I'm just watching Iron Man on blueray*. It's a good movie, like Transformers it's both well written and visually gorgeous. And funny. (I'm not much into action movies, but when they are fused nicely with SF and humor, that's a different matter.)
One scene illustrates well the problem with military think: Iron Man goes in and wipes out some terrorists that the marines can't get at. The air force don't know who or what it is doing that, so what do they do? They shoot at him.
Military people and others who love to fight say that they are necessary because the world is full of enemies. But the problem is that shooting is not their last resort, it's their first instinct. When they face something they don't understand, they shoot.
Another thing the film illustrates well is the principle that you make superior weapons to protect yourself, and then you better make sure they don't "fall into the wrong hands". Only the problem is: quick, mention one single weapon in the history of the world which did not fall into "the wrong hands" sooner or later. Usually sooner.
The Dissonance said...
In the twenty years I spent in the U.S. military from Private to Major we were always taught that killing was the last step in a line of escalation. When the US troops went through those huts in Panama I was never so proud as to see that no civilians were shot even though they popped up at very strange times and suddenly.
I don't know how they are trained today, but we certainly never shot first and asked questions later. Not in any unit I was in.
Eolake said...
Well, that's very good to hear.
I wonder about stuff like napalm, though. I think it's very hard to bomb or napalm villages without innocents getting hurt.
Also, like most human Minds, the military minds is split: there's the sensible mind, and the mind which for example in 2003 planned and promoted "Operation Shock And Awe", which was simply to bomb the city of Baghdad into rubble, murdering at least tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. (In the end it didn't happen. Maybe they promoted it to see what level of sadistic destruction they can get away with without too much of an uproar.)
* I can spell Blue-ray right, but I don't, as a mark of disrespect for a format where the machine takes two minutes to load a disc, and doesn't remember how far it played the disc last time, a huge annoyance for me since I always watch a movie in several chunks. So every time I come back to it, I have to wait several minutes for the machine to boot and load, and then I have to find the point where I played to last.
TTL added:
"In the twenty years I spent in the U.S. military from Private to Major we were always taught that killing was the last step in a line of escalation."
Your humor is rather macabre, don't you think?
Yes, I can see you were probably "taught" all kinds of things. But look what U.S is actually doing. Over one million iraqis killed. Most of them children. And since U.S. had absolutely no reason to go into Iraq* in the first place you surely must be joking about the "last step of escalation" part.
Or perhaps you meant: Last step unless the nation willingly hands over control of their natural resources and lets you freely rape their women and torture the males for funny tourist photos. And lets your build a military base the size of the Vatican on their land. Is that what you meant?
*) Same for Panama, Vietnam and every other country the U.S. has attacked since WW2. There have been absolutely no valid reason for any of those wars. In each case U.S. has been the aggressor.
11 comments:
But the problem is that shooting is not their last resort, it's their first instinct. When they face something they don't understand, they shoot.
It's probably a mistake to base your opinion of soldiers on how they are depicted in movies. At this point in time they are necessary, though I look forward to a world where they won't be. Most are professionals who shoot only when necessary. They are not all trigger-happy, kill-crazy psychopaths.
quick, mention one single weapon in the history of the world which did not fall into "the wrong hands" sooner or later. Usually sooner.
There probably isn't one. Especially when you're talking about a doomsday device like the atomic bomb. Are there any right hands it could fall into? Say what you will about the U.S., but I am glad they discovered it first and not the Germans or the Japanese.
In the twenty years I spent in the U.S. military from Private to Major we were always taught that killing was the last step in a line of escalation. When the US troops went through those huts in Panama I was never so proud as to see that no civilians were shot even though they popped up at very strange times and suddenly.
I don't know how they are trained today, but we certainly never shot first and asked questions later. Not in any unit I was in.
Well, that's very good to hear.
I wonder about stuff like napalm, though. I think it's very hard to bomb or napalm villages without innocents getting hurt.
Will Rogers, one of the very first of
what we now call 'standup comedians'
once said:-
"You can't say civilizations don't advance. In every war they kill you in a new way."
