Watch out, the Arab rangers are coming. Stab hack slash kill! Kill ‘em all, for the sake of safety!

Justify murder all you want. It’s still disgusting and inhumane.

What can I say?

May you remain ignorant forever. May you never learn what others must do to keep you safe.

Uniting to kill others is brotherhood?

Lots of extremists call Al Qaida, etc, brotherhood. They always got their “Enemies” and “oh we must defend Muslims” and they justify killing innocent civilians because they are targeting the “bigger enemy” which are the non-Muslim governments. Uniting for violence, whatever your cause is, that’s not brotherhood. It’s just that – violence.

I got my biases against the IDF for obvious reasons. I don’t like nationalism and I don’t like crimes portrayed as “self-defense” nor do I like the similar attitude from the Arab side either.

If you got people like yourself justifying murder in the name of self-defense and you got people like Hezbollah doing the same, we’d be fucked for life. Both sides will kill in the name of self-defense and no one comes out the winner, least of all the innocent civilians.

And I don’t think this is the same as IDF and Palestine. We are talking about Iraq and the U.S. Different forces, gone to war for different reasons, justifying it with different explanations, completely different circumstances. It doesn’t have history, Iraq didn’t even pose a threat, and there are no forces in the U.S like there are suicide bombers in Israel. It’s so different.

That’s a first. Some disagree with general or specific policies. Usually, I call them morons; some of them, I call hypocrites; some I call naive, and others yet opportunistic scum. But to disagree with IDF ethics and thus refuse to serve? They would have to be very strange and unpleasant people indeed, to object to purity of arms, brotherhood, leading by personal example and so forth.

“I’m saying it’s disgusting to justify it all the time and to be indifferent about it, no, to even CELEBRATE it which many do. That, to me, is disgusting.”

I don’t quite understand what “it” stands for, in this case. I presume you mean dead civilians. Again – consider the example of the ethical dilemma of the enemy+civilian. Sometimes you have no choice but to kill a civilian. Sometimes it happens due to a mistake. A soldier MUST be ready and able to ignore this and move on. Otherwise he’s a danger to his mates, his family, his country – and foreign civilians. I am yet to know anyone (sans enemies) who celebrates when civilians die.

“Then don’t forget that thousands and thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians went through exactly the same thing.”

No, not really. They didn’t see Israelis handing out candy in the street just because their loved ones were killed. And they didn’t see Israelis running around in a frenzied mob, waving the internal organs of their loved ones in the air.

And that’s the difference, you see -

What would happen were Israelis to become totally pacifist right now, to the point of not defending themselves in any way?

What would happen were Palestinians to become totally pacifist right now, to the point of not defending themselves in any way?

Israel could kill every hunam in both PA and Lebanon within a day. Two days with coffee breaks and a limited budget.

We have seen what happens when Israel’s dear neighbors think they can kill every Jew in Israel, didn’t we?

I speak of IDF because that’s what I know. To the best of my knowledge, the ethos and standing orders of every army of a liberal democracy are pretty much the same.

Too late. It has happened. I have lost beloved friends to enemies – enemies who were anything but indifferent about these deaths. They were extatically happy. I am Israeli – almost everyone I know lost friends and/or family to enemies… and these enemies are ALWAYS exuberant in these deaths. Whether those they’ve killed were civilians or soldiers.

Then don’t forget that thousands and thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians went through exactly the same thing.

You have no idea about the difficulties of fighting an enemy that hides among a civilian population, pretends to be part of the civilian population and uses weapons like boobytraps and suicide bombers.

I already recognized that ignorance and no one said it’s easy. I’m saying it’s disgusting to justify it all the time and to be indifferent about it, no, to even CELEBRATE it which many do. That, to me, is disgusting.

The act of it happening, yes it happens, this thread is not about that.

It’s about the outcome, the person you become after you commit this… mistake, let’s call it.

I’m not talking about the IDF specifically, I’m talking about the many soldiers and marines who DO that and still come out indifferent. But I appreciate your response and I understand your conclusions, it’s the reason why I admit that if I were in your place I’d write similar things.

Still though, there are and have been Israelis who don’t agree with IDF ethics, and have thus refused to serve. I call them strong, even if others call them traitors.

Too late. It has happened. I have lost beloved friends to enemies – enemies who were anything but indifferent about these deaths. They were extatically happy. I am Israeli – almost everyone I know lost friends and/or family to enemies… and these enemies are ALWAYS exuberant in these deaths. Whether those they’ve killed were civilians or soldiers.

