Soldiers to get life in jail for refusing to act as occupiers

This is absolutely ridiculous, if these men and women can't take slaughtering innocent people anymore then they should be free to leave. Rapists don't even get life, but if you refuse to kill some foreigner then you are worse than a rapist. I will never understand why you Americans let stuff like this happen. Who cares if you are forced to live in a cell for the rest of your lives right? At least those sneaky terrorists won't get you, or could they??? I'll have to look up what the latest info is on Fox News.

Originally posted by NinjaCodeMonkey
I will never understand why you Americans let stuff like this happen. Who cares if you are forced to live in a cell for the rest of your lives right? At least those sneaky terrorists won't get you, or could they??? I'll have to look up what the latest info is on Fox News.

Perhaps you should "look up" British troops.?

That is what the article is discussing ...

Originally posted by NinjaCodeMonkey
...I will never understand why you Americans let stuff like this happen...

I think you'll find if you actually read the news article you posted, that this is a bill that's going before the British parliament...

Bottom line: don't join the armed forces unless you're capable of following orders. That's what soldiers do, they follow orders. Soldiers who don't follow orders, because of a conflicted political ideology, or religious belief, or moral constraint, they're not much use as soldiers, are they? A bunch of guys with rifles making up their own mind is not a fighting force, it's a liability.

Soldiering is a difficult occupation, and you have to sublimate a piece of yourself to have any success at it. I would be very against this in any nation with a mandatory service requirement, a draft of any kind, but in a volunteer military I see no problem with it.

Now, there is an option here. What if there were two distinct branches of service, defensive and offensive, just like a football team (with some valuable ironmen strewn about, I imagine)? The roster for the defensive military would be, I guarantee, full as you want it to be. The offensive side would have fewer applicants, and even fewer suitable candidates for training - maybe if we're lucky that will reduce nation X's will/ability to invade neighboring nations.

I, for one, would gladly volunteer for a defensive military position. If anybody invades, I'll either be fighting in uniform or fighting out of uniform, makes no difference to me.

Basically, don't join a military that pursues ends you don't support. People will say "I need the money" or, "I want to serve my country" or things of that nature. Well, go into law enforcement, or waste management, or HVAC or Plumbing, or engineering, or medicine, or some similarly valuable and necessary pursuit.

There go those evil dastardly Americans again making the BRITISH soldiers not desert.....

You might want to READ the article before you cuss us too much

yeah, seriously.....ninja code monkey, I almost laugh at your ignorance as you dont even read the articles you post to slam americans.....typical propaganda


this thread should be filed in the round file cabinet, that is the trash can.

this thread should be filed in the round file cabinet, that is the trash can.

I disagree. Just because the original poster made a mistake in formulating his opinion on the article, doesn't mean the article/development is not important and worthy of discussion.

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
Bottom line: don't join the armed forces unless you're capable of following orders. That's what soldiers do, they follow orders.

Lmao. So what do you do if you're ordered to commit a war-crime?

On the subject of the bill, scary stuff. And they call it democracy?

Originally posted by NinjaCodeMonkey
This is absolutely ridiculous, if these men and women can't take slaughtering innocent people anymore then they should be free to leave.

What are you talking about? You think British troops are slaughtering innocent people??

-- Boat

So what do you do if you're ordered to commit a war-crime?

Refuse the order on the grounds that it's illegal.

There's a big difference between refusing deployment and refusing an order to massacre a village.

If the order is illegal it MUST NOT be obeyed. That's a separate issue entirely, isn't it?