Sanitizing War
January 17, 2012
So, you think by building schools, hospitals, and training all
those soldiers to respect Muslims you can erase all the drilled-in
depersonalization of the enemy, precise killing techniques, and subtle (well, maybe not so subtle) building-up of their anger after 9/11.
I have read the books on war, Sun Tzu to Clausewitz, and more recently, Lt. Col Dave Grossman and Captain Paul K. Chappell,. I have studied war at the Naval Academy. It all sounds very chess-like, until you are there, killing people. No matter how you cut it, war is not kind, not filled with etiquette for the other side. Gentlemen (or ladies) don’t wage wars; barbarians do. If you call the enemy Krauts, Nips, commies, gooks, chinks, or ragheads it allows you to depersonalize it, and keep it okay. And make sure those soldiers know the easiest, quickest, and most lethal way to kill the enemy, and that they actually do it. We don’t want them aiming high to avoid killing another human being. We have to drill that out of them. They must understand that the enemy is not a real person like you and me. They are Yellow Devils, or the Axis of Evil. God does not bless them, like they do Americans. We are right, and always will be.
Cut off and take one of their dead ears and spit on their face. They deserve it. And those ragheads who killed all those innocent people at 9/11? Piss on their dead bodies.
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/the-urination-video-and-pressures-of-battle/
But go ahead and build your hospitals and schools, and try to help their culture believe that we are right and they are wrong, after you’ve starved them for a decade with an embargo and killed half their neighbors. Spend billions of dollars a month training our soldiers to kill “targets” with machines that are the most lethal in history. You will surely be able to change all those killing habits you’ve cemented in your soldiers, those same soldiers who have tried so hard to do the right thing, preserving our freedoms, but have nightmares and lose families over recurring visions of buddies blown to bits by those @#$& targets.
You think there might be a double message there: Kill those people, but don’t you dare call them a name or piss on their bodies. Double messages don’t mean anything, right? (Except to politicians!) Just do what you are told, soldier. Don’t think about it. Besides, we have psychiatrist who can treat our soldier’s messed up mind.
But, you politicians should try not to focus too much on stopping wars, or keeping them from happening. War is our heritage, our children’s future. Without wars, patriotism would wither. Oh yeah, and where would we spend those billions of dollars?
And the death of all morality? Who cares. If you think you can make war moral, you are indeed a true politician. You think this is the only amoral thing that has happened in war, and that court martialing them will cure it? They just won’t video tape it. First rule of the Naval Academy: You rate what you get away with. Don’t get caught.
No, it’s not the right thing to piss on a dead enemy, rape his daughter, or cut off the breasts of his wife. If we must be at war we should at least kill quickly, and treat the enemy with respect. We are not barbarians, after all. Are we?
Why isn’t there a law passed that states: If the US is in a war, there MUST be a daily debate in Congress about how to get OUT of war, as fast as possible?
Talk about getting priorities straight.
mm
