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Author Topic: Haditha -- I hope it's not what I'm hearing
Bob_Scopatz
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BBC news

quote:
The US government has promised to make public all the details of inquiries into the alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians by US marines last November.

Washington made the pledge following claims that the killings of 24 people in the town of Haditha were covered up.


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Launchywiggin
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Even if it's not true, the media's gonna blow this up. This is big.
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Nell Gwyn
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Yikes. I hope it's not true, but I think Lyrhawn's right. The first thing I thought of when I read the article was My Lai. [Frown]
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Noemon
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Me too Nell.
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Bob_Scopatz
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The parallels are fairly obvious. If this group of marines acted as accused, the only obvious difference is that they killed 1/10 as many people.
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Bob_Scopatz
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It's not looking good. NY Times

quote:
WASHINGTON, May 30 — A military investigator uncovered evidence in February and March that contradicted repeated claims by marines that Iraqi civilians killed in Haditha last November were victims of a roadside bomb, according to a senior military official in Iraq.

Among the pieces of evidence that conflicted with the marines' story were death certificates that showed all the Iraqi victims had gunshot wounds, mostly to the head and chest, the official said.


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Kasie H
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quote:
Even if it's not true, the media's gonna blow this up.
I'll have you know that this story was first reported by the AP back in the middle of April after TIME magazine wrote something about it at about that same time.

The media, in my opinion, has taken a very measured approach to this story, not actually publishing too much until Rep. Murtha said the Marines killed "in cold blood." That's when it got picked up.

Folks, please -- did you *watch* TV during Memorial Day? I have never seen coverage so complimentary of our armed forces. And those of you who know me know that I'm not one to be bashing the military. I think we've handled this well.

I also think the Marines have handled it well. Gen. Hagee, the Commandant of the Marine Corps (highest ranking officer in the Corps) traveled to Iraq last week to speak with troops in that area and remind them that combat can change them and that they are to act honorably and to take responsibility for those actions.

It's a very, very sad story. But it's not about the media or the military or the ever-present clash between them. It's about the fact that it is really, really hard to watch a good friend die a violent death, and it can prompt people to do other horrible things. Those horrible things, of course, need to be accounted for.

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KarlEd
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Well said, Kasie.
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Scott R
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^ ^

What Kasie said. Which speaks to the need to cycle the troops better. Which speaks to the need to recruit and train better.

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Noemon
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Yeah Bob, I didn't think that making the connection was any particular stroke of genius. [Smile]

I'll join the chorus of people agreeing with Kasie about this, and will second what Scott just said as well. Ever since I heard this story on NPR yesterday I've been mulling over the dangers of leaving people in the field too long, the caustic effect that that has to have on a person's pysche, the value of citizen soldiers over mercenary forces (not that this touches directly on that--these guys were definitely citizen soldiers. It just got me thinking), and other related stuff.

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pooka
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Everyone wants fresher troops but no one wants to enlist. Well, except my little brother and my nephew. [Smile]
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Jim-Me
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quote:
Originally posted by Scott R:
What Kasie said. Which speaks to the need to cycle the troops better. Which speaks to the need to recruit and train better.

which is why media and political figures need to be measured and deliberate in their criticism of things and it *is*, in fact, important to not run around running down the efforts of good men by overblowing the bad apples...

Please note, I am not criticizing the media reporting of this event... this appears to have been a real atrocity and is the kind of thing we do need to call attention to.

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sndrake
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If this really is true (and it really looks like this is the real thing), let's hope we handle it a lot better than we handled the aftermath of My Lai. I remember the time well and believe me, we don't have much to be proud of in how we handled it.

Reports of the massacre were ignored repeatedly and at all levels of government. One of the participants in the whitewash of the episode was an army major named Colin Powell. The massacre finally became public due to the investigative reporting of Seymour Hersh.

The brunt of all blame fell on one officer - Lt. William Calley. He ended up doing a short stint in prison. Made a nice living doing talks for pro-war groups for awhile and then settled down to manage a jewelry shop.

