hmmm, lets see. back in the day, Marines while prosecuting thier orders earned a varity of nicknames: Leathernecks, Devil Dogs to name a few.

Bump.

I do think that war is different in today's times then in the past. But to compare WWII with modern wars that the US fought are also different because in WWII, the costs of the lives were comparable. In WWII Russia lost millions of soldiers lives and the US hundreds of thousands. In Iraq, at least tens of thousands (if not more) may well have died. And our military has lost a fraction of that. Those are also some differences which MacNamera (past Sec. of Defense) himself has pointed out.

Legal War/Just War/Holy War:

some info:

The legal framework in which war takes place is more defined in the Islamic world than in ' Christendom '. Some historians disagree on just when the legal and religious framework of Islamic society came into being, denying that it can be traced back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad himself. It certainly existed from an early date and Islamic ' laws of war' were firmly based upon Koranic Law. It is also clear that Islamic concepts of Just War, as distinct from Holy War, drew heavily upon the tribal traditions of pre-Islamic Arabia, being characterized by a wish to dominate politically rather than convert religiously. In other words, conquest was a means to an end rather than an end in itself.

the Koranic basis meant that the ' physical' or secondary jihad, as distinct from the superior ' spiritual' jihad, was the only strictly legitimate form of warfare. the Hadith or ' Sayings' of the Prophet provided more detailed guidelines; for example stating that even sinful Muslim rulers should lead the jihad and that the help offered by non-combatants towards the equipping of a mujahid, or soldier in jihad, was itself a form of jihad. Furthermore, all defensive wars were to some degree a jihad because Islamic civilization was theoretically theocratic. So injury to the State was an injury to Islam and thus to God.

The waging of jihad soon became an important way for Muslim rulers to demonstrate their own political legitimacy, but by the eleventh century it was little more than a political tool in the hands of the ruling elite. The European Crusades then led to the revival of interest in the laws of jihad, the most famous legal scholar of this period being Ibn Rushd.
His treatise, written in 1167, remained the standard work for centuries, maintaining that jihad was essentially defensive and that the enemy could be any polytheist [ a believer in more than one God which, in Muslim eyes, included the Christian concept of the Trinity ]

However, the enemy couldn't be attacked before being offered the opportunity to accept Islamic rule and to pay the jizyah tax demanded of all non-Muslim subjects.

The siyar, or regulations governing a soldier's behaviour, had been codified in the mid-eighth century. These prohbited the killing of women, children, the old and sick,, the destruction of various economic targets or private property. Furthermore, soldiers should not mutilate the enemy nor break promises or offers of safe conduct

One more suggestion that today's jihadists have strayed a bit from the true path...Muhammad would be miffed....

quote:

The siyar, or regulations governing a soldier's behaviour, had been codified in the mid-eighth century. These prohbited the killing of women, children, the old and sick,, the destruction of various economic targets or private property. Furthermore, soldiers should not mutilate the enemy nor break promises or offers of safe conduct

Some scholars say that the modern distortion in militant Islam (and how these rules no longer apply...or can be circumvented) can be laid at the feet on one man-- Sayyid Qutb (through his various writings). Read his book "Milestones", very enlightening.