I have nothing to add to the amazing post this picture came from.
Salon has an interesting excerpt from an essay by Michael Massing from the book What Orwell Didn’t Know about how the American public, while turning against the war, largely is ignorant about certain aspects, notably the amount of violence against civilians and other routine brutalities that are par for the course during an invasion. Massing argues that the squelching of this information is a propaganda effort unlike the “they’ll greet us with flowers” effort that was pushed by the mainstream media and the government. In this case, there’s a willful ignorance on the part of the public.
Americans — reluctant to confront certain raw realities of the war — have placed strong filters and screens on the facts and images they receive. This is particularly true regarding the conduct of U.S. troops in the field. The U.S. military in Iraq is an occupation army, and like most such forces, it has engaged in many troubling acts. With American men and women putting their lives at risk in a very hostile environment, however, the American public has little appetite for news about such acts, and so it sets limits on what it is willing to hear about them. The Press — ever attuned to public sensitivities — will, on occasion, test those limits, but generally respects them. The result is an unstated, unconscious, but nonetheless potent co-conspiracy between the public and the press to muffle some important truths about the war. In a disturbing twist on the Orwellian nightmare, the American people have become their own thought police, purging the news of unwanted and unwelcome features with an efficiency that government censors and military flacks can only envy.
On the 3rd page, he does tip his hat to the fact that this sort of willful ignorance is nothing new. In fact, reading that paragraph, the first example that popped into mind wasn’t the purposeful squelching of anyone who dares point out that our troops are shooting civilians, committing rapes, torturing, or otherwise acting like an invading army in Iraq. The first example that popped into my mind was the treatment of Hugh Thompson after he came forth about the My Lai massacre. He was punished and castigated by the public, who didn’t want to know how Our Boys behave in the field, how they kill babies and rape women before murdering them.
Which brings me to one of the most moving posts I’ve ever read—probably the most moving post I’ve ever read—on the internets, a letter from Flea to her sons asking them to be the Hugh Thompsons of the world, the rare people who stand up to routine brutality. In it, Flea links the mentality of soldiers in an invading army with men presented with the stark choice to join in a gang rape or to help the victim escape.
Think about your duty as a man, as a human being. Think about Hugh Thompson. I know it will be hard. I know you could probably get away with doing nothing, or doing the wrong thing. I know you’ll be called pussy, or faggot. I know you may lose friends. But know that if you are in a place where you have the chance to help those who can not help themselves, even if your help angers those who are presumably your allies, there will be a word you will also be called: Hero.
The mentality of the gang rapist is a hard thing to look at. I remember reading a book on criminology once where the author painstakingly detailed the way every other conceivable kind of rapist thinks, but when he got to the mentality of guys who join in gang rapes, he glossed over it. Why? Well, there wasn’t much to say—the gang rapist doesn’t differ from the average young man in any significant way that would show up in any psychological profile. This is both banal and too evil to fully comprehend. The reality of it is that people far too often become the roles they are assigned, especially when they are young (as most soldiers are) and under heavy pressure to conform (ditto). Gang rapes don’t happen because of the specific psychology of most gang rapists; what happens is that a ringleader spies an opportunity to rape and uses the pressure to conform to gender expectations on the rest of the men, and the mob mentality takes over. The author I read noted that most followers probably would not rape by themselves in these situations, but the ringleader usually would.
So. This is what happens in war. The situation is extreme and a handful of sadists wield all the power. And we don’t want to face up to what happens, because that would mean that we have to face up to the fact that evil lurks in all of us, and we don’t want to know that. And we have to admit that squelching evil is about more than talk of sin and morality, but requires creating a world committed to egalitarianism, so that people don’t have that kind of power—the power to invade, the power to rape—because it will always be abused. And that’s a monumental task.
The irony of all this, as I’ve said before, is that the only real way to walk the path towards being a Hugh Thompson is probably to admit that you too have that evil inside you, so that you recognize it when it starts and can resist before things get out of hand. Which is why I think that parents like Flea who don’t live in a fairy land of what men are capable have a better chance of bringing their sons up to be good men, whereas parents who bury their hand in the sand and refuse to believe it (and rush in all the high-paid lawyers to make it go away when it happens) are the ones who bring up the boys who are capable of this deep evil.
72 Responses to “The gritty eyelashes of the ostrich”
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I don’t think the media needs to squelch the information. Iraqis have been so successfully dehumanized by them that Americans no longer care what happens to them.
People would rather believe an easy lie than a difficult truth.
People would rather believe an obvious lie than a truth that requires them to rethink their beliefs.
