With which part of what he's saying do you disagree? It's already been shown that officers and enlisteds take different oaths, so I assume you're referring to the issue of culpability. You pointed out that there is a difference between levels of responsibility, but not because they take different oaths. Kierland is not stating otherwise here. Chances are the causation is working in the opposite direction - the oaths are different because the expectations are different, and this doesn't only apply to "unjust wars," but to those that are "justified" as well as to peacetime. Kierland doesn' specify this, but neither does he say that the difference in responsibilities results from taking different oaths.mvscal wrote:Guess again, dipshit.Kierland wrote:A distinction should be made between officers and enlisted as they take a different oath. Officers are more 'culpable' and hence more 'blameworthy' for wrong doing in an unjust war than are the enlisted soldiers.Smackie Chan wrote: But I don't lay blame at the feet of those doing the fighting, and consider them, for the most part, to be far more noble and worthy of praise than, say, you, who does nothing of any discernible value for me or anyone else in this country.
For the My Lai massacre, some 26 officers and enlisted were court-martialed, but only Calley was convicted. The men who followed his orders risked punishment either way - if they obeyed, they were committing war crimes. If they didn't, they were insubordinate, and also failing to abide by the part of the oath requiring that they obey superior officers. I won't argue that all enlisteds blindly follow orders, but that is not at issue here, nor is the fact that both groups are bound by the UCMJ. The only two points being addressed are that the two take different oaths, and that they have different levels of responsibility imposed upon them, irrespective of the cause. On both counts, Kierland is right.
So where is the disagreement?