Upholding Humanity Matters - A Response to Bret Stephens
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- Опубликовано: 29 май 2024
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While it may be tempting to wage unrestricted warfare and disregard the rules of war, doing so can place a great psychological cost on the soldiers who must one day return home and deal with the consequences of their actions.
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The bad guys don't play by the rules. That is what makes them bad guys. Well said.
This right here is a linchpin as to why the Israel-Palestine conflict is so contentious with people. There are no good guys, just warlords and their civilian victims.
An attempt to apply objective morality to a subjective situation, but it probably does assist in maintaining psychological health for a lot of personnel as he says. I wonder if in certain societies such as among the plains tribes of Native Americans for example there was a whole lot of ptsd around scalping and torturing to death so many injured and surrendered prisoners. I wouldn't be surprised if there was, but they were probably more respected by their fellows because that behavior was accepted. Maybe it's cultural, maybe it isn't, or a mix of both.
Some of those rules are pretty stupid if they risk the safety of the personnel on behalf of the terrorist's "honor"
Isreal make up their own rules ….
Including the IDF.🤔
One of Napoleon's marshals, who came from a small town in the south of France, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, treated 1600 Swedish prisoners humanely following the French capture of Lübeck; such that after the Swedish king later died without heirs, he was invited by Sweden to assume the Swedish throne itself. The members of the Swedish Royal Family today are still his descendants.
Lets not forget that Bernadotte was the mastermind behind the plan that also Folded Napoleon's army the first time.
treating your neighbors fairly only works if you intend to live with your neighbors. as one can see from serbia after the fall of yugoslavia and rwanda in 1994, not everyone thinks like that. no group of people have succeeded in completely eradicating their neighbors and replacing them with their own people in all of history. not even the mongols under genghis khan or the germans under the austrian painter. so, hating your neighbors is a shortsighted political emotion, rather than a sucessful policy.
@@Pilvenuga I fail to see how Rwanda is relevant to Serbia though
@@Pilvenugasolid point. Isolationism and also attacking ones neighbor, espousing cultural elitism. One could argue the fall of Rome was a long term byproduct of subjugating their Gaulish, Gothic neighbors. And over expansion.
That was one of the reasons. There were several others that were more important.
How we fight matters. The end of conflict isn't the end of the story.
Not if you lose.
@@1320crusier Not if you win either. I mean hell, look at WW2. The Nazis took France and had to deal with resistance fighters all the way up until June 6th 1944 when the allies landed
@@poseidon808 partizans being against the GC.. technically.
@@1320crusier I assume you never served in combat with that answer?
Winning matters. How you fight only matters if you win. Anything short of that is aiding the enemy.
The hardest part of being a good cop was staying within the rules when you know the criminals don't care. Yet, good cops always remember it is rules that make the line between criminal and good guy. You hit the nail on the head.
No he did not I am afraid winning is all that matters Mr Good guy is of no relevance if he is a defeated slave in a Russian work camp
Winning is all important because it means staying alive.... thos is not a tennis match it is not golf its not Boxing ...... its a war for Life and death THERE ARE NO RULES AT ALL.....
To bad the IDF are the evilest of ‘cops.’🤔🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼
@@billturner6564Towards the end of WW2, German units would move west if they could to enable surrender to US or British forces, because by and large, they followed the rules of war. The Soviets did not. They executed POWs, raped civilians and POWs, looted things that had no military value, and targeted hospitals because soldiers might be there. The result was that Germans on the eastern front fought back, and many more Germans and Soviets died than were necessary. On the western front, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives and much civilian infrastructure were saved because the US and UK showed mercy.
First and foremost this isnt law enforcement.. this is war for survival of countries and populations. There is also a difference between targeting civilians and not letting them get in the way of the overall mission. For instance, Hamas uses human shields specifically because the west has a weak stomach for civilian casualties. They are such a death cult that they themselves try to maximize those casualties to try and get everyone against their Jewish enemy.
careful not to cut yourself on all that edge@@billturner6564
"Truly whoever can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
One of my favorite quotes by Voltaire.
Yep, that’s why MAGA and QAnon are so terrifying. Especially where they intersect and now after his conviction (rightfully deserved) the chance of these uninformed, delusional radical right wing weirdos engaging in political violence is sky high.
Sounds like the French Revolution to me.
Like The Absurdities About Russia That Too Many Here Treat As IF They Were Still USSR.
Putin Is Not Stalin.
I've not been in the military but it seems like making surrender a good option for your enemy, is always going to be a cost-effective strategy. By treating them correctly, especially if you're letting them call home and tell their family that they're fine and can come home when the war's over. You increase the likelihood of other combatants surrendering in the future and you increase the likelihood of civilians on the other side putting pressure on their government to cease hostilities.
Edit: don't go into the replies of this comment, you'll find nothing of value there. Just some repeats of the exact same difference of opinion that the video is about and then it descends into name-calling.
Yeah. this worked out for the NVA
You know acts of surrender did exist before the Geneva Accords were written? At no point in his article did Stephen’s advocate not taking any prisoners.
Not everyone in the world thinks like Westerners. What next, do you want to offer them baseball and apple pie (Even Americans don't want Chevrolet anymore)?
@@David99356 it's funny they talk about Israel being so naughty when they knock over a terrorist house but India does it all the time and they are definitely not some small 10m population country
yep, If you get a reputation for mistreating or even executing POWs the enemy might fight to the death instead of surrendering, causing your guys more casualties.
It takes far more strength to show mercy than to give in to your anger.
Obi Won is that you?
Apparently mercy is invading nations, withdrawing when political will runs dry and leaving a power vacuum, leading to an extremist government taking power and normal people suffering because of it.
The article wasn't saying you should give into anger.
It takes no strength at all to cowardly appease the enemy.
@@Instigatinletting the enemy live in the hope to work for peace is hardly cowardice.
Ryan, thanks for the video. A little context on the Russian strike you mentioned. The Russians bombed what is essentially a Home Depot on a Saturday, in a city of 1.5 million people. They also, at around the same time, bombed a Ukrainian printing company, one of the largest in Europe and the largest providers of Ukrainian textbooks. Dozens of civilians were killed and injured and over 50k books were destroyed. They used precision guided bombs to send a clear message to Ukrainians, this is not a war, but a genocide.
Wow everything you said in this comment is wrong
@@bedwinkawliga9897Says who?