The US really could do with either an invasion and occupation, or extended civilian bombardment within living memory. That it has neither shapes the culture in nasty ways.
Tom Lantos recently poured out a whole load of bullshit on the Dutch. Now, I’m not discounting his personal experience, but every Dutch person his age has the experience of , and that’s passed down to grandchildren. The cityscape of Rotterdam was remodelled by the Luftwaffe. It looms large over the country.
The people who fought in World War II had grandparents who remembered the Civil War. But there’s nothing left in the collective American cultural memory — I’d say it lasts from grandparents to grandkids — to verify the brutality of war on your own soil.
“So. This is what happens in war. The situation is extreme and a handful of sadists wield all the power. And we don’t want to face up to what happens, because that would mean that we have to face up to the fact that evil lurks in all of us, and we don’t want to know that.”
Amen. The fact that such evil can be tapped in all of us is too often forgotten, particularly by propagandists who want to talk of martial glory or wars of liberation. I recently read an article in The New Republic about a poet named Tadeusz Borowski who survived Auschwitz, who dealt with how people, including himself, become complicit in evil and how it is always a part of us that we must face. There’s one poem he wrote which seems appropriate here. I know this sounds like a cliche, but I did feel a chill in my spine when I read it.
Fairy Tale for Children
We will recount to the children
on long familial evenings
tales of prison cellars, of interrogation,
of camps and of chimneys.
We will tell them of the suitcases,
of transports, their gold and their jewels.
The techniques of theft and murder
are what children will learn in their schools.
Our words will pass down generations,
they will awaken evil and vice.
The children will build gas chambers,
they will murder people inside.
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
…
…
We must love one another or die.
Dr. Suki Falconberg puts the matter into horrifying perspective.
http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/?p=704#more-704
Discussing Iraqi civilian casualties caused by US forces with Americans induces amnesia. Americans forgetting the ones they kill before they recognize their responsibility is a form of psychic protection.
The killers and the rapists come from American small towns and high schools and the house next door. All it takes to turn them into rapists and killers is to put them in a place where human beings are dehumanized.
The day I woke up to hear about Abu Ghraib I wept because I could not bear the thought of wearing a uniform so dishonored.
We need to figure out how to raise Hugh Thompsons, not William Calleys. I just don’t understand. Hugh Thompson is a hero. William Calley is not a monster. He’s an ordinary guy who got turned loose in a foreign country and acted on impulses he must have had all his life. All these ordinary guys could be William Calley.
Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war
is certainly an apt phrase … Let no one credibly claim to be deceived, there is a groaning Tower of Babel of works of literature and history that give ample testament to what happens in war.
However, one of the unfortunate consequences American exceptionalism is how it so conveniently obscures the feral beast within us all, or in the case of the more demented wingnuts turns it into a virtue. Just think of the fucker in his flight suit when you read essays like the one above.
Bush wants to bring about Armageddon.
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Wow, powerful post.
I wonder how difficult it would be to have these principles - how to be a Hugh Thompson - taught during basic training? You know, encoded as part of the honor of being a soldier? Might prevent some of the horrors of war… a would-be rapist worried he won’t sway the mob; a possible hero buoyed by the expectations of training…
Can’t stress it enough…The gender expectations for men include being…er…rape-y (sorry, it’s 1st thing in the morning over here)…enforcing entitlement through violence if we don’t simply get what we want. It is a shame.It’s traditional gender stereotypes that enforce this immorality, obviously, so how did it come to be that feminists are blamed for “inventing” this perception of men’s roles? Amanda, how did/does this occur??
Good point about the gang rape mentality. Within all of us is a monster who will either particapate or at least stand idly by. At least I can say that when I was a guy in a potential incident and had even gone so far as to take a quasi-consensual grope or two. I then retired to get the switchboard operator to track down the woman’s roommate and we then got her out of the situation.
As far as the media are concerned, I am reminded of the old joke about the Soviet journalists touring the US. A Soviet journalist speaks:
“We have traveled your country and have read many news papers and watched televison programs being broadcast. There is very little diversity of opinion in your media. At most there are minor variations deviating from the government position which create an illusion of genuine dissent. How are you able to do this? In the USSR we have to send a hundred journalists to the gulag to achieve the same result.”
Um, Bacopa, do you want a cookie or something? That’s disgusting.
Once again, it’s the feminists who don’t think men are rapists.
War is rape. To separate them is beyond stupid — it is an immoral act. It’s like arguing that firing a gun, blindfolded on a crowded street is laudable. I think there is such a thing as a justifiable war, but such a war would be have to be moral even though that it would inevitably cause rapes and murders. As such, justifiable wars are pathetically rare.
