My thoughts on the subject.
Morality Counts In War
"Conrad C. Crane, director of the U.S. Army Military History Institute, confronts the moral dilemma of killing civilians in a righteous war against an immoral opponent. While the question of the deaths of civilians is one we must ponder, Conrad insists, "The most unethical act for the Allies in World War II would have been allowing themselves to lose." "
commentarymagazine.com
Civilian deaths are an issue in war. For those actually doing the fighting, soldiers deaths are much more important. Civilian deaths have a moral component. Soldiers deaths often become a mere statistic. We need to adjust our thinking on our own morality.
To claim the moral high ground during armed conflict, one must first demonstrate higher moral standards. Moral standards are plural. Lowering one moral standard wipes out a truckload of high standards.
Questionable moral standards have been reason enough to obliterate opponents like Nazis, Communists, and Japanese Imperialism. The obliteration included their cities, their civilians, their infrastructure and their military forces. Will lowering our moral standards place us in the same jeopardy as our previous opponents?
My greatest concern about America's future lies within these ruminations. I used to question whether we as a nation are lowering our moral standards. Recent events have me convinced we are doing just that.
From D-Day at Normandy to victory in Europe Day took less than one year. In the frustration of today's 8 years of combat, and not yet prevailing, we have now begun the inevitable search for the guilty. Some politicians and military leaders seek to punish junior combat leaders for (so-called by armchair generals) battlefield failures, and to prosecute individual fighters for petty infractions. In a daily fight to the death, a bloody lip is petty even when inflicted a day later. One US combat veteran stated ever so succinctly, "This is a war where the other side is trying, too."
Considering the ever evolving moral standards being imposed today by our senior civilian and military leadership, every American combat veteran of a previous conflict should be asking himself if he too could be charged with a crime.
Supporting our troops is a given. Supporting their senior leadership is becoming difficult.
A military leadership that once stood tall and cheered while General George Patton spoke of greasing his tank tracks with the guts of the immoral enemy, is now preoccupied with enabling open homosexuality among Patton's soldiers' progeny.
We forget our enemies have been fighting us just as long as we have been fighting them. Our intelligence services and analysts have been reporting our opponents are getting stronger even as many senior American military leaders are finding weakness in our own forces.
Al Qaeda leadership doesn't claim our army is nearly broken. That assertion comes from our own senior military leadership.
DOD leaders know they must do something. Their new top choice of available options to strengthen our army is mind-numbing. Secretary of Defense Gates and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen owe all of us an explanation of how they see open homosexuality strengthening our American armed forces, and how enabling homosexuality will help us prevail in our current and future wars.
Over 1,100 high-ranking retired Flag and General Officers from our Military have signed a statement expressing support for the 1993 law stating that homosexuals are not eligible to serve in the military. Do these senior officers' opinions count?
This law, Section 654, Title 10, U.S. C., is commonly mislabeled “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
"In 1993 Congress voted for a law that affirmed, almost word-for-word, long-standing regulations stating that homosexuality is incompatible with military service. Both houses passed the law with bipartisan veto-proof majorities, and federal courts have upheld it as constitutional several times." Do any of these opinions count?
What has happened in America in the last 17 years to convince Secretary of Defense Gates and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen that the front-line defenders of America suddenly need this change? Gates and Mullen are charged with protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies. How does their new found interest in enabling homosexual orgasms for some of our service members accomplish those national security missions? Are they qualified to judge this issue? Have they ever served with front-line troops in close combat?
Current reports indicate we are about to put our forces in Afghanistan in significant harms way once again. Senior American and British military officers in the battle zone are warning of significant friendly casualties. The goal is to capture the town of Marjah and obliterate 2,000-4,000 enemy.
We are fighting for America's National Defense....aren't we? Will winning this town even matter?
Our own intelligence resources estimate there are 15 million Muslim militant extremists willing to fight America. Meanwhile back home, and as battle preparations intensify, our two most senior DOD military leaders are focused on lowering our moral standards. Assuming we kill all 4,000 enemies in the coming battle, I would like to know how enabling open homosexuality in our armed forces is going to help us prevail against the other 14,996,000 Muslim militant extremists looking for their opportunity to kill us. Will this change increase our enemies resolve and intensify their hardcore stance against us or will it soften their feelings of hatred?
Has DOD become the losing arm of our armed forces? Let's remember the Pentagon and Department of Defense were created at the end of WW II and we haven't won a significant war since. Do our Pentagon squatters realize homosexuality is considered an abomination worthy of immediate death in Muslim and some other societies?
In my day, America had the capability to field 560,000 troops in Vietnam and simultaneously defend western Europe and Korea. Today with 2 active small wars underway, and an ongoing world-wide search for terrorists, our top three military leaders, including the Commander-in-Chief, the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs have decided a social sexual experiment should be our armed forces next marching order.
It is time to disengage. We cannot hope to win this war while simultaneously lowering our own moral standards to a level loathed by most of our own military leadership, our opponents, and those we seek to liberate.
Secretary of Defense Gates and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen should at least be honest enough to resign since they have supervised Afghanistan into an impossible situation.
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