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Cheese Elemental wrote:I have nothing against soldiers killing soldiers, but if I were a soldier, I'd personally prefer to disable them until they can be captured and hauled back to base.

That's what comes from being Christian. I'd only kill if it was the only possible solution.

Gitmo.

We arrest them..... everybody complains...... the guy that tried to blow you up with a 500lb dumb bomb or the guy that threw a HMX bomb and killed your friend will soon walking around free cause people outside the US bitched and complained hard enough and the current care bare US president caved from political pressure. And I dare anyone to compare US policies at Gitmo when compared with what Insurgents would do to a captured US Soldier...


http://www.truthout.org/imgs.art_01/3.us.dead.soldier.2.jpg
(Pic not shown outright due to graphic nature/respect)

For those that dont want to click the above link, here is a little hint........


This is why on both my tours I aimed to disable the enemy..... with 5.56 or 12 guage to the FACE!
Nothing says the enemy is no longer a threat to my life like him without his.

Its a fact, war is war. First and Foremost a soldiers jobs is to kill the enemy. Those of you that have never set foot in Iraq or spent 25 months of your life in a no gak combat situation never seem to understand this. You all preach about how you would just take it all in stride and only shoot to wound your fellow man as if nothing happened. Or how you would treat the man that was just trying to kill you like he is your brother.

Nobody fighting this was (minus the flipping sucide bombers) wants to die an often slow and painful death. Each soldier is prepared to do his duty to the best of his abilities and if the need arises he will sell his life dearly for what he believes in.... either god or country.

Now how would you feel if your enemy used coward tactics against you? Used women and children as meat shields and human bombs? Maimed and tortured thousands and thousands of people on a yearly basis regardless of age, race, or gender just because they didnt belong to a certain religious sect? Beheaded independant journalists and captured soldiers LIVE on national television? How about paying children to plant IED's along major routes cause they themselfs are afraid of being shot?

How would you feel? Would you still consider your enemies life to be worth anything?

I know I didnt and still dont.

jp400 wrote:

Cheese Elemental wrote:I have nothing against soldiers killing soldiers, but if I were a soldier, I'd personally prefer to disable them until they can be captured and hauled back to base.

That's what comes from being Christian. I'd only kill if it was the only possible solution.

Gitmo.

We arrest them..... everybody complains...... the guy that tried to blow you up with a 500lb dumb bomb or the guy that threw a HMX bomb and killed your friend will soon walking around free cause people outside the US bitched and complained hard enough and the current care bare US president caved from political pressure. And I dare anyone to compare US policies at Gitmo when compared with what Insurgents would do to a captured US Soldier...


http://www.truthout.org/imgs.art_01/3.us.dead.soldier.2.jpg
(Pic not shown outright due to graphic nature/respect)

For those that dont want to click the above link, here is a little hint........


This is why on both my tours I aimed to disable the enemy..... with 5.56 or 12 guage to the FACE!
Nothing says the enemy is no longer a threat to my life like him without his.

Its a fact, war is war. First and Foremost a soldiers jobs is to kill the enemy. Those of you that have never set foot in Iraq or spent 25 months of your life in a no gak combat situation never seem to understand this. You all preach about how you would just take it all in stride and only shoot to wound your fellow man as if nothing happened. Or how you would treat the man that was just trying to kill you like he is your brother.

Nobody fighting this was (minus the flipping sucide bombers) wants to die an often slow and painful death. Each soldier is prepared to do his duty to the best of his abilities and if the need arises he will sell his life dearly for what he believes in.... either god or country.

Now how would you feel if your enemy used coward tactics against you? Used women and children as meat shields and human bombs? Maimed and tortured thousands and thousands of people on a yearly basis regardless of age, race, or gender just because they didnt belong to a certain religious sect? Beheaded independant journalists and captured soldiers LIVE on national television? How about paying children to plant IED's along major routes cause they themselfs are afraid of being shot?

How would you feel? Would you still consider your enemies life to be worth anything?

I know I didnt and still dont.

You'd make a good space marine!

The US is held to a double standard in regards to detainee treatment. This is nothing new. Our values (and the treaties we signed) say we treat captured combatants humanely regardless of how they would treat ours. I like Jon Stewart's comment on American values: 'If when your values are tested, you choose to no longer follow them, then you don't have values. You have hobbies.'