When it was obvious we were going to invade Iraq, I was amazed at some of the people around me. After I explained the inevitability of atrocities — murder, rape, and torture — war supporters didn’t argue I was wrong. They didn’t argue that wouldn’t hapen. Instead, they argued it was worth it. This, depsite the fact that they didn’t have anything to base their initial belligerence on.
So long as it involves someone they don’t have to look at, our peers will happily endorse any suffering.
Wars are, above all, selfish acts. They’re comedies.
Tragedy is when I cut my finger.
Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.
William Calley is not a monster. He’s an ordinary guy who got turned loose in a foreign country and acted on impulses he must have had all his life. All these ordinary guys could be William Calley.
Unless my memory is mistaken, William Calley was a lieutenant and thus, an officer with the entrusted responsibility to command and lead 43 other men in his platoon. This, to me, makes his war crime even more egregious as he cannot really be considered “one of the boys” as military officers are supposed to be held to a higher standard as they have to lead others. While there were questions surrounding the culpability of his company CO Captain Ernest Lou Medina as well as others above in the chain of command, equating Calley as an “ordinary guy” effectively minimizes the degree of responsibility he has as a junior officer involved in the massacre.
No One of Consequence: I agree. Reminded me of sth Kurt Vonnegut once said, and (hah!) I found it:
Not sure if he’s wrong or right, but it’s an interesting point he’s making and it sounds worth taking into consideration.
People hate confronting the evil within their own social group. It’s much more comfortable to believe that “we” can do little or no wrong. Or that the wrong “we” do is a better kind of wrong than other people’s. That’s so human.
That attitude often generates xenophobia. If one believes that a social group can be inherently (and consistently) “good”, then it follows that other groups can be inherently “evil”, or “barbarian”. One cannot then admit that any social group can do both good and bad things.
I wonder how difficult it would be to have these principles - how to be a Hugh Thompson - taught during basic training?
Funny! Yeah, sure, the Army is really going to go for that idea…
Basic training is the exact opposite - it’s all about producing William Calleys. That is its primary purpose - to instill “discipline” and “obedience”.
Exholt, you’re ignoring my point. Whatever his rank, Calley was a product of his society and as soon as he was let loose, he went wild.
It’s also kind of stupid to say that officers had more responsibilities in their platoons or companies. Officers in Viet Nam were uniformly hated and despised—and sometimes fragged.
None of which changes the fact that Calley was the All-American boy who apparently saw nothing wrong with rape and murder.
“Basic training is the exact opposite - it’s all about producing William Calleys. That is its primary purpose - to instill “discipline” and “obedience”.”
…and significantly reduce the chances that you will become a Hugh Thompson by shrinking your individuality and reinforcing groupthink in order to overcome human revulsion at killing fellow human beings…
Or, maybe basic training just strips off the thin veneer of “civilization” that holds our impulses in check and exposes our true (and militarily useful) nature.
Combine this with a pointless “mission” and you have the seeds of atrocities…
All of which reminds us that war is about killing and destruction. We should never go to war unless the “enemy” is one we must kill and destroy for our own self defense. That does not occur very often. Certainly not in Iraq.
I feel for our armed forces put in an untenable situation. The job of an army is to kill and destroy. Once you’ve put them in hostile territory, you can’t really blame them for doing their job. Blame the people who put them there.
Ginmar: The day I woke up to hear about Abu Ghraib I wept because I could not bear the thought of wearing a uniform so dishonored.
The day I heard about Abu Ghraib, I thought of you - you were in Iraq then - and felt aghast at how awful you must feel about what the US military had done.
I think I’ve told this story in comment threads before, but I think it applies here too.
When I was in high school, at the beginning of the Iraq War, I took an elective class on the history and theory of warfare. One day, the teacher initiated a discussion on whether it was ever alright to kill unarmed “enemy” civilians. I’m still not sure whether he meant “right” in a legal sense, a tactical sense, or a moral or ethical sense, but the class didn’t seem to care. One of the boys sitting near me said it was alright to kill civilians if they so much as provided moral or ideological support for the “enemy” side. “War is hell, man. You do what you gotta do,” he said. I was outraged, so I gave him a hypothetical scenario to test the extent to which he held this grotesque belief.
Imagine this, told him; the US is in the middle of a civil war. My ideological support lies with the side you are fighting against, but I am not a combatant and you are. My neighborhood falls to your forces and you begin searching every home. When you come to mine, you find me hiding in my basement, unarmed and frightened. You recognize me as someone you went to school with and have known for years. Do you kill me?
