Comments on: Should soldiers treat non-combatants with respect?

By: skepticlawyer

skepticlawyer — Fri, 25 May 2007 09:25:12 +0000

Pommy: are you in Qld?

By: Tim R

Tim R — Fri, 25 May 2007 05:10:40 +0000

I see what you mean Eljiah about Vom Krieg. Quite interesting.

“it follows that he who uses force unsparingly, without reference to the quantity of bloodshed, must obtain a superiority”

“it is to no purpose, and even acting against one’s own interest, to turn away from the consideration of the real nature of the affair, because the coarseness of its elements excites repugnance”

“to introduce into the philosophy of war itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity”

Full text availabe at
http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/VomKriege2/ONWARTOC2.HTML

By: pommygranate

pommygranate — Thu, 24 May 2007 22:32:02 +0000

With a name like yours, are you available for some pro bono work all for a good cause?

By: Club Troppo » Missing Link - Thursday 24 May

Club Troppo » Missing Link - Thursday 24 May — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:48:04 +0000

[...] Humphreys at the ALS blog kicks off a discussion about the implications of a recent finding that almost half of US soldiers disagreed with Geneva [...]

By: Elijah

Elijah — Thu, 24 May 2007 07:55:33 +0000

Tit-for-tat.

By: Brendan Halfweeg

Brendan Halfweeg — Thu, 24 May 2007 06:27:52 +0000

Fortunately we don’t live by the credo “Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius” – “Kill them [all]! Surely the Lord discerns which [ones] are his.”

Unfortunately, some of our enemies do.

By: Elijah

Elijah — Thu, 24 May 2007 06:22:03 +0000

Next Tim,

Read Vom Krieg.

Sun Tzu is useful in that he encourages thought with nice laconic little statements. He talks about war rather than than a simply body of knowledge including repeatable tactics, operations and strategies.

One commenter called his work on war a “distillation” of war.

Looting and raping were considered rewards for troops and a way of refreshing your army and their supplies. If you steal from the land, you don’t have to carry as much.

That applies to today as well, though I would add that this looting and raping would be more like an economic exchange. Reading about the way the US prosecuted the occupation, I was astounded that they decided to “bring everything in”. There are Subway stores inside the bases!

I would have thought they would have lightened their tail and the money and resources they could have saved be used to buy supplies off the local population. This would have injected some serious value in the economy.

More importantly it would have developed relationships between supplier and customer. This would have been used to great advantage to tie in the need for the survival of these mechanisms to both parties. You would have had a situation where both the Iraqis and the Yanks would need each other.

By: Tim R

Tim R — Thu, 24 May 2007 03:25:31 +0000

I recently read Sun Tzu’s “The art of war”. These days war is no where near as ruthless. The good ancient Chinese general approached battle tactics with a high degree of rationality and good understanding of human psychology. Looting and raping were considered rewards for troops and a way of refreshing your army and their supplies. If you steal from the land, you don’t have to carry as much.
My favourite part in the book is the tactic of sealing off all exits for your army. People fight harder when they know there is no escape.
These ancient tactics were extremely ruthless and relied heavily on secrecy and deception (not very compatible with democracy). However paradoxically the more ruthless approach may ultimately result in less deaths over all because operations are quicker and more efficient. The ancient Chinese knew to attack cities only as a last resort and knew prolonged operations were incredibly stupid as a drain on both sides.

Of course I think most war is totally immoral and stems from the belief that the state is a higher power than the individual. These days we have this same ideology but it’s watered down.
I think it would be very hard for a soldier to understand where the line in the sand is on rules of war these days. Especially for minor indescretions.
However if you’re a soldier, you’ve signed your life away (for a good price) and you have to obey orders pure and simple and as a soldier that’s all you need to know.

By: nicholas gray

nicholas gray — Thu, 24 May 2007 03:22:41 +0000

What we need in reality and gameality is to import Voodoo priests- raise the dead to be on your side! (I think this is a trick that Howard might use later this year- he needs the votes!)

By: terje (say tay-a)

terje (say tay-a) — Thu, 24 May 2007 02:42:40 +0000

Essentially we have. The priests of secular democracy and the priests of Islamic facism both became mobilised soon after Saddam was toppled. Each side is now trying to kill the priests on the other side because the priests will ultimately dictate what the masses do next.