Armchair criticisms of military decisions

While this was inspired by some other threads, this isn't directed at anyone in particular.

This isn't an IJBM as much as a question as to why this occurs: People who have no interest, or like of the military, who don't do research who suddenly make sweeping claims about the nature of the military, the viability of its methods, and the ethics of what the military does.

I'm not saying a civilian is always wrong or along those lines, but I'm curious why people who don't do the research feel compelled to make these claims.

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

I'd say the same reason people in general make sweeping claims. People like to have an opinion. Forming an opinion has become a reflex, of sorts. People will form vehement opinions on things without any research or info. Hell, I'm guilty of this a bit, myself.

Because it is held to be a self-evident truth that war is bad.

Anime geemu wo shinasai!

Grains got the bulk of it.

Moreover, there are a lot of "necessities" of war, and if you're in support of war, you can't really be opposed to these necessities. Opposing war on a macro scale is the only ethically consistent position.

edited 3rd Jan '11 5:51:06 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

Except you're ignoring the point of my thread entirely.

My point is poorly-researched criticisms of the military, not of war, which is two separate things.

edited 3rd Jan '11 5:52:35 PM by saladofstones

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

It's basically what others have said, armchair criticisms of virtually anything. We all do it to a degree.

Monday Morning Quarterbacking by some guy who may or may not have played football for a brief stint in junior high is irritating to me.

It's one thing to call a play or tactic bad at the moment it goes down, it's a whole different thing to sit back hours, days, years later and say that "that was a terible play" or "that was a stupid stategic decision".

Well, duh. We have the benefit of hindsight now, and it's easy to look into a situation externally and think we know all the facts that went behind the decisions that were made. We can't know all the facts.

EEEEEDIT: Ninja'd like hell already...?

edited 3rd Jan '11 5:55:24 PM by pvtnum11

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

Military and war are two peas in a pod.

edited 3rd Jan '11 5:58:26 PM by Grain

Anime geemu wo shinasai!

I'm inclined to say the same thing that makes people do Monday Morning Quarterback. That said, I generally lean the other way and say that generals are too soft hearted on the enemy.

Fight smart, not fair.

Well, if you're a pacifist, you argue against the point of the military in the first place. I'll concede that civilian arguments against what the military are doing may be sort of a No Perfect Solution fallacy-after all, yeah, we shouldn't be in X doing Y in the first place, but the reality is that we ARE and BECAUSE we are, we have to do Z.

Still, the "You're not in the military, you don't know!" rebuttal is kind of like a "Let's see YOU do better!" response. It's not logically valid.

Hm, I guess if the objectives of others are different, it would make sense.

"This is what you should have done because it's the right thing"vs"this is what we did because it got the job done".

Fight smart, not fair.

Many (but not all) people who don't support war don't support the military because to them military = only for war, and so the military is bad and therefor bad things you hear about the military must be true. Now obviously this is not sound or correct, but it's the way many people (in my own personal experience) approach it.

Another issue is that many people seem to have very poor research skills and don't realize when they're presenting information which isn't correct.

edited 3rd Jan '11 6:23:18 PM by AwayLaughing

I discourage armchair criticism of the military. I enthusiastically advocate involved criticism. I think the people in the military should mock and criticize the military to their heart's content. Because at least they know what they're talking about (generally) and because they are directly affected by the decisions and actions of the military. Plus it's funny as hell.

On the subject of pacifism, I feel its a very noble, yet incomplete philosophy. Allow me to explain. If you're a pacifist, your philosophy requires everyone to share your philosophy. My philosophy prepares for when someone doesn't.

"True story, I came when I read Scrye's story, and so did everyone within five miles." —OOZE

/appropriate response for the thread.

edited 3rd Jan '11 6:56:33 PM by MajorTom

That's not an appropriate response for the thread. It is not the topic of the thread.

