Moral objections on warfare.

[trackend]

Here you go Dave

VC Iraq hero sparks Caribbean pride

The Grenadian Prime Minister has congratulated his fellow countryman-turned-British soldier for becoming the first person to receive the Victoria Cross in over two decades.

Private Johnson Beharry, 25, who saved 30 colleagues by guiding them through an ambush in Iraq, insisted he was just "doing his job". He was struck by a bullet as he guided a Warrior armoured convoy through the flashpoint town of Al Amarah last May.

A month later, the young soldier saved more lives in a second ferocious exchange and suffered serious head wounds in a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) assault that left him in a coma.

Grenada's Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell said his actions would prove an inspiration to all his Caribbean compatriots.

He said: "Private Beharry's bravery and sense of duty have made all Grenadians very proud. Private Beharry's achievement will inspire the young men and women of Grenada, and should be used as a lesson which demonstrates that the most difficult challenges and trying times can be overcome."

[kiwimac]

The first, and to my mind, the worst effect on war is it dehumanises the "enemy" and the soldiers that fight them, whoever they may be. Let me simply quote Mark Twain.

The War Prayer
by Mark Twain

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.

It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths.

The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

*God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!*

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting.

With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it.

Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts.

Amen.

(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Kiwimac

[mosquitoman]

You can read the official citation on the BBC's website

[Nonskimmer]

Hats off to Private Johnson Beharry, VC!

[cheddar cheese]

Yeah , he deserves it!

[wmaxt]

What Must be remembered is that it's Society that generates the rules of Life and Death or what is acceptable and what's not. At the turn of the century the average age of death was 47 for men and 30 something for women and life was proportionaly hard - death just was and fair play was an idea.

Prisoners were treated according to the rules of their society ie. Japan in WWII. However there are always those, Especialy in in positions that can exercise the lust to kill, who will step over the line and kill with out reguard to "Rights" or right or wrong. There are also those who will stop them if the opportunity comes up.

Togay lifespans have about doubled and life is sacred to most societies and the rules of todays warfare reflect this change in attitudes. Whats ok today is Much Much different than it was for WWII and WWI. This applies not only in who is a combattant (allowed to be killed) but in who and how many can be put at risk.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by DAVIDICUS

DerAdlerIstGelandet,

What do you mean by addressing my comment with "So you think that Abu Ghraib was worse then killing downed pilots or pilots in there parachutes?" I think you should go back and re-read this thread.

I never said that I thought that Abu Ghraib was worse then killing downed pilots or pilots in their parachutes. I was taking issue with MichaelHenley's comment that "The stuff that GT mentioned is as bad as what happenened ad Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq."

trackend then tried to explain what MichaelHenley said by saying "I believe David, Michael is referring to the images/allegations shown on ABC, 60 minutes and the Washington post."

I then responded that I understand perfectly well what he meant but disagreed with his assertion and threw in a joke about one of the "abuses" at Abu Ghraib which was making the Iraqi's wear women's panties on their head.

I do apologize I misread what you had written. Sorry about that.

Originally Posted by trackend

I just hope the press gives as much coverage to Private Johnson Beharry winning the VC as it has done to knocking the forces as this shows that there are plenty of guys from all nations out there doing a first class bit of soldiering.

Here is the problem the media out there like CNN and most other news agencies only will broadcast and report on the bad things that happen because unfortunatly bad news is good news. They dont broadcast on the good things that happen. It really is a shame.

Well, here's my take on this topic... surely some will agree some will disagree.

Shooting at an aircrew while they are in a parachute or on the ground, well techinically speaking, they are not yet captives, so it is certainly acceptable and legal to do so.

In general I'd say that if the parachute is comming down in enemy territory (w.r.t. the man in the parachute), it is dishonorable to shoot at him, the odds that he will escape capture are small and thus his threat to your side is minimal. It is almost the same thing as shooting someone holding up a white flag.

If on the otherhand, the enemy aircrew is over friendly territory, then the odds of him returning to battle are high, and it makes sense to wound or kill him if you can. The pilot is at least as valuable to the enemy as his plane - if you do not kill or badly wound him, he will most likely return to the skies and quite possibly kill more of your comrades. He's just another man in uniform on the other side and a legitimate target, whether he is in a plane, floating in a parachute down to friendly ground, or running from a plane he has just bellied in.

Killing an enemy soldier after he's surrendered is a war crime, pure and simple. Anyone doing so should have been hanged after the war. And any town that had a significant number of its people participate in killing a downed airman should have been burned to the ground after the war and its people made homeless.

As for Abu-Ghraib, I think it shames us that our military conducts itself this way, even if it is only a small part of our military that does so. I think that the way we are running Guantanimo and our handling of "detainee's" is shameful as well. In the end, we will regret this part of how we are handling the WOT.

=S=

Lunatic

[Nonskimmer]

Originally Posted by RG_Lunatic

I think that the way we are running Guantanimo and our handling of "detainee's" is shameful as well.

How so? It's not a challenge, I'm honestly curious.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by RG_Lunatic

Well, here's my take on this topic... surely some will agree some will disagree.

Shooting at an aircrew while they are in a parachute or on the ground, well techinically speaking, they are not yet captives, so it is certainly acceptable and legal to do so.

Actually no it is against the Geneva Convention today. However the only people who actually go by the Geneva Convention dont fight each other like the US and England.

