Millionaire Soldier signs on for 3rd tour in Iraq

E3R: "are you seriously attempting to conflate today's US military with the Nazi war machine?"

No. The principles applied at Nuremberg are among the standards that set us apart from the Nazi war machine. It seemed to me as it you were inferring that our oath absolved us of moral responsibility:

"I'm not sure how a soldier can forfeit his or her honor by adhering to their oath, regardless of how odious the task at hand may be."

That caused me to think of Nuremberg- not to slander our Military as Nazis, but to remind you that we have affirmed, at Nuremberg, and in later refinement of the laws of war, that there is personal accountability in our military conduct. Specifically on the Nuremberg Principles, I'm thinking of Principle 4:

vincent28uk: "I think he has watched to many john wayne movies, & he seems to think he is doing good in iraq, there is nothing worse than a soldier fighting for religon & fighting with a bible in his hand."

If you're speaking of E3R, he doesn't seem nearly so extremist as that to me. We're just examining whether there comes a point in a wrongful war when USAmerican troops dishonor themselves and their country by participating in unwarranted aggression.

 

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My point is that the oath is a moral responsibility in and of itself, and fulfilling that responsibility brings honor. The conditions of that oath completely supersede any personal reservation a soldier has, as demonstrated by the requisite waiving of CO status before you can take it. That isn't a modern twist on the Nuremberg defense. It is the result of some very smart people realizing long ago that a military establishment that starts making policy decisions for itself is a very, very bad thing for a democracy. The moment our military starts saying stuff like "hey guys this shit they sent us here to do sucks, time to go home and drink beers" we'll be on the fast track to becoming a junta.

 

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E3R: "My point is that the oath is a moral responsibility in and of itself, and fulfilling that responsibility brings honor."

I can agree, although not so superficially as to agree with any conceivable interpretation of fulfilling the oath.

"The conditions of that oath completely supersede any personal reservation a soldier has, as demonstrated by the requisite waiving of CO status before you can take it."

No, after taking the oath we still have the right and freedom to make conscientious objections, in specific or in general. The oath does not demand that we consider our nation infallible, and every order tacitly lawful. The oath does not convert us into robots.

"a military establishment that starts making policy decisions for itself is a very, very bad thing for a democracy. "

But a soldier who rejects unconstitutional and dishonorable policy is essential to democracy.

"The moment our military starts saying stuff like "hey guys this shit they sent us here to do sucks, time to go home and drink beers"

You know you are misrepresenting the kind of dissent I am raising. I am talking about situations involving dishonorable orders, so dishonorable that you don't need a lawyer to explain the stuation. These situations happen, and are happening today, and are bringing us great dishonor.

 

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hypewaders

Has the US court system ever ruled the wars illegal?
if not then disobaying any orders they were given (in general not specific) would be counted as desertion which i BELIVE carries the death penelty in the US,

Now hands up who wants to die rather than follow there orders?

 

asguard: "Has the US court system ever ruled the wars illegal?"

All war, or do you have a particular war in mind?

"if not then disobaying any orders they were given (in general not specific) would be counted as desertion which i BELIVE carries the death penelty in the US"

No, we are a society that respects conscience, on our better days.

"Now hands up who wants to die rather than follow there orders?"

I would rather die than dishonor my humanity, or my country.

 

i was talking about the iraq war, afganistan was aproved by the SC wether you like the council or not (personally i dont because its a great way for a few large countries to bully all the rest)

 

“Rag heads”, eh?

What a fine example of the "ugly American". :bugeye:

 

asguard: "i was talking about the iraq war"

The Iraq war is an example of national folly meriting dissent on the part of USAmericans under and upholdinng their oaths.

Hercules Rockefeller: 'What a fine example of the "ugly American".'

There is a lot of that going around these days.

 

I am an ugly Canadian. And that was said for his (hypothetical) point of view - I was playing the devil's advocate for Hypewaders argument. Kindly kiss my ass.

 

That is a very foolish soldier. :m:

 

No, society would care because they would know. If you start disobeying orders or committing mutinous acts, you and all those that follow will be punished under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Easy to say something like that on an internet forum...

 

If you start disobeying orders or committing mutinous acts, you and all those that follow will be punished under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

 

You mean that the US Army has more than just poverty stricken blacks forced to die by the hand of the white power structure, but I thought that the liberals and eurofaggotry were telling me the truth ?

 

No, us liberals were lying to you, i cant believe you thought that the army was mostly made up of lower income citizens, I mean look at the thousands of rich people going overseas to fight, when you have that much money, everyone knows the first thing you want to do is see if you can tango with an IED.

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You are just too smart!

 

Flag officers don't make determinations of constitutionality, the Supreme Court does. The military establishment exists to serve the civilian leadership, and by extension, the public who elected them.