@@iExplodersays Medvedev, or Soloviev, probably 🤷
@@bedwinkawliga9897
From Reuters:
"Ukrainian publisher mourns human toll of russian attack"
"russian attack on Ukraine's Kharkiv kills 14, injures dozens"
These attacks completely justify lifting all restrictions on the use of Western weapons against military targets in russia, including dual use infrastructure if the ruzzian military has used it.
@@bedwinkawliga9897also, a little question for you personally
Daddy putin is burning through conscripts at an astonishing rate. What do you think is going to happen to you when he runs out of fresh meat? Do you think "RUclips troll" is an important enough role to keep you off the frontlines? Are you ready to trade in your keyboard for a tactical shovel and rusty AK?
Hawkeye : War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy : How do you figure, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye : Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy : Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye : Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander
MASH: Probably one of the best anti-war shows ever created.
War is war and hell is a fairytale to keep dumb people in line
@@robertshiell887 I didnt appreciate it that much as a kid but watching it again while deployed between everything else it definitely hit different. Not in a waxing poetic kind of way just in a, "o yea. I can get that now." Kinda way.
Many soldiers -on both sides- decide that being a bystander isn't enough and decide that a civilian or their property is fair game.
I retold this story many times, one of the most powerful speechs in TV history
I use to go out to units and teach the Conventions and LOAC (I'm so old we called in the Law of War). One of the things I would also stress to soldiers is that these rules were in place to ensure that they were protected. First, if we stick to the rules people were more likely to surrender than fight to the death. It also gave our government more leverage when our personnel were abused. And finally, we wanted them to be able to go home and at least know they held to a standard of civilized behavior. The moral and spiritual injury that we risk when we send people to war is grave.
That sounds really good on paper when western nations are fighting each other, but when you’re a western nation like Israel. An are fighting another enemy who is perfectly fine with using women, children, elderly, and handicapped as human shields. Is also a enemy who has ZERO problems with using its people as human bombs by wearing an S Vest to kill the Israelis. an also has zero problem with SA women and children, and uses Smexual Torture against the hostages. Those people have given up the rights and protections of the Geneva Conventions agreement. Hamas has said that they won’t stop fighting until every jew is dead. They’ve been recorded chanting to Gas the Je,ws. An Hamas fighters and leaders have been recorded in speeches saying that the Notsee’s didn’t delete enough.
I normally agree with almost everything that Ryan says and does, but in this case he’s way off the mark. I can’t for the life of me remember the man’s name, but he’s been on national news and in RUclips videos being interviewed because his dad was a founder and leader of Hamas which gives him an insight into Hamas and it’s operations that us western citizens would never know about. I don’t know if you’ve seen his interviews he’s given, and if not look him up. For a long time I was indifferent towards either side, and didn’t think that America needed to involve ourselves with. His videos really opened up my eyes
I believe either in the Hague or Geneva convention all nations are obliged to teach this to their forces but many do not
@@redf7209 non-compliance opens their forces up for reprisals, up to and including summary execution, as the SS learned in France.
And having interviewed a former Soviet soldier some years back, even the Soviets trained their officers on the Conventions.
The closest that anyone ever got to getting away with not following the Conventions was Japan during WWII, as they were non-signatories to the Conventions, but had agreed at the onset to follow them - then didn't. Then, things got ugly and they started to follow the Conventions.
Japan committed atrocities against the Conventions, suddenly some of our service members were wearing Japanese body parts... They got with the program quickly enough.
One of my team was blowing off steam talking about non-compliance, I suggested that "when I can't tell you from the other guys by behavior, you're both getting killed". He remembered seeing our team in action and my marksmanship and tactical movements, he decided to nip that crap in the bud.
@@redf7209 Our soldiers get a briefing in Basic Training. Then periodically all units get briefings. And all troops get briefings before deployment. JAG adds information on rules of engagement for deployments.
But those rules cannot protect our soldiers, they are a betrayal of our armed forces. These rules only protect our enemy soldiers and the very worst kind too.
Friedrich Nietzsche -" Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
Javik -"Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer"
@grumpystranger6377 I'm not sure exactly what this implies in relation to Nietches comment? Because well its important not to become the monster you are fighting, It's equally as important to acknowledge the monster exists and to deal with it head on in the strongest "possible" terms (with in the boundsof morally agreed standards), because pretending the monster doesn't exist equally leads to equally horrible outcomes.
@@NoamGub I'm just pointing out that sometimes surviving long enough to actually get the chance to become those monsters is preferable to annihilation.
@@grumpystranger6377 There is silence regardless. A hollow statement.
@grumpystranger6377 I think that is a good point, but it is still a moral quandary.
I am reminded of one of my favorite Nietzsche quotes: When hunting monsters take care not to become a monster; when you stare long into the Abyss, the Abyss stares back.
I'm an Iraq war veteran. I agree with everything you said. I will say however, that Hamas also knows this as well. This is the foundation of their strategy. We have seen this exact situation play out. When Hamas knows Israel will be slammed for lets say, attacking a hospital, the militants will use a hospital, school, UN Facility as a HQ. Israel attacks the hospital and of course gets blamed. Does this help or hurt the innocents civilians caught in the middle? It ironically makes it worse for them because the very things that are normally "off limits", Hamas uses as cover. Can you clarify how exactly a country wins a war fighting an enemy that fights using the laws of armed conflict against you? I think that's the real point of the article.
Never seen the footage of them engages in combat with hamas inside hospitals... have seen footage of hospitals being attacked by IDF... shooting on staff trying to take in patients...IDF raiding a hospital in disguise ... and mass graves been found with doktors shot while hand were tied ... never seen footage of actual combat with ham,as in hospitals
Nope. Clarification not needed. Israel bad.
You choose to repeat Israeli propaganda: there is no evidence thus far of Hamas militants using hospitals as command and control positions. European doctors who have worked in Gaza hospitals and some of whom are still there constantly vouch for the fact that they have NEVER seen any evidence to support Israeli claims. The destruction of hospitals, universities and humanitarian facilities, the denial of the means of life to a large population and the use of excessive destructive capacity (2000 and 500lb bombs for instance) is clearer proof of a genocidal intent - especially when coupled with genocidal statements of intent. Where is the evidence that this Zionist junta does NOT have a genocidal intent?
Israel does not play by the rules, it only tries to hide this
Former medic here, and an afghan veteran.
Most people don’t understand the Law of Armed Conflict, and the Geneva Conventions. People quote it, but very few have actually researched what the LOAC and Geneva Convention says.
The laws state that hospitals, schools, religious institutions, etc. are protected SO LONG AS THEY ARE NOT USED FOR BY THE COMBATANTS (such as storing weapons, using as Command Posts, etc).
