29 ms·

How We Learned to Kill

144 points by mayukh 12y ago

jetskindo 12y ago
It's ok to kill because it is an order. I bet the other side feels the same way. Just an order
darkhorn 12y ago
9/11 was an inside job. So, the war in Afghanistan was unnecessary for the USA. The real terrorists are Bush administration who killed 9/11 victims and US soldiers who killed Afghan children.
- eloff 12y ago
  The US has previously contemplated false flag missions against it's own people (see operation Northwoods[1] which was rejected by JFK.) However, there's no evidence that they were behind the 9/11 attacks. Spouting conspiracy theories without serious backup is going to get you down-voted here on HN where we pride ourselves on being less gullible than average. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
  - darkhorn 12y ago
    There are evidences http://www.ae911truth.org/gallery/evidence.html http://www.ae911truth.org/gallery/evidence.html Also listen to Susan Lindauer.
    - eloff 12y ago
      Now look at the evidence against. You can't cherry pick the few things that agree with your world-view, you need to take an unbiased, scientific approach where you consider all possibilities with the evidence (and likelihoods) both for and against. When weighed against the rest of the evidence, it just doesn't hold up. Remember, a good scientist doesn't look for evidence confirming his theory, which is often available even for incorrect theories. They look at all the evidence and see if it leads to the same conclusion.
- ChrisClark 12y ago
  How many crazies regularly read Hacker News? Thought it would be less than average. Maybe darkhorn stumbled onto the wrong site. :)
  - darkhorn 12y ago
    I don't know how many crazy Hacker News readers are there but I know that there are at least 2330 architects and engineers who think like me. http://www.ae911truth.org/ http://www.ae911truth.org/
    - jpollock 12y ago
      Given the population size, 2330 individuals isn't a very large percentage. A quick search indicates that there are ~107,000 architects in the US[1][2], and there are ~272,000 civil engineers[3] in the US. So, 2330 signatories is < 1%. Get 15% to sign off, then it might get attention. [1] http://www.aia.org/press/AIAS077761 http://www.aia.org/press/AIAS077761 [2] http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/architects.htm http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/architec... [3] http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/civil-engineers.htm http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/civil-en...
    - krschultz 12y ago
      I worked as a mechanical engineer at a company that had 3x as many engineers as that number in one building. We all did a lot of calculations involving explosions, designing systems to survive explosions, etc. I bet if you polled every single one of them, it would be a unanimous agreement that airplanes caused the damage on 9/11. Also note, architects are not the right people to be quoting for this. When we hired architects, they did lots of design work, but never ended up on the calculation side of the process. Explosive loads are completely different from static loads, and architects don't learn that stuff. So I imagine you have a lot of architects that don't know what they are talking about in that 2330. If you are arguing that it was a false flag operation that flew the planes, good luck with that, but it has nothing to do with science or engineering.
      - 12y ago
- warmwaffles 12y ago
  Go read Ghost Wars http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/0143034669 http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-Septem... and come back with a better understanding of the shit storm that is in that region. All of the conflict over there dates back to before the 70's. Well before the Bush administration.
fit2rule 12y ago
So when are we going to learn to bridge the gap, forgive and flourish with our enemies-become-friends? Or, is that just too darn hard?
- wtbob 12y ago
  > Or, is that just too darn hard? Pretty much. Sometimes people want diametrically opposed things, and cannot compromise. Force and violence have always been a part of life, and we can never do away with them entirely. All we can do is refrain from them as long as is practical, constrain them and use them as sparingly as possible.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Moreover, we seem to be too dumb as a species to avoid conflict. We just can't coordinate with one another on a big enough scale. And yet, I still have hope for us reaching the Star Trek level of humanity.
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    Peace and tranquility have always been a part of life too, but we don't work nearly as hard to acknowledge that fact as we should.
- Scramblejams 12y ago
  It's very hard to do if the other side won't agree to sing campfire songs with us too. Especially if they'd rather violently impose Sharia through a worldwide caliphate, to use one contemporary example. Gotta pay the Dhimmi before we can forgive and flourish. Yes, there are a lot of reasonable people on the other side of the line. But the leadership of those reasonable people can, depending on who you're talking about, be very, very unreasonable.
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    >> rather violently impose Sharia As opposed to "rather violently impose capitalism" using killing machines in the sky? I think both 'sides' are as equally guilty of hatred as each other. I don't see the US Military-Industrial complex going out of its way to create peace, either - and no "but they are doing the bad thing" is not an appropriate justification. It takes as much effort to make peace as it does to make war. The difference is: the decision to do so.
huj123 12y ago
>I focused on lessons I had learned reading Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s book “On Killing,” Dave Grossman reportedly cites someone named S. L. A. Marshall who made the claim that only a small percentage of infantry ever fired their weapons, to support the idea that most people have some natural reluctance to kill in battle. I just want to point out that there is zero evidence for this claim: https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/12/28/shoot-to-kill/ https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/12/28/shoot-to-kill/
