I'll put it simple for you civilians that think pissing on dead combatants is a good thing, as well as remind those who actually have served who also think pissing on the dead is a good thing..........
Whatever happened to following orders of those appointed over you? What about following the Geneva Conventions like they're supposed to? What about the Code of Conduct briefings that every military member receives annually?
We should just throw all those rules out and start acting like the Taliban?
Listen. The Geneva Conventions were put in place BECAUSE of crap like this going on during wartime. Any country that is a NATO country is expected to follow them.
To the best of my understanding, the Taliban and the Viet Cong never signed onto the conventions, which is why they ignore them.
The military I was part of from 1982 until 2002 (and yeah.......I saw conflict starting with Beruit in '83) followed the rules and provided humane treatment of prisoners, as well as didn't desecrate the dead.
Sad to see that so many people think the rules should be thrown out.
You served in the military that pretty much re-invented itself after Vietnam. It's a bit different from the military that preceded it. Instead of being designed primarily to beat any potential adversary into the ground in an all-out war until he surrenders unconditionally, this system was designed by TPTB at the time to primarily fight limited conflicts with limited (read political) objectives. It was assumed that Vietnam was the model for such conflicts, and accordingly, changes were made to reflect what were supposed to be lessons learned from that conflict. One of these was that (again supposedly) that conflict had been lost by loss of public support. All these "values and ethics" lectures, along with new ROE were conceived to make war-fighting more palatable to world opinion, and public opinion at home. Along with this came a migration to a smaller, technologically augmented professional force. Because the "hearts and minds" approach had met with some (limited) success in Vietnam, that was to be a preferred approach in future. The end product was a military force that was to be far more image-conscious and media-friendly, in keeping with the new "media-age". That, (one supposes) is what the civilians wanted, and they got it. Those were the values inculcated in you in training, you bought into them (as indeed you should have), and invested a career in them. Well and good.
As it turned out, most of this has worked out well enough in the conflicts we have faced since: they have been of the nature predicted, whether by choice, or limitations of the system. Of course, there have been a few embarrassments, mostly when the new way of doing things bumped up against the realities of ground combat, but these were resolved rather easily by scapegoating the relatively few personnel involved, complete with draconian punishment of the same; after all what was the sacrifice of a few for the good of the institution. Of course, we have not had to fight a war where the only acceptable outcome was total victory, but of course, THAT will never happen...we hope.
AT this point, I'm going to ask some rather heretical questions that either were not asked, or were shouted down during the "re-invention". The first of these, is whether or not the entire concept of "limited war with limited objectives" is sound to begin with. One could ask, after the failure in Vietnam, a failure not on the battlefield, but rather a failure of civilian policy, leadership and will, whether the fault lay with the military's approach to the conflict, or with the civilian-generated concept of limited war itself. It is fair to ask whether a military doctrine that accepts or even encourages that methodology as an alternative to total victory is sound, whether it is as effective as national policy as the alternative, and whether it does not generate more unnecessary conflicts and attendant casualties. In simple terms, is "limited war" the best and most efficient way to wield national power, or does the apparent ease of it only encourage more of the same?
The second,question, is whether the Geneva Conventions are worth the paper they are written on, considering that we and our allies are the only nations on the planet that actually observe them)? It is fair to ask whether the mostly illusory protection accorded to our own personnel by the Conventions is in fact worth giving up the demoralizing effect upon the enemy which could be achieved by waging war on him without restraint, specifically by targeting his cultural, religious, and societal fears, inhibitions and sensitivities. (We could, of course, expect the same from the enemy, but that, after all, is precisely what we get now anyway.)
I don't suppose I need mention the failures of nation-building, and the abuse of military personnel by in effect using them as diplomats and police, or that we ought to ask whether presenting the politicians with the opportunity was something that should have been questioned in the beginning.
Last but not least, (and I know this is the ultimate heresy of them all), does what has happened in the last fifty years really tell us that war is too important to be left to civilians, and that once war is declared, perhaps the conduct of it should be left entirely to the military chain of command?
Unpleasant and inconvenient questions, perhaps, but just maybe they should be asked, in light of a half-century of conflicts with many casualties and very mixed results, several absolute debacles of civilian leadership (by BOTH political parties), and yet another incident where lofty standards (however noble) collide with the realities of the battlefield.
