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[Frumple]

Well, to me the fact that Vietnam spawned a strong anti-war movement while Iraq did not is a good example of the influence of the draft.

... are you sure that Iraq hasn't managed that, though? We've actually had some pretty bloody huge gatherings over the last decade or two, over here. Disturbingly little news on it when we've had stuff like half-million+ person protests (in one place, mind, nevermind other protests at the same time), but they've been there. The general sentiment has been trending pretty hard against it for a few years, now, too.

It'd be interesting to see how public opinion and such has actually moved, comparatively, actually. Cursory searching didn't really find anything easily digestible, but from what I (vaguely) remember there's not really been anything particularly unusual re: war weariness and whatnot for either conflict.

[Helgoland]

Not to mention, I think SG probably would go "Yeah, that sounds good," for an abolition of all armed forces, so your slippery slope there didn't exactly work as intended

Naah, I just want clarity and consistent positions - I'm perfectly fine with someone arguing for pacifism.

I find your argument really weird Helgoland. If using conscripts is bad, don't use them. If the guy in front is using them, and you end up having to kill people that were sent there against their will, that's on him, not you, at least if you're fighting a defending war.

Using conscripts is bad, because you're endangering the life of someone for political gain (winning the war) against their will.
By the same argument, killing/attacking any enemy soldier (especially conscripts though) is bad for the same reason.

If the circumstances are such that killing enemy soldiers becomes acceptable (because the political gain - defending one's country from occupation, for example - has become big enough), for the same reason using conscripts must have become acceptable at the same time.
Thus if war - necessarily involving killing/attacking enemy soldiers, even if it is a defensive war - is acceptable at all, using conscripts is too.

Sure, the argument sounds a little bit weird, but only because we're used to thinking that non-soldiers dying is somehow worse than soldiers dying.

Watergate was small potatoes compared to what Snowden has released via the press.

Debatable - what the NSA does does not have a direct influence (SG probably has some info on its indirect influence) on the political process, so it was arguably 'less bad' as far as one can compare the two: The NSA does not (directly) endanger the functioning of the American democratic institutions.

[wobbly]

Not to mention, I think SG probably would go "Yeah, that sounds good," for an abolition of all armed forces, so your slippery slope there didn't exactly work as intended

Naah, I just want clarity and consistent positions - I'm perfectly fine with someone arguing for pacifism.

I find your argument really weird Helgoland. If using conscripts is bad, don't use them. If the guy in front is using them, and you end up having to kill people that were sent there against their will, that's on him, not you, at least if you're fighting a defending war.

Using conscripts is bad, because you're endangering the life of someone for political gain (winning the war) against their will.
By the same argument, killing/attacking any enemy soldier (especially conscripts though) is bad for the same reason.

If the circumstances are such that killing enemy soldiers becomes acceptable (because the political gain - defending one's country from occupation, for example - has become big enough), for the same reason using conscripts must have become acceptable at the same time.
Thus if war - necessarily involving killing/attacking enemy soldiers, even if it is a defensive war - is acceptable at all, using conscripts is too.

Sure, the argument sounds a little bit weird, but only because we're used to thinking that non-soldiers dying is somehow worse than soldiers dying.

So are we going to continue along this line of logic & say if war is justified then using any weapon available is justified too. Napalm, Nukes, you name it?

Or that if your killing people anyway, then torture is a lesser evil, so that's perfectly ok too?

I don't think logical arguments about morality ever really work when your talking about a war. It's messed up to start with. Me myself I'd prefer it to be as little messed up as possible, whether it makes perfect sense in logic or not.

[Helgoland]

So are we going to continue along this line of logic & say if war is justified then using any weapon available is justified too. Napalm, Nukes, you name it?

Or that if your killing people anyway, then torture is a lesser evil, so that's perfectly ok too?

There's still a difference between killing someone and inflicting unnecessary pain. But yes, I believe that once you cross the moral event horizon of justifying the killing of a person, questions of morality are reduced to questions of effectiveness and necessity, and only the latter keep us from committing even more horrible atrocities than those we commit today.

As the saying goes: All is fair in love and war. It's not a particular good saying, I'll be the first to admit that.

[Playergamer]

It's a terrible saying. At least in war we have the Geneva Conventions.

[Helgoland]

As I said, questions of necessity. You'll find no military on earth that won't throw those rules out the window when the situation gets bad enough. Hell, it applies to civilians too: Would you torture a guy to find out where the possibly still alive abductee, who will suffocate in a short time, is located? We had a case like that in Germany a while back, and there was a lot of discussion. I think the policeman in question was convicted, but given a very, very light sentence.

Apparently there's a wiki article with a better example. The German word is Rettungsfolter, apparently - 'torture which saves'. I can't find an English article about the case I mentioned, but the abductee's name was Jakob von Metzler.

[wobbly]

Hmm, can't say I agree on that one. Whether using professional soldier or conscripts is more "moral" right or not (to me it's actually a nonsense question), I think that not forcing a person to kill or be killed is an improvement on the alternatives.

Whether killing a soldier or a civilian is worse or the same? Yeah it's debatable. I don't really care, I'll take what I can get here. Not killing civilians is 50% of the way there, if we could just get the other half right I'd be even more happy.

I'm pretty strongly a pacifist & while I'm not so much the idealist that I think we can get rid of wars & military without a lot of things in the world changing, I think the above 2 things are at least an improvement on the alternatives. To me it not about morality, a war is never right. It's about the least bad consequences & once you start justifying things like killing civilians & forcing people in to the army your just making a bad situation even worse.

