Bahrain army shoots protestors!!

[Dex]

Can't be good for for tourism! We must take a moment to reflect how lucky we have it

WARNING GRAPHIC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3WRKoZP ... ter=1#t=3s

[Prairie Chicken]

This sort of thing makes you realize why the government likes to know where all the weapons are. Step one is the gun registry. Step two is confiscation.

If that sounds extreme to you, put yourselves in the position of the Bahrainians. Wouldn't you like to have some hunting rifles in your closet?

[. ._]

Gets me thinking.

If you were in the Canadian Forces and you were ordered to kill unarmed Canadian citizens, would you follow the order?

[ktcanuck]

Can't be good for for tourism! We must take a moment to reflect how lucky we have it

WARNING GRAPHIC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3WRKoZP ... ter=1#t=3s

This kind of official reaction happens one step at a time. We have taken a couple of steps towards it.

[grimey]

Gets me thinking.

If you were in the Canadian Forces and you were ordered to kill unarmed Canadian citizens, would you follow the order?

Probably not, but I would have said the same thing about the US before Kent State happened.

Anyway, armed civilians will be pretty much useless against a well trained and properly equipped military.

[bizjets101]

If you were in the Canadian Forces and you were ordered to kill unarmed Canadian citizens, would you follow the order?

It isn't exactly unusual for a cop to shot a citizen, so I see no reason why our ex Peace Keepers
would have a problem shooting fellow Canadians.

Fortunately through Canada's Immigration - I'm sure we've got plenty of people here that can whip up some IED's - and we have way more access to bomb materials in Canada than the Afghan people have!!

[The Old Fogducker]

ISTP:

To answer your question, I'd have to frame the context.

Lets go back to October, 1970.... the night before The War Measures Act was invoked.

The FLQ are setting off bombs, making bomb threats, having radio stations broadcast their manifesto, and kidnapping diplomats. I was in Montreal at the time, and received several bomb threats while at work. I'd leave the building and wait in the street for the cops to come with the bomb sniffing dog and search the place. I'll never forget the phraseology the cops used .... "We can't find a bomb inside." When I'd watch the clock sweep second hand announce the time the device was supposed to detonate, I always hoped the dogs hadn't been distracted by the smell of a salami sandwich in a wastebasket.

The facility where I was employed was considered to be of value to the FLQ. I was also within a year of having left my part-time position as a Section Commander in the Army Reserve Battalion for the Royal Canadian Regiment.

Having hidden behind my couch as possible protection from my picture window being blown in due to concussion from the many bombs the terrorists set off will tend to focus the mind on things. After several bombs went off in my immediate neighbourhood that evening, I went to work for my shift that night, and came off work at 0530, went out the front door to find two jeeps with 30 cal Brownings on pindle mounts at our building, one at the front door ... the other at the back. Lots of soldiers on foot with FNs and SMGs standing around and deployed across the street. A couple of Riflemen were on rooftops. They were there to protect me and prevent the facility from being taken by FLQ or their sympathizers.

So for a few moments, lets say my role had been reversed and instead of being the guy inside the building they were protecting, I was the guy that less than a year earlier may well have been one of those young soldiers in uniform out in the street doing the protecting.

Lets further speculate that my Orders and Rules of Engagement included a set of circumstances where the use of Deadly Force had been authorized. Now lets toss in an angry mob of several hundred with picket signs, doing a lot of yelling and screaming. You are outnumbered at least ten to one. Things escalate every minute, becoming more and more agitated, and they start to throw a hail of stones, bottles, and anything else they can get their hands on. Next there are some Molotov Cocktails that come flying out of the crowd and smashing pretty much at your feet, and very close to the building with a strong likelihood of setting it on fire. Somebody in the nameless faceless crowd fires a few small arms shots toward "your guys" but nobody has taken any hits yet, and there is no identifiable shooter.

The crowd gets closer, your section is terribly outnumbered and there is no possibility of anyone coming to help you within lets say .... ten minutes.

