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How We Learned to Kill

nytimes.com

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Re: How We Learned to Kill

#91

Post by copsarebastards »

I want to ask Timothy Kudo if there was anything else he knew about the men digging by the side of the road that indicated to him that they were planting a bomb. Because if not, he's just a murderer. By the description in that article, he did not have nearly enough information to decide that those men should die.

America was founded on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty". Timothy Kudo was acting as judge and jury for these men and found them guilty with almost no evidence. There are numerous reasons why someone might be digging next to the road at night.

It's only by chance that he happened to be right. He uses the phrase "good shoot, bad result", but if that is the standard he's using for "good shoot", I wonder how many of his kills were "bad shoot, good result".

And it's ridiculous to isolate the responsibility for this kind of action to the soldiers. This is on everyone who accept this as okay--the voters who vote for warmongering politicians, the politicians who start wars and create decision policies that say a shot like this is okay, the officers who give the orders, and the troops on the ground that follow them.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#92

Post by goodnights »

AdeptusAquinas wrote: post #84
swatow wrote: post #77

I find it very strange that people talk about soldiers as if they had some special moral responsibility for what happens during a war. Sure, they should be thinking about the implications and ethics of their actions, as we all should, and yet they also signed up to serve the nation, and to do what their nation thought necessary and just. Do people think that democratic nations should not have armies, and it is an eth…

Too true. This quote from the article reinforces that "Despite the rhetoric I internalized from the newspapers back home about why we were in Afghanistan, I ended up fighting for different reasons once I got on the ground — a mix of loyalty to my Marines, habit and the urge to survive." It's that rhetoric, created by almost everyone BUT soldiers, that sends them to war. And, especially in nationalistic countries wher…

"a mix of loyalty to my Marines, habit and the urge to survive"

I think that is mostly a cliché too though. People stay in bad situations because uncertainty is even harder to deal with. The military generally go out of their way to make any other alternative "uncomfortable".

If you're ready to sign away your freedom for glory, you should also be ready to do so for justice.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#93

Post by Spooky23 »

bane wrote: post #76
TeMPOraL wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could use some serious development in non-lethal weapons, but I'm afraid it might not solve anything - non-lethal weaponry is by definition more complicated by lethal, and thus any technology designed to stun could be repurposed to kill with more effectiveness than the bloodless variant. We'd probably need to reach the level when there would be no practical difference of effectiveness between the two types.

One of the fascinating things to come out of the widespread distribution of non-lethal weapons to police has been two effects: 1 - police are more likely to use non-lethal weapons, even in cases where no weapon at all would work fine, because the long-term consequences of using a non-lethal are minimal 2 - in cases where people do die due to being attacked by a non-lethal weapon, there's generally quite a bit of mora…

There's a difference between an army and a police force. Police are there to enforce the law and neutralize criminals.

Generally speaking, the police don't want to kill anyone. They want to capture the suspect and move on. Back in the day, non-lethal force meant beating the guy with a big stick, but liability became an issue. So now we pull guns on dumb kids, and a jumpy cop results in a dead dum kid instead of a broken arm.

Armies are different. Since the US Civil War, total annihilation of the enemy's ability to make war has been the rule of the day. You err on the side of killing, becuase a stunned enemy lives to fight another day.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#94

Post by Spooky23 »

krschultz wrote: post #22
entrop13 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that as society progresses it off loads the killing work onto fewer people - executioners, soldiers, drones, etc. These killings are presumably justified by the will of the larger society otherwise these men wouldn't be paid to do this. So a smaller part of the population does an increasing porportion of the killing, but does the overall number of people killed decrease?

We are certainly living in the most peaceful period since the start of the 20th century. For example, look what was happening exactly 100 years ago today: http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/firstworldwar/index... When was the last time there was a battle with thousands of causalities anywhere on earth? War hasn't gone away, but it has definitely declined. Surely it would be better if it were gone completely, bu…

The difference between 1915 and 2015 is that we've improved the industrial scale machinery of killing to a point that it is too powerful. No two top 10 states can really fight each other, because nuclear exchange will ensue and the consequences of that are too unpredictable and high risk to engage in.

So we engage in proxy conflicts in the periphery and kill the hapless inhabitants there. There's no "battles", but lots of death... Mostly of people that are inconsequential to whomever is writing the history.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#95

Post by Scramblejams »

fit2rule wrote: post #5

So when are we going to learn to bridge the gap, forgive and flourish with our enemies-become-friends? Or, is that just too darn hard?

It's very hard to do if the other side won't agree to sing campfire songs with us too. Especially if they'd rather violently impose Sharia through a worldwide caliphate, to use one contemporary example. Gotta pay the Dhimmi before we can forgive and flourish.

