Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 March 5

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March 5

Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse

close soapboxing
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Alright, according to the article, some US military groups gave the media the pictures of abused prisoners. The question is where did they get the pictures in the first place? The guards, who committed the crime, took the pictures themselves right? Are the guards stupid or what? Why would they give the pictures to someone else to release it? Or why would they give the pictures to someone at all. Don't the guards know if people see it then they will be outraged? When the US military was investigating the guards, they could have hidden the pictures somewhere or delete it with ease. It puzzles me how can the media get the hold of those sick-messed up pictures. 75.168.125.23 (talk) 03:43, 5 March 2014 (UTC) Why did they photograph their deeds? For the same reason that countless civilian idiots film their bad behaviors and post them on youtube, sometimes leading to arrests and convictions. Note that it's not just Abu Ghraib, as various photographic evidence of other bad behaviors by some soldiers has surfaced from time to time. As far as destroying them, believe it or not there are people in the military with a sense of integrity and ethics. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:58, 5 March 2014 (UTC) Ok, I get the parts where some people are simply idiots. However, I don't get this part "As far as destroying them, believe it or not there are people in the military with a sense of integrity and ethics." If they have integrity and ethnics then why did they commit the abuse then took the pictures in the first place? They have integrity to not destroy the picture, yet committed a terrible crime? Seems contradicting to me.75.168.125.23 (talk) 04:38, 5 March 2014 (UTC) I'm not saying it's the same people. Keep in mind that the reason people film their misdeeds is to laugh and joke about them later. And sometimes they make copies of them. And the more copies are floating around, the greater the chance of the wrong person (so to speak) getting hold of them and blowing the whistle. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:46, 5 March 2014 (UTC) I see. Pretty much to sum up my answer. There are some idiots who took pictures of their terrible acts and thought it's funny then made copies and spread them around. No wonder how eventually the media will get the hold of those pictures or films.75.168.125.23 (talk) 04:50, 5 March 2014 (UTC) Now that you have given us your answer I am closing this. We don't discuss the state of mind of living people, we give references. If you have a request for a reference, do so outside the hat. μηδείς (talk) 05:49, 5 March 2014 (UTC) I think you should refer to the original article and related stories. My guess: people coming from the U.S. have been indoctrinated with a hypothetical view of the world where all men are created equal, or at least all white men. They think something is either against the law, or else it's a "right". So if soldiers see prisoners routinely being humiliated and tortured by agents of civilian spy agencies, private contractors, and anyone else who comes by, their instinct isn't to think that this is something totally illegal for them only. (Nowadays, with the television networks awash with programs about how you could build tanks and machine guns and blow up bombs if only you were rich and had the license, this indoctrination may gradually be fading) But assuming one law for all, a person could think, these are criminals and this is their punishment and nobody cares. And who would have imagined that Lynndie England would end up regarded as the worst criminal in this affair, even as the whole country was abuzz with detainees being in agony from water boarding, or having dogs lick peanut butter off their genitals, etc. Of course, this also indicates a much larger number of people who nonetheless had the foresight not to take pictures. Wnt (talk) 23:00, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

musical effect

There's something I first noticed in some orchestral performances but it also happens a lot in marches. Basically at some cadences the players end the measure by playing a little louder and then muffling the last note rather abruptly, giving a "tump" sound if that makes any sense. When I listened to classical radio stations I could often tell when Lorin Maazel was conducting even if I didn't know what music it was, because he did that all the time. I think it's supposed to show that the conductor has good control of the orchestra, by getting everyone to stop at the same time. But I found the effect kind of annoying.

My question: is there a name for what I'm describing? Is it written into the score? (I doubt this, since it's much more noticable in some performances than others). Is there any literature on what mood effect it's supposed to have, when to use it, etc.?

Thanks.

70.36.142.114 (talk) 04:56, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

It's called a "stinger" in musical terms. We don't have a specific article about it, but it is mentioned briefly in one line near the bottom of Stinger (disambiguation). --Jayron32 10:49, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I did find it at Sting (musical phrase). Also see Stab (music) and Orchestra hit. --Jayron32 10:50, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, unfortunately none of those are what I mean though. I'm just referring to a style of musical phrasing where (some) notes are accented in a drum-like way. I'll see if I can find some examples in the non-Flashwall parts of Youtube. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 18:55, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

You can listen to various examples of cadences at that article. Maybe one will ring a bell. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:32, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Medieval Warfare. The Impact of Arrows vs Armour ?

I've always found it very silly when watching popular movies, how men-at-arms run around with armour, -usually with chain-mail, occasionally with full steel-plate- and yet enemy arrows always pierce them as if they are running around naked and with no protection whatsoever. Then what's the point of wearing armour? I'm thinking that obviously this is highly unrealistic and nothing close to reality, but I'm left with this question; how well did arrows actually work against soldiers in chain-mail?

Did it penetrate the chains at all to pierce flesh and cause some damage, or did it not have much impact at all? When it comes to full-plate I'm not even gonna ask, because surely it did not penetrate a steel-plate piece of armor. I might be willing to believe that crossbow-bolts could penetrate chain-mail and *maybe* even steel-plate, but I don't believe bow and arrows could . So surely if you were to be a successful archer you had to hit the weak spots; around the neck, armpits, groins and even the face. Any area left unprotected really..

Now that I'm already going on about this subject I might as well throw in that swords, axes, etc. were definitely far less effective against armour as well than what is depicted in movies. So the same question applies here; how much of an effect against armour did it really have? Once again, one really had to find the weak and unprotected areas I should think, to effectively put one's enemy down. Which is surely why the war-hammer eventually became so popular in the late middle-ages, since its blunt head would cause bludgeoning-damage even through armour, and its spiked head would penetrate armour much better than any other weapon, if the weapon was swung with full force.

