Posted on 05/18/2007 8:26:36 PM PDT by dvan
Ethics of Marines a concern By , Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Marine Corps commandant is admonishing his officers to stress a need for ethics on the battlefield after a survey found Marines a bit more likely than soldiers to condone torture to gain information or save a comrade's life.
Gen. James T. Conway told Pentagon reporters Thursday that he wants to examine whether Marines are more prone to not follow military rules of engagement. He is telling his officers to make sure their Marines understand the importance of ethics in the fight.
"I was a little bit disturbed by what I saw because, one, Marines were more likely to do those things than were soldiers," he said. "I want to get after that because, again, those things are things that either incite the population or, conversely, help to win the fight if you do them right."
Ethics on the battlefield has been a persistent and troublesome issue for the military during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Imagine Patton today saying "We're going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks"?
Wonderful. We all know that wars are won by whoever is nicest.
Unfortunately this is no longer true. Our "leaders" cannot even agree what a "war" is. How our our warriors supposed to understand that we train them for war but want them to act, not like warriors, but as diplomats. We have put them in an impossible position and if we do not want them to win we should pull them out and bring them home.
I think the Special Ops guys will back me up when I say that if you don’t stay on top of guys they can get out of balance.
Special Operations troops sometimes even need to be reminded to tone it down a little.
In civilian life we see it with policemen and SWAT teams, sometimes the leadership needs to reign in the male impulse to become too pumped up.
Troops aren’t just rotated for their own benefit, it also serves to let them decompress a little bit, so that things don’t spin out of control.
The Marine Corp must maintain discipline among it’s troops.
No, there are ethics in war.....
For example, do you want our soldiers killing all first born male babies and small children in a town to stop insurrection?
Of course not!
So there are ethics on the battlefield, now we are just discussing how and what...
"Imagine Patton today saying "We're going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks"?"
WHY ARE YOU QUOTING PATTON,OLD TIMER?
AT 50,THAT FELT GOOD! SEMPER FI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hmmmmm....
Would I torture an illegal combatant in Iraq — to save the life of a fellow Marine?
In a New York minute!
How in hell did the Commandant expect his Marines to answer that question?
Uh, No Sir — I’d have tea with the bastard while his buddies were torturing or killing our buddy.
This Commandant, the Congress and our President should NOT send Marines on social neighborhood welcome wagon missions....
Marines should ONLY be sent to break things and kill people who are defending those things or places....
After their mission is accomplished, they can play nice nice with the docile survivors — if there are any.
Give 'em a medal!! Make torture for information to save a comrade's life a badge of honor. If it's just to "gain information", probably merits only a couple of "atta-boys"!
This prick isn’t fit to wipe the butt of the lowliest private.
My father (WWII China Marine) is spinning in his grave.
Conway is a pampered prince, he’s no Marine and he’s damned sure no commandant.
Where’s Uncle Al when we need him. Geezus
MARINES LOOK AFTER THEIR OWN GENERAL! OR DIDN’T THEY TEACH YOU THAT IN THE PRICK FACTORY?
Gen. James T. Conway,
It appears that you have become politically correct, a necessity in dealing with the DC media. If you are having difficulty sleeping at night because of all the death and destruction that Marines are causing in Iraq:
Have a couple of good stiff drinks before bedtime. Or
Talk to your Doctor and ask that she prescribe you with some sleeping pills. Or
Quit thinking of words such as ‘gentle’, ‘appeasement’, ‘soft’, ‘kind’, ‘mushy’, ‘sweet’, and bring forth phrases into your vocabulary such as ‘git ‘er done’, blood and guts’, ‘rip him a new one’, ‘ripped from one end to the other’, shocked the snot out of ‘em’, and so forth. Or
Get out of the way and let a stronger minded man who is commited to winning do the job.
Here’s this guys bio
http://www.jcs.mil/bios/bio_conway.html
Ethics are fine as long as we remember that we’re fighting against the scum of the earth.
Has THIS really become the Preferred way to conquer your enemy?
We’re NOW going to try and Kill Them with Kindness ???
God Help Us.
How about firebombing civilian populations causing tens of thousands of casualties among women and children in order to hasten the end to a war. How about using atomic bombs on civilian populations causing hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties including thousands of children all in order to bring a war to a more rapid close.
I'm not against any of these decisions, but we should remember that when our backs were against the wall we used all means available to achieve victory. The ethics of swift victory overroad the ethics of killing large numbers of civilians.
Those were command level decisions carefully crafted and weighed to save lives by shorting a war.
The ethics now being taught at field level were field level "antics" can upset an overall strategy in an area.
That stated, the firebombing was a bad idea and in retrospect, the Allied command would probably agree. In fact, I believe I saw a documentary on the History channel to that effect.
I’ll take the actual decisions, and results, over the “historian” analysis from the History Channel, any day.
Have we won a serious shooting war since WWII?
Have we engaged in total war since then?
Do you think there may be a link there?
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