Some real heroes - 3 men on a helicopter crew - risked their lives to save some of the My Lai villagers (they threatened to fire on the troops going berserk). These heroes were branded as "traitors."

Let's hope this really *isn't* another My Lai.

BTW, a good place for links and info on My Lai is wikipedia:

My Lai Massacre

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Nell Gwyn
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The BBC link was the first I'd heard about this, but I have to admit that I haven't been paying as much attention to the news as I should be.

I wasn't thinking that the media would necessarily latch onto the story in an anti-military way the way it did (didn't it?) with My Lai, just that if it's true, it would end up as big a story as My Lai and Abu Grahib. One for the history books, as it were. And I agree, what Kasie and Scott said makes total sense.

Noemon, can you elaborate a bit on the citizen vs. mercenary forces? I agree that citizen forces are probably better, but I didn't think mercenaries were still used today, except for perhaps the Swiss guard at the Vatican - or were you thinking more historically?

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Bob_Scopatz
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I think events like this also offer us a good time to check our motives and our purposes. I agree that this is not the time to run down the troops. Good soldiers are already going to be dismayed enough by this type of conduct (and that of the Abu Ghraib prison guards, and other such events). We don't need to go around painting them all as monsters because of the actions of a few bad ones.

But we need to examine a few things too. What is it about the situation, training, leadership, and yes, our personnel, that together made this event happen? The military is very big on "lessons learned." Fact is, we've been there before, and had this kind of lesson in the past. Many people have told me that one of the big reasons for having an all-volunteer armed forces is that we would be far less likely to have people in there who can't stand it and start going a little (or a lot) squirrely. If I have the argument correctly, we should be seeing the benefits of this policy both in terms of better discipline in the ranks during war-time, and fewer problems (especially mental health problems) for returning soldiers.

Logically, it makes sense.

However, I have been saying for a long long time that it is the nature of armed conflict that events and experiences will serve as sufficient stimulus to uncontrolled violent behavior.

Teaching people to kill others, indeed requiring it of them, and then placing them in situations where "us" and "them" are not just concepts, but deadly realities is a not so easy a thing to control or stopper up once things are settled.

A British officer (I think he was an officer) was given an honorable discharge recently after he refused to fight alongside our troops. His statement was along the lines of "the Americans treat the Iraqis like sub-humans." And he didn't want to be part of the looming disaster.

Critics around the globe are looking at the attitudinal problems that seem to permeate OUR US armed forces and giving us very low marks as a fighting force. They apparently don't like to do it that way.

Or they're just carping from the sidelines, of course.

But I read this kind of thing and have to fight very hard not to just be cynical about it. The cynical side of me says that the willing entry into armed conflict and ANY military training are practically guaranteed to miss a few people who shouldn't be allowed to hold weapons under any circumstances. And, sadly, they are also like to create or unleash a few problem personalities where there was only a latent possibility before the fact.

It's one of the reasons I have said so many times that war is bad for us as a people and a nation.

It's one of the reasons why I get so upset when war is NOT treated as the last resort but is seemingly entered into with a gung-ho attitude of eagerness and visions of glory.

Vietnam was going on a lot longer time before My Lai. What worries me most is that it has occurred so soon and with troops who are among the elite, and were volunteers.

All the things that people have been telling me are the things that make our current armed services so much different from that which we had in the Vietnam era.

I know that many will consider these all to be vague concerns, and even think me hostile to our troops because I dare broach the subject of mental health issues and/or pervasive problems rather than viewing this as an isolated incident.

But I happen to know that within the military there are those who thought the lessons learned from Vietnam meant that exactly the kind of forces we are fielding today would mean that we wouldn't have these problems, or if we did, that they'd be rare, and that coverups of the type that happened post-My Lai would be much less likely.

I personally feel like we have a further lesson or two to learn.

Would we like to say that we're on the right track because 30 people were killed instead of 347 at My Lai? Or that the situation wasn't covered up for as long?

I think that'd be a rather complacent attitude and convenient only in the sense that it would allow us to go on conducting wars in the same ways without changing much, if anything.

