Thread: Do soldiers ethics differ to that of civilians?

Originally Posted by the wanderer

The same God that said, "Thou shalt not kill" also gave some pretty marching orders later on concerning the current inhabitants of the promised land, as well as instructions to the children of Israel to defend themselves against their enemies.

I'm not really a student of the scriptures, but I have seen a number of scholars indicate that the proper translation is "Thou shalt not murder" which tends to change how you view killing an "enemy" in defending your tribe, family, etc.

Jordan

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

The problem is you are trying to rationalize war and compare it to civilian life and you can't. In most classic war's the Government goes through a policy of preparing its population for war. if you look at WWll the various Governments sought to make the enemy out to be less than human, to be hated with a passion so if you spoke to many vets of wars such as those they had a very clear understanding they were going overseas to do one thing and one thing only and that was to kill the enemy.

Yes you don't have to follow an illegal order however during a combat situation its sometimes hard for a low ranking soldier to be able to make that judgment because often times he doesn't have all the facts. Disobey the order legal or not and the chances are you will be in very big trouble unless the situation winds up in the media and then of course you will be a hero. You can come up with theoretical situations where its clear what's legal and illegal but at the moment that's another story.In a way no different than a Police Officer under incredible stress making a split second decision to use deadly force and then a panel of experts takes weeks and months sitting in their offices pouring over all the facts deciding if he made the right decision.

I tend to agree with you. I haven't watched it in very long time, but I think the movie Breaker Morant gave an interesting treatment of this subject.

Jordan

Logic makes sense. In an imperfect world, Darwin was not far from wrong. My son is somewhere in Asia right now in a Ranger unit. I hope he makes it back to ponder this.

Originally Posted by Bladerunner

Logic makes sense. In an imperfect world, Darwin was not far from wrong. My son is somewhere in Asia right now in a Ranger unit. I hope he makes it back to ponder this.

I hope you do not feel that I am trivializing a very serious topic. My best wishes to your son, I truly hope that everything goes well for him.

Originally Posted by Paddington

I hope you do not feel that I am trivializing a very serious topic. My best wishes to your son, I truly hope that everything goes well for him.

Please rent the movie Selling Iraq. One day maybe...and GOD I hope so...we can all just get along.

Originally Posted by Paddington

My 'official position' is that killing comes down to intent. If I was a psychopath and joined the army to satisfy my blood lust I would be committing murder. The majority of soldiers, however, are not psychopaths; instead, they are usually men and women who are just trying to do a job -- a very difficult job at that -- defending their nation's best interests.

This opens up a whole can of worms about the role of the state, etc; however, I would argue that in some respects a soldier enters into a social contact that moves above a standard perception of morality. When we commit murder we are doing something 'selfish' -- I don't think that this can be the case with the soldier; instead, they are doing something that is a 'virtue' -- something intrinsically good inherent in being a soldier.

Again this opens up an even bigger can of worms, e.g. what is a soldiers virtue, etc. I will leave this alone for now.

These are just some very quick points and are by no means the totality of what I believe. I really appreciate all the replies; it's a topic that causes a lot of personal responses -- I asked a group of friends who served in Iraq and one of them said: "Mate, when I'm looking down the barrel of a fu***ng gun, it all means nowt to me".

Intent is the root of the question, but as I understand(and please correct me if I am wrong on this) your saying that murder is selfish and killing in combat is virtouious?

If this is part of your question the answer i have is this: What act of killing is not selfish? Every time i pulled the trigger it was for selfish reasons, I dont want to die, I wont let my friends die, He may get away and hurt someone down the road. I personally see nothing virtous or noble in killing in any form. Even in combat, when i followed all the rules of engagement, made sure i was authorized weapons free status, used escalation of force, and then killed it was still because i didnt want any of the things that could happen to happen. Self preservation is very selfish. Even when defending your home or family aganst an invader, would taking his life in self defense not be selfish? Some one once told me "to take life in defense of a ideal is not to defend the ideal; but simply to take life" I feel that is the purest way to put killing. All said, killing is still necessary to our way of life because, well to put it simply, its very effective at getting results.

-Recon

I think anyone doing an "active" combat tour will rapidly develop a new ethical code. Especially after seeing friends of several weeks or months getting bloody, maimed, crippled, and killed (repeatedly). It is killing. It is only murder if it is illegal, at the time. If it becomes illegal later, you must hope it isn't retroactive.

To address the question of 12 year-olds, females, etc...: if they are shooting at you, then they are an enemy combatant and need to be eliminated as quickly as possible.

If you can take prisoners, you take prisoners. If you do not have sufficient men to detail for guarding prisoners, and your zone is still hot, then you do not take prisoners at all...


Some fellows new in-country would talk about the philosophical/ethical points for a week or so; not so much after that. While still very early in my first combat tour (in the early 70's), I came to fully believe that "War is politics in it's purist form." I still do believe that.

USMC, Recon team attached 1MarDiv, early 70's, 3 consecutive tours.

Originally Posted by Sticky

I think anyone doing an "active" combat tour will rapidly develop a new ethical code. Especially after seeing friends of several weeks or months getting bloody, maimed, crippled, and killed (repeatedly). It is killing. It is only murder if it is illegal, at the time. If it becomes illegal later, you must hope it isn't retroactive.

To address the question of 12 year-olds, females, etc...: if they are shooting at you, then they are an enemy combatant and need to be eliminated as quickly as possible.

If you can take prisoners, you take prisoners. If you do not have sufficient men to detail for guarding prisoners, and your zone is still hot, then you do not take prisoners at all...


Some fellows new in-country would talk about the philosophical/ethical points for a week or so; not so much after that. While still very early in my first combat tour (in the early 70's), I came to fully believe that "War is politics in it's purist form." I still do believe that.

USMC, Recon team attached 1MarDiv, early 70's, 3 consecutive tours.

You got that right. Semper Fi.

Originally Posted by recon

...Self preservation is very selfish...
-Recon

Recon,

I think you are oversimplifying here. I would agree with you in the case of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Goetz However, as a soldier it was your duty to not only kill those identified as the enemy but to maintain yourself at least as well as you did your weapon. It was not your decision to kill for self preservation. It was your duty. If you were to get yourself killed by doing something stupid or illegal or if you committed suicide you could be subject to a Bad Conduct Discharge (BCD) posthumously.

Brad

Originally Posted by raghur

1. There are rules of war.

Good quote from that page:

It has often been commented that creating laws for something as inherently crimeful and lawless as war seems like a lesson in absurdity.

Rules, laws and ethics all exist, but they do all rather pale into insignificance compared to the immediate and harsh reality, and sheer scale of a war.

If I was a soldier I'd like to think I'd never consider killing a baby, or a woman carrying one. But that means I'd run the risk of being killed by a suicide bomber with explosives hidden on a baby.

You have to judge a soldier's actions based not only on what he knows, but what he doesn't (and can't) know. People in the front line can't see the big picture, nor can they even know the minutiae of their own situation.

Someone said that if a soldier kills someone identified as a civilian, that counts as murder. What if that civilian is throwing rocks? Firing a gun? Throwing a grenade? Refuses to stop a vehicle at a roadblock?