The morality of war

[ZenGum]

Policing is different.

But yes, I think that "armchair moralist" at least entails "hypocrite", if not being an exact synonym.

[sexobon]

There are always differences, there are differences between US conventional forces and spec. ops. forces. to the extent that they operate under separate chains of command. In order to economize, the US went to the Total Force concept back in the '80s and police like Big Sarge, who would join the National Guard expecting to be called up for domestic humanitarian and police actions are being deployed into foreign conflicts. The differences between police and military are narrowing through overlapping participation which brings the legitimacy of the double standard into question as the domestic and foreign threats become more similar in nature. Just sayin'.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I'm having a hard time imagining a US soldier in Afghanistan, out on patrol, with the imminent threat of being killed/maimed coming from every direction including below, pondering the Geneva Convention rules or the morality/wisdom of the "Big Picture".

Granted I've never been in that situation, but I do know shit happen fast, a be quick or be dead moment. So it seems logical to be pondering survival, not only for self preservation, but because dead/wounded don't achieve objectives.

[sexobon]

Well, you know, the "Kill 'em all, let God sort them out." strategy doesn't work for atheists. Go figure.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I'm having a hard time imagining a US soldier in Afghanistan, out on patrol, with the imminent threat of being killed/maimed coming from every direction including below, pondering the Geneva Convention rules or the morality/wisdom of the "Big Picture".

Granted I've never been in that situation, but I do know shit happen fast, a be quick or be dead moment. So it seems logical to be pondering survival, not only for self preservation, but because dead/wounded don't achieve objectives.

That's what training is for. Do the pondering in advance (well, not pondering, going over hypothetical situations and what should be done in them). Then when it happens for real, it's "just" a matter of deciding which scenario this is, and acting accordingly.

I know, I made that sound easy, and it isn't. How a soldier is supposed to tell a friendly village kid trying to mooch some candy, from a hostile village kid pretending to mooch candy so he can scout your position and inform the enemy, is beyond me.

[DanaC]

Interesting little comment piece in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...oral-scars-war

In trying to understand the ongoing suicide epidemic among soldiers and veterans a third factor in addition to physical injuries and PTSD is now being discussed: the moral injuries they bring back.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs recently coined the terminology and is spot-on in its choice. During my officer training at Sandhurst in the UK, I was taught that fighting power – the ability to operate in war – could be broken down to three mutually dependent components: physical (the means to operate), conceptual (the ideas behind how to operate), and moral (the ability to get people to operate).

Soldiers leave theatres of war affected to different degrees in those three areas, each of which influences their ability to operate once home. The physical and conceptual are all too apparent: the soldier who had his testicles blown off or who wakes up screaming at night. Moral scars, though less noticeable, have a way of cutting deep, also. And they are not negated as easily as many suppose.

Convenient arguments justifying killing legitimate enemies in the line of duty don't hold up well for Iraq and Afghanistan. This was illustrated shortly after my arrival in Helmand province, when a soldier told me about his patrol getting ambushed.

During the ensuing firefight with the Taliban, he spotted a girl – he reckoned a four-year-old – on the roof of an Afghan compound, holding a mobile phone to her ear. He assessed she was a Taliban mortar fire controller, directing intense enemy fire onto his patrol's position; they were pinned down as a result. He radioed a jet and directed it to drop a bomb on the girl and the building.

"I did what I had to do," he told me.

Not such an easy one for armchair moralists to call. Countless soldiers return with such experiences on their consciences.

"I'm no longer the 'good' person I once thought I was," wrote Timothy Kudo, an ex-US marine corps captain, of life after an Afghanistan tour and ordering the deaths of others. He nails a dilemma most veterans face: the only people who can forgive us are dead.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I knew quite a few guys coming home from Vietnam saying what the fuck was that about. I did my tour, my national duty, and nothing changed. Nothing good, nothing bad, nothing but more dead people. For what?

