Unrest in Iraq, is anyone surprised?

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Originally Posted by Xei

So basically Caprisun, random authorities are moral arbiters, and not yourself. That's all you have to say in your defence. And then you ignore the moral arbiters when they disagree; again, the head of the UN declared the Iraq war against international law. And you arbitrarily declare other armies to be 'unofficial' in order to maintain your ridiculously asymmetric beliefs that everybody you're in conflict with is not justified in exactly the same way that you claim to be.

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What authorities are you talking about? What makes you think they are random? Who/what are they disagreeing with? I don't think I quite understand what you are saying. You are ultimately the arbiter of your own code of ethics. Nobody can take away the beliefs you hold inside your head. But you should understand that when you join the military, legally, you are defering to another authority, if only for a while. It would be wise not to commit yourself to an organization which does not mirror your set of values. People in America are free to exercise their will. They don't have to be a part of an "illegal" war if they don't want to. They are also free to leave the country if they are strong in their convictions.

Neither the Taliban nor Al Qaeda is officially endorsed as the army of any real nation. Members have no legal obligation to serve. That's why they are not "official." It isn't arbitrary.

I'm not even trying to say that I'm justified and others are not. I thought we were talking about the moral implications of military service in America.

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Originally Posted by Xei

The war in Iraq was based on a total lie, hundreds of thousands of civilians are dead, the country is going to fall apart, you've perpetuated terrorism and hence endangered your own country; what is your moral excuse for continuing to serve??

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There are a number of legitimate reasons to continue to serve (and I don't really like that you call it an "excuse," Im not excusing or apologizing for anyone.) One of the most notable being there are no more American troops fighting in Iraq and the war is officially over. It also depends on what you do in the military. Special forces such as what MarineRecon is a part of do more to create peace and prosperity than most humanitarian organizations, sadly. Another person might feel compelled to protect his brothers in arms. He'll say, "as long as my countrymen are somwhere fighting and getting shot at, I want to be there with them to do my part and make sure they get home safe." That is a legitimate moral imperative in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Laughing Man

Apparently you've never heard of stop-loss.

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I should know better than to engage Laughing Man in a debate, but here goes nothin: "The policy has been legally challenged several times. However, federal courts have consistently found that military service members contractually agree that their term of service may be involuntarily extended until the end of their obligated service."

Stop-loss policy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Originally Posted by Caprisun

There are a number of legitimate reasons to continue to serve (and I don't really like that you call it an "excuse," Im not excusing or apologizing for anyone.) One of the most notable being there are no more American troops fighting in Iraq and the war is officially over. It also depends on what you do in the military. Special forces such as what MarineRecon is a part of do more to create peace and prosperity than most humanitarian organizations, sadly. Another person might feel compelled to protect his brothers in arms. He'll say, "as long as my countrymen are somwhere fighting and getting shot at, I want to be there with them to do my part and make sure they get home safe." That is a legitimate moral imperative in my opinion.

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1. American troops may be out, but that does not mean the American presence is out. Imperialism is about leaving but making sure that you're still in control of the country. Are the American bases also going to get up and just fly out of the country?

2. "as long as my countrymen are somwhere fighting and getting shot at, I want to be there with them to do my part and make sure they get home safe." I'm sure a lot of Iraqi and Afghan "insurgents" say that to themselves too.

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Originally Posted by Different

Reminds me of the Nazis.

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That's how it is in every Military. That's what a Military does, follow orders. Please, before youstart a debate about a war learn exactly what a Military is. If not then get out of this thread.

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Originally Posted by Caprisun

I should know better than to engage Laughing Man in a debate, but here goes nothin: "The policy has been legally challenged several times. However, federal courts have consistently found that military service members contractually agree that their term of service may be involuntarily extended until the end of their obligated service."

Stop-loss policy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Don't say that the contract never changes when you get into the military because stop-loss clearly shows that it does happen and it can happen without the consent of one of the parties involved namely the signers of the contract.

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Originally Posted by MarineRecon

That's how it is in every Military. That's what a Military does, follow orders. Please, before youstart a debate about a war learn exactly what a Military is. If not then get out of this thread.

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Well now you are just obfuscating. Are there or are there not there such things as illegal orders in the military? If you are told to kill a civilian, are you require to follow that order?

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Originally Posted by MarineRecon

That's how it is in every Military. That's what a Military does, follow orders. Please, before youstart a debate about a war learn exactly what a Military is. If not then get out of this thread.

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I'm studying the history of warfare 1792-1945, so I'll stay here.

Do the US military even know why they were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan?

We went to war with Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction. Just like how we are about to go to war with Iran because they are developing weapons of mass destruction. Oh wait that was just propaganda, Iraq didn't have WMDs and there is no evidence Iran is developing them either. In fact all evidence suggest that Iran stopped working towards nuclear weapons a decade ago.

