[jacquesm]

I can't get behind people trained for the most part to kill other people. The bravest to me are those that refuse to be goaded into harming their fellow human beings at the behest of others. The line between 'brave seal' and 'tool' is a thin one.

[tptacek]

If only nobody anywhere in the world was trained to kill other people, our country (and yours) wouldn't need to ask people to sacrifice that part of their humanity in service to their countrymen.

You might read Marlantes _What It Is Like To Go To War_. You might find that while SEALs are happy to speak proudly what they've learned in basic training, not so many of them speak happily about what war forces them to do during deployment. Those people trained for the most part to kill other people probably agree with much of your sentiment about their job.

[crimsonalucard]

They are actually obligated by law not to talk about their operations. It's all classified.

[Nrsolis]

That's not strictly true.

Go read "Inside the Red Circle". The author is a friend of mine.

[jacquesm]

As a conscientious objector I've done plenty of thinking on the subject. My personal stance on this is that I and nobody else determines where and when the line into violence is crossed and that I will not let others determine what my hands are used for when it comes to matters of life and death.

Words like 'sacrifice', 'pride' and so on try to put glory where there is none. Navy seals and their various colleagues from other countries should be a means of last resort (just like armies), unfortunately they find themselves (ab)used as blunt instruments of offence rather than as a way to defend their homelands.

I know a couple of vets, and if there is one thing they collectively agree on then it was that they were used. That's not going to happen to me, I won't let it.

[tptacek]

You just took the words "sacrifice" and "pride" out of context and used them to rebut an argument I didn't make. And, obviously, I didn't make an argument that it was wrong to object to service in the military.

[jacquesm]

> our country (and yours) wouldn't need to ask people to sacrifice that part of their humanity in service to their countrymen.

Sacrifice in that sentence indicates that we are asking those people to give up their humanity in our service, as if that is something that makes it heroic. Besides, I didn't ask them, and never would.

> You might find that while SEALs are happy to speak proudly what they've learned in basic training, not so many of them speak happily about what war forces them to do during deployment.

SEALs speak proudly of their basic training because they glorify a thing that I abhor: violence.

In both cases I think that that exact use of those words is what I have a problem with.

I'm not asking anybody to sacrifice themselves for me and I don't think Navy SEAl basic training is something to 'be proud of'.

Firemen, nurses, ambulance drivers, doctors, single moms working hard to feed and educate their kids have reasons to be proud. Navy SEALs in my book at least not so much, they are for the most part underpaid mercenaries. Of course they are painted as heroes by the government, otherwise how would you get young and intelligent people to set aside their reservations about the aims to which they are generally used.

If every country would stick to using their 'defense' departments for what they are ostensibly named then the world would be a much better place.

[tptacek]

You just read an article by a SEAL proudly talking about their training in terms that had nothing whatsoever to do with violence. That's what I meant earlier when I said you were taking things out of context to rebut arguments I hadn't made.

[jacquesm]

Ah ok, clear. SEALs are all about violence, I can see how some parts of their training have other applications but at the end of the day we're not talking about boy-scouts or pool guards here.

[mpyne]

> SEALs speak proudly of their basic training because they glorify a thing that I abhor: violence.

That's not the thing they "glorify" though, any more than surgeons "glorify scalpels". They happen to be very good at using force in the way that a martial artist would be very good at using their hands and feet as weapons, but people don't go around saying that the local Jeet Kune Do instructors are "glorifying war".

The fact is that even for special operating forces (like the SEALs), the vast majority of what they do involves important, but non-violent (or as they'd say, non-direct action) operational missions.

[pavelrub]

That is a very comfortable stance to have, isn't it?. You are very fortunate that there are people out there risking their lives so that people like you can continue living inside their bubble.

[Nrsolis]

"As a conscientious objector I've done plenty of thinking on the subject."

e.g. COWARD.

You abhor violence, eh? That's rich.

[jacquesm]

Ok, as a true coward befits I'll bow out of the discussion here. Thanks for playing. By your definition, that means you win.

