The right thing was to put your comrades first! A kid with a weapon is arguably more dangerous that a bloodthirsty adult. However difficult, threats need to be eliminated. Soldiers need to be equipped with tranquilizer firearms. And threats like those referred to, contained and transported to civilised humane internment until the threat they pose no longer exists! And they returned with our apologies and suitable financial compensation!
Alan B.

What’s the right thing to do?

The outcomes speak loudly. A war zone is not renowned as a place of compassion: Again the outcomes speak loudly of the reasoning behind the imperative to show no mercy.

The question then is “ Do you wish to win the war, or play war games as the alternative”?

The prevarication mentality displayed by the author on the subject of shooting the enemy, surely leads to another question the rest of us have been asking for some time now; why have Politicians presided over the pillorying of our own elite forces and their actions under similar circumstances in the Afghanistan war?

Theirs is dumb-arse thinking that costs lives and honourable reputations.

Dan.

How typically academic. Talk around in useless circles & come up with the wrong answer.

The obvious answer is to imobilise4 the intruders until the action is finished. No moralising, no injury, but much too simple for pretend educated folk.

Will a soldier be less dead if he was shot by a child ?

Steven – You cite Confucius favourably for three ways to learn wisdom: reflection, imitation, and experience. They may be nice things to do but there is no reason to think that they will make someone wise.

The problem is, how do we know when wisdom has been achieved or who it is that is wise?

Some will say, for example, that McNab acted wisely while others will say no, he was a fool. Who is to say which assessment is correct?

Surely it is a person’s worldview that is crucial here. If a person is an atheist, then it is hard to even make sense of the notion of wisdom. In an atheistic universe there is no particular way that the world is meant to be because everything just happened into existence, for no purpose. So nothing is meant to be one way rather than another. There really isn’t anything to be wise about – except perhaps this one point.

Alternatively, if one holds to one of the theistic belief systems, the important thing is to try and establish which, if any of them, is true (they can’t all be as they contradict each other). If one decides that one is true then it can make sense to talk about being wise in view of that belief system.

The nature of the authors conclusions on What’s the right thing to do, reflects the obvious disconnect of the Academics intelligence.

He hints at an academically convoluted conclusion of wisdom based on his view of superior knowledge and education being the foundation of such wisdom in a mix of Eastern philosophy which alludes to an interpretation from these Academic papers.

A New Theory of Wisdom: Integrating Intelligence and Morality*
Wang Fengyan, Zheng Hong Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China.

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED535738.pdf

That makes him a Chinese apologist doesn’t it. How subtle is the enemy?

Dan