Daily Kos

Turning the enemy into sub humans is an army tradition

by ccnwon

Tue Jan 10, 2006 at 02:12:49 PM PDT

January 10, 2005  
PERSONAL  COMMUNICATION  FROM  A  VIETNAM  VET

I am not being funny here.  It is a must for them.  It is not on there words that one can hang the proof, but the action of the troops.

One friend of mine's son recently returned from Iraq and he spoke of them as very evil and no good. All the old "Nigger" words and attitudes of the Christian right.  
.

He was a strong Christian youth when he left.  Now he is just an angry man on the subject. And no longer believes in much at all. Just hatred....more

Abu Graib is really not a question of intelligence as much as  proof of the sub human state they are held in.

What I feared is that in Nam individual soldiers took it upon them selves to extend that idea and mutilated the dead.  Like taking ear and as trophies.  When we complained about it to the Captains and chain of command they said it is what we are here for! They lost the goal of peace or stopping Communism.  They just spread hate and death.

The same I think is true here. The lack of reporting it by the press tells me it is going on  but censored.

For a while I volunteered as a helper at [redacted for anonymity] Veterans Hospital and some of the fellows that I talked to could change on a dime from being nice guys to just being vehement about their hatred of the Iraqis and Arabs in general.    That was familiar in Nam as well.   The anger and the uncontrolled emotional swings of the returning PTSD guys at [redacted for anonymity] Veterans Hospital was prominent also.  It can be said it was the trauma of what they saw or went through. But the sheer anger and some with uncontrollable crying one minute, and calm the next, tells me that what they saw was what friends or they themselves were doing.  I have seen that before. The conflict in them was they gave up their morals to be part of the group, and that the group was way over the edge.

If command were treating the Iraqi's as human they would not use DU munitions. What is sad is that in essence they were treating the troops at the same level and saying we are doing it to protect you.

The first level of sub human is "You can't think for yourself and we have to do it for you." They also said that Baghdad was the party city. That was before the insurgency.  Another example of  a double standard.  

It is in the actions that the proof lies. The terms used to describe Arabs and stuff like that reveals the policy.

I believe that there is a definite policy and it is much worse than I thought.

END

How much longer are We The People going to let America's best become bullet sponges for a lie?

CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS

Tags: war, Iraq, George W. Bush, veterans (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions

Permalink | 19 comments

  •  Mercy n/t (none / 1)

    I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

    by ccnwon on Tue Jan 10, 2006 at 02:14:31 PM PDT

  •  yep (none / 1)

    yep, slapping the term "insurgent" on a human makes them sub human in many americans eyes, sad but true.

    PS. DU will be this wars agent orange :(

    "GDI" baby

    by threecents on Tue Jan 10, 2006 at 02:29:05 PM PDT

  •  The technique is tried and true. (4.00 / 2)

    The military takes impressionable kids and turns them into killers.  What we need is a system to convert them back to caring citizens; we've never done that.

    Do notice, too, that the christianoid right does the same for it's "internal" enemies, although the process is slower and takes a few more steps.  

    First, their opponents are lumped together as "them" (historically, blacks, jews, communists, homosexuals, socialists, but often also teachers, women, Democrats  and even veterans).  Then "they" are defined as enemies of the State.  

    Then the similes begin: the enemy is "like" some sort of vermin; shortly afterward the similes rapidly become metaphors and unltimately the metaphor is dropped and the enemy *is * vermin, or a disease or a pestilence ... in any case, whatever the term used, something inhuman that threatens us humans and needs to be destroyed.

    That's why members of groups like Christian Identity feel "called" to kill gays, blacks & jews.  It's not Americans killing Americans; it's patriots killing vermin.

    We need to be faster at alerting ourselves and each other to such travesties of language and debasements of humanity.

    "You can't negotiate with reality" - James Kunstler

    by Bob Love on Tue Jan 10, 2006 at 03:12:12 PM PDT

  •  They are not our nation's best..... (none / 0)

    Our nation has no out and out "best" group of people it simply has different groups that are best depending on the subjective criteria used.
    By calling our troops "the best" we anger those who never served yet still have contributed to our nation I have a feeling that many people voted for Bush because they felt Kerry was trying to state he was better than Bush because he served and everyone else who never served.
    My theroy is that in the minds of many Vietnam Era draft eligible men who didn't Bush did everything he could to avoid putting himself in danger for no reason that he could see but still supported the nations strategic goal because he thought it made sense, just like themselves so they couldn't blame him for doing the same thing they did.  I personally don't agree with this reasoning however it strikes me as a great way to rationalize a vote for he who proves the theroy of incompetant design so well.  

    by democratic victory on Tue Jan 10, 2006 at 03:27:37 PM PDT

  •  'US tactics condemned by British officers' (none / 1)

    the officer, who agreed to the interview on the condition of anonymity, said that part of the problem was that American troops viewed Iraqis as untermenschen - the Nazi expression for "sub-humans".
    article

    ...But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand...

    by LeftOverAmerica on Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 07:08:58 AM PDT

    •  Wow (none / 0)

      "Untermenschen" says it all for me.

      What I want to know is who called for propaganda indoctrination and or miitary training to be changed to deliberately create this mentality?

      Secondly, how does this nazifying process work and how is it best countered.

      Zimbardo in his prison torture studies referenced above briefly touches on some ways to counter. Yet he leaves me feeling his counter tactics are big brotherish. Perhaps we are better off to individually counter than have a larger group manipulate the situation to "help' us.

      I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

      by ccnwon on Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 07:20:18 AM PDT

      [ Parent ]

  •  You have probably read it, (none / 1)

    but 'A Rumor of War' goes into this topic in a lot of detail: What men do when put in a very difficult wartime situation. I was born after the Vietnam era, and have never been in the military, so I don't have a lot of reference for camparison, but Caputo did an excellent job of explaining what our military had to deal with and how they did so in that war.

    by Joe Phillips on Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 07:23:14 AM PDT

    •  I think I read it ... (none / 0)

      ... a kabillion years ago. In any event event I remember nada. Thanks for bringing it up here.

      BTW, all of a sudden several extra comments are coming into from this diary which I posted - yesterday.

      Any idea why the sudden comments?

      My diary from today seems to be going nowhere with a bullet, so I will plug it here.

      Speaking of turning 'enemies' into sub humans!

      I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

      by ccnwon on Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 07:33:07 AM PDT

      [ Parent ]

  •  I was perusing an older (none / 1)

    open thread (I think from yesterday or early this morning), and saw your plug there and checked it out. ;)

    by Joe Phillips on Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 07:35:47 AM PDT

Permalink | 19 comments