Define a victorious situation in Iraq! Personally, it bugs me when people thank me for my service, because I feel I didn’t serve my country at all like I thought I would. I feel that our needless war over there created more enemies.
When it comes to Afghanistan, to my understanding, that is where the terrorist training camps allegedly were. So to at least some extent, I support our involvement there. Action needed to be taken. I just don’t think all the decisions made since have pushed us forward. If things were done right, we could already be out of there.
As for the comments that blame soldiers for signing up, and therefore deserve no respect or sympathy, I’d like to clarify that when we sign up, it’s assumed in the oath that we take that we will be defending our country and constitution. Unfortunately, in the end we don’t get to pick the wars.
that is what war is all about loses
Afghanistan is a particularly important war that should transcend partisan political opinion.
The critics always astound me. Liberals are the one’s who should be shouting the loudest for more troops, money & political commitment to ensure a final victory in this war on 12th century, religious fundamentalism.
If in doubt –http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2008/07/14/taliban-execute-two-women_8350.html
– PaulB@167
Paulb and everyone else spouting about the nobility of the war in Afghanistan, I direct your attention to the following, from “About RAWA” (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan)http://www.rawa.org/rawa.html :
The US “War on terrorism” removed the Taliban regime in October 2001, but it has not removed religious fundamentalism which is the main cause of all our miseries. In fact, by reinstalling the warlords in power in Afghanistan, the US administration is replacing one fundamentalist regime with another. The US government and Mr.Karzai mostly rely on Northern Alliance criminal leaders who are as brutal and misogynist as the Taliban.
RAWA believes that freedom and democracy can’t be donated; it is the duty of the people of a country to fight and achieve these values. Under the US-supported government, the sworn enemies of human rights, democracy and secularism have gripped their claws over our country and attempt to restore their religious fascism on our people.
Ach! Totally screwed up the tags – hence this repost:
Afghanistan is a particularly important war that should transcend partisan political opinion.
The critics always astound me. Liberals are the one’s who should be shouting the loudest for more troops, money & political commitment to ensure a final victory in this war on 12th century, religious fundamentalism.
If in doubt – http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2008/07/14/taliban-execute-two-women_8350.html
– PaulB@167
PaulB and everyone else spouting about the nobility of the war in Afghanistan, I direct your attention to the following, from “About RAWA” (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) http://www.rawa.org/rawa.html:
The US “War on terrorism” removed the Taliban regime in October 2001, but it has not removed religious fundamentalism which is the main cause of all our miseries. In fact, by reinstalling the warlords in power in Afghanistan, the US administration is replacing one fundamentalist regime with another. The US government and Mr.Karzai mostly rely on Northern Alliance criminal leaders who are as brutal and misogynist as the Taliban.
RAWA believes that freedom and democracy can’t be donated; it is the duty of the people of a country to fight and achieve these values. Under the US-supported government, the sworn enemies of human rights, democracy and secularism have gripped their claws over our country and attempt to restore their religious fascism on our people.