- 001sky 12y ago
  This link is annecdotal gibberish.
  - huj123 12y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall#Controversy_after_death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall#Controversy_af... People have looked for the evidence for his claim but can't find it. I've had people repeat the claim to me and cite Grossman or Marshall, but when I asked them to give a specific source for it they couldn't.
- gohrt 12y ago
  I have no idea what the evidence really says on this topic, but I suspect the claim is more likely to hold true in the past era of huge conscripted armies, than in the modern error of small highly-trained armies (and small guerilla armies, which don't have large numbers of conscripts).
woodman 12y ago
It is always an interesting experience when you recognize a little of your old self in somebody else, projection is really tempting. My head was in the same place almost ten years ago, after Fallujah - the end justifies the means. That is pretty much what the final two paragraphs say - yeah it is shitty, but the end justifies the means. This is a big step beyond "They hate us for our freedoms!", but still falls short of acknowledging the fact that a universally preferable end state isn't likely to be reached through violence or threats of violence. I wouldn't be surprised if the Captain Kudo eventually arrives at that conclusion.
transfire 12y ago
Imagine if we took the commandment "Thou shall not kill" to heart. Imagine if instead of killing those men on the roadside, it was the job to the soldiers to incapacitate them but take them alive. Is it possible? Of course it is possible. Perhaps harder, but possible. Here's the funny thing about killing. Somehow we continually find excuses for doing it. And the easiest excuse of all is that the other guy did it first. And so it goes round and round and never stops, forever escalating. And it won't stop, until we stop making excuses.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  Most people have not killed anyone. (This is probably more true for people alive today than it is for all humans that have ever lived)
  - entrop13 12y ago
    It's true that as society progresses it off loads the killing work onto fewer people - executioners, soldiers, drones, etc. These killings are presumably justified by the will of the larger society otherwise these men wouldn't be paid to do this. So a smaller part of the population does an increasing porportion of the killing, but does the overall number of people killed decrease?
    - gus_massa 12y ago
      Currently, the drones are only supersized RC planes with weapons. Someone still has to pull the trigger.
    - krschultz 12y ago
      We are certainly living in the most peaceful period since the start of the 20th century. For example, look what was happening exactly 100 years ago today: http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/firstworldwar/index-1915.html http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/firstworldwar/index... When was the last time there was a battle with thousands of causalities anywhere on earth? War hasn't gone away, but it has definitely declined. Surely it would be better if it were gone completely, but things are moving in the right direction.
myrandomcomment 12y ago
This story is accurate to a fault.
mrottenkolber 12y ago
He ordered the killing of humans because of an assumption? What the shit. Just walk over there and ask the bloke what he's doing, or investigate after they left, or throw in a flash grenade and disable, shoot the legs not the heads. Anything but kill. What are they thinking? That their chances of survival are higher if they kill the enemy combatants before they can kill them? Is this really what it boils down to? This sort of behavior is not acceptable for a human being, heck its not acceptable for an animal being or a plant. Amazing how these "soldiers" are multiple magnitudes less civilized than any insect I can think of right now. What kind of demented questions is "can we shoot them?" anyways. Don't shoot unless shot upon. No you can never just shoot somebody. And that he has the balls to try to justify his mass murders after the fact is way beyond me. Edit: Deleting my sub comments because the discussion has gone completely off topic. Guys write your own top level comment and describe your view in one coherent piece. This piecemeal snowball-fight leads nowhere and nobody can be asked to get into a pitiful mud fight with 100 different people at the same time. I realize its my own mistake I should never have replied to any of them, especially the sub-thread about cats. Seriously guys?
- BariumBlue 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem If you were in the situation above, what choice would you make? I'm legitimately curious, as I do not know many people that seem to think in moral absolutes.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      > It's a bullshit problem created to justify stupid decisions. No. It's a toy problem designed to check for particular moral reactions in controlled conditions, for exploring the way human conscience works. It's not meant to be used as something you reduce real-world problems to. > I don't think in moral absolutes, hell I don't even consider myself an especially moral person. I justify my actions based on their merits and everything I've read, seen and heard about offensive warfare just seems like a really stupid idea. This is good, and that is very much in agreement with the trolley problem. Evaluating actions based on their merits, looking at principles and consequences alike. With rest of your comment, I agree. Iraq and Afganistan wars are stupid, and are an example of a collective failure to do the right thing. Just don't blame it on the trolley problem.
alextgordon 12y ago
