h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I disagree that all "Really Horrible Acts" involving large numbers of people couldn't have happened without nationalism, racism or religion, although based on that last post I'm not quite sure if BtM is arguing that or not.

Although there were certainly nationalistic and anti-semitic elements to the Russian revolution, I don't think that you can blame things like the labour camps on these factors. What allows things like that to happen is overly centralised power and a fragmented or weak civil society.

If I were to try and analyse the fact that large numbers of people can allow "Really Horrible Acts" to occur, I'd say that the most important reason is fear. To a certain extent, fear underlies nationalism, racism and religion. Respectively: fear that you will be conquered, fear that others are superior to you, and fear of God. In addition, fear explains some of the other cases of "Really Horrible Acts" - the labour camps could exist because individuals were afraid if they complained it would happen to them, brutal punishment regimes like capital punishment can exist because people are absurdly frightened of crime, and so on. (That last one is there just to throw a bit of controversy in.)

I'm afraid I can help you there. Because many countries are populated and governed by humans, their ruling regimes are sometimes a little less than perfect. The Really Horrible Act is the establishment of the precedent that a country who disapproves of the regime in another country can unilaterally decide to remove that regime.

Now there are quite a few countries that don't really approve of mine (Great Britain, for those who don't know). What if they invade? There's nothing to stop them now. I think *that's* Really Horrible.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Hi Madent .

"How would you describe the movitation of the masses in the revolutions of the US, Russia, France, China, etc?"

In each case the populace were labouring under oppression and people arose who proposed what seemed a reasonable alternative. When your hope of a future for yourself and your children is taken away you will fight back.

This fight will be successful if led by people of courage and vision, and the central authority has grown overconfident and lazy. In each of the cases you refer to the central authority was weak and unprepared.

The authorities that were established in three of the four cases learnt well from the lessons of their revolutions and kept their countries in an iron grip for many years to come. One later became weak again and suffered a civil war as a result.

The key in these four cases was neither religion, racism nor nationalism, it was a reaction to oppression. Unfortunately in each case these revolutions became the victims of men of power, greed and ambition.

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

Hi Blatherskite .

I think you are missing a cardinal fact about modern 'democracies'. The elected leaders no longer need to appeal to the factors you suggest. We no longer rely on citizen armies who will refuse to fight if you cannot prove to them that the sacrifice of their lives is absolutely necessary. The last incidence of this we really had was the mutiny of the French Army in the First World War.

The creation of professional standing armies, often based around high technology weapon systems and high levels of internal discipline, means that the chance of an army refusing to fight is almost non-existent. Those few who refuse to fight are isolated, prosecuted and executed.

Except in the small civil and brushfire wars, modern conflict is totally controlled by the power elite and the views of the common citizenry can be safely ignored. The latest Gulf conflict is case in point. The majority of the citizens of the United Kingdom were suspicious of its leaders' motives and did not support a war. Net result the Labour government went ahead anyway. No appeals to nationalism were made, nor to race or religion, just a few vague announcments about unproven threats. The professional army stood forward and acarried out the will of its government.

Wars are fought to meet the needs of ambitious and wealthy men, not to further the ideologies of religion, race or nation. Few people go to war for these objectives, most soldiers are either professionals or conscripts held together through camaraderie and fear.

The quicker that we all realise this the quicker we can work to defeat these power elites and remove the need for war altogether.

Hope, love and purpose,
Matholwch /|\.

I don't think it's so much fear that means people allow such things to happen as a feeling that they can't change matters. I'm sure that there would be many people who would step in to halt the carnage, even at the cost of their own lives, if they thought it would work. This feeling that those in power will do it anyway regardless has only really been thought of as a problem since we started nominally having rule by the people. Ultimately, idleness is what stops proper action being taken. Many will happily conplain or sign a petition, but when it comes to a more powerful means of protest (such as standing as a candidate or researching the subject so you can take your findings to an enquiry) few are prepared to do so.

