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Coming Home From Killing
The recent British film In Our Name is a returning-soldier drama featuring a married woman, Suzy, who leaves her husband and little girl to fight in Iraq. Because she’s involved in the killing of a little girl during her tour—this part is based on a true story, but it happened to a man—she returns home only to steadily fall apart under the stress of soul-destroying anxieties.
In real life, Ethan McCord was involved in a now-infamous episode that took a strangely similar turn. It became one of the most shocking (and hopefully awakening) revelations by Wikileaks: the video now dubbed “Collateral Murder” that was taken from an Apache helicopter as its gunners massacred a group of civilians in a Baghdad suburb in 2007. Addressing a Southern California audience about his role in the episode this past June, McCord described how he saw two small children mangled by gunfire from the helicopter and thought of his own two children at home.
McCord, though he is understandably tense, does not seem to be completely unnerved by the trauma. Instead, it forced him to wake up from the lies that had put him in a uniform to kill other people’s children halfway across the globe, and he took it upon himself to try waking up others. Among people who have lost loved ones to gun violence—like, for example, Azim Khamisa, who now works to dissuade school children from joining gangs after his son was mindlessly killed by one—some have discovered that turning grief and guilt to reconstructive work can be psychologically restorative. But their number is not legion. Many, many more have gone, and are now going, the way of Suzy from In Our Name. According to a covered-up story that is about to be released by Project Censored, a Northern California-based media watchdog service, the number of active-duty soldiers or veterans who have committed suicide has just surpassed the number of those killed in combat.
We are facing a social problem of massive proportions, as our already-grim experience with returning veterans from Vietnam should have warned us. Psychologist Rachel McNair developed the concept of Perpetration Induced Traumatic Stress (PITS) to bring home to us the fact—now dramatically supported by neuroscientists—that you cannot send people out to kill and maim without expecting them to suffer enduring torments themselves, no matter how thoroughly you try to desensitize them beforehand. Thank God! Where would we be if this capacity to respond to the joys and sufferings of others could really be squelched?
There have been admirable attempts to get needed help to these spiritually wounded men and women; but the real answer, the only sane and compassionate answer, is prevention. And that means only one thing: to stop glorifying violence in our social culture and national policy—in other words, renounce war. It won’t be easy. Colonel Harry Holloway, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, told journalist Dan Baum recently, “As soon as we ask the question of how killing affects soldiers, we acknowledge we’re causing harm, and that raises the question of whether the good we’re accomplishing is worth the harm we’re causing … if we get into this business of talking about killing people we’re going to pathologize an absolutely necessary experience.”
But what is the alternative? Those children who opened Ethan McCord’s eyes were killed by a machine in the sky a mile and a half away with 30mm cannon rounds—ordinance tipped with depleted uranium and meant for penetrating armor, not tearing apart human beings. If truth is the first victim in war, humanity is a close second. Thus, if we do not “pathologize” what is truly sick, we end up pathologizing what isn’t: peace. (Remember the “Vietnam syndrome?”) If we do not fear our own bestiality we end up producing a climate that, as none other than General Douglas Macarthur said, “renders among our political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than is their fear of war.”
Perhaps those who still believe that war is an “absolutely necessary experience” would reflect with us on the following story. It was Poland, in 1942. The Gestapo was raiding the apartment of the Kshenskys, who had participated in the Jewish underground. Finding the “incriminating” evidence, they were about to take the mother, who was home alone with their two-year-old son, out to the courtyard and shoot her when she saw, with horror, that her toddler was playing with the shiny buttons on the Gestapo captain’s uniform. He, too, noticed, and stared down at the child. After what must have seemed an eternity he looked up, his face totally changed, and said,“I have a son at home just his age, and I miss him very much.” Then he added, “Your son has saved your life,” and ordered his men out of the apartment. The child did not survive the war, but the Kshenskys miraculously did; their daughter, Lili Kshensky Baxter, is a former Chair of the National Council of the U.S. Fellowship of Reconciliation.
There is a way out of this dehumanizing dilemma, and that is to rise up and say, “No!” War is not a necessary evil, nor indispensable activity. It is a horror and a travesty on human nature. We have international courts now; we have nonviolent intervention teams. There is, as there has always been, the possibility of conversation among civilized people—provided we elect them. And there are the arts of nonviolence, of which a Kurdish gentleman in Kirkuk said recently, “It may be slow, but you don’t lose your humanity.” Journalist Marshall Frady has given a beautiful description of how this kind of struggle not only preserves, instead of surrendering, our humanity but makes it into a spreading force:
In the catharsis of a live confrontation with wrong, … an oppressor can be vitally touched, and even, at least momentarily, reborn as a human being, while the society witnessing such a confrontation will be quickened in conscience toward compassion and justice.