There was a BBC doc about Sandhurst a few years ago where they showed how they train recruits to kill people. Basically it involves the delightfully low-tech method of having recruits charge towards a bag of grass cuttings and stabbing it in the gut with their bayonet while chanting "KILL!" One of the recruits was so freaked out by the whole thing that he quit soon afterwards. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITY6RT1nmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITY6RT1nmo (46:11) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITY6RT1nmo#t=2771 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITY6RT1nmo#t=2771
TeMPOraL 12y ago
A very good and honest article. Here's one gem I noticed, right at the end: > I don’t blame Presidents George W. Bush or Barack Obama for these wars. Our elected leaders, after all, are just following orders, no different from the Marine who asks if he can kill a man digging by the side of the road. Exactly. Some people seem to think that the President is the one with the most power, and that he can wield it arbitrarily. It's not true. You don't get to be a President of a country if you're not up to your eyeballs with connections and mutual favour-based relationships. Nobody is going to let you become President if you're the type of person that could seriously endanger the entrenched status quo based on your whims. Such people are filtered out earlier in the process. I suspect that, in a way, the office of President is one of the least real power in actual politics.
- vinceguidry 12y ago
  > I suspect that, in a way, the office of President is one of the least real power in actual politics. Being a part of a corporation has taught me an awful lot about what cooperation looks like in that kind of setting. At my job, we hired a new VP of e-commerce last year, I didn't really understand what that meant for me for months. At first I kind of saw him as a threat, after awhile I realized that having a tech-savvy executive at that level means that the CEO is wanting to grow our department's role in the company and that I should stick around because it could be a huge opportunity for me in a few years. The main thing about settings where there is a great deal of power flying around is that everything you do matters. You can't not make a decision, not making a decision is making a decision by not taking action. Everybody with power understands this and so learns how to read into these actions / inactions. Even if there's no real conflict, there's just not enough time to have copious amounts of discussion concerning intentions. You just figure it out and adjust your own goals and actions accordingly. When you have change at the top, the entire executive structure under the new leader adapts to suit the guy at the top's sensibilities. You don't really see the multitudes of little changes or how they add up unless you know what to look for and have been watching it over multiple leaders. These things filter out to the public mostly unnoticed, but can be quite dramatic in their effect. The biggest change with Obama is that he's an introvert and doesn't feel the need to pander to Congress. It's made a lot of waves and contributed majorly to the gridlock he's had to deal with in trying to push his agenda. Clinton was way more personable and much more pragmatic.
sebastianconcpt 12y ago
War is the institutionalization of selective sociopathy. This is quite illustrative: "For a while after I ordered the Marine to take that first shot, everything we did seemed acceptable. It revealed that killing could be banal. Each day would bring a new threat that needed to be eliminated"
littletimmy 12y ago
Life as an Afghani farmer: > Be farming your land in peace > Some Saudis blow up shit > US attacks Afghanistan > Try to keep out of trouble > See clear skies one night and want to irrigate land > Carry tools in a package, start digging > Get shot by highly trained killer cuz you are potentially a terrorist > WTF.gif
goodnights 12y ago
No, you didn't learn to kill. You were selected because of your trust in authority and lack of responsibility. Soldiers shouldn't ask for permission to shoot, especially not "snipers". The whole thing is just a charade to enable diffusion of responsibility. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility
- Retra 12y ago
  This is ridiculous. Soldiers aren't 'selected' for their trust in authority and lack of responsibility. And they are supposed to ask for permission to shoot. Especially snipers. I don't know where you got your information, but it wasn't from any experience with military. Hey, lets look at some US Marine Corps ROE documentation: "We must review all aspects of the fight, from weaponeering to the understanding of proportionate force. Training needs to be discussion and scenario based, thus forcing Marines to articulate their perceptions of and responses to the situations. “Wrong” answers should not be reprimanded but need to be explored further. This will take time, but we cannot allow wallflowers to escape participation. We must further empower subordinate unit leaders to continue the training at their levels." Virtually everything the US military teaches is contrary to what you've stated.
  - goodnights 12y ago
    "I don't know where you got your information, but it wasn't from any experience with military." I spent 15 months of conscription in one of those "small team, heavy backpack, green beret"-type units. A sniper operates as part of a self-sustaining team to take down high value targets, often trough infiltration. It's self explanatory why a real sniper wouldn't ask for permission nor why no one would ever, despite what the movies tell you, tell them to "take the shot". Like in any high risk activity you are the one who is going to have to deal with the consequences of your actions and should therefor operate, as much as possible, at your own discretion. These guys aren't snipers, they are sharpshooters on guard duty. They might as well be outsourced to some guy with a playstation controller in the future. "Virtually everything the US military teaches is contrary to what you've stated." I doubt that. On the other hand the US military isn't exactly known for being competent.