[Frumple]

Realize it's rhetorical, but considering torture largely just doesn't freaking work and thoroughly fucks up the person doing it, to boot... no. Rules against shit like that exist for a reason, and nine times out of ten it's not because of a moral issue.

S'a pisspoor example for what you're trying to posit, helg, at least about it leading to further atrocities, since it's effectiveness that leads anyone with a brain to avoid torture, not (lack of) necessity. Torture is an extra gross ethical violation, though, since it's significantly unlikely to even accomplish what it's (ostensibly -- the general reality is that the folks doing it are just fucked in the head) attempting to do.

Big thing to remember about many atrocities is that they're considered excessive (and thus, an atrocity) because they're not freaking effective. They backfire, they cause greater resentment and retaliation than other methods, they salt the earth, they're just straight up uneconomical for the group doing it, the list just kinda' goes on. It's not lack of necessity prevent this shit, it's the lot of it being bad craft, either in the immediate or long run.

[Helgoland]

Big thing to remember about many atrocities is that they're considered excessive (and thus, an atrocity) because they're not freaking effective. They backfire, they cause greater resentment and retaliation than other methods, they salt the earth, they're just straight up uneconomical for the group doing it, the list just kinda' goes on. It's not lack of necessity prevent this shit, it's the lot of it being bad craft, either in the immediate or long run.

That's true for many things - torture especially, as you mentioned - but not so much for other stuff. The use of poison gas against an enemy without agents of chemical warfare, the use of expanding bullets in war (they're allowed for police use, strangely enough), abusing protective signs such as the Red Cross... All of these are only avoided because of moral standards and the fear of retalliation by third parties, and if the situation becomes bad enough, those two will not count for much.
That is - at least to me - the prime reason to avoid war: It leads to such things. There is no such thing as civilized warfare.

[SalmonGod]

Blaming war on vague elites is like blaming it on thermodynamics. Equal parts true and meaningless.

Yeah, it's no profound statement, but it wasn't the point of my post, either.

[Bauglir]

Potentially related, but perhaps not, I was reading up on military killbots for reasons. Anyway, we've got a project leader for a robotics project, Gordon Johnson, saying, "The lawyers tell me there are no prohibitions against robots making life-or-death decisions... It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when."

I can only assume that after the Joint Forces Command was disestablished, this guy got back to his true calling - erecting a gigantic disc to block out the Sun.

[misko27]

But yes, I believe that once you cross the moral event horizon of justifying the killing of a person, questions of morality are reduced to questions of effectiveness and necessity, and only the latter keep us from committing even more horrible atrocities than those we commit today.

Spoiler: My response is a little long (click to show/hide)

Question: Why? For the sake of argument, let me ask: why is killing someone the moral event horizon? Why not, say, grievously wounding someone? Why not mere aggression? Or why not killing multiple people? What about ruining a person, rather than killing? I can imagine situations where it is relevant to inflict fates worse then death on people for some greater cause; does that count, or no?

I don't feel that killing is an accurate dividing point. Why is morality before killing not a question of expediency? I feel your example could be used on anything: I mean hell, why isn't justifying pushing a kid on the playground because he scratched your toy the dividing line between the moral innocent and delinquent held back only by fear of punishment? The child has what they believe to be a Casus Belli, but fear of reproach or punishment holds them in line. What is the qualitative distinction of the character of someone who hurts v. the character of someone who kills?

And If we drop the killing distinction, the argument becomes unpleasant to consider: I say that once you are okay with hurting, in any way, a human being (and why only humans?; but I will avoid complicating my own argument), there is nothing you will not do if pushed sufficiently, and you are only held in line by fear. And, since inevitably most people (if not all) have either actually hurt someone or are okay with hurting given the right situation, morality is irrelevant for the vast majority of the human race, all of whom operate through expediency of varying shapes and forms. Morality takes its leave and only fear remains. Why is this not the logical conclusion?

And in the specific case of wars of self-defense, I invoke Hobbes. Hobbes would say that any moment where we do not misbehave in our own favor is because of our fear of the Sovereign; that morality is mere legality, and thus every act of morality is an act of expediency: our fear of punishment. He would say that that is why fighting back against an attacker is never considered immoral; no one being attacked would ever consider the morality or legality of fighting back, because there is no punishment greater than the cost of inaction now.

[Helgoland]

I realize I should have been more accurate in that specific sentence: Once you justify the killing of an innocent person without some societal framework to keep the violence in check, such as the justice system or the laws and customs of commerce, you cross that moral event horizon - and the soldier you set out to kill certainly is innocent, he's done nothing to harm you.
Yeah, hurting someone or ruining them for political gain is pretty much the same, but there's fewer clear-cut examples for those.

... Of course you could argue that the laws and customs of warfare have the same civilizing effect, and to an extent they do - but there is no clear moral distinction between killing someone in an ambush and killing them after having taken them captive, for example, or killing them via bullet or via nerve gas.

I suppose I'd have to build my argument from another base: All of Western morality is built around the individual, around its rights and desires. Once you negate the individual by making it a mere means to an end - winning the war -, you leave that moral framework.

[mainiac]

Blaming war on vague elites is like blaming it on thermodynamics. Equal parts true and meaningless.

Yeah, it's no profound statement, but it wasn't the point of my post, either.

It glosses over the fact that there is influence on the leaders and their priorities change. Today's political system is far less belligerant than past systems. The world is a safer place. If you rant against vague elites and make cynical noises about their motives then you are ignoring the important trend.

[Bauglir]

"It's getting better, therefore it's not bad"?