'Support the troops' but not war?

Honestly, buddy (and I mean that sincerely), I don't care how much it might cost now. The ramifications, to me, are much more severe.

IMO, this may very well be a money pit. But to back out entirely now will have ramifications on every generation we have in that "Iraq WON!!! by stupid car bombings!!!"

We can't have that. Much to your chagrin, I know...

You coming into town anytime soon? I'll let you know how "challenged", I am, debate-wise.

 

I, personally, have never seen anyone stand up for the little guy as much as me.

I've done it, to my detriment, my entire life.

If you have done it as well, kudos.

 

Fatty,

I'm not for a complete withdrawal by any means. I totally agree we have to fix this incredible mess that Bush created. Regardless of the fact that so many of us warned against this stupid war and so many of you told us we were wrong, there's no prize for being right now. We're in it. And we all -- not just us, but people all over the world -- have to deal with it. There's no turning back. I don't have the answer as to how to best fix this incredible and (previously) unnecessary mess. I never pretended I did. All I ever said was we shoudn't get into it. Now that we're there, I don't have any idea what we should do. It's a pretty remarkable move politically, actually. To get the country into a completely unwinnable situation of your own accord and then turn around and say, "Well, what would YOU suggest we do now?" But that's where we are. I agree. I'll say this for sure. When you're losing, "staying the course" seems an especially stupid thing to do. When the losing's worse by the day, whether I know what should be done or not, I'd suggest looking into changing up the plan. But that's not what this thread's about.

This thread's about demonizing those of us who oppose the war and refuse to oppose the troops. It's about that because war supporters -- who incidentally refuse to admit the original mistake of going into this war -- insist on marrying opposition to the policy to opposition to the troops. They do this because it's the quickect way to make assholes out of dissenters. I'm not playing. I opposed this war before it happened. I said I didn't buy the WMD hype. I was right. I agree we have to fix this stupid and previously unnecessary mess now that Bush lied his way into it and you guys bought it, and I'm even willing to help brainstorm a way out, but there ain't no way you're pinning the mess the troops are in on me or any other war opponent. We warned you and you didn't listen. If you were serious about a solution to this incredible mess you'd spend less time trying to demonize the ones of us that were right when you were wrong and more time working up a new plan. The old one didn't only stop working -- it never worked.

 

Batman: When are you coming into town? You'll have a "bevy" of my friends that will be on your side saying that "I'm Challenged."

It's because I refuse to lose a debate. You'd get a kick out of it, as would I.

I'm off to Memphis, gents. See you Sunday.

 

Don't know when I'm in town next, Fatty. But when I have plans I'll let you know. Invite your friends to the debate. They'll enjoy watching you cry "Uncle." And the first beer will be on me. Probably twice. Once when I buy it and once when you throw it on me. Rudyards Pub. Maybe round the holidays. Have fun in Memphis.

 

Ha, ha , ha ( I can't ever do LOL; it's just not me)

Believe me, you'll have plenty of MY friends in your corner. I'll tell you what. For every topic you win, you buy one drink. For every topic I win, I buy a pitcher.



(anytime... seriously. As much as we're polar opposites, we'd have a good debate.... and I would win!)

 

That's a horrible deal. I'll wind up buying all the drinks.

Before you split for Memphis, answer my last on topic post. It's of a sort that will cause basso to run away, so you're all I've got.

Looking forward to the drinks (invert the deal and you've got a deal - the losers buy the drinks). I'll kick your ass at darts too.

 

That's a subjective opinion. I don't know if you know much about psychology, but people under orders would act differently than if on their own because, in their mind, the responsibility lies with their superior.

There was a study done by a fairly famous psychologist, Milgram, where he and his partner set up an experiment. First, he strapped his partner into a chair that looked like an electric chair. He had a lot of wires hooked up to a button and a dial in a different room with a glass window. He would take another guy, who had no idea what was going on, and tell him that the button would shock the person. He would tell the 'guy' to begin at a low shock level and press the button. The guy strapped in the chair knew what 'shock' level it was at and would pretend to be shocked slightly at first. Then the psychologist would keep telling the guy to increase the shock level and press the button over and over. You'd think that when the guy strapped in starts screaming in pain, the guy's morality would take over and stop pushing the button. But instead, the guy, though very concerned, keeps increasing the shock level and pressing the button.