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50 Comments so far
Show AllFunny thing is, the fascist elite who the brainwashed masses fight for probably also hate war as they have the comfort knowing that neither they nor their families will suffer any of the "inconveniences" of warfare.
Just as the maid and the gardener do the necessary jobs and tasks that the rich "hate" to do, the soldiers and mercenaries do the "necessary" jobs that the elite "hate" to do.
The elite "hate" war so much they spend billions and billions of dollars every year to thoroughly convince US citizens that killing innocent people is a noble thing to do, an honorable job through which they will gain social acclaim and respect.
The elite hate war so much they have created systems of propaganda so dense and thick in this country that it's a near Herculean task for the average American citizen to come to point of "hating" war as much as the elite do.
War is a task that the elite fascists hate to do.
That is why the always need fresh groups of maids, butlers, gardeners and servants to do their dirty work for them.
They might get their nails dirty or their hair mussed.
i wouldn't even go that far
The real crime is the rest of us are willing to perform these services for them for a fee. Usually far less than it's real value. Why is that?
Speak for yourself. "The rest of us" is a very broad term that does not speak for MANY of us. And it also pretends that brainwashing isn't utilized to arrive at this ends. Note what Polycarpe stated in the opening post on this thread.
When voices like yours act to normalize what no society should ever normalize, they either have an interest in maintaining the killing fields, or they are otherwise blind to what's going on due to a PATHOLOGICAL loss of empathy.
I agree with everything revealed by this well-written article, and noted that it was penned by a scholar in English literature. I majored in English lit, too, because when we truly study the classics, and lend years of our lives to reading the testimony of others, we gain historical, philosophical, sociological, and psychological insights as a direct result.
Bravo. Great piece, C.D. And it also puts to rest the equally dishonest notion (that a few in this forum reinforce), that war is inevitable, and/or the product of human nature.
As the author relates, there are mechanisms for insuring against that outcome, even if it represents a sinister, if deeply embedded drive.
"“No!” War is not a necessary evil, nor indispensable activity. It is a horror and a travesty on human nature."
I'll shout it from the rooftops. Blindly following orders and receiving pay to do so does not make one a "hero". Killing only accomplishes one thing it takes the life from someone or something that was once alive for all eternity. It creates nothing but further death and destruction.
I am a "Vietnam Era Veteran." I did not go over, was stationed stateside during my three years in the Army. But I spent the last two years on one base and saw more than a few people I knew go over then come back. I knew them before and after their direct experience of war. None of them came back as better people, all were messed up mentally by the experience.
The constant media celebration of "our fighting men and women" and the "sacrifice" they're supposedly making is empire propaganda at its worst. They aren't "sacrificing," they're being sacrificed. They are cannon fodder. I also worked up until my retirement at a mental health clinic where a lot of the people who came through the door were veterans who had been shunted aside by the Empire after their usefulness had been used up.
Very insightful comment.
PARANOID: Everything you wrote is indicative of the "Mars Rules ethos" and its celebration of war. How else to insure a steady stream of fodder for its grist mill?
As the article relates, if a society realizes the pain it inflicts on others through honest visual depictions (note how our media white washes everything that goes on in these foreign resource-extraction enterprises, by NOT showing the killing fields) that pain might at last come to an end.
It takes a LOT of propaganda to turn a people against another people. Of course nationalism, added to deeply entrenched religious loyalties, have done their part to keep prejudice alive. Then, when elites mickey-mouse the economic mechanics to cause pain to those in the bottom strata, it's VERY easy to turn one group (of a different hue or belief system) into the "necessary" enemies. And so capitalism's cannibalistic machine makes its way, burning more oil than civilians ever do, across continent after continent in search of whatever it can borrow, begger, steal or profit by. And manpower (lest warfare become ONLY about drones) is required... thus all the songs, movies, sporting events, and presidental pandering to "our heroic men and women," ad nauseum.
having grown up in the era of vietnam but too young to get hauled into it - i remember the human toll the war took on the vets - who were then, as now, quickly forgotten and short changed on after care - drug addiction and PTDS
even today 40% of vets are homeless - though fat boy limbaugh who never served a day "doesn't believe it"
Sam Stone
©John Prine
Sam Stone came home,
To his wife and family
After serving in the conflict overseas.