swatow 12y ago
I find it very strange that people talk about soldiers as if they had some special moral responsibility for what happens during a war. Sure, they should be thinking about the implications and ethics of their actions, as we all should, and yet they also signed up to serve the nation, and to do what their nation thought necessary and just. Do people think that democratic nations should not have armies, and it is an ethical imperative for Americans, English and others to refuse to serve? If not, then it is all of our responsibilities, as voters and citizens, to ensure that only just wars are fought, and using ethical means. If not, then we are all responsible, not just the soldiers. Instead of asking "how could you kill someone" we should be asking "how can you live in a political system that causes people to be ordered to kill people, in which you have the ability to change this fact". I'm not a pacifist myself, I just don't see how in a democracy, the buck stops with the soldiers.
- AdeptusAquinas 12y ago
  Too true. This quote from the article reinforces that "Despite the rhetoric I internalized from the newspapers back home about why we were in Afghanistan, I ended up fighting for different reasons once I got on the ground — a mix of loyalty to my Marines, habit and the urge to survive." It's that rhetoric, created by almost everyone BUT soldiers, that sends them to war. And, especially in nationalistic countries where soldiering is viewed as some kind of heroism, no doubt leads to poor decisions once they arrive and face the reality of the situation.
  - goodnights 12y ago
    "a mix of loyalty to my Marines, habit and the urge to survive" I think that is mostly a cliché too though. People stay in bad situations because uncertainty is even harder to deal with. The military generally go out of their way to make any other alternative "uncomfortable". If you're ready to sign away your freedom for glory, you should also be ready to do so for justice.
    - woodman 12y ago
      > I think that is mostly a cliché too though. It is not, not in the infantry at least, where brain wa... er - psychological conditioning is the strongest. For example: just days after my battalion got back from a fairly taxing deployment, the company commander informed us at morning formation that an artillery battalion was preparing to deploy to the area of operations we just got back from. It was part of some pilot program, where they give non-infantry Marines a couple of months of infantry training and then deploy them as if they were infantry... it was a horrible idea that would lead to a lot of dead Marines - and everybody at that formation knew it. The company commander asked for volunteers, a cadre that would lead in training for a month and then deploy with them into combat as fireteam, squad and platoon leaders. About a quarter of the company volunteered, myself included, which was more than the CO was willing to part with - so he limited the pool to Corporals. None of us wanted to go back, we knew that the odds were much worse throwing in with these guys, but we knew that they needed us. If that isn't loyalty, then I don't know what is. The Marine Corps put a lot of effort into building that sort of emotional connection, and it works.
copsarebastards 12y ago
I want to ask Timothy Kudo if there was anything else he knew about the men digging by the side of the road that indicated to him that they were planting a bomb. Because if not, he's just a murderer. By the description in that article, he did not have nearly enough information to decide that those men should die. America was founded on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty". Timothy Kudo was acting as judge and jury for these men and found them guilty with almost no evidence. There are numerous reasons why someone might be digging next to the road at night. It's only by chance that he happened to be right. He uses the phrase "good shoot, bad result", but if that is the standard he's using for "good shoot", I wonder how many of his kills were "bad shoot, good result". And it's ridiculous to isolate the responsibility for this kind of action to the soldiers. This is on everyone who accept this as okay--the voters who vote for warmongering politicians, the politicians who start wars and create decision policies that say a shot like this is okay, the officers who give the orders, and the troops on the ground that follow them.
- Happydayz 12y ago
  The concept of "innocent until proven guilty" is generally not used in warfare. This isn't an American thing; it's long been part of the customary / traditional rules governing lawful conflict. To provide an easy to understand example why; you would not have to have a legal proceeding to determine that someone wearing a grey uniform with an iron cross on it was in fact a German soldier during WWI. Visual recognition, even from a distance (of the kind that would cause serious cross-examination in a domestic court), is sufficient to make the call that he is an enemy combatant. Soldiers are absolutely empowered to act as judge, juror, and executioner, and are given significant latitude in determining who is and is not a lawful combatant. It is worth noting that this Marine officer was acting under not just US rules of engagement, but also NATO ROEs. Those ROEs would have been vetted by the lawyers of all the NATO members, who already abide by some of the most historically rigorous applications of the laws of war. As for whether Kudo knew anything else about the men digging on the side of the road. The answer is probably not. But, he also knew a lot about the cultural context in which they were operating, and leveraged that to make an informed judgment call about how to proceed. Regardless of whether you personally think that was moral or not, the fact is that it was legally permissible under internationally agreed upon laws of warfare.
known 12y ago
It's highly "subjective"
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

