Writes Thomas Gibbons-Neff, a Ukraine correspondent and former Marine infantryman, quoted in "Ukraine, a Sniper Mission and the Myth of the ‘Good Kill’/A New York Times reporter who is a former Marine has a conversation with a Ukrainian sniper about morality in war" (NYT).
October 21, 2023
"Now we’re discomforted by our own killings, aware of the details and the violence we committed under the bright banners of 'nation-building' or 'winning hearts and minds'..."
"... or whatever our officers told us as the seasons changed. In the shadow of our failures, our silence hangs over it all.
It was hard not to be jealous of [the Ukrainian sniper] Raptor and his team, especially in the wake of my lost war. Therein was the trap, the dizzying seduction of the 'good kill.'"
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31 comments:
Too florid. Hemingway not.
Coming from the NYT I can probably figure out this guy's spin even from way out here in Ann Arbor.
“Good Kill” is a well-defined term. If the person you killed meets that definition, then you have made a Good Kill, period. And that assessment is independent of whether the war in which you are fighting was ultimately won or lost.
The US Government has burned it's own credibility so badly that not even the majority of American people believe it is a benevolent actor anymore, at home or abroad.
Can you imagine what would happen if this thing in ME spins up and Biden tried to start drafting people?
There is no moral killing in war: all active participants (and planners) are terrorists and murderers, and all wars are nothing other than prolonged states of organized terrorism and murder inflicted and suffered by all involved, (and a greater number of innocents on all sides).
"Discomfited" is the word he's looking for. Jarheads.
There is no morality in war. You kill the enemy and any who support him. To pretend otherwise will get you killed in a conflict.
For balance, I was a Marine Corps fighter pilot with a tour in Vietnam. No regrets. Seriously. Not one. Even if I provided close air support for that NYT shitbird and disposed of some Charlie for him coming over the wire.
- Krumhorn
Good point, Big Mike.
Ethnic Springs... and over a century of mostly Democratic... democratic wars, but the bennies are affordable. #HateLovesAbortion
Biden, Maidan coup... in progress.
Let me suggest a "good kill" is one where the enemy combatant and only an enemy combatant, dies (or is that too heartless for ya?)
The percentage of "good kills" by sniper would seem dramatically higher than:
Drone strikes,
Artillery,
Tanks,
Mines,
Air strikes,
And all others.
I don't like snipers. Generally speaking they kill people at a distance and have no effect on the outcome of the battle or the war. Of course, they slow down the enemy or force him to keep his head down, but in general they just make war nastier and uncomforatable without having a significant impact. Booby traps are the same.
I've never considered it noble or heroic to hide and kill some enemy from 1000 yards away with a scoped rifle.
War is all or nothing, half measures are pointless. That's why it's cruel to back Kiev in a fight that they can never win. They can't win it because it's an existential war to Russia, whether *you* believe it or not, Russia does, and not just Putin. So you go argue with them.
Russia is ten times the size of Ukraine, has 6,000 nukes, and as Barrack Obama wisely said, Ukraine is not a vital national interest of the US. Nobody really believes that Russia is going to invade Europe, or ever had any plans of doing so. This story is just sop for the rubes. Although Joe Biden has certainly radicalized Putin.
Now we have air craft carriers in the Mediterranean and Russian strategic bombers on constant patrol over the Black Sea within striking range, and we are on the very brink of WWIII. Certainly if Biden does what Trump did, and wipes out a unit of Russian Wagner private sector contract soldiers, you know, the equivalent of our Blackwater, Wagner is in Syria, and Putin will retaliate and it's gone hot.
BTW, "Moxie" is the Abenaki word for "black water," I wonder if that's where the name came from?
Nobody expects to go into combat expecting a good time.
" Robert Cook said...
There is no moral killing in war"
The one thing morons all have in common, is speaking in absolutes.
From Apocalypse Now.
Kurtz: I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror... Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies! I remember when I was with Special Forces... seems a thousand centuries ago.
We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms.
And I remember... I... I... I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out; I didn't know what I wanted to do! And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it... I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God... the genius of that! The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.
And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters, these were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly.
You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment! Because it's judgment that defeats us.
I've never considered it noble or heroic to hide and kill some enemy from 1000 yards away with a scoped rifle.
Well I've known a few snipers. It ain't harmless target practice w/o danger. And I assure you they made a difference.
I assume you don't like use of artillery, aircraft, tanks, missiles, drones, Generals behind the lines, satellites or any other implements of war that can strike from a distance.
Bayonets only, I guess.
rcocean said...I've never considered it noble or heroic to hide and kill some enemy from 1000 yards away with a scoped rifle.
10/21/23, 11:51 AM
What if the enemy was a Zionist?
Only dummies think snipers are a decisive factor in war. Artillery and air power are decisive. Destroying an enemy position with 1000 rounds of 105mm or dropping 5 tons of bombs will result in a decisive tactical advantage.
Some guy sniping at the enemy infantry in a trench and killing 1 or 2, doesn't change anything.
That should be obvious, but thinking is NOT required on the internet, only the ability to type.
rocean - You were never in the military, were you?
BTW, any discussion of military matters always attracts the macho lunkheads. They have strong opinions and want to puff out their chests and show they know more than anyone else.
Even when they don't.
"Now we’re discomforted by our own killings, aware of the details and the violence we committed under the bright banners of 'nation-building' or 'winning hearts and minds' or whatever our officers told us as the seasons changed."
How can we transfer this feeling to Israeli soldiers before they enter Gaza?