When people are put in a moral/immoral situation, they have to feel responsibility for that situation to act. Soldiers will often rationalize their actions because they are acting under orders. It is not just weakness, it's a human trait proven study after study. There are two more studies I can mention if you want more scientific proof.

Found the experiment.

EDIT: Some of the numbers I used were off. But the results are clear.

 

Basso, do I wish for the troops to succeed?

Unfortunately, they already failed ...thanks to the commander in cheif. They were setup for failure from the beginning.

I beleive they are doing a bang-up job with what they got to work with. But that is irrelevant. It's too late to ask if I want them to succeed now. The mission was to remove the WMD threat posed by Sadaam. Mission failed in past tense.

Redefine "success" till your hearts content. Fact remains that they failed already.

HayesStreet, for your game, imagine I thought the war was illegal? OK

Do I feel every employee working at Enron is a slime bag and participated in illegal activity? Of course not. I feel there were thousands and thousands of honest people that got duped by their CEO/CFO. I felt sad for the Enron employees that got lied to ....just like I feel sad for our soldiers that are fighting a war that was based on a lie. I can't hold the soldiers responsible because the president lied to them (and us).

If the soldiers participated in crimes against humanity ...that a whole different story. But that isn't the case here.

If the war was illegally justified, the soldiers have no culpibility if they are following orders. Don't give me the Nazi example again. Nazi's DID participate in crimes against humanity!!! Its one thing to shoot people who shoot back at you. It's another to starve people and throw them in shallow pits.

 

Quite the contrary, I don't believe you have fully considered the scope of the argument. But that is perhaps because you have 5 different arguments going on, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

You stated:

"I'm putting the burden on the anti-war crowd that feels the intervention is illegal/immoral. If they think that then they should be conveying their principled criticism at the troops as well. Whether that would change troops minds or not we don't know. But I give a historical example where troops got orders they should have rejected (nuremberg) and a recent example where troops have rejected orders they felt were immoral, illegal or both (Israel/West Bank) - so its not as if it hasn't or isn't happening. The only reason this is different is because we have a sociological block against extending criticism to our own troops."

I'm arguing that criticizing the troops is unfair because of the psychological pressures that are imposed on them. It's akin to blaming a poor man for stealing when his children are starving, though not that extreme. There's a huge psychological pressure being imposed on the soldiers daily, by their commander, by their peers, by the president, and by the country. The soldiers are being ordered to do something. They have been trained to follow orders. They are made to follow orders. It's a human characteristic to follow orders from a superior, EVEN WHEN they conflict with their own personal beliefs ESPECIALLY when placed in a stressful situation like Iraq. How can you blame them especially when they are brainwashed into thinking they are helping Iraq?

Your examples are just examples. Isolated incidents that don't tell the story behind the soldiers' decisions. You think just because it's been done before (rejecting orders) then it's easy to do? It's definitely not.

 

You are wrong about Nuremberg.

You finally forced me to get off my rear and go research Nuremberg. And your assertion that rank and file soldiers, as I suspected, was a part of the Nuremberg trials is wrong. Yes, some initial verbiage does say "orders" are not a defense but if you actually look at the trails themselves, only high ranking and influential people were brought to trial. So you don't have a precident afterall because Nuremberg never applied to soldiers.

There were two trails.
The 1945 trial ONLY included high ranking Nazi officials or other highly influcial people like politicians.
The 1949 trial also went after others like Doctors and financiers of the war with one exception (the Einsatzgruppen Trial).

So, lets look at the Einsatzgruppen Trial that accused rank and file soldiers. Wanna guess what they were accused of? You got it... the ones that worked concentration camps. US soldiers are not gassing people.

So again, just because American soldiers are participating in the Iraq war, does NOT make them criminals. Please stop using Nuremberg now as proof of your point because the evidence doesn't support it.

Even if one thinks the war is illegal, that has no bearing on ones feelings towards troops.

 

But that IS my point. The Nazi soldiers that were found guilty committed the most attrocious examples of "crimes against humanity." That is the precident. The activities the US soldiers are enganged in do NOT rise to that level. That is MY point.

