Many troops in Iraq lack ethics, U.S. finds

[Crimson Star]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/...hics-46348.php

This is sad and dangerous...ah well...

[Al-Masri]

And people are shocked why?

There have been numerous problems with supply and armour concerning the troops as well as endless insurgent attacks. No wonder they are teetering on the end of mental disaster.

War is hell, and living in hell would make anyone crazy.

[mrmouth]

And people are shocked why?

There have been numerous problems with supply and armour concerning the troops as well as endless insurgent attacks. No wonder they are teetering on the end of mental disaster.

War is hell, and living in hell would make anyone crazy.

Especially when the enemy hardly ever fights you straight up but resorts to hit and run tactics and ied's.

Just imagine doing 3, 3 year tours in a place where for the last two years every time you leave your combat outpost there are even odds that you will become the target of a remote detonated explosive device cleverly hidden and engineered for maximum destruction.

Add to that shape charged projectiles that can slice a 60 ton tank in half and its your job to go out and hunt these explosives and their trigger men down. I mean your basically just bait. Then there are the pressure plate little bastards that you cant do anything about, just hope to survive.

Add to that, every step your government makes to better protect you from these explosives is countered by third world technology much quicker than your government can keep up with.

You know these guys who have been charged with killing civilians in Iraq, that kid who raped and murdered that girl and her family? As disgusting as that is, I'm sure suprised there hasn't been more of it.

War is hell, Ive seen it and smelt it. Thats why I would like a leader who has seen what Ive seen if not more. Not many to vote for this time around, and the one I would like to vote for on the surface, McCain, sure isn't making it easy for me to do so.

[Spectre]

**** this thread. do a tour in iraq, give an ethics test to the insurgents, then talk.

[enoch]

**** this thread. do a tour in iraq, give an ethics test to the insurgents, then talk.

amen

[Thanatos]

**** this thread. do a tour in iraq, give an ethics test to the insurgents, then talk.

The way they've been acting already shows their ethics. They have none.

[Darth Wong]

**** this thread. do a tour in iraq, give an ethics test to the insurgents, then talk.

Ah yes, the "We're ethical as long as we're not as bad as Al-Quaeda" defense.

[Janissary]

Why is anybody suprised? Seriously why?

[Carach]

Why is anybody suprised? Seriously why?

w0rd... what do u expect from an army that is trained to fight not to keep peace, and is made up of mostly teenage hicks? (no offence heh, but most people dont join the army to be nice to people that are trying to kill them all day long..)

[Thanatos]

It's called "I'm tired, and I don't care anymore."

[LoZz]

armed forces tends to be made up of the bottom 10% of high school graduates(enlisted men), this isnt just the case in the usa but the same in every western army

and from what i remember of my school, the bottom 10% where dickheads and bullys and thugs so this doesnt suprize me

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Soldiers don't use ethics, they use orders.

[Yorkshireman]

armed forces tends to be made up of the bottom 10% of high school graduates(enlisted men), this isnt just the case in the usa but the same in every western army

and from what i remember of my school, the bottom 10% where dickheads and bullys and thugs so this doesnt suprize me

Cheers mate. If you ever meet any real soldiers be sure to have the courage of your convictions and make sure to to tell them exactley what you think of them.

[LoZz]

Cheers mate. If you ever meet any real soldiers be sure to have the courage of your convictions and make sure to to tell them exactley what you think of them.

i said most

im sorry mate, while their are acceptions i have met many soilders, i do a public services course and have spoken to marines, coldstream guards, enginners and most of them enjoy killing, this marine guy i spoke to recently said he cant wait to get over their and "give those rag heads a good kicking"

he went on to tell me the start of the iraq war was great, you could kill anything and their where no rules.

so based on my exsperance thats quite thuggish behavour - and doing badly at school doesnt stop you being a nice guy nor does it mean you are nessicery stupid, like i said they where nice guys all of them but the bottom line is infantry = meat heads

[Phoebus]

i said most

...

so based on my exsperance thats quite thuggish behavour - and doing badly at school doesnt stop you being a nice guy nor does it mean you are nessicery stupid, like i said they where nice guys all of them but the bottom line is infantry = meat heads

Wait, hold on--you were trying to pass off as fact generalizations about members of armed forces that you've never even worked with? How does your experience in the UK endow you with the ability to make claims about the educational status of US servicemembers? Nevermind servicemembers from throughout the western world.

