Refusing to fight

I should point out an important point here -

Soldiers should not (cannot?) question purely military orders (ie: go charge that machine gun nest over there), but should question any orders that are morally questionable (go shoot all those schoolkids)

I'm heartened to see Grieg's information on how the US does enforce that.


But then, where does 'I refuse to help invade that country' fall in that debate. On the one level, the soldier may be right, it might be completely immoral. On the other, how does the soldier know. I doubt he has access to all the info that his seniors do.

 

i guess i should have said western democracies ...there are exceptions ,the itallians at corparetto ,and even the us army shot at least one soldier as late as ww2 , a pvt kovak, iirc ...inversly the brits shot an aussie officer for war crimes, (killing pows ) , in the boer war ,

also both the kovaks and breaker morrant incidents were portrayed in full length feature films ...as modern western movie makers just love this kind of story....

 

The American was Eddie Slovik. I saw the movie they made about his execution, with Martin Sheen playing Slovik. It left out the fact that the Army went to Slovik three times and offered to drop all charges if he would go back to his unit; he refused all three times. So he was not the poor boy shot for being from the less affluent part of town, as he was portrayed in the movie.

As for "Breaker" Morant, he was shot for killing Boer prisoners, which he admitted doing.

 

And whisch was a general practice at the time. He was just a scape goat.

 

the british army was shooting boer pows as normal practice ? this seems rather unbritish for that time ...

 

Bear in mind that the British basically invented Concentration Camps at this time and in this place and it doesn't seem too un-British at all... Shooting POWs pales in comparison to the unnecessary deaths and suffering the British inflicted among Boer women, children and non-combatants.

Not a high moral point for the Empire.

 

simon , the british army was not intentionally murdering women and children ...unlike aushwitz ,the boer deaths were caused by poor planning ,bad hygene and apathy ..not quite the same as pol pots re education camps

..one of the reasons the boers fell out with the british is because the brits insisted boers could not beat their black farm workers sensless whenever the urge struck them .brits insisted that blacks have some very basic rights ,which pissed of the boers to no end....

remember also A HUNDRED YEARS EARLIER ,the british acting alone, ended the african slave trade and enforced it with the RN on the high seas...the irish might consider the brits bad guys ..but compared to actual bad guys the brits come out smelling like a rose , as do their upstart cousins across the pond...

 

True enough, although both countries, like all others, do have some dark stains on their respective histories. You have to accept history as a whole, warts and all. Just remember to keep things in proper perspective.

 

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Getting back on the refuse to fight issue

the head of central command Admiral William Fallon, gave an official interview to the financial times about there being no Irannian war ,
and he should know

For background the same officer , sabotaged the last attempt to get three carrier battle groups in striking position off-shore Iran six month ago , deflating a white house waving of the big stick and grumbling of imminent and extreme pain for the ayatollahs
He was rumored , at the time to have said that there would be no Iran war on his watch , I didn't mention it at the time as the sources were murky

I detect a sliver of politics in this , the pentagon seems to be with him on this one .

does it constitute a refusal to fight ??
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/38dd00ca-90a6 ... ck_check=1


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Not only does it not constitute a refusal to fight he is probably only following orders when he releases such statements to the press. The Pentagon and the administration often authorize such supposedly "off the cuff" remarks by senior officials. The idea of him "deflating a white house waving of the big stick" is amusing. He takes his orders from the Joint Chiefs and the President. The slightest hint of insubordination on his part would result in his decision to take early retirement.

 

I though much the same - if he is really refusing to carry out White House orders then surely he would have been sacked or replaced by now?

 

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What make the interview weird is a theater commander giving an interview to a preeminent financial paper and a foreign one to boot

one can only conjecture that some cold water is being poured on the oil price market using a authoritarive source in a prestigious but restricted forum .

The position of the pentagon as to a war in Iran is well known , they hate it , have their hands full already , are ready to drag their feet above and beyond proper procedure and are thoroughly pissed off with the present administration
still , Fallon is a successful officer who probably know the game ,for the interview to have been given , he certainly made sure some political cover was provided ,

There is a big difference between grumbling mess talk and going on the record

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you can rest assured that almost all officers in the us military would much rather fight the iranians BEFORE they have nuclear wmds rather then after .ugly as the thought of such a war might be ,us military leaders are not so foolish as to prefer "peace in our time " and hopeful dithering .