And the time that he served,
Had shattered all his nerves,
And left a little shrapnel in his knee.
But the morphine eased the pain,
And the grass grew round his brain,
And gave him all the confidence he lacked,
With a Purple Heart and a monkey on his back.
Chorus:
There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes,
Jesus Christ died for nothin' I suppose.
Little pitchers have big ears,
Don't stop to count the years,
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.
Mmm....
Sam Stone's welcome home
Didn't last too long.
He went to work when he'd spent his last dime
And Sammy took to stealing
When he got that empty feeling
For a hundred dollar habit without overtime.
And the gold rolled through his veins
Like a thousand railroad trains,
And eased his mind in the hours that he chose,
While the kids ran around wearin' other peoples' clothes...
Repeat Chorus:
Sam Stone was alone
When he popped his last balloon
Climbing walls while sitting in a chair
Well, he played his last request
While the room smelled just like death
With an overdose hovering in the air
But life had lost its fun
And there was nothing to be done
But trade his house that he bought on the G. I. Bill
For a flag draped casket on a local heroes' hill.
Good article.
I would like to make a point about this paragraph:
"Psychologist Rachel McNair developed the concept of Perpetration Induced Traumatic Stress (PITS) to bring home to us the fact—now dramatically supported by neuroscientists—that you cannot send people out to kill and maim without expecting them to suffer enduring torments themselves, no matter how thoroughly you try to desensitize them beforehand."
-- Speaking of desensitizing.... the concept that is called, Perpetration Induced Traumatic Stress, is itself written in what George Carlin liked to call "Soft Language" or euphemistic language -- "words that shade the truth". Or as another great George said (Orwell). "[Euphemism] falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity."
George Carlin stated: "American English is packed with euphemism because Americans have trouble dealing with reality. And in order to shield themselves from it, they use soft language. And somehow it gets worse with every generation. Here is an example: There is a condition in combat when a soldier is completely stressed out and is on the verge of nervous collapse. In WWI is was called "Shell Shock" Simple, Honest, Direct Language. Two syllables... Shell Shock. It almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was more than 80 years ago. Then a generation past and the same condition was called, Battle Fatigue. 4 syllables now... takes a little longer to say, doesn't seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock. Battle Fatigue. By the early 1950's the Korean War had come along and the very same condition was called "operational exhaustion" The phrase was up to 8 syllables now and any last traces of humanity had been completely squeezed out of it...like something that might happen to your car. Then barely 15 years later we got into Vietnam, and thanks to the deceptions surrounding that war, it is no surprise that the very same condition was referred to as "Post-traumatic Stress Disorder"... Still 8 syllables, but we've added a hyphen. And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder... I'll bet if they had been calling it Shell Shock some of those Vietnam Veterans might have received the attention they needed."
--------------------------------
And here we have "Perpetration Induced Traumatic Stress" to 'softly" describe another consequence of war. Let's get real here, folks. I can't imagine the pain these soldiers experience from killing and maiming people. So does it seem appropriate to hide their reality behind another empty medical euphemism?
It's not appropriate or productive. But it's politically expedient. It's like fearing pitbulls because of dog fighting, but not expending the effort to end the "dog fighting" pastime and business, by apprehending those (humans) responsible for promoting it.
Sort of like how we turn a blind eye to Wall St. and it's role in our day to day misery.
Allow me to expand on your comment...
Clear and direct language is not appropriate or productive for the ruling elite because clear language impedes their agenda - domination of everything under the sun. It is politically expedient for the ruling elite to use 'soft language' in order to conceal their murderous and deceitful ways - even from themselves.
"Smug, greedy, well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins." - George Carlin
The people who sheepishly follow their leaders in this country (and those who have done so throughout the ages) and who continue to use the ruling elites 'soft language' are thereby condemning themselves to being stuck within a framework that was manufactured to keep them within the ruling elite's 'acceptable' margins of discourse. If people stopped using the ruling elite's 'soft language' ('the language that takes the life out of life') and started using clear and direct language it could help people see and feel reality again... which could help people to stop hating the scapegoat (pitbull) and start ending the authoritarians rule over them.
George Orwell wrote in his essay, "Politics in the English Language:
"Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs — must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.
Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration..."
Good comment, but PTSD is a ligitimate disorder that arises in other, non-military situations too like natural disasters and accidents.
And "Perpetration Induced Tramatic Stress" seems like a more-accurate, concise and improved description of what US solders suffer from - i.e. the stress comes from the moral anguish and guilt of being the "perp" of the violence, rather than the victim.
I mean we could call it "Anguish And Grief at Discovering that One Was Just a Hired Killer for Imperialism Disorder", or "AAGADTOWJAHKFID".
No offense, pjd, but you often remind us that you are in a technical occupation and have a technical mind-set.
I suggest that for this reason you are predisposed to be comfortable with multi-syllabic technical terms like "Perpetration Induced Traumatic Stress" and their often awkward and sometimes suspiciously cutesy acronyms (PITS).
Such logically accurate terminology would be entirely appropriate on the planet Vulcan, but in Earth cultures and societies, clinically accurate nomenclature can be a form of euphemism-- and is in any case intentionally affectively anaesthetic.
Obedient Servant,
Thank you for this great comment. I can already here the people saying it... "Yeah, Bob has the PITS."
In reality, people should say... "Yeah, Bob is feeling guilty for being paid by a bunch of thieves to murder and maim innocent people for them."
pjd,
Pointing out euphemistic language, 'soft language', doesn't undermine the legitimacy of the disorder. I think it is the euphemism that undermines the reality of the real pain that people are experiencing. I wonder how it is that you could miss this insight... I'm thinking Obedient Servant is right and may have pinpointed that the problem is in your technical thinking.
Eric: Excellent insight. You do George Lakoff proud! And you also add a unique perspective to this forum. Thank you for being here.
Thank you, Siouxrose. These insights were shared with me. And, in return, I am glad that I can share them with others. And thank you for being here as well.
I start school full time next week, so my presence in this forum may diminish a bit...
" Project Censored, a Northern California-based media watchdog service, the number of active-duty soldiers or veterans who have committed suicide has just surpassed the number of those killed in combat."
What about the number that have come home and committed murder or other violent crimes? Ever wonder why some Vietnam vets ended up under bridges...it was because their families could no longer shelter them in concern for the family's safety.
Maybe as Ann Coulter and the right premises the number is small in comparison to the general population but the violence is no less violent if it's your family that is involved. We'll never know for sure. The fact is the pentagon doesn't track the numbers. Kind of like lack of accounting for the collateral damage in Iraq.
"The Pentagon does not keep track of such killings, most of which are prosecuted not by the military justice system but by civilian courts in state after state. Neither does the Justice Department."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/us/13vets.html?pagewanted=2&adxnnl=1&ref=wartorn&adxnnlx=1314113504-C MacZwpuI tw3hX wZcww
"About a third of the victims were spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives, among them 2-year-old Krisiauna Calaira Lewis, whose 20-year-old father slammed her against a wall when he was recuperating in Texas from a bombing near Falluja that blew off his foot and shook up his brain. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/us/13vets.html?ref=wartorn
Outstanding essay by Michael Nagler, and fine posted followup comments by polycarpe, gardenernorcal and others.
In the immediate aftermath of both World War I and World War II, there were American elites - public intellectuals, artists, religious leaders, labor activists, celebrities, and most importantly significant electoral political figures in both major US parties - who had no qualms about verbalizing the virtues of peace and condemned the inevitable horrors and human waste of waging war. Both Ike and JFK, for instance, spoke eloquently in public statements about the threat of nuclear holocaust and the domestic evils of an unchecked military industrial complex.
This country needs an institutionalized peace party alternative to the breast beating one upsmanship of the neocon Republicans and the neoliberal Dems. Advocacy for peace used to be mainstream. Today, such talk of nonviolent conflict resolution is marginalized as naive, mocked as wimpish, or even villified as unpatriotic by the self-designated opinion shapers of the dominant culture.
There are hundreds of thousands of Americans who privately embrace views similar to those of Michael Nagler. Fundamentally, it is the dangerous, myopic leadership of the two party political system that is at fault. It was not always this way. It does not have to remain this way.
Bill from Saginaw
Bill: I agree 100% with your comment and the insights it reflects. However, you, like so many men in this forum, stop short ot stating the obvious: this is a macho thing.
The shamans of South America describe America as an unbalanced society, far too identified with the masculine side of "the force." Every leader, to even be considered viable, has to seem manly, tough on crime, HARD and FIRM, and willing to use the gigantic military arsenal that citizens are forced to finance.
