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[Sir Pseudonymous]

And you assume the soldiers under their command would have known better? Or that soldiers second guessing their orders wouldn't lead to even more tragic results in the 99% of times that the officers are right?

Quite frankly, yes, I think the Charge of the Light Brigade could've been avoided if they just considered the wisdom of moving at a slow pace into a ring of Russian artillery.

Even to assume there was a soldier on the ground who disagreed, what could they have done to avert it? Not participated, branding themselves a deserter and a traitor? Defected to the enemy? Tried to tell their commanding officer, and gotten shot for insubordination? Pulled a Manning and sent random letters they stole to a third party, accomplishing... uh... looking like a dumbfuck?

Also what ed boy said about that ignoring the question as a whole.

I did not say they should slaughter them, only that it's not their job to protect them. Thinking "OMG MUST LEAK RANDOM PAPRS BECAUSE OCCASINOAL INJUSTICE!" is fucktarded.

Considering the number of people who had access to these documents... if any of them had been seriously important, the higher ups would be idiotic beyond belief.

And apparently rather more than occasional injustice...

How does that contradict the statement that leaking random, mundane documents he stole was a fucktarded response to his uninformed conclusions on military policy? "I'ma show them by leaking all these things that people who aren't them said about things unrelated to my grievances, fuck yeah!"

[Leafsnail]

Even to assume there was a soldier on the ground who disagreed, what could they have done to avert it?

Not charging into the valley of death?  Wow, solved.

For the question as a whole... well, you've kindof randomly thrown the burden of proof onto me without any supporting evidence.  Basically, what I'm saying is that if it's abundantly clear there's been a mistake from on high, they should at least ask for some clarification before proceeding.  In any case, you'll often be required to think on your feet as a soldier... people can't always be telling you exactly what to do.

How does that contradict the statement that leaking random, mundane documents he stole was a fucktarded response to his uninformed conclusions on military policy? "I'ma show them by leaking all these things that people who aren't them said about things unrelated to my grievances, fuck yeah!"

Since when did revenge have to be related to your grievance?

[Earthquake Damage]

Even to assume there was a soldier on the ground who disagreed, what could they have done to avert it?

Not charging into the valley of death?  Wow, solved.

But then we wouldn't have this!  Please, think of the metal.

[ed boy]

Basically, what I'm saying is that if it's abundantly clear there's been a mistake from on high, they should at least ask for some clarification before proceeding.

Keep in mind that if it is "abundantly clear" that something is wrong, that can just be human perception. You may or may not be familiar with simpson's paradox. which is an example of how something that is "abundantly clear" can turn out to be completely wrong:

Spoiler: simpson's paradox (click to show/hide)

This example uses real life statistical data on kidney stone treatments.
In one study for kidney stones, two different treatments for kidney stones were compared. 350 patients were given each treatment, and the success rates are as such:

Treatment A	Treatment B
273/350=78%	289/350=83%

You might see that treatment B has a higher success rate, and demand treatment B if you have kidney stones. However, look what happens when you divide the patients up into those that have large stones and small stones.

Treatment A

Treatment B

Small Stones

81/87=93%

234/270=87%

Large Stones

192/263=73%

55/80=69%

As can be seen, no matter what type of kidney stones you have, treatment A is better than treatment B.

[olemars]

If a soldier is ordered by a superior to shoot some prisoners(or even just kick them around a bit), should he unquestioningly follow orders, knowing that what he's doing is a war crime? US soldiers are lectured on the geneva conventions and what constitutes war crimes, so ignorance is no excuse.

In other news, just to pretend this thread is on some sort of rails, Assange was released on bail today.

[Sergius]

Interesting tidbit from China.  They're all pissy about the whol Liu Xiaobo/Nobel peace price thing, of course, but they asked a good question: why not give Assange the prize?

You know shit has gotten weird when China can make a moral relativism argument and it actually holds water.

If Assange Were In China, US Politicians Would Be Cheering Him On

EDIT: Also, what's this nonsense about being surprised of what Glenn Beck does? He's your typical Faux News pundit: attacks the government mercilessly for something when the Liberals are in charge, then cries and whines when the exact same attack is done when the Conservatives are in the White House.

The only atypical thing about him is how he says the weirdest, most batshit insane things most of the time. Like how hippies want to suck his brains thru a straw or something.

[ChairmanPoo]

Many german officers tried to use the "We were just following orders" as an excuse to what they did, after WW2. It didn't work. You can be prosecuted for blindly following orders.

Mind you, the relevant point is not that they were nazis, but that they tried to use that as a excuse, and it failed.

To use a less Godwin-invoking example: a few years ago, in a British hospital, there was a surgeon who was operating a woman along with his resident for... something simple (I dont recall the exact pathology. I just recall this was a general surgeon). Anyways, it turned out that what the woman really had was a torn aorta aneurysm. The senior doctor didn't want to call the cardiovascular surgery department because he got along badly with them (stupid yeah I know). And he forbade the resident from doing it, too. Well, when this got to court, the senior surgeon ended up in jail, guilty of dolous behavior. But the resident was also inhabilitated for some years, because he ought to have reported it, whatever the other guy said.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

I seem to recall most of the lower level nazis put on trial getting away with the argument that they were just following orders, and to refuse would have left them dead. It was only those who were of either political importance or behind the orders in the first place who didn't get away with it. Which is as it should be.