If those institutions are being used by combatants as such, they lose their protections under LOAC, and Geneva Conventions, and become a valid target.
I have got to show this video to my boyfriend. *This* is a conversation he and I just recently had. Although he didn't read the Bret Stephens article, he has the same position and I agree with Ryan McBeth. Thank you for so stating this so clearly and articulately.
oof, take note of that red flag
It's easier to support atrocities when you're not the one actually committing them
It's a pretty shitty position to support being evil.
Usually, I agree with Ryan. But in this case, I believe that the current formulation and interpretation of the international law, that conditions any military action on avoiding disproportionately large civilian casualties, is at least partially responsible for the current strategy of Hamas (as well as many other organizations). I do value human life and I belive that unnecessary civilian casualties should be avoided (as they are unnecessary). But when Hamas leaders understand, that they can hurt Israel by conditioning any military action with causing disproportionately large number of civilian casualties- then causing as many as possible civilian casualties becomes the basis of the Hamas strategy.
I agree with McBeth too. Suffering injustice is an argument for more justice, not less.
I'm a Navy vet, my father and six of his bothers were lifers and all of that generation were severely psychologically damaged, mainly as a direct result of combat. And always about inhumanity. You are spot-on with this video.
Ryan I appreciate your video, but we definitely understood that article completely differently. I see it mostly as a critique of the US policy about not letting Ukraine use american weapons on russian soil. Bret Stephens is simply writing it in a historical perspective to show what the outcome might be if we keep half-heartedly supporting Ukraine. It will lead to the bad guys eventually winning, just like it did in Vietnam.
There's a difference between half heartedly supporting Ukraine and following the laws of war. Ukraine can follow the laws of war if they have F-16's, M1 tanks or not, but the results on the battlefield will vary.
@@JakeJ.-yi1du Yes definitely, but I don't see any suggestions in the article that the laws of war should not be followed.
Spot on
The fact the us was trounced by Ho Chi Minh doesn’t make them the bad guys. America and Vietnamese are great friends now. Adapt buddy, adapt.
@@Jhossack back then, the way north Vietnam disregarded the laws of war, showed them clearly being the bad guys. Many vietnamese even regretted having sided with them. This all improved in the 90s when Vietnam liberalized, but I dont see anything wrong in saying that in the 70s, the bad guys won the Vietnam war.
Ukraine doesn't need to break the laws governing war to gain advantage. The egregious restraints involve things like giving Russia safe spaces to mount attacks form, whether it be airspace or untouchable ground from which to mass for assaults.
Bret Stephens missed the point.
Correct.
Writing and saying "War has no rules", etc, is telling me that you never wore the uniform, without telling me you never wore the uniform.
@PalleRasmussen
Then you're also sheltered as fuck.
@@kogorun says the internet tough guy who never served.
In the US the military is subordinate to the policies of the civilians. The idea that one needs to have served to have an opinion on military policy, even if it's a bad opinion, is un-American
The writer never tried to imply he had ever worn a uniform
Why should military personnel opinions be considered more important?
In fact it's the other way round: If you commit war crimes, if you give up your values, then you lose support of the people upholding these values: Allies, your own population or anyone else who is still undecided. And at least in the long run, you lose.
I don't see that happening amongst the Israeli public though.
@@grahamfloyd3451 Maybe not the Israeli public but definitely the Gazan public.
True, one of the main reasons the United States lost in Vietnam and Afghanistan is because we decided to commit war crimes and give up our values, which resulted in North Vietnam getting support from all of the Vietnamese population in both the North and South and the Taliban getting support from all of the Afghan population. One of the main reasons Ukrainians are still fiercely resisting the Russian invasion despite the fact a lot of them are by now visibly physically and emotionally exhausted is because the Russians are the ones who are making their lives a living hell and they will NEVER surrender to those who are making their lives a living hell. So it's crucial to limit how many war crimes and crimes against humanity you do because while you might have won a battle due to that, you will lose the war due to that.
I've been a NYT subscriber for 10 years, and for 10 years, I've gotten my military news and analysis anywhere but the Times. It just seems to be a blind,spot for them.
Could you suggest sources for military news? US and international if you have suggestions, they are welcome!
@@Yoshikaable I would always suggest people should be using more than one or multiple sources, even ones you know to be dodgy facts or twisted opinion as it helps to see where opposing views are coming from
As a Canadian. He really doesn't want us to stop being polite.
First apple... then grenade..
he's Canadian?
Might have to pull out the Geneva checklist again? 😮
Canada. The reason why we codified the rules of armed conflict.
Stop calling it a checklist!
Hello Ryan, thank you for this important topic.
Every day the Russian army commits unimaginable atrocities in Ukraine. And some people in the West, including here in Germany, still want to make so-called "peace" with Russia. They close their eyes to it just to have their "sacred" peace. Salute from Germany. Slava Ukraine!
Slava Ukraine, if you don't make "peace" with Russia, what do you do? Continue to let innocent people die? How many innocent lives are worth you're being "right"?
Indeed.
I've heard some horror stories, especially the FSB actions on captured soldiers.
Winning a war without atrocities is an alien concept to the Russians, they have never waged war like that.
What else can they do but make peace with Russia? Thanks to the ideas Ryan is putting forward no military victory is possible. Only surrender and appeasement.
Anyone advocating rules of war, and similar nonsense, is advocating for Russia to continue committing its atrocities against Ukraine, etc.
I'd suggest its not the people its the media that close their eyes to it. Even if they report it once they don't like to give people bad news too much and it literally can stop being 'news' as soon as the sources dry up.
No one wins a nuclear war.
I wish more Americans were as committed to honor as Ryan.
As an Afghan veteran, I think it is necessary and essential to follow the rules of war. Being a professional warrior means holding yourself to a higher standard than those you fight. People are more likely to surrender or leave fighting positions if they know they will be treated fairly. Whenever we captured Taliban fighters, we would have to hand them over to Afghan forces that would torture/beat/rape them. It never felt good handing over a human to that fate, and it seemed like we were complicit in many ways. I know they were trying to kill me, and they would do worse to me if they could, but my humanity and upbringing dictated that once a combatant no longer has the ability to make war, they are no longer a fighter. They are no longer on equal ground with me as a warrior. This mentality is essential to not losing your humanity. Thanks for posting this. It's an important pillar of modern war to understand that it doesn't help our efforts go as low as our enemies, and it's always been our burden to be more professional than our advisories. Being a warrior means not turning into an animal/ being undisplined which can be easy when being in a war zone.
Rare honesty about complicity....
