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Technorati(Un)Fair Game: Targeting Iraqis as 'Big Game'
Earlier this month, news of the military's use of Human Terrain Teams -- U.S. combat units operating in Afghanistan and Iraq that contain anthropologists and other social scientists who have traded in their academic robes for body armor -- hit the front-page of the New York Times. While the incorporation of academic experts into combat units has raised ire in some scholarly circles, their use as "cultural advisers" to aid the war effort has been greeted by the military as "a crucial new weapon in counterinsurgency operations" and in the media as an example of increased cultural sensitivity as well as evidence of a new Pentagon willingness to think outside the box.
But the university is only one of a number of areas where an overstretched military, involved in two losing wars, is in a desperate search for new ideas. And humanizing allies and enemies alike has only been one part of the process. Dehumanizing them has been the other. At a recent conference on urban warfare in Washington, D.C., James Lasswell, a retired Marine Corps colonel who now heads the Office of Science and Technology at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, opened an interesting window into this side of things. He noted that, as part of an instruction course named "Combat Hunter," the Marines have brought in "big-game hunters" to school their snipers in the better use of "optics." According to a September 2007 article by Grace Jean in NationalDefense Magazine, "[T]he lab conducted a war game with Marines, African game hunters and inner city police officers to search for ways to improve training." The program included a 15-minute CD titled "Every Marine a Hunter."
Earlier this year, according to an article by Kimberly Johnson of the Marine Corps Times, Col. Clarke Lethin, chief of staff of the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) -- a unit based in Camp Pendleton, California that took part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and will be returning there soon -- indicated that its commanders "believe that if we create a mentality in our Marines that they are hunters and they take on some of those skills, then we'll be able to increase our combat effectiveness." The article included this curious add-on: "The Corps hopes to tap into skills certain Marines may already have learned growing up in rural hunting areas and in urban areas, such as inner cities, said Col. Clarke Lethin, I MEF's chief of staff." Outraged by the statement, one Sgt. Ramsey K. Gregory wrote a letter to the publication asking, "Just what was meant by that comment about the inner city? I hope to God that he's not saying that people from the inner cities are experts in killing each other and that we all just walk around carrying guns."
While the colonel's language -- defended by some -- did seem to suggest that inner-city dwellers lived in an urban jungle of gun-toting hunters of other humans, none of the letters, pro or con, considered quite a different part of the Colonel's equation: the implicit comparison of enemies in urban warfare, today largely Iraqis and Afghans, to animals that are hunted and killed as quarry. As Lethin had unabashedly noted, "We identified a need to ensure our Marines were being the hunters... Hunting is more than just the shooting. It's finding your game."
That military men might indulge in this sort of description was perhaps less than surprising, given the degree to which "hunting" the enemy has been on the lips of America's commander-in-chief. George W. Bush has, on many occasions, invoked the image: "We're hunting them down, one at a time" he likes to say of, for instance, al-Qaeda terrorists, or "we're smoking them out," as he said in November 2001.
In fact, the President needed no big-game hunters to coach him on his optics or anything else. He's talked incessantly of hunting humans -- in speeches to American troops, at photo ops with foreign leaders, at family fundraisers, even in the midst of remarks about homeownership.
Nor is there anything new about Americans treating racial and ethnic enemies as the equivalent of animals to be abused or killed. In his memoir of the Vietnam War, Dispatches, acclaimed combat correspondent Michael Herr, for example, recalled a young soldier from the Army's 1st Infantry Division who admitted, "Well, you know what we do to animals.... kill 'em and hurt 'em and beat on 'em.... Shit, we don't treat the Dinks [Vietnamese] no different than that." Another veteran, quoted elsewhere remembered, "As soon as I hit boot camp.... they tried to change your total personality.... Right away they told us not to call them Vietnamese. Call them gooks, dinks.... They were like animals, or something other than human.... They told us they're not to be treated with any type of mercy..." Today, the slurs of the Vietnam era have been replaced by "haji" and "raghead," while the big-game hunters and the language that goes with killing animals have added to the atmosphere of dehumanization.
That program of instruction is, however, just one recent example of an undercurrent within the military's institutional culture that implicitly reduces people to animals. It's not just in the language of everyday anger and dismissal by soldiers in a strange land where danger is everywhere and it's difficult to tell friend from foe. It's lodged right in the institutional language, if you care to notice. Last month, a piece in the Washington Post, for example, drew much media attention when it came to light that U.S. Army snipers from the "painted demons" platoon of the 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division allegedly took part in "a classified program of 'baiting' their targets" to lure insurgents within their sniper scopes.