I submit that a better stance would be to do a top-down review of how we attitudinally adjust our soldiers to the acts that will be required of them in war, and how we instruct them as to the limits of their freedom of action. Also, we probably need to take a good hard look at our leadership training.

There's probably some poor Junior Lieutenant tasked with that as I write this. I guess I'm more concerned with what the top leadership takes away from this situation than I am whether the military examines it. I'm convinced they will, but what eventually happens as a result is something I'm keenly interested in.

When this kind of stuff happens in Police Departments, they usually end up with civilian review boards.

I'm not sure what the military does to get a fresh/outside perspective. Hiring consultants is probably the typical answer, and probably not the right one, if they just go to the usual inside-the-beltway firms.

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Jim-Me
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I'd just like to say a little more clearly something I hinted at in my first post. Mentioning these allegations or the actions at My Lai (pronounced "me lie", in case you young-uns were wondering) in the same sense as Abu Ghraib is kind of upsetting.

While I don't condone what happened at Abu Ghraib, it's a whole different order of abuse on several levels. Roughly the difference between illegal fraternity hazing and mass murder (in terms of civilian crime).

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Nell Gwyn
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Sorry, Jim-Me; I agree that there is a very big difference.

I wasn't really intending to compare the actions themselves. Just the likely magnitude of media coverage and public awareness of them - almost everyone knows what the words "My Lai" and "Abu Grhaib" refer to, beyond mere location names. "Haditha" is likely to become another name like that. That's all I meant.

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Jim-Me
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Bob,

to address your concerns, I had to study My Lai as a cadet. It was required military education for everyone. It's not like officers are ignorant of the issues here, while maybe something more needs to be done at the enlisted level. I don't know enough about this case to know what, if any, officer involvement there was at which levels... but any officer involved had a clear idea of the ethics of the situation or he didn't deserve his comission because he slept therough some very important classes.

So, I guess two things in "rebuttal" to your post, if you wish to call it that:

1) At some point, the establishment has done all it can and individuals need to be held accountable (I do not, BTW, agree that Calley was solely responsible for My Lai-- though he had a responsibility to not carry out an unlawful order, his commander had a responsibility not to give one).

2) 347 down to 30 and years to months *are* huge improvements and indicate that tolerance of this type of thing is greatly diminished. It's obviously a horrible thing that these marines stand accused of, don't mistake me here.

But I don't think your concerns are vague at all. They are very valid. I just don't think a wholesale evaluation of our military training methods is really called for, here, even assuming the worst. You try to weed out spies and people who frag their own troops as well, but somehow they get through.

As for who reviews things, one of the important things about a professional organization is that it is self-regulating. Your call for an independant review makes it sound like you are saying this type of thing is a natural result of the military culture and society... and I think that is not only an unwarranted assumption, but incorrect as well.

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Kasie H
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(WARNING: Some profanity below.)

quote:
But we need to examine a few things too. What is it about the situation, training, leadership, and yes, our personnel, that together made this event happen? ... Many people have told me that one of the big reasons for having an all-volunteer armed forces is that we would be far less likely to have people in there who can't stand it and start going a little (or a lot) squirrely. If I have the argument correctly, we should be seeing the benefits of this policy both in terms of better discipline in the ranks during war-time, and fewer problems (especially mental health problems) for returning soldiers.
Bob, I actually don't think your criticisms are unfair. These are the things the military and the rest of us have to start taking a look at. I think we've made good strides since My Lai, but that doesn't mean everything's all better.

I think part of the problem in this case is two- or three-fold:

1) The enemy here is hidden. It's not that a concept of 'us' and 'them' exists, it's that it doesn't exist. When it's us and them, at least you can take out your revenge on someone in a uniform; when you can't find 'them' because 'they' are hidden in with the civilians, then you have real problems.

2) Many of these guys -- many of them kids -- were on their second or third tour of duty in Iraq. That wears people down. The Marines have it better than the Army because their deployments are shorter, 6-8 months instead of 12-18 months. This is because the Navy did studies and found that efficiency on a ship dropped through the floor if it was left at sea more than six months. In Iraq the calculus is a little bit different; shorter tours means going back and coming home more often. That means readjusting back and forth, and back and forth. I'm not exactly sure what this means, but it seems like that could get to be a pretty serious grind, causing lots of problems. The first time it's an adventure, the second time it's way too hot, and by the third, well, you just can't stand to lose another friend.