Without flinching, he responded, “In a heartbeat.”
I get chills to this day.
I think I’ve told this story in comment threads before, but I think it applies here too.
When I was in high school, at the beginning of the Iraq War, I took an elective class on the history and theory of warfare. One day, the teacher initiated a discussion on whether it was ever alright to kill unarmed “enemy” civilians. I’m still not sure whether he meant “right” in a legal sense, a tactical sense, or a moral or ethical sense, but the class didn’t seem to care. One of the boys sitting near me said it was alright to kill civilians if they so much as provided moral or ideological support for the “enemy” side. “War is hell, man. You do what you gotta do,” he said. I was outraged, so I gave him a hypothetical scenario to test the extent to which he held this grotesque belief.
Imagine this, told him; the US is in the middle of a civil war. My ideological support lies with the side you are fighting against, but I am not a combatant and you are. My neighborhood falls to your forces and you begin searching every home. When you come to mine, you find me hiding in my basement, unarmed and frightened. You recognize me as someone you went to school with and have known for years. Do you kill me?
Without flinching, he responded, “In a heartbeat.”
I get chills to this day.
I think I’ve told this story in comment threads before, but I think it applies here too.
When I was in high school, at the beginning of the Iraq War, I took an elective class on the history and theory of warfare. One day, the teacher initiated a discussion on whether it was ever alright to kill unarmed “enemy” civilians. I’m still not sure whether he meant “right” in a legal sense, a tactical sense, or a moral or ethical sense, but the class didn’t seem to care. One of the boys sitting near me said it was alright to kill civilians if they so much as provided moral or ideological support for the “enemy” side. “War is hell, man. You do what you gotta do,” he said. I was outraged, so I gave him a hypothetical scenario to test the extent to which he held this grotesque belief.
Imagine this, told him; the US is in the middle of a civil war. My ideological support lies with the side you are fighting against, but I am not a combatant and you are. My neighborhood falls to your forces and you begin searching every home. When you come to mine, you find me hiding in my basement, unarmed and frightened. You recognize me as someone you went to school with and have known for years. Do you kill me?
Without flinching, he responded, “In a heartbeat.”
I get chills to this day.
As well you should. But my horror at such a statement would be tempered by the knowledge that this classmate of yours, I would assume, has no first-hand knowledge of war. It’s one thing to say what you’d do in a hypothetical, it’s quite another to know what to do when you’re actually experiencing war.
Which isn’t to say that he wouldn’t do what he said. He might be more willing to do so were he in warfare. But it’s possible that his mind would tell him, “Enough”, once he realized what it actually took to kill someone.
A few points:
1. Regarding what the military wishes to make a man into, this piece is as utterly terrifying now as it was in 2004: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/07/12/040712fa_fact
2. It has been argued, in many cases very convincingly, that as far as dystopic visions go, those of Alduous Huxley have come far more true than those of Orwell. Huxley understood humanity’s ability to blind itself, with no need of coercion from governmental or corporate apparatus. What Orwell teaches us is that governments and corporations also understand this, and turn it to their advantage.
3. America, supposedly the most Christian of nations, should have an intuitive understanding of how everyone has evil inside them (we’re born evil, sayeth the Bible). And yet we push that realization away with greater fervor than almost anyone else, convinced that we have an instrinsic betterness, that we cannot be monsters, because we are God-fearing Americans. Chris Hedges has much to say on this happening throughout history, but I do believe we have made it into an art.
The bitter irony of the mentality Chatter describes is that the Tough Guy inevitably sees himself as having courage to face up to the reality of war, but he’s really just doing what’s easiest. It’s much harder to be Hugh Thompson than it is to be lt Calley. The moral courage and strength it requires to go from killing combatants to protecting civilians while the adrenaline is still flowing is far greater than that required to simply slaughter.
Chatter, what grade in high school? I only ask because I think a boy of 14 would be prone to absurdly ugly macho posturing, whereas if the guy was 18, he was basically a socociopath. It’s true that our armed services, just as any other, turns out boymen capable of monstrosities. But he wasn’t in the Army, he was in high school.
As an old fogey, I have to wonder at least a little about the current generation. It’s widely reported that in previous wars the big thing about training recruits was to get them to overcome their reluctance to actually kill somebody. And after that, the rest was easy — except for getting them to remember when not to kill people.