The argument is, that if your country is under real existential thread, loosing your humanity is not the worst thing that could happen. We have not seen that happen to a western country in a long time.
You do realise the Nazis behind the holocaust often truly believed the Jewish peoples were a real existential threat right? The actions were indisputably wrong, even if they did believe that. Would you support their actions and acts of depravity if it was a "real" threat they were under by those they killed?
I think it's philosophical, but at some point you, as in what you define yourself, no longer exists because you have become what you hate. If you become totally amoral and "evil", why do you want to exist (as a nation/culture/etc) at all?
@@highlow4098 A belief in something does not make it an objective fact. The jews posed no actual existential danger to germany. Russia however, poses a documented existential threat. However, if you start to wage total war you will that it is self defeating. The citizenry of the country under attack will never yield. In WW2 the English didn't, the germans didn't, the soviets didn't. If ukraine were to start firebombing russia, the russian citizenry would be more than willing to sacrifice as many people as necessary and they have way more peops than ukraine.
@highlow4098
My country did that and is proud of it. You can stick to your lofty rules, you can force it on your allies, but they won't aid you in winning the war.
I would say Ukraine is under existential threat because it is persuing western values.
morally, we should despise our enemies but tactically we should always respect them
Morally, we should pity our enemies. Despising them leads to our becoming the bad guys.
@@theparadoxicaltouristtrave9320 in WW2 the Japanese, by many accounts, purposefully created a situation in which it was easy for the allies to stoop to their level in many respects. If you aren't willing to give no quarter in certain situations, you have already lost.
The problem is not the laws of war themselves, but the way they are used cynically by hostile and/or political actors as "lawfare" in order to constrain from lawful actions. At the one end of the spectrum, the US Administration appears too often to care about public image in a hopeless war of media influence (where as you rightly point out, journalists with any knowledge of the military and of conflicts are few and far between and are easily manipulated into believing false tropes) than standing behind their allies when they are in existential need, and at the other, the ICC and ICJ are pursuing a political agenda while pretending to be cold impartial figures of justice. And then the fact that even though Israeli military spokesman is now infinitely better than they once were, we still have no strategy for getting our message across.
Y'all could stop ethnic cleansing for a start
So you believe is under existential threat from a max of 50,000 Hamas militants? That sounds militarly logical to you? If so, doesn't that put into question the legitimacy of its government since the protection of its citizens is its #1 job?
I think the US has a strategy for getting it's message across. They made a great effort to control media through embedding them in units, and there was an enormous "truth" strategy to try and make military leaders seem like truth tellers. Which broke down for a lot of reasons, including things like military leaders having affairs with corespondents, but things like Abu Ghraib, invading the wrong countries, and the appearance of conflicts of interest relative to using only the most expensive equipment and a revolving door into defense industries.
@@WriteInAaronBushnellYeah we ethnically cleanse so hard that Gaza has a 2% yearly population growth, with the population of Arabs in Gaza + West Bank growing 5x since 1960. Yes, that's excluding Israeli settlers.
@@nizarhfarsakhhuh the US put a siege on Mosul and there were lesss than 10,000 fighters in the whole city.
Don't start wars Abdul.
Here's the thing: Pretty much all the rules of war that the US has agreed to are mutually beneficial to both sides when followed. The US, almost as a rule, does *not* agree to rules of war that aren't mutually benificial. Probably the most obvious one at least to me is the prohibition on landmines. They're really nasty, but it turns out they're also really effective too
the landmines the US uses are at least supposed to be non-persistant at least for antiinfantry landmines. so while we didn't sign that treaty we did get rid of what makes land mines so horrible after the war is over.
Most of the us land mine are anti tank and only last for a certain amount of time so there is still important context you are leaving out
Breaking the rules of war and committing atrocities does nothing to help achieve a war's objectives but is extraordinarily effective at creating new enemies and hardening existing ones. Upholding humanity in the prosecution of war is a moral imperative in part because it is a matter of intelligent self-interest. A military that abets war crimes is only ever shooting itself in the foot.
The examples Ryan gave, hamas captives being stripped, hardly qualify as 'committing atrocities'. That's where I have an issue with this video. When the other side are committing the gravest crimes known to man, frankly there are bigger things to worry about than the small fringes of so called laws of war, that the other side pisses all over every day. And your comment, sticking to the rules being self-interest, is only true IF the other side are also sticking to the rules. hamas/ russia are NOT. They abuse the rules and use them against us. It doesn't make us grand to be right, if we're also dead or occupied.
Someone should have pointed that out to Hamas before October 7th, as taking hostages is explicitly a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.
Two wrongs do not make a right. A crime in response to a crime makes two criminals.
I think I sent you the article written by my friend who served in Iraq. He did three tours. He left, as at one point, someone had been killed on his side and the guys were out for revenge. They put all the women and children in a hot room, while they searched an entire village. It was miserably hot and everyone was drinking water except the women and children who watched. He took his camel back and put water in a big bowl for everyone Those with his guarding the women and children got so angry with him. How could he do this, THEY had killed their fellow soldier. He said he just looked as these women and children who had to live in this war, and had no say in ANYTHING in their lives...and were obviously thin and poor, and he gave them water. He was scared as the women and children had become, not real human beings. Not people just born into a rough life, and for the females a life of almost slavery and constant fear. (this was a very poor area and women were being set on fire with cooking oil, which happened in Afghanistan also). The most vulnerable and least guilty, just were thirst while big scary men drank al the water they wanted. That was when he became truly afraid of this war. Bravest man ever, but scariest moment was giving innocents water.
I think rules of war were put in place precisely because people are easilly rotted away during the war to become savages if they don't follow the rules.
Good example would be text from Russian regular from beginning of invasion into Ukraine. His men and him went to Ukraine with next to none supplies, with top brass thinking Ukrainians will fold and they will get enough supplies. When that didn't happen, looting slowly started - at first it wass just food to survive. But, very fast it become full on looting - maybe few days tops. And this was professional soldier (by Russian standard). Now imagine how fast would new recruits become rotted who had no training, and where these things would be encouraged...
It is easier to be a hero in firefight, where you know who is who - but it is lot harder to go against emotional knee jerk reaction for revenge and be moral...
Thank you for sharing.
Bullshit. Give names and dates.
Well put Ryan.
“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster; for if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche -
An ex paramedic was doing the recurrent first aid training one year and told us that we need to be able to live with our actions in an emergency situation. They will stay with us. The big picture for humanity obviously matters. But you don't need to go that far in the moment to be motivated to behave honourably.
