what's wrong with this picture?

So many years ago when I was unemployed...  I showed up at a corporate office for an interview.  One random person walking out encounters another walking in.  

"How ya doing?"

"Better now, I'm leaving aren't I?"

"I know, right?"

OK so if they don't wanna work there, why am I interviewing?

Then I thought about it some more.  At my previous job, I said the same kind of disgruntled things.  OK so if the old job sucks and the new job sucks...  The old thing about the grass is always greener, no not really.  What if your job sucks and so does mine, but if we switch, we'll both be happy right?  Well no.  Nobody likes their job.  Kids run off to join the circus, they don't run off to join the office.  If we all dislike working, why are we all still doing it?  

Maybe it's a lack of consensus, lack of communication.

It is hard to get off the grid.  Not everybody is really ready to take off and risk doing their art.  Having a manager to manage things for me is good.  Safe.  

Thinking about it.

Some of us lucky ones have a passion.  They teach dance or paint after work or on weekends.  Their day job supports them in what they really love.  So maybe I should just quit whining and do what I like when I can.  

A Brief History and Analysis of Military Ethics

Military ethics may seem at first like a contradiction in terms. After all isn't the object of war to beat your opponent into submission? Isn't a military commander supposed to use whatever means he has at his disposal to destroy his enemy's will and ability to fight on? It might seem silly to attempt to apply ethics in a situation where one is supposed to kill people and break things. I believe that the opposite is true. I don't think there is a single area of the human experience more in need of a clear-cut code of ethics than war.

Modern military ethics began in Europe during the middle ages. A class of warriors had begun to dominate the battlefield. We know them as knights but in France they were known as "chevaliers" (literally horsemen). It is from this word that we get chivalry. The knightly class was a fairly tight-knit community. The man you faced in battle one day might be sitting across the dinner table the next so it was important that certain lines were never crossed on the battlefield. Although chivalry changed and evolved over the centuries, a few tenets were permanent: women and children are off limits, don't hit a man who can't hit you back, and if your opponent is no longer capable of continuing the fight you should offer him a chance to surrender.

Although chivalry formally died out with the knightly class during the renaissance, it continued in practice until the 18th and 19th centuries. The last nail in chivalry's coffin was General William T. Sherman's total war doctrine in the civil war. This doctrine allowed the striking of civilian targets so long as they also had military value. Sherman's campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas are famous for their destruction of farms, factories, cotton plantations, and the mass liberation of slaves. In this way, despite not being able to stand and fight toe-to-toe with Lee, Sherman destroyed his ability to keep his army clothed, armed, and fed. Although I'm sure Sherman and Grant had the country's best interests at heart, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It is my firm belief that the total war doctrine led to most of the atrocities committed in wartime over the last century and a half.

The code of chivalry was one of the primary influences on the Geneva and Hague Conventions. These were the first formally written, enforceable codes of military ethics which came about in the aftermath of the second world war. Although one would think that this would have ended, or at the very least, reduced the occurrence of war-crimes it would seem that the opposite has proven true. The last half century has seen more and worse atrocities than almost any other time in history. Even our own country is not immune. It would seem that we have done with the Geneva Convention what we do with our own laws: dissect them and look for loopholes.

It is this practice which has led to the mistreatment of enemy combatants in the global war on terror. The grey area in question has to do with the Geneva Convention's definition of a combatant. They must distinguish themselves from the civilian population by wearing some type of uniform and must carry their arms openly. The Convention also states that those who do not follow its rules are not entitled to its protections. Therefore, despite what the bumper stickers say, the way we have treated our prisoners has been completely legal. That being said, I believe that means that the Geneva Convention is desperately in need of an overhaul. War, tactics, and weaponry are constantly changing and evolving therefore the rules governing them must keep pace or they will be discarded by combatants on one or both sides.

Personally I am against the use of torture for the purpose of interrogation. I am against it because it is an affront to human dignity, and also because the information gained through torture is unreliable at best. A person can be tortured into confessing anything because everyone has a breaking point where they will say what they need to say to make the pain stop. Some people argue that we are justified in treating our prisoners this way because when our soldiers are captured they are treated even worse. To this I simply respond, if we do as our enemies do, why fight them? Treating prisoners humanely is one of the things that make us better than them. The declaration states that all men, not all American citizens, are endowed with inalienable rights. If we deny these rights to our enemies simply because they would deny them to us, then we are nothing but hypocrites.