You make many announcements through a Bullhorn with no response from the crowd, then fire some canisters of gas and brandish your loaded weapons to keep the crowd back ... and that works for a minute or two, but they reform and now begin to close in .... so ISTP ... there you are. In the next few seconds things are going to get very, very ugly. Your "fellow Canadians" who support a terrorist organization are on the streets of Montreal, and are now about to drag you into the mob and at the very least kick the living crap out of you until you go limp ... entirely possible they will beat you to death.

As if that weren't bad enough, they would then have your weapons to use against your fellow soldiers, and storm the building you were sent there to protect. Once inside, they have access to a valuable resource which would further their misguided cause.

Under those circumstances ISTP, and fully in accordance with my orders and out of a sense of protecting my life and the lives of my fellow soldiers would I have shot "my fellow Canadians?" ... absolutely without question.

I would have aimed at those whom I perceived as the "ring leaders" and pulled the trigger. Further, with my firearms handling skills at the time, there would have been no wounding involved, they would have been shot dead and dropped within 3 feet of where they stood when I squeezed the trigger.

I hope this edited description helps you understand how a soldier could fire on "his fellow citizens" regardless of what country we are discussing.

I used the FLQ example because it was an experience from my life in my early 20's.

The Old Fogducker

[Brewguy]

Very well put, OFD.

Things are often very black & white for armchair quarterbacks; but scenarios often get far more complicated in the real world. As a former CF Reserve officer myself, I say your post paints a pretty good picture of how these things can go down.

In the scenario you laid out, I'd be pulling the trigger too.

[. ._]

That makes sense. Sounds pretty reasonable under those circumstances.

But my question was more of a theoretical ethical one. If there is NO threat to the soldier, will he follow the order to shoot his fellow unarmed Canadians?

As far as I know, you swear allegiance to the Queen, not your fellow Canadians, Charter of Rights and Freedoms or Constitution. So if the Queen tells you to gun down your neighbour, theoretically you have to if you're in the Forces.

Just stirring the pot after watching too much Alex Jones this morning.

-istp

[The Old Fogducker]

Well now ISTP ... here's where we depart the fix.

Your question is too overarching to provide a simple yes/no answer.

If one of the guys in my unit that outranked me told me to sight in and gun down some granny leaving Safeway with loaves of bread to make toast for the grandkids that were staying over for the weekend, obviously no.

To fire into a crowd under the circumstances I detailed earlier, the answer is "of course."

The theoretical question without context is something about the extreme leftw-wing loonies that always has miffed me ... and from that time period I spoke of in Montreal began to show me my short foray into the world of the advocates of "The Peace & Love Generation" had no clue of what they were speaking of. The local long-haired ideology guru who doubled as an astrologer would love to frame the daily lesson of his teachings on the imorality of the conservative thinkers in exactly the same way as you have ISTP.

While listening with my free-thinking, advocate of free love girlfriend I'd be thinking "this is bullshit." She would be lapping it up ... as all too many did. I rejected it outright and became one of those derisively referred to as "Neocons" .... which was really just an affirmation of my true sense of what made sense and what didn't. Like many others who rejected the whole dogma of the extreme left, I've proudly remained in that "Neocon" camp ever since.

So ISTP ... I'm afraid your question fails my sniff test.

My now very long gone exgirlfriend would have said something like ... "well, the reson you don't understand is because last night at 9:28, Mars moved across the border into your Virgo sphere of influence, thereby making it impossible for you to accept the less than perfect infomation until you have Scorpio rising at 4 tomorrow morning."

To which I'd think .... "Bullshit."

The Old Fogducker

[Nark]

But my question was more of a theoretical ethical one. If there is NO threat to the soldier, will he follow the order to shoot his fellow unarmed Canadians?

As a servicemen, we don't get orders to "kill people." This is what the layperson, such as yourself, fails to see.

In OFD's example, the order was to protect the building. Part of protecting the building comes with Rules of Engagement and Escalation of Force. He described it very well, so I won't.

So to answer your theoretical/ethical questions: No, that is not a lawful order.

You're questions spurred a memory of mine: while I was doing a patrol near the Syrian border, a kid maybe 10 years old or so, came running up to our convoy; and had something in his hands. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, rather than shooting him. He only threw a rock at us. Hostile Intent? Yes. Hostile Threat, no. Hence the reason I didn't shoot him.

