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General discussions on joining & training in the Royal Marines.
douguk
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Post by douguk »

unnamedfeelin, I think you're right to ask yourself that question, and you're definately better off asking it now rather than when your in and told where you're going and what you're doing.

It comes down to the question- Are the British armed forces a force for good? I like you, wouldn't want to risk my life to be a negative force in the world.

The difference is, I believe the British armed forces are a force for good- although mistakes have been made I think as a soldier you can make a difference.

There are good and bad reasons for us going to Iraq, but if you were out there now you would have the opportunity to protect people, train their police so they can train themselves and put Iraq in a position where it can look after itself. I believe that is a very good thing. In the RM you get an opportunity to be a the forefront of that, and that is why I want to join
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Post by Doc »

I'm Sure Dilema was our milkman in Treorchy!
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Post by Sully »

unnamedfeelin, you're right to air your views and I would have hoped that responses would have been more understanding, although a few good points have been made. I'm afraid I don't get on the forums much these days. I agree entirely with your views on Iraq by the way and I also served in the Corps. A friend of mine joined two years ago with the same misgivings as you and he has enjoyed his time in the Corps so far.

I would have had a serious dilemna on Iraq (fortunately I was well gone by then) but the thought of leaving my oppo's one down in the troop would probably have swayed it. When people are shooting at you the issue becomes far more clear cut.

You have the Geneva convention and rules of engagement to abide by, although they are often scoffed at, certainly by our colonial cousins from across the pond, and by plenty of posters on this site. I don't think you'll find cases of Royal (RM) abusing prisoners despite connections made in the press with barbaric training practices. Royal has far more confidence and poise than that, instilled in the training, although he can generally look after himself.

Soldiers on board the ships to Australia were probably trying to escape from poverty themselves and feed their families. They had nothing really to gain from the empire. Some people approve of a given system and the government and all it stands for, some violently oppose it but the vast majority just try to wend their way through what is there - that was the case in Soviet Russia as it was in Tory Britain. Thing is the people that rise to the top of any system and get their way tend to be the same type of person - whatever the system they operate in.

What I can say for certain is that if you join the Corps you will be better placed to defend the country if ever that is necessary. It's a great life in the Corps and the challenge and acheviement set you up for life. That said it is not for some. The alternatives do stretch a bit further than Tesco shelf stacking though. Good luck in whatever you decide to do.
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Post by Bliartheliar »

The naivity of some people astounds me sometimes. Some people seem to take political rhetoric as fact. 'We' went to war to disarm Saddam Hussein from weapons which he did not exist - nothing more, mnothign less. The war can not be jsutified on humanitarian grounds (read the Attorney Generals pre-war advice for that one or read Saving Strangers by Nick Wheeler), democracy is not a necessity and it is not jsutified to go to the war in it's name (read Michael Walzer Just and Unjsut wars). The UK and US went to war for selfish interests - contaimment of Iraq and to secure iraqi, Kuwati and Saudi oil.

Personally I disagree entirely with the policies of the US and UK. People are complicant to war on foreign soil as long as the effect of that war does not reach home - little reason why terrorism occurs.

I want to jopin the Marines personally becuase of the challange and the skills on offer. Im not a royalist and dont believe that thjis country is necessarily any better or has more right than other nations around the globe. Nor do I believe that British soldiers always represent good and therefore have a right to go anywhere on the globe.

Iraq was unjsutified and illegal. There is a lot of violence in Iraq and a lot of it is jsutified. British and American soldiers do not have a right to be there, although I now believe that we need to stay the cause = but that does not mean that it is jsutified. No threat existed therefore the war has only oput this country in more harms way. Killing 50,000+ Iraqi civilians (along with thousands of Mujahideen, Iraqi resistance, etc) can not be jsutified for defsinve reasons.

But, if its a choice between support british and American troops or resitance fighters i chose the latter.
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Post by Sarastro »

Bliartheliar wrote:But, if its a choice between support british and American troops or resitance fighters i chose the latter.
Are you sure you meant the latter?
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Post by KiwiBen »

I'd like to add a few thoughts of my own here.

As some of you know I'm counting down time to redo PRMC, and owing to my upbringing and morals, I've had to really think hard about war and whether I can justify violence on behalf of a political decision.
I've made my mind up and I'm happy with my beliefs, nobody will change them now.