And let's not forget the role that ignorance plays in these matters. The mad fringe of Islam really do believe that the USA is evil and they should fight to destroy it. They believe it because it is what they're told by their religious and political leaders and their media; who are often just as ignorant as those they influence or actively malicious and duplicitous. Similar ignorance can be seen in the attitudes of 'orindary upstanding citizens' on such subjects as asylum seekers and those who use recreational drugs.

The trouble is that it is in the interests of those who hold the reigns to keep the general population as ignorant as possible. Not just to divert attention away from their own poor performance, but to disguise the fact that their performance is poor. If a government slaughters a whole community, informed citizens would think it a gross act of murder. Ignorant citizens would hail it as a bold step against the threat of the hated community.

I think one problem with modern democracies is that we're too hung up on representation. No matter how hard we try to be well-informed, their will still be a huge passel of subjects that we are just not well-informed enough about to make dicisions with credibility. A government that tries purely to represent its citizens' decisions will lurch from distaster to disaster. What democracy should be about it delegation; allowing citizens to select someone capable of the task to do the hard wotk and make their decisions on their behalf. sometimes these decisions will be counter to what the citizens say they want; but the idea is to have someone to trust in that position and be able to get rid of them if you think they aren't doing a good job.

Hi Queex,

This may have been a typo but I thought it came out as particularly apt:

"A government that tries purely to represent its citizens' decisions will lurch from distaster to disaster."



F

Agreed, but the Moslems don't have exclusive rights to this kind of lunacy. The saddest of Dubya's nutty backers believe Islam (and anything else except their own brand of christianity) is evil, and they should fight to destroy it. Sigh.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Math: As a six-year veteran of that high-tech military in a modern democracy, I cannot find words to describe how utterly wrong your impressions are.

An all-volunteer force fights more effectively, uses resources more efficiently, makes suggestions for improvement, and retains higher morale. It will also un-volunteer itself if given sufficient cause.

The lowliest recruit is taught the rules of engagement, the Geneva Conventions, and the distinctions between a lawful and an unlawful order. Then they are told that if they ever, under any circumstances, obey an order from a superior which is illegal, they will be held responsible for their actions.

A high-tech force requires people with the skills to operate and maintain those high-tech tools. Kids who failed to graduate high school or have criminal records have a very difficult time getting hired by the military. Your average service member is therefore smarter and much more capable of making moral decisions than he was during the Vietnam era.

Additionally, those in the high-tech jobs are usually very intelligent. Along with intelligence often comes an independent streak. Such people generally respond badly to excessive discipline. The modern military is forced to relax discipline in certain fields if they want their missiles to fire and their planes to fly.

As for isolation, prosecution, and execution? 111 soldiers were approved for for "conscientious objector" discharges just before the first Gulf War. A couple key paragraphs from a news story about this latest war: http://loper.org/~george/archives/2003/Apr/999.html

"The law allows members of the military to obtain conscientious objector status if they can prove that during their training or service they developed a deeply held objection to all wars. If their objector application is accepted — a lengthy process that requires interviews, essays and letters from character witnesses — they can either be reassigned to noncombatant duties or discharged.

Although the military is now operating under wartime orders under which no discharges are permitted, it has been surprisingly willing to release those claiming conscientious objector status, according to the objectors and their lawyers."

A Stephen Funk is in big trouble for being a conscientious objector, but that has less to do with being an objector than the fact that he is charged with desertion after having been 47 days late in reporting for duty. The worst he faces is a year in prison, not execution.

Today's commanders spend a lot of time explaining the whys of any orders that take the service members into harm's way. They need the men to understand and agree with the cause and goals before they get started. The reason they need them to understand and agree is that it makes for stronger morale, and because individuals may find themselves cut off from the chain of command, and they can make independent decisions that further the overall goals if they know what they are.

So... today's people are brighter, more independent, better informed, and more capable of making moral decisions than at any time in the history of warfare. And that shows every time a Tornado pilot steers his bomb into the water when he spies a truck crossing the bridge he's targetting.

