…it’s not a bad idea if you try to hinder a wider circulation of the content…
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General, we have a serious problem.
STATUS: ICW THEIR LEGAL FOLKS, NSOCC-A/SOJTF-A IS DEVELOPING A BRIEFING SLIDE DECK ONCE THE BRIEF ING SLIDE DECK IS COMPLETE. THEY WILL CONDUCT A SERIES OF VTC BRIEFINGS FOR THOSE INDIVIDUALS AT OUTLYING STATIONS AND A SERIES OF IN- PERSON BRIEFS FOR THOSE INDIVIDUALS CLOSE IN. BRIEFINGS WILL BE COMPLETE NLT 05 NOVEMBER 2015. ADDITIONALLY I (bH3Ub)(6) IFROM THE CJOC JEC IS CREATING BRIEFING ON THE LOAC NO-STRIKE (NSL) METHODOLOGY AND STANDARDS THAT WILL BE USED WITHIN CJ3 TO TF AIN ALL EXISTING AND FUTURE CJ3 PERSONNEL AS PART OF THE MONTHLY AND QUARTERLY MANDATORY TRAINING REQUIREMENTS. THIS SLIDE DECK WILL BE DISTRIBUTED TO ALl OUTSTATIONS FOR THEIR USE.
The report’s use of “folks” demonstrates an improper deviation into non-jargonized English.
Yes. The 99% who spoil it for the 1% who aren’t hypocrites.
You’re going to get a cert warning because browsers don’t come with the .mil root certificates.
[quote=“Max_Blancke, post:46, topic:77381”]
If you really want to keep this sort of thing from happening, I would suggest complaining to those who actually send the troops into places like Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan, and send them with poorly defined goals and unrealistic rules of engagement. [/quote]
We are. But the people who actually go there and interpret the goals aren’t blameless, either.
That would be the civilian leadership. I have personally been to two wars that all of us there knew were terrible ideas before we even arrived.
So you vere dshust folloving orders?
You know, the same thing happened to my grandfather. Or to use a more recent example, I’m sure that’s also true of many people in Assad’s army.
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Churchill authorised the bombing of Dresden even though it was not a military target. Truman authorised the second atom bombing of Japan, basically to test the implosion bomb on real people.
In case of a German invasion, the UK would have attacked them on the beaches with chemical weapons; the US has stockpiles of the stuff.
So accusing Assad, who is the head of the legitimate government of Syria, which has been involved in a civil war stoked by remnants of the Iraqi army and Salafists from Saudi Arabia, of “doing some nasty shit” is more than a little hypocritical. And that’s before we get on to the conquest of the Phillipines.
What Assad has done wrong is to reject US demands that their puppets be allowed to run Syria. Let’s be honest about this.
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To be fair, any German clergy who objected had already been shot, gassed or sent to concentration camps. And on the allied side, the clergy felt that for once they had an enemy who was the embodiment of absolute evil. WW2 is an atypical war. A better example is WW1, where all sides were equally bad both from a political and a religious standpoint, with the possible exception of the Serbs, who were worse than average, and the Austrians, who were slightly better.
The truth lies between Bob Dylan giving politicians a free pass in the Universal Soldier, and those who assign all blame to the authorities; and it varies at different times and in different places. In 1930s Germany, which really had been taken over by The Mob in its most extreme form, very few individuals with liberty of action had access to the truth; and by the end of the War German soldiers knew if they deserted they and their families would be killed whereas if the Russians captured them only they would be killed, so they fought fanatically to the end. Many Russians knew Stalin was evil, but hoped that once the war was won he would be deposed. However, the tail of the Russian army consisted of very low types and left a trail of destruction and rape that their officers could not prevent, fuelled by NKVD propaganda, and there were plenty of Germans who were enthusiastic Nazis. There’s not much difference between them and US pilots deliberately shooting up civilians; every army has more than its fair share of psychopaths, and so I suspect does every government.
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Picky and not terribly relevant tangent: the concept of war crimes is far from new. The Middle Ages developed a pretty sophisticated Just War theory, which dealt with not only who could declare a war and on what grounds (jus ad bellum), but also what they could and couldn’t do during it (jus in bello). For example, non-combatants, and especially clergy, were theoretically off-limits. Jurisdiction was universal: any potentate could convene a court-martial against any alleged offender who fell into their hands.
Of course, this was the Middle Ages, and enforcement was patchy: plus there were loopholes a-plenty. All bets were off during a siege, for example: sieges were almost as dangerous to the besiegers as the besieged (dysentery, anyone?), so if you were compelled to storm a castle or town (because the defenders refused to surrender) you were entitled to kill everyone inside it pour encourager les autres. And sheltering in a church seems logical (it was probably the largest and maybe the only stone building in the village, plus clerical immunity) – except that to facilitate this role, many churches had battlements, which in the eyes of attackers turned them from a church into a fortification and hence a legitimate target.
But the war crime is not, in itself, a new idea.
