Can a soldier be Objective?

"I agree that's a risk a soldier takes. But then, that's a risk anyone takes joining a hierarchal organization, like Microsoft for instance. If your trust in the integrity of your bosses is broken, you can quit. If that happens to a soldier in the heat of battle, I'll agree that's not an easy choice. The consequences either way are severe..." [Italics mine]

Last I looked Bill Gates (nor any other US CEO) didn't use a firing squad to deliver his pink-slips.

As far as I know the punishment for desertion or cowardice in the face of the enemy lies somewhere between 25 to life in a military prison and execution. I'm happy to be proven wrong on this point.

Post 81

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - 1:38pm

Rick P,

Me:
Qui bono?
You:

Cold or hot, war is the health of the state.

I'm not sure how that answers my question. Who benefited from crafting the Cold War as a hoax? Was it Truman? Curtis LeMay perhaps? Maybe the shareholders of Boeing? What benefit did Carter and Reagan get by maintaining the hoax?

A hoax is a fraud. It is a scheme that is devised to deceive. What end were the Cold War hoaxers pursuing with their deception? Who were they and what did they expect to gain? These are not trivial questions if a five-decade-long nuclear stand-off was nothing but a scam.

Andy

Post 82

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - 1:54pm

Robert W,

Yes, the italics are yours. So is the ellipsis that deletes my key point: The soldier accepted that risk when he enlisted. A soldier, like anyone, does have control over his destiny although his choices may not always be easy ones. He is his own master, even when he is taking orders from his superiors, because he chooses to follow those orders.

In any event, it would take a lot of recklessness or procrastination on a soldier's part to get himself in the middle of combat he believes to be immoral, or at least contrary to his self-interest, before he decided to opt out. Even if he were that careless, he's not going to get shot for desertion in any Western army (which is the context for this discussion). Besides he doesn't have to desert to quit. He can simply refuse to bear arms, which makes him insubordinate. He will likely pay a price, but then we often do for procrastination.

Andy

Post 83

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - 2:58pm

Andy wrote:

" he's not going to get shot for desertion in any Western army (which is the context for this discussion).��Besides he doesn't have to desert to quit.� He can simply refuse to bear arms, which makes him insubordinate.� He will likely pay a price, but then we often do for procrastination."

Have they repealed the death penalty for desertion in the NATO armies? I know the Australian army has, I'm not sure that the British or New Zealand Armies have.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on whether refusing to bear arms is just insubordination and would therefore bring a short stint in the glasshouse (escaping from which would almost certainly lead you to being shot - so there is a gun somewhere in your future). I'd have thought it would have depended on why, where and when you did it.

And yes I agree, if the volunteer soldier has a moral objection to fighting a particular enemy he can decide before going to war to resign.

However it is also possible to be happy to fight a war and be unhappy with the way it is being fought. The most famous example that comes to mind is that of the famed war poet Siegfred Sassoon:

"Sassoon was awarded the Military Cross in June 1916 for assisting a wounded man back to British lines while under fire.

After being wounded in April 1917 Sassoon was sent back to England for recuperation.� Sassoon had meanwhile developed increasingly angry feelings concerning the conduct of the war.� This led him to publish, in The Times, a letter announcing his view that the war was being deliberately and unnecessarily prolonged by the authorities.

Sassoon narrowly avoided punishment by courts martial [& in 1917 a guilty verdict which would certainly have led to his being shot - RW] via the swift assistance of Robert Graves, who convinced the military review board (with Sassoon's reluctant consent) that Sassoon was suffering from shell shock.�" (From www.firstworldwar.com)

It is unlikely in Seigfred's case that he would have known about the British Army strategy prior to landing and fighting in France.

Post 84

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - 3:19pm

Robert said:

And yes I agree, if the volunteer soldier has a moral objection to fighting a particular enemy he can decide before going to war to resign.

Unless things have changed in the U.S. Army, a volunteer soldier enlists for a certain period of time and re-enlists for a certain period of time and can't leave until his enlistment period is up. And this only applies to an enlisted soldier (i.e., not an officer). For an officer, it's even worse. An officer cannot resign his commission unless the Army agrees to allow him to. And, in actuality, many enlisted personnel who were in the reserves were kept in the Army beyond their enlistment period during the present war in Iraq.

