Why though? Does the army or navy or boy scouts have nothing better to do? I was watching Enemy at the Gates, and yeah for the first five minutes all they did was waste ammunition on a couple of poor guys trying to swim through freezing water. It's not like they are traitors or anything.
Deserters Will Be Shot
- Thread starter Bob_McMillan
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Leaving your fellow soldiers with one less guy at their back that they were counting on is treachery to me.Bob_McMillan said:
Besides with the Russians it was the 'fear us more than the enemy' mentality of keeping discipline.
Back when drafting was still a thing that's pretty cruel though. You're basically forcing someone who may not have the guts or fortitude to handle being a soldier to BE a soldier. Of course they're going to freak out and run. Glad that's a thing of the past but still, sometimes some people join because they feel like they have no choice(need help paying for college, can't find a job, etc) but end up realizing they made a mistake. Don't know if they still shoot deserters but it'd be really messed up.
It's meant to keep people from deserting. Deserting is a treasonous act, so they are traitors. Plus, if they get picked up by the enemy, they could very well tell them where your encampments are, when supply shipments come, what your numbers are, and so on.
It's safer to kill them. I genuinely don't understand the 'every life is precious' thing people seem to have. Sometimes people have to die. Is a fact of life.
It's safer to kill them. I genuinely don't understand the 'every life is precious' thing people seem to have. Sometimes people have to die. Is a fact of life.
Or we could waste releasing three dangerous terrorists to get back a lier who needs to be put in prison for his desertion.
The weird thing about the logic of killing deserters is that if they never joined the military in the first place they would not be shot (either by the enemy, probably, or by the "good guys"). So yet again the only winning move is not to play.
There's all kinds of terrible underlying aspects of this whole process. Young people aren't informed about the political reality of the world - they are taught a false, ridiculous version with demonized enemies (evil terrorists) and noble heroes (freedom fighters saving the world) and just like every other young person in the world, they trust the people telling them how the world is.
So then they get into the military, examine the actual world close up, often for the first time, and find that there's no relationship between it and how they've been taught. Then they weigh their options within a system designed to seduce and destroy them and select "desertion" as the best path. And then, hopefully according to such people as Kopikatsu and Post Tenebrae Morte, they are murdered for recognizing reality and acting on it.
But let's take this the next step. Let's encourage more people to join the military by destroying the domestic economy, thus rendering military service the best economic path. When coupled with deluding people into noble fantasies regarding the role of their military in the world at the very least when they finally wisen up and choose desertion they won't have a decent economic situation to return to, even if they escape the hail of bullets fired by the "good guys" on the way back.
The best way to get someone to enter a meat grinder is first to delude him into thinking it's wonderful, second to threaten him with death if he ever becomes un-deluded and third, to make sure his other options, such as civilian service, are so economically devastated that the meat grinder looks reasonable in comparison.
Remember, kids, we're the "good guys". Don't let all the manipulation, seduction, terror, fear-mongering, threats, heroic fantasies, and devastation ever incline you to believe otherwise.
There's all kinds of terrible underlying aspects of this whole process. Young people aren't informed about the political reality of the world - they are taught a false, ridiculous version with demonized enemies (evil terrorists) and noble heroes (freedom fighters saving the world) and just like every other young person in the world, they trust the people telling them how the world is.
So then they get into the military, examine the actual world close up, often for the first time, and find that there's no relationship between it and how they've been taught. Then they weigh their options within a system designed to seduce and destroy them and select "desertion" as the best path. And then, hopefully according to such people as Kopikatsu and Post Tenebrae Morte, they are murdered for recognizing reality and acting on it.
But let's take this the next step. Let's encourage more people to join the military by destroying the domestic economy, thus rendering military service the best economic path. When coupled with deluding people into noble fantasies regarding the role of their military in the world at the very least when they finally wisen up and choose desertion they won't have a decent economic situation to return to, even if they escape the hail of bullets fired by the "good guys" on the way back.
The best way to get someone to enter a meat grinder is first to delude him into thinking it's wonderful, second to threaten him with death if he ever becomes un-deluded and third, to make sure his other options, such as civilian service, are so economically devastated that the meat grinder looks reasonable in comparison.
Remember, kids, we're the "good guys". Don't let all the manipulation, seduction, terror, fear-mongering, threats, heroic fantasies, and devastation ever incline you to believe otherwise.
Not exactly sure what you guys have been rambling about. The OP asked about it in context of the movie - ie, the Soviet practice during WW2.briankoontz said:
OP: For the Soviets it was simple - it was their method of forcing people to throw themselves at the German advance, because at that stage of the war throwing bodies into the grinder to bog down the Germans were all the Soviets could do. The idea is that if you kill the enemy, you may live a bit longer, but if you try to run, then they'll kill you now.
As for the rest, as far as I see it's nothing more than senseless ranting. It is extremely rare to see cases where deserters are actually shot(I assume you're talking about the US), especially in the modern era. Outside of one soldier who was executed for desertion during WWII, to date no one else has been killed for desertion since the Civil War.
