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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (130017)	4/25/2004 9:31:54 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<<I believe in killing Saddamite thugs who are trying to kill our soliders, very selectively, and help the jihadis find their much-desired shehada. No talk of millions.>>> That is the problem with advocating killing people. Our soldiers are trained (8 weeks of basic training and maybe another 8 weeks of advance infantry training) to kill. Our voluntary army now is very professional (in the best sense of the word). These soldiers are not being forced to undergo their training and to succeed in their mission. They are volunteers. In a conscripted army, there was always those issues that had to be dealt with. Having said that, our soldiers have not been trained to judge social disease. When put in harms way, they have to defend themselves. They have to kill those they have been put up against. They are not trained to distinguish Saddmist from Saddamist thugs, or even if they are combatants or not (except perhaps where it is in the most obvious cases where a women is clutching on to infants or young childern. Even in that situation, it may not always be clear). Given the circumstances, they (our soldiers) do a pretty good job at not killing too many innocent people. When we are putting 19 year kids out there with perhaps 16 weeks of training, we are asking too much that they have to be held responsible for killing innocent people that happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Killing bad people is not an easy job. After several thousand years of people killing people, we should know enough now not to have to solve our problems by killing one another. After several thousand years, almost all civilized people have come to the conclusion that we should not kill each other. Theologians have even thought this through to say that you should not even kill to save your own life. After thousands of years, this is what our best and brightest people have concluded. Now, we are saying, this is a new paradigm. We have to kill before they kill us. All the thinking that has been going on is all trash. We now know better. There are case where we have to do a lot of killing. If innocents get in the way - that is too bad. I'm old and old fashioned. Maybe I don't know what is going on, but I'm not buying this crap.