Caught on Tape - British Soldiers Beating Iraqi Children

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For most libertarians the military is one of the few acceptable roles of state.

But even then it is very hard to support the military when regularly we see videos such as this emerging. The military may be one of the few potential legitimate roles of the state, but can we ever trust it with such life and death power?

The commentary of the filmer is particularly horrifying.

  • martinbaines

    I have never got the “the military is one of the few acceptable roles of the state” argument. Giving the state the power to kill people - sounds like a way to turn the state into the controller of the citizenry not the other way round. If “defence” is a valid use of the state frankly it’s only a small step to the state “defending” against ill health and many, many other things. In fact the moral argument for scraping the armed forces but keeping the NHS is quite strong - the military kills people the NHS keeps them alive. Yes I know there lots of other good libertarian arguments against state health care, this is just to show how daft the argument the military is an acceptable role of the state is.

    As I see it only pacifism and no foreign intervention are the only compatible defence policies for a truly libertarian country. Failing that if you must have a military it has to be essentially a citizen army with only the remit of defending its own borders like that of Switzerland or Israel. Perhaps with some “big sticks” (nukes) to throw at anyone who does try to invade as a deterrent.

    What we have today is a ,mercenary army that just tries to justify its existence by encouraging foreign wars that just do much more harm than good. We recruit vulnerable young men and women, pump them full of jingoistic nonsense and train them in violence and then wonder why they do this sort of thing.