By your standard of logic and empirical evidence, 50% of the people I've interacted with on this forum who possess the title of "Margrave" cannot be trusted to state objective facts about people they've never met. Should I also extend that courtesy to Welshmen in general? I've never met any, but I should be able to assume they all jump to conclusions as you do, correct?

Hopefully Lee's post perhaps encouraged you to reconsider what is a wholly baseless bit of conjecture.

[GeneralLee]

armed forces tends to be made up of the bottom 10% of high school graduates(enlisted men), this isnt just the case in the usa but the same in every western army

and from what i remember of my school, the bottom 10% where dickheads and bullys and thugs so this doesnt suprize me

For future reference please don't pull numbers out of your @ss, some of us are well in the top of the class, and considering the large number of enlisted personnel who hold college degrees I suggest you apologize to some members of the military.

"The enlisted force is far more educated today than it was two decades ago. In 1985, 30 percent of all enlisted personnel had one or more years of college education. By 1999 (the most recent year for which reliable survey data are available), that share had more than doubled to 74 percent--53 percent with some college credits but no degree, 12 percent with associate's degrees, 8 percent with bachelor's degrees, and 1 percent with advanced degrees." -www.cbo.gov

My guess is they're fed up after repeated deployments and are not about to risk their safety or those of their fellow soldier simply to be nice to Iraqi's. A common example I hear is firing into the engine of a suspicious vehicle which would probably qualify as abuse since it's "damaging property" but I doubt they are about to stop and I wouldn't want them to if I were riding in the convoy or manning a checkpoint. As for direct abuse against the civilians when your fairly sure the locals want you dead it tends to affect your patience with them.

[crazyj]

^^Good point about ethics in a war Arrrghh!


Mostly, this survey reflects comradely loyalty, and does not indicate the contextual situations of the questions.

armed forces tends to be made up of the bottom 10% of high school graduates(enlisted men), this isnt just the case in the usa but the same in every western army

and from what i remember of my school, the bottom 10% where dickheads and bullys and thugs so this doesnt suprize me

Nice speculation. Concocting figures won't make up for being bullied by other individuals you poor soul. Nor will it make you superior. Still, don't let me stop you from pulling figures that suit you out of thin air...

You have it exactly opposite. Read the part about education please.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Nat...y/cda05-08.cfm

What's sad is we have to see more of the bad eggs on the news than the ones that do good over there...

That is equal parts "bad news is $$" and certain groups making sure to emphasize any badness to suit their political opportunism.

Personally, I have met soldiers, (for alot of you arguing over if they are "jerks" or good guys)...

I found many of them to be quite annoying in personality, fanatically christian, overly patriotic(nothing wrong with being patriotic, I love my country, but there should be a limit), they are way too strict with their kids, making it almost like a military drill for their sons, making them call them "sir"...

but I have also met many soldiers(marines included) that were just your average, good descent human being, just like you and me...they weren't like the ones mentioned above... my sister's best friend's husband is a marine and he's just a normal guy...someone I wouldn't mind hanging out with.

Wait just a minute....are you suggesting that the people in the service branches AREN'T cookie cutter crusader clones (hmm, i like the sound of that, call em 4C's) but are actually REAL people, with an infinite variety of personalities, beliefs, and sorts of behavior? Like in, I don't know, everywhere else in the world? Holy ****, stop the presses hehehe.

As a former soldier, I'd have to agree. With one caveat. The "fanatically overzealous Christian type" is actually a really small proportion. Out of the 50 guys in my platoon, there was only one, potentially two who could be classified that way. And my platoon was as "high speed" as it got, being a collection of guys who volunteered for infantry airborne ranger. It is also worth noting that the perspective you get, as a civilian "outsider," is going to be very different than an honest understanding they'd give you as a fellow soldier. Kinda like how people are super defensive about their family, even if they personally disagree with certain choices and in fact might agree with the condemnations leveled at them by others, were they not family.

Interestingly, the experience in Iraq/Afgh itself tends to "Christianize" some soldiers, as a response to the barbarism of Islam. This goes beyond beheadings/suicide bombings and the fact that our enemy combatants are Islamic, but includes observation of honor killings, female circumcision and repression, ridiculous patriarchal oppression, and so on.

