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Dissident Heart 
Wisdom Personified
Bronze Contributor
Joined: 29 Aug 2003
Posts: 1516
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 Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 4:34 pm Post subject:
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| Frank: who is doing the Judging? There are scarce few people who I would agree have knowledge or common sense enough to truly understand and evaluate the combat actions of a soldier. Even the justified killing of enemy combatants is loathsome to the average citizen. Furthermore most have never had to make life and death decisions in a fraction of a second. I do not believe that any one who hasn’t has the ability give a fair and unbiased judgment over an action of that sort. |
I don't know what makes another solider any more fair and unbiased than your average citizen. I think the principle of "conflict of interests" is an important one here, and I think collusion among fellow soldiers to minimize, rationalize and explain away difficult situations, to outright lie to save a comrade who has perhaps saved your life or done great acts of heroism in the past...is a serious concern. Allow the solider his day in court, no doubt- but make it a court of citizens.
Furthermore, if we follow your line of reasoning, it seems we can't judge anyone of anything- because none of us fully understands what another person has gone through, nor can we ever really see it from their eyes and totally within their perspective. Since very few, if any of us, really understand the pressures that invade upon, say, a serial killer, then how can we possible judge his behavior...without being a serial killer first? In his eyes there may be a barrage of stressors, constraints, threats, outright assualts against his safety that he feels no choice but to engage his deadly deed...following your reasoning, it seems, unless he is tried by a jury of fellow serial killers, then there is no way for anyone to fairly address his crimes...we can't possible understand what he is up against or why he decided the way he did. Therefore, we can't judge his behavior.
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Frank 013
Beyond Awesome
BookTalk.org Moderator
Joined: 08 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 5:10 pm Post subject:
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DH
I don't know what makes another solider any more fair and unbiased than your average citizen. |
I never said that they were. I simply stated that the majority of average people are too ignorant about what a soldier faces to make a fair and unbiased judgment on a soldier's actions.
I also never said that soldiers should do the judging, I just said that most citizens do not have the experience necessary to understand the way decisions are made in combat or the complexities that occur which cause unforeseen causalities.
| Quote: |
DH
Furthermore, if we follow your line of reasoning, it seems we can't judge anyone of anything- because none of us fully understands what another person has gone through, nor can we ever really see it from their eyes and totally within their perspective. |
Now you are just taking this to an unreasonable extreme. Your serial killer example is also rather off the point, we do not need to know what the killers background was, or what he was thinking, we are not judging his history, we are judging his actions, so we just need to know what he did. Determinations also need to be made as to weather the killer is a continuing threat to others. In that case guilt and innocence is rather black and white, the serial killer is not supposed to kill anyone.
In the situation of a soldier they are expected to kill, and because they are expected to kill intent becomes more important when the wrong people die, weather it is by mistake or on purpose or even negligent is a real issue in that case.
There are also situational circumstances that must be considered.
Like when soldiers are firing in self defense at someone using civilians as human shields? Should they fire back in those situations or would hitting a civilian unintentionally still be murder? Should they let themselves be killed to keep the civilians safe even though the enemy would shoot through a child to get at them?
How about when a soldier looks around and sees what appears to be a RPG pointed in his direction, he fires at the target killing the man only to discover that it was a journalist with a shoulder mounted camera filming him. Obviously a mistake was it justifiable or was it manslaughter?
A soldier fires a grenade into an insurgent’s 2nd story emplacement and ends up collapsing the roof onto an innocent family. Is he now guilty of murder? What if he saved other soldiers by taking such action?
Are these crimes during war? How will punishing these soldiers keep other situations like this from occurring in the future?
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Dissident Heart
Wisdom Personified
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| Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:34 pm Post subject:
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Frank,
When you say that anyone who has never experienced the kind of life and death decision making that a solider must face, is unqualified to judge those decisions...it only makes sense, I think, that this implies only soldiers or those who face what soldiers have faced are qualified to judge.
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| Frank: I just said that most citizens do not have the experience necessary to understand the way decisions are made in combat or the complexities that occur which cause unforeseen causalities. |
Again, I don't think you are willing to follow this logic to its dangerous conclusions- at least in the context of citizens holding their soldiers accountable. I think soldiers are citizens first, serving citizen interests as citizen solidiers. No matter how complex or difficult the scenario, citizens can be made to understand the legal obligations and ramifications of soldier behaviors...or any behavior by any citizen- especially citizens acting on behalf of other citizens, given exceptional power and directives to harm and destroy life.
The serial killer example was extreme, as is war. The serial killer is under a barrage of stressors and demands, perhaps hallucinatory commands, and compulsive directives that are in response to threats both real and make believe: perhaps he is waging war and his victims are necessary targets. Maybe he sees a few as collatoral damage, recognizing their demise as unfortunate, but removing them gets him one step closer to the real enemy. My point is that according to your logic, unless we have found ourselves in that same set of stressors and constraints, we are unqualified to judge his crimes. |
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Frank 013
Beyond Awesome
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Joined: 08 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:49 pm Post subject:
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DH
When you say that anyone who has never experienced the kind of life and death decision making that a solider must face, is unqualified to judge those decisions...it only makes sense, I think, that this implies only soldiers or those who face what soldiers have faced are qualified to judge. |
I do see your point but you are leaving out whole groups of civilian occupations that have to make similar (maybe not as intense) types of decisions. They include but are not limited to… cops, firemen, paramedics, emergency room staff, and rescue personal.
| Quote: |
DH
My point is that according to your logic, unless we have found ourselves in that same set of stressors and constraints, we are unqualified to judge his crimes. |
Unless the serial killer was given a pass to kill certain people, what they did was wrong plain and simple. There is a law in place for such behavior. We can judge the actions without being privy to the stressors that caused those actions.
But for a soldier killing is no longer against the law, it is encouraged and necessary if the soldier wants to live, those laws no longer apply. This complicates things if civilians are going to judge soldiers. From the beginning a civilian making a judgment on a soldier has to forget everything they have been taught about legal and illegal, moral and immoral when killing is concerned.
There are other rules in place but they are more flexible due to the chaotic nature of combat and the deadliness of the tools that soldiers use. So now the civilian has to be taught these rules. Some are somewhat obscure like “take any action you feel is necessary to protect your life and those of your fellow soldiers.” (This is paraphrased)
Now here is where the real complications begin. Civilians sitting calmly in a court room have to decide if a soldier’s actions were reasonable. They will inevitably see other possible responses to danger that the soldier did not have the time to consider during combat, this will (for many) alter their ability to judge the soldier fairly.
Furthermore because many of the civilians will lack military training they will not realize how much of the action will simply be reflex honed from military training.
Sometimes the wrong people get hurt/killed in war that is tragic, but to hold a soldier accountable for every bullet fired in the heat of combat is as ridiculous as it is impossible.
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