The rest of your post contains nothing more than anti-military rants ranging from the dubious to the outlandish. I'd ask you where the hail of bullets are for the 8000+ that have deserted from 2000 to 2005, but I get the impression that facts doesn't seem to be high on your priority list.
I think that's a good way to {A} get a knife in your back and {B} THEN they take for the hills. All the people who shot themselves in the foot or Section Eight'd themselves... You can't force compliance through fear without losing some serious ability, somehow. What good is 'Us verses Them' if you change it to 'Us versus Them and Us Too'. If you resorted to this instead of a heartwarming speech about king and country, about the homeland and all their families whose safety they're fighting for, to inspire some kind of courage beyond normal limits...you have already lost. Even if you survive, even if you WIN, even if they all make it back home in one piece...you have damaged what you were trying to protect irrecoverably.
'Fight the enemy and you'll probably die. Don't fight the enemy and you'll definitely die.' The idea was to motivate troops (who had seen just their friends cut down by machinegun fire), replacing the fear of almost certain death with the fear of certain death. Pretty horrific, but coldly logical.
In reference to Enemy at the Gates the whole shooting of deserters thing may have been exaggerated but it was very much a thing. Right from the start the Red Army used "barrier troops" often drawn from the NKVD to "discourage" unauthorized retreat. This was significantly ramped up in WWII. Over 600000 soldiers were detained, some 10000 executed the rest thrown back into the grinder.
there may have been an element of desperation in it but frankly I think that the overwhelming true cause of this behavior can be traced directly back to Stalin being a heartless immoral, evil, bloody handed monster.
This essay here http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v14/Teplyakov.html outlines how much hostility Stalin had against soldiers who so much as got captured. It's telling that Germany had made overtures to see to better treatment of prisoners toward Stalin but were rebuffed. The author and sources of this article are Russian so I have very little reason to doubt it's authenticity.
A lot of death and misery from the Eastern Front falls directly on Stalin's hands. Much of it preventable if he had even a scrap of humanity.
there may have been an element of desperation in it but frankly I think that the overwhelming true cause of this behavior can be traced directly back to Stalin being a heartless immoral, evil, bloody handed monster.
This essay here http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v14/Teplyakov.html outlines how much hostility Stalin had against soldiers who so much as got captured. It's telling that Germany had made overtures to see to better treatment of prisoners toward Stalin but were rebuffed. The author and sources of this article are Russian so I have very little reason to doubt it's authenticity.
A lot of death and misery from the Eastern Front falls directly on Stalin's hands. Much of it preventable if he had even a scrap of humanity.
That was quite the politically correct ramble there. The problem is that basically of that is far left spoon fed political nonsense. Especially the part of demonizing terrorists. I'm sorry but these people demonize them selves, mutilating women, forcing children to fight, murdering anyone who is disagrees with them in the most brutal inhumane ways. Then you go on and demonize the military branches of the western world, who are the ones who serve willingly to protect the right for you to say what you did.briankoontz said:
Anyways, OT: Desertion has been an offence punishable by death for a very long time, and for many very good reasons. In WWII, for example, the allied nations needed all the able bodied men that we could get, to fight the war. That meant that deserting(draft dodging) was basically wasting war resources, and giving aid and comfort to the enemy, thus was treason. Now desertion in the field is even worse. A Deserter has valuable information that the enemy side can extract, and they might just go and turn coat. It also costs lots of resources and money to arm and train your service people, which makes desertion practically grand larceny. Also a desertion while in combat is showing cowardice in the face of the enemy, which for a long while was punishable by death.
Modern first world military's generally only toss people in prison for desertion anymore, but that's because political bleeding hearts rail so hard against the death penalty. So often deserters live on the public dime, though not comfortably, and get released. At least they get one really awfully nasty mark on their record.
Edit: Also people who go into military service are trained not only to kill, but to face death. Those they find unsuitable to expect this of generally get other, far less hazardous positions. Things like logistics, engineers, clerks, communications, and etc. I mean any Military needs to eat, have equipment, get stuff fixed/built, and there's tons of paper work, not to mention information that needs to get around. If you figure someone is gonna break and run during combat, you keep them off the front lines.
Islamic terrorists like IS and Boko Haram are not nice people but don't go trying to kid anyone with half a brain that Western soldiers are "protecting our rights", thats naive. Almost childishly so, the military just act to enforce their nations foreign policy. For whatever that entails, economic protectionism, geopolitical strategy and a variety of other reasons that have little or nothing to do with "FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!".KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
They are mercenaries, they join the military for pay, opportunity and training and get sold on the "heroes" mentality so many do not even realise it.
What you've described was a time of incredible desperation and panic. Some men did indeed go into combat without rifles while many others had to make to with scant training and equipment. What the Soviet Union required was time, and that was bought with hundreds of thousands of lives. Stalin's rapid industrialization and purging of the officer class had resulted in a a vast army in peacetime but a largely incapably led and under-equipped one in wartime. Every prisoner taken by the Wehrmacht was one more potential soldier fighting against the Soviet Union and there were occasions in which the Wehrmacht captured over a hundred thousand at a time through rapid encirclement. If you shot a soldier dead, that was one bullet gone, but you'd have ensured they couldn't be captured.
