Quote:That's because the main recruits come from our economically depressed areas, namely the Bible belt.

As such, the military at times cannot decide if it wants to invoke the super human "Onwards Christian Soldiers" ideology or not.

Well, this is why I'm an advocate of conscription.
Here, everyone must do their military service, although the government has enacted a law which allows people to pay a sum and never go to the military at all.
Well, only people who have about 20000 $ of disposable income can avoid military service.
It's really a shame that the economically emancipated must go and die in Iraq and Afghanistan. And in a way, they are like mercenaries, for they are paid for their services as soldiers for a small amount of time.

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(June 4, 2012 at 8:58 pm)Moros Synackaon Wrote:

(June 4, 2012 at 8:51 pm)liam Wrote: That's because soldiers are inherently immoral. If they sign up for killing people, what stretch is there to bullying, discrimination and intolerance?

Bullying, intolerance are uncontrollable and detrimental to the chain of command. As far as the chain of command is concerned, you do not eat, sleep or drink without being authorized, explicitly or implicitly.

Now, how far this is really believed?

Strangely, I feel that I have more faith in the Turkish military keeping secular than the US military being professional.

Our military has a strong secular tradition, however this has sparked various sayings about the Turkish military being against Islam.
These are very untrue accusations, spread by ummah-sympathisants, islamists and liberals.
Such accusations are made to make our people lose their faith in our army.
Most and foremost of all, our army is a nationalist institution(therefore, it has to be secular). It's members, the officers, first and foremost of all, need to have loyalties to the people, state and the army before anything else.
The army upholds secularism to uphold nationalism, and upholds nationalism to uphold secularism. These are so well inter-related, that they may not exist in our country seperately.

Obviously, there are some who are deliberately sent into the military by religious sects to carve themselves a portion of the military, with which they wish to fuel a "green revolution", similar to Iran. The army repeatedly expels such people once they learn who they are.

Unfortunately, the media shows these as a sign that the army "is against religion". This is not true. I know many high ranking officers who have gone to the pilgrimage after retiring.

[quote='kılıç_mehmet' pid='294881' dateline='1338889237']

Quote:Unfortunately, the media shows these as a sign that the army "is against religion". This is not true.

Massive, massive shame.

(June 5, 2012 at 6:00 am)Norfolk And Chance Wrote: [quote='kılıç_mehmet' pid='294881' dateline='1338889237']

Quote:Unfortunately, the media shows these as a sign that the army "is against religion". This is not true.

Massive, massive shame.

Massive massive shame? Why is that?

(June 4, 2012 at 8:51 pm)liam Wrote: That's because soldiers are inherently immoral. If they sign up for killing people, what stretch is there to bullying, discrimination and intolerance?

The last thing the army wants is a thug with a machine gun.

You send in some psychopath who lets loose and kills all and sundry it causes all kinds of problems, especially when these forces turn from combat to police action.

Most soldiers I have known have been a long way from the mindless brutes you describe.

Adimtedly they have all been British soldiers, so they were the finest on the planet.

As an outspoken atheist who was in the US Army, I can say that I was slightly discriminated against but nothing to this degree. Just snide remarks about the Chapel tent burning me if I got too close and things of that nature. None of it really bothered me and I proudly sported "ATHEIST" underneath the religious section of my dogtags.

(June 5, 2012 at 4:51 am)ElDinero Wrote: Firstly, just because you didn't use the word 'cunt', doesn't make your comments less insulting. By throwing a blanket over any group of people and describing them all as immoral based on your stupid, narrow, black and white view, you're being every bit as insulting and rude.

On the actual point, if there were no military/department of defence/law enforcement in your country, where exactly do you think you'd be? Fucking dead, that's where. You can sit there and say 'well everyone should stop fighting/committing crimes and we wouldn't need those things' all you like, but what use is it? On a point like this, it's only useful to talk about what is and is not required in the real world, not some fanciful utopia. And like I say, without those things, the rights and privileges you hold dear would likely have been destroyed long, long ago.

I don't think there's any ignorance in what I said, I can break it down quite rationally:
-Killing is immoral
-The point of being a soldier is to kill people in war
-Ergo, being a soldier is immoral

It's a blanket term that applies to 'blanket' behaviour; killing.
Yes, everyone should stop fighting and committing crimes, that's the endgoal of these institutions but no good comes about through control by violence. To say that military violence is righteous as it would protect you from other people's violence is completely redundant, murdering masses of people can't be right.
Let's see, if there were no departments of defence in the world? I am pretty sure I wouldn't be dead, there need be no wars if no country had an army, keeping to oneself is all that is required. If there was no British ministry of defence then sure, we might be attacked and people would die but I'd abhor that use of military force, because killing is wrong.
You're basically stating that killing is right because if not then I'd be killed, but this rests on the assumption that me being killed is wrong, so what you're saying is that it's ok to kill to stop killing, which seems only to support the argument that killing is wrong.
Claiming that we can only concentrate on the way things are is ignorant, you shouldn't resign yourself to settling for a world of wars, that's basically saying 'wars are bad but we do it so you'll just have to get over it'. That's ridiculous, just because I think we should move towards a conflictless utopia, it doesn't mean that I'm being unreasonable.
If nobody had those things then the rights and freedoms I hold dear would be given to everyone, nobody would be in the army and thus there would be no state-sponsored murders, I don't get how that is wrong?

What about combat engineers, cooks, etc? They're soldiers too.

What about the majority of soldiers who miss their target? They have committed no murder -- can they be held accountable for an act they did not commit?

What about disaster relief, where the military is used to deploy supplies and assist?

I think your system ignores every subtlety of the military.

They're more than just thugs and guns -- they're a distinguished institution with laws, regulations and a history of ejecting 'unsuitable' candidates (to the point of abuse). But when you look even at that last piece, you see they'd rather have better quality whenever they can get it.

They have support networks so extensive, the very technological developments they've offered have driven our economies.

They contribute more than murder, magnitudes more. And you should recognize that and not paint them all with the criminal brush of the very few.

Only a Sith thinks in absolutes.


My brother has never even shot at anyone, he has been in service for four years now. A military (in theory) is primarily for defense. Your kind of thinking is what led to the Vietnam War veterans being ostracized upon their return.

(June 5, 2012 at 1:43 pm)Annik Wrote: My brother has never even shot at anyone, he has been in service for four years now. A military (in theory) is primarily for defense. Your kind of thinking is what led to the Vietnam War veterans being ostracized upon their return.

Unfortunately, the protection of war criminals like Calley served only to amplify that. "Baby killers" became a common epithet after My Lai.

(June 5, 2012 at 2:01 pm)Moros Synackaon Wrote:

(June 5, 2012 at 1:43 pm)Annik Wrote: My brother has never even shot at anyone, he has been in service for four years now. A military (in theory) is primarily for defense. Your kind of thinking is what led to the Vietnam War veterans being ostracized upon their return.

Unfortunately, the protection of war criminals like Calley served only to amplify that. "Baby killers" became a common epithet after My Lai.

I often wonder if that was a more calculated choice than how it looks at first glace. As if it was some sick campaign to send moral plummeting. I could be over-thinking it, of course.