Some military troops are posed some tough ethical questions in a poll. Check out the story Here.
Do these numbers (if they are accurate) scare anyone? What kind of explanation can we come up with to understand why such a number of marines would (for example) not report a fellow marine for killing a non-combatant??
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I do think these statistics, if accurate, are scary. If soldiers reach the point where the chances of being reported for such incidents are little to none, then control has been lost and our soldiers have become more like heartless mercaneries. The military justice system places restraints during war to prevent unnecessary casualties and promote a better peace for the end of the war. Once fear of reprisal from the justice system has been removed, that check on our fighting power has been removed. This is very easily explainable, however. As the article said, once over there, the soldiers fight for their buddies, not the USA. Countless interviews with soldiers from WWII and Vietnam confirm this. Soldiers being shot at don't think about their country, but the guy next to them. It's like the old saying, "take care of the alligator closest to the boat". In combat, soldiers think of the most immediate concern--fighting so their buddy survives. With that kind of mindset, and all the teamwork drilled into their heads during basic and routine training, it is no wonder that soldiers do not want to turn each other in. THe fact that the Marines are 15% less likely to report such incidents than the army reinforces this fact. It is a pretty well accepted fact that the Marines are a closer knit community than the other services. This closeness inhibits soldiers turning in their buddy and breaking down that trust.
I think another interesting point of the article is that reporting the wrongful death of a civilian roughly equaled that of stealing or harming property. To a lot of marines, fighting for their buddies, the enemy is little more than property, as shown by the statistics in reporting errors. Therefore, the soldiers are using the enemy in a way similar to how one uses a property, as a mere means. Using the Kantian ethical system, one shouldn’t use another as a mere means. Therefore, failing to report the wrongful death of a civilian is unethical.
The Aristotelian ethical system could possibly enforce letting the deaths go unreported. Fighting for their buddies and protecting their buddies is the “good” for those fighting in Iraq. The virtue of fighting well is keeping their buddies safe. Equally, the virtue of the happiness derived from protecting their friends (and even families/country by decreasing frequency of terrorist acts) is their eudemonia. By killing or tolerating the killing of a civilian, the soldier is helping his buddy and realizing his ultimate good.
So, two different philosophers…maybe two different ways of viewing the high number of toleration?
I believe that the numbers are a scary thing. However, who am I to criticize their desire to protect their friends rather than stand up for morals. Most people would say that the moral thing is always the action that people should do, but would everyone turn around and actually choose the high road when their buddy is at risk? Maybe the best way to appeal to these Marines is to make everything about their buddies. Sure, they may only care about the man standing next to them, but what if their commanders emphasized that in killing innocent civilians they wer endangering their friends and fellow Marines. It might just be semantics, but if that is what can appeal to the guys in the trenches, then perhaps those type of practical considerations for morality should be the primary emphasis in ethics training. If you are responsible for killing civilians, then you endanger your friends by promoting more attacks.
The majority of this study only confirms what we knew for a long time, as marcus said, "Soldiers being shot at don't think about their country, but the guy next to them." However, I thought it was very interesting that overall better leadership translated into less crimes committed, less mental health concerns for returning troops, and a much better unit. This only emphasizes the importance of establishing ethical leadership. If that attitude can be instilled into the senior NCOs and officers then a lot of the problems, i would venture to guess, would not be as big an issue. True, loyalty would probably remain to the man next to you, but there would be a huge pull in knowing that your leadership personally stands for what is right.
It is so easy to critisize others from an outside point of view. The Marines in the Middle East are risking their lives everyday for our country. When people are shooting at you and your friends, there is no way that the most ethical decisions will always be made. I would like to see these critics over there with a gun in their hand and see if they always made the best ethical choices.
I am not excusing what those Marines did. It is definitely wrong to kill innocent civilians and not report it. But we have to understand the situation they are in. We can't just call them bad and immoral people for these actions. They are trying to protect themselves and their buddies and, as American public shows, that is all they have and trust. The numbers do not surprise me at all.
This article shows the importance of having strong leadership in the officer core. One of an officer's most important duties involves making the ethically right decisions. The enlisted troops are there to fight and we would hope that they are ethically sound; however it cannot always be expected. The officer is there to ensure that the morally correct decisions are being made. It is tough to blame the ground soldiers for morally bad decisions because the situation is so extreme. The situation sounds very similar to what my dad told me about his Vietnam experience in the army. The situation created more of an allegiance to each other and less to the cause. The blame must be placed on the leadership in this situation because it is up to them to make the morally correct decisions. Leadership must make certain that even in extreme situations, the moral integrity of the United States Military is upheld.