"Basically, we would put an item [like a spool of wire or ammunition] out there and watch it," said Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of the elite sniper platoon in a sworn statement. "If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. Forces." While there has been much subsequent discussion about the ethics and legality of such a program, nobody seemed to take note of the hunting language involved. After all, when you "bait" a trap (or a hook), it's to lure an animal (or fish) in for the kill. But "bait" for a human?
While the use of anthropologists and other social scientists has made headlines, the utilization of "big-game hunters" as troop trainers for the "urban jungles" of Iraq has been essentially ignored. Programs stressing cultural sensitivity may be covered, but treating Iraqis scavenging in a weapon-strewn war zone as the equivalent of elephants, water buffalo, or other prized trophies of great white hunters has gone largely unexamined in any meaningful way.
From the commander-in-chief to low-ranking snipers, a language of dehumanization that includes the idea of hunting humans as if they were animals has crept into our world -- unnoticed and unnoted in the mainstream media. Perhaps a few linguistics professors or other social scientists might like to step into the breach and offer their views on the subject -- unless, of course, they've already been mustered into those Human Terrain Teams.
Nick Turse is the associate editor and research director of Tomdispatch.com. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Nation, GOOD magazine, the Village Voice, and regularly for Tomdispatch.com. His first book, The Complex, an exploration of the new military-corporate complex in America, is due out in the American Empire Project series by Metropolitan Books in 2008. His new website NickTurse.com (up only in rudimentary form) will fully launch in the coming months.
Copyright 2007 Nick Turse
20 Comments so far
Show AllIt is a sad truth that the military has been aware of the usefulness of "hunting" skills and the "mindset" in soldiers for quite some time. "Country boys" with hunting experience usually adapt to sniper training much better than their city counterparts. Perhaps the most famous or infamous sniper of the Nam era was Carlos Hathcock.
It now appears that they want to transfer this mentality and the skills to the less specialized troops. This is a sad commentary on our nation.
Forget the nonsense about "supporting the troops" as they are all mercenaries who signed up for the job and most are stone cold killers with many taking pride in their effectiveness. Confirmed kills are important to them. And I would guess nearly all of know they are killing for oil, whether they would openly admit that or not.
First we embedded journalists with front-line troops, now we are embedding PhD sociologists. How else will the Admin spin the news coming back from the front?
I meant to say, also, that ggpearl's commentary was right on, corresponds to what I know, and wanted to add what I said above...
It caused some angry responses when, in one of our cultural anthropology classes at San Diego State University, we were told that the science of cultural anthropology was a theoretical field originally developed by the British higher-educational system in the early 1800's as a way to analyze cultures, and through the analyses, to develop techniques to pacify the indigenous African populations without having to resort to war against them.
Having received some training, I would recommend that the military withdraw from the field and country. Also, that the American Administration reassess their purposes, justifications, and intentions in the South Asian region in a manner that excludes military forces.
The wars are failing. Making war has failed. The military is the manner in which wars are fought....therefore pull out and attempt other paths towards getting whatever it is that this abominal, illegal, absurd administration wants.
One of the main reasons there are such things as Anthropology departments was specifically for war recon and intelligence reports. Sending anthropologists in to areas to learn about the factors that make up the social matrix in order to disrupt them, find out how to weaken and dissolve them. Family units, heirarchies, economics, their job was to identify them and provide plans for the military and agents to infiltrate and use identified social weaknesses to facilitate takeover. It is one of the first things that anthropology undergraduates learn about their chosen discipline, if their instructors have any honest compassion about the history of this profession.
I personally do not believe this is a 'just now' news event re: social scientists being used in the present occupations.
As for the sniper/baiting big game hunting stories.....this comes as no surprise. Combine this info with the lower standard entry process that the military has had to adopt for its voluntary aspects.....global combat gangs coming to an oil field near you. It fits very well within the framework laid out by Pax Americana/PNAC.
Article by Christopher Bollyn
America Pearl Harbored
"Billions of dollars in additional defense spending are but the first step in the group's long-term plan to transform the U.S. military into a global army enforcing a terroristic and bloody Pax Americana around the world.
A neo-conservative Washington-based organization known as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), funded by three foundations closely tied to Persian Gulf oil and weapons and defense industries, drafted the war plan for U.S. global domination through military power."
http://www.americanfreepress.net/12_24_02/America_Pearl_Harbored/america_pearl_harbored.html
"Let's elect a female commander in chief."
Surely you refer to Hillary right ? Her views on every single issue is pretty much the same as Cheney. Do you really think electing a 'female' is going to change our macho, nazi culture ?