“It seems as though you justify killing everything that moves as the “Enemy.””

This is a strange conclusion. Enemies are those who seek to harm me, and those who support those who seek to harm me. It’s simple, really – the first kind of people need to die. The second kind of people need to be neutralized, and if this means killing them… well, it’s unfortunate but sometimes inevitable.

But I, of course, do not think that “everything that moves” answers the above definition of “enemy”.

Next. Your perception of the USA occupation of Iraq seems more than a little twisted. It does not fit actual facts on the ground, it does not fit USA philosophy, it does not fit USA Military’s ethos, it makes no political, tactical, strategic or any other kind of sense.

Moreover, your… absolutism is problematic. I can undestand it, certainly… but it is naive in the extreme. The same Iraqis in Abu Gharib are crying for their evil, heartless American torturers to come back. The comparisons between Saddam’s genocidal regime and America’s kid gloves pseudo-occupation are, frankly, ridiculous.

You have no idea about the difficulties of fighting an enemy that hides among a civilian population, pretends to be part of the civilian population and uses weapons like boobytraps and suicide bombers.

“They have sophisticated technology to target actual terrorists – they should use that instead of the tedious “terror suspect” excuse”

“They” are using this techology. But this is not target practice. “Terror suspect” can be someone running around with a gun, it can be someone you have intel on, it can be someone who happens in a building in which you know a major meeting of terrorists is going on. It’s not… an excuse. The very notion that USA Military purposefully kills civilians and then uses excuses to cover it up is, frankly, insane. Why would they do it?

Now, about massive bombing of cities in total war. It is sometimes necessary. If your choice is between killing a million enemy civilians or having a million of YOUR civilians killed, guess what you must choose. There is no place for sentiments when you’re fighting for your life. And if Japan – as in the Japanese people – attacks you, you kill Japanese people. Racist? Cruel? Maybe. But it’s the only way to win.

The notion that the armies of liberal democracies train their soldiers to kill everyone and everything is also ludicrous. They simply don’t – exactly the opposite, actually. It seems to me that your pacifism and hatred of the military arises from lack of knowledge. I strongly suggest you take a look at the RoE of USA troops in Iraq, for instance. Read a bit about the army’s ethos. The information is freely availiable.

One of the most basic moral dilemmas presented to combat recruits in IDF is this – there’s an armed terrorist, a clear-cut enemy that needs killing. The only way to kill him, though, is by killing both him and an innocent civilian. What to do?

And there is no clear-cut answer. Sometimes you let the fucker go. Sometimes, the cost of letting him go outweights the cost of killing the civilian.

And about assorted atrocities done by USA troops – and I have no doubt that atrocities have happened: these are not things sanctioned by USA or the USA military. These are incidents performed by individuals against their orders, against their training, and against their ethos.

Some people are scum. The military screening process weeds much of these out, the training restrains most of those who are not weeded out. Some remain in the military and remain scum. Scum happens.

Let me tell you a story. A friend of mine came home after a month serving in Gaza. A good friend of his was killed there during this month. Other friends were wounded. He said – “Fuck them. We should kill them all and rape their women”. I believe that if he could, he would. And I understand why he felt this way.

But he didn’t do anything of the sort. Why? Because of his training. Because of his orders. Because he’s a part of a system that sees such behavior as criminal. And this is what keeps our soldiers sane, what enables them to calmly kill their enemies and to avoid killing civilians even when they really want to.

Consider this.

I said the above as someone still innocent who didn’t take part in war. I’ve yet to see anyone get bombed to pieces in front of me. I think that would make me lose enough sanity to shoot at anything I saw, too. There is no room for logic at a time like that. No room for thinking about ethics, etc, everything shrinks to the size of a pea and it’s just you trying to make it through this world.

If someone shot at me, I’d shoot back, and my entire philosophy would change on war.

But right now I stick to the above. And I wish I was strong enough to stick to it during war, but I’m not. Very few people are. And many of them, as a result, end up traumatized or dead.

It takes a VERY strong and intelligent person to stick to such morals during war.

It takes a VERY weak and gullible person to submit themselves to the ideology that their leaders/military trainers make them give into.

And let’s admit, most of us are weak and gullible.