I am sure the military doesn't know why we are in Iraq and Afghanistan, or why we may end up in Iran. They are vague and hidden political reasons, that most Americans in general don't even know.

yup.

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Originally Posted by MarineRecon

If you would read what I said then you might actually understand what the hell Im saying.

I have already made my choice. I know what Im doing. I think what Im doing is right. I don't care about what your think. End of story.

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I have read what you said. You first said something about the war being good for children, then you said something about disagreeing with it, then you said it was ok. I was just trying to clarify.

wikileaks anyone?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4z6DhaDBvE

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Originally Posted by Different

1. American troops may be out, but that does not mean the American presence is out. Imperialism is about leaving but making sure that you're still in control of the country. Are the American bases also going to get up and just fly out of the country?

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I hope they don't fly away. I say an American presence is what is needed to keep stability. History clearly shows that in terms of major American invasions, the countries that were left to fend for themselves tended to fare poorly while the countries where we remain today prosper (Germany, Japan, South Korea; as opposed to Vietnam, Somalia, Cuba, and Panama.) Speculate all you want about our intentions, but you can't deny that statistically Iraq stands a much better chance with an American presence.

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Originally Posted by Different

2. "as long as my countrymen are somwhere fighting and getting shot at, I want to be there with them to do my part and make sure they get home safe." I'm sure a lot of Iraqi and Afghan "insurgents" say that to themselves too.

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I'm sure some of them do. Though their situation is quite different. You can begin to see how many different shades of grey there are in these types of issues. Again, I'm not trying to say an American's choice to fight is more legitimate than another's.

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Originally Posted by Laughing Man

Don't say that the contract never changes when you get into the military because stop-loss clearly shows that it does happen and it can happen without the consent of one of the parties involved namely the signers of the contract.

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Laughing Man, the stop-loss policy is clearly written in the contract. When you sign the contract you are giving your consent.

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Originally Posted by Laughing Man

Well now you are just obfuscating. Are there or are there not there such things as illegal orders in the military? If you are told to kill a civilian, are you require to follow that order?

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That was already covered, we are aware of unlawful orders. Get with the program.

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Originally Posted by Caprisun

History clearly shows that in terms of major American invasions, the countries that were left to fend for themselves tended to fare poorly while the countries where we remain today prosper (Germany, Japan, South Korea; as opposed to Vietnam, Somalia, Cuba, and Panama.) Speculate all you want about our intentions, but you can't deny that statistically Iraq stands a much better chance with an American presence.

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So do you think it is safe to pull out of German and Japan yet? Or will both of those countries crumble into chaos if we leave? And do we need to have a base in Iraq for 60 years until things are fixed there?

There doesn't seem to be any sign of the US pulling out of Iraq any time soon though. I believe the plan was to permanently station 15,000 people there.

All gonna be just dirt in the ground.

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Originally Posted by Caprisun

Laughing Man, the stop-loss policy is clearly written in the contract. When you sign the contract you are giving your consent.

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Do you have a contract right in front of you confirming this? If so can you scan it and present it?

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Originally Posted by Caprisun

That was already covered, we are aware of unlawful orders. Get with the program.

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I am making a point implicitly. If there are such things as unlawful orders, or orders that are given which are not suppose to be followed then being in the military is not just "following orders." It involves but is not limited to deciding what is and is not a lawful order which in turn requires that a soldier think beyond just "following orders." This in turn requires the soldier to be a free-willed agent who can choose to or choose not to follow an order.

http://usmilitary.about.com/library/pdf/enlistment.pdf

Nevermind, I have the DD 4/1 contract. Please, show me where it says anything about stop-loss.

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Originally Posted by Alric

So do you think it is safe to pull out of German and Japan yet? Or will both of those countries crumble into chaos if we leave? And do we need to have a base in Iraq for 60 years until things are fixed there?

There doesn't seem to be any sign of the US pulling out of Iraq any time soon though. I believe the plan was to permanently station 15,000 people there.

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Of course it's safe to leave Germany and Japan, but why would we want to? We are allies, we can work together.

I've been saying for years that we should be in Iraq indefinitely, not just for our sake but for the sake of the entire Middle East.

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Originally Posted by Laughing Man

I am making a point implicitly. If there are such things as unlawful orders, or orders that are given which are not suppose to be followed then being in the military is not just "following orders." It involves but is not limited to deciding what is and is not a lawful order which in turn requires that a soldier think beyond just "following orders." This in turn requires the soldier to be a free-willed agent who can choose to or choose not to follow an order.

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Yes. I am aware of this. You still don't choose to go to Iraq or Afghanistan and you don't choose to patrol this town or that town. You follow orders that are legal. That was implied.

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Originally Posted by Laughing Man

http://usmilitary.about.com/library/pdf/enlistment.pdf

Nevermind, I have the DD 4/1 contract. Please, show me where it says anything about stop-loss.