144 points by mayukh 12y ago

It's ok to kill because it is an order. I bet the other side feels the same way. Just an order

9/11 was an inside job. So, the war in Afghanistan was unnecessary for the USA. The real terrorists are Bush administration who killed 9/11 victims and US soldiers who killed Afghan children.

eloff 12y ago
The US has previously contemplated false flag missions against it's own people (see operation Northwoods[1] which was rejected by JFK.) However, there's no evidence that they were behind the 9/11 attacks. Spouting conspiracy theories without serious backup is going to get you down-voted here on HN where we pride ourselves on being less gullible than average. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
- darkhorn 12y ago
  There are evidences http://www.ae911truth.org/gallery/evidence.html http://www.ae911truth.org/gallery/evidence.html Also listen to Susan Lindauer.
  - eloff 12y ago
    Now look at the evidence against. You can't cherry pick the few things that agree with your world-view, you need to take an unbiased, scientific approach where you consider all possibilities with the evidence (and likelihoods) both for and against. When weighed against the rest of the evidence, it just doesn't hold up. Remember, a good scientist doesn't look for evidence confirming his theory, which is often available even for incorrect theories. They look at all the evidence and see if it leads to the same conclusion.
ChrisClark 12y ago
How many crazies regularly read Hacker News? Thought it would be less than average. Maybe darkhorn stumbled onto the wrong site. :)
- darkhorn 12y ago
  I don't know how many crazy Hacker News readers are there but I know that there are at least 2330 architects and engineers who think like me. http://www.ae911truth.org/ http://www.ae911truth.org/
  - jpollock 12y ago
    Given the population size, 2330 individuals isn't a very large percentage. A quick search indicates that there are ~107,000 architects in the US[1][2], and there are ~272,000 civil engineers[3] in the US. So, 2330 signatories is < 1%. Get 15% to sign off, then it might get attention. [1] http://www.aia.org/press/AIAS077761 http://www.aia.org/press/AIAS077761 [2] http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/architects.htm http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/architec... [3] http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/civil-engineers.htm http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/civil-en...
  - krschultz 12y ago
    I worked as a mechanical engineer at a company that had 3x as many engineers as that number in one building. We all did a lot of calculations involving explosions, designing systems to survive explosions, etc. I bet if you polled every single one of them, it would be a unanimous agreement that airplanes caused the damage on 9/11. Also note, architects are not the right people to be quoting for this. When we hired architects, they did lots of design work, but never ended up on the calculation side of the process. Explosive loads are completely different from static loads, and architects don't learn that stuff. So I imagine you have a lot of architects that don't know what they are talking about in that 2330. If you are arguing that it was a false flag operation that flew the planes, good luck with that, but it has nothing to do with science or engineering.
    - 12y ago
warmwaffles 12y ago
Go read Ghost Wars http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/0143034669 http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-Septem... and come back with a better understanding of the shit storm that is in that region. All of the conflict over there dates back to before the 70's. Well before the Bush administration.

fit2rule 12y ago

So when are we going to learn to bridge the gap, forgive and flourish with our enemies-become-friends? Or, is that just too darn hard?

wtbob 12y ago
> Or, is that just too darn hard? Pretty much. Sometimes people want diametrically opposed things, and cannot compromise. Force and violence have always been a part of life, and we can never do away with them entirely. All we can do is refrain from them as long as is practical, constrain them and use them as sparingly as possible.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Moreover, we seem to be too dumb as a species to avoid conflict. We just can't coordinate with one another on a big enough scale. And yet, I still have hope for us reaching the Star Trek level of humanity.
- fit2rule 12y ago
  Peace and tranquility have always been a part of life too, but we don't work nearly as hard to acknowledge that fact as we should.
Scramblejams 12y ago
It's very hard to do if the other side won't agree to sing campfire songs with us too. Especially if they'd rather violently impose Sharia through a worldwide caliphate, to use one contemporary example. Gotta pay the Dhimmi before we can forgive and flourish. Yes, there are a lot of reasonable people on the other side of the line. But the leadership of those reasonable people can, depending on who you're talking about, be very, very unreasonable.
- fit2rule 12y ago
  >> rather violently impose Sharia As opposed to "rather violently impose capitalism" using killing machines in the sky? I think both 'sides' are as equally guilty of hatred as each other. I don't see the US Military-Industrial complex going out of its way to create peace, either - and no "but they are doing the bad thing" is not an appropriate justification. It takes as much effort to make peace as it does to make war. The difference is: the decision to do so.

