I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
Protest marches always turn out a significantly lower number than estimated, especially today when it's so much easier to RSVP over the internet. So, yeah, about 650,000 showed up the other day (plus all the other national and even global marches), but they did expect even more. The March for Life expects 650,000, they're likely going to see about 250-350,000, (which is STILL more than turned up for the inauguration).
50% of expected is pretty good - the women's march managed a bit over that, but all the anti-Obama marches in 2009 ran in the 10-30% turnout range (and the "trucker blockade" had about three show up out of several thousand RSVPs).
Protest marches always turn out a significantly lower number than estimated, especially today when it's so much easier to RSVP. So, yeah, about 650,000 showed up the other day (plus all the other national and even global marches), but they did expect even more. The March for Life expects 650,000, they're likely going to see about 250-350,000, (which is STILL more than turned up for the inauguration).
And the crowd will be older, whiter, and more male.
Protest marches always turn out a significantly lower number than estimated, especially today when it's so much easier to RSVP. So, yeah, about 650,000 showed up the other day (plus all the other national and even global marches), but they did expect even more. The March for Life expects 650,000, they're likely going to see about 250-350,000, (which is STILL more than turned up for the inauguration).
And the crowd will be older, whiter, and more male.
Which is a demographic that strangely seems to way, way over-expect for its marches, even compared to everybody else doing the same thing. Remember the kind of sad fizzle of the 2009 protests? Events with tens of thousands registered ended up with dozens to hundreds of bored, unenthusiastic attendees who seem to be there more for the beer tent that was promised.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
No, I just think most military service members follow their orders.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
Protest marches always turn out a significantly lower number than estimated, especially today when it's so much easier to RSVP. So, yeah, about 650,000 showed up the other day (plus all the other national and even global marches), but they did expect even more. The March for Life expects 650,000, they're likely going to see about 250-350,000, (which is STILL more than turned up for the inauguration).
And the crowd will be older, whiter, and more male.
Which is a demographic that strangely seems to way, way over-expect for its marches, even compared to everybody else doing the same thing. Remember the kind of sad fizzle of the 2009 protests? Events with tens of thousands registered ended up with dozens to hundreds of bored, unenthusiastic attendees who seem to be there more for the beer tent that was promised.
It's hard to gin up the collective energy for a good march if you're one of the privileged oppressors (and the cause you're marching for is continued oppression).
As evidenced by how the times when they get a good lather going are always centered around how they're somehow being oppressed by not being allowed to oppress others.
I mean while he was doing that he was also crwating friction with the friggin CIA. Tell me how that benefits him?
Quite a bit actually.
They are one of the agencies that has a hand in possibly uncovering the extent of Russia's involvement in the election. And that includes a great deal of possible negativity for Team Trump.
So setting them up as antagonists immediately puts them in a position where information they find that is harmful can be dismissed as being lies created by an organization that dislikes Trump (on the direction of Democrats most likely).
And not only that, no matter how garbled and idiotic was, he still paid lip service to the CIA, so the party line is going to be that he extended the olive branch to them, and they simply batted it away to pursue partisan politics.
That, or something close to it, is going to be the truth for anyone looking to maintain their view of Trump as this awesome force for good in the country/world.
Protest marches always turn out a significantly lower number than estimated, especially today when it's so much easier to RSVP. So, yeah, about 650,000 showed up the other day (plus all the other national and even global marches), but they did expect even more. The March for Life expects 650,000, they're likely going to see about 250-350,000, (which is STILL more than turned up for the inauguration).
And the crowd will be older, whiter, and more male.
Which is a demographic that strangely seems to way, way over-expect for its marches, even compared to everybody else doing the same thing. Remember the kind of sad fizzle of the 2009 protests? Events with tens of thousands registered ended up with dozens to hundreds of bored, unenthusiastic attendees who seem to be there more for the beer tent that was promised.
That might be the downside of privilege; they're way less used to actually dealing with adversity.
