Sometime back, in a discussion about military service, Geoff pointed out that he and I have different ideas about what a soldiers primary duty is supposed to be:
Mark: to obey
Geoff: to help
Since then, I've liked his idea better (although I still think I am, unfortunately, correct). Andrew Sullivan and others reported this exchange, which to me neatly illustrated the two points of view and highlights the moral superiority of Geofferey's position.
Q: And General Pace, what guidance do you have for your military commanders over there as to what to do if -- like when General Horst found this Interior Ministry jail [where evidenceof toeture was widespread]?
GEN. PACE: It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it. As an example of how to do it if you don't see it happening but you're told about it is exactly what happened a couple weeks ago. There's a report from an Iraqi to a U.S. commander that there was possibility of inhumane treatment in a particular facility. That U.S. commander got together with his Iraqi counterparts. They went together to the facility, found what they found, reported it to the Iraqi government, and the Iraqi government has taken ownership of that problem and is investigating it. So they did exactly what they should have done.
SEC. RUMSFELD: But I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it.
GEN. PACE: If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it.
"reporting it" without an obligation to stop it is a) just ass-covering, b) tacit approval and c) wrong.
At least in my godless moral framework.
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5 comments:
Mark: to obey
Geoff: to help
You're both right.
A soldier's primary duty is to obey but there is this moral clause you'll learn about in boot camp (and one hopes beyond) to wit;
You do not have to obey a unlawful order. More, you're charged with NOT obeying such and .. in effect .. doing the Right Thing.
All of this is (I may be wrong) the result of the European campaign in 1944-45 and seeing what the end result is when a soldier says "just doing my job and obeying orders".
So, yes, obey. But you get to do so with a conscience and you have the luxury of doing the right thing when called upon.
If you're lucky you'll even get to participate in something that directly helps people; the six weeks I spent in Bangladesh with JTF Sea Angel in 1991 were the most rewarding six weeks of my Marine career.
My agreement with your sentiment knows no limit.
While I certainly do NOT believe that voluntarily joining the Army and being put in a position to kill other combatants make one guilty (at least morally) of murder, I also don't believe being in the Army absolves one of having to make moral choices. If anything, I think it makes those choices more important because the consequences are both immediate and long term.
There are wars this country has fought which, had I the opportunity, I would have cheerfully volunteered for and fought. At the same time, there are battles where I am certain I would not have followed orders, knowing full well the consequences. As a moderately informed, fairly intelligent citizen, I know there are men and women making those choices every single day that we never hear about. I may not get to read about their stories, but I do think about them and respect (as much as I am able to know) how tough they have it.
Yeah, when you first told me this story, I wasn't quite sure what the point of the exercise was... and you described your response as "to do what you're told", which I thought was a little glib. You reduce soldiers to empty vessels, which I guess is fine, but in that sense they're no different than anybody who has
1) a job, and
2) a boss.
While Geoff's answer isn't a whole lot more useful than yours, it does reflect a less cynical outlook towards the purposes the military can be put to by our politicians, in that the possibility of a good outcome is implied, whereas your take seems strictly value-neutral.
Isn't it more useful to ask what a soldier is, rather than how he does what he's supposed to do? And isn't a soldier a force-specialist who is called on to direct (or threaten to direct) force at (politically determined) problems that can be solved by the correct application of force? The force may be applied via violence in some cases, or via engineering in others (building bridges, levees, etc).
How this is achieved (by which I mean what sort of motivating principles the force-specializing organization uses with its employees, such as a culture of "do what you're told", as if that differentiates them from employees of other organizations) is sort of besides the point. Isn't it?
- Dan
Firstly, I would agree that the way I rendered the conversation here, neither Geoff nor I would seem to give especially functional answers.
Mine is definately a value-neutral position.
How this is achieved, is actually sort of the point. Human beings are not (at least the non-psychotic ones) value-neutral. They are often, as Geoff implies, moral citizens with compassion a strong sense of right and wrong, and an aversion to killing people.
How successful an army becomes on the battlefield is, I would suggest, somewhat correlated to effectively that army turns humans into value-neutral force projectors.
This is different from (most)jobs in the free market where you a) aren't being asked to kill people and b) always have the choice to quit and find work elsewhere. Refusing to obey in the army carries stiffer penalties, in some cases summary execution.
This is a very old arguement and I don't see that I can add much to Brian's summary.
This is different from (most)jobs in the free market where you a) aren't being asked to kill people and b) always have the choice to quit and find work elsewhere. Refusing to obey in the army carries stiffer penalties, in some cases summary execution.
I can add something to that ..
If the soldier has been indoctrinated correctly and the unit leaders know what they are doing the soldier won't want to quit. Oh, he won't want to be there but quitting in those circumstances means letting your buddies down. It's hard to stress how effective this is unless you've been there and experienced it.
Heh - this is another aspect of the obey/help thing Mark and Geoff are talking about.
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