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That is no contract. But don't waste your time looking for one, I already showed a link that said federal courts have ruled that military personnel contractual agree that their terms of service might be involuntarily extended. That means it's in there somewhere. It has to have a legal basis or it couldn't be enforced.

"The policy has been legally challenged several times. However, federal courts have consistently found that military service members contractually agree that their term of service may be involuntarily extended until the end of their obligated service."

Stop-loss policy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When you join the Military you follow LEGAL orders. You have the right to not follow an order if it is ILLEGAL. Also, soldiers do not choose to kill innocents. Their commanders do not tell them to kill innocents. That video that someone posted is clearly wrong. He has obviously never served in the Military and he does not seem to even know firsthand what is going on over there.

The people who accidentally killed innocents are under trained soldiers. Yes, Im angry at them. They ruin the Military's reputation so people like you can have "solid evidence" to prove your point. Young soldiers shouldn't join the Military if they are going to think of themselves better than the civilians living in Iraq and Afghanistan. If they get scared (which is very easy at first) then it is their fault. There should be a punishment of some sort. The training for the Military should be harder and more advanced to help combat the problem. Most of the soldiers know what they're doing though.

You can't blame the whole Military for something a scared 17 year old does. Most of the Military members are honest and hardworking people. They would give their lives to save a family in the Middle East because it is the right thing to do. I know I would at least. I think training should put more emphasis on how important it is to not kill a civilian.

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Originally Posted by Laughing Man

I really do not understand this reverence for military soldiers. A soldier here has said that war is terrible and I think many of us would agree. Yet what makes war terrible? The actions of those involved. The inhumanity in which they are enacted. Who is doing these inhuman actions? The soldiers themselves. So why do we revere men and women who do these terrible things? Why paste the false premise that they are securing our rights by killing others? Who gives us our rights? Soldiers and government? I think not. I find the truth to be that my rights, as they stand right now, are more in danger from the institution of government and their "tool" called the military. As my signature says below, war is all the horrors of human nature compacted into a singular event but war is not a separate entity. It is the concentrated actions of individuals. Actions show preference.

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It's cognitive dissonance. The "proud" part, whether the soldier or the people from the soldier's country of origin, is simply due to this bullshit patriotism stuff. Which literally no one can define or explain logically.

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Originally Posted by tommo

It's cognitive dissonance. The "proud" part, whether the soldier or the people from the soldier's country of origin, is simply due to this bullshit patriotism stuff. Which literally no one can define or explain logically.

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Ernest Becker literally defined it decades ago.

Ernest Becker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Originally Posted by MarineRecon

When you join the Military you follow LEGAL orders. You have the right to not follow an order if it is ILLEGAL. Also, soldiers do not choose to kill innocents. Their commanders do not tell them to kill innocents. That video that someone posted is clearly wrong. He has obviously never served in the Military and he does not seem to even know firsthand what is going on over there.

The people who accidentally killed innocents are under trained soldiers. Yes, Im angry at them. They ruin the Military's reputation so people like you can have "solid evidence" to prove your point. Young soldiers shouldn't join the Military if they are going to think of themselves better than the civilians living in Iraq and Afghanistan. If they get scared (which is very easy at first) then it is their fault. There should be a punishment of some sort. The training for the Military should be harder and more advanced to help combat the problem. Most of the soldiers know what they're doing though.

You can't blame the whole Military for something a scared 17 year old does. Most of the Military members are honest and hardworking people. They would give their lives to save a family in the Middle East because it is the right thing to do. I know I would at least. I think training should put more emphasis on how important it is to not kill a civilian.

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The thing is, different soldiers are given different orders because this is a PR war as much as it is a physical war and they cannot have every soldier thinking they can do whatever they want. The following testimony is not only delivered by someone that served in Iraq but served for 3 tours.

In that case that was a scared ass commander then. Thats what happens when the Military training is so easy. The commander managed to get to that rank and he still thought of himself higher than others. They should teach you that it is your responsibility to not just shoot anybody. Whoever shoots an innocent should get punished. Also they need to teach you that you are no better than anybody in Iraq or Afghanistan.

I believe they would teach that consistently if they valued ethics over tactics but they don't. They teach good ethics when it suits the mission.

When I watch Bomb Squad, Afghanistan, I see soldiers handing out candy to the kids and stuff. They say it's about winning the Hearts and Minds, and that's true. For a colonization to be successful, one must win the hearts and minds of the people. That's why one unit is told they need to treat the locals with respect and use only the force necessary and another unit is told that the ends justify the means.

When we colonized the Philippines, in order to get our Pacifists to go along with it, the nation was told it was to bring democracy to the Philippines. This backfired when the Filipinos revolted against the US occupiers in order to reign in an actual democracy rather than simple annexation.