One of Churchill's cabinet ministers, at the height of the Blitz when the U.K. faced Nazi Germany alone, submitted a plan to slash the budget for the Arts and transfer the funds to the military. Churchill responded, "Then what are we fighting for?"
If you're only fighting a war to preserve government approved culture, you may want to re-evaluate your reason to fight.
It sounds like they were affording a luxury while others were giving their lives.
Ken Burns made a similar remark in a recent commencement address.
Same Churchill that didn't hesitate to starve millions of Indians to death just so his soldiers would have a bit more food, maybe?
he never said that
The future of the nation, so that when victory is achieved they can return to making art and culture.
You can't make art if your entire population is dead or sent to camps.
I doubt the veracity of that quote, purely because that sounds like something a modern westerner would say, as they have never had to sacrifice their own comfort for a total war in the entirety of their lives.
Lmao Ryan, I love how you put a frame of you in the military and you have a cigar 😂
In an existential war are there any rules? Fighting for ones own survival is so fundamental that it's part of the DNA of life from elephants to bacteria. How could there be any rule that would endanger the survival of the organism?
Fighting wars with rules is what makes them existential. We have slow walked ourselves over a period of decades into increasingly more dangerous wars and continue to repeat the same mistakes. If we had responded to the Iranian embassy hostage situation with full force, there would be literal world peace today and nothing but prosperous and Westernized countries engaging in trade. The 90's would've come in the 70's and still be happening.
But we continue to cripple ourselves with delusional "rules" and so it gets worse and worse.
slow down there buckaroo.. who is facing the existential threat here? (I would say Russia has the stronger case) but let's imagine both Ukraine and Russia feel they are under existential threat- unless diplomacy is genuinely being attempted and progressing (which Ukraine is not seriously engaged in) then the war will tend to escalate up the escalation ladder.. the party most likely to abandon all the rules and go for all out destruction of the enemy is at an advantage and may be more likely to win (but these sides are not well balanced), and Russia can always escalate higher because it possesses nuclear weapons, so this is basically a suicide mission - if Ukraine got that close to defeating Russia they may respond by using nukes, we always have to remain open to that possibility
@@Christmas12 Why would you even consider diplomacy? And since that's all you're considering why would you think Russia is facing any kind of defeat?
The Just War Theory advocates and their kind have done so much damage...
@@Instigatin I don't think Russia is facing any defeat, certainly not at this stage, (unless the situation escalates dramatically & conditions change radically) - the reason both sides need to be engaging diplomatically is because it's the only other way to end the war outside of total military collapse (which would be catastrophic for Ukraine here (or Russia) because Ukraine is relying on outside NATO help to continue its effort it means their limiting factor in this war of attrition is their personnel, so collapse will mean they run out of troops because of losses (death or injury) on the battlefield and then there population & society will be wrecked in the aftermath of the war - this world be catastrophic and a responsible leader should take serious efforts not to keep escalating but to use diplomatic efforts to get out of this war - from Clausewitz's famous dictum, war is merely the continuation of politics *with* (not _by_) other means - he meant to convey that when the war starts the diplomacy must keep going alongside the combat otherwise as he explained the nature of war ultimately tends to escalate and serve itself (increasing violence and destruction)
Humans are not prisoners to human nature. Just because self-preservation is perhaps the strongest human instinct does not mean that it is the utmost moral principle to defend oneself against all threats at all costs.
In the words of Dr. David Walton (LTC Ret.), "All the rules matter all the time."
I'm glad to see you going out of your way to make the moral case, Ryan. It's one too many people forget in and out of the military.
Anyone can say anything about anything these days, so it's better to assume any article you stumbled across was written by an ignorant clown rather than an informed expert, and most of the time you'll be right
So according to you that would include this Pogue Ryin MacBeth
Ohhhhh…. This is just an ad for RYAN!!!
Bret Stephens happens to be a brilliant writer.
The problem is that the enemy can and will frequently utilize civilians as shields.
Isn't that the reason why negotiations with hostage-taking terrorists are/were considered counterproductive?
@@TheDaniel366Cobra The "We don't negotiate with terrorists!" claim has always been a lie. If that were true, there's wouldn't be a state of Israel today, Northern Ireland would still be ripping itself apart, among other examples.
@@keith6706 that statement is a little disingenious. You do not reward terrorists for terrorism, but you can negotiate with groups that have engaged in terrorism in the past on broader issues. You do not want to pay ransom for hostages because it encourages the taking of hostages, but you might agree to an overall peace deal involving hostages on the theory you have resolved the underlying conflict and no future hostage taking would be warranted anyway. That was the Ireland situation in a nutshell.
Well said Ryan! 🌟 Big reason our boys did a lot less dying than the Russians in WW2 was that they (mostly) accepted surrender and then treated prisoners fairly. So (beware the wet finger) Germans were twice as likely to surrender.
He might have a point if he discussed some ridiculous ROEs we’ve been trying to fight with since WWII, but becoming the bad guys is not the solution.
I, like Israel, agree in upholding the GCs and LOAC. That you got right.
But one question: Are Hamas combatants even seen as legitimate, enlisted fighters of war or just "terrorists" or even "Freischärler" (irregulars) and do not have combatant status after the humanitarian laws and Geneva conventions. If they are not part of a regular military than military rules of war and engagement do not count and they can be tried and executed after a short military trial, right?
They don't wear uniforms. They explicitly break all the rules of combat.
Resistance fighters to an occupation would seem.like a ligical exemption to me@gabrielbien-willner2509
@@keithevans9544 Resistance fighters fight to protect their population. Hamas are fighting for genocide of all Israelis and don't actually care about the civilians and would kill any opposition in the population.
@keithevans9544 except the fact that by every metric and internationally (except for the obvious places) Hamas and similar jihad organisations are considered terrorists and not freedom fights. Freedom fighters do not rape and murder civilians and babies
@@keithevans9544they weren’t resistance fighters prior to this war, they were the military arm of the de facto governing body in Gaza.
You're right on all counts, Ryan. And it's why we hold our own accountable. Like Lt Calley and the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
Humanity has its time and place. As long as you can live with it, I can't see why it is always a must have.
In my experience, it is the talkers of the talk that are the first to advocate for breaking the rules, since they will never have to experience the inevitable consequences.
Wars have no rules. That's just Darwin-Award-level suicidal thinking.
Giving quarter, humanity to your adversary is a show of _strength._ You can't afford to if you are weak.
@PocketBrain
Giving quarter to your opponents is only a show of strength if you WIN. If you don’t, it just shows you lack resolve and others will see you as weaker than you actually are.
