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Sturmtruppen wrote:

Except that they're soldiers, and they're telling jokes about shooting people. Which is a sign that these guys might be inclined to go out and kill people indiscriminately, despite the rules of engagement. So by judging their words, we can prevent their actions, rather than waiting for Captain Hindsight.

I was threatening to shoot some absolutely terrible karaoke singers the other night.

This does not mean I am about to go out and kill people indiscriminately.

biccat wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:I don't understand what you mean.

You claim that soldiers are subject to the moral standards of the body politic. Assuming you're living in a marginally democratic country, this includes you.

You can't, in toto, abrogate your responsibility for forming part of the body politic.

I haven't.

biccat wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:I don't understand what you mean.

You claim that soldiers are subject to the moral standards of the body politic. Assuming you're living in a marginally democratic country, this includes you.

You can't, in toto, abrogate your responsibility for forming part of the body politic.

Frazzled wrote:DANGER! Lawyer using Latin! Approach with caution.

inter arma enim silent leges

I'd have thought "quis custodiet ipsos custodes" would be more apt in this topic...

biccat wrote: Majority ethics don't arise sua sponte, they are a reflection of the society as a whole.

Well, they're a reflection of the largest, reasonably common, sentiment.

And in what way do majority ethics not arrive, by necessity, without prior, external, agreement?

That's just nonsense.

Sturmtruppen wrote:

Fattimus_maximus wrote:BTW who in this little discussion has actually served?

I love it when people pull this. Puts them on a nice high-horse.

AND A MIGHTY HORSE IT IS!

Private_Joker wrote:"These guys" are the ones who dressed up in a KKK outfit and decided to video tape it. "These guys" are the ones that had sex with a girl at a defence academy and decided to post it on youtube without her permission. .

Where did this come from O.o thought we were talking about people slinging derogatory jokes at one another, not actually being criminal (aside from the dumbshit decision to threaten a journalist)... BTW, you haven't actually provided a link or any documentation of what was said really... how can you expect us to get up in arms about this when the only reference or proof of what is going on you have provided is a commonly told joke that i have heard a million times over (including from civilians)?

And, while COIN hasn't worked well in Afghanistan, it did work well in Iraq. Significantly better than prior military strategies which largely focused on doing exactly what you're saying we're good at: killing people and blowing things up. You can't dismiss and approach to warfare as ineffective simply because its not effective in all possible situations, because no approach to warfare is effective in all possible situations.

I would disagree, US military leaders continue to warn that Iraq is teetering on the brink of renewed Civil War, not to mention the widespread influence and corruption within the Iraqi government from Tehran. Hell, the Iranian paramilitary organizations at work within Iraq have done a better job of capturing hearts and minds than the US military has.... If the insurgency isn't shrinking, its winning, and its definitely not shrinking...

Did you forget Japan? Then there's all the early 20th century imperial wars (mostly France), and all the conflicts leading up to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

You'll note that Japan's government was not entirely purged and rebuilt from the ground up, elements of it were allowed to continue and it took a very similar structure post war to what it was pre war, but with more checks to prevent the military/defense forces from dominating once again. You'll also note that those early 20th century imperial wars that did involve replacement of existing governments were the estabishment of puppet governments. That doesn't really count because the de facto government was the imperial power in question, the installed de jure puppets may as well have been installed colonial governments. Its quite a different situation to invade with the intent of subjugating and conquering than it is to invade with the intent of rebuilding a legitimate state. In any case, we can see how well it worked out for those states in question....

Kosovo's government was built by the UN.

Thats a rather over-simplified view on a rather complex series of events. In any case, we didn't destroy an existing government in order to do that. Yugoslavia was fracturing already but it continued to exist afterwards, and those new governments built themselves because they wanted to, they may have had outside assistance, but to say that it was all the UN is robbing them of their accomplishment of achieved self-determination. Besides that, we weren't bombing Kosovo, we were bombing Yugoslavia... to force compliance with the international view that Kosovo should be autonomous/independent and to force a ceasefire...

Ended in the de facto removal of control over about 1/3 of Southern Iraq by way of no-fly zones.

Your point being? we didn't actually attempt to establish a new government there...

Uh huh. So all the peace keeping operations that continued throughout the 1990s and 2000s, albeit without US troops, are to be entirely ignored, and instead we are to hyper-focus on the two US led campaigns, and use that as absolutely evidence of future events.

