In what cases, historically...

[3113]

Just to add, there is a play out now about a devout Catholic who refused to join the Nazi army in the later years of WWII. He was, of course, shot. But it's interesting to examine his objections and perspective as a CO. Review of the play is here:

iWitness

 

[oggbashan]

Informed Choices

I have a copy of Leni Reifenstahl's 'Triumph of the Will', her film record of a Nazi Rally at Nuremburg.

Even in black and white and in the 21st century, the impact of that film is massive. At the time in Germany just recovering from rampant inflation and high unemployment, that film shows hope of a strong and prosperous country. For its time it was a dramatic manifesto for the Nazi Party. It still makes me think that joining this movement is a worthwhile thing to do although I know it is based on lies.

Her film Olympische Spiele, the record of the 1936 Olympics, is also strong propaganda for the Nazi Party. She made versions for internal use and also for international distribution with the political message toned down.

My point is that it is only possible to judge the justification for any war in the light of the information you have. Today the internet makes it almost impossible to conceal other views of the news from a country's population. In the 1930s it was easy.

If all you knew was from the media in Germany? Then you 'knew' that a conspiracy of Jews were determined to crush Germany and that only Hitler and the Nazi Party could save the country and return it to greatness. Access to other countries' media was almost impossible except for weak radio transmissions. (and it was unpatriotic to listen to foreign stations)

How then could you judge whether the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the anschluss in Austria, or the invasion of Poland were wrong? You would have no information except that delivered by the state. Being a conscientious objector would be difficulyt unless you were against any war whatever.

Even if you doubted, expressing that doubt could lead to denunciation. Your children were educated to look for expressions against the government and rewarded for reporting any, even by their parents. Every street had its party worker watching for dissent and encouraging Party membership. To hold any office under the state, Party membership was essential.

What the Nazi Party and their propaganda did inside Germany in the 1930s would not be possible today, but how do you know that your media is telling the truth, or is it presenting you with the news as your government wants it to be told? What differing views are presented?

What is 'truth' anyway?

Og

 

[3113]

My point is that it is only possible to judge the justification for any war in the light of the information you have. Today the internet makes it almost impossible to conceal other views of the news from a country's population. In the 1930s it was easy....(and it was unpatriotic to listen to foreign stations)...Even if you doubted, expressing that doubt could lead to denunciation.

This is all true, HOWEVER, I was under the assumption that we are still, to some extent, ourselves. So the question is, given what info you were likely to be given in that time and place, when would you (or just would you) conscientiously object to the war.

Granted that it might be hard, maybe even impossible to really object because the government/your friends wouldn't let you. Still, people DID object. People DID question. Back then, back there, even with all that propaganda and limits of information and cultural brainwashing. There WERE people who saw something more in what was happening and didn't like it.

Being brutally honest, some of us like Colly, knowing OURSELVES, would argue that we'd be happy to swallow the propaganda and on the bandwagon. Others, knowing OURSELVES, would argue that we would object for other reasons--personality not political or ethical, that is, as Sev said, he's a bit too much of a rebel to just go along with it. And still others, knowing OURSELVES and being honest might say that we tend to see though this stuff, that we dig and investagate and we believe we might have been able to tell that the government spin wasn't so rosy. And that's when we might well object.

Whether we'd be allowed to object or not, whether we'd be afraid to object is irrelevant. Would we IN OUR HEARTS AND MINDS be objecting? Would we WANT to object? Would we TRY to object?

I'm not advocating the hindsight view; we should put ourselves in the position of that time and place and circumstances and answer from that perspective. But that doesn't mean that all people who say they'd object are fooling themselves. Because, few as there were, people DID object. So it's not unthinkable. It's not a complete whitewash.

 

[FallingToFly]

....would you have been a conscientious objector.

Having hopefully resolved any issues and debate or acrimony arising from side issues from the abstract question that I raised in the Hypocrisy thread...I was thinking of a different issue...for those of us who are not generally pacifists....what wars would you have opposed and why?

In my case:

If I were German, WW2. I could not have backed Hitler, although I would not have condemned the regular soldiers of the Wehrmacht themselves. And I would have probably gone underground to subvert Hitler, not considering it treason but my duty to overthrow him.

Same with Italy in the same war.

If I were British, the American Revolution. I could not have helped out in the war to reduce colonies to a state of serfdom, which is how I would have seen it.

I agree with all of that, and I add a few.

