The crucified Canadian Sergeant

[martin schulz]

Originally posted by Scott Rosen:
I am married (to a woman) and have two daughters (one a teen-ager), and I can assure you that an all female army would NOT be easier to control. They may not be as prone to commit rape (but who knows for sure), but they sure as hell don't take orders very well.

No - this was not meant to be a funny try at the "battle of sexes". I meant this seriously. and I certainly wouldn't like to have it responded to like: "...then every battle would start at 11am, because those women-soldiers couldn't get out of bed" or "women wouldn't make good soldiers because the uniform will eventually get stained"

No, this was a serious posting of mine and it should be possible for everyone to set those soap-opera-like socially-learned prejudices aside fo an earnest contribution.

[ACB]

Martin - this is serious. I really do not think that women in such circumstances would behave better than men. The history of Europe from the Thirty Years War onwards is littered with accounts of horrors carried out in warfare by female "camp followers". The Ancient Greeks had accounts of atrocities carried out by Maenads - women attending drunken ceremonies of Bacchus.

[Scott Rosen]

Serious?

I agree with Andrew.

It is an example of blind stereotyping to make a blanket statement such as "women would be better soldiers than men." I think it is equally wrong to make the prejudicial statement that women would behave differently or better than men. A quick perusal of history will uncover many examples of women engaging in barbaric and cruel behavior. Where women share power equally with men, women behave much the same as men. I see it in the business and legal worlds.

It is only in fairy tales and romantic fantasies that women have a nature that is kinder and gentler than men.

[martin schulz]

Originally posted by Scott Rosen:
It is only in fairy tales and romantic fantasies that women have a nature that is kinder and gentler than men.

What I am trying to discuss here is not the stereotype idea of men being more brutal than women. And I am not trying to idealize the female gender. Throughout history we have always thought it best to have the male part of society do the physical jobs (except of course minor exceptions in history). But because of the different physical aspects in men and women, which definetely have an effect on our behaviour, women might be better suited for warfare than men.

Not because they are more gentler or kinder (which I think is a stereotype), but because due to their genetic-code they might create different forms of behaviour in groups, might act different when under pressure, or might even be less scrupulous in battle.

just a thought...

[Garrett Lowell]

I must say that I didn't know what to expect when I opened the link to this thread. The European and North American view points and interplay have been quite interesting, and I hope you all continue your conversation.

[Scott Rosen]

Marin,

I do think it would be very hard to find an "ideal" type of warrior. That's because the nature of warfare is complicated and diverse. The qualities that make a good infantryman are not the same qualities that necessarily make a good submariner.

One thing that has changed radically is that now it is an advantage to be shorter in stature rather than larger. In the days of hand-to-hand, large size was a strong advantage. (Remember David and Goliath?) That is no longer true. However, physical strength and stamina are still important, even though tall size is not.

[martin schulz]

Thats what I have been observing as well Scott - and that not only with the U-Boot crews.

A larger statue has also been used as visual threat for the enemy. The German Kaiser "Friedrich der Große" (Frederick II the great) had a special troup called the "langen Kerls" ( the long fellows) who surpassed the average soldier in height (back then 6ft). Fitted with the then typical headwear (which was also designed to "enlarge" the soldier) they must have been an impressive sight and formed the myth of the perfect prussian soldier.

[Bill Perkins]

I'm going back to the moral justification for bombing strategic ports in WW2 mentioned by Eric .There seemed to be silent agreement that this was morally justified , even tho this ment many civilian deaths . I think in part this was because that was the best they could do with the existing technology .

It's interesting how the moral equation is altered as the weapons and intelligence become more accurate .The situation on the ground can now be photographed from space and a cruise missile can be delivered to a specific address , so civilian casualties are less easily justified . Also if one has perfect intelligence and perfect accuracy is that then assassination ? That's the word some are using for the killing of an Al Qieda leader by a drone as he crossed the desert by car with three or four others . If one accepts this definition , then how many people have to be killed at the same time for an action not to be considered an assassination , but rather a legitimate action against an enemy force ?

[Alan D. Hyde]

Wellington's comment to the contrary, I think that in modern war, the killing of an enemy leader is not "assassination," but rather the effective and morally acceptable pinpointing of force.

Alan

[ACB]

Thank you, Bill, for a very astute and, to me, novel, observation.

