Not every soldier is a bloodthirsty Blackwater mercenary. I think it takes more courage to put your life on the line for your country than to avoid putting your life on the line with some moral justification you've come up with. Not all wars are the same, obviously.
Perhaps I would respect the conscientious objector in the case of Afghanistan, but if there is a draft for WW3 and everything is on the line - our country, our freedom, I would respect the soldier who answers the call of duty more than someone who tries to get out of it (unless they just object to the killing part and still go as a medic)
It takes a lot of willpower and courage to swim against the tide of your entire culture especially during wartime. My grandfathers were both COs. They didn't spend the war sitting around relaxing. One served as a smoke jumper (forest firefighter) in the Sierras and the other worked in a mental institution, which in those days was more like Bedlam than a hospital. They had to pay their own way and missed out on GI Bill benefits (fair enough).
>with some moral justification you've come up with
>more than someone who tries to get out of it
This sounds pretty dismissive of conscientious objection, regarding it as little more than a veil for cowardice. You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but I'm curious as to whether I've judged that correctly and how strongly you hold it.
Suppose I'm a millionaire who refuses to pay taxes because that is financing war. Isn't it a little bit too convenient that me not paying taxes makes me richer for "moral reasons"?
If someone stands to gain from something, one must assume the least noble of all plausible motives.
During the second world war, only about 25% of the solider fired their rifle during the war. Among those few that did, the wast majority did so in response of a buddy getting shot or shot at.
It takes a lot to get people to kill an other human being. A country and freedom sounds like a nice concept but in the battle field what actually count to push people over that edge is pseudo-kinship.
You can join the war and not kill people. In fact it's very common that soldiers fail to pull the trigger on a live target. For most soldiers, in most battles, it's rather unlikely that they will (knowingly) kill someone, or that they even get in the situation where they could.
I can make up all kinds of moral reasons on why I might object to being part of a war, but "I don't want to kill people" is bullshit. "I don't want to put my ass on the line" is a good reason, it just doesn't sound too good when everybody else is doing just that.
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This statement by Nuremburg prosecutor Ben Ferencz has resonated with me:
That's nonsense. That's nonsense. There's no Greatest Generation. Greatest Generation are the ones who have the courage to say that what the government's doing is wrong, and we'll not support it. That's the Greatest Generation. When they said, "Hell, no," in the Vietnam War, "Hell, no, Mr. President, we won't go." Stop war-making is the answer.
Not every war is "war-making". South Korea wouldn't exist if not for the US intervention. Who knows what Japan would be like if it weren't for the US declaring war on it. But before the US forced a new democratic government on them they were bullies and warmongers. Heck, there's a sister thread on HN with people calling for the US military to help Hong Kong.
It's one thing to conscientiously object to Vietnam, quite another to conscientiously object to WW2. Some people may genuinely have moral objections, but surely some % are just plain scared of dying and want an out...
Where did you get the idea that conscientious objection was about disagreement with the government's evaluation of the benefits of the war? It's for people who think that it's wrong to kill, not people who think that the war won't be profitable.
Yes well, sometimes it's kill or be killed. How can you conscientiously object to WW2 when evil is at your doorstep threatening to destroy your country and kill you and your family?
Taking this logic further, the only way to guarantee your safety is to eliminate all your enemies as early as possible.
Perhaps even if there is a consensus to fight against a common enemy, the presence of voices that refuse to be violent helps maintain some perspective.
> It's for people who think that it's wrong to kill
The linked article specifically points out that some WWI-era conscientious objectors did not object to war in general, they just didn't want to fight that particular war. There is a whole range of conscientious objection.
Forced military service has one very important aspect that often get overseen. It is forced. People may object because of moral reasons, or because of religious reasons, or because of fear, but then we also have people who believe that forcing people into service is simply wrong.
To me there is very little difference between men being forced into military service and women being forced to breed and taking care of the home, as was a common view of gender roles during world war 2. Men get sent to war and women stay behind and produce more men. It is a very dehumanized way to treat people. The distinction between forced conscription and volunteering to work in the military is day and night, and you only have conscientiously objection in one of those.
> Who knows what Japan would be like if it weren't for the US declaring war on it.
It's the other way around. For the past 150 years, nations usually "declare" war with an initial attack to gain surprise, like Pearl Harbor in WW2, which was done to secure their colonization of Manchuria (China.)
Japan declared war on the US by pre-emptively bombing pearle harbor in an attempt to permanently cripple the US Pacific fleet. The president at the time knew it was coming via intel and forward radar installations and let it happen to maximize the political mobility of the act.