Is there anyone familiar with the Army who can tell me whether this is still true?
Thanks,
Glenn

Post 85

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - 4:27pm

Unless things have changed in the U.S. Army, a volunteer soldier enlists for a certain period of time and re-enlists for a certain period of time and can't leave until his enlistment period is up. And this only applies to an enlisted soldier (i.e., not an officer). For an officer, it's even worse. An officer cannot resign his commission unless the Army agrees to allow him to. And, in actuality, many enlisted personnel who were in the reserves were kept in the Army beyond their enlistment period during the present war in Iraq.

Whether true or untue is beside the point, as are moral objection to any particular conflict. The point that seems quite clear to me, and one which Andy has painstakingly tried to present is that each individual who decides to commit to a contractual obligation with the armed services knows all of this in advance and agrees to the employers stipulations. If you sign a contract with anyone which lays out stipulations, you have freely chosen to abide by the consequences.

Also, calling Sassoon a poet is an insult to word. He wrote doggerel verse and rode into poetry on the wee-teeny coat-tails of Robert Graves.

Post 86

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - 8:11pm

Glenn, Thank you for the correction.

Jody, Sassoon was an aggressive, decorated platoon commander who served his country faithfully and with valour in a brutal and viscous war that bled his generation white. So before you so glibly cast aside his contribution to history - at least have the decency to acknowledge this.

As to the rest, I have no idea what you are trying to prove.

You state that: "each individual who decides to commit to a contractual obligation with the armed services knows all of this in advance and agrees to the employers stipulations... If you sign a contract with anyone which lays out stipulations, you have freely chosen to abide by the consequences."

I say - yes that's true, they have to abide by the conditions of their contract. A contract that states that they must obey any lawful order given them by a superior officer - regardless of whether it is stupid or suicidal.

How can it be claimed that any man, forced (at gunpoint - eventually) to act against his better judgement, is acting objectively?

This is the only point I am trying to make - in answer to the question that heads up this thread.

If you go back to my first post on this thread you will see that I accept and even explain why this is and should be the case - at least until technology improves.

(Edited by Robert Winefield on 10/04, 8:15pm)

Post 87

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 5:44am

Jody says:

Whether true or untue is beside the point, as are moral objection to any particular conflict. The point that seems quite clear to me, and one which Andy has painstakingly tried to present is that each individual who decides to commit to a contractual obligation with the armed services knows all of this in advance and agrees to the employers stipulations. If you sign a contract with anyone which lays out stipulations, you have freely chosen to abide by the consequences.

It may be beside your point, but it isn't beside mine. My point has been to let people know that if you decide to join the military, read the fine print of the contract before you sign.
Glenn

Post 88

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 5:46am

Jody, Sassoon was an aggressive, decorated platoon commander who served his country faithfully and with valour in a brutal and viscous war that bled his generation white. So before you so glibly cast aside his contribution to history - at least have the decency to acknowledge this.

I did not cast aside his contribution to history. I know nothing of this. I cast aside his contribution to poetry.

Post 89

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - 12:40pm

Jody,

You hit the nail on the head as to what I believe is the key.

Robert W,

I understand your point that a soldier puts himself in a situation in which he will be given orders he may not want to carry out. But that is not a situation unique to a soldier. Anyone who belongs to a hierarchical organization will find himself subject to following orders while lacking full information about the "big picture". This happens all the time in business.

However, belonging to a hierarchy never relieves one of his responsibility for his own moral. This includes the soldier. I take your point that a soldier's refusal to follow orders he believes to be immoral can have consequences far more severe that a clerk in a big corporation telling his boss to shove it. The difference still remains one of degree. The soldier, like the clerk, is in his position by his own choice and retains the freedom to not follow any order he does not want to.

This why I believe there is no conflict between Objectivism and soldiering.

Andy

Post 90

Thursday, October 6, 2005 - 5:28pm