You've got to love people who let quotations do their thinking for them. And from no less an intellectual giant than Will Rogers.
"In the twenty years I spent in the U.S. military from Private to Major we were always taught that killing was the last step in a line of escalation."
Your humor is rather macabre, don't you think?
Yes, I can see you were probably "taught" all kinds of things. But look what U.S is actually doing. Over one million iraqis killed. Most of them children. And since U.S. had absolutely no reason to go into Iraq* in the first place you surely must be joking about the "last step of escalation" part.
Or perhaps you meant: Last step unless the nation willingly hands over control of their natural resources and lets you freely rape their women and torture the males for funny tourist photos. And lets your build a military base the size of the Vatican on their land. Is that what you meant?
*) Same for Panama, Vietnam and every other country the U.S. has attacked since WW2. There have been absolutely no valid reason for any of those wars. In each case U.S. has been the aggressor.
I'm with you, dear Anon: I too love people -like Ray here, or myself- who let Will Rogers quotations do their thinking for them. But I'm not so sure about the "intellectual giant" part. Honestly, all in all he wasn't THAT huge of a genius. Let's keep our heads on.
BTW, Ray, nice Bans you got there. 8-)
Come now, TTL. I'm sure that's not exactly what The Dissonance meant. Way I understand it, yes indeed, he was formed properly as a soldier, his sensible way of speaking confirms it. I'm not contesting either that soldiers today, like in Iraq, behave eerily like trigger-happy rowdy cowboys would. (We all know that real-life cow-boys were far from highly educated people...) My conclusion? The USA, under the Dick-and-Bush administration, have sent masses of hastily recruited, amateurishly screened, poorly to completely un- prepared, because themselves as leaders have far less common sense than a base soldier like our friend The D-man here. Okay, so Major isn't exactly a base soldier anymore. :-) But I mean it in a good way: a soldier who lives on the field, not in the ivory tower of their delirious war conquest headquarters, playing Picrocholes all over again. (If you don't know about Picrochole, google it, you'll enrich your culture and have a few laughs.)
I quote: "I don't know how they are trained today". Straight, honest admittance, not beating around the George Bush.
Me, I don't know whether they ARE trained at all! :-(
That's what you get from dodging draft during the Vietnam war, right Georgiekins? Oy, what a farshtunken mish-mosh these shtummie shmendricks have gefilted us in. (Hey, not bad yiddish, for a Lebanese, eyh?)
Eolake wondered...
"about stuff like napalm"
Very simple, my good man. When the lower-than-dirt enemy uses such methods, they are called "Weapons of Mass Destruction".
Of course, when WE liberating heroes use them, they proudly become "well-assessed tactical tools". Now let's go out there and kick some assesses, yeeha!
Weird Captcha I'm getting: "undomish". Blogger hates Domai???
For ttl I would recommend Douglas J. Feith's War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism. It will clear a few things up for him.
As for the quotations, a lot of people do like to try to use quotations from famous people to support the unsupportable argument. Or to say "If you don't believe me, Einstein says the same thing - who are you, an average Joe, to disagree with him?!"
Well, duh! :-)
How about telling us what that books tells you, in a sentence or three?
For ttl I would recommend Douglas J. Feith's War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism.
But even the name of that book is ridiculous. "Terrorism" is a tactic, not en entity. You can not wage a war against a tactic. That would be like warring against gangsterism, as Ron Paul once said. Besides, Pentagon is the headquarters of the Department of Defense. Why would they even be interested in terrorism? Do they also handle shoplifting cases?
So "Dawn of the War on Terrorism", when decoded, means: the start of mind control of the stupidest among us.
Regardless of what position the author takes in the book, even if he is critical of the operation, the fact that he titles his book that way means he is either (1) stupid or (2) dishonest. Why would anyone want to read such a book?
But even the name of that book is ridiculous. "Terrorism" is a tactic, not en entity.
You make war against those who use that tactic, you poor boob. And alter the society that creates it. To protect yourself.
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