The Civil War... I would have been a supporter of the South. Before anyone starts slapping at me - not because of slavery. My family is IRISH, and came over as indentured servants (which is a polite way of saying SLAVE, with the tiny sliver of a chance at working yourself free being the carrot dangled at the end of the stick) and I don't understand the concept of slavery, period. It would be a purely political issue... the fact that a small minority who had no concept of how the economics of the Southern States worked was demanding that they change the only way they were capable of doing business at that point in time,

The slaughter of the mustangs in the Western states. Hell, I'm a concientious objector to that NOW. I've worked with horses my whole life and have dealt with everything from $45,000 event horses to draft horses to Shetlands that were so rotten that they were given away. Mustangs are incredible - once you get their trust and faith, they will literally kill themselves for you. They fight like tigers to defend their people, will break their own legs to save you from a fall, and will walk through Hell if you ask them to. They have so many uses even in the modern world that I can't wrap my bleeding little heart around the idea of killing them off... for cattle, who, oddly enough, you can graze right along with the mustangs, and have no issues. I will never understand greed, no matter how long I live in this world.

(Weird thing to be passionate about, I know, but literally, I was riding before I was born. Two weeks before I was born, my mother broke the girth to the saddle mounting, and that's the only reason she quit riding, lol. Six weeks later, she was back on Go Girl, with me in a jerry-bag. I was almost as bad with my kids, although I waited until they were able to sit up on their own before taking them riding with me.)

Vietnam. We shouldn't have been there. I don't really want to get into the whole mess, but I will say that my mother's side of the family lost nearly half of two generations of males, and a few of the girls as well. The man my mother was in love with for the past 15 years, even after his death last year, lost his ability to have children, his twin brother, his health, and a great chunk of his sanity to that engagement, and I always looked at him and saw nothing but a senseless tragedy.

*sigh* Generally, I don't agree with America's policy of policing the rest of the world. We can't fix the fucked-up way our country is, and we want to tell other countries how to run their lives? We could be wiping out so many issues in our own country, but instead we're cutting our own throats to "fix" the rest of the world... gah. Okay, I shouldn't be fussing about this right now, I'll make myself even more cranky, sore and sick than I already am.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I'd guess that there would have been about as many Germans objecting to Hitler or Italians objecting to Mussolini as there were Americans objecting to Viet Nam or Iraq, which would be something like maybe none. You can tut tut and tsk tsk about those naughty Germans and undemocratic Italians from the safety of hindsight, but when those jingoistic drums start playing and they start waving the flag and talking about Freedom, most Americans are more than willing to grab a gun and start shooting at whoever we're told to in the name of Liberty and Patriotism and Duty.

Evil isn't just Hitler's hatred or Tojo's imperialistic dreams. It's the poeple who believe what their leaders say without question and do what they're fucking told, which unfortunately is like 98% of us.

So I don't buy this self-satisfied smugness that tells us we would have had the moral vision and courage to go against our givernment and countrymen and gone out and found out the truth for ourselves and acted on it. We would have marched along with the rest of the fucking sheep, just like we still do today.

 

[3113]

Speak for yourself!

So I don't buy this self-satisfied smugness that tells us we would have had the moral vision and courage to go against our givernment and countrymen and gone out and found out the truth for ourselves and acted on it. We would have marched along with the rest of the fucking sheep, just like we still do today.

Hey, speak for yourself.

The minute I heard about the proposed invasion of Iraq I argued against it with everyone I met, including some very convinced flag wavers, who, of course, refused to believe a word I said. And I told them what I thought would happen. And everything I said back then, on the eve of the invasion, has happened over the last few years, like clockwork--from the initial cheers and self-congratulatory pats on the back, to the anouncement that there were no WMD to the staggering costs, the lack of oil (everyone seemed to think barrels of oil would be ours for the taking!), the distrust of other nations, the destablization in the region, the split among religion sects, etc. Every fucking prediction I made has come true and they are still coming true. Really. It was depressingly easy to see exactly what was going to happen.

I saw the future I saw, the waste and trouble we were heading into and I objected. Loudly and without apology. I objected then, I object now, and I have never once been tempted to join in the flag waving and the parades and cheering section. Not for a single, solitary second.

I'm not going to argue whether I'd have done the same in a hypothtical past life. I can't, obviously, know for sure as I would have been a different person and pressures to conform would have been stronger, the consequences more dire. But I will thank you to speak for yourself and not me if you're going to mention a lack of moral vision or courage. Accuse me of being a sheep in other regards and I'll happily agree. I follow along with fads and such as much as anyone. But not when it comes to war. Never when it comes to war.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Hey, speak for yourself.

