Europeans, Pacificsm and Desertion

[Neil]

Can someone wake me up when anyone who isn't a troll, an idiot or both takes Neil's/Tim's/lettow's/MartimSilva's position on this issue? Thanks.

Translation: I intend to desert should I ever get drafted to defend my country, since I don't want to risk myself in  any way or form. And I want people to tell me that what I did was the right thing and to build a monument to honour me, not the dolts that will die to defend my hide. I will diss as an idiot anyone that expresses a different opinion.

No, I just meant to say that you are a retard, as you have demonstrated consistently throughout your posting history.

He does have a good point though:  You are a contemptible coward.

[Martinus]

Can someone wake me up when anyone who isn't a troll, an idiot or both takes Neil's/Tim's/lettow's/MartimSilva's position on this issue? Thanks.

Translation: I intend to desert should I ever get drafted to defend my country, since I don't want to risk myself in  any way or form. And I want people to tell me that what I did was the right thing and to build a monument to honour me, not the dolts that will die to defend my hide. I will diss as an idiot anyone that expresses a different opinion.

No, I just meant to say that you are a retard, as you have demonstrated consistently throughout your posting history.

He does have a good point though:  You are a contemptible coward.

Not really. I just find the concept of killing other people like me for some political gain for my arbitrarily-defined tribe to be rather pointless, not to mention morally abominable. I think I would be willing to die (or kill) for a cause I believe in - but it would certainly not be a war like the WW1.

The "my country right or wrong" kind of patriotism is not only repugnant to me - it's a mindnumbingly alien concept.

[Neil]

Not really. I just find the concept of killing other people like me for some political gain for my arbitrarily-defined tribe to be rather pointless, not to mention morally abominable. I think I would be willing to die (or kill) for a cause I believe in - but it would certainly not be a war like the WW1.

It is the service you owe your tribe, which has provided for you your entire life, at little cost to yourself.  After all, national identity is no more arbitrary than any other division of humans.

Besides, I find the concept of killing people like you to be rather pleasant.

[Admiral Yi]

I think I would be willing to die (or kill) for a cause I believe in - but it would certainly not be a war like the WW1.

WWI was for many participants an effort to prevent foreign control over part or all of their citizenry and territory.  If that's not a cause worth fighting for, what is?

[grumbler]

Don't take Tim as an example. All the WWI vet organizations were dead against the celebration of deserters and THEY were in those battlefields - so the ones best suited to have a say on the issue opposed this. Which makes the sissified decisions of modern politicians even more of an insult to all those who sacrificed so much in the trenches.

More bullshit.  There were no WW1 veterans organizations in the trenches, because the "veterans" were not veterans yet.  Even if we allow that most veterans didn't want memorials to those exectuted for desertion (something I have seen no evidence to suggest), they are  NOT the "ones best suited to have a say on the issue."  They have no more say than any other individual in society.

Frankly, I see desertion in the face of the enemy by 0,0001% of the troops as not being worth celebrating. If the conditions were really that incredibly inhuman, why did 99,99% of the troops remained in their units?

Frankly, I think that, if you are just making up some numbers to support your "argument" (whatever it actually is), you should make up some credible numbers.

The really bad situations and pointless offensives took place in 1917, and the soldiers of the time did what troops should do when faced with bad orders - insted of defecting, they refused to comply and presented their demands to the high-ranking commanders. It partially worked in the French Army. In Russia it exposed even more the fault of the aristocratic system and ensured the fall of the worthless Romanov and their crony nobles/businessmen.

Not sure what you mean by "defecting" here, and assume that you mean "deserting."  In any case, mutiny is considered by all militaries to be a worse crime than desertion.  It is amusing to see you arguing that mutiny is what troops "should do" whyen faced with impossible circumstances.

That said, no nation survives by showing ANY kind of leniency towards those who put their safety above that of the country (or, for that matter, of their comrades in the unit).

That said, no nation survives by showing ANY kind of leniency towards mutiny, and doubly so should not assure its military that this is what they should do under adverse circumstances.

One of the reasons why the Soviet Union survived the German onslaught of 1941 and 42 was due to its tough stance on these kinds of worthless cowards, thus ensuring the Soviet soldier fought ferociously. Retreats were usually punisheable by death, and desertion was sure to mean a painful demise from this world. It is the only way to deal with these I-only-care-to-save-my-wretched-hide people: to make sure that, while following orders may be very risky, NOT following them is a sure-way to get killed.

I know that this is how it is presented in the movies and on TV, but this isn't true.  The reason why the Soviets were not overrun in 1941 was because the Germans could not create a logistics network to keep their advanced units in supply if they moved as fast and far as possible.  The worthless fuckups you praise here merely increased the disaster.  Many units and men retreated without being put to death; the movie Enemy at the Gates is fiction, not fact.  In the real world, as you can discover from reading actual history books about the actual war, the Soviets not only survived, but triumphed, in 1942 precisely because they retreated.  I mean, really, dude.  Learn some history before you post again.

For that matter, surrendering is also treason. Why do you think that the Union never complained about the numbers of Soviet prisioners who died in German camps? Because it considered them all as traitors and, therefore, that they deserved everything they got.

I'd say this is pretty much 100% bullshit ("never complained," and "deserved everything they got").  The USSR had always maintained that they would try those guilty of the mistreatment of their POWs as war crimes, and they did.