3) The war isn't as popular as it has been. Unpopular wars that soldiers/sailors/airmen/Marines know are unpopular could easily breed an attitude among soldiers that is less than upstanding. If you're fighting World War II, there's serious honor and reward in acting better than the other guy. Chivalry and acting graciously become another patriotic thing to do. In this case, it's one gigantic mess; no one knows who they're fighting, why they're fighting, or when they're going to get to go home. There's less and less separating them from the bad guys.

And finally, it is the Marine Corps. One of my boyfriend's fellow unit members once told in an interview that Marines are really f*cked up guys (paraphrase of qutoe) who have the hell trained out of them. One chink in the armor and that all goes out the window. That's why a strong chain of command is so important. His friend told me, "The Marines want people who can kick @ss and take names. And sometimes that bites you in the @ss."

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Destineer
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Here's a thought.

My own opinion is that, given human nature, any war that goes on long enough is going to result in atrocities. You put a big enough group of people in a stressful enough situation and eventually someone is going to go off the deep end -- no matter how well-trained they are.

This means we should be very hesitant to get into military conflicts where success can only be achieved if our troops always conduct themselves ethically. That's just not a realistic possibility, if the war goes on long enough.

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Bob_Scopatz
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Jim-me

Police are professionals too. There's room for civilian oversight of the military or our model of government is completely screwed up.

I'll also point out that the reason this cover-up didn't last as long as My Lai's appears to be due to the press, not some internal code of honor within the military.

The official reaction to it appears to be swifter, though, so I would give credit for that as a change since Vietnam.

Other than that, I tend to agree with your post.

I also agree with much of what Kasie H and Destineer have just posted.

My personal conclusion is that there is something inherent in war in general that brings out this kind of thing. And I also think that some wartime situations are more prone to bring it out than others.

It seems trite to just conclude that war is bad. But I think that war is bad for the victors as well as for the losers, and I think we need to think about that every time we decide to start one, or join in on one.

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Jim-Me
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No question that war is bad for everyone.

Also, there is absolutely room for civilian, and press, oversight of the military.

I don't think we're actually opposed, here. I was more addresing the idea that this is somehow a part of miliary culture, or a part of war. The countless soldiers who manage to go through the worst kinds of hell without murdering civilians by the boatload, is, I think, evidence of that. That war brings this type of situation into the realm of possibility is undeniable, however, so in that sense, yes, war does bring these kind of things out.

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Destineer
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quote:
I don't think we're actually opposed, here. I was more addresing the idea that this is somehow a part of miliary culture, or a part of war. The countless soldiers who manage to go through the worst kinds of hell without murdering civilians by the boatload, is, I think, evidence of that.
Granted. I guess what I was trying to say is that if a war goes on long enough, it becomes pretty inevitable that someone is going to break the rules. It's just too delicate a situation.
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Bob_Scopatz
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Jim-me, I agree as well.


Washington Post

Good article today.

fwiw, I think the current response to the situation is the right one.

quote:
The Bargewell investigation is likely to be explosive on Capitol Hill, because it focuses on questions that have haunted the Bush administration and the U.S. military since the scandal over abuse at Abu Ghraib prison emerged two years ago: How do U.S. military leaders in Iraq react to allegations of wrongdoing by their troops? And is the military prepared to carry out the long and arduous process of putting down an insurgency as part of the first U.S. occupation of an Arab nation?
quote:
Even before the final report is delivered, Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to order today that all U.S. and allied troops in Iraq undergo new "core values" training in how to operate professionally and humanely. Not only will leaders discuss how to treat civilians under the rules of engagement, but small units also will be ordered to go through training scenarios to gauge their understanding of those rules. "It's going to include everyone in the coalition," the official said.

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BaoQingTian
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quote:
Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
Even before the final report is delivered, Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to order today that all U.S. and allied troops in Iraq undergo new "core values" training in how to operate professionally and humanely.