It's easy to stand back and say this is wrong when you're safe and sound here at home. In war, things people said they'd do suddently fly out the window and are replaced by the actions and decisions that are needed to stay alive. Marines are taught from day one that they are all brothers. While it may not be right, and we can say we could, or should, or would do something all day long, when it really comes down to it, the marines are simply keeping the faith with their brothers, and trying to stay alive. How is this morally questionable? In some circumstances, I dont think it is.
These are scary statistics. Do the words “My Lai” echo in anyone’s mind? In combat, and in this “game” of war, the soldiers are in a brotherhood where each man standing beside them is a $300,000 military weapon system, designed, trained, and delivered by Uncle Sam himself. Being forced each day to watch this brother next to you fall to a five cent booby trap or a bomb that looks like a coke can which was set by an enemy who doesn’t play by the rules must be frustrating to no end. To these soldiers, this is an enemy without a face or name that serves no purpose in this world except to kill them. They are taking away their brothers in arm, their family, is it any surprise that they feel no remorse in doing the same? I’m not saying it is right for them to act and believe this way, and our ideals and principles should not change because we are in combat. These ideas and principles “give” us the right to aggress against a foreign country with white gloves on our hands and “World Police” stamped patriotically across our backs. These ideas cannot be compromised; there can be no excuse for losing control of our actions. It is just understandable how the bond that these soldiers share might sometimes contradict those ideals.
This article is surely disturbing but as Pike put it, "people are beginning to realize that this is war." The numbers are incredibly disturbing considering the high levels of professionalism with which we train our forces and ingrain into them for fighting in combat. However, I cannot doubt the psychological toll of asymmetric warfare on the minds of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Back home, successes are rarely publicized while killings and troop misbehavior are rampantly written. I believe troop suspicion of the local populations is more than expected, but issues such as stealing represent a breakdown of military discipline. These problems, as the article states, puts more pressure on proactive leadership from the NCOs and officers in the AOR.
This to me is exactly why our officers should be educated in ethics, our profession is based on a group of people, who although trained and better equipped than other militaries has lost sight of what the profession of arms is about. Even at the Academy with the "elite" I have heard countless times about how the motivation for coming here was to kill people. We have a business of defense and part of keeping that business running is advertising to individuals with low regard for life. Please don't misunderstand and think that I am trying to say that the military consists of dishonorable baby killers,because I am not. However, we do appeal to them and with the atrocities of war it can influence others to lower their actions to ideaologies usually considered wrong.
The other question is how does this compare to civillians?
I dont think they are scary. It is a shame that many people dont take classes like social psychology or basic psych. Many times, people's behavior is determined or molded by their situation. So many people are quick to judge someone based on what they did in one instance, instead of how they are all of the time.
Take this for example:
If they had taken a video of you when you were driving down I-25 tailgating people and speeding, all while yelling at the other drivers on the road, they may conclude that you are a horrible person. Instead, it may have been that your friend has just been admitted to the hospital due to a terrible injury, and you want to get to them for comfort. Be careful not to make the fundamental attribution error.
These numbers are discomforting, but they don't really surprise me. Those guys fight shoulder to shoulder over there and rely on eachother to survive. But, they need to remember that their duty is to their country and the Constitution. Isn't that why most people join the military? To fight and possibly die for this country and this way of life? By harming innocent civilians or stealing we are becoming like the enemy. That's the reason we began fighting in the first place; because they attacked innocent civilians. We are no better than they are if we do the same things to them.
These statisitics are very scary but are not very surprising. We and countless other people can never hope to know what the soldiers are going through over there. Of course they are fighting for each other when they are over there because it is all that they have. However, they have to remember why they are fighting and what they fight for. Whether or not they are out there with each other, they are still citizens of the US and members of our armed forces that swore to uphold the constitution. They are also subject to the UCMJ and even though they are in combat need to be more conscious of some of their actions.
The statistics presented in the article are not very suprising. I dont think that it would be very plausible to expect these soldiers to completely turn everyone in for everything they do. Though this sounds bad, i think its the nature of the beast. This is war and their whole reason for fighting is to kill people and protect their buddies. This is tough because we wouldnt want them killing innocents or destroying property, but thats what theyre trained to do: kill and destroy stuff. Trust goes a long way with soldiers and they will probably make mistakes. Their buddies will let that happen, but i think that if it were too bad they would report it to someone.
not that the Academy is anything like war, but it sounds to me like these soldiers are becoming cynical about what they're doing, and as a result, are defying the system, namely reporting things like theft, even to the point of not reporting wrongful killings...honestly, i can't say i blame them...if they can't believe that what they're fighting for is the right thing, or that our country is there for the right reasons, they have to have something to fight for, and why not make it the guy standing next to you? it makes sense to me, and it's not surprising at all
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