Quote:
Originally Posted by desertgrandma
The "exact circumstances" don't mean a rats ass. It doesn't matter if he didn't want to go. It doesn't matter if he had tried to leave the service.
He swore allegiance to this country, and he betrayed his fellow servicement yelling "Allah Akhbar" before doing so.
No amount of whitewashing, cowardly political correctness by anyone, or excuses from his family will ever erase his disgrace.
Ever.
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As always, everything depends on your motivation. If you are interested in categories like grace and disgrace, your opinion might be backed up by a large number of people. If you are, however, interested in categories like causal chains, why did this happen, how did it happen, how will we be able to stop such a thing from happening, what should be changed in order to stop such things.... Well, in that case, it _does_ matter why he wanted to go. It _does_ matter why the army wouldn't let him go. It _does_ matter what the regulations are.
In my opinion, that guy went crazy due to his disagreeing with the army's actions. The army might be to blame because it didn't have the necessary control mechanisms in order to find out that the psychological stability of this guy was insufficient in order to keep the individual in the ranks of the army. It might also turn out, that this happened rather quickly and with little
possibilities to have been anticipated. In that case, one might have to just say "these things happen". I hope, however, that some kind of lesson kan be learnt from what happened. That either psychological inspection of the soldiers is intensified, or that the army allows more individuals to leave its ranks, something that might reduce the probability of this thing to happen again. I am quite sure that saying "That guy was an asshole" doesn't help to reduce the probability of this kind of thing happening again.
The army simply has opposing interests. It cannot let go people just because they don't want to continue fighting - the probability that there are no soldiers willing to go into the next conflict is too high. On the other hand, the army only wants people that are motivated to do what the army orders.
So, the army must look for a compromise between letting people go in order to remain a motivated entity, and keeping them because they need the manpower.
The army has an interested in critical soldiers - soldiers who do not agree with every action the army does, but who do agree that the army serves a greater good. Without these critical individuals, a body like the army necessarily runs the risk to become too radical and self-content, and in consequence will do things that are not morally defensible anymore - or even outright crimes of war.
In the same line of reasoning, the country as a whole has an interest in critical citizens - citizens that do not support everything the army does, that do not support everything that the government does. That is called democracy and the freedom of speech. It is a necessary corrective in order to not end up in attack wars and dictatorship.