Protest marches always turn out a significantly lower number than estimated, especially today when it's so much easier to RSVP over the internet. So, yeah, about 650,000 showed up the other day (plus all the other national and even global marches), but they did expect even more. The March for Life expects 650,000, they're likely going to see about 250-350,000, (which is STILL more than turned up for the inauguration).
50% of expected is pretty good - the women's march managed a bit over that, but all the anti-Obama marches in 2009 ran in the 10-30% turnout range (and the "trucker blockade" had about three show up out of several thousand RSVPs).
Eh? My understanding is they expected about 200k to actually show up.
+24
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Mx. QuillI now prefer "Myr. Quill", actually...{They/Them}Registered Userregular
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
No, I just think most military service members follow their orders.
It's not like we're going to be asking them to burn villages and drag their occupants to mass graves, either. The bomber crew, the drone pilot, the missile operator, the ones responsible for many civilian casualties in Iraq and vastly more if we abandon our discipline in target confirmation, these are soldiers who most of the time can't be entirely sure if they're bombing a Doctors Without Borders hospital full of children with cancer or an ISIS-captured ward full of terrorists getting high in the dispensary until it turns up on the evening news.
Protest marches always turn out a significantly lower number than estimated, especially today when it's so much easier to RSVP over the internet. So, yeah, about 650,000 showed up the other day (plus all the other national and even global marches), but they did expect even more. The March for Life expects 650,000, they're likely going to see about 250-350,000, (which is STILL more than turned up for the inauguration).
50% of expected is pretty good - the women's march managed a bit over that, but all the anti-Obama marches in 2009 ran in the 10-30% turnout range (and the "trucker blockade" had about three show up out of several thousand RSVPs).
No, 650,000 is the estimated actual turnout of 2013 because it was the 40th anniversary. A lot of people go to the March for Life (for one thing, many schools/churches in the greater DC area bus people there), but it's also boring because it happens every year.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
When a military is ordered by its leader to commit war crimes on a foreign population, war crimes usually follow. There's no reason to assume any other outcome.
Say what you will about the CIA, those are people who gave their life for this country did not care about getting recognition. Their families know that they're gone, but they don't know why or how.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
It's not a fair impression, but years were spent on building it.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
No, I just think most military service members follow their orders.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
It's not a fair impression, but years were spent on building it.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
When a military is ordered by its leader to commit war crimes on a foreign population, war crimes usually follow. There's no reason to assume any other outcome.
So when are the "Do you really want to serve under Trump?"s going to start flying again?
Because this is reading like the opening justifications to directly or indirectly support action against the .gov and .mil.
The President of the United States is making a statement about how respectful his speech was. Amazing.
+53
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
Madonna can say something stupid without it actually changing any of what was right about yesterday. I bristled a little when she said fuck you on CNN, but then I laughed because I realized if Trump folks don't like it you can just apologize that she wasn't PC enough and watch their heads explode.
Like the reporter who apparently thought the mlk bust was removed, they will zero on on one person who did something 'wrong' and try to paint the entire group with that brush. It will not work.
GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
The military is pretty reliant on the chain of command functioning all the way down without questioning orders. It's an important rule because it keeps our soldiers alive, but training and expediency don't leave a lot of room for critical thinking.
We fetishize the moral individual breaking the chain of command because an order is Bad and Wrong, but that doesn't really happen. It's easy when we're outside looking in to criticize soldiers for doing evil things, but you have to also remember that the soldiers executing commands operate with limited information. They're told as much as command wants to tell them, and that's it.
(Note that I draw a distinction between following orders in a combat situation and, say, administering "enhanced interrogation techniques" to prisoners of war.)
So I'm perfectly willing to accept that some people went a little overboard on Friday.
But part of me wonders if that violence was instigated by plants in the crowd. I wouldn't put it past Bannon. And the fact that a prominent neo-nazi goose just happened to be nearby seems convenient.
+5
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
edited January 2017
Haha paid great respect to the wall. Clearly they've told him how little respect he paid so he's gotta get to re writing history. He's so predictable.
