Killing the humanity of our soldiers...techniques to overcome inherent human resistance to killing

[madfloridian]

Thanks to the blogger Ybor City Stogie for catching the article. He links to an Australian site.

America is killing the humanity of its soldiers

The military is training its soldiers to become so inured to killing that it becomes easy

'Over here, killing people is like squashing an ant. I mean, you kill somebody and it's like 'All right, let's go get some pizza'." American soldier, Private Steven Green, interviewed in Iraq in 2006......"

From the Australian site, The Age...more about this.

Killing Soldiers' Humanity

The Soviet journalist Vasily Grossman noted a similar phenomenon on the Eastern Front. "Sixty per cent of our soldiers haven't fired a single shot during the war at all," a commander told him. "We are fighting thanks to heavy machine-guns, battalion mortars and the courage of some individuals."

Since then, military trainers have developed various techniques to overcome the inherent human resistance to killing.

...."Consider America's Army, a video game developed as a recruiting tool by the US military. Freely downloadable online, it claims about 8 million registered players, all enthusiastically gunning down electronic bad guys. The game also features cameos from genuine soldiers who direct players towards the real-world enlistment office and enthuse about actual adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan and the honour and courage and heroism that await there.

In this way, the digital battlefield fosters remarkably old-fashioned notions of combat as a source of meaning and purpose, even as it transforms killing into an unthinking conditioned response.

...."Conditioned reflexes might allow soldiers to open fire without hesitation but they do not provide them with a framework for coming to terms with what they've done. The soldiers in Iraq who kill more efficiently than any previous generation are also returning home with extraordinary levels of psychiatric trauma. Already, about 50,000 Iraq veterans have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Just imagine what missions like the attacks on the cities of Najaf and Fallujah, Sadr City, and Baqouba must be like. The number of civilian deaths may remain uncounted.

I wrote about the fact that a plan has been developed for Sadr City (2 million) that is similar to the plan for Fallujah (quarter to half a million).

A second Fallujah plan exists for Sadr City

...."What of the estimated 50,000 residents who did not leave Falluja? The US military suggested there were a couple of thousand insurgents in the city before the siege, but in the end chose to treat all the remaining inhabitants as enemy combatants.

Sadr City is now a target. There is a difference, a big one. Sadr City has a tightly packed population of about 2 million people.

An unidentified Iraqi child gazes at an Agence France-Presse photographer
outside his home in the impoverished Shi’ite-stronghold of Sadr City,
Baghdad, on Wednesday. The United Nations Children's Fund has called for an
additional $42-million to fund child health initiatives in the country.
Wissam al-Okaili, AFP

[rockymountaindem]

1. Noteworthy, but this isn't exactly news

This has been going on since the end of WWII when the US Army found out that only one man in four actually fired his rifle in battle.

[madfloridian]

2. It needs to be said right now...and said again and again.

Do not put me down for saying it. I remember WWII and I remember Korea and Vietnam. It is time for me to say how I feel. It is my right and it is my responsibility.

Of course it's not new. I did not think that.

But we have got to get out of there.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1323

[rockymountaindem]

3. I wasn't putting you down

I'm sorry if you got that impression. I actually recently read a book on warfare which had a couple of chapters on this aspect. It was very informative and, while hard to think about on a personal level, I can understand why an army would want to use these techniques on an organizational level.

[madfloridian]

4. I can't understand why they would need such techniques.

Where have all these wars gotten us? They are useless. I was watching local news tonight about our soldiers attacking Baqubah with the help of F-16s flying overhead. But hey, Baqubah is only a quarter million people. Smaller than most, right?

Why would they want to teach men to be killing machines and then not provide for the rehabilitation they might need....because after all they are not machines.

[rockymountaindem]

5. Rehabilitation: yes

But as far as the techniques to train soldiers to fire by reflex, put yourself in the shoes of those in charge. If you've got 100 soldiers in a battle, would you rather have 25 of them firing at the enemy (as in WWII) or 97 of them firing at the enemy (as in Vietnam)? The point about where wars are getting us is entirely seperate from an army's desire to *win* the wars they're in. The methods of training are a means to that end. Moreover, from what I've read, every modern army uses the same methods. Maybe it's a road sign about where we are in our human evolution, maybe not. But for any given army, victory comes first.

[madfloridian]

6. There was never this mindset of hate before.

It is different now. This Iraq War is different.

[rockymountaindem]

7. Again, I have to disagree

There has certainly been a similar mindset of hate in many wars. Right now I'm reading a book detainling the Spanish Civil War. Some of the accounts given are quite graphic, to the extent that I would use the words "mind-blowing brutality". In another book called "The Spanish Cockpit" by Franz Borkenau, a contemporary observer, literally every second or third page in the first half of the book is about one massacre or another.

On the US side, read up on our actions during the Philippine insurrection and against Japanese soldiers in the field during WWII. It's not pleasant stuff.

[madfloridian]

8. I know our actions were horrible in all the wars...

I remember the news reels, but I remember the Life magazines which were pretty graphic.

We are on a crusade now, and that is different. Many have been instilled with a fear and hatred of Islam, many believing they attacked us on 9/11.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1352

If you can't see how things are different now, I don't know how to explain it. We are alienated from the world and pretty much on our in this crusade.

You think in military ways, I think in ways that see what we are doing to civilization.

[ellisonz]

9. I'm going to have to disagree.

"America" itself is an imperialist crusade and from there on it's been straight down hill in terms of humanism.



D.W. Griffith - The Clansman - "Birth of a Nation" - 1915.



William Howard Taft on a Water Buffalo - Philippines - 1904.

Basically: Conquest > Colonialism > "Manifest Destiny" > Consumption > Imperialism > Fascism

Bury My Heart at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanahani

:evilfrown: O8)