Are all soldiers like the Nazis?

S.A.M. said:
Actually I'm claiming they don't do body counts ie the records don't exist.

If you claim they are doing body counts then there should be official records of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan

What is confusing you?
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He isn't confused but you are pretending to be naive on the issue. There are body counts for civilian deaths in Afghanistan and its a UN agency that keeps track of them:


UNAMA recorded 1,013 civilian deaths in the first six months of 2009, an increase of 24 per cent as compared to the same period in 2008. “Both anti-government elements (AGEs) and pro-government forces (PGFs) are responsible for the increase in civilian casualties,” states the report. However, more civilians are being killed by the armed opposition than by the Afghan security and international military forces, indicate the UN figures.

http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B9C2E...0A22BB5BFE041B76C125760400343AE3?OpenDocument

You have deliberately taken a quote out of context. Its not that the US doesn't do body counts they don't do ENEMY body counts. Overall body counts are done on a continuous basis by the UN:

"Indicating the number of insurgents killed has little relevance to impacting the lives of Afghans. In fact, if that were the only purpose and metric, you would likely only extend the time it takes to bring about an end to the insurgency," Smith said in an e-mail to CNN responding to a query about the change.

The issue of publishing enemy body counts has been extremely sensitive to the U.S. military since the Vietnam War when the military regularly published large enemy body counts but seemed to be failing overall to make progress in the war."

"...Smith said, "We conduct operations not aimed at killing insurgents, although in many instances that is the outcome, but to over time clear areas of insurgency and give the people a chance to reconnect with official forms of governance and to rebuild their lives, socially and economically."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/07/27/afghanistan.body.count/index.html
 
S.A.M. said:
Why? Its just a piece of paper. Pretty meaningless in practice. Why is it more important than people's lives?
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I do realize that you believe that a soldier should just put down his weapon and pretend that the guy on the other side would do the same. Is it that you think a soldier on the other side would do the same? Only an idiot would do such a thing in an armed conflict. Once you are there, once you are in the fight you do your duty, you do your job. The constitution is not just a piece of paper if you believe in the values therein. I mean I can ask you as a religious person why you believe in the Koran and all the other nonsense since it's only a book, some guys scribbling on a piece of paper.
 
Signal said:
I don't think the findings of the Milgram experiment have much to do with soldiers or warfare.

I think some people just are born to be soliders, they have it in them to fight in battle.
It's a talent, like someone else may have a talent for music or language or math.

The whole premise of this thread seems to be that if people truly had their own way and wouldn't be oppressed by any authoritative figures, then nobody would become a soldier. I don't think this is the case.
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Well now. Hell must have frozen over because I absolutely agree with you. Most men who have served in the British corps went in at the age of 16 and continue til retirement.
 
WillNever said:
The military just kills people. That's it. Nothing else. Everyone who willingly serves in the military is either a murderer themselves, or an accomplice to murder. There is nothing righteous or noble about it and there are no exceptions to that rule. The opportunities to engage in killing and destruction are primarily what attract people to military service. Denying that fact makes no difference.

It's akin to the people who join the police force after they get out of the military...because they wish to continue living a violent lifestyle with impunity. Trying to substantiate that kind of primitive barbarism, with grandiose claims of being "patriotic" or "wanting to serve," is an insult to the intelligence of every peaceful and rational human being. Death and destruction are not noble concepts... regardless of the scenario. Nor are death and destruction "necessary evils." That's just more of the same rationalization, by savages who refuse grow up and leave the cave.
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So then this would be true of the men who served their nations during WW2 against the Nazi onslaught? What should the Russians have done? The British during bombing raids? What should the Americans have done? Nothing?

It took brave men to storm Normandy knowing that most of them would meet their death. They must have done so for a reason no? I think it was indeed a noble endeavor. If they were born cowards then we would all grow up with a Sieg Heil.

In the present circumstances in Afghanistan and Iraq I think it was a mistake, like Vietnam these are bad wars. However I do think that the West does have a problem with muslim Jihadists and it is something we will have to confront but there are better ways of doing this than engaging ourselves in Afghanistan.
 
Willnever:

WillNever said:
The military just kills people. That's it. Nothing else.
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Thanks for that, Willnever. Always good to hear from an expert. :rolleyes:

Everyone who willingly serves in the military is either a murderer themselves, or an accomplice to murder.
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Nonsense. Many people in the military never kill anybody throughout their entire career.

The opportunities to engage in killing and destruction are primarily what attract people to military service.
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You're just making this stuff up, aren't you? It's laughable. Maybe you ought to, like, talk to at least one soldier sometime.

You're almost as bad as SAM.
 
Lucysnow said:
I do realize that you believe that a soldier should just put down his weapon and pretend that the guy on the other side would do the same. Is it that you think a soldier on the other side would do the same? Only an idiot would do such a thing in an armed conflict.
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So you believe everyone should have the same weapons, to ensure they follow MAD?
 
Lucysnow said:
You are not addressing what you said and my response with this question.
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Your point is that soldiers on either side will not blink first. So the solution is for everyone to have a weapon [and a foot soldier to wield one] just in case they are under attack. Then why restrict it to just soldiers? The desire for self defense resides in everyone, why should it be legal only for soldiers to kill? Why not make it legal across the board? Let everyone have the same prerogatives.

In India we've seen [in the Golden Temple during emergency, in Kashmir, in the Jharkand and in Mumbai 26/11] how useful it is when the army defends you from your own neigbours and citizens. How about making it the law? Let everyone have the ability to defend themselves. I'm sure you'd sleep easier knowing that everyone in your neighbourhood was able to defend themselves from any threat
 
I suppose these things cannot be adequately explained without reference to the Varnashrama system.
 