Good to know he counts something as a win even when it only pisses people off and makes him look like a joke. I wonder what life is like when you're never ever wrong or make even a single mistake.
Why because it sounds nothing like him? Or just because it's something he'd never say?
Haha. No chance he wrote that. But at least it's out there with his name on it. Not that it matters in any meaningful way but your damn right it's a hallmark of our democracy.
Why because it sounds nothing like him? Or just because it's something he'd never say?
Haha. No chance he wrote that. But at least it's out there with his name on it. Not that it matters in any meaningful way but your damn right it's a hallmark of our democracy.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
No, I just think most military service members follow their orders.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
It's not a fair impression, but years were spent on building it.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
When a military is ordered by its leader to commit war crimes on a foreign population, war crimes usually follow. There's no reason to assume any other outcome.
So when are the "Do you really want to serve under Trump?"s going to start flying again?
Because this is reading like the opening justifications to directly or indirectly support action against the .gov and .mil.
I know you have a military history, and I'm honestly not trying to be an asshole. I don't think soldiers are terrible people who joined up because they want to murder innocents.
My initial post was in response to someone who hypothesized that, if the Trump administration orders the military to disregard civilian casualties in places like Afghanistan, Syria, or Iraq, our pilots will purposefully miss and hit the empty desert instead of flattening neighborhoods.
Given history I simply see no reason to think this is the case. This isn't unique to the US military; it just seems to be how militaries usually function. Look at what the Syrian Air Force did to many cities in their own country. Look what the Israelis did in Gaza 2014. Or what Russia did to Grozny, or what the US did in Vietnam or North Korea. I'll leave World War II out because it's an outlier in terms of the totality of the war, but even post-WWII conflicts see various militaries laying waste to towns and cities with little to no regard for the civilian population.
Do you disagree? Do you think a large proportion of the US military would refuse to follow orders if those orders would lead to massive civilian casualties?
The military is pretty reliant on the chain of command functioning all the way down without questioning orders. It's an important rule because it keeps our soldiers alive, but training and expediency don't leave a lot of room for critical thinking.
We fetishize the moral individual breaking the chain of command because an order is Bad and Wrong, but that doesn't really happen. It's easy when we're outside looking in to criticize soldiers for doing evil things, but you have to also remember that the soldiers executing commands operate with limited information. They're told as much as command wants to tell them, and that's it.
(Note that I draw a distinction between following orders in a combat situation and, say, administering "enhanced interrogation techniques" to prisoners of war.)
Ehhhhh don't wholly agree. I've seen people disobey unlawful orders and done it myself. Don't get me wrong, I've followed orders I felt weren't 100% okay in the heat of the moment. But far more often (at least with sailors) I've seen people tell someone "No, we can't do that."
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
No, I just think most military service members follow their orders.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
It's not a fair impression, but years were spent on building it.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
When a military is ordered by its leader to commit war crimes on a foreign population, war crimes usually follow. There's no reason to assume any other outcome.
So when are the "Do you really want to serve under Trump?"s going to start flying again?
Because this is reading like the opening justifications to directly or indirectly support action against the .gov and .mil.
Before formulating a response it's best to have a grasp of the situation. And rather than think of soldiers as bloodthirsty fiends or noble warriors, we should recognize that they're humans in a system the likes of which we have countless examples of in modern history. And if you look at the history of that system you find that disobedience is exceptional, and not because of happenstance; it is explicitly designed out of the system.
So I'm perfectly willing to accept that some people went a little overboard on Friday.
But part of me wonders if that violence was instigated by plants in the crowd. I wouldn't put it past Bannon. And the fact that a prominent neo-nazi goose just happened to be nearby seems convenient.
The applause he got at the CIA after and during his speech was from his staff he bought with him, not CIA staff.
He carries a personal retinue of people with him to laugh and applaud him. Stalin used to have a light on his lectern that would turn on so people knew when to stop their standing ovation, because to be the first to stop would have been fatal.