Yes, because they aren't in line with my point. Most (if not all) of those peacekeeping operations were conducted because the peacekeepers were INVITED, not because the peacekeepers were an invading force attempting to establish a new government

How does your theory of 'soldiers are there to kill people' reconcile with the successful East Timor peacekeeping operation?

Successful? I didnt realize successful meant ongoing... in any case, once again the peacekeepers were invited in, not because they invaded...

Its not a theory, its fact. In the US at least, one of the first things (every?) Cadets/Midshipmen/Officer Recruits (or at least all the ones I know, I was certainly) is asked is, "What is the purpose of the United States Armed Forces?" Everyone gives answers like, to defend the United States, or to provide global peacekeeping operations and humanitarian relief or some crap like that. We are then corrected, told that we are signing up for an organization thats prime directive is to "Destroy property and kill people, everything else comes secondary, and as officers you will be expected to lead personnel in the accomplishment of that goal. If you have issues doing that then you should leave now." Hell, those peacekeepers are there to destroy property and kill people so that other people wont be killed or have their property destroyed if you take a certain view of things...

Private_Joker wrote:"These guys" are the ones who dressed up in a KKK outfit and decided to video tape it. "These guys" are the ones that had sex with a girl at a defence academy and decided to post it on youtube without her permission. "These guys" are the ones who mock and degrade people based on gender and skin colour. "These guys" don't deserve the right to be in a UNIFORMAL yet DIVERSE army. When I say uniformal I mean they are all to the same standard of behaviour they signed in a contract and when I say diverse I mean people who are protected from this constant BS from "these guys". Just because they are 18 doesn't mean they come under a different set of rules.

Look I don't really have a problem with any of that.......Except that they were stupid enough to get caught. That deserves some punishment. What really happened here?
dressed up in a KKK outfit.....I find it morally reprehensible but thats just me. There is nothing illegal about wearing clan outfits.
had sex with a girl at a defence academy......Nothing wrong with that.
mock and degrade people based on gender and skin colour......So you have never been to a poker game?

People do all kinds of objectionable things behind closed doors, you can't really enforce morality, do you want soldier or ambassadors? Most people that are really good at one are terrible at the other. People really expect to much from soldiers. They want them insane enough to go to a live battle field, but sensitive enough to consider the repercussions of every action. Its not going to happen.

The crime here is being stupid enough to record and distribute their shenanigans, not the shenanigans themselves.

I especially think about this for the dark humor that soldiers experience. I don't have a problem with soldiers posing with a kill. I have a problem when they let that picture go viral.

chaos0xomega Just do a quick google search dude.

Also the reason I said the "these guys" comment was because the thread is about the standards of soldiers and the institutional racism and hatred that is installed. Please re-read the first post.

Please enough with the boys will be boys attitude and the "they can do it if they aren't caught". It's the fact they were doing it in the first place is wrong.

I would also like to add having sex with a fellow soldier is illeagal on a military base and so is dressing up in a KKK outfit and so is mocking and degrading people.

Soldiers are ambassodors.

Private_Joker wrote:Just do a quick google search dude.

Also the reason I said the "these guys" comment was because the thread is about the standards of soldiers and the institutional racism and hatred that is installed. Please re-read the first post.

Are you kidding me, you are just being too sensitive. Telling racist jokes does not necessarily make you racist. Have you ever actually hung out with guys in the military? Black guys and white guys tell racist jokes to each other all the time. If you are so sensitive that you take offense to every jab, you probably shouldn't be in the military, its not for @ussies. I don't think you really get to judge the morality of soldiers until you have been in their positions.

Yes when the crap goes public, there is a real problem. For the most part they need to be taught better discretion, not better morals.

I would also like to add having sex with a fellow soldier is illeagal on a military base and so is dressing up in a KKK outfit and so is mocking and degrading people.

So you admit that they are already held to higher standards. These actions are not illegal for the general public.

You wouldn't need discreation when you have the morals not to do it in the first place. Yes I have been on a military base and you can really put your foot in your mouth when you tell that joke to the wrong person. Plus I'm not focusing on the jokes that were made I'm focusing on the damn comments that were literally spewing hate on women, muslims and homosexuals. Please re-read the original post.

EDIT: And yes they are to higher standards its the fact the military system isn't catching up to them. I just wanted Dakka's opinion. Also does it make me sensitive when I see the consequences of this behaviour and decide I'm sick of it?

We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write " " on their airplanes because it's obscene!

Never seemed more appropriate.

Well for one those planes arn't the property of the young man and second writing your personal thoughts on an aircraft that represents a whole organisation is a bad idea.

