Wikileaks and Iraq: Take 2, What's in a Number?

[Guest Raidne]

Not sure why you're upset - sorry if I conveyed contempt. Also I didn't know you had a submarine in mind in the middle of a current battle.

Well, call me nuts, but there aren't Japanese sailors in the middle of a current battle either. Why is it that references to Germans and Japanese are not obvious indicators of WWII examples? That's the second time.

And yeah, for me, "ridiculous" conveys contempt. No damage done though.

Just to me it is a remarkably obvious example. No servicemember I know of would gun down helpless sailors in the middle of the ocean.

Wouk said many of the events in the books are based on events which actually occurred, and that one is sort of a memorable battle moment, so I'd have to guess there was a source for it.

Whether you fire or not depends on your unit's ROE for the area you're in, but all other things being equal, absolutely you shoot him.

Hard to do though - the kind of thing you can often only bring yourself to do so the people next to you don't get shot.

In the actual example, the solider fired under order but shot wide intentionally. He fired back and missed, also.

[Shryke]

WTF? "They're poor and they don't know better" isn't elitist, but "people should discern between moral and immoral decisions" is?

I never said "they're poor and they don't know better". Again, this is your projection.

I said they don't make the decision based on moral philosophy. They make it based on immediate needs. "I need a job. The recruiter here has laid out why military is good job. I'm going to join the military!"

[Mack Kilimaro]

You know he could just as easily be talking about the police right? Another armed force that secures your rights.

Wow. Is this a Canada thing? I don't really know that many Americans who are that optimistic about the police.

On an abstract level, I would say that law enforcement is a part of what keeps us from the Hobbesian state of nature. There is a vague deterrent effect in there somewhere. On the other hand, any given police officer could, under the broad authority granted, at any given moment, do a lot more to deprive you of your rights than protect your rights. Whether or not you are doing anything illegal is immaterial; only what the cop thinks you are doing matters. I don't think we have the correct balance for this in modern society.

[Chris G]

In a prior thread someone linked to a book that was given to American and British troops serving in the Middle East during and after WWII, including a specific entry on Iraq. This book outlines, in some detail, the cultural and religious customs of the country and what troops should do to avoid giving offence to the civilian population. I also remember that there was some disbelief on the board that similar cultural training was not given to American troops (British troops received some minor training) before the 2003 invasion. Hell, even the same book from 1943 or whenever it was would have been better than nothing.

The failures in common sense with regards to the invasion and the occupation are more startling than anything else. If I'm going on holiday to a foreign country I'd sit down and read up on the customs of the area beforehand. If I was going to go in and engaged in pitched gun battles with murderous insurgents and win over the civilian population, I'd think this would be an even higher priority.

That would be the ideal scenario. Before you ship out, training on the culture and customs of the local population. I'm sure there was a little bit, but that was not a priority. You also need to remember that a large portion of the soldiers were reservists and National Guard. They weren't professional soldiers, they were civilians who played soldier on the weekends. I'm sure most of them never thought in a million years that they would be forced into active duty combat. So in reality it was a perfect storm of bad. Bad planning, bad training, just bad. I still believe that this information could have been disseminated without a dump of documents. All it does in confirm what we already thought.