...when commiting crimes against humanity.

The evidence surrounding Nuremberg only illustrates when it involves high ranking officials. It doesn't illustrate what happens to rank and file soldiers (unless they are commiting "crimes against humanity").

No, I'm saying the Nuremburg trails say nothing about rank-n-file soldiers except those commiting crimes against humanity. There is no precedent in history of where rank-n-file soldiers were guilty because they performed legal activities in a war some say are unjust.

Thank you for pointing that out.

There is a difference between unlawful orders and an unlawful war. If one engages in an unlawful war, that doesn't mean every order given is subsequently unlawful. I know you are trying to argue otherwise but I 100% disagree unless you live in Eden where the world was made from rose petals. In the real world I live in - I can differentiate when good people get duped into bad situations, I don't hold them accountable. I hold the person pulling the string accountable (Enron).

If a soldier is obeying lawful orders from a superior officer even in an unjust war, then I fully support the soldiers activities.

EDIT: deleted most of my post because it was redundant.

 

I haven't had much of a chance to check on this thread but its an interesting topic and wanted to respond back.

As I said earlier regarding another topic. Mr. Pot meet Mr. Kettle. Both sides often pick the facts which are most convenient to address. The pro-war side has done this consistently particularly in regard to the variety of reasons thrown out to support the invasion.

Surprise surprise surprise a major movement isn't monolithic in their viewpoint. The same can be said for the pro-war side too. You make this sound as if you can disqualify one side of this issue just because people approach the issue from different angles.

The soldiers are. That is the nature of a command structure. Just because people join the army doesn't mean that they agree with the Admin's goals but once you sign you are obligated to fulfill your duty. You've continually made it sound as though that everyone who joins is willingly going along with every decision of the Admin.. I know someone who is being shipped out who doesn't agree with the war at all the problem is that he can't just say "Well I signed on to defend America but I don't think this is defending America so I'll sit this one out."

But this is where you're wrong. As thinking human beings we're capable of differentiating between feeling for human beings and wanting them alive and disagreeing with their actions especially when they aren't the decision makers and are under a legal compulsion to carry out the decisions of those decision makers.

I wouldn't support the Nazi movement but at the same time I would not feel good about killing the soldiers of Nazi Germany and would prefer that they didn't have to die but anyway your comparison is totally off base. These aren't enemy foreign troops we're talking about these are American soldiers who our countrymen and even friends and families. We support them in that we want them alive and whole. We don't support putting them in harms way for what we see as unnescary.

There are differing levels of culpability and not every German and Japanese soldier was tried for war crimes after WWII and as I said before there are soldiers who don't support this war but yet still have to serve because otherwise they would be AWOL. Freedom of choice regarding what one does is highly circumscribed once you sign up for the military. Its true that a soldier is the instrument of their policy but that doesn't mean that they were culpable for it. Your argument would be along the lines of saying that the receptionist at Enron is as culpable too for Skillings crimes since by working at Enron they helped enable Skillings to enact his policies.

 

But this is essentially a false choice that I find it surprising as someone who claims to know about the military would even present. Yes as a soldier you can choose not to go on a deployment but the consequence of that choice is imprisonment for going AWOL. Further during times of war AWOL has been considered an executable offense. Finally if you do know the military you would also understand how difficult it is to get conscientious objector status.

Being a soldier isn't comparable to any other job where you can decide to just quit or refuse to accept a project with little consequence.

 

Crikey Hayes, do you understand why "A Letter from Birmingham Jail" is so admired? Its admired because most people aren't willing to go to jail for their beliefs and that it takes extraordinary will to suffer those consequences. You continue to downplay the nature of the coercion that is involved with being a soldier and the consequences of going AWOL. Yes we would all hope that most people particularly soldiers would be as conscientious as MLK but if so then MLK wouldn't be considered remarkable in the first place.

You're arguing an unrealistic situation in regard to culpability. I doubt that you or most people if given the choice between going to jail for 20 years or possibly death and doing something you don't find repugnant wouldn't do something you find repugnant. Further if given those options and you were forced to do something illegal most DA's wouldn't indict and you would hard pressed to find a jury to convict.