Many retreating armies through the ages have practiced a scorched earth policy that leaves as little as possible for the advancing enemy to use. Farms are burned, railways are destroyed, bridges and dams blown. The Red Army extended this policy to human life. Massive and bloody delaying actions bought time for factories to relocate and resume an ever-increasing scale of tank, plane and gun production. Farmers who weren't driven from their burning collectives by the Russians often found their last scraps of food, clothing and valuables torn from them by desperate German soldiers and were left to die in the snow. Nonetheless, some depots were overrun with a speed that meant the logistical problems involved in trying to supply tens of millions of Soviet conscripts was exacerbated. The black market thrived and so did theft.
Over time, the Red Army changed beyond recognition from a hopelessly unprepared and indifferently-performing mass in 1941 to something that mirrored the German army at the height of its power. A new and capable class of officers gradually rose through the ranks on their merits and the powers of the political officers were curbed somewhat. Shoulder-boards and other military insignia were re instituted to bolster morale. Order 227 [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Order_No._227_by_the_People's_Commissar_of_Defence_of_the_USSR], which lives on in infamy for its use of the uncompromising line "Not one step back!" was not entirely enforced, as many officers saw the creation of blocking detachments to shoot retreating troops as a waste of manpower. Penal battalions were used with great frequency and were often given suicide missions, from walking through minefields to clear them, to dressing in attention-grabbing colours in order to distract attention from the other troops. Propaganda was constantly employed with varying effect to instill a sense of pride and a sense of hatred for the German invaders - the horrifying crimes perpetrated by the advancing Wehrmacht and, in particular, the Einsatzgruppen, no doubt making this job easier.
Stalin was cunning and ruthless. He employed both the carrot and the stick, at times squandering resources and manpower but at others trusting his more capable generals to plan and execute actions while pitting them against one another and ensuring that he never allowed them the power to become political rivals - not even Zhukov, one of his most favoured and a popular hero to the people. After the war, many of his officers would face a second purge that would see them demoted, tortured or even executed. Stalin placed results first and was a distrustful manipulator of people. To him, losses of human life were often a matter of supreme indifference. In his own words, it took a brave man to be a coward in the Red Army.
TLDR: The Russian people have put up with a lot of shit in history, shit the likes of which we can't begin to imagine. Stalin exploited their willingness to put up with hardship.
Many retreating armies through the ages have practiced a scorched earth policy that leaves as little as possible for the advancing enemy to use. Farms are burned, railways are destroyed, bridges and dams blown. The Red Army extended this policy to human life. Massive and bloody delaying actions bought time for factories to relocate and resume an ever-increasing scale of tank, plane and gun production. Farmers who weren't driven from their burning collectives by the Russians often found their last scraps of food, clothing and valuables torn from them by desperate German soldiers and were left to die in the snow. Nonetheless, some depots were overrun with a speed that meant the logistical problems involved in trying to supply tens of millions of Soviet conscripts was exacerbated. The black market thrived and so did theft.
Over time, the Red Army changed beyond recognition from a hopelessly unprepared and indifferently-performing mass in 1941 to something that mirrored the German army at the height of its power. A new and capable class of officers gradually rose through the ranks on their merits and the powers of the political officers were curbed somewhat. Shoulder-boards and other military insignia were re instituted to bolster morale. Order 227 [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Order_No._227_by_the_People's_Commissar_of_Defence_of_the_USSR], which lives on in infamy for its use of the uncompromising line "Not one step back!" was not entirely enforced, as many officers saw the creation of blocking detachments to shoot retreating troops as a waste of manpower. Penal battalions were used with great frequency and were often given suicide missions, from walking through minefields to clear them, to dressing in attention-grabbing colours in order to distract attention from the other troops. Propaganda was constantly employed with varying effect to instill a sense of pride and a sense of hatred for the German invaders - the horrifying crimes perpetrated by the advancing Wehrmacht and, in particular, the Einsatzgruppen, no doubt making this job easier.
Stalin was cunning and ruthless. He employed both the carrot and the stick, at times squandering resources and manpower but at others trusting his more capable generals to plan and execute actions while pitting them against one another and ensuring that he never allowed them the power to become political rivals - not even Zhukov, one of his most favoured and a popular hero to the people. After the war, many of his officers would face a second purge that would see them demoted, tortured or even executed. Stalin placed results first and was a distrustful manipulator of people. To him, losses of human life were often a matter of supreme indifference. In his own words, it took a brave man to be a coward in the Red Army.
TLDR: The Russian people have put up with a lot of shit in history, shit the likes of which we can't begin to imagine. Stalin exploited their willingness to put up with hardship.
The sort of sociopaths it takes to claim your life is theirs via a draft will see no problem with killing you for not complying of course. Not a surprise really. They want to accomplish their goal and taking the lives of innocents means nothing to them so long as they get what they want. Always has been that way with slavers.
This happened also in Italy, the Carabinieri had this less-than-enviable task to enforce. And although I am strongly pro-life in most circumstances, this reason for killing is completely logical and reasonable.Kopikatsu said:
Of course this could be less moral depending on the reasons the war is fought, and some States allows to opt-out from military altogether.