The UK people may have been against the war in general, but the people were still very much divided. You won't find a whole lot of Guardian-reading, tree-hugging, stark-raving liberals in the armed forces. These are people who can be convinced that use of force is necessary if given sufficient cause. Tony Blair's explanations may not have been enough for you, but they were for them.

I should have said this yesterday when I made the page edit, but hello, King Nechtan mac Derile, and welcome!

You've been added to our roster as Head of the Department of Atemporal Chronology. Let general debauchery commence, etc, etc.


GTB

Britain isn't exactly bursting with "Guardian-reading, tree-hugging, stark-raving liberals." Much of the opposition to the Iraq invasion came from centre-right (small 'c') conservative types who simply didn't think it was our business to go risking life and limb, rearranging a country that presented no clear threat to our interests. When even the Daily Mail (staunch Tory tabloid) is sceptical about the reasons for going to war, then you know middle England isn't on board. That was why the government found it necessary to exaggerate the threat - they certainly wouldn't have gone to that sort of effort if it had only been a small but vocal minority from the left who were opposing the war. They would have just ignored them - Blair's favoured strategy for dealing with liberal opposition.

I seem to remember that there was also considerable scepticism from within the military and the intelligence community in the UK, regarding that war.

I admit, the bit about Guardian readers was unfair. I'm a bit sensitive on this site, since it's those Guardian readers around here who have been viciously attacking anytime they get the smell of pizza or watery beer.

It does take more than skepticism to create mass civil disobedience. Blair did take the time to inflate the risks. But that's precisely my point. By overstating the case and making it into a national emergency, he appealed to nationalism, overrode the sensibilities of the warriors, and the war went on. As long as he *might* be right, the armed services would support him.

If Blair was trying to appeal to nationalsism then he failed in a BIG way. You have to remember that in Britain it has been a stigma to have ANY national identity since Victoria; therefore the only people Blair could appeal to were the middle classes (the only people who still beleive in a national identity), who were opposed from the start. The opposition to the war has also been strengthened by reports/allegations that certain armements of the Iraqi forces had been exagerated/lied about.

My point is I don't think Britain HAS a national identity, hence the apathy.

Another problem is HUMAN RIGHTS. whenever a 'villain' is gaoled wronfully etc. they are able to ask receive compensation vs. their HUMAN RIGHTS regardless of the harm they have done to their victims and their HUMAN RIGHTS. Rather than prey on peoples fear about religion etc. Bush and Blair preyed on the denial of the Iraqi peoples HUMAN RIGHTS (right to worship to whomsover they wish, 'democracy' etc.) rather than other abstract ideas. This has provided a sense of empathy towards the Iraqi people

Blatherskite, I used to spend a little time on Guardian Talk (the interactive part of their website), so I know what you're talking about regarding liberal anti-Americanism. I say that as a muesli-munching Guardian reader myself, by the way. I didn't realise it had become like that on h2g2 as well, but I don't really spend enough time here these days to be able to judge.


Regarding the current topic... The actual cause of a war (or other 'Horrible Act'), right enough, is always likely to be the single-minded ambition of this or that leader. But there's little likelihood that any war could maintain strong popular support, if the public perceives that there is no more to the conflict than one man's ruthless ambition. If he wants to keep people on board he has to convince them that the war is some sort of affirmation of their most deeply-held convictions - which is where religion and / or nationalism come in. I think war is almost unimaginable without some such ideology to give it credence in the popular imagination.

ummmmm where are those weapons of mass destruction then????? so, from what I understand it would seem that all moslems are bad guys, all christians are good guys!!! God help us in our misconceptions, one of the most poignant commandments was "thou shalt not kill".

It would seem in our age that the commandments should be taken however we choose, thou shalt not kill, but of course if a government decides that we should actually kill, innocent or not, that is OK, it would seem that it is a lesser sin than commiting adultery, or coveting your neighbours wealth!!!!