There has been a long running discussion amongst certain British historians about whether AH should have been assassinated. Apparently someone did offer to do the job, in 1938, but was turned down. But aside from this, in dealing with terrorists, there may be a sound case for assasination, once one accepts that terrorism is a matter for the armed forces, not the police.

Like may people on this forum, I knew little of Frederick the Great until I picked a biography off an airport bookshelf. I was filled with admiration for him - as a man of his time - and a sense of guilt because there really is little doubt that, but for him, and his nation, the "French and Indian War", or the Seven Years' War, would have gone very differently, and he did get a raw deal from Britain, as our only ally. We left him unsupported far too often. Not that we had anything to do with the Silesian business. That was all his own doing.

[Scott Rosen]

Alan,

I agree. There's one catch, though. When you are fighting against a democratic country, killing the leader should not make much difference in the outcome of the conflict. That's because the leaders are carrying out the will of the people. When one leader is killed, another will take its place.

Totalitarian regeims are different. There, the people follow the leader's will. If you kill the leader, you may very well decide the conflict.

[Ian McColgin]

As Xenophon's March of the 10,000 showed.

But there are huge problems. We should not be like them. We should be better. That's why we renounced assassination and first strike nukes.

The biggest problem with guerilla fighters is that they so often become the most dangerous criminals. Part of the idea of soldiers, uniforms and all that, is to make the violence of war different from real life, not a natural part of it. Many of the regiems that came to power through guerilla activity either became criminal regiems themselves or had to kill off their first supporters or both.

Same with national policy. If we violate our basic principles in the act of fighting, if we murder indiscriminatly on an international level, if we diminish our own liberties, then the terrorists will have won by reducing us to their level.

We've people, mainly outside the military like Sec. Abrams, but a few in the military, who seem to believe that military measures can be carried out in a sanitary fashion. Idiots. Violence is inherantly messy. The innocent inevitably suffer.

Besides some pretensions to decency which do no harm, the main reason for not waging war by simply bombing all the civilians is that it's a huge waste of ordinance that does little to reduce the fighting ability of the other side and may well just get the population royally angered. Bombing Coventry did not cause Britian to fall. Nor did firebombing Dresden diminish German will.

Our national leaders who actual served and led in combat, both in the Congress and the one in the Cabinet, know this. Those who did not appear the more enthused about 'surgical strikes.'

Frankly, it takes more courage to be the good guy. Hope we find a national leadership with that courage.

[Alan D. Hyde]

I agree with the tenor of your comments, Ian.

The means are the ends in the making. We cannot preserve our principles by means of acts contrary to them.

However, I would think it would have been much more morally justifiable to put a bullet into Adolph Hitler's head, than it would be to do the same to a reluctant German youth on the front line, caught up in the maelstrom of war, and serving only because he saw no other workable option.

If you're driving a Thunderbolt, you pull the trigger on this kid because you know he may kill Americans if you don't.

But you won't feel good about it. You'll just be glad you did your job and got back home. On the other hand, you might feel good about putting some 50 cal. rounds into Adolph.

Alan

[ 12-18-2002, 04:12 PM: Message edited by: Alan D. Hyde ]

[ACB]

I agree with Ian's and Alan's posts. But we seem to be very slow in applying these principles. For some reason which doubtless seems less bizarre to its bureaucratic originator than it does to me, the British Foreign Office has just issued a travel advisory on....Iraq.

I quote:

"UK nationals should beware of indiscriminate attacks on public places, including tourist sites."

One is, to put it mildly, gobsmacked!

This seems to be an announcement that we, and presumably our allies, are proposing "indiscriminate attacks on public places, including tourist sites". This, some 67 years after our indiscriminate attack on a tourist site called Dresden.

[Scott Rosen]

I'm a little confused by some of the comments. In times of war, a country's leader is also the commander in chief of the military. Why would it be immoral to kill the enemy's commander in times of war?

Ian, I agree with your sentiment, but I'm not sure how it plays out in today's situation. If it turns out that Iraq has WMD, and we get undisputed evidence that they plan to use them on us, would it be better to invade Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops and civilians, or would it be better to find a way to eliminate the leadership and make the change from the top down?

Say there's a leader, living comfortably and safely in his bunker, a thousand miles from the front, in complete control of his country's military force, and ordering them to wage war on us. Wouldn't he be a fair target?