[sillysaurus3]

Try not to let trolls get to you. No one was influenced in the slightest by their comments, so there's no reason to let it get under your skin.

[Nrsolis]

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

John Stuart Mill, on the US Civil War, in "The Contest in America", Fraser’s Magazine (February 1862)

[JoeAltmaier]

Good sentiment, but 'bravery' is not the right word. Those refusing to participate are not really risking much, certainly not their lives (or being captured and tortured for instance). So pretty much different.

But considering the world we live in, I'd much rather have Seals on my side. Properly trained ones.

[jacquesm]

It would be great if special forces like the Navy seals would only be deployed on missions of an ethically defensible nature. Unfortunately that is not the case. It's a real pity because I'm very much under the impression that most people that enter the services do so from the best of intentions.

'Your' side could easily be the bad guys by some objective standards and that is where the problem lies. If only it would be as simple as saying that 'our' side was always right.

[icebraining]

Good sentiment, but 'bravery' is not the right word. Those refusing to participate are not really risking much, certainly not their lives (or being captured and tortured for instance). So pretty much different.

Well, not here and now, but there were certainly times when that was not true.

[mpyne]

> Well, not here and now, but there were certainly times when that was not true.

Just like there were times when towns needed to have coopers. But like you just said, these aren't that times, so I'm not sure how that's supposed to add to the discussion.

[jebblue]

>> The bravest to me are those that refuse to be goaded into harming their fellow human beings at the behest of others.

The problem is that the enemy wants to kill you, without brave men and women who serve voluntarily, you would not likely have the freedom to hold the idea that it's braver to not fight and give in and give up.

[jacquesm]

Which enemy is that?

Try harming (directly) one that is dear to me and we'll see how I feel about not fighting. Try sending me to some country halfway across the planet to further the agenda of a bunch of politicians that make sure they're safe themselves and as far away from harm as they could possibly be and I refuse to budge. Navy seals have given the ability to make that choice to their superiors.

Let's just leave it at that I've seen authority abused more often than that I've seen it be used for good and that I have a very strong distrust of the motives of those that govern in our name. Too many wars, too much manipulation, too many things in the news where the stories don't check out after the fact.

Would you like some yellowcake with that barrel of petroleum?

[mpyne]

> Let's just leave it at that I've seen authority abused

So have we all at some point, I'd imagine. Is it your opinion that anything that can be abused should be forbidden?

Because no offense, but that's the same logic in the child's fairy tale about the boy who cried wolf. You're very rightly pointing out that if you make false use of your authority too often that you should expect people to not trust you in the future. But there was a second part to that story: Once the people stop trusting that authority entirely, they can be taken advantage of, just as the wolf did to the villagers' sheep.

As it stands your personal decision to be a conscientious objector is made possible only because enough other people did not make that same decision (a point Orwell makes much better than I can).

So while I won't argue with that decision as it's something only you can decide on, based on your own life experiences, I would also caution that your experiences are not everyone else's experiences and so maybe you shouldn't be so quick to judge other people.

[jacquesm]

Those people will stop trusting that particular authority, but that does not mean they have to drop common sense entirely. They definitely should be more skeptical. The boy who cried wolf got eaten, not the others.

As for my decision, it was definitely not made possible because other people did not make that same decision, you could easily argue by that exact same rhetorical trick that if everybody would act like me that war would be impossible.

I recognize that is not a reality, all I do is reserve the right to act when I see fit rather than to put my hands at others disposal, especially when those others so clearly do not deserve my loyalty. My granddad was interned in ww-II (German prisoner of war camp, forced labor for the Opel car company, a supplier of transport for officers). He could (if he were still alive) tell you a thing or two about how much damage one can inflict on an army without being in a uniform. This is not a binary choice and it is not nice to pretend that it is so.

Patronizing aside, I'm not quick to judge, I took a long time to get to this position.