In this latest war, too many innocents were killed and maimed, as it seems is always the case, Sadaam had to be stopped at whatever cost, no-one actually cares about the ordinary, normal, everyday person in the street, who loses his/her family, after all, these people should be happy, they are liberated, but who says they even want to be liberated?? maybe they were just happy as they were, going about their daily lives, OK so Sadaam is probably not the sort of person you want to sit next to at a dinner party, but neither would I like to sit next to Mr Bush, he is just as fanatical and cruel as any dictator, perhaps not to his own people, but to those who he considers his enemies.

He,s a Christian too, yet God say,s "love your enemies" how then can he justify his absolute hatred for his????

There is a lot of evil in the world, far too many dictators practising evil towards their own, yet the "world policemen" only chooses a few to attack. where it is in their interests.

I pray for all those who suffered atrocities in this war.

Jane

Hi Blatherskite .

As a five year veteran of Her Majesty's Royal Navy during the Falklands period my impressions are grounded in fact. It is true that Conscientious Objectors are no longer shot, at least not during police actions (if you check your Military Codes you will find that that option still exists). If you read my post again you may see that I was speaking about the development of such forces in the last century or so. You can technically disobey an illegal order but most servicemen would be very unsure what an illegal order might be. In the field discipline and obedience are at a premium and are the cornerstones of efficient teamwork.

All this though distracts from my point that modern wars are rarely fought for religion, nationalism or racism. Most soldiers are professionals who are carrying out the orders of their country's power elite. In some cases they are conscripts held in place by fear of retribution, who are of little military value except to divert the enemy's firepower away from the professionals (look at Saddam's forces as a case in point). That power elite go to war for reasons of self-interest, and not in the interests of their fellow citizens.

American and British soldiers didn't really have a choice about fighting in the Gulf. It is what their years of training and indoctrination had led them to. They were briefed fully on the 'moral reasons' for their mission, given intelligence on what they would fight and actually expected to be welcomed as liberators by the local people.

No wonder that they are now so confused when they find that not only were they not seen as liberators, but as colonial invaders by a large proportion of the populace. They are now suffering in a well-orchestrated guerilla war by members of the Fedayeen Militias and of the Republican Guard.

However they have served the purpose of the men in power. Greed wins again.

Can you quote one occasion when the forces of a modern democracy has unvolunteered itself? I have briefly looked back over the records of conflicts in the last 60 years and can find not one instance. Soldiers are trained to do their 'duty'. The fact that only a hundred men stepped away from the illegal war in Iraq shows just how firm the military's grip is.

The information I and my fellow shipmates were fed before the Falklands made sure none of us would walk away from that conflict. We were given dossiers purporting to show that the Argentinians were looting and raping their way across the islands, that the people were being interned at Port Stanley Airport, and rumours abounded about the grim fate of the Marine Platoon who so bravely resisted the Argentinian invasion forces. It was a bit like the total rubbish American forces were fed before the invasion of Grenada. In that police action the only American Students to be harmed were hit by 'friendly' fire.

Of course you won't find pacifists joining the aremd forces - well duh! I assume that you think that I am a "Guardian-reading, tree-hugging, stark-raving liberal"? Well actually I read The Times, I don't hug trees (they don't like it) and I am no liberal. I cannot comment on my stark-raving status as it is under medical review at present.

Hope, Love and Purpose,
Matholwch /|\.

BtM "So... today's people are brighter, more independent, better informed, and more capable of making moral decisions than at any time in the history of warfare."


With the apparent ending of hostilities in Iraq and the subsequent lifting of any reporting restrictions, in the UK we have been treated to a series of programmes showing some of the footage recorded by the journalists, that they wouldn't or couldn't broadcast at the time of filming. This has been supported by interviews with cameramen, reporters, commentators and, where available, Iraqis. Access to the military is limited.

We have also had the results of the first inquiry into the government's decision to prosecute a war in Iraq.

The TV programmes have demonstrated that irrespective of their background, training and level of intelligence that the modern soldier is a capable of committing atrocity as any other soldier in the history of warfare. Some of the young men sent to Iraq appear to have been so unstable that they should not even have been shown a handgun, let alone equipped with automatic rifles.