After WW2, the US had been drug into 3 seperate foreign wars at that point; the Spanish war, WWI and WWII. Spanish war we were attacked at the southern tip of Texas and won that one before an invading army could get into the states, Both WWI and WWII The US entered because their merchant fleet was being attacked. In WWI a luxury cruseliner was sunk and that served as the tipping point, and in WWII our mechant fleet escort ships were attacked and the tipping point was a Torpedo fired at the Greer, a military escort ship. Basically, once you begin attacking the merchant fleet, your next step is to attack ports and port cities to stop material from getting on boats and to stop boat production. The Japanese harbored expansionist\empirial ambitions and knew they'd come into conflict with the US, hence the reason they had built a huge pacific fleet. That doesn't just happen overnight, they had a lot of build up of ships and material. Once the US entered the European theatre officially, the Japanese Military command became worried the US might attack them due to their alliance with Germany\Italy, hence the pre-emptive strike. Had Japan not attacked pearle harbor, had stayed in Asia, and had not built an alliance, a good sized chunk of China would probably be Japanese today and we might've had a Japanese-Indian war.
After WWII, The US had a unique viewpoint. Because we had just about every single culture on earth represented here, we could see how dumb these squabbles were. We had the bomb, and decided that instead of having a war every generation, we'd instead build the most terrifying set of ICBM's, Bomber planes, and nuke subs to make our adversaries know that attacking us or involving us in a war is Dumb. The tech for it was leaked to the soviets by US Scientists fearing a monopoly of power and M.A.D was born.
This shifted warfare into the use of economics and psychological warfare (cold war) to trash your enemy before an attack and the use of psychological warfare specifically and the creation of puppet ideologies used to weaken an adversary is what lead to the war against the spread of socialism\communism. E.G. The soviet union used ideological subjugation (look up Yuri Betzmenov on Youtube) successfully against countries including Afghanistan and Venezuala and those places are hot messed due to it today. Marxism is what we call the current puppet ideology in the US; it encompasses a lot of things the Russians do not do or believe in today and never really believed in and most people don't recognize that.
The Vietnam\Korean war was largely about stopping the spread of Communism by setting up military bases on Mainland china to keep an eye on the chinese, and creating capitalist\democratic economic powers in mainland China to serve as an example. It was a pre-emptive war to stop a bigger war from ever occuring.
The problem we have today with Conscientious objectors is psychological warfare is now a thing and if an adversary can eliminate your will to fight, they can take you by suprise or engage in domestic politics to create domestic problems to keep your attention at home.
In WWI, trench warfare was an excuse to send lots of perfectly good men to their deaths in a bullshit defensive game. Great thinking exercise; what is the cost per square mile of territory taken in human life? You'd extinguish the US male population before you got halfway into Germany. Given the survial rate of front line troops, objecting was an intelligent decision; that's no way to fight a war.
In WWII, they had less issues after pearle harbor due to the politics played. You had much better survivability and moral politics in that war.
When you get into the cold war and attacking smaller countries on ...
>None of the COs interviewed by IWM appeared to feel any bitterness about their treatment, but they seem to remain, through their First World War experiences, permanently set apart.
So a lot of them were sent to prison, and they didn't feel bitter about it? That's impressively forgiving.
Mostly fair coverage considering that this is coming from the Imperial War Museum. This bit at the end sticks out: "None of the COs _interviewed_by_IWM_ appeared to feel any bitterness about their treatment, but they seem to remain, through their First World War experiences, permanently set apart. [emphasis mine]"
23 comments
[ 1.0 ms ] story [ 73.5 ms ] threadPerhaps I would respect the conscientious objector in the case of Afghanistan, but if there is a draft for WW3 and everything is on the line - our country, our freedom, I would respect the soldier who answers the call of duty more than someone who tries to get out of it (unless they just object to the killing part and still go as a medic)
>more than someone who tries to get out of it
This sounds pretty dismissive of conscientious objection, regarding it as little more than a veil for cowardice. You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but I'm curious as to whether I've judged that correctly and how strongly you hold it.
If someone stands to gain from something, one must assume the least noble of all plausible motives.
It takes a lot to get people to kill an other human being. A country and freedom sounds like a nice concept but in the battle field what actually count to push people over that edge is pseudo-kinship.
I can make up all kinds of moral reasons on why I might object to being part of a war, but "I don't want to kill people" is bullshit. "I don't want to put my ass on the line" is a good reason, it just doesn't sound too good when everybody else is doing just that.
Site is legible, accessible, responsive across viewport widths.
Page layouts maintain clear visual hierarchy. It appears that designers took care to place as few as possible constraints on the content, ensuring their layout works with media of almost any dimensions and copy of almost any length without breaking overall consistency.