Right after 9/11 the world was as one (with very few exceptions worth noting) on the side of the US. That trust and momentum could have been used for good, instead it was abused and it destroyed the image of the US for a long time and for a large number of people. Epic fail, to use a popular term.

[mpyne]

> As for my decision, it was definitely not made possible because other people did not make that same decision, you could easily argue by that exact same rhetorical trick that if everybody would act like me that war would be impossible.

"If wishes and buts were candy and nuts, every day would be Christmas"

Trust me, I wish everyone could just spontaneously choose to be non-violent and permanently and irrevocably forbid themselves from ever engaging in warfare. That would be a much nicer world.

But your decision to do that does nothing for the rest of us.

In fact, you elucidate precisely the reason why we cannot rely on such a large-scale decision: By your logic, you would not want to join to be used as tool by evil people ordering you to do evil things.

So your worldview pre-supposes that there do exist evil people who would abuse military force for aggressive aims, does it not? But if even the democracies of the West are susceptible to this aggressive urge, why should the other governments of the world be immune to it? And if any substantial part of the population of the rest of the world is not immune to this aggressive urge, we are not ready to disband defensive militaries.

So in fact I'd argue the reverse: Until you feel completely comfortable joining any military in the world knowing that you would not be abused, there will remain the need for people to take up arms.

It certainly doesn't have to be everybody (as they joke about elsewhere, you don't have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun your neighbor). But someone has to do it, for exactly the reason you suggest.

> He could (if he were still alive) tell you a thing or two about how much damage one can inflict on an army without being in a uniform.

Yes, we've recently seen how well an American out of uniform could hurt the military... you're only preaching to the choir here. But some of us prefer to keep the invaders away outright instead of being forced to rely on insurgency campaigns after the fact.

> That trust and momentum could have been used for good, instead it was abused and it destroyed the image of the US for a long time and for a large number of people. Epic fail, to use a popular term.

No doubt, but what does that have to do with this? I'm well aware that America is apparently the sole font of all that is wrong with the world (I'll give it a week before the USA is blamed for UKIP and the FN victories), but I'm not talking about the American military here.

[Nrsolis]

Spoken like a true narcissist.

The only correct viewpoint is the one you hold. The only just use of violence is one you approve. The only moral code is your moral code.

I suppose that the good news here is you'll never fight for your beliefs, so we don't have to worry about you at all.

[Nrsolis]

This is a horribly naive viewpoint. You've fallen into the trap of making a judgement of someone based on a popular understanding of a particular profession rather than any factual reality.

And here are the facts:

1. There is evil in the world. 2. That evil sometimes hurts innocent people. 3. We need some way of protecting innocent people from evil.

I'm reminded of the current hullabaloo about Boko Haram and the kidnapping of several hundred girls from a school. exactly who do you think is going to do anything about rescuing those girls? Exactly what kind of campaign do you think is needed to meet that challenge?

I see from your profile that you're in the Netherlands. I spent an afternoon at the Anne Frank house several years ago. I'm guessing you feel that she deserved NO protection whatsoever?

I'm always amused at the opinions of those who live in safe countries with comfortable lives and how they have no concern for the people who keep them safe and comfortable.

Maybe you should learn a little more, eh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korps_Commandotroepen

[PavlovsCat]

If that is horribly naive, so was Einstein:

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

> 1. There is evil in the world. 2. That evil sometimes hurts innocent people. 3. We need some way of protecting innocent people from evil.

That is true, but doesn't justify anything and everything. For example, the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador making stuff up about Iraqui soldiers tearing babies out of incubators. "War is a racket" may not be the full story, but has it ever been refuted in a meaningful way? If so, I'd like to see that.

As for Anne Frank, she and others were hunted and murdered by organized, trained killers. To say "but that's different, because those are evil, and we are talking about organized, trained killers who fight evil" doesn't really help, because from the perspective of fanatical followers of Hitler, they were doing the exact same thing, protecting the world from evil and degeneration. So to bring up Anne Frank to justify glorifying the military seems weird at best.