Wars are horrible things, so you have try and remain human.
Steven’s was a recent guest on the podcast “Shield of the Republic” (May 23: Israel’s Current and Future Conundrum). He laments that Gaza is “Mount Suribachi times 50, actually worse” because America “simply bombarded Iwo Jima with 15 and 16 inch shells for weeks” and Israel has to operate under “the eye of the United States”. Something about the inappropriateness of using this comparison strongly suggested to my tingling ears a kind of desire, a wish that had no “American Eyes” existed to give Israel pause, they might be allowed to follow suit. It just turned my stomach at the sterile analysis he offered this very real, very human disaster. To underscore: one is a military fortress carved from volcanic rock: the other is a city full of people (fortified though it may be).
On the over hand a basic army strategy is oveatching your enemy. Hamas tactical use of humen shields cancles out israel ability to overmatch them in combat due to risk for civilians (a risk only for the israeli army and the pour souls who serve as humen shields). Israel should definitely play by the rules but sometimes the rules need to be updated.
And by no means do i think the rules should be written especially for Israel but there should be some fairness.
Hamas does not use "human shields", they live there in these extremly crowded camps. Due to israels policy they simply have nowhere else to go. Which is one of the main reasons for them fighting in the first place. No matter how you look at it, israel is to blame for all of this, including okt. 7. No people cramped in camps = no freedom fighters.
@@T.efpunkt just open google maps (i am 100% positive you never did) and look at the gaza strip there is plenty of open areas that Hamas could have used to build outposts, dug outs, military bases, launch sites etc. they choose to fight from the crowded camps for a reason.
If we hold our attack they win.
If we attack and kill civilians as collateral damage they win.
That is a win win strategy (if you have complete disregard for the humen suffering of your community).
@@T.efpunkt Hamas are not freedom fighters, and they do use human shields. Unfortunately there is proof for both. And what Gaza really needs to be free of is Hamas rule.
@T.efpunkt you have never seen a map of Gaza in your life haven't you? They have more than enough space not to use civilian infrastructure as a weapon of terror.
Excellent video.
Not only does restraint and respect for the laws of armed conflict assist with force protection, international image, and discipline, but it also leads to success or at least a much easier time with the transition or continued occupation
You can see what happens when you try to kill your way out of a problem
When the seas are stormy, that's when you need your moral compass the most. Thanks for the video.
Well said.
When it comes to war, I would rather win at any cost. Would you rather be dead?
Depends, but ultimately, yes, I would rather be dead. There are some lines not worth crossing.
@@CowCommando I bet the Polish people executed in the Katyn Forest would have a different opinion. What you claimed is utterly absurd. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Polish people killed after losing to the Germans.
Ryan’s professionalism and adherence to the fundamentals of the profession of arms is the kind of conduct that dedicated and responsible soldiers envision, and hope, is a reflection of NCOs around the world.
"... and if my client wants more kinetic options ..." (i.e. killing people before they have a chance to surrender) is OK, but undressing prisoners to make sure they don't blow themselves and you to kingdom come is not?
It may very well be that terrorists - and some countries - don't follow the rules of war, "but we still have to", but being cut to pieces by shrapnell is far, far worse than walking more or less naked in front of your enemy. Torture and gratuitous humiliation is an entirely different matter.
I believe israel still undresses them they just give them some clothing to wear after so they aren't exposed for as long. It's something they are totally capable of and shows how much more humane they are than their enemies.
Having just read the article, the point seems to be that we have lost touch with what it's like to be thrust in to a war with existential consequences, not that LOAC or any particular "being the good guy" behavior is prohibitively costly to victory. I don't see any way that it contradicts the idea that every party to a conflict is obliged to uphold a standard of humanity or that people we give lethal aid to are expected to do so. It's a call to temper judgement of people who are in a "must fight" situation when we largely have forgotten a time when there was no choice in the matter, and that's a fair point. These wars are surrounded by absolute hysteria and virtually all of it comes from people who do not adequately appreciate their own ignorance and privilege to have never experienced what is happening in Israel/Palestine or Ukraine. That hysteria shapes diplomatic policy and ignorance is the last thing that should be allowed to govern.
This is for the people who think nuclear apocalypse is the next step if Ukraine hits an ammo dump inside Russia proper with an ATACMS when in time the same munitions would be used to kill Ukrainians in their own homes. It's for people who are receptive to the idea of not only withholding weapons to Israel, but who might go so far as to ostracize individual Israeli citizens from something as regular as an international pop singing contest or sporting events. To most people coming down on one side or the other of these wars it's essentially a hobby, but they sure don't account for that with an appropriate level of humility. People who have everything on the line maybe shouldn't be quite so subjected to the whims of people who have almost nothing.
For an historical example of what happens to the soldiers when their nation abandons restraint, consider the conquistadors. These were soldiers that Spain used to drive out the descendants of Arabic/North African invaders. It was, to be blunt, ethnic cleansing. These men had been trained and equipped to overthrow entire communities and would be unable to reintegrate as obedient subjects of the Spanish crown. Thus, they were sent to South America to put an ocean between them and Spain - with carte blanche as to methods for enriching their mother country. The result - entire civilizations (plural) gone forever.
Two things worth remembering:
1. You don’t follow the rules of war for your enemy; you follow them for yourself, for your own humanity.
2. Mercy isn’t weakness, it’s the domain of the strong. Only strong people can implicitly say “not only did I defeat you, but I am willing to risk you coming back for a fight since I’ll just beat you again”
I don’t always agree with your Ryan, but I feel like we’ll agree on a lot of the same things when it truly matters.
i have the feeling that if the US was being hit with 3000 rockets a month from Mexico the rules would be very different from Iraq and Afganistan
No, they wouldn't. The US would do something similar to Israel and build a disgraceful missile shield, accepting foreever that we will be bombed from Mexico. Just War Theory advocates have made it impossible for the West to win wars.
And the dividend of peace too....Stephen forgets that too.
I don't think he really cares.
The dividend of peace is a soft cushion for resting the knees on when the enemy kicks down the door.
Europe and America thought too much about the precious peace when Putin marched his goons to Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk - and held them for over 7 years, look where it lead Ukraine to.
I think of it in terms of, "You cannot claim the moral high ground if you do not stay on the moral high ground."
Thank you for saying this. It’s an important message to hear from people who do the heaviest fighting.
I mostly agree with this, although I’m curious as to your opinion on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Well the US never claimed that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were American soil.