[Dash-Ate]

In case you've forgeet, WAR is the most profitable busines in the world bar none. And business is good. Cha-ching. don't worry guy this will come to our cities soon, G20 was just a preview.



The Arsenal Against Democracy: US Arms Fuel Bahraini Crackdown

Posted By Jason Ditz On February 18, 2011 @ 7:51 pm In Uncategorized | 6 Comments

A tiny nation with no real security threats, one would have likely been puzzled up until this week at the massive military spending of Bahrain, and its stockpiling of US-made weapons. The crackdowns of the past few days make it clear: these arms were meant to target the public, not some foreign enemy.

Over the years the US has sold Bahrain an enormous collection of weapons, including the F5 Freedom Fighter warplanes that are in the skies now, literally fighting freedom. The tanks that roll through the streets of Manama are M60A3 tanks, made in Detroit in the 1990s, with an historical market out front lauding the plant as the Arsenal of Democracy. The arsenal, it seems, turned on democracy at some point.

Indeed much as the violent crackdowns in Egypt did during their uprising, much of the brutality in Bahrain is also clearly marked “made in America,” where the Obama Administration, determined to see its status as world’s largest weapons maker, has only grown the sales to brutal regimes.

And really, it should have been obvious from the start. Why would Bahrain, an island nation, need scores of heavily armored tanks, if not to turn them on the public? Is not the privilege of being an island nation that you don’t have to worry about heavy armor? Who exactly did American arms dealers believe these tanks would target, and if they knew all along they would be used to crush dissent, how can Congress not be planning massive investigations?

[Brewguy]

No, that is not a lawful order...

Bingo! And there's another thing that some fail to recognize. "Just following orders" is an excuse many a Nazi war criminal uttered before being hanged. Soldiers are only required to follow "lawful commands". So back to OFD's example, being ordered to drop granny and her bags of bread would most certainly be illegal.

But on a side note - I always wondered about the legality of a 'dead line'; which are still (at least fairly recently) used by the US military in places. When they first started taking their Stealth aircraft to airshows, the aircraft would have two sets of ropes around them. And the posted signs said if you step over the 2nd (inner) rope, the armed MP's were authorized to use lethal force to stop you. I've also seen a line painted on the ground at a USAF base that similarly had signage stating that if you crossed that line, they could use lethal force against you without warning.

Hmm.....

[Dash-Ate]

"We know he has WMD!!" I'm an ex oil company CEO and billionaire, and we invaded him in 1991 for the oil wells and now we're going to invade again and risk US troops for oil.
"We come as liberators not as conquers" "Operation Iraqi Freedom"

What a fine upstanding nice man! We should all listen to him. We did. He would not lie to us in the media, would he??




"Saddam is the greatest threat we have ever faced"




"We know he has WMD: I'm signing no-bid contracts as we speak"

[grimey]

Yea, that's on topic. Take your meds, Dash.

[The Old Fogducker]

The same microsecond that I saw Dash had replied to the earlier post, I knew this would take a hilarious turn.

And ... as surely as the sun rises in the east (at the equator at least) ... I didn't have to wait long before I found Dash's infectious sense of humour to be such fun, I almost split a gut laughing.

I haven't had so much fun since the pig bit my sister, or I used to listen to the rabid rantings of Radio Peking on my shortwave receiver.

The Old Fogducker

[trey kule]

Anyway, armed civilians will be pretty much useless against a well trained and properly equipped military

Reallly? I think a few people from the Vietnam era, and more recently places like Afghanastan, might just disagree with that statement. Soldiers go home, win or lose.
Civilians are home. They can only win or lose and they cant quit fighting.

If they dont have guns, they will throw rocks. Look at Palestine. If they dont have mortars they will use propane bottles. And stolen shells for IED's.

There have been some really good posts here. It is difficult when our children are being raised in the fantasy world of computer games where you die and yet you live, and who have never stood toe to toe with a group that is bent on hurting you. A mob of people with sticks and stones is not unarmed, and if you dont react to stop the threat, the outcome is clearly written.
One of the best stratagies that is used today (via the media) is to demonize the destroying of places of worship, or bombing of unarmend civilians. The media never mentions that the places of worship are used to store arms. Or that the civilians killed in the bombing attack were being held hostage there to protect someone or something, and would become a media atraocity.

