Murder Is Not an Anomaly in War

[SHRED]

Military attacks like these in civilian areas make discussions of human rights an absurdity. Robert Bales, a U.S. Army staff sergeant who allegedly killed 16 civilians in two Afghan villages, including nine children, is not an anomaly. To decry the butchery of this case and to defend the wars of occupation we wage is to know nothing about combat. We kill children nearly every day in Afghanistan. We do not usually kill them outside the structure of a military unit. If an American soldier had killed or wounded scores of civilians after the ignition of an improvised explosive device against his convoy, it would not have made the news. Units do not stick around to count their “collateral damage.” But the Afghans know. They hate us for the murderous rampages. They hate us for our hypocrisy.

The scale of our state-sponsored murder is masked from public view. Reporters who travel with military units and become psychologically part of the team spin out what the public and their military handlers want, mythic tales of heroism and valor. War is seen only through the lens of the occupiers. It is defended as a national virtue. This myth allows us to make sense of mayhem and death. It justifies what is usually nothing more than gross human cruelty, brutality and stupidity. It allows us to believe we have achieved our place in human society because of a long chain of heroic endeavors, rather than accept the sad reality that we stumble along a dimly lit corridor of disasters. It disguises our powerlessness. It hides from view the impotence and ordinariness of our leaders. But in turning history into myth we transform random events into a sequence of events directed by a will greater than our own, one that is determined and preordained. We are elevated above the multitude. We march to nobility. But it is a lie. And it is a lie that combat veterans carry within them. It is why so many commit suicide.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/murder_is_not_an_anomoly_in_war_20120319/


Chris Hedges once again hitting home...hard.


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[midnight]

1. War is murder....and it's stupid so end it...

[zipplewrath]

2. Fragging

Everything we have seen in these two wars, from the looting in Iraq, to Abu Grahib, to the bombing of "wedding parties" and yes, the murderous rampage of a sergent, were all "knowable" before we ever started. These things are as much a "part of war" as bullets and bombs. It's what we are "choosing" when we choose to go to war. About the only thing we haven't seen reported (yet) are stories of fragging of officers.

[Romulox]

3. The old men and women who direct these soldiers to maim and kill are the ones with blood on their

hands. That includes the Commander in Chief and his war council...

[atreides1]

5. No

You pull the trigger, you can't say you don't have blood on your hands! There are no orders to intentionallly kill and maim the civilian population...unless you have evidence to prove it

I wish people would quit constantly trying to give those in uniform a free pass, you pull the trigger you share in the responsibility for the shedding of blood, whether it be that of an enemy or a child, that blood is still on the hands of all that play a part.

[Romulox]

6. Nonsense. The person who orders someone killed is *just as guilty* as the trigger man

It has always been thus in our Anglo-American system of jurisprudence.

"I wish people would quit constantly trying to give those in uniform a free pass"

Indeed! That includes military command (including the President, the head of the military.)

[KG]

4. rec.