This I think is the crux of the problem. The soldiers are trained trained trained to put their humanity aside and kill without hesitation. To attempt to teach humanistic values seems at odds with that.

For those that have no business even touching a gun, I doubt this core value training will matter one bit. For those that suffer psychological disorders from war and battle I also don't think core values will matter. I guess they're hoping that for the rest (the majority) these core values will somehow over-rule their training to kill. However, IMO this vast majority of soldiers isn't the problem.

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Jim-Me
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BQT,

I don't think that is an accurate depiction of military training.

They are trained to fight with lethal force. There is a wide gulf between that and being trained to put your humanity aside or kill without hesitation.

A huge part of military training involves precisely when and where you can and should kill. Fire discipline is a major issue, not just with civilian casualties, but also with friendly fire. Some people learn this the hard way by killing someone they shouldn't. Which means some people pay with their lives when they do. Whether this is an atrocity or merely a tragedy largely depends on the innocence of the person killed.

The epitome of soldier is not to be found in your typical action hero killing 10-15 bad guys in a vengence-driven berserker frenzy over a dead relative, but is more like the example of Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon, with whom you may be familiar from the movie "Black Hawk Down". Their discipline and precision under fire is a tremendous example, not only of bravery, but of incredible efficiency. Warriors are made of discipline, not rage.

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BaoQingTian
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Oh, I agree with most of what you said. I am not anti-military at all, and I have the highest respect for our soldiers.

However, I think training and planning to kill anyone, even potential enemies necessarily involves a fundamental suppression of the innate feeling that killing another human is wrong. To me, that's a fundamental part of my humanity, so training to disregard that is putting my humanity aside. I'm not suggesting that soldiers are mindless robotic killing machines. What I am suggesting is that killing others definitely blurs some inner moral lines.

Edit: Jim-Me,
I apologize if my post sounded derogatory toward soldiers- it was not meant to be at all.

[ June 01, 2006, 02:10 PM: Message edited by: BaoQingTian ]

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Jim-Me
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I understand what you are saying. I just disagree that military training involves blurring those lines.

My point is that the actual training often revolves around sharpening those lines precisely because they blur very easily. Again, however, I'm speaking more to officer training than what happens in basic when I speak of my experience in training. My impression of the grunts I have met, however, leads me to conclude they have considered the issues carefully themselves.

And you aren't alone. I really should have voiced this disagreement earlier when Kasie posted. My experience with Marines has been that they are anything but the on-edge, one straw away from breaking the camel's back, killers her boyfriend describes. Again, from a purely practical standpoint, the raging, uncontrolled, ready-to-kill attitude makes not nearly as dangerous or effective a combatant as someone who understands that killing is a duty performed in defense of things worth fighting for and does so out of choice. Which is why a volunteer army is effective, why military training involves a great deal of moral development, and why I get ticked off when people say things like "they're just fighting for for haliburton's stock value" because that last statement most definitely *does* undermine the morale and effectiveness of troops in the field and such assertions should *not* be thrown about loosely.

Edit to add: if that last seemed off-topic, I was really trying to refer back to my earlier remarks about measured criticism, not commenting on anything BQT or Kasie (or Bob or anyone else) has said on this thread.

[ June 01, 2006, 02:53 PM: Message edited by: Jim-Me ]

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The Rabbit
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quote:
such assertions should *not* be thrown about loosely.
While I agree that such accusations should not be thrown about loosely, I also consider it the moral obligation of every citizen of democratic country to make such accusations when there is evidence to support them.
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dkw
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Jim, for people whose line is "killing people is wrong" military training certainly does blur it. Or at least move it.
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Destineer
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quote:
Jim, for people whose line is "killing people is wrong" military training certainly does blur it.
Which is not that disturbing when one realizes that "killing people is wrong," with no caveats or exceptions, is an indefensible principle.
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dkw
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But it is a practical one for the majority of people to hold as a guide to personal behavior.

Or maybe I should have stated it as "I should not kill this person" as the guide to daily behavior.

