Donovan said:
If we are to hand boys weapons, tell them to go kill people and then get angry when they do it, we need to hold responsible the person who sent them there and gave them a gun.
An army is no more or less moral than its commander-in-chief. At this late stage, knowing what we know about the origins of this conflict: is anyone surprised at the path we find ourselves on?
[This is a reposting of a post on another site on this topic. It seemed relevant in this discussion too.]
We owe it to the young people who offer up their lives NOT to let their lives and honor be completely ruined by the war we ask them to wage for us. It's not about the United States being some kind of moral benchmark of virtue when it comes to war. We're not, and the sooner we get over our arrogance the better off we'll all be.
It's about using the military when we really NEED them, so that if they survive they *know* to a moral certainty that they*HAD* to make those choices to kill. In the end, after the war is over, that clarity will [perhaps] enable them to live normal lives once they return. Without that clarity, they can often remain broken by what war demanded of them and the acts they committed.
If we leave them with a moral ambiguity and still ask them to kill, we destroy the hearts and minds of our military. Insanity can take over where reason and "clear purpose" once resided.
My father was in the European theater during WWII. That was a war that many saw with such clarity and resolve as a war that *HAD* to be fought. My father was one of those men, and yet....... even he had memories he could not speak of, even as an old man.
He was part of the American troops that liberated the death/labor camps.
To the day he died, he would only talk about his leave in Paris, NOTHING else. Whatever he saw, whatever he did, he did it because he saw it as a mandate of conscience and he lived with the consequences of that mandate. He never regretted what he did, but he never shared 'war stories' with his buddies either.
Sitting at home, we have the luxury of speaking of high morality and the ethics of war because we are safe, and comfortable in our homes. We do not know what they face. The truth is, in a war of insurrection the structure of the military breaks down and the foot soldiers do acquire a siege mentality. Danger at every turn, and from any place; survival instincts kick in and the unthinkable happens. Young people who began defending our nation, sank/sink into survival of the fittest, and some [more than we might like to imagine] sink even further into the brutality and lose themselves by becoming that which they hate.
It is our duty as citizens to understand both the cause of such things and to hold them accountable. We have to temper the situation with both or we miss the whole point.
Our ultimate responsibility is to make sure our elected officials don't use our military [and the lives of our young people] in situations where there is a moral ambiguity. We are responsible for the actions of our government because they are elected by the people. We don't get to shake our fists about the decisions of our leaders because their power was ceded to them by citizens like you and I.
Democrats don't get off the hook because they are the opposition, and Republicans don't take the full blame because it is 'their' war. We share in ALL the responsibility because we elected these officials. We share in the tragedy that befalls our soldiers and in the moral and ethical decay that can occur when men and women are asked to kill each day and aren't given a good reason why.