A downside of no draft is that more people join a gung-ho military and other law enforcement agencies precisely because they LIKE living in that culture. An upside of no draft is that others don't HAVE TO, but, as a result, other human views aren't represented in the makeup there, either.
Want a to try a military culture experiment. Let's elect a female commander in chief.
your tax dollars at work, folks.
We have been victimizing the Iraqis for 27 years now. In 1980, when they went to war with the Iranians who had become radicalized by Eisenhower's overthrow of Mossadegh and our long support of the brutal, corrupt Shah, we began arming and supporting the cruel Saddam, even building his poison gas plants. We continued this game until he invaded Kuwait, when we turned against him and bombed the country, destroying their infrastructure and killing hundreds of thousands of innocents, with over 500,000 children succumbing due to our sanctions. We urged the Kurds and Shii to rise up, then left them to Saddam's tender mercies. In the interwar years we continued intermittent bombing and embargoed medicines, vaccines and even medical journals even as they tried to cope with a cancer epidemic, probably due to our use of depleted uranium. Then in 2003 we bombed again and to date have caused the death of approximately a million people and driven over 4 million from their homes. Yet when they react in rage and frustation, we label them extremists and terrorists. I don't support violence by anyone, them or us, but can surely understand their distrust and hatred of us.
Mencius says, "The difference between humans and brute animals is ever so slight. The sage preserves it and the petty person loses it."
"Bait for a human?" Sure why not, everyone is expendable, except those that pull the strings, and do the ventriloquist act. Why not bring in the death penalty for jaywalking, or spitting on the street? Bush and company, are totally deficient when it comes to morals or compassion, about the damage and destruction they have caused in Iraq, what they let the Israelis' do in Lebanon, and in South America where they supported one wacked out dictator after another. Why should we care? After all their skin colour is different than ours, so we can assume it is less of an offense against these people.
We are animals.
A man who knew a few things about "Hunting Humans", if he were about today, no question were Ted Bundy would be at this moment. Blackwater would have themselves a real great white hunter.
"Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot," Gen. Mattis said, prompting laughter from some military members in the audience. "It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling."
A recent speech in San Diego.
Without birth control and resource sharing, depopulating the world can be a bitch.
This is an outrage. The American Anthropological Association needs to take a stand against mercenary academics helping the marines be better at genocide.
Jeeze, there is going to be serious blowback from this shit someday that will make McVeigh and the Maryland snipers look like stamp collectors.
More seriously, there could be certain advantanges in looking at them Hadjis as big game instead of vermin. As the overland transport of supplies deteriorates because of blown up bridges and interdicted roads, it would be easier to supply protein to the the troops from what was regarded as "game" then "vermin".
I apologize, I lifted that snark from Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" -- I promisse to flagellate myself severely before I go to bed!
and coming soon to a school campus near you....post tramatic stressed "human hunters" direct from the killing fields of Iraq
THE TED NUGENT LOVE IT
OR LEAVE IT PROGRAM
One reason the language of good police officers is laden with monotonic dull and dry generic terminology is precisely because it's coming from the right kind of people to be in that job.
For example, watch a few cop shows and notice when one is from Britain, Canada, Minnesota or Alaska, or even the British soldiers in Iraq. They generally maintain an arms-length distance - physically and mentally - from whatever they're dealing with. After they leave, one doesn't feel violated and they don't feel angry.
They rarely get personally involved with subjects, even after a physical struggle. No moral lectures about using drugs or soliciting a prostitute; no condascending, sniping, revengeful attitude; no screaming and yelling while storming the premises; no adolescent high-fives and all the rest of it.
Somehow, a significant number of the Ted Nugent types end up in police departments, the military or Blackwater - the same ones who would go to Texas and pay to shoot animals like fish in a barrel, or perhaps pay more than that and track down wounded animals with Nugent himself to smell the blood and feel the tingle of a "real" hunt.
One study on displaced aggression found that when rats on a metal floor are electrocuted, they first jump around and finally sit still, taking it until dead, showing greatly swelled hormonal glands at autopsy. Repeat except with a stick to chew on, and the rat chews wildly on the stick and shows less swelling of the glands.
Last, the experiment is repeated with two rats who fight each other till the death as they are electrocuted. But this time the autopsy shows NO swelling of the glands. Because they could fight, they could redirect their hopeless situation to each other.
The best soldiers, police and other security personnel don't need to undergo the Ted Nugent program to displace their aggression - they don't have any - that's why they're the best.
It's the private consultants and psychologists and military complex that spread the myth that the human instinct not to kill must be overcome in order to kill.
Not true. There's plenty of stable, quite silent types that could neutralize the Nugent Nuts without breaking stride or uttering a sound as they carry out their professional duties, no special training necessary.