Parts of the world can be an ugly and dangerous place. I have been in the kind of situation Nark describes, and I have seen the results of letting nice little kids walk up to your APC.
It is a tough call, and unless you have been there, you really cant imagine how fast life and death decisions have to be made. sometimes your wrong.

[Prairie Chicken]

+ 1 Kule, although if I had to I'd rather fight back with something a little more effective than rocks.

The success of the Taliban against the high-tech military hardware of the NATO forces confirms that. I wonder if we really need the new fighters if this is the type of war we may be fighting. On the other hand, if we're fighting the Russians in the Arctic, perhaps we do.

[bmc]

Gets me thinking.

If you were in the Canadian Forces and you were ordered to kill unarmed Canadian citizens, would you follow the order?

A couple things to point out. First, many soldiers and police come from Baluchistan. Second, the shiite / sunni split is a cause of tension in the country. Another point is the mistrust of everyone. It's not uncommon to believe your neighbor or coworker is a spy for the govt. What's going on in Bahrain is a bit more complex that Egypt or Tunisia.

One thing that is clear is the people don't know what they want. They've been living under a monarchy all their lives. They wouldn't know what to do the day after the ruling family fell.

I wish the media would quit calling it Pearl Square and correctly call it the Pearl Roundabout.

Sad to see this happening to such a nice country.

[grimey]

Anyway, armed civilians will be pretty much useless against a well trained and properly equipped military

Reallly? I think a few people from the Vietnam era, and more recently places like Afghanastan, might just disagree with that statement. Soldiers go home, win or lose.
Civilians are home. They can only win or lose and they cant quit fighting.

Where would the Canadian military go home to if they were fighting Canadians in Canada?

[trey kule]

ah, the old switcheroo.. You are now talking about civil war. I did not notice that distinction in your first post.
Well, it has been a few decades since I was in the military, but at that time we had something called "Aid to a civil power" Not sure if that still exists. Used for benign things like security, prison guard strikes, flooding in winnipeg. But it also can be used for civil unrest ( or used to be.)
So, to answer your question that you so cleverly redefined, home. The military is there to aid a civil power. I dont think it is a big deal. When a few criminals from an central Canadian reserve started killing police offers, the military got called in, and got the job done. Then, I suppose they all went home, or onto another job. In 1970 when the War Measures Act came into force...that was a big deal...And the military went home after the job was done.

But that situation does not represent a dedicated civilian population out to destroy the government or get rid of some invader who is stealing their oil and allowing one of the other factions to benefit. Britian, at the height of its colonial empire, was expert in keeping order in the colonies by causing internal discord. Might be the same today.. Kurds, Sunnis, She-ites, He-ites.....while they are fighting the oil is being pumped.

So, my answer to your original statement stands. As to you redefined question, civil war is a different issue , but the same holds true..People will fight with what they have, and you simply cant annilate a population though it has pretty much being tried in places like Russia and Cambodia..

Nark's illustration is very dear to me for a number of reasons, but it does illustrate the issue.
Cute little kid approachs a group. In our world, anyway, he is a cute kid.. In other worlds he is spotting positions for snipers and advising daddy in the doorway, or wearing an explosive that daddy will set off when he gets near, or holding something in his cute little had.. A rock?
or an M-72 grenade...You have to make a quick decision. If you shoot the little bugger it is going to be splashed all over the media that Canadians are baby killers. If you dont, and it is a grenade, instead of a rock, your buddies are going to die...Sitting in front of a computer, no matter how many war games you have played, simply will not give you an idea of what it is like to have to make those kinds of decisions.
Civilians have the media...and that represents countless battalions . All they need is people back in Canada to start rumblings and our government loses the will to fight .

Afganistan is about Opium. And power. If the warlords (taliban) have rule, Opium will flow outwards. The people are caught in the middle.

If you believe that the any military today is equipped to handle national guerella warfare, I think you are very misinformed.