The minute I heard about the proposed invasion of Iraq I argued against it with everyone I met, including some very convinced flag wavers, who, of course, refused to believe a word I said. And I told them what I thought would happen. And everything I said back then, on the eve of the invasion, has happened over the last few years, like clockwork--from the initial cheers and self-congratulatory pats on the back, to the anouncement that there were no WMD to the staggering costs, the lack of oil (everyone seemed to think barrels of oil would be ours for the taking!), the distrust of other nations, the destablization in the region, the split among religion sects, etc. Every fucking prediction I made has come true and they are still coming true. Really. It was depressingly easy to see exactly what was going to happen.

I saw the future I saw, the waste and trouble we were heading into and I objected. Loudly and without apology. I objected then, I object now, and I have never once been tempted to join in the flag waving and the parades and cheering section. Not for a single, solitary second.

I'm not going to argue whether I'd have done the same in a hypothtical past life. I can't, obviously, know for sure as I would have been a different person and pressures to conform would have been stronger, the consequences more dire. But I will thank you to speak for yourself and not me if you're going to mention a lack of moral vision or courage. Accuse me of being a sheep in other regards and I'll happily agree. I follow along with fads and such as much as anyone. But not when it comes to war. Never when it comes to war.

I apologize, 3113, and I agree entirely. I exaggerated for effect. My point is, people always seem to assume that Evil only comes in the easily recognizable forms of goose-stepping troops and gulags and never rercognize it when it comes in all it's usual banality, in the form of appeals to their patriotism and higher values. I assure you, Hitler never told the Germans, "Follow me and I'll make you the most Evil people in Europe!" No, it all came in appeals to patriotism, defense of the Fatherland and the German way of life, and the superiority of German values, pretty much the same line we were fed on Iraq and Viet Nam and swallowed hook, line, and sinker.

Since Viet Nam and Watergate, more of us have been questioning our government's rationales for the various wars we engage in, but we're still in a minority, and in Iraq it was a pitiful minority. We still hear stuff about how we're fihting over there to preserve Freedom and the American Way of Life. Huh? We'll see how long it is before we're labelled traitors and America-haters and accused of stabbing our boys and girls in the field in the back with our doubts and demands of accountability.

Modern America has rarely met a war it didn't like. (How many times have we invaded Haiti in the last 50 years, for God's sake? Does anyone even notice anymore?) Let's remember that in the last fifty years, America has been involved in more military actions on foreign soil than any other nation in earth, and all of these wars have been juistified in the name of Peace and Liberty and Democracy and Freedom.

I also find it funny that the wars I personally supported - Bosnia and Somalia, where we went in and actually tried to save innocent people from death by genocide and starvation - are the very wars most America-firsters seem to decry as pointless foreign adventurism.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I agree entirely, and I admit I exaggerated for effect. My point is, people always seem to assume the Evil only comes in the easily recognizable forms of goose-stepping troops and gulags and never rercognize it when it comes in all it's usual banality, the form of appeals to their patriotism and higher values. I assure you, Hitler never told the Germans, "Follow me and I'll make you the most Evil people in Europe!" No, it all came in appeals to patriotism, self-defense, and the superiority of German values, pretty much the same line we were fed on Iraq and Viet Nam.

Since Viet Nam and Watergate, more of us have been questioning our government's rationales for the various wars we engage in, but we're still in a minority, and in Iraq it was a pitiful minority. We'll see how long it is before we're labelled traitors and America-haters and accused of stabbing our boys and girls in the field in the back with our doubts and demands of accountability.

Modern America has rarely met a war it didn't like. (How many times have we invaded Haiti in the last 50 years, for God's sake? Does anyone even notice anymore?) Let's remember that in the last fifty years, America has been involved in more military actions on foreign soil than any other nation in the world, and all of these wars have been juistified in the name of Peace and Liberty and Democracy and Freedom.

I also find it funny that the wars I personally supported - Bosnia and Somalia, where we went in and actually tried to save innocent people from death by genocide and starvation - are the very wars most America-firsters seem to decry as pointless foreign adventurism.

I'm not against the use of the military, but I did want to touch on one thing in you rpost Doc. You mentioned the banality of evil. It's not only banal, it's almost always incremental. tiny steps, easily justified and countenanced by th epopulation. yet each lays the ground work for the next timy step.