[thegeomaster]

Why do people pull out quotes by globally recognized people in ordee to prove their points? So what if Albert Einstein said that? Are you implying that everything Albert Einstein says is true?

[PavlovsCat]

Where am I using Einstein's "authority" to support any of my arguments, except that I don't think it's a naive viewpoint? I agree with him on this, and having read some of his letters and whatnot I don't think he was naive, and I know he thought about people a lot and cared deeply about peace. I don't even care for his work in physics, because that goes right over my head, but find he said and wrote many wise things that still hold true. I even suspect this may be part of the reason he is "globally recognized": He wasn't just a scientist, he was a philosopher, too, had a big heart and a way with words. That is reason enough to quote anyone, and that Einstein gets quoted all the time for all sorts of reasons is not my problem.

I like the quote, and I agree with it. If you think you found a flaw in it, point out that flaw. I'm assuming that can be done, but you're not doing it; and otherwise, why would I care about the factuality of everything else he ever said, or even anything else? That's just a red herring.

[thegeomaster]

You said: "If that viewpoint is naive, so was Einstein", and then proceeded to reproduce the same quote. You seem to have used his name to give extra weight to the quotation. I am not arguing for or against your stance here (actually, if anything, I think I agree with it), I'm just pointing out that the first sentence was superfluous. If one of Einstein's viewpoints was in fact naive, that wouldn't make Einstein himself naive, and stating something like that just sounds you were trying to appeal to his authority. That's all.

[PavlovsCat]

Replace "so was Einstein" with "then Einstein was also being naive when he said this", would that help? My sympathy for Einstein is personal, and I might have brought up, say, Bill Hicks in the same way; not meaning it as "this is correct because X said so, and many other people think he is generally correct", but "if this is wrong, then at least I am in company I like while being wrong about this".

[Nrsolis]

She was hunted and murdered by organized, trained killers THAT WERE SUPPORTED and FUNDED BY THE CIVILIANS.

FTFY.

Sorry Bub. Your hands aren't clean there.

And don't forget that Einstein wrote the letter to the FDR that kicked off the race to build the atomic weapon. Even HE was asking for the USG to do something that would squelch the evil of Nazi aggression.

If you believe that soldiers, airmen, sailors, and Marines are mindless drones, boy have you got it wrong.

[PavlovsCat]

> Sorry Bub. Your hands aren't clean there.

I totally agree with that. If you look at it as a pyramid, and the moment of a soldier shooting someone as the very tip, a LOT goes into that. There is a bit in Robert Antelme's "The Human Race" where he actually says the supposedly innocent and righteous civil society, with its supposed values, that underpinned and enabled the SS at times stirred up more resentment than the SS itself; at least the SS wore skulls, and acknowledged the existence of the people they were murdering. I am paraphrasing, but my point is, even someone who lived through that horror agrees with you.

> And don't forget that Einstein wrote the letter to the FDR that kicked off the race to build the atomic weapon. Even HE was asking for the USG to do something that would squelch the evil of Nazi aggression.

"I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed that letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification—the danger that the Germans would make them!"

&

"Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would not have lifted a finger."

> If you believe that soldiers, airmen, sailors, and Marines are mindless drones, boy have you got it wrong.

This however strikes me as a non-sequitur. How does the fact that civilian society can act as mindless drones, too, make soldiers less drone-ish?

[Nrsolis]

Einstein clearly wasn't certain that the Germans wouldn't have produced a bomb. That's why he acted. It was the threat that convinced him he needed to get involved.

Just as certainly, we don't know the future. We need to be prepared for as many situations as necessary. That means that soldiers must be trained, armies must be maintained, and the citizenry should be aware.

[jacquesm]

Is there a Navy Seals action underway to rescue the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram? That's news to me, all I know is there were a few rumors.

The problem is not that navy seals could not be deployed to do good, the problem is that they are just as likely to be deployed to do harm.