Meanwhile, FEW in this forum are willing to consider that the growing use of a very damaging form of pornography turns the female body--that is to say the LIFE GIVING vehicle--into something to shame, harm, or denigrate.
There IS a direct relationship between how a society views its women, and the female body & its expressions, and its regard for life!
Although for many, the next analogy may seem a stretch (because it goes beyond their intellectual reach)... there is also a direct correspondence between how society views its women, and how it views Earth, i.e. Mother Nature.
In both instances, to the degree the life-giving fonts are seen as mere things, collateral to be damaged, traded, or owned, the greater the instances and acts of desecration and aggression.
The American male, for a lot of reasons, has issues with a HEALTHY form of masculinity. Instead, decades of Hollywood imagery of macho guys using guns to force their will on others, embeds itself into the collective consciousness (or should I say, collective Unconscious. And there are females who also embrace this behavior.)
I don't think it's a stretch to say that just about every weapon LOOKS LIKE an extension of the phallus... and that in each case, it explodes in an ejaculatory manner.
When men can't identify with women as their equal partners, when they refuse to share power, or understand that the feminine sensibility exists as a unique counterbalance to things masculine, then the forced absence of this OTHER voice, allows a society to develop in a lop-sided, asymmetric manner. I think the capacity for LOVE it itself rare in our depraved land.
OF COURSE women fall into this programming, too. Everyone living in a society is shaped by it. Women who identify with Christianity (in its fundamentalist form), or any patriarchal religion, are likely seeking a way to connect; and they don't want to lose approval, or forfeit the affection of their family, or goodwill of their communities. Just as most people feel they can only vote for political party A or B, most people are afraid to step outside of the orthodoxies in which they've been raised, for fear of becoming outcasts. However, the choices allowed them reinforce the existing paradigm, and it's one entirely based on privileges allotted to some, at the expense of others. It also allows violence to seamlessly weave itself into the total fabric of our nation... and that's become increasingly more dangerous to every sentient being on this still-Green earth.
For all the talk on capitalism that goes on in this forum, without the deeper understanding of the damaging way that racism and sexism have shaped the historical picture, economic "solutions" can only provide partial answers.
In any case, I know I threaten some by speaking of these things; but until men, in general, and women who have identified with ENTIRELY masculine based constructs, take that fearless moral inventory, they may unwittingly contribute to the psychic force that sustains Mars rules in this broken, and all too wounding land of the anything BUT free. Or at peace.
You are right, Bill, that some from BOTH genders ARE waking up. Let us pray, that the collective catharsis not come too late.
All one need do is suggest that the concept of "The Right to bear arms" a rather tragic one to embody in a Countries Constitution (for all that it implies that being VIOLENCE is necessary to impose ones will) and even people on these so called "progressive boards" will suggest that those who have issues with the same are "irrational".
Violence and the threat of the same is seen by far too many as integral to human discourse and progress. Forcing ones will upon another via violence is seen as NORMAL and desirable.
So, why is the U.S. waging war now?
Nine-eleven.
What happened that day? Lots of things, but what I would stress here is that three very large skyscrapers in New York City were blown up by explosives, and many people died, or rather, were murdered.
Biggest crime of the century. Still unsolved. Most of the crime scene evidence was destroyed by the very people entrusted to protect it the way evidence is supposed to be protected.
If Americans cannot each take a few minutes to watch the films of the WTC towers and building seven coming down, to see that the buildings were clearly not destroyed by kerosene fires and gravity but by demolition explosives, then what hope is there?
It is such a simple thing, but Americans prefer "contempt before investigation", and would rather believe lies that are tremendously damaging to everything and everyone in this nation, would rather spend trillions of dollars of tax money pursuing an endless series of made-up enemies around the world.
What a stupid bunch of people we are! And the stupidity I speak of is the stupidity of ignoring what is plain as day in front of one's eyes. The stupidity of believing that events are the opposite of what they really are because of blind faith in the veracity of known liars. Faith in the good intentions of known murderers- the warmongers who staged 9/11 and who, ten years later, are laughing at the rest of us, for our incredible foolishness to let them get away with the biggest crime in the history of our country- even though the proof that these people have lied is easily seen.
It doesn't take a science degree. You don't have to be an architect, a demolitions expert, or anything like that. A ten-year old can see what happened. A five-year old could see.