Apparently, the modern soldier's ability to make moral decisions includes the shooting of women and children, who were doing nothing more than fleeing the bombing of their town; the circling and repeated attacking of a coalition tank despite all of the appropriate markings and signals being in place; and the bombing of a Kurdish caravan accompanied by a BBC reporter.

Subsequent to the conflict, the modern soldier has also chosen to exercise his decision making skills by arresting Iraqi demostrators protesting at the arrest of their fellows (who were arrested previously for similar offences). Welcome to democracy, Iraq.

It is fact that the behaviour of some patrols has been no better and in some cases far worse than the behaviour of the policemen involved in the beating of Rodney King, but that apparently was acceptable.

As for the results of the first inquiry, it seems pretty clear that the case for action against Iraq was overstated, although by how much and by whom is not known.

As of today, the action in Iraq has not been justified and the behaviour of some in the armed forces has not demonstrated their ability to make informed decisions, moral or otherwise.


I can however accept your separate point on the motivational factors in wars, but only because your definition of nationalism seems so broad that it covers all eventualities, even religion and racism. In the sense you use it, nationalism is any appeal through a set of common values and beliefs to a particular population segment.

To me, nationalism is only an appeal to the *majority* of a country's population, particularly to preserve the current culture, not change it. Hence I would say that there are other factors behind some conflicts.

Associated with the current discussion, but not quite on-topic, I thought I'd give this a new title.

It seems to me that, in the recent past, our government has lied to us, the British public. But there is no evidence - proof - of this. The government is denying the accusations. Without proof, the Government's claims cannot be refuted, so they'll get away with it.

What do you all think of this? Is it common or rare? Should we expect it from government, because it is endemic in society as a whole? Or is it? Is it a conspiracy theory, and our government would never dream of misleading its electorate? Does it matter, or am I going on about an unimportant and irrelevant - or maybe non-existent? - issue?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I find the idea that there could exist a government which does not routinely and systematically lie to its populace so unlikely as to be practically self-contradictory. Maybe that's just the lateness of the hour...


GTB

Blatherskite-

It's interesting to hear your personal experiences of the modern military. It's just that from my personal (admittedly less) experience of the military it's been largely substandard and brutal. Everyone I was at school with who joined the army were horrible, unpleasant characters. Someone I know who did his work experience at the local barracks was subjected to two weeks of being called a 'Fenian Bastard'. While the well-informed modern military man should in principle have compassion and responsibility; it seems to be a goal to work towards rather than a reality.

Before the current spate of documentaries on the conduct of the armed forces there was the occasional documentary (with no particular agenda) about life in the army. In general it always came across as brutal.

Besides, now matter how much you train and prime your troops, how carefully you ensure that they are responsible and moral, you have to face the fatc that in the field they are going to be tired, scared and angry. There's no way to avoid it. No-one would behave as well as they would like in those circumstances; and we cannot hold them entirely responsible. What we can do, however, is recognise that fact and build it into our decision. In the same way that you have to accept that there will be casualties in war, you have to accept that your troops will behave badly at times.

On the other hand, even peacetime forces have a terrible reputation in some areas; take the British troops stationed in Cyprus. Hardly a year goes by without a scandal of some kind. And that NATO training facility in Canada that claims lives every year.

And even at the highest levels there is arrogance; unjustifiable expenditure and ecological vandalism.

The armed forces can never be 'clean', in the same way that the police can't, but there's a tendency among top brass and politicians to pretend that it is. It's not enough to demonstrate that a regime is bad. You have to demonstrate that the damage of war, the unpleasant actions of your troops, the turmoil of lawlessness and the long slow reconstruction is better.

Mind you, I thought everyone knew a volunteer army was better in every way (apart from numbers) than a conscript force. After all, the volunteer British soldiers in Belgium were so good the advancing Germans erroneously thought they had machine guns.