[Ian McColgin]

Nothing is obvious here. But that's not new. My father was ostracised from the family (briefly) for joining the Army Air Corps before WWII started. But though to him war with Japan and Germany was obviously inevitable, he does not believe we should have gone preemptive, even with Britian's invitation. That's largly because the nation would not have really joined in.

We're acting now like we did after Pearl Harbor but there are profound differences - the terrorists who did the September 11 atrocity remain at large and have nothing (proven) to do with the rather dispicable dictator whose nation we are preparing to punish more severely than we've been doing for the past decade.

Far as I can tell, since we've been unable to close with the enemy who hurt us, we've chosen a different enemy who may or may not have the ability to hurt us in the future.

Our leaders do not appear to even know what ball is in play, much less have their eyes on it.

[ACB]

Well, here in Britain MI6 have just held a briefing session for journalists in which they made it pretty clear that they are now sure that

1. Al-Quaeda cells are being established in Britain

2. They consider the "war on terror" will be a very long haul (their words) lasting six to ten years, during which time the terrorists (not necessarily just al-Quaeda) will become very much more skilled, and will use chemical and biological agents and will attempt to use nuclear weapons.

3. The unstated implication of the briefing (and this is where this becomes pertinent to this thread) is that in these circumstances intervention to prevent access to such weapons (eg in Iraq) is justified.

Anyway, that's what our Government seems to be saying to us.

[Scott Rosen]

Originally posted by Ian McColgin:
But though to him war with Japan and Germany was obviously inevitable, he does not believe we should have gone preemptive, even with Britian's invitation.

Maybe that's because we weren't prepared and didn't have the military capability to launch any kind of preemptive war in 1939 or 1941. Today we take it for granted that we can project our military power anywhere in the world, at a moment's notice, with overwhelming effectiveness. That wasn't the case 60 years ago.

[ishmael]

Andrew,

I saw some British tabloid headlines several days ago to the effect that Osama Bin Laden had acquired twenty tactical (so called backpack) nukes, along with the ex-Soviet technicians to keep them "tuned", back in 1998. He supposedly bought/hired them from the Russian Mob, who acquired them after the downfall of the USSR. Any mention of that in the intelligence briefing?

This sort of story has been bubbling, just under the surface, since 9/11. Not knowing British publishing, perhaps the newspaper was equivilent to our less reputable (not to say absurd) tabloids?

Has anyone read anything substantive regarding missing Soviet nukes?

[ 12-18-2002, 06:05 PM: Message edited by: ishmael ]

[ACB]

Jack, the British tabloids, in order of absurdity:

The Daily Sport. Far worse than anything you have. Does not have a discernible political slant. Probably because they cannot spell long words like "Conservative" or "New Labour".

The Sun. The Dirty Digger's cheapo organ. Rubbish, usually supports Blair at the moment, but supported Thatcher in those days. Most famouse headline, "Freddie Starr ate my hamster!"
Second most famous (and most repulsive) headline
"Gotcha!" (over a photo of the sinking Argentine warship "General Belgrano")

The Star. Same as the Sun, but not owned by Murdoch (yet).

The Daily Mirror. Officially left wing, long term supporter of Labour. Has been known to have articles with more than 100 words in, sometimes on grown up subjects.

The Daily Mail. Conservative, mainly read by women. Orchestrated a recent campaign against Cherie Blair.

And now the broadsheet papers, for people who can do joined up writing:

The Times. Owned by the Dirty Digger and need we say more? Alas.

The Telegraph. Right wing; owned by Conrad Black.

The Guardian (known as the Grauniad, due to its phenomenal frequency of misprints). Intellectual left.

The Independent. Somewhere in the soggy centre of the above three.

The Financial Times. At last, a newspaper....

I would not take anything in the Star or the Sun at all seriously. The Mirror occasionally prints facts, but not often enough to be relied on.

[martin schulz]

Originally posted by ACB:
There has been a long running discussion amongst certain British historians about whether AH should have been assassinated. Apparently someone did offer to do the job, in 1938, but was turned down.