Yes, there are a lot of reasonable people on the other side of the line. But the leadership of those reasonable people can, depending on who you're talking about, be very, very unreasonable.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#96

Post by universaltest »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #37

A very good and honest article. Here's one gem I noticed, right at the end: > I don’t blame Presidents George W. Bush or Barack Obama for these wars. Our elected leaders, after all, are just following orders, no different from the Marine who asks if he can kill a man digging by the side of the road. Exactly. Some people seem to think that the President is the one with the most power, and that he can wield it arbitrar…

While I agree that the President is not really able to shake things up any more than his political allies will allow, the quoted statement does beg the question: Who is handing out the orders?

Who is it that we blame for putting soldiers in a position to kill innocents for reasons of such dubious morality?

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#97

Post by Retra »

goodnights wrote: post #89
Retra wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ridiculous. Soldiers aren't 'selected' for their trust in authority and lack of responsibility. And they are supposed to ask for permission to shoot. Especially snipers. I don't know where you got your information, but it wasn't from any experience with military. Hey, lets look at some US Marine Corps ROE documentation: "We must review all aspects of the fight, from weaponeering to the understanding of propor…

"I don't know where you got your information, but it wasn't from any experience with military." I spent 15 months of conscription in one of those "small team, heavy backpack, green beret"-type units. A sniper operates as part of a self-sustaining team to take down high value targets, often trough infiltration. It's self explanatory why a real sniper wouldn't ask for permission nor why no one would ever, despite what…

Is there any military that is known for being competent?

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#98

Post by woodman »

goodnights wrote: post #92
AdeptusAquinas wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too true. This quote from the article reinforces that "Despite the rhetoric I internalized from the newspapers back home about why we were in Afghanistan, I ended up fighting for different reasons once I got on the ground — a mix of loyalty to my Marines, habit and the urge to survive." It's that rhetoric, created by almost everyone BUT soldiers, that sends them to war. And, especially in nationalistic countries wher…

"a mix of loyalty to my Marines, habit and the urge to survive" I think that is mostly a cliché too though. People stay in bad situations because uncertainty is even harder to deal with. The military generally go out of their way to make any other alternative "uncomfortable". If you're ready to sign away your freedom for glory, you should also be ready to do so for justice.

> I think that is mostly a cliché too though.

It is not, not in the infantry at least, where brain wa... er - psychological conditioning is the strongest. For example: just days after my battalion got back from a fairly taxing deployment, the company commander informed us at morning formation that an artillery battalion was preparing to deploy to the area of operations we just got back from. It was part of some pilot program, where they give non-infantry Marines a couple of months of infantry training and then deploy them as if they were infantry... it was a horrible idea that would lead to a lot of dead Marines - and everybody at that formation knew it. The company commander asked for volunteers, a cadre that would lead in training for a month and then deploy with them into combat as fireteam, squad and platoon leaders. About a quarter of the company volunteered, myself included, which was more than the CO was willing to part with - so he limited the pool to Corporals.

None of us wanted to go back, we knew that the odds were much worse throwing in with these guys, but we knew that they needed us. If that isn't loyalty, then I don't know what is. The Marine Corps put a lot of effort into building that sort of emotional connection, and it works.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#99

Post by dredmorbius »

maxerickson wrote: post #14
transfire wrote: post #13

Imagine if we took the commandment "Thou shall not kill" to heart. Imagine if instead of killing those men on the roadside, it was the job to the soldiers to incapacitate them but take them alive. Is it possible? Of course it is possible. Perhaps harder, but possible. Here's the funny thing about killing. Somehow we continually find excuses for doing it. And the easiest excuse of all is that the other guy did it firs…

Most people have not killed anyone. (This is probably more true for people alive today than it is for all humans that have ever lived)

Not directly.

Indirectly, we all kill, all the time.

It's an inevitability of life.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#100

Post by [deleted] »

universaltest wrote: post #96
TeMPOraL wrote: post #37

A very good and honest article. Here's one gem I noticed, right at the end: > I don’t blame Presidents George W. Bush or Barack Obama for these wars. Our elected leaders, after all, are just following orders, no different from the Marine who asks if he can kill a man digging by the side of the road. Exactly. Some people seem to think that the President is the one with the most power, and that he can wield it arbitrar…

While I agree that the President is not really able to shake things up any more than his political allies will allow, the quoted statement does beg the question: Who is handing out the orders? Who is it that we blame for putting soldiers in a position to kill innocents for reasons of such dubious morality?

[deleted]
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