Are all soldiers like the Nazis?

[I Push Wood]

Ever notice how the ones promoting the ideology are never the ones with boots on the ground? Their lives are too precious to be squandered for the cause they espouse.

Its like those video games where everyone but the hero is dispensable.

Not the point. You called him a martyr, yet referred to him sacrificing others instead of himself. If you're going to speak on a topic like this, at least have your definitions straight.

 

[S.A.M.]

Not the point. You called him a martyr, yet referred to him sacrificing others instead of himself. If you're going to speak on a topic like this, at least have your definitions straight.

He is a martyr, he's dedicating other people to his cause [outsourced martyrdom]. Which is basically breaking and entering and premeditated murder in foreign locations. Except the victims are the bad guys.

 

[I Push Wood]

How can you compare martyrdom to breaking into someone else's home, or premeditated murder?

Excuse me, I'm quite stupid, spell it out for me please?

A martyr is one who dies for a cause they genuinely believe in, not someone who makes others die for theirs.

 

[spidergoat]

Its the poverty of imagination. The nation state is merely a conduit for the continued failed ideology of colonialism.

Its why you have apparently rational people defending imaginary lines.

War happens with or without national borders.

 

[S.A.M.]

How can you compare martyrdom to breaking into someone else's home, or premeditated murder?

Excuse me, I'm quite stupid, spell it out for me please?

A martyr is one who dies for a cause they genuinely believe in, not someone who makes others die for theirs.

The martyrs death is inadvertent though, after all the original Crusaders even ate the Saracens rather than give up their lives. In the context of Afghanistan, lets just say when Bush said "crusade", all the Muslims opened one eye.

 

[I Push Wood]

Again... Could you actually answer my question please? How can you compare martyrdom to breaking into someone else's home, or premeditated murder? And does it EVER occur to you that not just muslims raised an eyebrow? Doesn't matter to you that lots of americans feel what is happening in the middle east is wrong, as long as you get to moan about the injustices wrought upon the middle eastern world?

 

[S.A.M.]

What do you think they did in the crusades other than breaking and entering and premeditated murder of the less than worthy humans? [except when running low on food, when they are prime steak]

Note that the "martyrs" like the "liberators" are the good guys. The ones being killed in their homes [and eaten] are the baddies.

 

[I Push Wood]

They didn't murder the "less than worthy humans." They murdered the humans whom, after being told they were worthy of god, renounced him anyway. Drastic difference. Spreading faith by the sword, however despicable it is, is still leagues away from killing willy-nilly just for the hell of it.

And please, I'm BEGGING YOU, PLEASE, draw a legitimate comparison for me. Or is your sight failing? can you not see me asking kindly? Please, directly compare martyrdom to premeditated murder, or breaking and entering into someone else's home, as you seem to think they are similar. I don't hear of neighborhood burglars dying for their cause.

 

[I Push Wood]

They're the baddies to who? To you? Not to me! I don't take sides, it's not my problem. Yet you seem to think I agree with all of the ideology of my native country.

 

[S.A.M.]

I was pointing out the irony of someone volunteering to endanger his life by occupying another country. Its the philosophy of the martyrs of the crusades. The same kind of mindless justification for mass murder where you instigate the violence then defend yourself from those who do not want to be killed by you, by killing them.

If you do die, you're a "hero" and posthumously may even get a medal for it.

I'm not a mind reader so I don't know what Americans are thinking. What I do know is that the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and possibly Pakistan and Iran [we should be so lucky, eh] will be conducted [in all its violence] by an entirely volunteer army. To the last man, every single person will be there because he chose his position.