As for those who tried to assasinat AH in Juli 1944, mainly higher military ranks (Graf v. Stauffenberg, Mertz v. Quirnheim, v. Tresckow) are not undisputed in Germany. Although the former conservative government tried to turn them into "gleaming white knights of freedom" there are some other aspects to consider. First those Army-Officers didn't question the decisions made by Hitler to ignore the Versailles-contract and his decisions to invade Poland, get Austria back in the Reich, or to start the invasion of france. I fact as professionals they were delighted when AH came into power. It was he who started building an Army again and he did his best to use every citation of famous prussian soldier-images.
Second some of them even thought like AH concerning his plan to eliminate the Jews. The constitutive element in the Nazi-society was the dual world-view with the confrontation of hard working, "clean", "value" creating German and the parasite-like, destructive-acting jew.

The only thing, which drove them to try to assasinate AH was their frustration as professional-soldier to see him making grave mistakes over and over again in the ongoing war. They already saw that with AH Germany will eventually falter and their way of living, their values will come down with Germany's downfall.

The question is, and I would like to bring this up in the discussion about the present situation, how good is the single assasination of a dictator when the circumstances which made his dictatorship possible are not altered. The whole structure, the values and self-conception of Germany would not have been fundamentally altered by the assasination of AH. A military junta would probably have been installed - not as scrupulous but basically with the same ideas.

As for Iraq. I would wish that there was an ongoing discussion as to what to do after SH is disposed. What of the people who lived like this for long periodes of time (you can't just say: "Hey now you are an democracy"). What about the whole structure of the government? Not only of higher officials, but also of all those minor officials, the military, the court-officials...
As reminder from German history it is common knowledge that former feudal-officials from Kaiser Wilhelm II still in office during the Weimar Republic with their Anti-Democracy thinking made Hitler possible.

[ACB]

Martin, I think you are right; to assasinate a dictator would probably lead to those around him keeping power and cracking down harder than ever on dissent. The history of sucessful assasinations of tyrants tends to support that.

Perhaps the real "problem" in the history of Germany in the early twentieth century lies with Bismarck, after all? I was taught at school that his system of alliances, safe in itself, caused the confrontation which led to WW1 when it fell into the hands of people who did not have his genius, but I am thinking here of the "stillborn democracy" of Imperial Germany, where Bismarck bought off the factions which might have created a genuine democracy - the Churches, the labour movement, and so on, one by one.

Certainly, the example of the Weimar Republic should make us think very hard about how easy it might be to change a nation's ideas about itself.

Anyone who imagines that "regime change" in a country as large and as complex as Iraq, is a simple matter, as it might be in a banana republic, should be very cautious. Few living Iraqis can remember anything except Saddam Hussein. Big Brother has been watching them for a long time, and they talk Newspeak and think Doublethink.

Next door to Iraq, we, (the British and the Americans), toppled Mossadeq and re-installed the Shah. Much good that did us....

[Scott Rosen]

Interestingly, Iraq is one of the most Westernized of the Arab countries, and the least hostile to American culture. Radical Islam does not appear to be in control of Iraq. That suggests to me that it would be easier to install some kind of Western-style government in Iraq than in, say, Saudi Arabia.

I've read several articles about the Bush administration's efforts to work with Iraqi defectors and political opposition.

I don't think there's a "cookie-cutter" solution for regime change. Each situation is different and presents new and infinite variables. If the US and its allies bring about a regime change, I hope we do more than just trade a friendly dictator for an unfriendly one. I, for one, wouldn't have the foggiest idea of how to rebuild Iraq's political system.

[ 12-19-2002, 08:08 AM: Message edited by: Scott Rosen ]

[John Gearing]

My own take on Germany is that the rise of Nazi-ism began back in the 19th century as the multitude of small "german" states combined to form "Germany". "Germany" is a fairly recent invention. Used to be that Prussia was one country, Bavaria another, etc. As "Germany" began to form, the people in these coalescing countries struggled to come to grips with defining what a "german" was. From this came the concept of the "volk" and the idea that germans are a race of people. All of which set the stage for AH. There is a fine book on this subject which traces the path of this development quite nicely...but of course the name of that tome is not close at hand nor at neuron just at the moment.

[Alan D. Hyde]

To add to John's point, it is my understanding that "Deutchland uber alles" originally was meant to refer to allegiance to united Germany as being more important than was the older loyalty to its constituent states.

Kind of their equivalent of Daniel Webster's toast: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseperable."

Of course, later events have given it more sinister connations...

Alan