Dying for ones country....stupid?

[Ó Cathasaigh]

After looking at the following image, I started to question myself...
"Does dying for ones country do anything?" "when you become a martyr, what good does it do?"

In my opinion, while there is nothing wrong with dying in defence of your cause (usualy you can't help it, as someone else is trying to kill you) it is more ideal to screw the "honorable death" crap and stay alive. After all, a man who can kill the enemy is of more use to a nation than a man killed by the enemy.

[Kino]

Deleted by user.

[Caelius]

Dulce et decorum est.

[IamthePope]

Shouldn't you ideally try to apply Patton's logic while defending your own country. I doubt anyone wants to die for their country but some wouldn't hessitate to make the sacrifice if they felt it would serve a nobler purpose.

[Tom Paine]

Dulce et decorum est.

Yes... and here it is, the poem, Dulce et Decorum Est, by Wilfrid Owen...

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Got the point?

[MaximiIian]

Dulce et decorum est.

What the frick does that even mean?

[Kaweh]

What the frick does that even mean?

It's a sweet and honourable thing (to die for one's conuntry).

[deadcell87]

It's a sweet and honourable thing (to die for one's conuntry).

Its an old lie IMO. My brother plans to join the army, I wonder wtf is he thinking though.

[Eric]

Patton was pretty damm genius. No, you don't win a war by dying for your country. You win a war by making the other guy die for his country.

[Rapax]

And this all is relevant how? To once again show american superiority over the crazy islamists?

[MoROmeTe]

For the jihadists a martyr is a great propaganda resource, not in the West but rather in their own arreas. Also as their are underarmed and have poorer tactical and strategical resources the jihadists must try and use any means to kill. Martyrtrom is such a way...

There's no superiority of the second approach to the first. They are different attitudes to different situations. It does not demonstrate superiority of the US over the Al Quaeda... It proves that each side involved in the War on Terror thinks rather differently...

[Rapax]

I don't think the picture was trying to use that same balanced approach you did.

[1{H][NA]

if a suicide bomber kills himself but manages to take 10 people/tank/high official/etc with him, than dosent that count for anything.

both sides differ in their views, one side sees it in a more practical and secular view. the other sees it in a more cultural and religious view which they believe serves a greater purpose (ie god).

[MaximiIian]

Well, since being dead is kinda lame...no, dying for your country is not exactly smart, and is technically suicide.
Fighting for it, and making someone else die in defense of it, is a different matter, though.
To me, the only thing I would ever die for are my closest friends and family.

[Carach]

well obviously your going to want to kill the enemy before you die

[Farnan]

You may say dying but killing 10 guys with a suicide bomber is worth it? Ethics aside, why die to kill 10, why not kill one, survive and kill another and so on and survive to fight for the cause again? The only time you should even think of doing something near suicidial is to save lives of the comrades fighting beside you or if it is neccessary. Look at all the MOH winners and see what they did.

[Primvs Sextvs Loverlord]

Patton meant that you should have the material and knowledge to over-come the enemy and destroy it before it destroys you.
The Taliban approach is similar - they wanna win but they lack the material and the money.

[gigagaia]

Their approaches however, are not necessarily inconsistent, but are referring to different aspects of a similar approach.
If you fight, you must be willing to die. You have accepted this truth that there is a risk of death. If no one was willing to die, no one would join the army, and if drafted, everyone would likely rout every battle.
Thus Mullah Omar is stating that his people are willing to fight and fight to the last man, and take as many of the other guy with them as possible in the pursuit of victory; thus kill more of them than they do of you. He isn''t syaing that they intend or will try to die.
Patton is stating that you should kill more of them than they do of you if you are to be victorius, and that you should not intend nor try to die. He says nothing about not being willing to die.

Besides, terrorism is not war, and the logics cannot apply in the same way.

[Carach]

patton also talks about warfare conventionally - not massacring civilians in bomb plots and suicide bombings.

[Xiaodun]

I am of the opinion that fighting and dying for one's country is not honorable by itself. There is really no honor in just going off and getting killed while killing others because they are people of the enemy nation. It would be proof of internal strength if the war was for something you believe in, but if they are just conscript fodder, there really is little honor to kill and die for something you dont believe in.

The guys that go off in nationalistic frenzy and die with a bang has one sort of honor (as they believe that whatever their nation/race/religion is doing is right and should be supported; and believing it so greatly that they are prepared to sacrifise themselves), but unless they have a belief in the actual conflict at hand, they have a lower level of honor compared to those who fought for an ideal or opinion they believed in.