Also someone got reamed out at the national parks yesterday because they tweeted an apology for retweeting shots of his sparsely attended inauguration and said it'll never happen again. How long until he starts airbrushing people out of photos?
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
No, I just think most military service members follow their orders.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
It's not a fair impression, but years were spent on building it.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
When a military is ordered by its leader to commit war crimes on a foreign population, war crimes usually follow. There's no reason to assume any other outcome.
So when are the "Do you really want to serve under Trump?"s going to start flying again?
Because this is reading like the opening justifications to directly or indirectly support action against the .gov and .mil.
Before formulating a response its best to at least have a grasp of the situation. And rather than think of soldiers as bloodthirsty fiends or noble warriors, we should recognize that they're humans in a system the likes of which we have countless examples of in modern history. And if you look at the history of that system you find that disobedience is exceptional, and not because of happenstance; it is explicitly designed out of the system.
I'm not implying that all military personnel or all civilian government employees are inherently noble. I disagreed with the seeming implication of the post I responded to that the majority of military personnel are just rearing to commit war crimes and they're only a little bit of discretion away from doing so.
The same as I have openly criticized law enforcement and the shitty culture that is present at some agencies. But I wouldn't posit that the majority of LEOs are an order away from openly executing people en masse.
In addition to the need for personnel, especially at the small unit level, to obey lawful orders with the least hesitation possible it's also important for personnel to be able to distinguish (as reasonably as possible) between a lawful and unlawful order and whether rank supersedes authority. At least when I went through TRADOC I was taught that there is some judgement inherent in following orders. If you are a junior enlisted ordered to act as a sentry and given authority to verify ID, for example, a flag officer can't lawfully order you to allow them through without doing so. That requires judgement beyond blindly obeying orders.
Kaputa has clarified but the inference on my part of the post I originally responded to was that the majority of military service members would be open to slaughtering non combatant populations.
The applause he got at the CIA after and during his speech was from his staff he bought with him, not CIA staff.
He carries a personal retinue of people with him to laugh and applaud him. Stalin used to have a light on his lectern that would turn on so people knew when to stop their standing ovation, because to be the first to stop would have been fatal.
Also someone got reamed out at the national parks yesterday because they tweeted an apology for retweeting shots of his sparsely attended inauguration and said it'll never happen again. How long until he starts airbrushing people out of photos?
With these kind of crowds, can Trump afford to be removing people from photos?
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
No, I just think most military service members follow their orders.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
It's not a fair impression, but years were spent on building it.
I wonder what the odds are of a surprising amount of bombing missions suffering targeting issues if the Trump admin tries to order ignoring civilians around target sites?
There's a pretty big difference between hitting a hostile target and finding out later there were civilian casualties, and being told to deliberately and intentionally drop bombs which will definitely kill civilians.
The odds are low. Knowledge of civilian casualties didn't stop the US military in Indochina or Korea or Dresden or Tokyo. They'll "just follow orders."
edit - There would probably be exceptions who would refuse to commit especially indiscriminate acts of slaughter, but if so those will be exceptions, not the rule
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
When a military is ordered by its leader to commit war crimes on a foreign population, war crimes usually follow. There's no reason to assume any other outcome.
So when are the "Do you really want to serve under Trump?"s going to start flying again?
Because this is reading like the opening justifications to directly or indirectly support action against the .gov and .mil.
Before formulating a response its best to at least have a grasp of the situation. And rather than think of soldiers as bloodthirsty fiends or noble warriors, we should recognize that they're humans in a system the likes of which we have countless examples of in modern history. And if you look at the history of that system you find that disobedience is exceptional, and not because of happenstance; it is explicitly designed out of the system.
I'm not implying that all military personnel or all civilian government employees are inherently noble. I disagreed with the seeming implication of the post I responded to that the majority of military personnel are just rearing to commit war crimes and they're only a little bit of discretion away from doing so.