In daily life in a civilized society, people do not go around killing people. There is a very helpful taboo against it. Combat training messes with that taboo. Granted that the majority of soldiers are sophisticated enough to re-draw the line and don't kill people outside of combat situations, it is still not surprising that for a small percentage of people once the taboo is broken it is easier to break it in other cases. Some of them in non-lawful situations.

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BaoQingTian
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quote:
Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:
Jim, for people whose line is "killing people is wrong" military training certainly does blur it.
Which is not that disturbing when one realizes that "killing people is wrong," with no caveats or exceptions, is an indefensible principle.
Yes, but you are talking about a broad ethics discussion. dkw and I are talking about things on a personal level. If a crazed man barged into my home and threatened the lives of my family, and I killed him, I know I would agonize over that the rest of my life, even though the action is morally defensible.

Edit: dkw said it better

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Jim-Me
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quote:
Originally posted by dkw:
Jim, for people whose line is "killing people is wrong" military training certainly does blur it. Or at least move it.

I'll acede to "move", but I always find the idea of the modern "conscientious objector" to be really rather ugly. I don't mean a true conscientious objector, mind you, but the person who gets sent off to the front line and then suddenly has a moral problem with being asked to kill (even though at least one case I'm aware of was a doctor, who wouldn't be asked to kill anyone). If you don't ever think killing anyone is the right thing to do, joining a volunteer military is probably a poor career move.

I do think that pacifism is a noble, admirable, and defensible viewpoint.

Rabbit, if there's real evidence of wrong doing, yes. Profiteering is a criminal activity.

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Jim-Me
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I think there's a misunderstanding here about what combat training is or does. It's not taking someone who has no inclination to kill and making them a killing machine. It's taking someone who has decided that there are times when it is necessary to kill and teaching them how to do it. The moral aspects of combat training are all about when you should not do it. Yes, there is a great deal of "psyching up", not unlike football or other team endeavors encourage, but that is not training and a "hoo-rah" attitude is much more about personal, especially mental, toughness than about actual fighting. There's also a definite tongue-in-cheek/gallows humor angle to it as well.
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dkw
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Jim, I’m coming at this from the perspective of someone who’s done counseling with returned veterans who had trouble integrating back into civilian life. Whether it’s caused by the formal training or the personal “psyching up” necessary to do the job, I don’t know. I think it's a combination of both. But while I acknowledge, and have in this thread, that not all veterans have this problem, I think it would be absolutely criminal of us not to recognize that some do, and that the shift in mindset that we have asked them to undergo as part of their duties can be hard for them to reverse. And one Gulf War I vet told me that the only post-combat counseling he got was the chaplain lining everybody up just before they went home and saying “Now men, you’ve been through some tough things. Try not to take it out on your wives and kids.” I’ve worked with one family on their third generation of a cycle of domestic violence that started when Grandpa returned from WWII. This is a real part of the cost of war, and to not acknowledge it is, IMO, a betrayal of the soldiers and families that bear this particular cost.
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Kasie H
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Jim-me,

I actually wasn't implying that these people are on the edge of being killers, necessarily, just that they are on the edge of something the rest of us are not. I think you'll find some of the same qualities in club bouncers, for example, as you will in the Marines my boyfriend's friend described. Which doesn't indicate killing, necessarily.

dkw,
[Frown]
I hate this war. Hate it, especially what it does to families.

I wish there was a way out of it.

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Jim-Me
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Dana, there is no doubt that actual combat changes people and that some have difficulty re-integrating into civilian life afterwards. These latter are, in my experience, a small minority, however, and the one study of which I am aware (done on Viet Nam era veterans) showed that veterans were, as a group, less plagued by psychological problems than their non-veteran counterparts.

I certainly do not intend to say that there is no such thing as PTSD or anything similarly ludicrous. It's true that the military environment is unique in being a place where killing is not only allowed, but positively celebrated. It's also very likely true that counseling for combat veterans is lacking, though I believe a great deal of that has changed since even 1992. Nonetheless, even then, free counseling was availible for the asking on any military base. If I had been more honest with myself at those counseling sessions, I might have been a lot healthier man a lot sooner.

