THE IMMORALITY OF DRONE STRIKES

[DGVREIMAN]

THE IMMORALITY OF DRONE STRIKES


MORALITY -" the principles of what is right or wrong - the distinction
between good and evil."


Some have said on this forum that my description of a "good soldier"
was in fact a description of an "immoral" person. Yet all of us that
were in the military know the military wants soldiers that can kill
the enemy at night, work behind a desk during the day, and sleep like
a baby, drink booze like a dipsomaniac, and not allow neither his
killing nor his work nor his drinking ever bother his mind to a degree
it will deter him from his duties.

Most civilians (especially those that exist in Academia) would
describe the above "perfect soldier" as a psychopath. They would say
"how can you kill and not feel neither remorse nor guilt, or even fear
to a degree it will permutate your very soul?" And if the order of
your soul is changed, then what good is it if you become a great
soldier only to lose the order of your very soul? Moreover, do you
benefit yourself by becoming a good soldier, or do you benefit those
that are "manipulating and/or handling you?" Also, don't they also
lose the order of their souls by creating you and then sending you
out to kill?

The answer to all of the above is the true morality of a soldier that
kills the enemy has to be judged by whether he is the good killing
evil, or he is the evil killing good. Most good soldiers believe
absolutely in what they are doing and why they are doing it. They
must at least convince themselves of the necessity of their acts in
order to gleefully kill the enemy and not worry about it later. . .a
good soldier MUST believe in something above and beyond the knowledge
that killing is wrong - ergo, to be a good soldier it you must either
be a patriot, or a hater of something different (ideology, race, etc)
or at least be a good drooling fall-down psychopath.

A good NCO will recognize one or more of those necessary "good
soldier" traits in some of his men, and he will exploit them for the
benefit of the Platoon. A race hater always makes a good point man,
and a psychopath always makes a good village hootch searcher and
interrogator. . . There also were the glory hounds, you know the
type, whining for medals all the time, and when they went home placed
all of their precious prizes under glass, and strutted and boasted
about them at every opportunity. Most of the men I knew used to
contemptuously laugh at these pathetic low-self esteem dregs. . .there
are no bigger cowards in the US Military than these glory clowns, and
they were mostly useless in the Platoon.


Like I said, the military works differently than many in the civilian
world believe it does - in fact I suspect most civilians really do not
want to know exactly how the military finds or creates men to kill
other men . They would rather avert their eyes and let someone else
do the killing for them. . especially those in Academia, or Hospital
worker types, or other tree hugging, whining "morality" seekers that
unvaryingly and loudly proclaim their self-imposed "morality" to all
which represents some half-baked draconian rules of life they have
dreamed up based upon some unreal world they live in or want to live
in.

Another requirement to be a good soldier is to be brave - but not too
brave. If you are too brave you will probably die, and then the Army
has lost all of that brainwash - er "specialized training." Those
that jump on Grenades and such were too brave, ergo, they were NOT
good soldiers. Some might even call them stupid or naive- but then
others call them heroes and shower them with medals - which only their
family can enjoy as I doubt if the dead soldier gives a flying
frankfurter about medals. I agree with the Army - be brave, but not
too brave.

The Morality of Drone Strikes

To complicate further this "good soldier morality" question we now
have robots doing much of the killing for us. Some said back when
the machine gun was invented that gun itself was "immoral" - but now
mowing down dozens of enemies in five seconds is "yawn" commonplace,
as our ubiquitous video games clearly demonstrate. So that "machine
gun immorality" went the way of the horse-drawn buggy - that
immorality simply became "obsolete."

Some of the Drones the USA is using to kill people with are now
working more off of an internal program than off the brain waves of
its human handler - and the Drones have been whacking bad guys (and
some good guys) right and left for the past three years - without a
declaration of war. So are these Drones immoral? How about their
human teams of handlers? Are they also immoral? How about the Drone
programers, the manufacturers, the workers in the factory that makes
the Drones, the builders of the aircraft, the workers at the air ports
in which the Drones are housed and take off and land - are ALL of
those people also "immoral?"

Howling and barking about " immorality" in any respect when it comes
to War, or half War, or just "war against whomever the government does
not like" (which is the Drone war) is an affront to the concept of
morality itself.

War has its *own special morality* and it cannot be compared to the
average run-of-the-mill morality we like to hear about and practice in
our daily civilian lives. War moves morality to a higher plane, to a
different dimension, a dimension that very few can ever understand
until they go there.


Doug Grant (Tm)

[Neolibertarian]

In article <aNOdneG-fJenALDS...@giganews.com>,

"DGVREIMAN" <dgvr...@comcast.net> wrote:

>
> Howling and barking about " immorality" in any respect when it comes
> to War, or half War, or just "war against whomever the government does
> not like" (which is the Drone war) is an affront to the concept of
> morality itself.
>
> War has its *own special morality* and it cannot be compared to the
> average run-of-the-mill morality we like to hear about and practice in
> our daily civilian lives. War moves morality to a higher plane, to a
> different dimension, a dimension that very few can ever understand
> until they go there.

You sound like Stephen Decatur.


--
Neolibertarian

"Global Warming: It ain't the heat, it's the stupidity."

[DGVREIMAN]

"Neolibertarian" <cogn...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:308de$4f2e9e3f$18f556a5$22...@allthenewsgroups.com...

Doug Asks: Who is Stephen Decatur?

Doug Grant (Tm)

[!Jones]

On Sat, 4 Feb 2012 13:03:54 -0800, in alt.war.vietnam "DGVREIMAN"
<dgvr...@comcast.net> wrote:

>"how can you kill and not feel neither remorse nor guilt, or even fear
>to a degree it will permutate your very soul?"

How can you kill innocent women and children?

Jones

[Tankfixer]

In article <RYCdnbEvMbe_arPS...@giganews.com>, - DGVREIMAN
dgvr...@comcast.net spouted !

>
> "Neolibertarian" <cogn...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:308de$4f2e9e3f$18f556a5$22...@allthenewsgroups.com...

> > [quoted text muted]

> >
> > --
> > Neolibertarian
> >
> > "Global Warming: It ain't the heat, it's the stupidity."
>
> Doug Asks: Who is Stephen Decatur?
>

Hahahahahahahahahaaaa

Fool

[Neolibertarian]

In article <RYCdnbEvMbe_arPS...@giganews.com>,

I'll try to answer.

Once upon a time in these not-so United States, each of our wars
produced a national hero.

Not so since the Korean War, of course--which began with a national war
hero, and ended with his firing. No American war would ever produce a
national hero again.

In Decatur's case, he was the hero from the first illegal war against
Muslim Islamists (the Marines have a little song that references it).

At any rate, Decatur was a powerful combination of intelligence, brawn
and skill. A man you would not like to see sitting at your Poker table,
or across from a chess board, nor would you want to meet him at dawn
with pistols or swords. Which the Barbary Pirates would discover the
hard way.

At any rate, being the toast of Washington as national heros usually
are, he gave one of the most famous after-dinner toasts in American
history (though evidently, lost to obscurity because of public schools
and tenure):

"Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be
in the right; but right or wrong, our country!"

Later, this would be corrupted and repeated as "My country, right or
wrong."

Which is why you sounded like Stephen Decatur; Your phrases "its own
special morality," and "moves morality to a higher plane."

Almost like Nietzsche claiming that whatever is done for love, occurs
beyond good and evil.

And the even more famous catch phrase, "all's fair in love and war."

Not that I believe for one minute you put even that much thought into
your post.

But there you are then, already.