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So the guy in OK that thought his gun was a taser accidentally shoots someone instead of tasing him, and gets charged and convicted of involuntary manslaughter. That was a mistake too. Not a lawyer but maybe “war crime” needs to be redefined.
Oh Jesus. This is where I don’t get “you people”. Yes Dresden was questionable payback, but when your country suffered through the London Blitz, attempting to crush morale and prompt a quicker surrender isn’t a bad tactic. Oh, and one can argue that Dresden was a legit target as there WAS war industry factories in the city as well. (Queue the “Why Not Both?” Girl) Nagasaki happened because the Japanese didn’t surrender fast enough. It was a, “no, seriously, surrender” attack. To suggest it was just dropped to see what would happen if dropped on people is ludicrous. Note too, both cities were warned of the bombing before it happened.
But ok, you know, I wouldn’t even be posting a reply if it was just taking cheap shots at what one may view as excessive force in the bloodiest war in the last 100 years. But when you have the BALLS to type “Let’s be honest” and “head of the legitimate government of Syria”? HAHAHA.
In both the Syrian presidential election, 2000 and subsequent 2007 election, Bashar Assad received votes in his favor in the upper 90th percentile in uncontested elections where other candidates were not permitted to run against him
OH wait, wait. I am wrong. TECHNICALLY they had “two regime sanctioned candidates” run against him last “election”. My bad. Totally legit.
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I understand there were rules of combat even way back then, and chivalrous codes and rules for taking prisoners and ransoms etc. Did they actually have courts and punishments metered out for breaking the rules? Mea Culpa if so, but one hardly looks at the middle ages, filled with horrible torture and complete disregard for human life, when one thinks of restricting war crimes.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Sir Thomas. Look we just sacked and raped this castle, and we were going to take this guy out and shove a hot poker up his ass while making him eat his own tongue tomorrow! You can’t just cut off his head with his hands bound! We have rules! We aren’t mindless savages!”
Yup. Imagine if, with the Democrats in power, they got to choose the opposition candidates to run against them in the next election. They’d probably choose Donald Trump and Ted Cruz…
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I had you down as being quite sensible but this is where we part company.
“when your country suffered through the London Blitz”
One of those Americans who confuse London with the UK.
“attempting to crush morale and prompt a quicker surrender isn’t a bad tactic.”
Intelligence reports and statistical analysis showed that bombing civilians was never going to cause a German surrender. In fact it was a terrible tactic because it strengthened German resistance.
"Oh, and one can argue that Dresden was a legit target "
It was known at the time (and this was US policy btw) that bombing of fuel stores and rail junctions was far more effective. The RAF statistical department showed that, £ for £, precision bombing of strategic targets by Mosquitos was 5.8 times as effective as carpet bombing by Lancasters.
“Nagasaki happened because the Japanese didn’t surrender fast enough.”
Three days afterwards? Pull the other one. There are plenty of sources that show that the Hiroshima bomb was dropped first because it was guaranteed to explode; once it had exploded the implosion bomb could be dropped because, if it failed, the Japanese did not know that there were no more bombs. There is a lot of evidence that there was no plan to avoid a second bomb. The US military wanted to know the relative effectiveness of the two technologies.
I don’t know how old you are, but my parents and their friends went through the War; my mother was based in London, my father was in the Navy, first wave on D-day and primed to attack Japan. Growing up, we actually had primary sources to talk to. We had a teacher who had flown Lancasters and another who had flown Mosquitos1; one who had been one of the first Allied airmen in Dresden after the attack. Your view is gung-ho, simplistic and, I can say with absolute confidence, not shared by a good number of people who were in a position to know.
As for Assad, he is rather more legitimate than the rulers of Saudi Arabia and most of the other Arab states. He is less legitimate than the President of Iran but rather more legitimate than the Supreme Ayatollah. And unlike any of them, he was trying to run a secular state. The main reasons for the civil war have been drought - always a major cause of war in the ME - and destabilisation caused by Sunni expansionism in the wake of the destruction of Iraq, which was caused by the US and the UK.
But, as I say, your views on the ME (and WW2) are gung-ho and simplistic. You just want to pursue a “US is always right” mantra.
Have you perhaps noticed that we didn’t have a “Muslim problem” until the US decided to fight a proxy war with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, since when events have gradually spiralled? That was over the Soviet Union trying to turn Afghanistan into a secular state, and the US funding Islamic fundamentalists. But I expect you’ll have a story for that one too.
1Both ended the war as senior officers; I’m not writing about ORs.
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Ex-Christian here. I’ll go one further. If you take the Old Testament literally then the Christian God is all about violence.
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We can agree to disagree about Dresden and Nagasaki. I concede that your view isn’t with out merit and could be argued that the Allies went too far. I guess it depends where one wants to draw a line.
I don’t have an issue where one wants to point out the US’s failings. For sure when it comes to the Middle East there have been many.
My issue is white washing the “enemies” to make them seem “not so bad”. Yeah, the US has done a lot of things with bad repercussions down the line. But don’t act like the mess is entirely the fault of the US. And don’t make statement’s like Assad’s government being “legitimate”, as he is a dictator. Yes he ran a secular government (so did Saddam and Mubarak), but a secular dictatorship is still bad. You didn’t compare it to Saudi Arabia earlier, by yeah, a monarchy isn’t legit either. Even half way progressive nations like Qatar still have a monarchy in power.