The same as I have openly criticized law enforcement and the shitty culture that is present at some agencies. But I wouldn't posit that the majority of LEOs are an order away from openly executing people en masse.
In addition to the need for personnel, especially at the small unit level, to obey lawful orders with the least hesitation possible it's also important for personnel to be able to distinguish (as reasonably as possible) between a lawful and unlawful order and whether rank supersedes authority. At least when I went through TRADOC I was taught that there is some judgement inherent in following orders. If you are a junior enlisted ordered to act as a sentry and given authority to verify ID, for example, a flag officer can't lawfully order you to allow them through without doing so. That requires judgement beyond blindly obeying orders.
Kaputa has clarified but the inference on my part of the post I originally responded to was that the majority of military service members would be open to slaughtering non combatant populations.
Putting "just follow orders" in quotes that way probably sounded flippant or disparaging, I can see why you interpreted my post that way. I apologize.
Posts
Most military service members are blood thirsty war criminals just waiting to commit slaughter upon non combatants?
How flattering.
50% of expected is pretty good - the women's march managed a bit over that, but all the anti-Obama marches in 2009 ran in the 10-30% turnout range (and the "trucker blockade" had about three show up out of several thousand RSVPs).
And the crowd will be older, whiter, and more male.
Which is a demographic that strangely seems to way, way over-expect for its marches, even compared to everybody else doing the same thing. Remember the kind of sad fizzle of the 2009 protests? Events with tens of thousands registered ended up with dozens to hundreds of bored, unenthusiastic attendees who seem to be there more for the beer tent that was promised.
People aren't good at going against authority.
It's a pretty well verified.
It's hard to gin up the collective energy for a good march if you're one of the privileged oppressors (and the cause you're marching for is continued oppression).
As evidenced by how the times when they get a good lather going are always centered around how they're somehow being oppressed by not being allowed to oppress others.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Quite a bit actually.
They are one of the agencies that has a hand in possibly uncovering the extent of Russia's involvement in the election. And that includes a great deal of possible negativity for Team Trump.
So setting them up as antagonists immediately puts them in a position where information they find that is harmful can be dismissed as being lies created by an organization that dislikes Trump (on the direction of Democrats most likely).
And not only that, no matter how garbled and idiotic was, he still paid lip service to the CIA, so the party line is going to be that he extended the olive branch to them, and they simply batted it away to pursue partisan politics.
That, or something close to it, is going to be the truth for anyone looking to maintain their view of Trump as this awesome force for good in the country/world.
That might be the downside of privilege; they're way less used to actually dealing with adversity.
Eh? My understanding is they expected about 200k to actually show up.
You know, sometimes the internet is alright.
Strong.
It's not like we're going to be asking them to burn villages and drag their occupants to mass graves, either. The bomber crew, the drone pilot, the missile operator, the ones responsible for many civilian casualties in Iraq and vastly more if we abandon our discipline in target confirmation, these are soldiers who most of the time can't be entirely sure if they're bombing a Doctors Without Borders hospital full of children with cancer or an ISIS-captured ward full of terrorists getting high in the dispensary until it turns up on the evening news.
When a military is ordered by its leader to commit war crimes on a foreign population, war crimes usually follow. There's no reason to assume any other outcome.
I need a fucking "amazing" button
It's not a fair impression, but years were spent on building it.
So when are the "Do you really want to serve under Trump?"s going to start flying again?
Because this is reading like the opening justifications to directly or indirectly support action against the .gov and .mil.
How is he so pathetic? He had to have seen the 2009 numbers.
Like the reporter who apparently thought the mlk bust was removed, they will zero on on one person who did something 'wrong' and try to paint the entire group with that brush. It will not work.
We fetishize the moral individual breaking the chain of command because an order is Bad and Wrong, but that doesn't really happen. It's easy when we're outside looking in to criticize soldiers for doing evil things, but you have to also remember that the soldiers executing commands operate with limited information. They're told as much as command wants to tell them, and that's it.
(Note that I draw a distinction between following orders in a combat situation and, say, administering "enhanced interrogation techniques" to prisoners of war.)
But part of me wonders if that violence was instigated by plants in the crowd. I wouldn't put it past Bannon. And the fact that a prominent neo-nazi goose just happened to be nearby seems convenient.
Good to know he counts something as a win even when it only pisses people off and makes him look like a joke. I wonder what life is like when you're never ever wrong or make even a single mistake.
Oh he did.
He just is incapable of saying/writing anything without it turning to raw sewage. Kinda like the Miser Bros. from "Year Without A Santa Claus."
I don't believe he wrote that.
Why because it sounds nothing like him? Or just because it's something he'd never say?
Haha. No chance he wrote that. But at least it's out there with his name on it. Not that it matters in any meaningful way but your damn right it's a hallmark of our democracy.
Taking bets that it gets deleted or edited.
My initial post was in response to someone who hypothesized that, if the Trump administration orders the military to disregard civilian casualties in places like Afghanistan, Syria, or Iraq, our pilots will purposefully miss and hit the empty desert instead of flattening neighborhoods.
Given history I simply see no reason to think this is the case. This isn't unique to the US military; it just seems to be how militaries usually function. Look at what the Syrian Air Force did to many cities in their own country. Look what the Israelis did in Gaza 2014. Or what Russia did to Grozny, or what the US did in Vietnam or North Korea. I'll leave World War II out because it's an outlier in terms of the totality of the war, but even post-WWII conflicts see various militaries laying waste to towns and cities with little to no regard for the civilian population.
Do you disagree? Do you think a large proportion of the US military would refuse to follow orders if those orders would lead to massive civilian casualties?
Ehhhhh don't wholly agree. I've seen people disobey unlawful orders and done it myself. Don't get me wrong, I've followed orders I felt weren't 100% okay in the heat of the moment. But far more often (at least with sailors) I've seen people tell someone "No, we can't do that."
I do agree it's not easy to do.
He's comparing to 2013. So he's not wrong, he's just picking the data that makes him look better.
Before formulating a response it's best to have a grasp of the situation. And rather than think of soldiers as bloodthirsty fiends or noble warriors, we should recognize that they're humans in a system the likes of which we have countless examples of in modern history. And if you look at the history of that system you find that disobedience is exceptional, and not because of happenstance; it is explicitly designed out of the system.
you think????
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5873e26fe4b043ad97e516f7
He carries a personal retinue of people with him to laugh and applaud him. Stalin used to have a light on his lectern that would turn on so people knew when to stop their standing ovation, because to be the first to stop would have been fatal.
Also someone got reamed out at the national parks yesterday because they tweeted an apology for retweeting shots of his sparsely attended inauguration and said it'll never happen again. How long until he starts airbrushing people out of photos?
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I'm not implying that all military personnel or all civilian government employees are inherently noble. I disagreed with the seeming implication of the post I responded to that the majority of military personnel are just rearing to commit war crimes and they're only a little bit of discretion away from doing so.
The same as I have openly criticized law enforcement and the shitty culture that is present at some agencies. But I wouldn't posit that the majority of LEOs are an order away from openly executing people en masse.
In addition to the need for personnel, especially at the small unit level, to obey lawful orders with the least hesitation possible it's also important for personnel to be able to distinguish (as reasonably as possible) between a lawful and unlawful order and whether rank supersedes authority. At least when I went through TRADOC I was taught that there is some judgement inherent in following orders. If you are a junior enlisted ordered to act as a sentry and given authority to verify ID, for example, a flag officer can't lawfully order you to allow them through without doing so. That requires judgement beyond blindly obeying orders.
Kaputa has clarified but the inference on my part of the post I originally responded to was that the majority of military service members would be open to slaughtering non combatant populations.
With these kind of crowds, can Trump afford to be removing people from photos?
So you admit that with higher turnout and more awareness of your true nature that you would have lost by even more trump?
Fixed that for you.