Nice
Ryan, right on! As a young lieutenant in Vietnam, I had a ground defense reserve platoon (i.e. we all had our regular jobs -- cook, baker, candlestick maker) when the My Lai massacre incident broke in the news. When I first ran into my Platoon Sergeant the next morning, he greeted me with, "Good morning, sir. If you ever try any of the shit like My Lai, I'll coldcock you, ... sir." My response, "Good, you should, and it goes both ways, Gunny." If you get down in the mud with pigs, two things happen: you get dirty; and the pigs enjoy it. 'nuff said (LtCol, USMC(ret))
Well said! I really like the content of your videos and the way you present them. Keep up the good work.
Just noticed you on Bryan’s show off limits….eeeeeshk Ryan. That guy is a total social media muppet. I’m shocked a class act like you would give that grub the time of day.
*Clint Eastwood from the movie "UNFORGIVEN" always rings in my head when I think of War for some reason... "I've killed everything that walked or crawled at one point in my life"*
When I was stationed in Gaza, like any soldier there I have encountered situations like "If you shoot, you may hurt innocent people; if you don't, your whole squad might be blown up. If you make a mistake, you might either be reprimanded by your commanders or face charges of war crimes, or end up dead. You have all of 5 seconds to make a decision, good luck!"
I chose not to shoot. 30 years later, I still don't know if I made the right decision.
This is my favorite video you've made thus far! Keep up the great work!
In WWII,one of the reason why Wehrmarcht soldier prefer to surrender to US rather than Soviets is due to Soviet doctrine of game ending prisoners of war while US simply just march them up and send them their way to prison camp to be treated and fed before sent back home to Germany or wherever they came from.
Berlin Airlift changed the way West Germany looks at US and UK as their friends,not as their overlord unlike Soviets who are willing to starve out their own people for the sake of their idealogy.
Soviet Army in WWII are considered to be very brutal and does not care much about war crimes unlike US/UK while they do have problems(Dresden fire bombings,whole Japan air bombing raids campaign),they did not try to hush it out like what Soviets did in WWII.
The reason why US lost major proxy wars(Vietnam,Afghanistan,2003 Iraq)is due to 'brutality' that was being done in both civillian and military setting in these wars.
Humanity is important,as what Field Marshal Gerard Templer did in Malayan Emergency,which is winning 'hearts and minds' majority of locals,eventually winning Malayan Emegency war with Malaysia becoming a country and communist rapidly losing support of the people who deem them as a terrorist and had to fight decades of guerilla war in the jungle before ceasing their operation in 1990's,thus crediting Commonwealth countries as one of the victor in the global fight against Communism.
A rare but well deserved victory because of said 'hearts and minds' strategy.I am baffled that this tactics seemed not to practiced as much in today's battlefield.
The US won the Iraq war. Iraq is a relatively stable democracy. Were we supposed to convert them all to Shia Islam too? That is the only way to have had them not align with Iran.
The US could not have won Vietnam and Afghanistan without wiping out their native populations.
Shock and Awe is clearly the strategy that ends wars quickly with minimum casualties on both sides. Trying to have "proportional' responses is how you can maximise the death on both sides. Stephens was referring to the overall strategy, not an abandonment of how prisoners should be treated.
Shock and Awe is not a strategy possible in an existential war. Such a war implies near parity in military strength.
@@TurinTurambar200I think he’s saying if that isn’t possible then do it if not than do whatever it takes so if Russia bombs a hardware store then Ukraine gets to bomb a mall or something. It doesn’t make any sense if bad guys get to do then the west can’t. The only thing that drives this is altruism…
@@TurinTurambar200 I don't agree. Shock and Awe was used in the early days of the war in Iraq, and it was successful in ending that part of the conflict quickly with minimal losses. Iraq wasn't near parity.
Shock and awe is not a strategy, its a PR term used by the Bush administration to describe the invasion of Iraq. And look how that turned out. It clearly never awed any insurgents into submission.
@@gsadow ya you misunderstood what the comment said
Attacking wounded soldiers is my biggest problem with the RU/UA conflict.
Aww man, I’m so glad I found your channel. Always a pleasure watching. 👍🏴
And sometimes you just gotta accept the fact war is ugly, cruel, violent, and inhumane, and that no matter how hard you try to be humane and just in warfare, the enemy doesn't believe in the rules and knows how to manipulate the media to make them look like the victim and you the bad guy no matter what.
and? If you are fine and content with being as bad as you are portrayed to be, then you are exactly what they say you are.
@@adam346 That's not what OP said.
One of the issues Israel faces is that it is not fighting a conventional, uniformed army, and that in and of itself is against the Geneva Convention, as I recall. It is against the rules of war to fight as a combatant while dressed as a civilian. Its that simple. Now, Hamas is making no qualms about not following the rules of war, but Israel is at LEAST trying to. Is it abhorrent that civilians are killed in Palestine? Yes. However, ARE they TRULY innocent civilians? Or, rather, are some, a lot, or even most, either enemy combatants, or actively supporting enemy combatants? That is what Israel is contending with. And that is what blurs the lines.
Its one thing when both armies are abiding by the rules (for the most part). But, when you have one side that has no uniform, employs civilians as fighters, fights from protected areas (religious or medical facilities, for example), employs the use of suicide bombers, purposely targets civilian markets with unguided bombs-the other side will naturally try to push the boundaries of the rules of war, in an attempt to adapt to the unconventional tactics of, in this case, hamas. And, sometimes, rules will be violated.
But, lets not make a mistake here. There is very, VERY little differentiation between a Palestinian and Hamas. The support for Hamas within Palestine is very high. And Palestine, being a tribal society, has fought its own self (hell, the reason why NO Arab country will allow them legal immigration, is because of their outright hostilities towards everyone). With Israel, all the tribes can unite against a common enemy. And, they have. Couple that with a dictatorship that has 100% control of all media, and, well, the population will be told what to believe, and who to support-and they will.
Thank you for saying it so well, I fully agreed with this.
This is a complete and utter lie. There is ample, overwhelming evidence that Israel, at every level of military and government, targets civilians as an intentional tactic. Please, stop lying about it!
Israel is literally in front of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court for genocide, and the response from the leaders has been to say that they are above international law and answer to no one.
How you can say Israel is even attempting to follow the law is beyond me. I can only guess why.
Thank you for this. Sharing it with the seniors iny Modern US History class.
As a retired long serving soldier, I thank you for words well said.
As an NCO in the IDF reserves, this is almost word for word what I and many of our officers said to our subordinates, many of whom felt the same way that Bret Stephens does. At the end of the war, you're going home and you have to live with all of the decisions you made. The only small criticism I have in what you said is that I would say that we have to be true to our morality, not necessarily the rules. When the ICC and UN are stacked with countries who want us destroyed simply for existing, and especially with the witch hunts currently being committed against Israel's leadership, those rules may or may not be moral.