Now, when ever I talk to someone and they find out I'm trying to join the Marines, the first thing that pops out of their mouth is "What about the war in Iraq, you still want to join after that?!" Iraq has sweet F***all to do with my decision anyway.
We can learn from history the world is a violent place, and some things don't change. War is a sad fact of life, who's lifetime in history went by without several wars being fought somewhere?

Post WW2, the Marines have fought in, amongst other places, Korea, Aden, Suez, Borneo and Malaya, Falklands, Northern Iraq protecting Kurdish civilians, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland etc. I could go on as by no means is that the lot! I'm sure when these wars and conflicts happened they were criticised like Iraq, I'm sure politicians and governments were given the same critcism back then as they are today.
Maybe by the time I'm out of training Iraq will be history and there'll be another war somewhere else to fight? I don't know.
I'm sure the Marines who joined in the 50's, 60's, 70's and so on all had a war in the papers and on telly to think about when they signed on, our generation is no different.

Just my thoughts,
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douguk
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Post by douguk »

Blairtheliar, how can you say you would choose to fight for the insurgeny over the British forces in Iraq?!?

It seems rather duplicitous and selfish to say that you dont believe in what the Royal Marines do but you still fancy it because "of the challenges and skills on offer"

I'm not quite sure if either you didn't mean what you said or that you don't want a career in the Marines because I think it would have to be one or the other. As so many say on this forum- it's a job that requires 110% and if you really dont believe in what you're doing as you've said you dont then will you really be able to give that 110%?

unamedfeelin said he didnt want this thread to be an Iraq debate so I wont go into the other comments you made

Doug
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Post by Bliartheliar »

I said IF it was a choice between the insurgency and the army. Fortuently I has not come down to that yet.

I wont make this an Iraq war argument, but the armed forces are mrely a tool of the state and if I do not support the state then I can not support thier ideas. The Iaq war was fought with justified constraints and work in post-SAddam in Iraq has good intents, but a jsutified confuct of war does not make that war right. Im not being selfish. The insugency has a legitimate right to fight against the occupation - that does not mean that i support the tactic of terror.

All I want to say is that the state system is based upon self-interest. We live in an anarchial world in which thier is no higher authority than the state and states act within thier own interests - democracy, morality, ethics, etc, are values which are loaded onto true intentions to give weight to political arguments. Morality, ethics and democracy are good things I agree - but they are not mandatory and totalitarianism is not illegal. Nothing about Iraq was legal or jsutified.

I want to join the Marines yes becasue im aware of the fine job that they do and have done around the world. But that does not mean that I will blindly agree with the poltiics of the state or the generalisations of the public. I wouldnt want to join the Marines if they were a bunch of murderous, illiterate savages with no political opinions after all.

Believe me, if the UN had a permanent standing army id be all for it and volunteer at the first chance. I do not like the idea of seperating the world into us and them - nationals and foreigners, etc. Id join the Marines and be happy to serve as long as the intentions were good. Id basically refuse to follow orders which i didnt believe in. Nothing would change that. If our politicians and civil society talk about morality, ethics, freedom, etc, they should practise it. Otherwise it is pure hypocracy built upon lack of empathy, apathy and ignorance, and I would lay down my life for that.

If I or others didnt hold these views and we all blindly followed orders there would be no difference between the democracy that we live in and a totalitarian society.

The insurgency in Iraq is made up of individuals who hold politicl beliefs based upon jsutified and good intentions. They have families and friends. And they are undoubtably very couragous for fighting against vastly superior British and American troops. Do not let political rhetoric and tabloid editing cloud your individual political opinions. If we lived in a world in which British and American troops were always good and thier oponants were always bad, we would be living under a world tyranny.
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Post by borisimo »

Iraq was unjsutified
just your opinion, and i wont go into the fact that you support the insurgents.

as far as i can see if you go into the military then you either have to believe that britain is a force for good (which it clearly is) how many wars have been fought for the greater good, now we have 1 less clear cut war and the PC/lefty brigade goes ape.

either that or you have to leave your highly strung moral hand luggage at home which i would imagine is quite a hard thing to do. how can you perform to your best in a combat situation if you dont believe in what you are doing?the same applies to plenty of other jobs not just the armed forces.

sure theres bad sides to every conflict but surely there are plenty of examples of why the wars in iraq/afghanistan have been worth it?In the long run iraq will be far better off.

i propose:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/Pol ... id=1363276
The insurgency in Iraq is made up of individuals who hold politicl beliefs based upon jsutified and good intentions.
bin ladens thugs included then? :roll:
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Post by Bliartheliar »

Howcome then no major experts in the field of humanitarian intervention, terrorism, democracy, international law, civil society, jsut-war theory, etc, believe that Iraq was jsutified? Its not my opinion - Iraq was neither proportionate, a last resort, rooted in jsutified intentions (we gave Saddam an oportunity to remain in power if you remember) or has it created a jsutified outcome.