Anne Frank has nothing to do with any of this, the dutch army was of no significance whatsoever (but the dutch resistance was).

As for me 'learning a little more', I think you have your mind made up about me. Your simple world with 'evil' and 'good' is not the world I live in. If only it were that simple.

[pavelrub]

> They are just as likely to be deployed to do harm.

Please name some SEAL missions you consider harmful.

[Nrsolis]

I think you're missing the point entirely.

The point of the example is to show that without good people who are willing to fight against those who would do innocents harm, those good people get hurt.

I think that if you kidnap little girls, you're evil. I think that if you set off a bomb in a hotel lobby, you're evil. I think if you crash a plane into a building and kill thousands, you're evil.

In my world, if you indiscriminately kill an innocent person to further your political goals then you are evil.

[jacquesm]

In my world, if you invade a country on a pretext and kill tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, you're out of control. Especially if in the run-up to such an invasion you squelch every possible voice of opposition or reason.

That's where the problem lies, by your own definition your country is evil (not by mine, I don't believe in the whole good/evil thing, it's just a simplification to make it easier to delude voters into thinking things are easy to understand when in fact they are not).

[vacri]

You keep on subscribing to this image of the military as valiant crusaders against the dark, yet the most significant deployment of the biggest military in the world this century was an unmitigated disaster, that had nothing to do with defense of innocents, and that left the people of the target country far worse off than they were originally.

The problem is this: by continually glorifying the military the way you do, making them out to be crusader heroes, you fool young, impressionable people. So instead of decrying things like the invasion of Iraq, they sign up in droves, because they've been tricked by the rhetoric into thinking it's somehow about defending their country.

The point is, if the US military was really about fighting your definition of evil, it would be far more involved in Africa. Its mission is "keep the US safe and further its interests", which is fine, but it's not the "fight evil" mission that you say it is. If the US military really was about fighting evil (which is an oversimplistic term), it would have staged a coup when GW Bush declared war on Iraq, a war in which hundreds of thousands of people have died, in a country that was no threat to the US.

[dang]

I spent an afternoon at the Anne Frank house several years ago. I'm guessing you feel that she deserved NO protection whatsoever?

Please stop attacking other commenters personally. It's against the rules and weakens your argument.

"Guessing" something horrible about somebody is personally aggressive. There is a lot of other personally charged language in your posts as well. Please refrain from that. You have a good point—insinuation spoils it.

[CatheryneN]

I have a stronger opinion for those who live in safe countries and have no concern for the people who keep them safe and comfortable. The fact that everyone on this thread can voice their opinion freely, criticize openly, and play armchair quarterback on something they may know nothing about should speak volumes. Today and tomorrow is the time for grace for those who have laid down their life in service to our country. US Navy Seals are an elite group who undertake incredibly dangerous missions. They deserve nothing but respect on this Memorial Day. Freedom is never free.

[jacquesm]

You have a few nice bumper stickers in there.

[jqm]

"I'm reminded of the current hullabaloo about Boko Haram and the kidnapping of several hundred girls from a school."

Yes. In Nigeria which is what... like the 5'th largest oil exporter in the world? So who funds these problems that then have to be solved by military invasion? I'm always suspicious.

[jebblue]

What ... on earth is your point? That everyone who drives a car is responsible for those poor children? I pray for their safe return.

[PavlovsCat]

I think the point was the when a country gets invaded, its economy and politics tend to get restructured in favour of the invader. I wouldn't go so far to say this proves it was engineered, but I think that was the implication.

[jqm]

Exactly. I don't mean to "prove" nor even "imply". The word used was "suspicious". When these type of problems pop up in resource rich or strategically important locations and it gets a lot of air time on the news and we have to do something because "think of the children!" I am.... suspicious.

[Nrsolis]

We sent the Marines into Haiti to rescue the civilian population after the natural disasters there.

For the life of me, I can't imagine what economic interest we had there.

I know because a good friend ended up killing himself after witnessing the human tragedy there. He was a Marine pilot.