You served in the IDF and that means you have a completely different POV and I respect that. BUT…

It seems as though you justify killing everything that moves as the “Enemy.” That’s incredibly dangerous. Calling an entire nation an enemy, that’s what Israelis complain about, but then you guys go ahead and label others the way they label you? It doesn’t make you any better than them. You can almost never tell the difference between enemies and innocent civilians during war. Most importantly – you don’t barge into a different country, occupy the fuck out of it, and then claim that you’re killing “terror suspects’ (i.e, thousands of innocent civilians) which is the case with the U.S and Iraq.

And failing to avoid killing civilians even though you’ve tried is also not a crime.

Yes it is, unless of course human bodies are just a bunch of stats to you. No lives, no feelings, no rights. Just point and kill. Is that an ethical philosophy? There are many soldiers who delibratey kill innocent civilians. Tons and tons of such profiles were revealed from Iraq. Bombing a village is a crime against humanity, and doing so just because “they are terror suspects” is a retarded justification for a serious human rights violation which people wouldn’t dismiss or justify if they were actual humans rather than zombie death machines who were trained to dehumanize an entire nation.

Read this example -

This sounds very fine, but how does he know they were all so honourable? Was it honourable to invade China and kill millions of Chinese civilians? How honourable were some of the American heroes, for that matter? Consider the great Admiral “Bull” Halsey, with his motto: “Kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more Japs.” Or the bomber of Tokyo (and later North Vietnam), Major General Curtis LeMay, who gloated that 100,000 people in Tokyo had “scorched and boiled and baked to death” in one night. Useful guys to have around in a war perhaps, but honourable?

Not only are they not honourable, but also painfully racist and disgusting. A danger to humanity as a whole. You call this natural? Average results of war? Normal behavior?

I’m saying, many soldiers are specifically trained to act like that. And just because they say it’s normal, doesn’t make it normal at all. Killing your fellow humans like they’re a bunch of lab rats isn’t something that we as humans are born to do. Not even our human nature justifies that. We got technology today that can whipe out entire populations in just one click – and countries are using such technology on defenseless citizens.

Is that really normal/average to you?

And no, being insensetive is not being insane. It’s being alive.

Then maybe when a soldier kills your loved one (which I hope never, ever happens), and is indifferent about it, that wouldn’t bother you at all because he was just trying to “stay alive” by killing everybody in sight.

My philosophy would be different on this if it was a country vs. country, as in, actual war.

But that is NOT the case in this thread. Iraq vs. the U.S – that’s not a war, that’s an occupation. Iraq under Saddam was a brutal occupation. Iraq under U.S invasion is a brutal occupation. Iraq’s civil war is brutal. It’s just fucked up in all angles, and sending more troops there is just asking for more trouble. Rape, sex trade, forced prostitution, and murder in cold blood happened in the name of the U.S army. Abu Ghraib is being used for torture, as is Guantanamo Bay which holds Iraqis. Is that so different than Saddam’s days? Saddam is a horrible dictator, that doesn’t mean he can’t be replaced with a horrible occupation by both local and outside forces. I don’t think that’s normal, nor should anyone dismiss it as normal if they actually considered Iraqis to be civilians with rights.

There are ethics that a lot of soldiers need to be taught. You go into Iraq – that’s a fucking choice. When you’re IN Iraq, a citizen of Iraq with no choice but to be caught in the violence, that’s another thing. Thousands of dead children and women were terror suspects in their own damned country?

There is no justification whatsoever. They have sophisticated technology to target actual terrorists – they should use that instead of the tedious “terror suspect” excuse.

You’re confused, I think. Nowadays we have rules for warfare. So, raping people is a crime; killing enemy combatants isn’t. And failing to avoid killing civilians even though you’ve tried is also not a crime.

It is oh-so-easy to lump it all into one category… hey, violence is bad, right? So all violence is bad, and therefore a crime. But this attitude is simply wrong. Sometimes violence is the only option for preventing more violence.

And yeah, some “soldiers” step down and refuse to kill. Their mates get killed because of this, and then other people have to pick up bits and pieces of their friends from the pavement. If these “soldiers” are especially unlucky – or perhaps if Fortuna is feeling especially just – it is these “soldiers” who’re picking up pieces of their loved ones from the pavement.

There are three kinds of orders in IDF – legal, illegal and blatantly illegal. The first you have to obey, the second you have to obey and then can dispute, the third you must disobey.

I take it that from your POV, any order to kill is of the third kind?

And no, being insensetive is not being insane. It’s being alive.