Is that changing? Or does the self-selecting nature of an “all-volunteer” army change that? (Of course, it’s also a fair bet that the bloodthirsty classmate would be one of those who thinks his duty lies in staying well behind the front lines and exhorting others to kill and torture…)
Comparing the Nazi invasion of France or Lithuania to US into Iraq is not the right one. One of the commmenters to the article linked to the Nazi photo had it better:
“As far as the Philippines, the US were welcomed as liberators at first. Then we made it clear that we wanted the Philippines from ourselves, and we became less welcome.
Iraq really wasn’t that different, y’know. I saw plenty of quotations from Iraqis who said they were glad the US had overthrown Saddam, but that didn’t mean they wanted an everlasting US occupation. “
Suppose for a moment that the Bushites were right, that Hussein had WMD and the ability and the will to use them against Americans (preposterous but hang in there for a bit). Would you still oppose war, the killing of people bent on killing us, which would of necessity mean killing civilians? When is war justified? Despite seeing the horrors of the Dresden firebombing first hand, Vonnegut still thought WWII was justified.
I’m ready to have a President with combat experience in war. Powell and Petraeus have been there. They know bad shit happens in war, that it it impossible to kill just the people who want to kill us. High military brass did not want to go into Iraq. The neocons who never went to war may not be alone in believing that the ends justify the means, but they really had no idea what “the means” really meant in human death suffering.
The New Yorker article had this description from a U.S. soldier:
*Carl and his men had to establish roadblocks, which was notoriously dangerous duty. “We started out being nice,” Carl said. “We had little talking cards to help us communicate. We’d put up signs in Arabic saying ‘Stop.’ We’d say, ‘Ishta, ishta,’ which means ‘Go away.’ ” But people would approach with white flags in their hands and then whip out AK-47s or rocket-propelled grenades. So Carl’s group adopted a play-it-safe policy: if a driver ignored the signs and the warnings and came within thirty metres of a roadblock, the Americans opened fire. “That’s why nobody in our whole company got killed,” he said. Debbie stopped eating and stared into her food. “You’re not supposed to fire warning shots, but we did,” Carl said. “And still some people wouldn’t stop.” He went on, “A couple of times—more than a couple—it was women and children in the car. I don’t know why they didn’t stop.” *
When I read condemnation of US soldiers killing civilians I think of scenarious like that described. Which of those killed by Carl’s company were civilians and which were combatants? Are the US soldiers in that situation to be condemned as murderers?
“A couple of times—more than a couple—it was women and children in the car. I don’t know why they didn’t stop.”
Because a bunch of soldiers were firing at them.
Exholt, you’re ignoring my point. Whatever his rank, Calley was a product of his society and as soon as he was let loose, he went wild.
It’s also kind of stupid to say that officers had more responsibilities in their platoons or companies. Officers in Viet Nam were uniformly hated and despised—and sometimes fragged.
None of which changes the fact that Calley was the All-American boy who apparently saw nothing wrong with rape and murder.
He may be a product of society like we all are, but that does not mean that he did not have the capacity to be able to judge right from wrong….unless he was a sociopath to begin with. It also should not excuse or minimize the degree of culpability for his actions during the My Lai Massacre.
I’m sorry, but the language you are using is eerily similar to what I’ve heard and read from some Japanese revisionists who are attempting to downplay/minimize war crimes committed by Japanese military personnel during WWII by saying “it is war” or some American racists I’ve encountered who said “it is a product of Japanese culture”.
As other commenters have noted, the capacity for committing war crimes along with the capacity for most of us to be discerning enough to refrain from committing them excepting sociopaths is pretty much universal regardless of one’s nationality, race, or ethnicity. It is the reason why we cannot “otherize” the war criminals like William Calley and those who did the right thing like Hugh Thomson by implying they were beyond the norm…we’re all capable of being either one depending on the mix of circumstances we’re placed in and the choices we make.
As for your second paragraph, I will have to defer to my childhood neighbors who were working class men either drafted to fight in Vietnam or who served as young lieutenants fresh out of West Point/ROTC/OCS.
They would agree with you that officers were universally hated. They attributed that to poor leadership endemic within the officer corps as their officers were often glory-hounds who placed their men in harms way more often than was needed to complete their missions. In fact, some of those lieutenants along with many of the drafted men from my old neighborhood were so disgusted by what they saw in Vietnam that they later join the anti-war movement despite the tendency of some within that movement to prejudge them as a result of William Calley’s actions at My Lai.
However, they would find your statement that it is stupid to say officers have more responsibilities in their platoons and companies to be quite bizarre. From what they told me along with accounts from three family members who have served in the military as officers, officers are not only responsible for their own conduct, but also for the conduct of those placed under their command. So, in short, William Calley does have culpability that goes well beyond being a “regular All-American guy”.