The US has plenty of examples of screwing up that you can throw up as examples with out needing to twist the other players as just poor leaders doing their best until the US screwed it all up. Their failings are well documented as well. In the spirit of “let’s be honest”, present every one as they are, warts and all.
Terrible tragedy, of course, and I support their arguments and hope they receive compensation, not that there is such a thing as compensation for lives, but something to allow them to recover and continue doing this work (in a fair world, on a larger scale).
I take issue with one question in their list, though. Basically, “who is ultimately responsible”. Obviously, there is a senior officer in this mess, but I don’t like this very human tendency to always seek a scapegoat. I doubt there is an an explanation simple enough to answer that question. Like many tragedies, this seems a systemic failure, a breakdown on many levels, with blame to go around. Pointing a finger is easier than learning why it happened and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Well, not for a Christian who doesn’t fail at being a Christian.
All those people were pretty much lousy Christians, despite their insistence otherwise.
Not that I’m on some #notallChristians no-true-Scotsman kick. Sub in Christian for…whatever…and you’ll pretty much have the same story. “Christian” just tends to be more relevant to folks from the US.
I think it’s a good point that is often forgotten.
I don’t think it really applies to this particular instance, but it’s a sentiment I support in general!
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If it were a few Christians I could agree. When it’s church policy - from the crusades to conquest of the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Middle East to kidnapping children and forcing them into residential schools - no, it’s not a few “lousy Christians.” When both Catholic and Protestant chaplains are common in militaries by agreement from the churches - as in WWII where soldiers on both the Allied and Nazi sides were told that God was OK with what they were doing - AND there’s virtually no contradiction or protest from the church during or since - no, it’s not a few "lousy Christians.
It’s mainstream Christianity. Small wonder that the candidates calling for the most violence against perceived enemies - not just in the US - are inevitably the ones pandering to the religious.
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Where did you get that from? It took the Japanese a day or two to even figure out what hat happened.
And on August 8th, a leaflet was dropped over many Japanese cities warning people that there would be another atomic bomb, and that they should pressure the emperor to surrender.
Of course, that’s completely ludicrous. The bombs were also dropped to justify all that research spending. The Nagasaki bomb also still needed some testing; Oh, and of course to make sure that the Russians got no influence over Japan.
There are two different definitions of a “legitimate” government. One is a government elected by the people according to a reasonably non-rigged electoral system. The US government just barely qualifies.
But there is a second meaning, and that’s the one that’s relevant for wars. By that second meaning, the Assad regime is the legitimate, internationally recognized government of Syria. And the idea that one should not start wars to depose another country’s legitimate government is older than most present-day democracies.
Did they? There were cases of family members being arrested for helping deserters (and “being arrested” by the Nazi government near the end of the war was a high-risk activity), but I know of no widespread killing of deserters families. And I’ve never heard it being used as an “excuse” by veterans, either.
At the beginning of the war, when the concentration camps hadn’t yet happened and nobody knew about any plans, there were plenty of volunteers for the Wehrmacht. People were proud to serve their country. That was just normal back then. I’m not passing judgement on generations that came before me, but people today should know better than to proudly join an army, follow orders and then claim its the civilian leadership that’s solely responsible.
May I suggest a compromise wording?`“Christian” does not equal “People living up to Christian ideals”.
In fact, “Christians” are a group of about two billion people with superficially similar beliefs. “People living up to Christian ideals” is a far smaller group of people, some of whom also happen to be Christians in the first sense of the word.
If you don’t distinguish between those two things, there will be some serious no-true-Scotsmanning going on.
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The way it works is that we get increasingly detailed orders from the civilian leadership. Then the senior officers pass those on to us to implement. It would be really nice if we could vote on whether to go to a particular war, or on a particular mission. There were definitely a couple of times when it would have been great to be able to go back to the Regimental Commander and say " Sir, the men and myself took a little informal poll, and we voted that rather than go on today’s mission, we prefer to go back to the LSA and see what is playing at the base theatre". That would be interesting to try.
That being said, There is an oath we take to obey the orders of POTUS and the officers appointed above us, in accordance with the UCMJ. The UCMJ gets more specific. For one thing, the penalty for willful disobedience of a lawful order can be death. So then you get into the concept of a “lawful order”. Which is where it gets really uncomfortable. If you are ordered to massacre some civilians, it is probably not a legal order. But if you believe that you have been given an order that is not legal, you had better be right before you refuse to obey it. In practice, what I would do is to have the Officer issuing the order be very specific, and respectfully mention any reservations I had about the order. In almost all cases, he would be very thankful that I had brought up issues that he had not noticed or known about. From my personal experience, a bunch of things had to go wrong for that hospital to get hit. I really want to see the video. I have no doubt at all that the people involved have seen it over and over, and had to explain every word they said, and every action they took.