All that is necessary is to open the eyes and open the mind and look; and only an insane or a blind person could possibly deny that those buildings give every sign of having been blown up. The 9/11 commission wrote a false report, NIST wrote a false report, two presidents have maintained this monstrous lie, and Americans sit back and each day count the deaths.
We are about to reach and pass the tenth anniversary of that awful day. The real perpetrators are counting on the passivity of the American people and counting on protection from within the government, which should by rights be searching for these criminals and prosecuting them. Before long, no one will care enough. In fact, not "before long"- already, most people just do not care. And the generation which has grown up in the post-9/11 years will never do anything to bring the traitors who enacted 9/11 to justice.
There will be all the usual kind of events in a few weeks, but amplified by the fact that it is a ten-year anniversary. The propaganda about the "foreign terrorists" will be reinforced and the truth of 9/11 as an inside job- whatever the details are, which we don't know yet- will cotinue to fall by the wayside.
This is all it took for me to know that things were not as they were being portrayed:
"The M-1 student visa request forms for Atta and al-Shehhi were filed by Huffman Aviation on August 29, 2000.
The forms asked that the men, who had entered the United States on tourist visas, be allowed to change their visa status so they could take a $27,300 professional pilot program that would last from September 1, 2000, until September 1 the next year.
The student visa requests were actually granted months later -- on July 17, 2001, for Atta, and August 9, 2001, for al-Shehhi -- but postmarks indicate the letters of notification were only sent out to Huffman Aviation last week. They were received Monday, the six-month milestone of last year's terror attacks."
http://articles.cnn.com/2002-03-12/us/inv.flight.school.visas_1_huffman-aviation-ins-student-processing-center-tourist-visas?_s=PM:US
"In the catharsis of a live confrontation with wrong, … an oppressor can be vitally touched, and even, at least momentarily, reborn as a human being, while the society witnessing such a confrontation will be quickened in conscience toward compassion and justice."
Well, we can't have THAT kind of thinking. Its just unAmerican.
This was an article worth reading!!
Read the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The plan was there. The fix was in. After stealing the election of 2000, the criminal Bush administration needed the disaster of 9-11 as an excuse for the war they had been planning against Saddam since the end of first Iraq war. Do you think it is strange that the Bin Laden family provided the excuse for Bush Junior's War? The Bin Ladens had invested millions in Bush's crappy businesses over the year, bailing the ignorant little shit out time and time again. This is no coincidence. This is all according to plan. The Bin Laden family are STILL heavily invested in the CARLISLE GROUP, which has made obscene profits on these wars of choice waged by poor people's children in the name of patriotism.
I wonder what compensation/therapy the parents, relatives, neighbors and friends of folks in Afghanistan, Iraq etc, receive. They are not volunteers, they are victims.
I am as concerned about those who kill for money and don't have PTSD, who aren't affected by the blood that stains their soul.
WTF...People go to war to kill people and break things. That's a soldiers job.
Chuck, you mean they are not peacekeepers?
"a horror and a travesty on human nature"
i hadn't heard the PITS acronym before this thread. that's very apt, huh? i like the buddha's suggestion that all actions come from desire. now, we have a brain capable of analyzing, categorizing and evaluating our impulses. the "elite" as 'polycarp' mentions so "hate war" they manage to keep themselves out from harm's way. what do we admire most about the rich, the famous and especially those wise patriots who sit in conference rooms studying world maps while figuring the statistical projected costs in human lives? should i speak up i'm viewed as an ingrate, disrespectful of those willing to sacrifice everything for me or just some polyanna nutcase believing in utopia. the logic of sending our strongest young citizens to protect the less altruistic makes no logical sense. very few when cornered would deny that "peaceful coexistence" could be ever so nice, but let's face it, "it's just human nature to make war!"
that cannot be true! too many who have posted here don't share that "human" nature. so, is analytical thinking an unnatural process? Nature, herself continuously experiments seeking improved adaptations still relying on that old standby, trial and error. most experiments fail the test of time and end up discarded on the bone pile for ideas that didn't pan out. we stubbornly never give up on a plan because we are much smarter than Nature. when our institurions fail or our efforts to reach a peaceful resolution end in perpetual warring, our collective brain never wishes to take any blame. through trial and error adaptation, Nature has grown more diverse. our efforts to control have just the opposite results. the "elite" have for centuries perpetuated a fantasy social darwinistic ideologue that allows the few to indulge any selfish impulse, drugs, sex and a bigger yacht than my neighbor just bought and never wondering or even noticing the affectcs on others. the military hasn't been unaware of PTSD or the PITS. they do take steps to help soldiers deal with stress. a prescription from a psychologist, mood elevating or sleeping pills and the kid's back to the killing fields. i heard just the other day that the drug called ecstasy may be the answer.