Thats fine by me. Put em on a ship to free them and then put two torpedoes into the ship. Life is good.

Frazzled wrote:Thats fine by me. Put em on a ship to free them and then put two torpedoes into the ship. Life is good.

Enjoy your hobbies then.

You misperceive my values. I follow them strictly.

Protect US citizens. All other considerations rescinded.

Frazzled wrote:You misperceive my values. I follow them strictly.

Protect US citizens. All other considerations rescinded.

That's fething terrifying. Seriously.

Also isn't this thread about the death penalty. Not your willingness to kill people in other nations - your derailing the thread - you're pretty crap at being a mod.

namegoeshere wrote:

Frazzled wrote:You misperceive my values. I follow them strictly.

Protect US citizens. All other considerations rescinded.

That's fething terrifying. Seriously.

Also isn't this thread about the death penalty. Not your willingness to kill people in other nations - your derailing the thread - you're pretty crap at being a mod.

A. I didn't start it.
B. I am not writing as a mod. If I were I would say so. You are free to complain, I could survive without the exorbitant salary I'm getting ($0).
C. I am just stating what is the policy of every government on the planet. To be otherwise violates their fiduciary to their clients (citizens).

I don't think every other govt. on the planet thinks

Protect US citizens. All other considerations rescinded.

And, to an extent anyway, I don't think that every other govt puts the protection of their citizens above every single other moral consideration. A lot of the problems that the USA has with other nations is caused precisely by the application of this "principle" in the first place.

Please name one that doesn't put the interest of its citizens above those of other nations.

... you've never lived in the UK have you ?

On a more serious note....


I'm saying there's a difference between "protecting" and "interests".

Especially with regards to how far you can or even should go in this regard.

For example it would be safer to simply slaughter the inhabitants of country X through poison gas, nuclear weapons, etc etc etc. But you don't. It's ridiculous to say that moral concerns towards others outside of your borders are never a concern when a govt or indeed any group of people act.

And that's ignoring the possible affect of signed treaties or similar. To use a recent example, does the relaxation on the ban on importing USA beef benefit the citizens of the EU more than maintaining said ban ? Sure we might get cheaper beef. Or we might lose our own beef industries. Or.... etc etc etc

And that's ignoring any argument "we" might have to do with issues like the EU and sovereignty.

And then there's decisions made by a country for enviromental considerations.

There's loads of things that govts. do that on occassion aren't, in the short term at least, for the benefit of their own citziens as opposed to those of other countries or the world.

I'm not ignoring any of that. I'm merely sayign the interests of a particular nation's citizens are its highest priority. Everything else is tree hugger can't we all get along rose colored glass nonsense.

jp400 wrote:Its a fact, war is war. First and Foremost a soldiers jobs is to kill the enemy.

As Patton said to his troops, "Your job isn't to die for your country. It's to make the other poor s.o.b. die for his."

The fundamental point about a democracy is that only registered voters can vote for the PM/President or whatever. Therefore every rational democratic government DOES care about its citizens.

Plenty of non-democracies don't give a monkey's, of course.

Naturall, it is possible to take a more nuanced view of things. If one country isn't strong enough to defend all of its interests everywhere all the time, it needs friendly allies. Then it becomes sensible to consider the interests of ones' allies' citizens as well as ones' own.

I would like to think that an Israeli strike force, sent to free a group of assorted western citizens from (let's imagine) Ugandan captivity, would bring out the US and French citizens along with the Israelis, rather than leave them to rot.

Knowing America, once you guys catch Bin Laden you'll ship him off to Texas and kill him. To him (or most other terrorists), that would be letting him win. He'd have martyred himself for his cause. You want to make him pay for his horrible crimes, you throw him in a cell.

Or you could take a note from the British in Pakistan during the 18th/19th century and kill him while he was trapped inside of a pigskin thus blocking his path to heaven.

Its a fact, war is war. First and Foremost a soldiers jobs is to kill the enemy.