Petey Wheatstraw:
I’m not Amanda, but I can guess that the reasoning is sort of a bad money pushing out good effect, viz.:
Boys have great uniquely masculine qualities. For example, they’re full of energy that just can’t be suppressed. They can’t sit still and can’t be expected to concentrate on anything for very long unless it has a big motor, or tits, on it.
Feminists say all these masculine qualities are evil just because they’re masculine qualities. They say boys’ energy is innately wrong, it should be suppressed, they should just sit around “like girls.” They want to punish boys for just being boys.
Feminists thereby remove from play the good masculine role models, and cast all masculine role models as evil. You’re not allowed to be a cowboy any more even though it’s a “good” role model, because it’s masculine and feminists hate men and anything to do with men.
Boys can’t tell what to believe any more. But they still have these masculine qualities which they cannot suppress (self-referentially, not being able to suppress one’s qualities is one of those masculine qualities).
Boys take up a bad role model as quickly as a good one because they’re all equally despised by feminists who, as we all know, hate men. If cowboy and rapist are equally despised, one “might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”
Exholt, stop trying to get all superior and Godwinize me. You’re the one finding excuses for CAlley. Oh, yeah, and while we’re on the subject, I’m in the military myself and if you had any military experience you’d have long since observed SGTS. Major and 1st. Sgts running companies and platoons. Calley was a figurehead. So were many lower officers during the Viet Nam. You’d think I wouldn’t have to specify the VN war here, but seeing as how you’re determined to blame everybody but Calley for his murderous character, I can’t say I’m surprised.
Telling right from wrong is a loaded subject when it comes to feminist subjects, because there’s what men think is right and then there’s what women thnk is right. As has been established on this blog many times before, often times men think rape, murder, and battery are the right hing to do, especially when the victims are women.
Women often have a different opinion.
Calley was no different from lots of men, although he wnet to war and they didn’t. We might very well have many killers among us, just waiting for the opportunity. That was my whole point, in case you were going to try and ignore it again. You want to try for another Godwin? Go for it.
Oh, and I can’t stress it enough, either: comparing me to the Japanese excusing war crimes when I’m adding people to a list that includes Calley? You asshole.
Suppose for a moment that the Bushites were right, that Hussein had WMD and the ability and the will to use them against Americans (preposterous but hang in there for a bit). Would you still oppose war, the killing of people bent on killing us, which would of necessity mean killing civilians? When is war justified? Despite seeing the horrors of the Dresden firebombing first hand, Vonnegut still thought WWII was justified.
Here’s the problem I have with the term “justified war” or (even worse) a “just war”:
Today, we tend to think of the term “justified” to mean “it’s OK” or “it’s not wrong”. I don’t think that’s a correct connotation for the legal sense, and it certainly doesn’t apply to war, any war, ever. War is never OK; it is never going to be “just”.
What it has to be is “worth the consequences”. Our goals when we choose to go to war have to be so important, so vital, that we willingly accept the consequences for the horrible things we are about to do.
When we go to war, we are going to kill civilians. There is no way around it: innocent people are going to die, and that means little children and granfathers and grandmothers and mothers with their babies. Even adorable kittens and puppies are going to die because of what we do. Face that fact and accept the consequences.
(wow–this got way too long: moved the rest of it to my own blog)
[Quote]Can’t stress it enough…The gender expectations for men include being…er…rape-y (sorry, it’s 1st thing in the morning over here)…enforcing entitlement through violence if we don’t simply get what we want.[/quote]
I must have missed that part of my gender education as a male, ‘cause I think that statement is bulls***. Part of a proper education is to learn to control or channel aggressive impulses. None of you remember 5th, 6th and 7th grade when some girls were physically bigger than many guys? A few of them could be physical bullies, too. The fact that some men never learned that “might does not mean right” doesn’t mean that all or most men think that way.
ginmar,
Now I think you’re missing the point. By saying he should not be treated as “one of the guys”, I am saying he has a higher degree of culpability beyond the draftees and the non-coms during the conflict. After all, if he gives an order contrary to his non-com’s advice/concerns, as long as it is “lawful”, even the non-com is legally bound to obey, unless I am mistaken.
The use of the language “he’s just an ordinary All-American boy” has often been used to minimize culpability by equating someone with a responsible position as the same as everyone else in an hierarchical organization like a corporation or military service. William Calley is no ordinary soldier thrown into a situation. Thus, he should not be let off the hook by the statement “He’s just one of the boys” or “He’s an ordinary All-American boy”.