huj123 12y ago

>I focused on lessons I had learned reading Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s book “On Killing,” Dave Grossman reportedly cites someone named S. L. A. Marshall who made the claim that only a small percentage of infantry ever fired their weapons, to support the idea that most people have some natural reluctance to kill in battle. I just want to point out that there is zero evidence for this claim: https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/12/28/shoot-to-kill/ https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/12/28/shoot-to-kill/

001sky 12y ago
This link is annecdotal gibberish.
- huj123 12y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall#Controversy_after_death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall#Controversy_af... People have looked for the evidence for his claim but can't find it. I've had people repeat the claim to me and cite Grossman or Marshall, but when I asked them to give a specific source for it they couldn't.
gohrt 12y ago
I have no idea what the evidence really says on this topic, but I suspect the claim is more likely to hold true in the past era of huge conscripted armies, than in the modern error of small highly-trained armies (and small guerilla armies, which don't have large numbers of conscripts).

woodman 12y ago

It is always an interesting experience when you recognize a little of your old self in somebody else, projection is really tempting. My head was in the same place almost ten years ago, after Fallujah - the end justifies the means. That is pretty much what the final two paragraphs say - yeah it is shitty, but the end justifies the means. This is a big step beyond "They hate us for our freedoms!", but still falls short of acknowledging the fact that a universally preferable end state isn't likely to be reached through violence or threats of violence. I wouldn't be surprised if the Captain Kudo eventually arrives at that conclusion.

transfire 12y ago

Imagine if we took the commandment "Thou shall not kill" to heart. Imagine if instead of killing those men on the roadside, it was the job to the soldiers to incapacitate them but take them alive. Is it possible? Of course it is possible. Perhaps harder, but possible. Here's the funny thing about killing. Somehow we continually find excuses for doing it. And the easiest excuse of all is that the other guy did it first. And so it goes round and round and never stops, forever escalating. And it won't stop, until we stop making excuses.

maxerickson 12y ago
Most people have not killed anyone. (This is probably more true for people alive today than it is for all humans that have ever lived)
- entrop13 12y ago
  It's true that as society progresses it off loads the killing work onto fewer people - executioners, soldiers, drones, etc. These killings are presumably justified by the will of the larger society otherwise these men wouldn't be paid to do this. So a smaller part of the population does an increasing porportion of the killing, but does the overall number of people killed decrease?
  - gus_massa 12y ago
    Currently, the drones are only supersized RC planes with weapons. Someone still has to pull the trigger.
  - krschultz 12y ago
    We are certainly living in the most peaceful period since the start of the 20th century. For example, look what was happening exactly 100 years ago today: http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/firstworldwar/index-1915.html http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/firstworldwar/index... When was the last time there was a battle with thousands of causalities anywhere on earth? War hasn't gone away, but it has definitely declined. Surely it would be better if it were gone completely, but things are moving in the right direction.

myrandomcomment 12y ago

This story is accurate to a fault.

mrottenkolber 12y ago

He ordered the killing of humans because of an assumption? What the shit. Just walk over there and ask the bloke what he's doing, or investigate after they left, or throw in a flash grenade and disable, shoot the legs not the heads. Anything but kill. What are they thinking? That their chances of survival are higher if they kill the enemy combatants before they can kill them? Is this really what it boils down to? This sort of behavior is not acceptable for a human being, heck its not acceptable for an animal being or a plant. Amazing how these "soldiers" are multiple magnitudes less civilized than any insect I can think of right now. What kind of demented questions is "can we shoot them?" anyways. Don't shoot unless shot upon. No you can never just shoot somebody. And that he has the balls to try to justify his mass murders after the fact is way beyond me. Edit: Deleting my sub comments because the discussion has gone completely off topic. Guys write your own top level comment and describe your view in one coherent piece. This piecemeal snowball-fight leads nowhere and nobody can be asked to get into a pitiful mud fight with 100 different people at the same time. I realize its my own mistake I should never have replied to any of them, especially the sub-thread about cats. Seriously guys?

BariumBlue 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem If you were in the situation above, what choice would you make? I'm legitimately curious, as I do not know many people that seem to think in moral absolutes.
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  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    > It's a bullshit problem created to justify stupid decisions. No. It's a toy problem designed to check for particular moral reactions in controlled conditions, for exploring the way human conscience works. It's not meant to be used as something you reduce real-world problems to. > I don't think in moral absolutes, hell I don't even consider myself an especially moral person. I justify my actions based on their merits and everything I've read, seen and heard about offensive warfare just seems like a really stupid idea. This is good, and that is very much in agreement with the trolley problem. Evaluating actions based on their merits, looking at principles and consequences alike. With rest of your comment, I agree. Iraq and Afganistan wars are stupid, and are an example of a collective failure to do the right thing. Just don't blame it on the trolley problem.

