Sparhawk

YOUR CONDUCT UNDER THE LAWS OF ARMED CONFLICT

"The laws of armed conflict tell you what you can and cannot do in combat situations. With the training you receive, you will have the necessary discipline to do the right thing. But if you do not learn how to conduct yourself in combat, you will be punished for mistakes."

I used "boys" not in a pejorative way like the person I was quoting, but in the general "our boys" sense. I am curious as to where you got your stats on the average ages, as well as the friendly fire rates, which according to this site are inaccurate.

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"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

stevie667

i can tell you now off the top of my head american troops killed:
2 british tornado pilots on their landing run
several british troops (including one translator) on at least two different bombing runs on british convoys, one of which contained american units as well.
the crew of an armourd unit
and those are just off the top of my head. now, one of those incidents i could take as just a simple fact of war, mistakes happen. you'd think that US commanders would say 'oh, we've had a few mistaken ID's, check your targets for, you know, clearly marked coalition symbols before attacking' and it'd all be ok. but doesn't look like it does it?
and what really ticks me off, as far as i know, none of those attackers got any kind of disciplinery action beyond the standard slap on the wrist.

as for ages, most are under 25, and not proffesional troops (army regulars, not TA or national guards) in both british and american units. you can't dispute that.

james t kirk

But, the US can't afford it's military either mon ami.

Only thing is, you guys haven't figured that out yet.

But you will, trust me, you will.

james t kirk

Oh really?

So the US of A is self sufficient with respect to its energy needs then I guess.

HA, without the rest of the world, you would be paying 20 bucks a gallon, have half the natural gas you have now.

Have fun freezing to death in the dark.

smooth

I grew up thinking that the National Guard didn't leave our borders, except to patrol territories, like Guam.

I thought, and so did as many friends as I can remember from years ago, that the professional military were the ones to go conduct wars.

I remember that I had an impression that the National Guard was a pretty safe side occupation--a place to get some health benefits, some fun training, and extra money. This isn't to say that anyone I knew joined the Guards because they were lazy, they just believed that they could serve their country by doing limited risk duty that was still important to the country--having people ready at home in case of an attack. I don't think my generation ever conceived that we would use our backup (resisting a domestic attack) military as an invading force, and we also didn't think anyone would ever invade us.

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

jjjjjj

uhhh what are you talking about guy who opened the post? the whole point is that bush lied to us about why he wasted billions of dollars on the war, kind of like clinton did. but isnt it kind of odd that people were ready to give clinton the axe, while those same people couldn't care less what bush says to us? another thing, gore probably wouldve waited to get that thing called international support before he invaded a country. yeah bush is really our savior.

gibingus

interesting read on the laws of armed conflict. thanks for the link. war crimes are a curious social construct indeed.

the lunaville stats are accurate to my knowledge. apologies for being misleading. i was thinking of may in particular when i posted, but wasn't looking at any charts at the time. i'll be more careful next time, it's good to see people are thinking hard about this and checking up on the facts. thanks for keeping us honest and accurate.

my source for the age info is private conversation with a pentagon reporter. we were talking about the average age of the enlisted infantryman (which is 19, i believe by the offical DOD proclamation) as we discussed a volunteer program to get paperback books to the troops. this reporter said don't just send them comic books, a surprising number of those currently deployed are guardsmen (i seem to recall that figure is higher than 20%) in their late 20s and early 30s, or specialized infrastructure units like seebees and MPs which tend to be older than frontline combat units.

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if everyone is thinking alike, chances are no one is thinking.

onetime2

The National Guard has played a substantial role in the following military actions:

Mexican War, Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Haiti, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Gulf War 1

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

smooth

I found an interesting history of the Guard at Constitutional charter of the Guard

Here's the last entry:

It's interesting to see how the Guard has transformed into what it is used for today.

Sparhawk

One of Rumsfeld's goals for the DOD is to reduce our dependence on Guard and Reserve components, the idea being to make it even easier to wage wars. Kind of a scary prospect if you ask me.

__________________
"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

onetime2

I don't understand your comment. What do you see the force "used for today"?

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

onetime2

Isn't that the whole point of having a military? Should the goal be to make it more difficult for the DOD to wage wars?

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

pan6467

The Monroe Doctrine from which our foreign policy was govnered from since 1820-1948 basically said our military was only to defend ourselves with. It also stated that we would leave Europe alone so long as they left the Americas alone. It was this doctrine that "proclaimed" us the watchdog of the Western Hemisphere.

Hence for the Spanish American War we needed to be attacked (the USS Maine) in our hemisphere before we did anything. Same goes for WWI and WWII.