As a result, whenever Soviet troops entered a German prisioner camp that had Soviet inmates, these were all immediately charged with treason for surrendering to the Nazis and sent packing to the work camps in the Union. Therefore, it matters little how many Soviet prisioners the Germans might have killed - a worse fate awaited the survivors after the war.

Completely incorrect.  Some were charged with treason (generally officers who surrendered when still capable of fighting), and others of collaborating with the enemy (generally because they were taken from the camps and used for forced labor).  According the The Black Book of Communism, the former amounted to 8% (not 100% as you claim) and were the only ones sent to the Gulag.  The latter amounted to another 14%, and they went into labor battalions.  Most were re-drafted into the Army.

(Also sent as forced labourers to the Union were five million German troops and about 20,000 US and UK prisioners of war found in German camps. The Germans becuause they were guilty of conspiring to invade the Union, and the Allied ones because they were capitalists and thus probably up to no good against the Union anyway).

I have no idea what you are talking about here.  Care to give a cite for 20,000 UAS and UK former PoWs sent to the USSR as forced labor?  Or is this just more shit you are making up as you go along?

[grumbler]

Translation: I intend to desert should I ever get drafted to defend my country, since I don't want to risk myself in  any way or form. And I want people to tell me that what I did was the right thing and to build a monument to honour me, not the dolts that will die to defend my hide. I will diss as an idiot anyone that expresses a different opinion.

Can you articulate why you feel this way, or is it just as incoherent as your knowledge of history?

[Iormlund]

WWI was for many participants an effort to prevent foreign control over part or all of their citizenry and territory.  If that's not a cause worth fighting for, what is?

Maybe that's how it's taught in the States. We're a lot more cynic over here.

[grumbler]

WWI was for many participants an effort to prevent foreign control over part or all of their citizenry and territory.  If that's not a cause worth fighting for, what is?

That's pretty much the excuse given for all wars.  Nearly every leader claims to be fighting to "defend" something rather than attack something.

[CountDeMoney]

I just find the concept of killing other people like me for some political gain for my arbitrarily-defined tribe to be rather pointless, not to mention morally abominable.

I believe I speak for the majority of the board when I say the concept of killing other people like you is just fucking peachy by me.

[Admiral Yi]

Maybe that's how it's taught in the States. We're a lot more cynic over here.

  What does that mean.  Are you taught that no territory changed hands during or after WWI?

[Tamas]

Regarding Soviet stance on retreats in WW2: ALL the memoirs of Hungarian WW2 officers I have read mentioned cases when the attacking soviet unit they forced to retreat were machine gunned down by their own people.

That is still, however, a crazy thing to do.

Justice could only be made on an individual basis, but the default stance should disgrace for deserters.
Pointless war or not, it is a war, and the only reason the hinterland the deserter is running to is safer than the front line is that the comrades he is leaving behind keep fighting and not letting the enemy in.

Retreat, surrender, hell even mutiny are understandable. Desertion is not.

[Jos Theelen]

It's really two seperate issues, isn't it?  Refusal to participate in an unjust war, and refusal to participate in a pointless operation that will likely result in your death.

It should be two separate issues. But wars like WWI showed it aren't.

[Martinus]

I think I would be willing to die (or kill) for a cause I believe in - but it would certainly not be a war like the WW1.

WWI was for many participants an effort to prevent foreign control over part or all of their citizenry and territory.  If that's not a cause worth fighting for, what is?

First of all, this claim (about this being a cause for WW1) is patently untrue. Neither Britain nor France were in danger of having foreign control imposed over their territory or citizenry. The war was a pure political exercise (coupled with the fact that the pre-war diplomacy pushed all the great powers into a cul-de-sac).

But assuming for a moment your claim is true, certainly this, in itself, is not a cause worth fighting for.

Sure, if the foreign regime you are defending against is evil and/or oppressive, or would discriminate against my ethnic group, then yes, but I couldn't care less otherwise whether the territory I live in is governed from Warsaw, Berlin or London, as long as I have a democratic say in its governance.

[Jaron]

I think I would be willing to die (or kill) for a cause I believe in - but it would certainly not be a war like the WW1.

WWI was for many participants an effort to prevent foreign control over part or all of their citizenry and territory.  If that's not a cause worth fighting for, what is?

Certainly this, in itself, is not a concept worth fighting for.

Sure, if the foreign regime you are defending against is evil and/or oppressive, or would discriminate against my ethnic group, then yes, but I couldn't care less otherwise whether the territory I live in is governed from Warsaw, Berlin or London, as long as I have a democratic say in its governance.

Are you saying if Germany invaded your homeland tomorrow, attempted to take it over by force, but offered you say in the governance when they were done, you would be okay with it?

[Tamas]

I think I would be willing to die (or kill) for a cause I believe in - but it would certainly not be a war like the WW1.

WWI was for many participants an effort to prevent foreign control over part or all of their citizenry and territory.  If that's not a cause worth fighting for, what is?

Certainly this, in itself, is not a concept worth fighting for.

Sure, if the foreign regime you are defending against is evil and/or oppressive, or would discriminate against my ethnic group, then yes, but I couldn't care less otherwise whether the territory I live in is governed from Warsaw, Berlin or London, as long as I have a democratic say in its governance.

Just to be clear: a defensive war is where there is a foreign armed group of people intent on forcing their authority on you. I understand you personally enjoy submission, but most people find the idea appaling.