Breaking the Fever of Militarism - Unnatural Acts

[ensho]

http://www.counterpunch.org/


By CHRIS FLOYD

All who draw the sword will die by the sword.

-- Yeshua Ha-Notsri, Palestinian dissident, c. 33 CE.

As we all know – or rather, as everyone but those who climb and claw their way to the top of power's greasy pole knows – the effects of war are vast, unforeseeable, long-lasting -- and uncontrollable. The far-reaching ripples of the turbulence will churn against distant shores and hidden corners, then roil back upon you in ways you could never imagine, for generations, even centuries.

-snip-

Oddly enough, when a modern nation consciously adopts a "warrior ethos," it casts aside -- openly, even gleefully -- whatever virtue that ethos has historically claimed for itself, such as courage in battle and honor toward adversaries. In its place come the adulation of overwhelming technological firepower and the rabid demonization of the enemy (or the perceived enemy, or even the "suspected" enemy), who is stripped of all rights, all human dignity, and subject to "whatever it takes" to break him down or destroy him.

Thus our American militarists exult in the advanced hardware that allows "soldiers" to slaughter people from thousands of miles away, with missiles, bombs and bullets fired from lurking, unreachable drones high in the sky. (A recent study shows that even by the most conservative reckoning of who is or isn't a "militant," at least one third of the hundreds killed in the Bush-Obama drone campaigns on the "Af-Pak" front are clearly civilians.) The drone "warriors" -- often living in complete safety and comfort -- see nothing but a bloodless image on a screen; they face no physical threat at all. This is assassination, not combat; it reeks of cowardice, and dehumanizes everyone it touches, the victims and the button-pushers alike. Yet our militarists -- most of whom, of course, have somehow never found the time to fight the wars they cheer for -- wax orgasmic about this craven weaponry. In the transvaluation of values that militarism produces, cowardice becomes a martial virtue.

Barack Obama, the Nobel Peace Laureate, pushes forward with plans for the "Prompt Global Strike" system of "conventional" super-missiles that can rain down massive death -- unstoppable, undeterrable, without warning -- anywhere on the planet within an hour. All this, while expanding shorter-range missile "defense" systems that bristle with blatantly offensive potential, and intent, all over the world. Plus spending billions to "modernize" the nuclear arsenal, ensuring that it stays effective enough to murder the entire earth, while weeding out some "redundant" warheads as a PR gesture.

Meanwhile, the drone programs -- emblazoned with names that proudly proclaim their savage nature: "Predators" and "Reapers," launching "Hellfire" missiles into sleeping villages -- keep expanding relentlessly. As noted by Nick Turse -- who is doing invaluable work detailing the deadly nuts and bolts of the militarist empire and its profiteers -- the Pentagon is drooling over visions of vast robotic forces filling the heavens and roaming the earth, even down to the smallest crevice. He rightly notes the main purpose of this massively funded R&D: to make war "easier," less deadly to "our side," and thus more palatable to the public:

-snip-

Murder, cowardice, torture, dishonor: these are fruits -- and the distinguishing characteristics -- of the militarized society. What Americans once would not do even to Nazis with the blood of millions on their hands, they now do routinely to weak and wretched captives seized on little or no evidence of wrongdoing at all. We are deep in the darkness, and hurtling deeper, headlong, all the time.

-snip-

We do have the capacity, the space, to resist the patterns of domination and obedience, to seek out new ways of seeing the world, of being in the world, of communing with others.

This seems, to me, a worthwhile thing to be getting on with during our painfully brief time on the earth, during our infinitesimal window of opportunity to make some small contribution toward pushing the project of being human -- or rather, becoming human -- down the road, at least a few more steps, in the direction of a better understanding, a broader consciousness, a greater enlightenment.
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I've always liked the writers thinking/writing.

climate change will cause the end of militarys, . . . too.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. "If it's natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?" Joan Baez

[ensho]

2. kick

nt

[Cid_B]

3. Idiotic quote....

Pretty much any random person has the ability to bludgeon someone to death. Training just makes it more efficient and less likely to result in your own demise.

[MadHound]

7. Umm, actually no

It has been known by psychologists and sociologist for a long time that man has an innate reluctance to kill his fellow man. After WWI, when so much ammo was expended for so few deaths or injuries, the US Army did a historical study to find out what was going on. They found that there were a majority of people in the Army who simply could not kill. They fired low, the fired high, they fired wide, despite extensive target practice, etc. They found soldiers who would constantly reload their weapon, but never fire it. They found many soldiers who would run away rather than kill a fellow human.

These were their findings, so they developed a training course that would take a raw recruit, strip him down psychologically, remove his inhibitions about killing his fellow soldier, then build him back up. They instituted this program for WWII. It's known as Basic Training, where a sergeant basically abuses you in order to break you down, you are exposed to killing and then built back up into a soldier.

It is the rare human, who isn't either psychologically ill, or under severe distress, who can simply go out and kill somebody that they don't know.

[raccoon]

8. How's that again?

" After WWI, when so much ammo was expended for so few deaths or injuries,"

Men were mowed down at the battle of the Somme...and other battles.

Going over the top and trying to advance toward machine guns had that effect.

[MadHound]

9. And the ammo expenditure was fantastic.

As it was during the Civil War as well. The ratio between rounds fired and actual deaths and injuries was huge. Yes, lots of people were killed, but the cost of an incredible amount of ammo expenditure. This came to the notice of the Pentagon brass who found that such high rates of ammo expenditure was unacceptable, and decided to do something about it.

[Echo In Light]

6. Fantastic, apropos quote

[L0oniX]

4. K & R

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. To destroy us they will have to become us. - Adolf Hitler nt