I have some qualms with typography (use of dashes, quotes and apostrophes), but it is very well-thought-through.
Also, the fact that it’s built with Drupal for me personally helps curb my stack snobbery.
That's nonsense. That's nonsense. There's no Greatest Generation. Greatest Generation are the ones who have the courage to say that what the government's doing is wrong, and we'll not support it. That's the Greatest Generation. When they said, "Hell, no," in the Vietnam War, "Hell, no, Mr. President, we won't go." Stop war-making is the answer.
Source: https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/take-no-prisoners-inside...
(Note: the transcript is mislabeled.)
It's one thing to conscientiously object to Vietnam, quite another to conscientiously object to WW2. Some people may genuinely have moral objections, but surely some % are just plain scared of dying and want an out...
Perhaps even if there is a consensus to fight against a common enemy, the presence of voices that refuse to be violent helps maintain some perspective.
The linked article specifically points out that some WWI-era conscientious objectors did not object to war in general, they just didn't want to fight that particular war. There is a whole range of conscientious objection.
To me there is very little difference between men being forced into military service and women being forced to breed and taking care of the home, as was a common view of gender roles during world war 2. Men get sent to war and women stay behind and produce more men. It is a very dehumanized way to treat people. The distinction between forced conscription and volunteering to work in the military is day and night, and you only have conscientiously objection in one of those.
It's the other way around. For the past 150 years, nations usually "declare" war with an initial attack to gain surprise, like Pearl Harbor in WW2, which was done to secure their colonization of Manchuria (China.)
After WW2, the US had been drug into 3 seperate foreign wars at that point; the Spanish war, WWI and WWII. Spanish war we were attacked at the southern tip of Texas and won that one before an invading army could get into the states, Both WWI and WWII The US entered because their merchant fleet was being attacked. In WWI a luxury cruseliner was sunk and that served as the tipping point, and in WWII our mechant fleet escort ships were attacked and the tipping point was a Torpedo fired at the Greer, a military escort ship. Basically, once you begin attacking the merchant fleet, your next step is to attack ports and port cities to stop material from getting on boats and to stop boat production. The Japanese harbored expansionist\empirial ambitions and knew they'd come into conflict with the US, hence the reason they had built a huge pacific fleet. That doesn't just happen overnight, they had a lot of build up of ships and material. Once the US entered the European theatre officially, the Japanese Military command became worried the US might attack them due to their alliance with Germany\Italy, hence the pre-emptive strike. Had Japan not attacked pearle harbor, had stayed in Asia, and had not built an alliance, a good sized chunk of China would probably be Japanese today and we might've had a Japanese-Indian war.
After WWII, The US had a unique viewpoint. Because we had just about every single culture on earth represented here, we could see how dumb these squabbles were. We had the bomb, and decided that instead of having a war every generation, we'd instead build the most terrifying set of ICBM's, Bomber planes, and nuke subs to make our adversaries know that attacking us or involving us in a war is Dumb. The tech for it was leaked to the soviets by US Scientists fearing a monopoly of power and M.A.D was born.
This shifted warfare into the use of economics and psychological warfare (cold war) to trash your enemy before an attack and the use of psychological warfare specifically and the creation of puppet ideologies used to weaken an adversary is what lead to the war against the spread of socialism\communism. E.G. The soviet union used ideological subjugation (look up Yuri Betzmenov on Youtube) successfully against countries including Afghanistan and Venezuala and those places are hot messed due to it today. Marxism is what we call the current puppet ideology in the US; it encompasses a lot of things the Russians do not do or believe in today and never really believed in and most people don't recognize that.
The Vietnam\Korean war was largely about stopping the spread of Communism by setting up military bases on Mainland china to keep an eye on the chinese, and creating capitalist\democratic economic powers in mainland China to serve as an example. It was a pre-emptive war to stop a bigger war from ever occuring.
The problem we have today with Conscientious objectors is psychological warfare is now a thing and if an adversary can eliminate your will to fight, they can take you by suprise or engage in domestic politics to create domestic problems to keep your attention at home.
In WWI, trench warfare was an excuse to send lots of perfectly good men to their deaths in a bullshit defensive game. Great thinking exercise; what is the cost per square mile of territory taken in human life? You'd extinguish the US male population before you got halfway into Germany. Given the survial rate of front line troops, objecting was an intelligent decision; that's no way to fight a war.
In WWII, they had less issues after pearle harbor due to the politics played. You had much better survivability and moral politics in that war.
When you get into the cold war and attacking smaller countries on ...
So a lot of them were sent to prison, and they didn't feel bitter about it? That's impressively forgiving.