This is war. A place of snap decisions, unfortunately. Sure, I personally would like US soldiers, or for that matter my own country's soldiers, to wage war like United Federation of Planets - diplomacy, diplomacy, and if that fails, set phasers to stun. But we don't have phasers. Nowdays, if you run at your enemy with a taser, you'll get shot to death before you're halfway there.
I'm not defending the atrocities many a soldier committed on purpose. There are many unforgivable things that happen during war. But in the current shape of warfare, you can't blame soldiers for using lethal force against a perceived lethal threat. Let's develop phasers with stun settings that are as effective as guns, and then we can go back to this conversation.
EDIT: Come on. Off-topic or not, you're breaking the conversation flow by deleting your responses. Those comments are useful for context even if some of us disagree with them.
> Did you realise how that phrase is incredibly dangerously close to this other one
It's not. Because soldiers are thrown into battle and forced to make snap decisions that determine whether they'll live or die the very next second, while the Government has both more time for deliberation and much, much wider range of possible actions to take.
> You bliss the first one and you have nothing left to contain the other one from happening
This does not follow. My point was - if they're shooting at you and you're not allowed to run, what can you do except shoot back? The problem is with those who put you in a position where you're getting shot at.
> Unless you are a believer of the capability to self-refrain of an ever expanding Government.
Of course I don't. I just feel that focusing on front-line soldiers is the wrong place to start solving this problem.
If only that was so easy. What really happens is that some of the people who don't want to go get jailed or executed, and the rest quickly change their minds. And if you somehow managed to breed a whole nation of people refusing to kill others, then your country would quickly get invaded by another one. "Why don’t we live in the utopia dreamed of by sixties pacifists and their many predecessors? Because if we did, the first renegade to pick up a rock would become a Genghis Khan."[0]
You'd have to enact a global and immediate mentality change to beat the coordination problem inherent in this situation.
Yes the State is an extortionist and if you are aware enough your moral system would lead you to explore alternatives really hard. For example preferring to personally try to be a Conscientious Objector[1] before buying the discourse of a guy with a tie that got elected in office to send you or your children to the front while having equity in the company that will get the contracts to rebuild the mess based on lies.
Dying defending your freedom is something very very different to justifying others people killing based on assumptions of threat after a preemptive war of aggression [2]
The only thing that can try to keep such an illusion consistent is Exceptionalism [3] which would magically give you self-serving moral superpowers.
Extrapolate that a little bit and you will see how Exceptionalism escalates to some form Elitist Dystopia [4]
I'm not defending the atrocities many a soldier committed on purpose. There are many unforgivable things that happen during war. But in the current shape of warfare, you can't blame soldiers for using lethal force against a perceived lethal threat. Let's develop phasers with stun settings that are as effective as guns, and then we can go back to this conversation.
EDIT: Come on. Off-topic or not, you're breaking the conversation flow by deleting your responses. Those comments are useful for context even if some of us disagree with them.