Are troops being brainwashed before going or while in Iraq?

[Xenotime]

On the local news today, I heard about a soldier that got killed. The media always says they "believe they are doing the right thing" or "died for his country"

It's very sad that we lose another hero but how can they all believe they are doing the right thing when they are fighting an unjust war? How can they be dying for our country when in fact they are dying in and for Iraq.

I just don't understand the opposite logic here. What am I missing?

[CrazyOrangeCat]

1. you hit it on the head.

and, once they're there, they are evidently fed a steady diet of bullshit--courtesy of Rush Limpballs.

:cry:

[TomInTib]

2. From day one in Boot Camp. And then it festers and grows..

no way out.

I have seen people do things that they would have never imagined doing otherwise.

[evlbstrd]

3. Standard Operating Procedure.

Always has been, always will be.

[Bonhomme Richard]

4. I think it's a fairly common Psychological reaction.

I think mentally you, if you were wounded, or your family, if you were killed, would have to think that you are doing the right thing. Everyone needs to believe that their sacrifice was for a noble and just cause.
To think otherwise, and there are those that do, would mean that you accept that the loss of life or limb was a complete waste. That is a tough "mental" road to go.

[Solly Mack]

5. Contrary to popular myth - a great many soldiers don't fall for the BS

oh, you got your true believers, no doubt. But not all of them - not by a long shot.

[HereSince1628]

6. A soldiers' concern is pretty close to him.

From personal experience I can tell you in a soldier's down time, politics isn't as big an issue as girlfriends, fast cars, fast women, fast money, and a safe trip home, not necessarily in that order.

[gratuitous]

7. Please note it's the media saying this . . .

The soldier, sadly, is beyond commenting on his situation or what he believes.

But I think the answer lies somewhere behind your question, if you will. A lot of folks think we don't have a national religion, but it's pretty clear we do, and that's an unshakeable belief in redemptive violence. No matter what the problem, no matter what the results of our efforts are, violence is believed to be redemptive of any situation. "If we just blow up enough stuff, kill enough people, lay waste to enough square miles, why, everything will be just as right as rain! You'll see."

The facts, of course, are that we've murdered uncounted thousands of Iraqis and Afghans whose only "crime" was getting in the way of the American wehrmacht. We've also killed thousands of our own troops, devastated thousands more, ruined the lives of their families, and flushed billions and billions of Treasury dollars down the toilet. And for what?

Yet, if you have the temerity to suggest that there was another way we could have gone about our nation's business, you're at the mercy of a baying pack of hounds inside and outside the media, who will not hesitate to cry "treason."

[SPKrazy]

8. I Know A 12 Year Enlisted Man In Iraq

He says a different story than they believe they are doing the right thing

don't want to get anymore specific than that, but he has even said he won't vote Republican ever again!

That's big for him cuz he was a big Republican supporter before he went there.

[Burning Water]

9. I think that

your mistake is in assuming that they think it's an unjust war. Obviously, they don't.

I don't know how the left can be more effective in countering the RW propaganda about this illegal invasion of a sovereign country that wasn't any threat to America and didn't have WMDs, but we must certainly try. Otherwise, when all the troops are brainwashed, goodbye to the America we knew and loved.

[bush_is_wacko]

10. Every member of the military I have ever spoken to says they

are "brainwashed" from the moment they step off the bus so to speak.

The military does what they have to do to turn out good little soldiers. I know a lot of them and they all say the military takes away any individuality you ever possessed because you MUST work as a team and not as an individual when in a combat situation. Someone I know told me that they have to make everyone an equal to start out so if you're cocky they are especially hard on you. If you have always t=been the popular guy/girl they try all the harder to knock you down to a level playing field. You either conform or you suffer the consequences until you give up and conform.

One of my daughters friends just dropped out of the Naval Academy on a full boat scholarship because he just couldn't deal with the transformation he was undergoing. It's funny, from the moment he told me he was going into the Naval Academy I knew he wouldn't fit in. He is way too socially oriented to cut it in the military. It's not that he isn't a tough kid. He is. Runs ten miles a day. Carried a 4.2 GPA all the way through High School. Won several medals in sharp shooting. He's physically and mentally capable of taking the heat but he's also smart enough to know he doesn't need what they have to offer him. He can accomplish what he wants somewhere else.

[MadHound]

11. Boot Camp is what you are thinking of

Between WWI and WWII, US generals were going over the figures from WWI, and were quite concerned at the hit to ammo expended ratio. Apparently too many people were shooting a whole lot of ammo without hitting a damn thing. And even more interesting, this appeared to be the case in all of America's wars. Civil War accounts of soldiers continously firing over the heads of charging enemies, or even just continously reloading abounded. And the numbers were all there to see. And the numbers were appalling.

It seems that the normal human psyche has a built in adversion to killing. Given the choice between shooting over somebody's head or into somebody's head, most people will choose life instead of death. Thus, the ammunition ratio was extremely high.

Well, these generals decided that something needed to be done to erase this natural born aversion to killing one's fellow human. Thus, Boot Camp was born.

It is traditional Brainwashing 101. Break somebody's psyche down, and then rebuild it up in the way you want. Make the person overly dependent on the group, dehumanize the dreaded "other"(whoever the "other" happens to be), in short, remake the person into somebody who has no hesitation about killing.

Voila! The ammo used to hits ratio went down, more people were killed, and a more orderly military ensued. That's why Boot Camp is such a big thing. It isn't what they do to you physically, it's how they fuck with your mind that's the real killer, literally.

[fed-up]

12. My "savvy" baby bro was BRAINWASHED during GWI, took a few months for

him to get "deprogrammed", this only occured because of the COMPLETE LACK of care that he/others received for medical issues upon his/their return. And the denial from the Pentagon that DU was used.

Since then he has done a 180 about face on how our government works.

Nothing like a slap in the face from your own government when you have laid your life on the life to create an activist!

*note-he is a lifelong dem, but still believed at first the "In the Interests of National Security" bullshit line they always use to justify EVERYTHING EVIL that they do.