This sounds preposterous to me. Combat officers are supposed to lead troops, not die spectacularly. In general infantry are trained to shoot enemy officers or NCO’s because it screws up their operations at least for a time. A units cohesion is diminished if a leader is killed or disabled, at least for that operation.

This is not to suggest officers should not take risks, or set an example by a display of physical courage. It depends on the exigencies of the moment.

I’m a former Marine, my MOS was infantry, I was never in combat. I read a lot of military history. I could be wrong.

Before morale starts to suffer??

Befrore we lose a Constitutional form of government in a military coup, more like it.

Perhaps that would be fine if such pertained only to conflicts which they deem to be “illigitimate”. But what of Afghanistan, which so many are (at least now) claiming they always supported. Or what of Rwanda? Or Darfur? Or Zimbabwe? Where are, precisely, their bona fides and real world commitments located, other than this vaguely arrogated notion that very much is tantamount to a divine right or an ideological exceptionalism that seems to stem from no source whatsoever, other than their own rhetorical effusions? Is this in point of fact some type of latter-day, self-knighted moral aristocracy, declaiming loudly of rights, silent of or dismissive of duties? (And at best, willing to send others to stem the terror in Darfur or Rwanda, but never commit themselves.)

Don’t misunderstand, I don’t expect this to penetrate anyone’s conscience, such a trespass would be deemed insufferably presumptuous. This received notion is so thoroughly a part of their mental and moral landscape, so much an aspect of their due inheritance, very much like some latter-day moral aristocracy, that anything said in this vein will have no impact whatsoever, water off the back of a duck. It very much is an impenetrable and ineducable quality, a trait long known among history’s various aristocracies and elites.

Two other fatality sets are large enough to be of any use at all: the Italian military, at 3 officers out of 26 (11.5%) and the Polish/Ukrainian sets together (they served in the same formation and have similar recent military traditions): a remarkable 13 officers out of 35, or 37.1%.

Of those, actual commissioned-rank fatalities amount to (according to the same site, with naval-equivalent ranks summed in):

2Lt: 20; 1Lt: 41; Capt/Lt(N): 64; Maj/LtCdr(N): 17, LtCol/Cdr(N): 9, Col: 1, for a total of 152.

That’s a 9.0 per cent commissioned officer fatality rate, down from the stated 12 per cent in Vietnam.

Including warrant officers, which are in many cases non-commissioned helicopter pilots, technical specialists, etc. is misleading. In both the army and marines, actual battlefield leadership remains exclusively a commissioned officer task, as it did in Vietnam.

The previous figures above appear to have counted warrants, soldiers from other armies, and also engaged in some double-counting of 2nd lieutenants in order to to arrive at the higher figure.

And what’s with this apparently tremendous significance of knowing someone in the military personally? I don’t see the point, there are hundreds of thousands people there. We cast judgments on events and phenomena we haven’t personally experienced and people we haven’t personally met all the time, how come this is an exception?

You admitted that it worked on the civilian population.

Then you said that troops are a lot less susceptible to such tactics. How can it be? Are they the best and the brightests? Are they free-thinkers? Are they subjected to a wider variety of views and commentary than general population? Less propaganda? This is absurd, Steve.

This constant exaggerated idealistic flattery of ‘the guys in the trenches’ and pretending that any criticism of the military is an attack on them is exactly how the higher-ups manage to deflect and demagogue.

The Telegraph reports:

According to senior British officers, US military operations are typified by “force protection” – the protection of troops at all costs – that allows American troops to open fire, using whatever means available, if they believe that their lives are under threat.

By contrast, the British military has a graduated response to a threat and its rules of engagement are based on the principle of minimum force. Troops also have to justify their actions in post-operation reports that are reviewed by the Royal Military Police, and any discrepancy can lead to charges including murder.

A British officer said that some of the tactics employed by American forces would not be approved by British commanders.

The officer said: “US troops have the attitude of shoot first and ask questions later. They simply won’t take any risk.

Which has what, exactly, to do with being “psyched up on irrational hatred”?

I believe what the article describes is consistent with my comment. ‘Trigger-happy’ and ‘psyched up on irrational hatred’ are not that dissimilar.

Oh, sorry, I’m asking for rational thought from the loony left- what was I thinking.

I think you might want to admit that there’s nothing particularly irrational in what I’m saying. It maybe too blunt for your taste – OK, but irrational?

To say the least, there’s some rich ironies here, will being by noting this from another poster:

“… surely Kieran was drawing on Hanson to make a point about how people will ultimately only follow leaders who actually take responsibility, and suffer the consequences of their actions.”

Surely so, and such brings up several issues. What, for example, does that say about those who remain outside the system and “above the fray,” who wouldn’t go through a few months basic training much less attempt the difficult work that actually needs to be done – and therein leading by example instead of from the sidelines? And, if the impulse is to complain one is against the Iraqi intervention per se, that’s a pretty lean argument, four points:

1) Most are saying the Afghanistan invention was warranted, 2) there’s all those years between the end of the Cold War and 9/11 during which there was no specific conflict to oppose and indeed, some to positively remedy (e.g., Rwanda), 3) if someone claims they’re waiting for a perfect country and a perfect military to be formed before they join up, that’s never going to happen in the first place, 4) don’t have to join the U.S. or British militaries necessarily, other countries’ militaries are also possible destinations in this regard where leadership by example could be demonstrated:

Darfur update here and here.

Zimbabwe update here and here.

For Rwanda, of course, it’s a bit too late to demonstrate one’s convictions and leadership, to lead by example instead of by multiplied mouthings.

Or, Kieran and the rest can remain high, pontifically high, above the fray – unsoiled by all the actual work. Rich ironies indeed.