Sturmtruppen wrote:I have a lot to say about this, but can't muster the effort to say it all, so here are just a few posts that stand out to me.

Bromsy wrote:Meh. Threats against the journalist or whatever, if true, are too far. But you can't expect every enlisted man or woman to be a goodwill ambassador to the world at all hours of the day and night.
Even as advanced and professional as armies in first world nations are becoming, there has to be an element of hating and dehumanizing your enemy. It's how you make yourself go out and kill them, and an army that can't do that isn't much of an army.

Oh, I see. I thought we were fighting a war against terrorism. But it turns out it's a war against Muslims in general, and apparently, homosexuals and women too! I didn't know that!

Fattimus_maximus wrote:BTW who in this little discussion has actually served?

I love it when people pull this. Puts them on a nice high-horse.

Albatross wrote:But again, what they say and what they do are actually two different things. Making off-colour jokes between friends is not the same as active discrimination and brutality at operational level.

Except that they're soldiers, and they're telling jokes about shooting people. Which is a sign that these guys might be inclined to go out and kill people indiscriminately, despite the rules of engagement. So by judging their words, we can prevent their actions, rather than waiting for Captain Hindsight.



And just to finish off, in the UK, you can be arrested for saying things like that. You'd get chucked out of the army, no question. You can come up with any excuse you like, the fact is that the armed forces have standards, and if you're below them, you're not fit to serve.

Well, you seem to have thoroughly missed my point.

Ketara wrote:

Sturmtruppen wrote:

Except that they're soldiers, and they're telling jokes about shooting people. Which is a sign that these guys might be inclined to go out and kill people indiscriminately, despite the rules of engagement. So by judging their words, we can prevent their actions, rather than waiting for Captain Hindsight.

I was threatening to shoot some absolutely terrible karaoke singers the other night.

This does not mean I am about to go out and kill people indiscriminately.

Are you currently a soldier deployed in a region with karaoke singing extremists, entrusted to fight said minority of karaoke extremists while maintaining the trust of the rest of the karaoke singing population? And are karaoke singers commonly targetted by extreme right-wing parties?

LordofHats wrote:Joining the Army doesn't mean you give up your right to free speech, which includes speech we don't like.

However, it does mean that you have to be held up to a certain standard to preserve the privilege of being a part of the army.

Given that muslims are a part of the army, attacking muslims with such epithets indicates disloyalty and a desire to create disunity within the military. These two are usually punishable to some extent under military law.

Fattimus_maximus wrote:BTW who in this little discussion has actually served?

I have to say, this sort of thing has to stop. Just because a person hasn't served in the military does not mean that their opinions are automatically invalid or even lesser than those who have.
That's not how it works. This also goes for the "They fight so you can make these comments" arguments; that does not put them on some sort of pedestal where nobody is allowed to say anything about them.

That said, I would say that this incident is both not representative of soldiers as a whole. Soldiers are just ordinary guys and girls, at the end of the day, who have a dangerous job to do.
Does this mean they are beyond reproach because they do that job? Of course not. But it must be considered that the stress of the job can get to them, and that is what produces incidents like this;
a need to blow off steam that results in very misguided statements.

Albatross probably summed it up better than me, but eh.

Do I actually want to murder my boss at work or think that he's actually a giant male appendage? No, but I make jokes about it to blow off steam. Same story here. If we didn't auto-worship military personnel there'd be less of it, but they basically sign their lives away for years at a time.

People are jerks, what do you expect?

Frazzled wrote:

We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write " " on their airplanes because it's obscene!

Never seemed more appropriate.

Their job is to kill people, not have feelings concerning the act. No one wants to hear them thump their chest.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_killings

They damn well should be held to a better standard. Maybe not better than a normal human being, but at least we should expect them not to act like murderous psychopaths who have no fear of the law.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Do I actually want to murder my boss at work or think that he's actually a giant male appendage?

So you see no difference between:

*exasperated* "what a dick!"

and

"What do you call 10,000 muslims* at the bottom of the sea? A good start!*"




*I heard that with about another ethnic group. It is the most tame one I could post.

Some of it is just dark humor and a way to blow of steam, some of it is actually inappropriate and should be cracked down on, but the line can sometimes be pretty hard to distinguish.

You wouldn't need discreation when you have the morals not to do it in the first place. Yes I have been on a military base and you can really put your foot in your mouth when you tell that joke to the wrong person. Plus I'm not focusing on the jokes that were made I'm focusing on the damn comments that were literally spewing hate on women, muslims and homosexuals. Please re-read the original post.