🔻Sorry you are fighting for apartheid 🔻
Morality is important, I still sometimes struggle with decision i had to make and then i tell myself it was the right thing to do, otherwise alot of people would have suffered. If we loose our humanity we become just like them.
Using starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime and cannot become a norm in warfare. The ICC and ICJ are correctly holding that crime to account. You should examine why you think upholding international law is a "witch hunt".
@WriteInAaronBushnell
You clearly have never been to Israel or the Middle East or have no idea what apartheid is. There is no apartheid in Israel but plenty of it in most of the Arab countries and in Iran (which many of its inhabitants consider to be Persian, not Arabic).
Keep standing strong friend, its hard to want to serve.. When there are concerns, same as a Brit here
"the moment we decide the rules are war are too inconvenient to follow, we start to lose our humanity"
You mean like how the US didn't sign up to the Convention on Cluster Munitions? Or how they withdrew from the International Criminal Court?
Bingo. Not that the CCM is dumb as hell to start with or the ICC isnt cuckoo for cocoa puffs. The point is that Ukraine is technically using banned munitions and they are some of the most effective one the battlefield.
Thank you for your understanding of war fighting as well as the other important aspects of civilization. Love from Canada.
Thank you for posting
I think the issue is that israel does do a lot of actions to prevent carnage, and it is still looked at as a genocide to leftists & progressives across the west, who are a very vocal minority, with outsized influence. If israel stops playing by the rules, it will be because progressives made it too hard to conduct conflict by calling out undue claims of genocide, and saying israel can’t invade the last hamas stronghold at Rafah. The idea that we have forgotten how wars are won, IS true. If you we do half measures with Hamas today, then a thousand like them will be emboldened to repeat their tactics.
You are very much correct. If you can't keep the moral high ground, you're fighting on the wrong side.
Bullshit. If someone is holding a knife to your daughter’s throat, are you going to fight fair?
The allies killed a hell of a lot of civilians in WWII (the main example in the article) without losing the moral high ground.
@@jamesholden6142 I'd see no moral quandary in that case.
This is the type of content that I subscribed to you for. Keep up the good work.
Thank you for posting this. I don’t know how many times I have to have this conversation with my non-military friends. The Geneva Convention offers me protection too. While not everyone follow the rules, just having some enemy who follow the rules keeps us from melting each others eyes out.
Pretty simple to me, if you start a war, you better play by the rules.
If you are attacked & face annihilation, ALL BETS ARE OFF !!
Charlie & Hadji Bob both WON their respective wars by absolutely NOT playing by the rules.
a good example of this dichotomy is the movie Platoon, embodied in the characters Sgt Barnes and Elias. I hated Barnes because he didn't care about anything but winning the war. Elias did not want to hurt innocent people, but he had also lost his belief in the war. so it was very conflicting. but i have to agree with the nyt reporter. in order to win, you have to conquer. and we are not in the conquering business anymore. we have to realize that people that win wars are not good people. Sgt barnes, Colonel Jessup, General U.S.Grant, General Patton. if you don't release the Kraken, wars cannot be won like the were in the past.
It is odd the things that the autobot censors nowadays. Yesterday I made a reply in which I simply stated some historical facts: 1) That During WW2 the western allies burnt down German cities killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. 2) That they did exactly the same to Japan. 3) That in a famous interview US air force General Curtis LeMay estimated that allied strategic bombing in the Korean war led to the deaths of 20% of the population of the Korean peninsula. Apparently the public needs to be protected from such facts.
Nearly every member of a think tank, newspapers, party, government communitie in Israel is a veteran.
The Israelis have no advantage for guiding policy due to it than any other nation.
Service does not guarantee insight.
Ryan McBeth for president. I wish we had more people in our government like you
Or Secretary of Defense at least
Why do you think Ryan would make a good President? Would Ryan make a good CEO of Exon? Would Ryan make a good university President?
The President of the United States has a unique set of job skills. Are you evaluating him against that skill set?
With due respect. I don't see that. Maybe a cabinet appointment.
Most importantly, the weekly fireside chats while Ryan is dressed in his PJs and robe smoking a stogie and drinking the good stuff will not go over well with most of the country.
@@yvonnetomenga5726 I'd bet anything he'd be better than Trump - more informed, more curious, more compassionate towards Americans, more stable. So yeah, I'm evaluating him against that skill set
@dsemilco3591 • Given the fact that Trump was voted the worst President this year by historians, you've set the bar very low for Ryan and anyone else.
Did you consider Ryan might be even worse than Trump because he's not a bully. Trump's mean Tweets gave him a hold on Congress and are something his base loves. Do you really think Ryan would be successful given the partisans in Congress?
I agree with him. When your fighting an enemy like terrorists, russia, or another enemy that doesn't fight fair, it's hard to win when your the only one playing by the rules.
The funny merch promo in the end is hillarious every single time. I am sure it would gain huge popularity aside the main content, which is always 100%. Thank you for your insights!
I had a conversation with a police training officer the other day. He raised a very similar point. Many of his recruits have military backgrounds. They come into training with a perspective of “get the bad guy”, yet their role is to be a “peace officer”. He’s very troubled about the path they are on. This is a very large police organization.
Exactly why ex-military make for terrible police officers. The mindset isn't appropriate. If they want to do it there needs to be a cooling off period from when you were enlisted active duty to becoming a police officer. I say at least 3-5 years.
yeah so far from the mark. you stop taking prisoners. that news gets out, now your enemy does not surrender on the battle field. just one example why this is stpd...
There's no humanity during war
Hawkeye : War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy : How do you figure, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye : Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy : Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye : Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander
Absolute lie. Don't project your sadism onto everyone else.
Great video and message!
Some good point there Ryan, keep up the good work
Measured
Proportionate
Appropriate
Three words that tell you politicians will stretch out combat indefinitely.
Yes, I agree with your comments on treatment of prisoners and adherence to rules of war.
However, ridiculous rules of engagement imposed by elitist bureaucrats, undermine our troops ability to execute the mission.
The article is correct in its point that we have forgotten how to win wars, much to the detriment of our troops on the ground.
Those three buzzwords will be touted and repeated proportionally to the distance the speaker stands from suffering the consequences such measures lead to.
According to them, wars are ought to be managed until they are lost, with all the humane western soldiers retaining everlasting dignity - in the grave.