Hitler never could have said upon becoming Chancellor "We will now liquidate the jews" It started with very small steps, steps that the people coul approve of, like retiring jews from the civil service. And they were retired, with pensions and benefits. They were forced out, but it was done in a very "fair" way. As long as Hindenberg was alive, you'll see a stipulation to almost all the anti-jewish laws. Jewish WWI veterans are excluded from the legislation or were given exemption as soon as one was targeted and complained.

Just as you rliberty can be erroded in small, seemingly innocuous steps, this too is how monumental evil usually comes about. A tiny step at a time, always easily justified, always affecting such a small portion of the population or of your rights that it passes, almost unnoticed.

 

[oggbashan]

I think there is a real problem with this thread.

We are who we are as a result of our current environment. Since Nuremburg and especially since Vietnam, war has been seen differently. Before Vietnam, even blatant adventurism such as Suez could be portrayed as being in the national interest and worthy of support.

The information available to the general public about the reality of war is vastly different from WWII when governments could lie to their people on a huge scale. The modern war correspondent has made the lies easier to spot and have risked their lives to bring accurate news. Journalists died in WWII but their reporting was censored and managed. Journalists continue to die in today's wars but except for 'embedded' journalists, can report what they see without censorship - except by their employers and what the public want to hear.

Trying to decide whether we would react to a past war if we had been there at the time assumes that we have the information that we now have about that war.

For example, I understand that many supporters of the Confederacy in the American Civil War did not see the issue as being about slavery, but about states' rights and federal rights. Slavery was a catalyst perhaps, but not the main cause of that war. Yet if we are to consider what we would have done then, we cannot avoid the interpretation of the motives for the war as we NOW understand it, not as it appeared at the time.

History is being rewritten all the time from the perspective of 'now'.

For example: Why did Henry VIII split with the Church of Rome? Was it just to provide himself with an heir, or to appropriate the Church's property in England, or to enhance his power; or to build bridges to Protestants in Europe as a balance for France, or to remove the threat of a spiritual leader who had almost as much temporal power in England as Henry VIII had? How can we understand the causes of that split except by understanding Henry's world-view at the time? And if we think we do understand, how do we know we are right?

So, the question posed by this thread gets more complex. How could you be a Conscientous Objector to a past war without understanding the mindset of people at that time and whether the idea of a CO was even possible?

Og

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Colly raises a particularly valid point. Tyrants are rarely going to broadcast their intentions. They will instead move, step by slow step, in the direction of chipping away at freedoms. This is something that the Patriots understood, why they had to act before it was too late. This is why the Southerners panicked. They were probably wrong about Lincoln's plans, but there is no certainty of it. It's an understandable fear, given the history of demagogues (not to say that Honest Abe was one of those) and dictators. Piece by piece, freedom can be taken away without people realizing it. That was Hitler's strategy, far subtler than what Ernst Roehm had in mind with his "Second Revolution".

As to Mab's point, I view the armed forces as a primarily defensive force. Historically, peacekeeping is not its proper role. If you MUST have peacekeepers, there's the UN for that. And OAS, NATO, etc. This war is not constitutional or wise, I'm convinced of that. Only Congress can declare war, and it should have done so if we were going to fight it. The Presidential authority to "wage war" was intended for defense in case an enemy invaded while Congress was out of session or for some reason hadn't managed to declare war in time. You can't wait for that to defend your home. Declaration of war was for cases like WW1 and WW2, after provocation and an act of war made a hostile intent evident. Afghanistan was a justified war, but a Congressional declaration should have happened there too.

None of this applied to Somalia or Bosnia. The UN, NATO, OAU, etc. could have handled that. Or people could have risen up and stood up to the warlords. As it turned out, much of Somalia has recovered since it was "abandoned" in that short attempt. Bosnia was an ancient, tribal conflict, just like Iraq, Rwanda, etc. No peace can be guaranteed by foreign intervention.

We have lost sight of the Framers' understanding of a just war. I think that it is time that we look to them again for the right idea of warfare. Just my take. Other nations can adopt whatever policies they wish, but I would advise not to try to police the world, either.

Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, all have set bad precedents for the present war in Iraq. Far too much power in the hands of an Imperial Presidency that makes the old threat of an "Imperial Congress" seem laughable by comparison. Remember, Augustus used entirely republican institutions and powers to make himself the First Emperor. He just combined them more. He also preached a lot of "family values" and touted a return to a time of puritanical mores that never existed to begin with, not that it stopped him from seducing senators' wives.