I’ve seen that line of thinking used too often to excuse war crimes committed in this war by classmates at school as well as by past colonialists like the Imperial Japanese to excuse the atrocious conduct of their officers and men.
Begone, foul troll.
Yes. And the people who tried to kill members of Carl’s company are murderers too.
Was that the point you were aiming for? Or were you trying to invoke sympathy for soldiers who shoot civilians? I know it’s messy and you often can’t tell who is friend or foe, but that doesn’t excuse the taking of a single innocent life. They’re all murderers.
If you are a pacifist then the discussion is over. All killing of humans is murder and evil. But if self defense is allowed as a moral justification for killing another human then lines and distinctions need to be and should be drawn. “Murder” by definition is an unjustified killing. I don’t believe that all killing is murder. I don’t even believe that accidental killing is necessarily murder.
I don’t have to be a constant reader of this blog to reject ginmar’s proposition that it is “established on this blog many times before, often times men think rape, murder, and battery are the right thing to do, especially when the victims are women.” All the men I know reject the idea that rape and murder are ever the right things to do. Battery is a bit of different story, because I do believe that striking, pushing or holding someone else without their his consent (battery = touching without consent) may sometimes be necessary to defend oneself or others from unjustified attack.
When I read condemnation of US soldiers killing civilians I think of scenarious like that described. Which of those killed by Carl’s company were civilians and which were combatants? Are the US soldiers in that situation to be condemned as murderers?
As discomforting as it may be, if they did shoot unarmed civilians, then yes, they are murderers.
During WWII, the Axis powers used such reasonings to justify wholesale destruction of villages and the killings of civilians.
In the case of the Imperial Japanese, one example was their three-alls policy where they sent military units to assigned geographic regions within China to loot all, burn all, kill all with the excuse that they were retaliating against Chinese resistance against the Japanese colonialists.
I’ve read of similar excuses used by Axis leaders to justify Nazi atrocities against civilians throughout Europe and Italian atrocities perpetuated against Ethiopian civilians including the use of mustard gas.
Not sure if this was directed at my comment, but I am not a pacifist. Killing in self-defense is permissible, provided you can justify that killing was the only recourse you had.
When Carl’s company shot those Iraqis who pulled guns on them, that was self-defense and the killing–however horrible and disgusting–was justified. When they shoot people as a precautionary measure because they *might* possibly be about to attack them but haven’t actually done anything hostile yet other than drive their cars too close… that’s murder. And since it’s happening at a static checkpoint and is the standard operating procedure for the soldiers there, you could probably argue that it’s some form of premeditated murder–but I’m not familiar enough with the terminology to make that call.
This is similar to the now-reported military practice of planting weapons and ammunition in open areas and then picking off anyone who picks them up and walks away with them. The soldiers really have no idea what they are going to do with it–they just assume they are “bad guys” who are going to give it to the insurgency. This is murder, because the people carrying away these weapons have not established any intent to do harm with them and the soldiers are not firing in self-defense.
Yes. And the people who tried to kill members of Carl’s company are murderers too.
In the same sense that the Afghanis shooting at the Soviet army that had invaded and occupied their country, that the Serbs shooting at the German army that had invaded and occupied their country, or that the Pacific Islanders shooting at the Japanese who had invaded and occupied their countries were “murderers”…
You make a good point. I’ve ignored a good deal of context in that statement and posted before I thought it through. Thank you for pointing that out. Since these people are targeting soldiers of an occupying power in an attempt to expel them, the self-defense argument applies here as well.
So, just to be clear, soldiers of an occupying force killing unarmed civilians because they drive their cars too close to a checkpoint = murder.
Soldiers/fighters of an occupied land killing the soldiers of an invading country = self-defense.
I really wish there was an edit button. I’m embarassed that I wrote that now.
Bolo,
Thanks for your comment. I was responding to you.
To me what you’ve left out of your characterization is critical: signs in the native language were posted and warnings given not to apprach, in a war zone. When prior attacks have been launched under those circumstances I think the soldiers may be justified in doing what they did.
I don’t have enough info on your last scenario to give an opinion. For example, were people in the area told not to handle or carry weapons and to do so made them at risk for being seen as combatants or insurgents? I don’t even know if this tactic, if it is being used, is an acceptable warfare tactic.
The post was originally about war rape, which is quite prevalent and has been throughout history. Despite all of the back and forth about killing others for whatever reason we feel necessary to justify, it remains that there is never a justification for war rape. Yet, many men feel entitled to rape as an entitlement of conquest, an entitlement of power, an entitlement of the right to destroy, or even as a reward.