Please don't take any of this to mean that because the people you speak of are relatively small minority that they should be discounted or ignored or left to "deal with it" because they are somehow defective. That would be furthest from my intent.

But there is a pervasive image of soldiers as "trained killers". In the strictest sense, that is true-- they are trained to be capable of killing and many have done so. This emphatically does *not* mean, however, that they are juiced up and prepared to kill any and everything... with some demonic energy instilled in them by training and then barely contained by harsh discipline. Soldiers, as a group, simply aren't like that. There have been many posts in this thread treating them as a group, as if they are and inferentially blaming Haditha (and My Lai) on it. I think doing so not only misplaces blame for what happened, but reflects poorly on the soldiers who, day in and day out, over 6 to 18 month tours, never do anything like this and should not be lumped in with people who commit atrocities simply because they both had the same training.

Now what may well be organizational and cultural in nature has been the false reporting apparently made by several people involved in the incident. The marines have held up the promotion of a general officer pending a determination of exactly that.

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dkw
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Yeah. I was actually going to say earlier that this thread was reminding me of an article in the New Yorker a few months back that talked about treating problems with power-law distribution as if they were bell-curve distribution. The majority of soldiers are not the problem, so solutions centering on more “core values” training for everyone is probably not the answer. The majority don’t need it and those that do are hard enough cases that the general training won't be effective. (That’s assuming that the problems are isolated, not widespread. There needs to be, and likely is, an investigation to determine that, one way or the other).
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Jim-Me
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That is a really astute observation. I hope responsible people in high places make it, too. [Smile]

I think the extra training won't hurt, but I sincerely think it's not the solution. It does give a "we're doing something about it" response while, hopefully, other people in charge are analyzing how to *really* prevent this kind of thing.

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BaoQingTian
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How effective is psychological screening? Do they already do an extensive battery of tests before someone is allowed to join up?
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Jim-Me
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They do some testing, I'm not sure how much of it is psych eval or how effective that is.


Edit: I should add that there is considerable evaluation done during basic training, which provides an opportunity to examine someone over an extended period of time in a stressful environment. I'd be inclined to prefer that ability over any written test or personality profile.

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BaoQingTian
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Absolutely. I guess simulations aside there's nothing that can truly stress and test an individual to the extent that they will be in battle.
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airmanfour
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Did you get commissioned at the end of your military training Jim-Me? Here's some insight into the mind of the Junior Enlisted.

I trained with marines for a year in an academic setting, and my favorite and most telling story involves a PFC or LCpl shooting a pizza delivery guy in the head with an airgun from the second "deck". Keep in mind, these are the highest-testing marines the Corps could get it's hands on and this is the kind of thing they did for fun.

The disturbing, and possibly untrue part of the story is after the Major/Master Guns were finished dishing out punishment, they congratulated the marines on their good aim.

I could go either way on the Haditha story, but I believe while the Marine Corps fosters a Devil Dog, Kill, Kill, Kill atmosphere, the responsibility lies with those that pull the trigger.

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Lyrhawn
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I don't think the psych tests are all that hardcore, hell, they let my brother in [Wink]

I went with my family to pick my brother up at Parris Island after he finished training and I talked to him about it afterwards. They don't teach thoughtless aggression or, like someone said earlier, beserker murderous mentality. They teach an intense degree of lethality, but they don't stamp out humanity in the process.

The biggest changes I noticed in him were pride and discipline. He practically radiated those two things. He was so proud of what he was doing, and confident in it, and he was orderly and disciplined, which is fairly impressive given his rather untamed temper (which is a separate issue from Marine training). I think there was an element of brainwashing involved with the training. But it wore off as soon as he left the service. None of it however made him a very violent person.


I'm surprised this conversation hasn't turned to the Iraqi reaction to this incident. We've spent the whole thread talking about Marine training and the American media, what about the Iraqis? They're pissed as hell. They blame the American military, and even their prime minister said that the American troops don't care about the citizens, and that they shoot to kill with only suspicion and nothing else as justification, as evidenced by the gunning down of a pregnant woman on her way to the hospital last week, when her car accidentally moved onto a road closed by American Marines.