alextgordon 12y ago

There was a BBC doc about Sandhurst a few years ago where they showed how they train recruits to kill people. Basically it involves the delightfully low-tech method of having recruits charge towards a bag of grass cuttings and stabbing it in the gut with their bayonet while chanting "KILL!" One of the recruits was so freaked out by the whole thing that he quit soon afterwards. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITY6RT1nmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITY6RT1nmo (46:11) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITY6RT1nmo#t=2771 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITY6RT1nmo#t=2771

TeMPOraL 12y ago

A very good and honest article. Here's one gem I noticed, right at the end: > I don’t blame Presidents George W. Bush or Barack Obama for these wars. Our elected leaders, after all, are just following orders, no different from the Marine who asks if he can kill a man digging by the side of the road. Exactly. Some people seem to think that the President is the one with the most power, and that he can wield it arbitrarily. It's not true. You don't get to be a President of a country if you're not up to your eyeballs with connections and mutual favour-based relationships. Nobody is going to let you become President if you're the type of person that could seriously endanger the entrenched status quo based on your whims. Such people are filtered out earlier in the process. I suspect that, in a way, the office of President is one of the least real power in actual politics.

vinceguidry 12y ago
> I suspect that, in a way, the office of President is one of the least real power in actual politics. Being a part of a corporation has taught me an awful lot about what cooperation looks like in that kind of setting. At my job, we hired a new VP of e-commerce last year, I didn't really understand what that meant for me for months. At first I kind of saw him as a threat, after awhile I realized that having a tech-savvy executive at that level means that the CEO is wanting to grow our department's role in the company and that I should stick around because it could be a huge opportunity for me in a few years. The main thing about settings where there is a great deal of power flying around is that everything you do matters. You can't not make a decision, not making a decision is making a decision by not taking action. Everybody with power understands this and so learns how to read into these actions / inactions. Even if there's no real conflict, there's just not enough time to have copious amounts of discussion concerning intentions. You just figure it out and adjust your own goals and actions accordingly. When you have change at the top, the entire executive structure under the new leader adapts to suit the guy at the top's sensibilities. You don't really see the multitudes of little changes or how they add up unless you know what to look for and have been watching it over multiple leaders. These things filter out to the public mostly unnoticed, but can be quite dramatic in their effect. The biggest change with Obama is that he's an introvert and doesn't feel the need to pander to Congress. It's made a lot of waves and contributed majorly to the gridlock he's had to deal with in trying to push his agenda. Clinton was way more personable and much more pragmatic.

sebastianconcpt 12y ago

War is the institutionalization of selective sociopathy. This is quite illustrative: "For a while after I ordered the Marine to take that first shot, everything we did seemed acceptable. It revealed that killing could be banal. Each day would bring a new threat that needed to be eliminated"

littletimmy 12y ago

Life as an Afghani farmer: > Be farming your land in peace > Some Saudis blow up shit > US attacks Afghanistan > Try to keep out of trouble > See clear skies one night and want to irrigate land > Carry tools in a package, start digging > Get shot by highly trained killer cuz you are potentially a terrorist > WTF.gif

goodnights 12y ago

No, you didn't learn to kill. You were selected because of your trust in authority and lack of responsibility. Soldiers shouldn't ask for permission to shoot, especially not "snipers". The whole thing is just a charade to enable diffusion of responsibility. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility

Retra 12y ago
This is ridiculous. Soldiers aren't 'selected' for their trust in authority and lack of responsibility. And they are supposed to ask for permission to shoot. Especially snipers. I don't know where you got your information, but it wasn't from any experience with military. Hey, lets look at some US Marine Corps ROE documentation: "We must review all aspects of the fight, from weaponeering to the understanding of proportionate force. Training needs to be discussion and scenario based, thus forcing Marines to articulate their perceptions of and responses to the situations. “Wrong” answers should not be reprimanded but need to be explored further. This will take time, but we cannot allow wallflowers to escape participation. We must further empower subordinate unit leaders to continue the training at their levels." Virtually everything the US military teaches is contrary to what you've stated.
- goodnights 12y ago
  "I don't know where you got your information, but it wasn't from any experience with military." I spent 15 months of conscription in one of those "small team, heavy backpack, green beret"-type units. A sniper operates as part of a self-sustaining team to take down high value targets, often trough infiltration. It's self explanatory why a real sniper wouldn't ask for permission nor why no one would ever, despite what the movies tell you, tell them to "take the shot". Like in any high risk activity you are the one who is going to have to deal with the consequences of your actions and should therefor operate, as much as possible, at your own discretion. These guys aren't snipers, they are sharpshooters on guard duty. They might as well be outsourced to some guy with a playstation controller in the future. "Virtually everything the US military teaches is contrary to what you've stated." I doubt that. On the other hand the US military isn't exactly known for being competent.