EDIT: And yes they are to higher standards its the fact the military system isn't catching up to them. I just wanted Dakka's opinion. Also does it make me sensitive when I see the consequences of this behaviour and decide I'm sick of it?

Yes you can put your foot in your mouth, thats why most people in the military are careful about when they open their mouths and dislike sensitive crybabies that can't take a little ribbing. I've never understood people that want to be included in activities, yet complain when they can't take the social interaction. Some of my friends and I pick on each other mercilessly when we play poker, if you can give as well as you take you are more than welcome to join us. The second you start crying about it my friends will pick on you till you leave, you are not welcome in the group and we should not be expected to change our behavior, its how we like it, if you don't like it don't come play. We have a couple of gay guys that play with us, do they have to hear cigarette jokes once in a while.......you bet they do. Do they know the best ones...yep. Do we have to hear about their sexual exploits sometimes......yep. They are actually great guys and really add some fun to the games, but they know its all in good humor, if we didn't want them there we wouldn't let them be there.

Your moral expectations are really too high. You are again talking about people that have little life experience and education. There is a reason many people join the military, they have very few other options. In general your buck privates are not coming from the upper echelons of society, you expect these people to be saints? Many of these people would be unemployed or working at McDonald's if it wasn't for the military. You really expect them to be instant paragons of a professional military who cannot express their myriad of beliefs on a private internet group? What you want is moral censorship.

Their job is to kill people, not have feelings concerning the act.

How could they not? This is BS. They are not robots. They have feelings, and sometimes the easiest way to justify shooting at someone is to demonize and hate them.

First I will preface by saying that I am posting this from a tab so if there's spelling errors my thumbs only work so well with this touch screen, second I am not intending to argue a point, only insert my 2 cents from a viewpoint of someone who served in the navy and may have a different viewpoint than someone who is "looking in from the outside". Now this isn't to say that just because you haven't served your opinion is invalid, but to say that the perspective is going to differ.

I know that while I served there was a deffinate abundanc of off humor, crude, sometimes racist jokes that, to someone who hasn't spent 6 months "hot racking" on a deployment with the people that the jokes are being told around, would see as extremely unprofessional and possibly label the person telling the joke as a racist or at the least an unfriendly/unprofessional person. But the fact of the matter is that the people I served with and even those I didnt meet I considered brothers, no matter the color of thier skin, religious views, or sexual preferance. I would lay my life on the line to make sure that they got home to see their loved ones the same they would do for me. Does one of them telling a joke that could be perceived as racist change that? No. Does one of them telling a joke that could be perceived as'racist meen that that person is a racist? No. Especially if someone did take offence to it then we work it out like adults and carry on with our lives. Of all the things that we have to worry abou t while deployed I would say that: that concern is the least of them. I know that when the **** hits the fan I can rely on whatever person is sitting next to me, black white brown green Christian Muslim Jewish or whatever they will have my back same as I will have theirs.

People in the military speak to each other differently than we speak to civilians, and off humor, crude jokes are one ways we dealt with all the crap we had to put up with on a daily basis, if you can't laugh about something you will eventually go crazy. Humor, and your fellow service member, no matter how crude, is what can keep you going whenall else seems to have gone to crap. And again if someone takes offense to something that is said we work it out like adults and we know where that line is now so we don't cross it in the future.

Now I am fortunate enough to have never been shot at, but I can fully understand how someone who goes out every day and takes enemy fire can have a hatred towards those who are attempting to kill them. Tell me of a soldier who goes out on patrol and gets attacked on a frequent basis writes it off as "oh its just the jobs we signed up for, him trying to kill me and me trying to kill him, can't fault the guy for that". Doesn't happen, yes getting shot at, and shooting at others is part of the job but that doesn't meen you can't have hatred towards your enemy, and everyone has to have some way or another to express those feelings towards those enemy's without using a weapon, and joking with your fellow soldier to vemt about it can keep person from becoming a "phsycath that only wants to kill". From my experience, its the guys who don't joke around with their fellow soldiers, are quiet and don't express their feelings that are the ones you have to worry about.

Now again these are my views on this subject, and I have not been able to read the comments except for what is written here as I haven't seen a link, but I can tell you this, stop to consisder for a moment that these are people fighting and dieing in war and sometimes humor, no matter how crude, is often times a way to deal with the hell that has to be put up with every day,and sometimes in situations where there isn't a damn thing that's funny with what's going on around you, you only have each other to make fun of.