 

[Gustav]

Apparently the notion of citizenship isn't felt very strongly among some, hence it is harder to understand soldiering.

ahh
you call into question my patriotism

the justifications for all wars are to be placed on the same footing, to be accepted without question in the same manner i would towards a proposal for a functional and efficient sewer system. it is the rational course of action

 

[I Push Wood]

This isn't the crusades! This is the present, the year 2009 to be exact. And yes it is ironic, very. But that does not make soldiers nazis, seems like a very far fetched claim to me. I too know of very fine military men who were nothing of the sort. Once bullets start flying in your direction, and you know they aren't likely to stop, you're not gonna stand up and say "Hey guys, can't we just talk this out over some tea?" You're gonna shoot back.

And you're an idiot if you don't.

 

[Gustav]

what bullets?

 

[S.A.M.]

Its eerie how closely the tenth crusade resembles the first. Even getting sidetracked, killing a lot of people who were allies, never making the goalpost and losing sight of the original aim:

It was on this day in 1095 that Pope Urban II, while on a speaking tour in France, called for the first Crusade to recapture Jerusalem from the Turks. There was no imminent threat. Muslims had occupied Jerusalem for hundreds of years. But Urban II had noticed that Europe was becoming an increasingly violent place, with low-level knights killing each other over their land rights, and he thought that he could bring peace to the Christian world by directing all that violence against an outside enemy. So he made up stories of how Turks in Jerusalem were torturing and killing Christians, and anyone who was willing to join the fight against them would go to heaven.

About 100,000 men from France, Germany, and Italy answered the call, formed into several large groups, and marched across Asia Minor to the Middle East. Nearly half of them died from exhaustion and sickness before they ever reached their destination. They began sacking cities along the way, and they fought among each other for the spoils of each battle. When they reached the trading city of Antioch, they killed almost everyone, including the Christians who lived there. By the time they got to Jerusalem, it had recently fallen into the hands of Egyptians, who were friendly with the Vatican. But the crusaders attacked anyway, killing every Muslim they could find. The Jews in the city gathered in the temple, and the crusaders set it on fire.

Pope Urban II died two weeks later, never hearing the news. But the crusading would go on for the next 200 years. In the fourth and last Crusade, in 1202, the crusaders never even made it to Jerusalem, but got sidetracked and wound up destroying Constantinople, which was at the time the last great city left over from the Roman Empire.

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2007/11/26/#tuesday

 

[I Push Wood]

I made reference to S.A.M's implication that soldiers should not shoot people, because that means they could potentially kill them, which by implication means they were following orders and killing in the name of their own self-justified ideology.

 

[wynn]

the justifications for all wars are to be placed on the same footing, to be accepted without question in the same manner i would towards a proposal for a functional and efficient sewer system. it is the rational course of action

Something like that, yes.

Otherwise, we'd have to come up with an idea of how to organize life on Earth without nations or countries ("imaginary lines").

 

[TSchmee]

I was pointing out the irony of someone volunteering to endanger his life by occupying another country. Its the philosophy of the martyrs of the crusades. The same kind of mindless justification for mass murder where you instigate the violence then defend yourself from those who do not want to be killed by you, by killing them.

If you do die, you're a "hero" and posthumously may even get a medal for it.

I'm not a mind reader so I don't know what Americans are thinking. What I do know is that the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and possibly Pakistan and Iran [we should be so lucky, eh] will be conducted [in all its violence] by an entirely volunteer army.

S.A.M, your posts never fail to amaze me. I can't really tell if you actually beleive what you are writing, or if you are simply posting these things to get a rise out of people.

In response to your post, I submit this:

“What is the moral difference, if any, between the soldier and the civilian?”

"The difference lies in the field of civic virtue. A soldier accepts responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not.”

 

[S.A.M.]

The banality of evil. They are killing poor underprivileged people with white phosphorus and mechanical drones.

Thats not defence, thats murder.

Afghan village

Americans "defending" themselves

What do you need, a brain transplant?

 

[I Push Wood]

Is that quote lifted from Starship Troopers? I haven't read it in some months, but it sounds familiar!

 

[sniffy]

“What is the moral difference, if any, between the soldier and the civilian?”

A willingness to follow orders...

Oh wait that's a similarity isn't it?