I'm not speaking of draftees either, but guys that were gung ho for god & country, sign me up, volunteers. They came back disgusted and disillusioned.
I've had people tell me these guys expected too much, that draftees didn't care as much, but I think that's bullshit. Draftee does not mean dodger they caught, not by a long shot.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I knew quite a few guys coming home from Vietnam saying what the fuck was that about. I did my tour, my national duty, and nothing changed. Nothing good, nothing bad, nothing but more dead people. For what?

Answer is in Nixon's tapes. Kissinger (then National Security Advisor) and Nixon discussed that Nam could not be won. So why were most casualties on Nixon's watch? Because Nixon was quite clear about his objective. He did not want that war lost on his watch. So he spun his objective: peace with honor. Soldier lives were irrelevant. Most American casualties occurred because of Nixon. Pres Ford took the defeat. Nixon got what he wanted.

One would think we learned from that mistake. The military intentionally placed key assets in the Reserves and Guard so that future wars would have consequences. And still George Jr massacred more American soldiers in Mission Accomplished for similar self serving reasons.

Colin Powell acknowledges that the strategy failed. Moving assets out of active duty units did not avert another foolish crusade. Now we have the decades legacy of so many Americans whose productive future has been harmed for the greater glory of another self serviing president. So many Americans raised to think war is normal and makes a nation stronger. The legacies of that war (not just the so many physically and mentally scarred) taxes everyone's future.

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by sexobon

There are always differences, there are differences between US conventional forces and spec. ops. forces to the extent that they operate under separate chains of command. ...

... The differences between police and military are narrowing through overlapping participation which brings the legitimacy of the double standard into question as the domestic and foreign threats become more similar in nature. Just sayin'.

Obama administration expands elite military unit’s powers to hunt foreign fighters globally

The Obama administration is giving the elite*Joint Special Operations Command — the same organization that helped kill Osama bin Laden in a 2011 raid by Navy SEALs — expanded power to track, plan and potentially launch attacks on terrorist cells around the globe, a move driven by concerns of a dispersed terrorist threat as Islamic State militants are driven from strongholds in Iraq and Syria, U.S. officials said.

The missions could occur well beyond the battlefields of places like Iraq, Syria and Libya where Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) has carried out clandestine operations in the past. When finalized, it will elevate JSOC from being a highly-valued strike tool used by regional military commands to leading a new multiagency intelligence and action force. Known as the “Counter-External Operations Task Force,” the group will be designed to take JSOC’s targeting model — honed over the last 15 years of conflict — and export it globally to go after terrorist networks plotting attacks against the West. ...

... The new JSOC task force will report to the Pentagon through the U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, according to U.S. military officials, creating a hybrid command system that can sidestep regional commanders–with their coordination–for the sake of speed.

In the past, units such as the Army’s Delta Force — which is part of SOCOM and its subordinate command JSOC — were usually deployed under those regional commanders, known as geographic combatant commands. The new task force, however, will alter that process by turning SOCOM’s chief, Army Gen. Raymond “Tony” Thomas, into a decision-maker when it comes to going after threats under the task force’s purview. While Thomas will help guide certian decisions, the operations will ultimately have*to be approved by the White House and the Pentagon. ...

... Officials hope the task force, known throughout the Pentagon as “Ex-Ops,”*will be a clearinghouse for intelligence coordinating and targeting against groups or individuals attempting to plot attacks in places like the United States and Europe. ...

... Over the past decade JSOC has also built strong relations with police agencies in Germany, Britain, France and Turkey, as they have moved to combat the flow of foreign fighters returning to their home countries. ...

... JSOC — rarely mentioned by name by U.S. officials due to the clandestine nature of its work — was cited specifically by Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter last month in Paris after he and Thomas met with defense ministers involved in the fight against the Islamic State. The command “has been put in the lead” of countering the Islamic State’s external operations outside conflict zones, Carter said, surprising some defense officials in Washington. ...

The linked article is longer.