> > That's a bit creepy. Its one thing to be grateful for services
>> rendered, its quite another to ostentatiously foist your gratitude on
>> people. Its all a bit of an act isn't it? It would come across that
>> way to me anyhow and I think I would get a bit annoyed if people kept
>> coming up and pawing me in public and going on about how they are so
>> grateful I'm doing something they oppose.
>
>Bill, just try engaging with people. You'll find it actually works.
Creepy.
>You write:
>"If the lawful thing is an unjust
>> thing, then doing the lawful thing is the cowardly choice, not
>> honourable in the slightest. As it happens, the invasion of Iraq was
>> an illegal war under international law, so there's no conflict
>> between what's right and what's lawful."
>
>You're just wrong. Soldiers have SWORN AN OATH TO THE GOVERNMENT OF
>THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Do you people not understand this? Are
>you just incapable of dealing with this? Soldiers swear an oath
>specifically NOT to sustitute their own judgement for the orders of
>their government. THAT is why we trust them with all those weapons.
I don't care who they've sworn an oath to, I wouldn't trust anyone with a weapon who refuses to exercise their own judgement or take any responsibility for their actions.
>Should they go around saying: "You know I swore an oath to follow
>orders, but the Arab League (or the Mormon church, or the Aryan
>Nations, or Pat Robertson, or the Italian Communist Party or whoever)
>thinks it's a bad idea so screw you" ?
>
>And by the way what legal reason would they give to CONTRAVENE THEIR
>OATH ? What allegiance to what body would they cite?
Allegiance to the human race. I told you that already. You want to "engage" with me, then at least have the courtesy to pay attention to what I say.
> On whose
>authority do these soldiers suddenly start refusing to do what the
>duly elected governmetn of teh United States tells them to do?
On no authority at all, their only defense would be that their action, or lack of it, was dictated by considerations of humanity.
> > The must apply to soldiers as well though. It is simply not good
>> enough to demand that soldiers must always follow legal orders, to
>> insist that anything else is tantamount to civil war. In most cases
>> that may be appropriate, but soldiers must also be prepared act
>> according to their conscience, not according to the law, if the
>> circumstances deem it necessary. An order to shoot peaceful
>> demonstrators, torture or execute prisoners might very well be
>> lawful
>
>No, it can't be lawful. Why? Because the CIVILIAN AUTHORITY has made
>it specifically unlawful to follow such orders. People who have
>followed such orders have been prosecuted.
Are you sure? I recall people being prosecuted for doing these things, though not many given the scale of the atrocities. But I don't recall any reports of senior officers being prosecuted for giving the orders. Now if these soldiers were being prosecuted for following illegal orders, then it follows that those who gave the illegal orders would also be prosecuted for giving them. In the absence of the latter type of prosecutions, what we have is merely people being prosecuted for individual acts.
But perhaps you know something I don't. Can you identify the cases where senior officers have been prosecuted for giving illegal orders? It hasn't happened, has it?
> Apparently nobody here
>understands that we actually have a well-defined standard for lawful
>and unlawful orders. It's in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
>Again, the Secretary of Defense signed off on every target that was
>likely to kill 30 or more civilians to make it perfectly clear that
>these were the orders of the civilian government exactly because
>collateral damage threatens the legality of an order. Orders to
>torture prisoners are illegal and Pfc. Lynndie R. England is in jail
>right now for following such orders.
Following whose orders exactly? The official story is that he and her boyfriend just decided to do these things on their own initiative. Nothing to do with Rumsfield's orders.
>The entire legal concept of making a person a soldier is that
>WE and not they, are responsible for the killing that results from OUR
>legal orders.
Unacceptable. Repugnant. Inhuman.
> So long as soldiers promise not to do the killing on
>their own account, but strictly follow OUR legal orders, they are not
>ethically culpable.
That's what the defendants argued at Nuremburg too, I understand it didn't fly all that well. I'll accept that following the orders of an apparently legitimate authority could be mitigating circumstances in many cases, but it can't exonerate you. You have to live with yourself afterwards anyhow, so using that excuse would do you a major psychological injury.
> They are totally our agents. That's why soldiers
>don't have the same rights as citizens. To get that ethical
>dispensation they MUST give up their autonomy to the civilian
>government and swear an oath to follow all LAWFUL orders.
Legally, yes. But just as civilians sometimes have a moral responsibility to disobey the law (and accept the consequences) so does the soldier sometimes have a moral responsibility to disobey orders which are morally repugnant. It isn't about soldiers having any less rights than civilians, its about soldiers not having any less responsibilities as human beings.
>That's why it's such a shitty job in wartime. You have to do terrible
>stuff as a matter of course, take terrible risks and you don't have a
>choice unless the orders are illegal. That's why I thank them.
>
>You guys have really got to think about this a little harder.
Not just us, you too.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas