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while I'm fairly certain I am that people, I'm not sure how to prove it to you. The war atrocities is either the issue of the leader making wrong decision or t

by matz1 7y ago

while I'm fairly certain I am that people, I'm not sure how to prove it to you. The war atrocities is either the issue of the leader making wrong decision or the soldier not following order. Assuming the leader made the correct decision of killing and the solider who execute that order is a solider who doesn't have moral qualm about the killing then what is the issue ?

kbenson 7y ago
Well, unless you've killed 10+ innocent people, I don't think there's a way to prove it, nor do I think you should be so sure of yourself. Beyond people having problems killing others, the nature of the job in question is that you will have visuals on people you are responsible for terminating, and there will be mistakes made, often on Intel you've provided ("it looked like a terrorist meeting to me, how was I to tell it was guys shooting the shit around a campfire?") I used to think of myself how I think you think of yourself, where I thought I could view killing and death rationally. Since then I've had a few points where I had to deal with the death of people I knew and while I was somewhat clinically detached most the time, there were instances, sometimes months later, where I was overcome with emotion for the first time regarding that incident. There's a fine line between being able to rationalize your decisions and being in denial, and the human mind doesn't always act as you want or expect. And besides making people accidental murderers, how do you test for this? Seems like many people in the army would probably identify just as you are, yet we still have this problem.
- matz1 7y ago
  Yes, mistake do happen but you can acknowledge it, made improvement plan and move on. I think the issue is you are viewing the killing solely from your own perspective and your own morality. While I understand it can be emotionally traumatic for you, for others it won't. Just like killing animal, for some people it can be devastating and highly traumatic but for some other people it was nothing.

by matz1 7y ago

kbenson 7y ago

Well, unless you've killed 10+ innocent people, I don't think there's a way to prove it, nor do I think you should be so sure of yourself. Beyond people having problems killing others, the nature of the job in question is that you will have visuals on people you are responsible for terminating, and there will be mistakes made, often on Intel you've provided ("it looked like a terrorist meeting to me, how was I to tell it was guys shooting the shit around a campfire?") I used to think of myself how I think you think of yourself, where I thought I could view killing and death rationally. Since then I've had a few points where I had to deal with the death of people I knew and while I was somewhat clinically detached most the time, there were instances, sometimes months later, where I was overcome with emotion for the first time regarding that incident. There's a fine line between being able to rationalize your decisions and being in denial, and the human mind doesn't always act as you want or expect. And besides making people accidental murderers, how do you test for this? Seems like many people in the army would probably identify just as you are, yet we still have this problem.

matz1 7y ago
Yes, mistake do happen but you can acknowledge it, made improvement plan and move on. I think the issue is you are viewing the killing solely from your own perspective and your own morality. While I understand it can be emotionally traumatic for you, for others it won't. Just like killing animal, for some people it can be devastating and highly traumatic but for some other people it was nothing.