I am curious tho, how many actual soldiers do you know who you can state make their kids call them sir? You say you have "met soldiers" but that is hardly grounds for sweeping generalizations. You are probably thinking of a few in particular, and ascribing certain characteristics to others who you think are similar to them in other ways (like if a guy is christian, he's probably as crazy christian/overly patriotic as the other guy, whereas a non-religous sort is a decent guy?). Whatever happened to "degrees." In reality, most of them fall into your latter category. If I'm off base, sort me out. Not attacking you in this post, agreeing with you, just asking for a little more specificity when you describe soldiers in such detail. Just saying its not at all a 50/50 split between decent and crazy, more like 90/10 (if that).

I personally know a soldier very well who I would say is a pretty normal, decent human being.

Nonsense. You are the scum of the earth, the bane of all that is holy Farnan

[Phoebus]

The frustrating thing about such articles is that you guys don't get to see the questions asked.

... fewer than half of marines and a little more than half of soldiers said they would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian.

But no elaborating text is given regarding the survey. Nor about the mitigating circumstances that have led troops to think so callously about civilian casualties. I'm not condoning this sort of behavior, but this is simply a naive way or reporting the findings. Putting on a uniform doesn't make you immune to psychological damage. Watching friend after friend get maimed or killed by individuals who act in collusion with civilians will numb you and jade you. You can't imagine how frustrating it is to watch the mindset of young kids (young adults, at any rate) transform into something colder and harder. This has little to do with personal ethics--as the thread says--and more to do with the degradation of one's empathy for his fellow human being, with continuous violence being the driving factor.

More than 40 percent support the idea of torture in some cases, ...

But what the article won't say is what the survey constituted as torture.

EDIT: they did qualify it LATER in the article... torture in order to save the life of a Marine, with a lower instance for gaining "important" information (read: time critical, as per every study I've participated in).

and 10 percent reported personally abusing Iraqi civilians, ...

But not what the abuse consisted of. Don't get me wrong; it's never right, but did the Herald Tribune bother to break it down into verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, etc.? No. So a soldier whose squad moves to a house incorrectly cited as a terrorist safe-place by bad intelligence, who kicks the door down and pushes the first male he sees to the ground at gunpoint is not a statistic--an instance of abuse.

I'm going to try to research this survey. I'll adjust the above post as appropriate if I find that I spoke out of turn.

EDIT:
Here's the link to the actual study. http://www.armymedicine.army.mil/new...iv/mhat-iv.cfm

Not surprisingly, many of the instances reported as flat percentages were actually questions where the answer came in five choices, with (1) being strongly disagree, (5) being strongly agree, and (3) being neigher agree nor disagree. So when AP reported that only 38% percent of Marines believed civilians should be treated with dignity and respect, they only reported on those who selected options (1) and (2). They never reported on those who chose (3) or maybe even (4; slightly disagree) and those who qualified their answers with explanations. I won't even bother to address the veracity of surveys taken post-fact and how realistically they corrolate to actual action taken when in the cited situation.

Even more telling? The findings (which the Herald Tribune didn't report, and which the AP didn't include in the actual article) that, 82% of the time, instances of verbal abuse, striking, or damaging property occurred during times when the perpetrators were "angered;" 60%, the reported perpetrators were highly angered. Only 18% of the time were perpetrators not influenced by anger and such. Want one better than that? 63% of the individuals who reported verbally abusing, hitting, or damaging property were screened positive for mental health issues such as depression, anxiety disorders, or acute stress. It goes on and on.

armed forces tends to be made up of the bottom 10% of high school graduates(enlisted men), this isnt just the case in the usa but the same in every western army

and from what i remember of my school, the bottom 10% where dickheads and bullys and thugs so this doesnt suprize me

Really? Is this your opinion, or do you care to post a credible source on the matter?

None of the guys in my unit came from the lowest 10% of their high school class, and just as many spent time in college as did not. We're a combat unit that has been rotating in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002.

Soldiers don't use ethics, they use orders.

I beg to differ. Orders and the act of carrying them out are regulated by a code of laws and ethics. Following that code is the ultimate order of a military servicemember, and carrying out unlawful orders is contrary to that central tenet.

Merged double post, watch out for those next time - Scorch

[Axeman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnyjH...elated&search=

there is some proof, caught on tape

[Anarius]

There is no civilized war (to quote Conan the Barbarian )

Just look at Berlin 1945, the crusades and all other examples. History repeats itself.