What would you have done?

[spooky3]

I agree, we should bash away. The thing is lets bash the right things here. Lets look at it how it was originally intended. A west hating poster uses a video of four soldiers killing a dog as a way to bash the west and people followed. Why bash the soldiers and not the very thing that put them there? Politicians elected by us in order to secure energy supplies for our consumption. It's all too easy to blame the horrid soldiers though.

 

Nice to finally have a discussion with you.

 

[Tony Erikson]

What are you on about? You could say the same thing about any inanimate object. Do you feel bad about picking up a stone and skimming it across the water because the stone didn't get a choice?

 

You're the one valuing life and only according to you. I'm not talking about inanimate objects, I'm talking about organisms. Just pointing out that putting different values on different life forms is a silly way to go.

 

That's not what it shows. It simply shows that without plankton I could not exist. I'm still more valuable than plankton.

 

To whom?

 

Without coal, diamonds could not exist. Yet diamonds are more valuable than coal.

 

Financially yes.

 

You have just proved you know little of the value of life if you're always referring to yourself or financially when comparing.

 

In the grand scheme of things you're worthless. To your family you're priceless.

[rollwithit]

Personally my choice would be not to join the armed forces, especially when they are not involved in defending their own country. When will people realise that being a soilder, you are the tool of the politicians and the rich and powerful who have lost influence through diplomacy. America and the Uk seem to spend too much time telling everyone else how to run there countries when they haven't even solved their own problems. Look at America, it has the widest gap between rich and poor than any other country in the world. Apart from their milatary might, what gives them the moral high ground to judge howmiddle east states conduct their internal affairs?

[LeMaquis]

Why bash the soldiers and not the very thing that put them there?

 

They put themselves there. The army is voluntary, the draft having been abolished in 1973.

[Tony Erikson]

They put themselves there. The army is voluntary, the draft having been abolished in 1973.

 

The drafting system is quite different in America, these are Americans.

 

Do you think they put themselves there to defend their country or kill a dog? Maybe they joined as there were no prospects elsewhere. Soldiers don't decide when and where they go to war.

[mj.scuba]

Earlier someone posted a video regarding some US soldiers blowing up an improvised explosive device whilst a dog was next to it.

 

Naturally some people find this horrific. Naturally some of us don't find it horrific.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2080702/Horror-U-S-soldiers-blow-dog-Iraq-film-it.html

 

The page and video is above.

 

Knowing that your team could be in danger, the device needed destroying and you are trained to destroy things, what would you have done?

 

would you?

 

Send a soldier in to remove the dog: This could result in the soldier being blown up.

 

Wait for dog to move: This could have resulted on the squad being ambushed. Would you wait around in a war zone?

 

Don't detonate the IED as no-one wants to hurt a dog: This could result in a human some weeks later unknowingly triggering the device.

 

Shoot the dog: I suppose they could have put the dog down before the IED did. I imagine the IED was far quicker and less painful though.

 

I just think people understandably find it offensive that anybody would laugh at something like that. Yes, far worse happens in war zones, but we can't use worse happenings to excuse still bad behaviour. Soldiers are meant to be disciplined and be able to keep their cool, think rationally etc. How can they be expected to act professionally when under pressure if they can't do when not?

[flamingjimmy]

You have just proved you know little of the value of life

Coming from someone who values his life as having literally the same worth as pond scum I'll take that with a pinch of salt.

 

As I've said, for me it's about capacity for suffering. I can suffer a lot more than an insect, or some plankton. Therefore preventing my suffering is more important.

 

The fact that there are food chains and those at the top cannot survive without those at the bottom does not come into it, it is completely irrelevant.

[rollwithit]

This is a very controversial statement. I've known a few frontline soldiers in my time, and they have all been adrenaline junkies.

 

Like it or not, a front line soldier actually gets a buzz from being in battle, shooting guns, blowing things up and killing people. It's not the norm in modern society for every human being to unleash their hunting instincts, so it takes a certain kind of individual to want to do a front line soldiers job.

 

Any forum members who have willingly done such a job in the forces please feel free to either confirm or denny this statement. After all, this is a dicussion forum.

[flamingjimmy]

This is a very controversial statement. I've known a few frontline soldiers in my time, and they have all been adrenaline junkies.

That's one way to put it. Of the 2 people I know who have joined the army, one of them's a nice guy who wanted to give himself good career prospects after not doing so well at school, and the other was a total thug who just wanted to get to use guns and be 'ard'. Admittedly, its a very small sample though.

[XXTickerXX]

I find it astonishing that people consider animals to be equal or more important than human lives. To have this view a person must have some mental problems or possibly an abusive upbringing which left them with a perverse view of the value of human life.

 

To you AJ and halibut.

 

Are no dogs worth more than humans?