S.A.M. said:
Your point is that soldiers on either side will not blink first. So the solution is for everyone to have a weapon [and a foot soldier to wield one] just in case they are under attack. Then why restrict it to just soldiers? The desire for self defense resides in everyone, why should it be legal only for soldiers to kill? Why not make it legal across the board? Let everyone have the same prerogatives.
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No. The point is that you are asking why soldiers on the field don't look at the soldier on the other side and ask 'why am I shooting this person?' When they are already being shot at. You ask want to know why a soldier doesn't disarm himself with the simple question 'is not the man on the other side also doing his duty?' which is besides the point. Once on the field, once you have decided to serve there is no room for these questions because the guy on the other side isn't going to ask them.

In many States in the US individuals can own a firearm for self-defence purposes but that has nothing to do with soldiers on the battlefield. When it comes to 'killing' everyone has that prerogative as you well know.
 
Lucysnow said:
No. The point is that you are asking why soldiers on the field don't look at the soldier on the other side and ask 'why am I shooting this person?' When they are already being shot at.
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Nope thats not what I am asking. I'm asking what they are doing on the field to begin with, on both sides. You're acting as if one set of soldiers was born in response to another, they weren't. The soldiers already existed. The system for creating them also existed. What are they defending exactly? Who are all the people they are killing? Other foot soldiers like them? So, if we were to theoretically get rid of all foot soldiers on both sides, would that end the "problem" of war?
 
S.A.M. said:
Nope thats not what I am asking. I'm asking what they are doing on the field to begin with, on both sides. You're acting as if one set of soldiers was born in response to another, they weren't. The soldiers already existed. The system for creating them also existed. What are they defending exactly? Who are all the people they are killing? Other foot soldiers like them? So, if we were to theoretically get rid of all foot soldiers on both sides, would that end the "problem" of war?
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And that's a political question. The job of the soldier on the field is not to ask that when he's a professional soldier. The answer by any soldier of 'what are they defending?' will always be an individual one. Soldiers are necessary, they will always be necessary. Even in countries like Costa Rica that have no standing army they would form one in the blinking of an eye if their borders were threatened and no other nation were willing to fight on their behalf. You will never be rid of the foot soldier, whom they are killing depends on the objective which are tactical. You seem to be advocating a world in which there is absolutely no war, at this time in human history this is simply wishful thinking on your part.
 
You seem to be advocating a world in which there is absolutely no war, at this time in human history this is simply wishful thinking on your part.
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Again, thats not what I am asking. I am questioning the motives of people [men and women] who kill other men and women because they are ordered to, and justify it with an ideology, any ideology.

Wht would induce you, for instance, to stand in the field, point a weapon at a complete stranger and kill him/her because you were ordered to?
 
S.A.M. said:
Again, thats not what I am asking. I am questioning the motives of people [men and women] who kill other men and women because they are ordered to, and justify it with an ideology, any ideology.

Wht would induce you, for instance, to stand in the field, point a weapon at a complete stranger and kill him/her because you were ordered to?
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The motives have to do with their sense of duty when they entered into the corps to begin with. It is their duty to serve. Period.

I would do so on the battlefield because if I don't it would mean my life. Again you don't seem to get it! When you are on the battlefield you are being fired at, so how do you respond? By asking a stupid question like 'why are they firing at me?' No. Right now many in the West are fighting to rid the world of muslim extremism that are proliferating outside of the West in places like Afghanistan. There are those whom I have met who do it so the Afghan's can be 'free' of Taliban insurgents, those who would cut off their finger for voting or pour acid on a female child for attempting to go to school. There are those who go out of a sense of duty to the other men and women who are on the battlefront, in other words they are there to protect the man who is standing next to them and feel obligated to do so, this is true especially for units that have worked together for a long time and have a sense of kinship (brothers in arms and all that).
 
Sense of duty? What sense of duty requires you to kill another human being?

When you are on the battlefield you are being fired at, so how do you respond?
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What if you're the invader and occupier? Then whats your justification?
 
S.A.M. said:
Sense of duty? What sense of duty requires you to kill another human being?



What if you're the invader and occupier? Then whats your justification?
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I guess the same sense of duty that allowed troops to fight the serbs who were killing muslims.

Or the sense of duty to protect your nation or another people from religious freaks.

Or perhaps its simply a sense of duty to protect your borders from an invading army.

It requires killing people this is true. If you are a pacifist you might argue that all forms of war is wrong, I am not a pacifist, I simply believe one should choose their wars wisely. Its a fact of life that at times people will be forced to aggressively fight another to the death, sometimes its a form of self-defence that only those with a low sense of personal survival will avoid.

Who the invader is and who the occupier is belongs in the domain of politics, this all means nothing once you are on the ground.
 
Who the invader is and who the occupier is belongs in the domain of politics, this all means nothing once you are on the ground.
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The wisdom of war.

So the OP is right. All soldiers are like the Nazis. They kill when ordered to, regardless of the ideology.
 
S.A.M. said:
The wisdom of war.

So the OP is right. All soldiers are like the Nazis. They kill when ordered to, regardless of the ideology.
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Again the word Nazi is being used broadly, so broadly that it has no meaning at all. In your mind a soldier who fought against the nazi's is a nazi and the soldier who fought for the nazi party is a nazi. Your OP isn't correct sam its hyperbole. A nazi is a member of a party started by Adolf Hitler. Your twisting of the term doesn't confuse the rest of us.
 
S.A.M. said:
Your point is that soldiers on either side will not blink first. So the solution is for everyone to have a weapon [and a foot soldier to wield one] just in case they are under attack. Then why restrict it to just soldiers? The desire for self defense resides in everyone, why should it be legal only for soldiers to kill?
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It isn't legal to use deadly force in defense of life where you reside?
 
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