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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (53414)	7/23/2002 11:16:36 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

The problem with not following stupid orders is that its often better in battle to have everyone working together even if they are not doing something to intelligent then it is to have everyone doing their own thing, or doing nothing. If the unit takes a less then ideal path to achieve its objective it still might succeed. If it doesn't do anything, or doesn't work together it will not succeed. success it battle might cost lives but lack of success will usually cost more even if they die at a slower rate. In extreme cases it would make sense to question really insane orders even if they are not technically illegal. If the CO tells you to try to take out the enemy armored column with you entrenching tool, he's probably lost his mind, and in any case a court martial will probably be better then to quickly die for no purpose beyond using up some of the enemy's ammo. But if this type of questioning or refusal to follow orders is not extremely rare then army will not function correctly. If the officers really are idiots, then it won't be extremely rare. Just one more reason to avoid having idiots for officers whenever possible. :) Tim Edit - Questioning orders isn't always bad, if your in a situation where you have the time to do so, and the questioning is short. An officer might not realize why his command is a stupid idea. However you don't have time for a lengthy debate. If the officer insists that the action has to be done, and it isn't an illegal order, or so totally crazy that you figure its worth both the risk to unity of command and the risk of a court martial followed by serious penalties rather then have most of your unit killed trying to do something crazy, then maybe it might make sense to not follow orders, but unity of command is vital in battle and refusal to follow orders rightfully leads to very harsh penalties. Tim