Allow me to retort on how it is. Many of those who criticize the military know nothing of how it works, know nothing of why war exists and why the military fights it. The rights they so enjoy to do so came at the price of the blood of millions of soldiers over the last 230 years. If they feel the military is not worth it and that war should be avoided at all costs, by all means they should just surrender their rights now since it took much better men than themselves fighting in those wars as soldiers to make the free society they live in possible.

edited 3rd Jan '11 7:07:11 PM by MajorTom

Part of the problem with non-military mindsets on military issues involves the deployment of authority, be it political or economic. Bear in mind that the vast majority of conflicts we have witnessed as human beings were instigated by members of society who themselves took little or no direct part in the conflict.

The pen is indeed mightier than the sword. Think about all of the wars we have started due to the signing of a paper or the uttering of a declaration. Many of the people making these declarations were authority figures who only acted as representational figures. The soldier's role in combat is very different from the political leader who makes the decision to go to war or to not go to war. And no, having a leader with a history of military experience does not automatically negate the non-adhesive nature of defense-oriented decision-making processes. Sometimes you have to settle for intuition, but when you're gambling with people's lives, you have to be careful how you base that intuition. That fragility in wise leadership may explain a large part of the disconnection between participants and observers of military affairs.

I also like the early notes made about this topic regarding our need to have a vantage point on military culture by default. As someone else more or less put it, everyone has an opinion.

@Major Tom: Only about 4 wars the US has ever fought were really fought for our own rights. And WWII is debatable.

But any way you count it, no veteran since 1945 has really died for our rights; some have died for the rights of people in other countries, but most have died just because most politicians are either too evil or too stupid to keep us out of wars we shouldn't have ever been in.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

The War On Terror doesn't count? In case you haven't been keeping score Al Qaeda and their allies hate us and struck us precisely because we have rights. Their demands upon us basically amount to shred the Constitution, enact a Muslim theocracy and submit to their style of fascism.

Since 9/11 we have said no to their demands of us surrendering our rights and our way of life every single day. Personally, I'd rather die than give in to any of their demands.

I would say they are too greedy rather then outright evil. Outright evil takes too much effort.

Who watches the watchmen?

Depends on the nature of the pacifistic belief. I am a pacifist as regards war and war alone. I accept that violence happens, and we'll never be free of organized crime and bar fights and domestic abuse as hard as we try. But war only happens when someone with an agenda tries to grab resources that belong to others who would not give them willingly. I don't accept that. I am willing to see all sorts of tactics employed, from sabotage campaigns to nonviolent resistance to economic warfare, applied to prevent or end such a scenario.

@ MT: I like your implication that USMC Major General Smedley Butler was not a patriot, or that the nonpatriotic are self-interested cowards. That's low and false and you know it. Bull. Spare me about how noble it is to go into other countries, reset their governments, and take their resources. I am an anarchist. Citizenship is another social contract. If the government I give money to causes human suffering on such a scale for no good reason, I am not getting my fucking money's worth. And please, also spare me on how cowardly it is to be a pacifist when you can't say "it was about the oil" without being treated like Ho Chi fucking Minh.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Take their resources? Who's resources have we taken in this war? Or the operation in Bosnia? Or the first Gulf War? Or the invasion of Panama? Grenada? Vietnam? Korea? The Second World War? The First World War? None of those were resource grabs.

We never got a drop of Iraqi oil since 2003. We've never even picked up a shovel to go after Afghanistan's significant mineral wealth as described in Soviet geological surveys from the 1980s. So who's resources are we taking in this war? No one's that's who!

^

I will verify what Major Tom is saying here, oil proceeds in Iraq have all gone to Iraqi Infrastructure and government, and yet it's still not enough, because we dump so much money into it.

As for the OP, it's simple. Humans make ignorant and uneducated judgements on everything.

edited 3rd Jan '11 8:41:50 PM by Barkey

I fondly remember when we took all of Afghanistan's resources.... what were they again?

"True story, I came when I read Scrye's story, and so did everyone within five miles." —OOZE

The actual taking of resources by invading armies hasn't happened in years. Instead, it's more in how said resources are put on the market, taken off of the market, who gets to extract and sell them, et cetera.

^ Then if Iraq and Afghanistan were resource grabs, we did them wrong in every possible way. Some of the biggest investors into Iraqi oil are Chinese, Russian, Indian, and more. Basically the world quietly said "thanks America for removing that blockhead Saddam Hussein who was keeping his oil off the market" via their investment pocketbooks.