As for Og's point, well, there is no guarantee. I was asking people to guess. As with any guess, it can be wrong. My instinct suggests that I would have pissed off the Nazis early enough to end up in a camp or exile. But, failing that or if I had been angry enough with Weimar and Versailles, desperate over unemployment and inflation, or attracted to the occult rites and the handsome young stormtroopers and their rowdy style of revolution, I might well have become a Nazi. So your guess is as good as mine or Colly's. Or 3113's. And you DO have a point about the media. That would be a factor for sure.

Another factor is disenchantment with freedom. If things go badly enough, people can turn to demagogues and become convinced that tyranny is a better option. Or "democratic Caesarism", as the Nazis were fond of saying.

 

[3113]

I apologize, 3113, and I agree entirely. I exaggerated for effect. My point is, people always seem to assume that Evil only comes in the easily recognizable forms of goose-stepping troops and gulags and never rercognize it when it comes in all it's usual banality, in the form of appeals to their patriotism and higher values.

Hey, apology accepted and fair enough. You're absolutely right.

Modern America has rarely met a war it didn't like. (How many times have we invaded Haiti in the last 50 years, for God's sake? Does anyone even notice anymore?) Let's remember that in the last fifty years, America has been involved in more military actions on foreign soil than any other nation in earth, and all of these wars have been juistified in the name of Peace and Liberty and Democracy and Freedom.

America does seem to like flexing its muscles. And there is a blind patriotism that gets us all fired up in much the way people get fired up for sports. Americians, to my mind at least, often seem to be rooting for soldiers as if they were rooting for a home team to win the game.

As in all wars, the trick is always to de-humanize the enemy, but I sometimes think that in the U.S. the enemy isn't merely dehumanized, they're transformed into a cartoon--and too many citizens think the enemy can be defeated as easily as a cartoon. Which might be why it's so very easy to get U.S. citizens to accept a war. They not only want to cheer and root for their home team (and feel powerful), but they always seem to think it'll be an easy win, over and done-with, no lasting consequences. Drop the anvil on the bad guy, cartoon ends.

But getting back to the question, I assumed we were to project ourselves, as much as we could be ourselves, back in time to past wars. And most of us on this forum are part of that small miniority that does seem to think, argue and investagate. I haven't seen many folk on this board ever say, "It's unpatriotic to think like that! How dare you even question our government!"

As Sev said, there's no guarantee that we'd be as thoughtful in a past life as we are in this life. Most of the people on this board, however, no matter their politics, are willing to discuss their point of view without resorting to blind chauvinism. Alas, this is not the norm or the majority of people....in any country.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

As to Mab's point, I view the armed forces as a primarily defensive force. Historically, peacekeeping is not its proper role. If you MUST have peacekeepers, there's the UN for that. And OAS, NATO, etc. This war is not constitutional or wise, I'm convinced of that. Only Congress can declare war, and it should have done so if we were going to fight it. The Presidential authority to "wage war" was intended for defense in case an enemy invaded while Congress was out of session or for some reason hadn't managed to declare war in time. You can't wait for that to defend your home. Declaration of war was for cases like WW1 and WW2, after provocation and an act of war made a hostile intent evident. Afghanistan was a justified war, but a Congressional declaration should have happened there too.

None of this applied to Somalia or Bosnia. The UN, NATO, OAU, etc. could have handled that. Or people could have risen up and stood up to the warlords. As it turned out, much of Somalia has recovered since it was "abandoned" in that short attempt. Bosnia was an ancient, tribal conflict, just like Iraq, Rwanda, etc. No peace can be guaranteed by foreign intervention.

I really don't know much about the legality of who declares war or how. I just felt an easier way of answering your question would be in terms of which military actions I'd have supported in the last 50 years or so, and the ones that came to mind were the ones where we used our military to try and help people who were being slaughtered and wiped out by others.

Maybe Bosnia, Kosovo, and Somalia weren't legal or militarily wise, but to me they were terribly moral and noble, and I've never been prouder of our military and my country as a whole.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

I really don't know much about the legality of who declares war or how. I just felt an easier way of answering your question would be in terms of which military actions I'd have supported in the last 50 years or so, and the ones that came to mind were the ones where we used our military to try and help people who were being slaughtered and wiped out by others.

Maybe Bosnia, Kosovo, and Somalia weren't legal or militarily wise, but to me they were terribly moral and noble, and I've never been prouder of our military and my country as a whole.

Agreed about the nobility of purpose. I don't agree with them, but I have never doubted that Clinton meant well (as did the elder Bush) when they sent them. Lately, of course, I have been less inclined to impune Clinton's motives than I was in the past. Bush makes him look reasonable and sane by comparison.