Korea and Vietnam drew us away from that in most aspects BUT to the leaders of our country they were fearful of the USSR and China. So defense albeit a faux defense reason could be used.

With Iraq in both cases, Kosovo and Africa, Afghanistan and so on, both Bushs have trully turned us into a more agressive and warlike country.

There will be those that could argue that America has always been a warlike country, but that doesn't seem to be the truth, according to history.

The people did not want the Civil War, Lincoln had no military ambition towards the South, he felt he could resolve the Union with peace. It was the South that started the war by firing on Fort Sumter.

In the Spanish American War, again it was yellow journalism and the sinking of the USS Maine, (which there are arguments with much credence that say we sank it). Hearst knew there was money to be made in war and we were in a depression at the time. If anything it was this war that made us a world power.

WWI while we, the people didn't really care, but the government was quietly supporting the British, but we had no intention of getting involved troop wise. It wasn't until the sinking of the Lusitania (a cruise ship carrying US arms to England) that allowed us the reason to get involved.

WWII again we, the people didn't want involved, but our government quietly supported the British but again had no desire to get involved. It was not until we had Pearl Harbor that we went in.

Korea was supposed to be just a stopping of an invading force and a UN action. We weren't supposed to take any offensive and when we did it cost MacArthur his command. It was a quiet action and the people accepted it.

Vietnam, there was the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin which gave us a reason. Again we were there supposedly under the UN flag to just stop the invasion not to be the aggressors. The people here had finally had enough of war, and took a stand.

Today, we are the aggressors. There is no true reason to be in Iraq, hence the change of reasons every time the polls show Bush losing support.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

onetime2

Our presence in Iraq has been debated in about a thousand threads here, I'm not going to get into it again.

Anyway, your post has exactly what to do with enabling the military to function as easily as possible? Politicians start wars, the military go to war. We should absolutely make it as easy as possible for the military to accomplish the missions they are given. Any argument against it based on foreign policy is misguided.

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Sparhawk

The National Security Act of 1947 renamed the Department of War to the Department of Defense. And *that* is the point of having our military: to defend us, and our Constitution. In our current system, it isn't harder to wage war, but it is harder to sustain the political will to keep an unpopular war going, which is as it should be.

__________________
"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

gibingus

took the words right out of my mouth. nice post.

along the lines of the national guard discussion, major story on guard deployment on the front page of today's washington post. this is the largest deployment since WWII.

Weekend Warriors Go Full Time

__________________
if everyone is thinking alike, chances are no one is thinking.

Lebell

Serious question then,

Would you all consider the National Guard to be apart of our "Standing Army"?

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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tecoyah

No. The nat'l guard.....should"GUARD" the nation from threat. Not invade another. Almost as bad as pre-emtive attacks.

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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

Lebell

Well, should we not have gotten involved in WW1 then?

We were not invaded, nor were we going to be.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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onetime2

Going to war is what allows us to defend ourselves. Please stop confusing policy with the ability of our nation to go to war. For the past decade (or so) there has been a general concensus that the US military needs to be capable of fighting two simultaneous wars in two theatres. It's pretty damned apparent that our military was only able to accomplish carrying on two simulataneous operations in Afghanistan and Iraq because we had a strong National Guard.

The policy of pre emptive invasion is completely different than the argument that the military should have the ability to "more easily go to war".

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

onetime2

I guess we shouldn't have been involved in Korea, Kosovo, and Haiti either.

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

smooth

When you use "we" are you referring to US troops, in general, or the National Guard?

I didn't say anything against our regular troop's involvement in any war--just that my friends and I didn't conceive of the Guard as part of our standing army while we were growing up.

I agree with the last paragraph of that history section I posted--that the current use of citizens to defend our nation is more in line with our framers' notions of what type of militia we would prefer. That is, we ought not have an industrial military complex that interacts with corporate interests to manuever a free nation into wars abroad for the economic elites' interest.

I'm not opposed to using the Guard for defense, but I don't think we should have a standing army that fights wars abroad. I'm willing to endure attacks and respond to them as they occur if it means that we no longer meddle in the affairs of sovereign nations. Even if we haven't really believed it, this is the ideology that has guided our nation from its inception--that ensuring democratic notions sometimes means that we can't pre-emptively stop a harm from occurring, even when we believe it to be present.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Lebell

Well, several things are being mixed together;

- The purpose of the National Guard
- Whether or not the National Guard is the "militia" (it is one half of the militia as defined in US code, the informal militia being the other half)
- Overall US foreign policy (Isolationism vs Engagement)

I agree that the National Guard was first envisioned as just that, a force of citizen soldiers to guard the country and that it has changed. I also think that the National Guard has become the defacto standing army for the US and that founders had a serious aversion to standing armies (rightly so)

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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