 

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The bravery and eagerness of the U.S. Army is not in question

but considering the recent intelligence assessment on Iran military program ,
totally at variance with the line pushed by the present administration ( WW3 )
one can muse if perchance some of the Intel crowd and the top brass are maybe trying to put a bit of sanity in the present American foreign policy

As an aside , there are talk now between U.S. and Czech official for the prompt establishment of a missile system to stop non existing Iranians nukes

Maybe it can be recycled against the Russians as an anti-counterstrike missiles :smok:

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jeag , are you saying that the iranians will never be able to produce the weapons or that its still ten years away or that they are merely useing nukes to light up the discos and casinos of tehran ? some people ( who i would think know more than you or i ), some people ...seem very worried about all those centerfuges running night and day . are all these people just a bunch of silly old ladies worried about nothing ? is the cia and moussad and mi5 just a bunch of chicken littles shreiking that the sky is falling so the can get us into another fun little ground war in yet another camelturdistan ? is your souce of intel better than theirs , i hope you are right , convince me and ill pop over to the white house and set those silly worrieworts to rest ..nukes shmukes , ill tell them , dont worry, be happy !

 

Apparently they are not worried:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7125701.stm

(my emphasis)

 

It should be noted, however, that this report represents the *opinions* of these agencies, and that this same report also states, in no uncertain terms, that Iran can still make a nuclear weapon by as early as 2009 or 2010. So don't start assuming that Iran is suddenly harmless when it comes to nukes, gentlemen; the future might still prove Mr. Bush was right after all.

 

But that doesn't mean anything. Most nations could probably make themselves a nuke by the mid 2010's if they really set their mind to it.

Yes, it is a possibility and should be kept in mind and monitored, but what it means is that they are not actually making a nuke at the moment - and haven't since at least 2003.

 

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OK.for the record ,

the first step on an Iranian nuclear program was in the 70ies driven by the shah with eagerness and full western support
as part of his effort and flush with petrodollars , he planned a massive civilian nuclear program , co-financed the French Eurodif enrichment facility
to be repaid in nuclear fuel ( 5% enriched )
the reasons given were that oil is too precious to burn , power is better provided by nuclear plants ,this opinion was widespread at the time and is still true today ,
The Shah Rehza Pahlavi was of course also a big liar ,
when the ayatollah took over , the program fell apart , much was broken ,a lot of technicians went missing , the western companies stopped work , the French in agreement with the U.S. welshed on the fuel deal and also kept the money ,
in the late 90ies started collaboration with Russia for finishing the German civilian plant of Bushehr,
the deal was... the fuel come from Russia and go back to Russia , all kosher with the IAEA
It also turned out that the rotten Pakistanis had been secretly selling some pointers and gear under the table to the Iranians for enriching their own stuff ,
China also sold them a batch of uranium hexafluorure to tune the centrifuges
The Iranians had forgotten amongst others breaches to mention those details to the inspectors
Iran froze its enrichment program while a lot of negotiations took place between Iran ,Germany , France and Britain , it dragged on for a couple of years since the Europeans had nothing much to offer , the U.S. government taking a very hard line of no concession whatsoever , the hope was that coming election would see an easier Iranian position ,
disaster , Hamadinedjad got elected , ex mayor of Teheran ex fighter of the revolutionary guard in the war , one of the few battle survivor of his unit , incorruptible and very hard line
He put a deadline on the Europeans trio to present their offer , it turned out to be full of grand visions but singularly empty of any concessions to Iranians demands
the centrifuges got restarted , more got build , the Iranians insisting it was their rights under the non proliferation treaty to enrich and do reaserch

the International Atomic Energy Agency is in deep trouble they cannot deny the right is on the side of Iran and is afraid of them slamming the door if denied ,
inspectors are very useful to monitor what is going on

Iran has now about 3000 working centrifuges , it's not a lot actually and they have problems running and controlling the cascade

They do not need to research nukes yet , it's much smarter to get the bugs out of many processes and train technicians , a civilian program would be a great training ground ,
it also allow them to play the role of the innocent victims of the great Satan

then, later .....who known !!!

a very good site to start
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_nuclear_program


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so ...they think the iranians could perhaps produce a weapon by 2009 ? ...whew... thats a huge relief !

2009 is like , months and months away . what the heck was everybody all upset about then ? ...sheesh ,some people !!!