Excellent and well written article. War really is a lie and a racket... and as practiced by the US serves to be the most efficient way to facilitate the transfer of wealth from the working class and the poor to those at the top... well... that, and turning banks into casinos.
The system is broken... and not until the "collateral damage" from these many illegal/immoral wars for profit directly affect those of the less than 1% at the top, not much will change. Well... unless and until the people in the US join others throughout the world in casting off the chains of unequal, repressive, totalitarian regimes....
In 30 years of counseling Vets and based on my own experiences in Nam... the sooner one accepts that they are involved in a war based on lies and untruths (all wars) the better off their prognosis will be.
"There is a way out of this dehumanizing dilemma, and that is to rise up and say, “No!” War is not a necessary evil, nor indispensable activity. It is a horror and a travesty on human nature."
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This deserves to be repeated. So does, "...the real answer, the only sane and compassionate answer, is prevention."
It's a tough sell, though. Tragically, simple pacifism is not only unpopular, it is despised and resisted across the sociopolitical spectrum.
The out-and-out right-wing lizard-brained warmongers and bloodthirsty triumphalist warriors are bad enough.
But worse yet, or at least more insidious, are hawkish liberals and progressives who would perpetuate all of the horrors recounted in this article, because they assert that war, warriors, and the military beast are both inevitable and necessary-- provided they are unleashed for "the right reasons".
How often do we read progressive liberal pundits decrying some military travesty, abuse, or atrocity, or criticizing some unconscionable state-sanctioned violence, but carefully including the disclaimer, "I'm no pacifist..."?
This abominable self-serving piety is as reflexive as a salute. For example, in a June article published here extolling Senator Jim Webb as an ideal candidate for Secretary of Defense if Obama is re-elected*, author John Feffer saw fit to include the obligatory observation, "A Vietnam veteran who served in the Reagan administration, Webb is no pacifist."
Pathetically, and infuriatingly, in Amerika and elsewhere "pacifism" is still treated like a reverse Mark of Cain; disclaiming pacifism is a marker or talisman to separate respectable, responsible, "realistic" persons from radicals, wackos, and feckless or foolish idealists.
In order to abandon the manunkind-created Hell Nagler eloquently describes, this kind of soft but persistent aversion to pacifism must be extirpated, root and branch.
It's simple common sense to understand that war ravages both victims and perpetrators, and that the best way of eliminating the pernicious effects of war is by prevention. But arresting the international pandemic of "kinetic military" belligerence, particularly virulent in the wealthiest capitalist imperial nations, ultimately means demystifying and de-glamorizing military service.
Somehow, the time-honored traditions that declare military service noble, honorable, wholesome, and morally commendable must be eroded and eliminated.
And that's only half the battle, because the overclass arranges matters to ensure that military service remains a tempting "good deal" all around: not only is it a laudable act of sublime patriotic duty, it's an opportunity to live a good, prosperous, and respectable life.
To the complacent, unreflective, and economically deprived and disadvantaged, it's a case of organized crime making them an offer they can't refuse.
Overcoming all this isn't necessarily a Sisyphean task, but it's uphill all the way. It starts with proclaiming a simple message, e.g.: all we are saying is give peace a chance!
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* http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/20-2
The English pacifist Gerald Holtom - who went on to design the CND emblem - was interned throughout wwii for his conscientious stand. He would later say "they locked me up with murderers because I refused to kill."
(his description of nuclear weaponry was Weapons of Mass Extermination - far stronger than mere Destruction)
Appreciate where you're coming from. I don't despise pacifism but if I'm really honest with myself, I know I'm really no pacifist, even as much as I loath war and the madness of the MIC.
Are you a parent? I am. If the lives of my children were truly threatened, and the immediate solution was an act of violence, you better believe that'd be my choice. Would I kill? How can I say? Never been there, and never hope to be. But I believe it's in me. That's a far cry from shooting 30ml rounds from a helicopter at civis running for their lives, but we MUST remember the brainwashing starts with point A being "your (fill in the blank) loved one" for the recruit and ends with the killer behind the trigger in the cockpit. The military has this shit down to a science.
