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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (132604)	5/11/2004 4:15:22 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Yet, he showed by his own actions, that he understood the difference between a lawful and unlawful order... Yet, he wishes to deflect responsibility from the very soldiers who received even more training on the Law of War, as well as criminal and legal training corresponding with the Military Police mission. I think that Hack's actions in combat and your acknowledgement and subsequent statement criticizing his failure to hold the Iraqi guards to the same standard that he held for himself, reveal a fundamental difference in your respective life experiences. In your world soldiers "know better," they "have duties" and they "should be held responsible." The failure to do those things means they're "wrong and should be punished." There isn't a lot of room for those who say they were pressured. Hackworth has a different perspective on life. He's seen the breaking points of men. He's not so caught up in idealistic notions of what "soldiers do." He knows that soldiers are just like everyone else; they're scared a lot, they're easily led, they'll try to please their superiors, they're trained to follow the leaders who "know more," and they never, ever, want to fight a military system that's much more powerful than you could imagine in terms of controlling their very right to live. In the military, just as in life, only a small percentage of soldiers will take a stand and tell a superior to go screw himself, even when it's clear the superior is wrong. Why do you think they teach soldiers to march in lockstep? Did you think that was a battle technique or some kind of efficient way to get from place A to B? Of course not, it's part of the indoctrination that teaches, or attempts to teach, soldiers that they are just a compliant cog in the machinery of war. So Hackworth understands that men and women in the services will question the lead of their "management" even LESS often than will those in civilian life. He also understands the realities of human nature because he's seen it uncloaked in combat in a way that most never glimpse. Those are the reasons why even though he did the right thing in rejecting the orders of superior officers, he can understand and even commiserate with those who did not. That's also why he can blame those in control who created the climate and circumstances under which low level soldiers did exactly what it was known they would do. And that's why there was no need for "formal" orders that allowed or required the abuses to be committed. And that's why the generals never "need more troops" that Rumsfeld wasn't willing to send until circumstances forced his hand. And that's why William Calley was the only one to recieve a courts martial in the My Lai massacre of several hundred unarmed men, women, children and babies, and that's why he only spent one year in low level confinement. But mostly, that's why the world needs to be viewed in more depth than that offered in slogans and 60 second commercials. Hackworth knows that. This country would be a better place if more of us could learn that.