So what do you think?

I'm just speculating really, and I'm not pretending to know any of these things for certain. I just like history, and right now I'm wondering about these things

18:25, 5 March 2014 (UTC)109.247.62.59 (talk)

Lots of interesting information at English longbow. Mikenorton (talk) 18:37, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the Battle of Agincourt is famous for lightly clad English longbowmen being able to defeat the heavily armored French at a distance because the didn't have to engage closely, and the bow allowed shooting an arrow with enough momentum (they sometimes drew the bows with their legs) to pierce the French armor. Until then short bows were less effective, and once the forces closed armor gave advantage against blades in close quarters. μηδείς (talk) 18:42, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

See bodkin point. Wnt (talk) 18:58, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, those were some good links you gave me. I think it's fair to say that English Longbowmen and Battle of Agincourt was something else than a "normal" bow however - but a good thing you brought it up anyway. It certainly must have had a devastating effect indeed. 'Bodkin point' also made for a good read. So thnx 109.247.62.59 (talk) 19:54, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Crossbows were also employed against armor. 75.41.109.190 (talk) 03:40, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

It also helps to remember that armoured, sword-bearing, and ideally mounted knights were a relatively small part of any medieval army. They looked the coolest and that's why we remember them, but an army was mostly foot soldiers, who had much less armour, if they had any at all. A mass of archers would be shooting at them, rather than at the knights specifically. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:22, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Yep. Also good to remember when arrows rained, they often poured. A typical trained archer doesn't have much chance at hitting a chink with each shot, but when they're coming in volleys, the chance of a blind squirrel catching your nut gets discouragingly higher and gravity isn't your friend. But of course, not like movie strength.

Another thing movies make us forget is that you don't need the flashy sniper shot through the eyeball, and that arrows are often unintentionally poisonous. A good scratch can be enough, depending on which foreign soils and fluids happen to mix in till whenever you can take your clunky suit off and wash. If you lived before infection was common knowledge (like most of us), you might never clean it, and figure you're just dying from bad luck. In a long siege, those little pricks add up.

A good steel axe can go through most good steel armour, provided you swing it befitting a guy who brings an axe to war. But unless you're fictional, the second shot is never going to be as sharp or strong. And you're going to have to pull that axe back out of the armour. It won't split anyone in half. Good for duels, too cumbersome for war. Badass way to go out in a movie. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:44, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

You may be interested in some American research; English Longbow Testing against various armor: circa 1400, by Matheus Bane, January 2006. Alansplodge (talk) 11:12, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Don't underestimate the ability of the ancients to deal with wounds - Dioscorides, whose work was well known for the past two millennia, wrote of many different herbs useful for preventing or fighting infection, some of which have some evidence to support them. [1] Wnt (talk) 13:47, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't deny there were some good doctors, or think people are generally more intelligent now. But standardization, collaboration and access to data have come a long way for wisdom. All the good work in the world is for naught if the surgeon assigned you hasn't heard of it. Then, even the most intelligent people have to experiment, piecing together their personal experiences to decide whether trepanning, toxic root or prayer seems most appropriate for your seizures. Science has broken a lot of eggs to make those revolutionary omelettes. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:18, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

It's true. But my feeling is that (a) I've seen many totally false characterizations of old medical practice -- for example, it was popular to say that in the Civil War there was no anaesthesia because ether wasn't being used, but the physicians had ready resort to copious amounts of opium; (b) where there were the most war casualties, the best doctors probably tended to win out; and (c) the witch-hunts of medieval times probably greatly reduced the average medical knowledge and practice from what was before and after. Wnt (talk) 03:31, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean -- large-scale witch hunts were much more of a Renaissance phenomenon than Medieval, and I don't know that they led to any great diminution of medical knowledge... AnonMoos (talk) 17:33, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

They're still burning books in the North to stay warm (via petroleum, naturally). And "modern medicine" seems to have battle-hardened about as many diseases as it's eradicated or tamed. Maybe too much data being shared, now. Intelligent people are still experimenting and finding contradictory conclusions. All reasons we shouldn't imagine medical progress as an upward line on a chart. More like a bubbling, rippling cauldron.

Speaking of experiments and getting back on topic, I hit a filing cabinet with a maul axe yesterday, and can confirm you don't want to wear something like that. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:14, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

To pick up on the wound-infection discussion above, there's some good discussion of this in The Face of Battle (among other places). Keegan makes the counterintuitive but reasonably convincing point that you were actually less likely to die of an infected combat wound in the medieval period than in the modern period - while there was effectively no medical treatment beyond "try to let it heal", there was also much less opportunity for infections to take root. Bullets and shrapnel tend to drive dirty foreign matter deep into the body, where it requires careful surgical removal - a simple slash wound is much less likely to leave debris that won't fall out or get washed away. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:14, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Some thoughts:

1) Armor was worn by the rich and powerful, while common soldiers had none. As such, armor was as much about showing your status as it was about protection.

2) All armor provides some degree of protection, from glancing blows, etc. Even the steel helmets worn in WW2 provided some protection to the wearer from bullets and shrapnel.

3) The question then, is if this added protection was worth the cost in mobility, speed, and money (which could be spent on other forms of protection, like digging massive trenches).

4) The effectiveness of armor gradually was reduced as the longbow, crossbow, and then firearms appeared on the battlefield and became common. Eventually armor became a liability rather than an asset.

5) Chivalry may also have made an impact, as being in armor would make you an obvious target as a leader, unless there was a code of honor preventing such attacks. So, where that code was observed, and "high value targets" were more likely to be captured alive and then ransomed back, armor was less of a liability. StuRat (talk) 15:09, 6 March 2014 (UTC)