And it could've been me in a different life had I made SLIGHTLY different choices or if fate had dealt me a SLIGHTLY different hand.
"If someone strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other one as well, and if someone takes your coat, don't keep back your shirt, either." Luke 6:29
The perfect pacifist credo; now, if only the so-called Christians would follow what they profess to believe in!
Some years ago I read about two incidents involving returned Viet Nam veterans who described their experiences in VN in a chilling fashion to civilians back home. I am anxious to "find" the descriptions of those incidents and would appreciate help from anyone reading this who can give me specific information about where to find descriptions of those incidents. Thanks!
Incident 1: Vet is asked at a family gathering to describe what combat was really like in VN. He does so, and when he finishes, everyone but his fiance(?) has left the room too horrified and disbelieving of what he described.
Incident 2: Vet is asked to describe what VN combat was really like to a gathering of older VFW members. He does so, and when he is finished, there is absolute dead silence. Finally an old vet stands up, says we should just kill all of those people (the VC and Viet Namese) and be done with the war. The room then erupts with loud, prolonged applause and cheering.
Thanks for any help anyone can give me. I presume CG would be willing to post any answers here.
Jim Shea
"but first you must learn how to smile as you kill..."
What does this mean:
Colonel Harry Holloway, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, told journalist Dan Baum recently, “As soon as we ask the question of how killing affects soldiers, we acknowledge we’re causing harm, and that raises the question of whether the good we’re accomplishing is worth the harm we’re causing … if we get into this business of talking about killing people we’re going to pathologize an absolutely necessary experience.”
"We acknowledge we're causing harm" and is "the good we're accomplishing worth the harm we're causing." What good have we caused in the last 10 years?
This lunatic is one of the people in charge of "helping" these returning damaged killers. Read Lethal Warriors by David Philipps to get a feel how these damaged warriors returned to one American city. Subtitled, "When the New Band of Brothers Came Home." Only to kill and brutalize others.
http://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Warriors-When-Band-Brothers/dp/B005CDULPE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314144404&sr=1-1
I feel no pity for the murdering military in Iraq and Afghanistan any more than I feel sorry for those who served the Nazi in the prison camps during WWII. Simply put, both "wars" are criminal actions and they knew it when they volunteered to go or when they failed to have the courage to refuse to go. Screw 'em. They deserve the nightmares they earned, and may they go on forever and forever.
"They deserve the nightmares they earned, and may they go on forever and forever." robert1234
I would submit that such a mind set has brought the US to its current perpetual war making paradigm.
Corporate owned MSM and right wing "Think Tanks" funded by sociopath BILLIONAIRES spend obscene amounts of money convincing people that waving the flag and marching off to war is a noble endeavor. No person is born wise and you don't learn how to sail on a calm day.
It took being in country for 6 months and observing the contradictions between what I was being told versus what I was seeing first hand before I went CO and became an anti war activist. There were thousands of us... though you couldn't tell by reading the local paper.
Take some kid from the inner city or from Appalachia who may or may not have graduated from high school. What are his options other than to join the military as he has been subjected to such indoctrination for many years?
While it is true that they serve and die in vain... in most cases the blame lies eleswhere.
Erosion of empathy.
I have absolutely no respect for the people who put on an uniform and went to Iraq or Afghanistan. I'll always respect draftees. You simply can't demand that called citizens renounce their citizenship and move to Canada or elsewhere. Not realistic. But anybody who enlisted before or after 9/11 is by himself or herself. The really courageous ones said no and deserted and are in jail. Those are the heroes. I'll treat all others, especially the ones in the many aircraft I've seen firing on civilians as cowards. I will not help them in this country, ever! The're by themselves.
"I'll always respect draftees." phorlan
Why? At which point along the continuum does an individual become responsible for participating in illegal/immoral wars?
With all due respect... the rest of your comment is equally nonsensical...
Education is the key... along with compassion...
I respect those brave men that avoided the draft for moral reasons, putting their future at risk, and even those brave draftees who believed the government's propaganda and willingly went. But I despise those who avoided the draft because of greed and cowardice like so many politicians that send soldiers to die and kill for war profits.
Without the sword, laws are but empty words.
Hume.
johnboy, Without the sword, tyrants are naked, helpless, fools.
You don't die for God and Country. You die for some industrialists.
Anatole France