Post by conz on May 25, 2009 19:01:19 GMT -6
1) I wouldn't call it any kind of war. UN Task Forces go in to create a protected environment for conducting humanitarian operations. They keep protagonists apart, thus preventing war.
As a soldier I would have thought you would have known that and not posed a pointless question.
That is interesting. So you can have a war that is not a war? If it is a good war...lots of fighting and killing, but you think it is just "making the peace," then it is not a war.
There was no war declared against the Native Americans, by your standards...it was just a "police action" done by the Army. We were just keeping the Sioux and Crow apart in 1876, making sure the Sioux couldn't hurt anybody. So that's not immoral, is it?
2) Wow! I had no idea who I was jousting with; a man who knows better than God, amends the meanings of the teachings of Jesus AND speaks for the entire U.S. Army judging by the enlarged and highlighted 'We's'. If that were true I would bow the knee and tug the forelock (perfectly legal in some States). As it is an apposite Bible quote comes to mind "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity." [Ecclesiastes 1:2)
You asked for my opinion, and I gave it, along with my opinion on all other Soldier's opinions about killing vs. murder. If somebody thought of it as you do, they would not be Soldiers, right? So obviously I am right...do you doubt it? Soldiers do NOT believe that killing in war is the Bible's "murder." Anyone doubt this?
That you had the gall to try to turn centuries old texts in your favour is beyond belief, but that you get it so wrong is plain risible.
Your opinion of what the Bible means is no more valid than mine...supreme arrogance on your part to think that you are right, and that I have the "gall" to think other than you, eh?
The Army does not murder.
No? Do the following names mean anything to you? My Lai, Thang Pong, Son Thang? How about 'Tiger Force'? Then there is 'Soldier' by Lt. Col. Anthony Herbert in which he alleges war crimes including murder.
No? Do the following names mean anything to you? My Lai, Thang Pong, Son Thang? How about 'Tiger Force'? Then there is 'Soldier' by Lt. Col. Anthony Herbert in which he alleges war crimes including murder.
Some members of the Army violated the Army's orders and morals and committed murder. We just put one Soldier away for doing just this in Iraq, as I've mentioned. But the ARMY, as an organization and its values, does not allow or condone "murder" or any war crime. We prosecute it. We actually go to war to prevent other people from committing war crimes. 1876 comes to mind.
c) Describes GOD'S power as a peacemaker NOT man's, you silly soldier. In fact, I think you may have committed blasephemy here.
Your opinion is noted, but it isn't shared by ANY Soldiers, thank God.
Not about fighting. It refers to a time when there will be complete harmony between all peoples. No chance whilst there are bellicose, gung-ho simpletons like you around who believe war is glorious.
I don't think war is glorious...where do you get that spurious charge? How silly of you...you can do better. I would eradicate war today, along with the need for all Soldiers, if I had that power. But only God does, and he hasn't found the need to do so. So us Soldiers will go on doing what were are trained to do: make the peace, in God's name. Soldiers, as a group, are much more religious and devout than our society as a whole, I believe, having lived in both. We rather have to be to follow this calling.
Jesus was a pacifist and yet you call yourself a Christian.
Jesus' men carried swords. Not much of a pacifist, I'd say, and I'll bet they were trained to use them (still trying to stay on the training thread <g>).
So my point is, that the whites broke the Treaty almost immediately, the free bands were not party to it so could not be punished by the Army for either inter-tribal fights or attacks on whites who had entered the territory without permission. Whilst some reservation warriors may have joined in with the free bands that could not be proven so the Government's hands were tied.
We don't care about these silly legalisms...the Sioux wild bands were a danger to all around them, white and Native, so they had to be brought in...it was our moral obligation to do so.
Now do you understand?
Because the white race is duplicitious when it comes to dealing with native tribes, just ask the Zulu.
That is absolutely irrelevant to the need to bring in the wild tribes.
Answered in (4), but that still makes the reason for the 1876 campaign the subjugation of Indian bands who had not signed the Treaty, in a bid by the Grant Administration to annex the Black Hills one way or another.
And we would be immoral if we did not stop the wild bands from their continued violence in 1876...they had gone on long enough. It was time to change, and they were overdue.
No, the FACT is they didn't need to be 'dealt with' they needed to be treated with. Dealing with them by force of arms was simply a convenient way to obtain the Black Hills as soon as possible. Custer and his men paid for that greed.
Been there, done that...that was Red Cloud, the Crow, the Pawnee, the Shoshone, etc. All that was left was a few die hards that wouldn't even talk to us. Time for talk was over. We Americans are only so patient, after all.
It is not an excuse for anything, just an explanation of how things were. All the Plains tribesmen were raised to be warriors. To gain battle honours was their raison d'etre. They were just as proud of their coup feathers as you are of being 'Army' and in both cases fighting was and is necessary to justify that pride. Fighting = violence, so are you now saying that the 'Army' commits acts of unnecessary violence?
No more than the Warriors commit unnecessary acts of violence, don't you agree?
To use the coverall 'the Army' is very expedient, but it obscures the fact that 'the Army' is made up of diverse indivuals, some of whom are clearly capable of murder. 'The Army' and most of its officers do not, I am sure, condone murdering unarmed people, but the cases I have quoted from the Vietnam War are a indication of what can happen.
Of course it happens...still happens today. But you can't call the Europeans "murderers" because a jealous husband in Spain kills his wife's lover, right? The Army does not commit murder anymore than the Spanish people commit murder. Some individuals do, of course, but that has nothing to do with being a Soldier, right?
Firing artillery bursts during a war can and does often kill civilians. Firing artillery bursts at fleeing Indians who had originally gathered there to watch a horse race is plain murder. There is no war going on so the term 'warriors' is misleading and intended to mislead I believe.
They did not fire artillery at a group of Indians watching a horse race. They fired at a bunch of Warriors killing American Soldiers. That is justified.
One Navaho tried to batter his way into the Fort and was shot dead. It doesn't take a genius to calculate who the aggressors were.
THAT Navaho was the aggressor. He got what he deserved. You don't take a hostile mob and try to pound down the closed gates of an Army fort. You deserve to die for stupidity, so your gene pool doesn't procreate....I can be quite crass, thank you. That's one of the luxuries of being a Soldier. <g>
No, you did not treat the Confederate and the Germans in the same way as the Indians were treated. In neither case did they lose their culture.
That wasn't the argument...we treat each case differently. We didn't treat the Confederates like we treated the Germans, for that matter.
My argument was that we would fire on civilians to get at the Warriors even if they were white. We did this repeatedly in our Civil War fire against our own American white families (read about the siege of Vicksburg, for one of many examples)...their presence was NO protection for the Soldiers we were were trying to kill. So I think I proved my point, using facts.
You really should be ashamed of the Waco affair, not using it as an example of how American law enforcers can get away with murder. Do you honestly think the FBI would be punished for what they did? If they had been indicted, all the white supremacist groups in the U.S.A. would have been up in arms. Get real.
Had absolutely nothing to do with it. Our law enforcement ran out of patience, and went in to protect the women and children. It didn't work out as they planned and most of them ended up dying at the hands of their enemy. But they were both morally and legally correct in their actions. That is the reality, as you'll find in the legal proceedings. Your opinion, of course, is only that.
As for me, the island where I live has been a place that attracted retired army officers and I have known quite a few as clients, from a Lt. Col. of the Ghurkas to a Lt. in the S.A.S. I have found that as in all walks of life army officers fall into three broad categories. Some are good, some are bad and some are mediocre.
I shudder to think of by what standards you label these clients of yours. <g>
Clair