I'm not misrepresenting you. This is textbook reductio ad absurdum: You talk about a soldier "reject[ing] dishonorable and unconstitutional policy". There isn't really any other way to read that than as a suggestion that soldiers should evaluate every order they are given on the basis of whether it is constitutional and aligns with their personal and subjective qualification of honorable, and obey or modify said order accordingly. Once you expand that to the military establishment as a whole, you end up with General MacArthur, or further, an outright coup.

If individual soldiers decide they don't like the way they are being employed, they can choose to resign their commission or not reenlist. Otherwise, they need to suck it up and deal with their decision to swear the oath. The only orders to be rightly disobeyed are unlawful ones.

 

Echo3Romeo: "The only orders to be rightly disobeyed are unlawful ones."

I agree with that, underlining that lawful means in accordance with the treaties we are party to- Geneva Conventions, Nuremberg Code, UN Charter, etc.

Harnu: "If you start disobeying orders or committing mutinous acts, you and all those that follow will be punished under the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

When our chain of command violates the Constitution, our oath compels our refusal to comply. That does not mean that every mundane and routine order requires a Constitutional debate. Indescriminate fire, torture, and terrorism are examples of unlawful operations that service members are legally and morally accountable for. We're now in a defining Constitutional debate in the USA -however lopsided it may presently appear- about the Constitutionality of the Iraq war. We have colluded in an unprovoked war of aggression that has been clearly revealed as a direct violation of the UN Charter. If you consider acknowledgement of the meaning and legality of that treaty a breakdown in discipline, then we obviously differ about the Constitutional responsibilities of US Citizen soldiers. Those who understand the Constitution as I do, and who act on their convictions are often punished- but they also enjoy considerable legal support- these Constitutionally-conscientious are receiving much better treatment than the thousands who have been illegally imprisoned as "unlawful combattants", also due to an alarming ignorance about the meaning of an unlawful order.

 

hypewaders: that is more rightly an issue for a) political debate and b) judical oversite

I hardly think that your average grunt in the field is the right person to make that decision

 

Our treaties have no meaning if our "average grunt" is considered immune or incapable of discerning right and wrong in terms of established limits on the legitimate use of force.

 

we arnt talking about the rules of war but more complex issues of wether the war its SELF is legitamate which even lawyers themselves cant seem to agree on. I dont belive ANY Nazi solder was charged with invading poland say, they were charged with THERE actions while following orders

for instance if you watch senate estimates you will see that POLICY decisions are the minster and admistration decisions are the public servants

so to exstraplate the generals would be responcable for there MILLATRY decisions in realation to what they do once there and the minister for defence and the president would be responcable for the war itself

If thats the rules for the generals then the grunts could hardly be held to a higher standed

 

Asguard: "If thats the rules for the generals then the grunts could hardly be held to a higher standed"

The standard is rising steeply for everyone, grunts included. Most reasonable people can agree that we in the USA, like other great powers, haven't comsistenty displayed high moral standards in our foreign adventures. It's not a failure of standards but institutional and personal conduct. At the truest ideological core, there are tangible, and increasingly-unignorable standards that do keep hordes of Americans from becoming cogs in any USAmerican variation on the Wehrmacht crushing Poland. The warheads around here might chalk it all up to apathy, but the ready supply of young people in search of adventure and identity is not drying up.

But something important is changing. We really have come a long way (I'm thinking of humanity) and it is not so easy for US leadership to mobilize wars of aggression and oppression without the emergence of dissent in every rank of our entire society. 9-11 regressed the USA, but we're fast entering the painful process of learning intensively about the consequences of our mostly mindess stampede right over our Constitution and out into the moronic "War on Terror".

The "Lessons of Vietnam", and of Nurmberg, of Iraq, and every other stupid, self-dishonoring, counterproductive war really are being learned. Powerful vested interests are trying desperately to suppress the manifestations of learning, but they will fail soon. The USA can mobilize nothing resembling the scale of human ferocity that was the nazi Wehrmacht, because there is now a much lower proportion of grunts and generals who will participate in face-to-face oppression and atrocity. Our best spinmeisters can't keep the citizenry -including our Soldier citizenry- morally and patriotically sated with hackneyed packs of globally-discredited lies.

A war of occupation is much too protracted and personal to keep American soldiers psychologically insulated from reality. You don't need an ROE card to find killing children troubling- and not only out of empathy: maybe most influencially, accountability is on the increase due to the growth of information technologies. The nascent information revolution is all wrapped up in what is changing. We are approaching an age when no bad deed goes unpublished, and grunts increasingly know it- After all, they're surfing the same internet that you are in between patrols. If you can empathically consider a present-day USAmerican soldier's consciousness of being observed by the world, with what the perceived societal exposure and accountablity that Hiter's footsoldiers likey perceived, you know what I'm talking about.