And here's 'tim in vermont' again, making up stuff. He can't even be bothered to spend one minute on Wikipedia before writing utter falsehoods like "Russia is ten times the size of Ukraine". Russia has less than four times the population of Ukraine, and more than 28 times the land area. Are we supposed to take the geometric mean of 4 and 28 (~10.5) to balance out the population and land area ratio? That would be stoooopid. And the land area is only relevant if Ukraine were invading Russia, as Napoleon and Hitler did, when in fact Russia has invaded Ukraine twice. Russia outnumbers Ukraine by less than 4:1 in population, which is the only measure that counts, and 'tim' couldn't even get the figure within 50%.
Of course, Ukraine may not in itself be "a vital national interest of the US", as Obama stupidly said. But Bill Clinton helped convince Ukraine to trade away all their nuclear weapons in return for a guarantee of their 1991 borders. It is a vital national interest of the US to keep such promises, particularly when no troops are needed, and the equipment provided is nearly all surplus and would cost more to dispose of than to ship to Ukraine. The ATACMS missiles that destroyed 20-25 helicopters a few days ago were manufactured in 1996, and even the most up-to-date Russian technology was unable to stop them. That's deterrence.
As for who is facing an "existential war", Russian TV propaganda constantly preaches the utter destruction of Ukraine as a nation and a culture. That's existential. Russia, on the other, could have peace just by withdrawing its troops, and Putin would be unlikely to be overthrown, given his tight control and utter ruthlessness.
"Nobody really believes that Russia is going to invade Europe" is another lie. The Russians do. Russian TV propagandists say that they will, that they want to restore the USSR and more (Alaska!), and Russia has recently taken some steps in that direction. The Finland-Estonia gas pipeline and Sweden-Estonia undersea cables were recently damaged while Russian ship was in the vicinity - the same one that was hanging around the Nord See pipeline just before it blew up. It's quite clear that the Baltics are next on the list if Ukraine succumbs.
Of course, 'tim in vermont' still hasn't corrected his second-hand Russian lie from a day or two ago about the Hroza massacre: the 59 victims were nearly all civilians, and the massacre was in fact a war crime. Last night the Russian murdered 6 more at a post office, and they attack civilians with missiles, bombs, and drones every night of the week, while 'tim in vermont' shills for them as shamelessly as if he's being paid to do so.
“Some guy sniping at the enemy infantry in a trench and killing 1 or 2, doesn't change anything.
That should be obvious, but thinking is NOT required on the internet, only the ability to type”
“ BTW, any discussion of military matters always attracts the macho lunkheads. They have strong opinions and want to puff out their chests and show they know more than anyone else.
Even when they don't.”
Wow, someone is trying to win hearts and minds. The Japanese snipers in the Pacific were very effective in slowing down assaults and buying time to build defenses and receive seaborne reinforcements. The effect on morale was devastating according to personal discussion with veterans. German snipers in church steeples and such tied up a lot of infantry and armor during the retreat to the Rhine that could have been chasing formations. You have to clear the rear. If your argument is that one tactic is not going to win the war, you are correct. If your argument that a number of marksmen can be used to advantage, you are wrong. There are not many snipers relatively.
There's a tactical reason for everything Private rocean. However. We will take your suggestions and send them up the chain of command to headquarters. Now hop to it. Those holes won't dig themselves.
“What you need to understand about a sniper mission is that from the minute it begins to the minute it ends, everything you do is in service of killing another human being.”
What you need to know about war is that it is in the service of killing a human being.
What you need to know about flying an airliner into a building is that it is in the service of killing a human being.
What you need to know about euthanasia is that it is in the service of killing a human being.
Any more pulitzer worthy revelations up your sleeve?
"Some guy sniping at the enemy infantry in a trench and killing 1 or 2, doesn't change anything.
That should be obvious, but thinking is NOT required on the internet, only the ability to type."
Killing 1 or 2 in a trench????
Sounds like your knowledge was gleaned from watching a flick about Alvin York. Lots about the value of snipers out there if you'd care to look (but I doubt you do). Perhaps what is "obvious" for you is wrong...
Let's hear from the pros:
APPENDIX E
SNIPER EMPLOYMENT
The sniper plays an important role in the infantry battalion. Snipers give the commander accurate, discriminate, long-range, small-arms fire. These fires are best used against key targets that, due to their range, size, or location; visibility; security and stealth requirements; collateral damage; intensity of conflict; or rules of engagement; cannot be destroyed by other available weapon systems. Also, the individual techniques snipers use enable them to gather detailed, critical information about the enemy. However, gathering information is a secondary role, (TC 23-14 describes some individual techniques.) The effect of a sniper is measured by more than the casualties he causes or targets he destroys. Commanders know the effect snipers have on enemy activities, morale, and decisions. The presence of snipers hinders enemy movement, creates continuous personal fear, causes confusion, disrupts enemy operations and preparations, and compels the enemy to divert forces to deal with the snipers." (TC 23-14 addresses individual sniper equipment, marksmanship, field techniques, and training.)
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/7-20/appe3.htm
rocean - I should clarify. You were never in the American military. Maybe ISIS, Al Queda, Hamas, or Canada. Those I can see.
Sniper is entirely a voluntary occupation.
Snipers are positively quaint if you've been watching videos of what drone operators are doing in the Ukraine.
One of my son's grade school friends wanted to be a sniper when he grew up. Lots of boys imagine themselves as heroic soldiers (I certainly d . . . id) and crack shots (Natty Bumppo, Alvin York) but that seemed oddly specific.
I don't think he followed through.
My wife's book club just read "Diamond Eye" the based-on-a-true-story account of a lady sniper in the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War. Supposedly befriended (besistered?) Eleanor Roosevelt on a P.R. tour etc etc. Hundreds of confirmed kills.
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