Sensitivity training isn't going to get us anywhere. With every raid on someone's neighbor, every door kicked down, every pregnant woman accidentally killed, every errant bomb that kills an innocent family and every tank that runs over a car that gets in its way, the situation grows worse and worse.

I'm beginning to wonder at what point we just need to leave, and let them fight the battle themselves. The problem right now, is that the insurgents are killing Americans, and the Americans in turn are raiding and taking out their anger on the Iraqis along with the insurgents. If we left, the Iraqis will have only one target for their ire, and that is the insurgents. I'm not even sure it's entirely a logical thought that the state of Iraq can successfully and peacefully exist at all. Both the British, Saddam and America have only managed to pull it of with either extreme military force or insanely brutal tactics.

I almost wonder sometimes at the logic: We send in troops to patrol the streets, and insurgents attack the troops. So we send in more troops, who are then attacked again, and it spirals upwards. What would the insurgents do if there were no troops there to be attacked? They'll be forced to attack regular Iraqis more directly, and more often, which should enrage the population against them, and one would imagine, NOT us. At least then we'll have a cooperative citizenry. I know that sounds cold. But thousands of them are already dying, and thousands of us too, for no change. Something has to change in our tactics for progress to be made.

I think we're approaching the point where it isn't our war anymore, it's theirs. It always would have been theirs, and they need a piece of the action, all of them (or at least as many as want it). The Iraqis are saying they want us out, they want to fight this war themselves. Who are we to tell them no? We can keep an extremely large striking force in country to monitor the situation. We've done what the president now claims was our reason for going in, we've spread democracy. Now let them choose to remain a single country or split up. Hell, didn't Bosnia and Herzegovina (it was a slavic country right?) just do exactly that and decide to split?

Our other purpose there is terrorism. Is anyone going to make a serious argument that we've made any progress on that? We've made the situation horribly worse. Maybe it's time we took a secondary role. Keep men in the area in case it looks like our troops could actually be useful, but otherwise, pull a large majority of them out of the theater of combat.

Haditha might be the first of many straws that break the camel's back.

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Jim-Me
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I was an honor disenrollee from the Air Force Academy. I still come into contact with a lot of military through my friends from there. The marines I've known personally have mostly been neighbors and co-workers.
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Tatiana
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I'd like to hear from soldiers with combat experience, what they think about this sort of thing. Is it a breach of discipline? Or is this the status quo?

These sorts of attitudes almost always come from the very top, in my experience. But since my experience is from things like the way we treat our customers being a reflection of the CEO's own customer focus, then I'm not sure it's valid in a military situation. With the extra discipline in the military, though, I would think it would be even more valid.

My worry from the things I've heard is that it's fairly common for our soldiers to treat all Iraqis as though they are sub-human. I heard rumors going back years that some soldiers killed random Iraqis for sport, and were not disciplined for it.

Abu Grahib, too, seemed to be business as usual rather than any splinter group breaking discipline. Am I the only one who gets this feeling? I feel like something has to be wrong at the highest levels for stuff like this to go on.

Our soldiers ARE America, to many people in foreign countries. It does us no good at all to win the war and lose the peace.

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Jim-Me
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Tatiana, on what basis do you say that Abu Ghraib seemed like business as usual? What on earth would give you the idea that Haditha is the status quo? An unsubstantiated rumor, likely based on the movie "Three Kings"?

These are serious accusations to bring against an entire class of people. It's just like expecting a black person to be a mugger or an hispanic to be a knife-wielding gang member.

It's precisely these kind of reactions, again, that require restraint and measure in our criticism and why I have made such a fuss here. People seem all too ready to believe the worst about our troops as a whole... and, on another note,this is also why bumper stickers and sappy country western songs, cheesy as they may be, are not deserving of the contempt they are often treated to.

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dkw
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You lost me on that last bit. [Confused]
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Jim-Me
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Lyrhawn, I wanted to just briefly say that I'm not ignoring you and you made some thoughtful points... they are just on a different scope than what I am concerned with here.
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