Originally Posted by RG_Lunatic

Killing an enemy soldier after he's surrendered is a war crime, pure and simple. Anyone doing so should have been hanged after the war. And any town that had a significant number of its people participate in killing a downed airman should have been burned to the ground after the war and its people made homeless.

Agreed, except for the town part being burned, there was never a town where the whole population participated in it and if you burn down and town and make the people homeless for that reason you are no better then the fools who committed the crime and you too (the person who burned the town) should be burned to the ground.

Originally Posted by RG_Lunatic

As for Abu-Ghraib, I think it shames us that our military conducts itself this way, even if it is only a small part of our military that does so. I think that the way we are running Guantanimo and our handling of "detainee's" is shameful as well. In the end, we will regret this part of how we are handling the WOT.

Disagree but I am not going to get started on this one.

Originally Posted by Nonskimmer

How so? It's not a challenge, I'm honestly curious.

Torture, of various degrees, is used routinely. Cultural humiliation is used constantly. No rights of any kind are accorded to the captives. To subvert our own laws on this subject, we conduct these actions on non-US territory. Even worse, we often hand over captives to other governments that we know engage in more severe forms of torture than we are willing to engage in ourselves.

I believe that first and formost, anything we are willing to have done in our name, we should be willing to do ourselves on our own soil. Second, I only believe torture should be used in cases involving imminent specific threat - example: you have captured a terrorist you have solid knowlege has placed bombs in unknown locations that have not yet exploded.

Even more than this, the intentional disrespecting of the captive's culture, by doing things like putting women's undergarments on their heads and smeering them with feeces, as a general practice, not to gain any specific information, is intolerable. Inevetiably these practices leak out and drive boarderliner's over the line and into the camps of the enemy, because they see it as insulting to their cultural and religious heritage.

And finally, because in the end very little of value is obtained through such practices. More than anything else, when all is said and done, these things are done out of spite.

=S=

Lunatic

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

Actually no it is against the Geneva Convention today. However the only people who actually go by the Geneva Convention dont fight each other like the US and England.

Well, in WWII it was certainly not against the Genevia Convention. And today, well, as you said only certain nations support and abide by the "rules of war". Those countries also are the ones who make the rules, and it serves them to have rules which protect their aircrews as much as possible while over enemy territiory since the enemy is extremely unlikely to ever have aircrews over their territory.

By any reasonable standard of war, all enemy combatants are legitimate targets of fire until they actually surrender or are otherwise taken into custody.

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

Agreed, except for the town part being burned, there was never a town where the whole population participated in it and if you burn down and town and make the people homeless for that reason you are no better then the fools who committed the crime and you too (the person who burned the town) should be burned to the ground.

Perhaps so - the price of such behavior is only born by the loosers. Again this comes down to active vs. passive responsibility, a topic we've already discussed. You would say that if there are 100 people in the town and 51 of them vote to kill the captive, only those 51 are responsible for their actions. I would say that all 100 are responsible, unless the 49 do all they can to prevent the killing. Simply saying "okay, we lost the vote, so he dies" is not sufficient. Of course, I'm being kind of extreme here, I suppose the proper thing to do would be to find out who commited the crime - but if the people of the town refuse to turn testify against thier neighbors, or are found to being lying, then of course their homes should be burned down too.

Originally Posted by RG_Lunatic

As for Abu-Ghraib, I think it shames us that our military conducts itself this way, even if it is only a small part of our military that does so. I think that the way we are running Guantanimo and our handling of "detainee's" is shameful as well. In the end, we will regret this part of how we are handling the WOT.

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

Disagree but I am not going to get started on this one.

LOL - yes it would probably be better if you and I did not get into a direct discussion on this topic.

=S=

Lunatic

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by RG_Lunatic

Perhaps so - the price of such behavior is only born by the loosers. Again this comes down to active vs. passive responsibility, a topic we've already discussed. You would say that if there are 100 people in the town and 51 of them vote to kill the captive, only those 51 are responsible for their actions. I would say that all 100 are responsible, unless the 49 do all they can to prevent the killing. Simply saying "okay, we lost the vote, so he dies" is not sufficient. Of course, I'm being kind of extreme here, I suppose the proper thing to do would be to find out who commited the crime - but if the people of the town refuse to turn testify against thier neighbors, or are found to being lying, then of course their homes should be burned down too.

Again disagree 100% however I am not going to get started on this one either because this one is just plain stupid.

[DAVIDICUS]

RG_Luntic: The 1929 Geneva Convention did apply to a downed flyer en route to earth via his parachute. Its application included:

"... those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause ..."

Originally Posted by DAVIDICUS

RG_Luntic: The 1929 Geneva Convention did apply to a downed flyer en route to earth via his parachute. Its application included:

"... those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause ..."

This except clearly does not tell the complete story. It is clear that shooting a enemy soldier that was wounded was perfectly okay if he was not also detained or otherwise fully cut off from his sides support. You were under no obligation to allow him to crawl back to his trench, even if you could see his arm had been blown off.

And that DOES NOT apply to a pilot in a chute, especially one over his side's territory. He is still combat capable, he may be armed, etc.. What is the difference between a man bailing out of a plane and one abandoning a pillbox and running away from the battle? They are both legitimate targets. Both, if allowed to escape, may return to the field of combat in the future. The rule you've sited clearly applies to the enemy when they are no longer capable of combat AND are within your control. I'm sure if the whole context of that statment were given, it would be clear that this is what is meant.

=S=

Lunatic