Nope, a soldiers job is to enforce the policies of government whatever they be to the extent they deem necessary.

jp400 wrote:

This is something that really pisses me off as well. They don't even bother to condemn the terrorists acts, they simply condemn the US's response to them regardless of what that response is. The same thing happens to Israel, they are always getting told off being condemned for killing innocent civillians. Well, the Israelis government shoots those civillians not intentionaly, but generally because the militants they are going after are hiding behind said civillians. The Palestinians and other terrorist organizations in the region fire hundreds of rockets a day into Israel, yet people barely mention this as those rockets don't kill many Israelis. These rockets are like gifts, its the thought that counts, not what you got them.

As for Capital Punishment, yes it should be done. The whole point of a justice system is to take the meeting out of revenge away from the hands of people who might do something extreme, but to fairly discover the crime that was committed and meet out a punishment that is equal to the crime committed. If you killed my cat, I should be able to seek restitution in the form of something that is of equal value (taking in emotional value as well) and either take it from you or destroy it. If you take the life of someone, the state/their family should be allowed to take yours. Personnally I think that once guilt has been ascertained in a murder or rape case, sentencing should belong to the victim/the victims kin.

All of that however has to be backed up by an efficient police force and institutions devoted to the detterent and prevention of crime. The justice system is there for exactly that, justice. And justice is revenge.

isn't this thread about the death penalty.

Yes, but since all the facts and research favor one side, the other feels the need to sidetrack us because "Well I think they ought to kill the bastards" can only be phrased in so many ways.

Yes, but since all the facts and research favor one side, the other feels the need to sidetrack us because "Well I think they ought to kill the bastards" can only be phrased in so many ways.

In a philisophical argument facts don't matter.

@Ratbarf: In Intarwebz argument, facts don't matter.

Ratbarf wrote:

Yes, but since all the facts and research favor one side, the other feels the need to sidetrack us because "Well I think they ought to kill the bastards" can only be phrased in so many ways.

In a philisophical argument where their is measurable financial impact and in which one either creates or negates real risk (executing the innocent or releasing a still dangerous criminal) it is very important to get one's facts correct.

Fixed your quote.

@Blood: If Facts mattered in that way, we wouldn't have politicians.

Never kill a man for one crime, IMHO.

Give 'em some years in jail, and when they're done, move on.

Preform a crime twice (I.E. 2 counts of Murder/ Rape or other serious offense (NOT stealing)) and stand right on the firing line.

JohnHwangDD wrote:@Blood: If Facts mattered in that way, we wouldn't have politicians.

QFT

Fixed your quote.

Thank you for being a douche, I would rather you not use the quote system to write things in my username that I did not say. If you are going to refute an argument of mine please do so by all means. Just don't do it while using my username.

Thank you.

@Ratbarf: In that case, you should fix your sig.

The "malfred wrote" isn't even quoted - it's just me & Iorek...

Now, I've alerted a mod to the childish personal attacks flying around in this thread, and if it continues, I'm going to drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate justice.

I've always wanted to say that.

@ John

Sure thing.


PS: sigh, what a waste of my 1000th post...

Frazzled wrote:Please name one that doesn't put the interest of its citizens above those of other nations.

This statement is entirely different from, and far more sane than, this one:

Protect US citizens. All other considerations rescinded.

The interests of the citizenry are distinct from the security of the citizenry. Otherwise any and all trial of US citizens in foreign courts would be invitation to war.

Mango wrote:
Dogma,
If an unborn human being is not a human being in your book, then please define for me what a human being is.

A biologically autonomous, organic body possessing the human genetic code. So, basically, a human being that is not unborn. I thought the distinction would have been fairly obvious.

Ratbarf wrote:

Fixed your quote.

Thank you for being a douche, I would rather you not use the quote system to write things in my username that I did not say. If you are going to refute an argument of mine please do so by all means. Just don't do it while using my username.

Thank you.

Ratbarf, personal attacks are not allowed on Dakka. The "fixed your quote" or "fixed your typo" meme has been around quite a while, and it's obvious to all who read it that the content is not really attributed to you (indeed, that's the entire point of the exercise). So don't take offense at it, and don't let Malfred anywhere near your posts.

The Off-Topic forum...

While it may mean many things, it doesn't really mean the No-Rules-Have-To-Be-Followed-Forum...

I think I'll have a stamp made up, something along the lines of...

Attack the argument, not the individual?

I'm sure I'll settle upon something eventually.

Anyway, I guess the Eye of Sauron is now upon you, the posters in this thread?

EDIT

Oops! I guess both of Sauron's eyes are upon you now!