swatow 12y ago

I find it very strange that people talk about soldiers as if they had some special moral responsibility for what happens during a war. Sure, they should be thinking about the implications and ethics of their actions, as we all should, and yet they also signed up to serve the nation, and to do what their nation thought necessary and just. Do people think that democratic nations should not have armies, and it is an ethical imperative for Americans, English and others to refuse to serve? If not, then it is all of our responsibilities, as voters and citizens, to ensure that only just wars are fought, and using ethical means. If not, then we are all responsible, not just the soldiers. Instead of asking "how could you kill someone" we should be asking "how can you live in a political system that causes people to be ordered to kill people, in which you have the ability to change this fact". I'm not a pacifist myself, I just don't see how in a democracy, the buck stops with the soldiers.

AdeptusAquinas 12y ago
Too true. This quote from the article reinforces that "Despite the rhetoric I internalized from the newspapers back home about why we were in Afghanistan, I ended up fighting for different reasons once I got on the ground — a mix of loyalty to my Marines, habit and the urge to survive." It's that rhetoric, created by almost everyone BUT soldiers, that sends them to war. And, especially in nationalistic countries where soldiering is viewed as some kind of heroism, no doubt leads to poor decisions once they arrive and face the reality of the situation.
- goodnights 12y ago
  "a mix of loyalty to my Marines, habit and the urge to survive" I think that is mostly a cliché too though. People stay in bad situations because uncertainty is even harder to deal with. The military generally go out of their way to make any other alternative "uncomfortable". If you're ready to sign away your freedom for glory, you should also be ready to do so for justice.
  - woodman 12y ago
    > I think that is mostly a cliché too though. It is not, not in the infantry at least, where brain wa... er - psychological conditioning is the strongest. For example: just days after my battalion got back from a fairly taxing deployment, the company commander informed us at morning formation that an artillery battalion was preparing to deploy to the area of operations we just got back from. It was part of some pilot program, where they give non-infantry Marines a couple of months of infantry training and then deploy them as if they were infantry... it was a horrible idea that would lead to a lot of dead Marines - and everybody at that formation knew it. The company commander asked for volunteers, a cadre that would lead in training for a month and then deploy with them into combat as fireteam, squad and platoon leaders. About a quarter of the company volunteered, myself included, which was more than the CO was willing to part with - so he limited the pool to Corporals. None of us wanted to go back, we knew that the odds were much worse throwing in with these guys, but we knew that they needed us. If that isn't loyalty, then I don't know what is. The Marine Corps put a lot of effort into building that sort of emotional connection, and it works.

copsarebastards 12y ago

I want to ask Timothy Kudo if there was anything else he knew about the men digging by the side of the road that indicated to him that they were planting a bomb. Because if not, he's just a murderer. By the description in that article, he did not have nearly enough information to decide that those men should die. America was founded on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty". Timothy Kudo was acting as judge and jury for these men and found them guilty with almost no evidence. There are numerous reasons why someone might be digging next to the road at night. It's only by chance that he happened to be right. He uses the phrase "good shoot, bad result", but if that is the standard he's using for "good shoot", I wonder how many of his kills were "bad shoot, good result". And it's ridiculous to isolate the responsibility for this kind of action to the soldiers. This is on everyone who accept this as okay--the voters who vote for warmongering politicians, the politicians who start wars and create decision policies that say a shot like this is okay, the officers who give the orders, and the troops on the ground that follow them.

Happydayz 12y ago
The concept of "innocent until proven guilty" is generally not used in warfare. This isn't an American thing; it's long been part of the customary / traditional rules governing lawful conflict. To provide an easy to understand example why; you would not have to have a legal proceeding to determine that someone wearing a grey uniform with an iron cross on it was in fact a German soldier during WWI. Visual recognition, even from a distance (of the kind that would cause serious cross-examination in a domestic court), is sufficient to make the call that he is an enemy combatant. Soldiers are absolutely empowered to act as judge, juror, and executioner, and are given significant latitude in determining who is and is not a lawful combatant. It is worth noting that this Marine officer was acting under not just US rules of engagement, but also NATO ROEs. Those ROEs would have been vetted by the lawyers of all the NATO members, who already abide by some of the most historically rigorous applications of the laws of war. As for whether Kudo knew anything else about the men digging on the side of the road. The answer is probably not. But, he also knew a lot about the cultural context in which they were operating, and leveraged that to make an informed judgment call about how to proceed. Regardless of whether you personally think that was moral or not, the fact is that it was legally permissible under internationally agreed upon laws of warfare.

known 12y ago

It's highly "subjective"

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