Iraq was not justified and im sorry to say that we are not a force for good. Our intents are not necessarily in the best interests of others, and our desire to exert our interests on others are rooted in selfish concerns. Do you really believe that Bush and Blair - men who hide behind political rhetoric - acted for the interests of strangers?

Im not f@#k PC but I would consider myself left-leaning. Whats wrong with putting universal decency above statism?

And yes, Bin Ladens grieviences are rooted in genuine concerns although his methods are not jsutified - poverty, opression, injustice. And terrorism is mrely a tactic that is only practiced by a minority - the majority of insurgent activities are agianst military targets.
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Post by borisimo »

i believe that bush had his own agenda, but i also believe that it happened to coincide with other good reasons which is why blair supported it. i also think they used the WMD issue to try and justify it to the mainstream public banking on the fact theyd find them there, they shoudlve just been honest.

iraq shouldve been finished the first time round.

British Armed Forces being a force for good:
Falklands
Kosovo
Various Balkans conflicts
Desert Storm, helping the kurds
Sierra Leone
Afghanistan

Various peacekeeping operations around the world, if you reckon all of the above were due to oil money and greed then you are entitled to your opinion but id strongly disagree with that assumption.

and i dont think you can justify blowing up innocnt iraqi civilians on a daily basis as being justified, it goes beyond us and them, theres a civil war brewing there. do you justify the 7/7 bombings, theyre not that different, its just one hits closer to home.

alas, bed time :P
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Post by Bliartheliar »

Afghanistan was not prompted by the goodness of our hearts, although I believd that the war was jsutified - that doesnt mean that british forces there wasa force for good.

Falklands was jsutified, but the hype generated by the government at the time made the situation more desperate than it was. Ia gree with Kurdistan, but that was not prompted by us. Kosovo, Sierra Leone, I also agree.

However force for good, implies that we go around the world implementing international law and upholding rights even if doing so is against our will. Which we dont. The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodi, for example, was jsutified but that does not mean that the Vietnamese were a force for good - Pol Pot was replaced by a Vietnamese puppet government.

Force for good is too a general term to be applied to international relations. But neverless Iraq was not jusitifed. All the above conlficts involved us becuas ehtye in one way or another threatened to spread to other areas of the world, thus threatening the UK. Gulf War one was for oil. Gulf War 2 was based upon oil but was only possible after 9/11 - the US public wouldnt have backed it otherwise.

And I never said terrorism is jsutified. The iraqi resistance is not one group. Terrorism is only practiced by a minority. The majority attack coalition occupation forces which is legitimate under international law.
Labelling the resistance as terrorists is equivilent to labelling British forces as rapists - its not true but serve propagandist ends.

Plus, coalition bombing has killed more civilians than terrorism. Events such as 7/7 is a very small price that we have to pay for large proportionas of the population supporting the bombing of another country thousands of miles away.

It wont be long now before you start calling me a traitor! But jsut in case you do, 'patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundral.' Our country is not always right (although I believe this country to be far greater than America in terms of morality and compassion) and what we do is not always jsutified.
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Post by im2skill »

I don't believe in right or wrong, heaven or hell.

I couldn't give a shit who the f@#k I'm killing as long as I get payed.
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Post by Bliartheliar »

So you wouldnt mind bing an international assassin for Kim Yong Il?

Im an athiest myself, but id like to know what im doing is good.
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Post by Deadhead »

im2skill wrote:I don't believe in right or wrong, heaven or hell.

I couldn't give a shit who the f@#k I'm killing as long as I get payed.
Everybody has concepts of right and wrong, just the definitions change. Are you seriously telling me you could happily mow down a bunch of unarmed, defenceless school children for no reason? If so, I hope to God you never pick up a weapon, because you're clearly mentally disturbed. There's a significant difference between going where you're sent, doing the best job you can, irrespective of your opinions on whether you should be there or not, and 'not giving a shit about who the f@#k I'm killing as long as I get paid'. I always thought the British military was a step above that.
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