Soldiers are pieces of a machine, and they cannot question what the machine is doing. As much as you like arguing "The machine is evil and bottom-rung soldiers are obviously better equipped to deal with the complex moral clusterfuck that is war than officers because... uh... they're not part of the machine, man... or something...", what about when the soldiers come to conclusions you don't like? Think of the squad that made a game of killing civilians that wound up court marshaled when someone else in the platoon ratted them out to a higher officer (note that if they must break normal procedure to reveal blatant wrongdoing, going up their own damn ladder is the way to do it; still frowned upon, but not, you know, treason). That was also a case of soldiers thinking for themselves, and drawing their own conclusions. How about the soldiers that snap and start shooting their comrades? Thinking for themselves. While the Manning case is rather mild, especially compared to those, it is only so because of the general unimportance of everything leaked; he accomplished nothing of value, and left his head on the chopping block.


Doctors are a special case, being highly educated individuals whose very job requires them to draw conclusions in radically varying situations, and who are oathbound to a specific code of ethics. A doctor endangering the life of a patient over a petty grudge is a dire offense. A soldier (well, specifically a low-level grunt) is, by virtue of not being an officer, not in possession of the skills to make such sweeping decisions about what is right or wrong in regards to their orders, and privy to only the smallest part of the overall picture to boot. They're entitled to their opinions, they're not entitled to act upon them. You're trying to hold up one individual as why soldiers should think for themselves, and ignoring all the cases where that leads to them committing crimes and atrocities, because that's what they decide is best.

[ed boy]

On the assange front, it looks like he has comitted a grave sin indeed.

[ChairmanPoo]

Doctors are a special case, being highly educated individuals whose very job requires them to draw conclusions in radically varying situations, and who are oathbound to a specific code of ethics. A doctor endangering the life of a patient over a petty grudge is a dire offense. A soldier (well, specifically a low-level grunt) is, by virtue of not being an officer, not in possession of the skills to make such sweeping decisions about what is right or wrong in regards to their orders, and privy to only the smallest part of the overall picture to boot. They're entitled to their opinions, they're not entitled to act upon them. You're trying to hold up one individual as why soldiers should think for themselves, and ignoring all the cases where that leads to them committing crimes and atrocities, because that's what they decide is best.

The relevant example in the case of the doctors was not the senior surgeon, but the resident. Normally a resident is supposed to obey his adjunct in all things. However, in this particular case the resident paid for his adjunct's decision to simply close down the patient and let her die "because there's nothing to be done"* instead of calling the relevant team. The resident had no part in that decision. He simply followed his boss' instructions. And he paid for it.


 *(to be fair, broken abdominal aorta aneurysms have a poor prognosis, but that's hardly an excuse. While the woman might likely have died anyway, sitting down and tweedling their thumbs turned that into a certainity)

[olemars]

I seem to recall most of the lower level nazis put on trial getting away with the argument that they were just following orders, and to refuse would have left them dead. It was only those who were of either political importance or behind the orders in the first place who didn't get away with it. Which is as it should be.

Soldiers are pieces of a machine, and they cannot question what the machine is doing. As much as you like arguing "The machine is evil and bottom-rung soldiers are obviously better equipped to deal with the complex moral clusterfuck that is war than officers because... uh... they're not part of the machine, man... or something...", what about when the soldiers come to conclusions you don't like? Think of the squad that made a game of killing civilians that wound up court marshaled when someone else in the platoon ratted them out to a higher officer (note that if they must break normal procedure to reveal blatant wrongdoing, going up their own damn ladder is the way to do it; still frowned upon, but not, you know, treason). That was also a case of soldiers thinking for themselves, and drawing their own conclusions. How about the soldiers that snap and start shooting their comrades? Thinking for themselves. While the Manning case is rather mild, especially compared to those, it is only so because of the general unimportance of everything leaked; he accomplished nothing of value, and left his head on the chopping block.

Ehh. Thousands were put on trial after Nuremberg, from secrataries to guards. A lot of them hanged. The "just following orders" line was explicitly established as an invalid defense and that principle was made international law afterwards. Soldiers really are responsible for their actions, and not objecting to an illegal order is a criminal offense, even in US military code. There's plenty of court cases and other references I can dig up if you really want them.

In the case of Manning, he claims to have reported to his superior officer that iraqi police were arresting people who were handing out pamphlets criticizing PM Maliki. He was told to go help them round up more political opponents.

[Sowelu]

On the assange front, it looks like he has comitted a grave sin indeed.

That bastard!

[SalmonGod]

Legality aside, I can't ever be convinced that it's a good idea to condition people to completely remove themselves from any sense of responsibility for their actions.  When those actions turn out to be harmful, and the person who did them feels no connection the outcomes, the common label for such a person is monster. 

I very strongly believe that if a person cannot fully emotionally process something and still believe it is the right thing to do, that they shouldn't do it.  If one is knowingly placing themself in situations where decisions with lots of ethical rammifications will have to be made hastily, then they have a responsibility to mentally prepare themselves as thoroughly as possible.

[Urist is dead tome]

What's the general opinion on this site about this guy anyway?

[Eugenitor]

On the assange front, it looks like he has comitted a grave sin indeed.

That bastard!

In before multiple donations to the University of Melbourne's library of the same book.