And on a side note, the folks in higher up positions in the military are often just as bad, if not worse than the lowly e-1 out on the front lines. So don't for a second think that just because there's stars on a shoulder board that there's not the same thing going on on that level of command.

-Iron

It really seems from my point of view that not much is done to allow Soldiers to properly blow off steam...which considering what Soldiers have to do is terrible. It is a grave failing of society. Its saddening really.

Soldiers are ambassodors.

There are limits however...go too far and they'll just be politicians better fit for some political body.

How could they not? This is BS. They are not robots. They have feelings, and sometimes the easiest way to justify shooting at someone is to demonize and hate them.

Easy and correct are often not the same thing.

Soldiers are going to do this.
You can try to prevent it all you like, it's still going to happen.

With the current net-connected mindset of the current generation, it's going to be shared via the internet and not word-of-mouth like it used to be restricted to (because that's how this generation communicates.)

Older squaddies, who remember a time before everyone could tweet their most inane and pointless thoughts to EVERYONE else, tend to be less likely to post it on social media (the adage of "never write anything on a postcard that you don't want to see plastered on the front page of a major newspaper" applies equally well to the internet.) and tend to still use the WoM approach and only amongst their 'trusted' ears.

Even a "private" facebook group can have 1000 members.
Members have to add you to it, is all. You can't interact with it unless you are a member.

A "public" group means ANYONE can join/read the posts and make them.

chromedog wrote:Soldiers are going to do this.
You can try to prevent it all you like, it's still going to happen.

I didn't realize it was ok to be a bigot or racist becuase one was a soldier. Learn new things everyday.

To be clear, gallows humor is expected, but there is a line that can be crossed, and being a soldier doesn't suddenly make it ok.

Alright people are comparing soldiers to civilians in terms of rights, which are completely different. When you join the army and begin basic traing at Kapooka or ADFA or any other facility you are instantly de-socialised (if that is a word) meaning all individualism and selfish behaviour is thrown out the window.

It is then replaced with the ideals and thinking of the Aussie Digger (soldier) which is teamwork, loyalty, initiative and the ability to overcome hardship. Sure we do have a larikan nature thrown in, it helps us to cope. All this training creates a brotherhood or fraternity that is unbreakable and builds "Esprit de corps" or moral. Now the army is no longer a brotherhood, it is a family with women most likely coming into the combat role and any religion thrown in.

The behaviour shown on that site is completely unacceptable in the army, even though they are in civi street they were posting on a page which represented the ADF.

People keep saying stop being such a "cry baby about the jokes", I am not angry at the jokes it is the actual comments that were targeting ethinicity and women. These comments go beyond jokes, which I will not post on here because it is wrong. Most are along the lines of "All women are filthy lying wh****" and is constantly referring to "Ragheads" or "Mussos" as inhuman or "animals". Not everyone will be so hard and insensitive to that now will they?

Now who is to say out of those thousand members not one of them was a woman or a muslim or a homosexual?

"There is no place in the army for those who choose the softer wrong over the harder right, no place for those who lack respect for the wonderful diversity that is evident in our ranks."

That was from the mouth of the Chief of Army.

Now this type of behaviour has even warranted the fact that some serving in Afghanistan might even be discharged. That is how serious it is, and how professional we want are army to be, not a "poker game".

Here is a link, sorry for not making one at the start of the thread.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/latest/a/-/article/13057777/army-chief-angry-at-racist-facebook-page/

The main problem is that you can't have a "larrikin streak" and a complete devotion to "authority". They are kind of polar opposites.

It is that "larrikin" streak that is what lead the Brits and Americans to believe we were undisciplined fighters in WW2. With our more relaxed attitudes to military discipline (not saluting officers, referring to them by their given names, etc).

What they are wanting is to remove the larrikin streak without harming the "independent thinking" that our forces are known for - which is something harder to do - since that larrikin streak is now part of our national identity.

Joker, no offense mate, but in some regards you sound like someone that just walked out of training and is walking the party line (im assuming you're in the service). In any case, it has always been my opinion and understanding that when a bunch of the boys get together and have a couple and start spouting off about some group or another and getting derogatory, it never refers to those that they serve alongside. its somewhat of an unwritten/unspoken rule IMO for a large chunk of the (US) military that when you put on that uniform your identity is that of a brother/sister in arms and only that to your follow troops. I know on a couple occasions we got a bit rowdy and started going off against the Chinese... and guess what the two Chinese members of the group did? They joined in!

Well theres a difference between rowdy drunken behaviour and mean spirited, hate filled vomit.