Maritxu

I read a thread like this one in another forum and thought it would be interesting to discuss it.
It's war murder by itself? If so, who isresponsible? what is the role of a soldier in all this? when is a war justified? should soldiers be able to choose if they want to fight in a war or not because they don't agree with it?

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"They came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

TheOriginalJames

I don't know about war is murder.. The role of a soldier is to do as he is commanded. If his CO orders him to do an illegal killing, the shoulder of responsibility may or may not lie on him.

US Soldiers do not have the right to pick and choose what wars/fights they get into. They're contracted US government property.

All Else Failed

Its the soldier's responsibility to disobey any illegal orders.

TheOriginalJames

and be court marshalled... sure.

There's a fine line there. Out in the field your CO is YOUR CO. You report ONLY to him, and if you disobey his orders you're in deep shit.

All Else Failed

No....every soldier is told to not follow blatant illegal actions, no matter who commands them.

Homer

he's right James the soldier could be court marshalled even tho he was only doing what he was told.

dt3

If you're given an illegal order, you have to disobey it regardless of the circumstances. They teach you that on like the second day of boot camp If you commit a crime while following an illegal order, then you are responsible for it.

Soldiers (for the most part) can't choose which wars to fight. They made their decision when they enlisted.

War is a vile, reprehensible thing and the loss of human life is absolutely tragic. But wars will always happen. We can't just "all get along". Wars are an extension of our foreign policy and are a necessary evil.

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GraceAbounds

Ditto and rep'd.

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Peter Parka

If war can be avoided, great! Unfortunately it dosen't work like that. Governments though who make illegal war against countries who arn't threatening other countries are murderers imo which is why I regard Bush, Blair and Howard as murderers for their illegal war in Iraq. I do not view the soldiers as murderers unless they are commiting war crimes as they are just pawns being used by the government and have to fight regardless of whether they agree with it or not. This is why I don't hold anything against German troops from the second world war who were killing my countrymen because they had to whether they liked it or not. If they didn't they would have been shot by their commanding officer or worse by the Nazis.

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Specialized

War is murder. No doubt about it. It's killing people right? The person(s) responsible is the soldiers who did the killing, and the commander and chief. The president.

Soldier - a person who serves in an army; a person engaged in military service. A person who contends or serves in any cause.

I believe war is justified when one a country or state imposes upon another country. Or, if your country or state is being threatened with mass casualties.

A soldier should have no say in whether or not they can or cannot go to war. They signed the dotted line. They now belong to Uncle Sam.

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dt3

I don't get what you're saying. You're saying the soldiers are murderers, but they should be forced to do it?

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Specialized

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Dodge_Sniper

I don't think anybody should be forced to fight in a war, whatever the reason. I'd rather not turn 18 and have to worry about the possibility of a draft. I don't think it's right. It's my choice if I wanna die in some war.

Soldiers on the other hand, they CHOSE to enlist, they KNEW they would end up in a war. If they don't agree with war, they shouldn't enlist. So yes, I think they shouldn't be allowed to choose if they wanna fight. With exceptions of course. LIke, just for example, if you go out and take down the leaders of the enemy and save all your buddies with no help, that's pretty much a high-five moment. That kind of stuff, you know, the stuff that you get medals for. Those people should get to choose though. You know, as a sort of way of saying, "Hey, you did a great job man!".

When is war justified? When we are blatantly and purposefully attacked, or believe that our country is in imminent danger. Like in Pearl Harbor. We were actually HELPING the Japanese. We didn't want to get involved in that war, but we decided to give them things to help them out a bit, and what do they do in return? They bomb the shit out of our biggest(At the time) naval base. That would immediately justify war. In fact, in a case like that, atomic bombs are on my list of ways to get payback.

In the case of 9-11? This statement may piss off a few people, but just bear with me. Of course I think it was a tragedy, very sad. Lots of people died, innocent people, people trying to save other people. But overall, I don't think people should be sad over losing two buildings. Sure, they were a memorable part of our country, but they were just buildings. I personally think we should be THANKFUL that all they did was destroy two of our buildings.

Remember that "would you rather" game? Here's a good one.

Would you guys rather have some terrorists take out two of our buildings with jets, or would you rather have our country bombed again, like Pearl Harbor?

I don't know about some of you, but if I had to choose, I'd give up the towers in a second. It's still sad, but I'd rather lose some buildings than have some terrorists drop some more bombs on us. Why? Because, yes, we did lose a lot of people in 9-11, but think of it, a building is only going to affect the people in that area. Bombs will destroy things in a much bigger radius, kill more people.

And in the case of 9-11, yes, I do believe war was justified. As with Pearl Harbor, we were blatantly and intentionally attacked for no apparent reason. Therefore, we declared war. But here's where I think we went wrong. With Pearl Harbor, we took action after about a year. Or was it sooner? Either way, we took action, hard and strong. We dropped bombs in some major factories in Tokyo, and then we dropped an atomic bomb.

As for Afghanistan, we've been at war with them for going on 7 goddamn years. That's fucking rediculous. Why not bomb them as we did Tokyo?

Now, I know you guys are gonna pull out the argument, "Ohh, wahh, there's innocent people in Afghanistan!". Bullshit. Did we give a damn about the innocent people in Tokyo? Hell no. We bombed the shit out of them.

If we could find Sadaam in a fucking HOLE IN THE GROUND, why is it taking so long to find Osama Bin Laden in a CAVE?

Because. Again, this statement may piss some of you off, but today's military isn't as lenient as the past. Notice, in Pearl Harbor, we didn't keep troops in Japan for 7 years, trying to not bomb them because of innocents. We said, "Well hell, they bombed us, so let's fuck them up too".

We live in a country where people kill innocent people every day for petty things like money and whatnot, yet we're too damn scared to bomb the people that attacked us, because we don't wanna kill innocent people. Sounds a bit strange to me, doesn't it?

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Quote:

Originally Posted by hoffman1390 Btw, imdb is actually a very reliable source.

SAW V - You won't believe how it ends

Peter Parka

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All Else Failed

I'm not saying a word lol.