At Least 1,000 UK Soldiers Desert War

More than 1,000 soldiers have deserted their posts since the start of the Iraq war in 2003. This comes during a parlimentary debate on whether or not to criminalize the refusal of individual soldiers to occupy foreign countries. Don Touhig, former defense junior minister, says there has been no evidence of an increase in absenteeism. Touhig claims the desertion's size is purely hearsay and there has been no evidence of an increase since the Iraq war.



Desertion is a pretty major step to take don't you think? If the choice between fight, flee, or die cam to you what would you do. Being that I've never really been in that situation I can't say what I'd do, so I have no place to judge them. I will say that if I were asked to commit some of the acts that have come out as of late, I may desert on principal. For example, If I were ordered to massacre unarmed civilians I might just walk away, never to be seen again.

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I do think desertion is a major step. If the choice were mine, it would certainly depend on the situation. When people join the service, they make a commitment to follow their orders and fight for their country.

Having said that, if I were in the service today, I might very well be one of those deserters. I think it depends on the judgments one makes about a particular situation. And many judge this war as an illegal occupation.

Do you have any idea whether the UK desertion rate has risen or lowered since the beginning of this war?

The militaries of today are still recruiting and trainling along traditional lines. Trouble is, they are being asked to perform non-traditional roles. Modern armies are being used as tools of political policy, rather than as tools of purely national policy. By this, I mean to say that they armies of the major powers are being used to break up fights instead of starting them.

The entire dynamic of "regime change" has a peace-keeping element to it that no army is presently adapted to. You can make the case that peacekeeping should be a specialization, or MOS, all it's own.

The officer corps in most modern armies is now praised and rewarded for their political acumen. This flies direclty in the fact of most Western traditions which have asserted that a good soldier should be a-political. Today's recruit is still expected to follow, but the officers are expected to dabble in politics much more frequently.

Until the modern armies adapt to the new peacekeeper dynamic, they will suffer.

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
More than 1,000 soldiers have deserted their posts since the start of the Iraq war in 2003.

They haven't deserted their posts. Most have gone on sick leave with PTSD. This i know of.
The person i am relating to has been away from the Army since Christmas. He is not a deserter, but a victim of what he saw and had to do. The Army has done nothing for this lad since he came home from Iraq.
I would not call him a deserter. I would call him a casualty. I think the Army has failed in back up treatment for most of these lads.

To categorize them all as deserters is wrong.

Originally posted by Justin Oldham
The militaries of today are still recruiting and trainling along traditional lines. Trouble is, they are being asked to perform non-traditional roles. Modern armies are being used as tools of political policy, rather than as tools of purely national policy. By this, I mean to say that they armies of the major powers are being used to break up fights instead of starting them.


The officer corps in most modern armies is now praised and rewarded for their political acumen. This flies direclty in the fact of most Western traditions which have asserted that a good soldier should be a-political. Today's recruit is still expected to follow, but the officers are expected to dabble in politics much more frequently.

The reason that military officers are becoming political animals is because society demands it of them more than ever before. The use of imbedded reporters and the electronic age brings the warfront right into our homes. The military is under higher scrutiny than ever.

The entire dynamic of "regime change" has a peace-keeping element to it that no army is presently adapted to. You can make the case that peacekeeping should be a specialization, or MOS, all it's own.

I thought that peacekeeping was one of the primary functions of the United Nations? They are totally impotent in today's world, imo.

the U.N. has been broken for a number of years. It no longer posesses the will northe infrastructure to mount any serious peacekeeping efforts. Any nation that wants to start a fight in today's world needs to be prepared to clean up its own mess. Or, it needs to be ready to accept consequences and leave the region in chaos.

I think that desertion not only has to do with some who have seen the vagaries of war and are disturbed by it. It also has to do with principles as well. After all, I agree with you Rasobasi, that if I were ordered by my CO to gun down unarmed civilians in a village I would also disappear and never come back. War can never be justified in violating the Fourth Geneva Convention to solely keep up the "appearance" of fighting for the higher cause of country.

And I have a question about "insurgents". I wonder why such a term is used in a negative light. After all "insurgents" are freedom fighters, are they not? And if they are, then our founding fathers as well as the American Revolutionary army would be called "insurgents" against the British Crown. Is that not so?

The problem with war is the fact that there is a good side and a bad side no matter where you sit. It's all about that "Either you're with us or against us" mentality that is rampant for those who support the Iraqi War.

But on the Iraqi side, they are fighting an invasion of their country. They want the "colonizing" nation out.

And if a CO wants you to commit acts of murder in the name of "getting rid of insurgents"--even when unarmed civilians get in the middle of cross fire, then literally, there is something wrong. There is something innately uncivilized when calling the deaths of unarmed civilians "collateral damage" as Mr. Rumsfeld has done.

So, it takes a lot of courage and conviction to walk away from war if you are commanded to murder people at will.

But, in this war, one could say that the rules of engagement have changed.



[edit on 29-5-2006 by ceci2006]

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
Desertion is a pretty major step to take don't you think? If the choice between fight, flee, or die cam to you what would you do. Being that I've never really been in that situation I can't say what I'd do, so I have no place to judge them. I will say that if I were asked to commit some of the acts that have come out as of late, I may desert on principal. For example, If I were ordered to massacre unarmed civilians I might just walk away, never to be seen again.

Desertion is the worst step you can take. But no soldier is required to follow an illegal order. "I was only following orders" went out the window long ago.

A soldier has every right to disobey an order to "massacre unarmed civilians", as you put it. That is not the definition of desertion.

A soldier at home on leave does not have the right to fail to report back to duty because he suddenly decided that the war was illegal. That is desertion.

Originally posted by jsobecky
A soldier has every right to disobey an order to "massacre unarmed civilians", as you put it. That is not the definition of desertion.

Do you think that in some cases it would be easier to desert than face the retaliation of you senior officers.

Easier? Of course. Running away is almost always the easiest thing to do.

But that's not what we want our military to do, is it? Run away? It certainly is not what they are taught to do.

More than easier, maybe th right thing to do. If you refuse the order of a superior, then you may be targeted for it. Your missions may be the more dangerous of the ones assigned afterward. You may be picked on to be the fodder from that point on. I'm willing to bet that people who speak up about illegal action get more grief for doing it than they expected.

None of that matters. The overwhelming majority of military do not act or think that way, either.

You are trying to make a case for running away. It's not working.

Actually, I was getting to a point for not joining at all. The way things are going, chances are you will be asked to do something illegal or immoral if you join. If you're going to be put in a situation in which you are the type likely to desert, then why get into the situation in the first place. If you're not the type to follow orders blindly, and have moral issues with doing just that, then of course the military isn't the place for you.

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
Actually, I was getting to a point for not joining at all. The way things are going, chances are you will be asked to do something illegal or immoral if you join.

Point taken. The military is definitely not for everyone. But that does not mean that someone who chooses another field is more or less of a good person.

Don't not join because you think that you will be asked to do something illegal or immoral, tho. If you are asked to do something wrong, then that is an opportunity to uphold your beliefs and weed out the corrupt. Just make sure that your definition of "wrong" includes illegal and/or immoral. It does not necessarily cover matters of conscience.

Desertion on the battlefield can earn you immediate execution. At home, it can mean a long prison sentence. It is not a decision to be made lightly. Better to do the right thing when circumstances arise, and let the consequences be what they will. You will be able to respect yourself that way.