[another_try]

"-any post that contains:
abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-oriented material, discusses physical violence against others, or any other material that may violate any applicable laws may result in the topic being removed and the user banned."


Mods, please delete this thread in accordance with YOUR own guidelines.

[The Old Fogducker]

Oh Boo Hoo

I put a lot of effort into this thread.

[Brewguy]

"-any post that contains:
abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-oriented material, discusses physical violence against others, or any other material that may violate any applicable laws may result in the topic being removed and the user banned."


Mods, please delete this thread in accordance with YOUR own guidelines.

So discussing current world events, which (unfortunately) includes war and conflict, offends you? Great, let's all just bury our heads in the sand and enjoy the bliss that comes with ignorance.

Oh by the way, welcome to the forum another_try. I look forward to seeing you contribute in a meaningful way to our little online community.

[grimey]

ah, the old switcheroo.. You are now talking about civil war. I did not notice that distinction in your first post.

We were talking about Bahraini soldiers fighting Bahraini civilians, and whether that could happen here. I though the premise was obvious enough that it didn't have to be restated:

Gets me thinking.

If you were in the Canadian Forces and you were ordered to kill unarmed Canadian citizens, would you follow the order?

Probably not, but I would have said the same thing about the US before Kent State happened.

Anyway, armed civilians will be pretty much useless against a well trained and properly equipped military.

But that situation does not represent a dedicated civilian population out to destroy the government or get rid of some invader who is stealing their oil and allowing one of the other factions to benefit. Britian, at the height of its colonial empire, was expert in keeping order in the colonies by causing internal discord. Might be the same today.. Kurds, Sunnis, She-ites, He-ites.....while they are fighting the oil is being pumped.

Yep. And in many of these arab countries, the military is paid well enough to elevate them to a higher level in society. They want to protect that position, and know that if there is a revolution led by the civilians, they'll lose it. I think that was a large part of the reason for the restraint on the part of the Egyptian military, they could see where it was going, and wanted to maintain as much of their power as they could. If they had fought back, the civilians would have been decimated, armed or not.

But I don't think that changes the fact that having a relatively disorganized mob of civilians attacking the military wouldn't have much success. I think guerilla warfare is very effective at demoralizing an invading army, as in Afghanistan and Vietnam, but you have to be willing to sacrifice a ton of lives to do it. I don't think it is as effective against a home-grown army that can't leave the country, and arguably has far more to lose.

So, my answer to your original statement stands. As to you redefined question, civil war is a different issue , but the same holds true..People will fight with what they have, and you simply cant annilate a population though it has pretty much being tried in places like Russia and Cambodia..

And how well did the civilians do against the Khmer Rouge? The Khmer were only removed from power when the Vietnamese army invaded.

Nark's illustration is very dear to me for a number of reasons, but it does illustrate the issue.
Cute little kid approachs a group. In our world, anyway, he is a cute kid.. In other worlds he is spotting positions for snipers and advising daddy in the doorway, or wearing an explosive that daddy will set off when he gets near, or holding something in his cute little had.. A rock?
or an M-72 grenade...You have to make a quick decision. If you shoot the little bugger it is going to be splashed all over the media that Canadians are baby killers. If you dont, and it is a grenade, instead of a rock, your buddies are going to die...Sitting in front of a computer, no matter how many war games you have played, simply will not give you an idea of what it is like to have to make those kinds of decisions.
Civilians have the media...and that represents countless battalions . All they need is people back in Canada to start rumblings and our government loses the will to fight .

I agree completely.

Afganistan is about Opium. And power. If the warlords (taliban) have rule, Opium will flow outwards. The people are caught in the middle.

Opium production was far lower under the Taliban than it was under the more secular warlords, due to an edict issued in 2000. I don't think this makes them any better, thecountry has been ruled by warlords (foreign and domestic) who abuse the people for far longer than the taliban was around.

If you believe that the any military today is equipped to handle national guerella warfare, I think you are very misinformed.

I think anyone who believes that giving civilians a few rifles to fight their military would make a large difference is deluding themselves. They could fight back, but their casualties would be an order of magnitude higher, with mixed results. It works against foreign armies because those armies go home.