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Originally Posted by Caprisun

Yes. I am aware of this. You still don't choose to go to Iraq or Afghanistan and you don't choose to patrol this town or that town. You follow orders that are legal. That was implied.

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The discussion is whether soldiers are just tools that follow orders or if they have the capacity to think beyond "just following orders." Honestly, you are not apart of this point and I don't know why you are getting involved. This was directed at MarineRecon.

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Originally Posted by Caprisun

That is no contract. But don't waste your time looking for one, I already showed a link that said federal courts have ruled that military personnel contractual agree that their terms of service might be involuntarily extended. That means it's in there somewhere. It has to have a legal basis or it couldn't be enforced.

"The policy has been legally challenged several times. However, federal courts have consistently found that military service members contractually agree that their term of service may be involuntarily extended until the end of their obligated service."

Stop-loss policy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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That is the DD 4/1 contract which every military service utilizes. Where does it say in the DD 4/1 contract that Stop Loss is acceptable?

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Originally Posted by MarineRecon

When you join the Military you follow LEGAL orders. You have the right to not follow an order if it is ILLEGAL. Also, soldiers do not choose to kill innocents. Their commanders do not tell them to kill innocents. That video that someone posted is clearly wrong. He has obviously never served in the Military and he does not seem to even know firsthand what is going on over there.

The people who accidentally killed innocents are under trained soldiers. Yes, Im angry at them. They ruin the Military's reputation so people like you can have "solid evidence" to prove your point. Young soldiers shouldn't join the Military if they are going to think of themselves better than the civilians living in Iraq and Afghanistan. If they get scared (which is very easy at first) then it is their fault. There should be a punishment of some sort. The training for the Military should be harder and more advanced to help combat the problem. Most of the soldiers know what they're doing though.

You can't blame the whole Military for something a scared 17 year old does. Most of the Military members are honest and hardworking people. They would give their lives to save a family in the Middle East because it is the right thing to do. I know I would at least. I think training should put more emphasis on how important it is to not kill a civilian.

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So then the military DOES NOT "just follow orders" as you previously stated. It needs the capacity to distinguish legal codes which implies some sense of morality and ability of choice.

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Originally Posted by Laughing Man

The discussion is whether soldiers are just tools that follow orders or if they have the capacity to think beyond "just following orders." Honestly, you are not apart of this point and I don't know why you are getting involved. This was directed at MarineRecon.

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They are human beings, of course they can think beyond orders. You know that, I know that, MarineRecon knows that. So cut to the chase, what point are you trying to make? When he says he's only following orders he obviously means legal orders.

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Originally Posted by Laughing Man

That is the DD 4/1 contract which every military service utilizes. Where does it say in the DD 4/1 contract that Stop Loss is acceptable?

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That's not a contract, it's a wikipedia page. I can see you won't be satisfied until I hold a contract in front of your face, so Im just gonna leave you unsatisfied. If federal courts ruled that it was in there, it's in there. It might not even explicitly use the term "stop-loss." Im not about to waste my time.

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Originally Posted by Caprisun

They are human beings, of course they can think beyond orders. You know that, I know that, MarineRecon knows that. So cut to the chase, what point are you trying to make? When he says he's only following orders he obviously means legal orders.

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This is the problem with you getting involved in a discussion that I told you that you had no place in. Now you say ridiculous things and are a mouthpiece of someone without actually reading what they are saying.

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Originally Posted by MarineRecon

A tool that is used by the government. If you join the Military then you do what your told. We're pawns.

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Originally Posted by MarineRecon

In the Military people don't really want your opinion. You do what you're told and thats it.

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Originally Posted by MarineRecon

Its not the soldiers decision on what they do. We're tools.

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Originally Posted by MarineRecon

It may be a dumb reason but its not our choice to say so. We do what we are commanded.

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Originally Posted by MarineRecon

Soldiers are basically an extension. They are a tool and nothing else. Obama asks us to do something, we do it. No questions asked. I agree, everything we do may not be moral, but if it has been commanded then it is our job to get it done.

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I'll say it again, this discussion I am having with MarineRecon has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with an attempt to pass the blame of someone's actions as a free willed agent onto those above them who "command" them to carry out orders. This is what MarineRecon is currently doing.

So..shut up...

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Originally Posted by Caprisun

That's not a contract, it's a wikipedia page. I can see you won't be satisfied until I hold a contract in front of your face, so Im just gonna leave you unsatisfied. If federal courts ruled that it was in there, it's in there. It might not even explicitly use the term "stop-loss." Im not about to waste my time.

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I am showing you the contract. That link is to the contract that every military member must sign in order to join the military. You are showing a wikipedia page. Just because a court says its there does not mean it actually is. Judges can have a false interpretation or interpretation that goes beyond the original scope of the document and this does not infer that this is moral.