Is suicide part of soldiers’ job description?

History has shown, however, that alleged mutinies do not go away easily and that they often reflect deeper problems in war. For the military, even saying “mutiny” is like crying “Fire!” in a crowded theatre. When it first appears, commanders are trained to isolate it and crush it before it spreads. Military has always refused […]

History has shown, however, that alleged mutinies do not go away easily and that they often reflect deeper problems in war. For the military, even saying “mutiny” is like crying “Fire!” in a crowded theatre. When it first appears, commanders are trained to isolate it and crush it before it spreads. Military has always refused to condone defiance of orders; but is that a reasonable position? Yet history has often proved the mutineers to be correct in their judgment of the incompetence or futility of military orders. Probably the public often comes to not only agree with but to lionize mutineers who opposed tyrannical or self-destructive commands. The incident in Nigeria cannot be an exception.
Soldiers are trained to survive. For the soldiers to become angry they were only doing what they were trained to do — survive. The unmotivated soldiers would not have fired shot at their commanding officer without a compelling reason. They were at that point that they didn’t have a choice. It’s been going on for too long. They accused their senior officers of deliberately putting them in harm’s way. You don’t go to war without matching your opponent with better weapons. Many soldiers have been maimed and outwitted in both intelligence and weaponry by the insurgents. Why in the world would you order solders to go out on a mission without proper ammunition and motivation? Just because you attain a degree and were given some butter bars doesn’t mean that you can order junior soldiers into a situation that would make no sense!

Ahmed Abdulrahman, Kaduna <[email protected]>;