Further to the matter, our own servicewomen are being raped and abused by fellow soldiers. If you ask me, it’s an act of a traitor. Treason. How is this not seen as an attack on our troops and those who perpetrate the attacks as enemies of the state? Instead, we get a mighty shrug of the shoulders.
Did anyone click through the link I provided?
Here’s a taste:
“I was raped and prostituted by the U.S. Military. Why don’t you tell my story, Mr. Burns? It is far more ‘colorful’ than that of these soldiers who raped their way through Europe and Asia. Don’t you want to know what it’s like to be mounted by a line of soldiers? It is a hell beyond any possible imagining. It has happened to me.
My PTSD, as it is so fashionably called, is far more intense than that of the men who raped the life and dignity and beauty out of me. The emotional damage to the soldier does not compare to the suffering he inflicts on the women he ravages.
War is never good for women. War sexually enslaves women. Men gain by war. They have the pleasure of rape: they mount starving women, ‘cheap whores,’ and take their pleasure, and the woman is silenced forever by her shame.”
A painful perspective to view. Can we look at it? Are we prepared to dismiss this as collateral damage? Are we going to discuss polite justifications or create “what ifs” to assure ourselves there are plausible scenarios where the rapes were warranted? Or will we look the other way, afraid that too much examination will put an unclean, sour taste on the succulent glory of defeating the enemy?
I’ve heard the “freedom fighter” analogy before but I don’t buy it. Which faction are freedom fighters and which are illegitimate armed groups trying to carve out their own piece of Iraq?
Having gone in wrongfully and busted the place up, we have some obligation to help fix it back up and to help establish some kind of legitimate government. But by now it does seem that our presence may be worse than our absence, though that seems far from sure. Do you all think the “freedom fighters” will stop shooting other Iraqis the day all American troops leave?
Well, I guess we’ll just have to disagree then. I can understand why they have decided to adopt the policies they have adopted (as you explain quite well above) given their specific situation–they don’t want to die. But that doesn’t stop the results of those policies from being murder. Leaving aside the fact that they are part of an occupying army–a fact which puts pretty much any violent action on their part in a grim light–they’re still killing people who have not shown themselves to be a threat. Those people just happen to be conforming to part of the pattern of behavior of those who actually are threats.
The sequence of events is “drive up to checkpoint, pull out guns and shoot.” Civilians and fighters are all equally capable of driving up to a checkpoint without stopping. The real point of differentiation is in the use of weapons. Civilians will not do this, fighters will. When the weapons appear, that is when you know you are faced with a threat and should defend yourself–that is when it is legitimate self-defense. Instead, these soldiers have decided that the driving portion of the sequence–something that both civilians who make mistakes and fighters intent on killing can do–is the critical segment. They have decided that they will kill people at this step, before it is truly known what their intentions are. This is not self-defense. It is murder. They have made the choice that it’s better to kill anyone they suspect of attacking them than to to be sure that they’re under attack.
You can post all the warning signs you want and some people still won’t see them or will get nervous and act strangely. I suppose the real question here is: Does a person who doesn’t see a sign or who misreads a sign or who can’t read a sign or who gets too nervous to stop need to be killed? I think the obvious answer is “no,” and I think that shooting someone for that constitutes murder. Do they need to be killed if they pull weapons on the soldiers? Well, there’s at least more justification for it then and I think self-defense is an appropriate label (but we’re still ignoring the whole “occupying army” thing here, remember).
STP, I did look through your link. Dr. Falconberg lost me with this rhetorical question of hers: “Why has the small detail that almost every GI in Japan, 1945, was a rapist escaped you? ”
I took it as an assertion by her that “almost every GI in Japan, 1945, was a rapist.” I don’t believe it.
I haven’t watched any of Burns’ documentary, so I can’t comment on whether the US military’s role in the comfort women issue then should have been included. The truth of it should be reported if it hasn’t been. But Dr. Falconberg’s statement above leads me to discount her as a reliable source.
So, just to be clear, soldiers of an occupying force killing unarmed civilians because they drive their cars too close to a checkpoint = murder.
Soldiers/fighters of an occupied land killing the soldiers of an invading country = self-defense.
Um, no.
Soldiers shooting unarmed civilians because they’re scared of getting killed by armed civilians is war. That shit happens. Soldiers can be murderers, but that situation does not necessarily equate to murder. It can be negligence; it can be happenstance. Shit happens in warfare.
The people who put them there are responsible. That’s why starting an aggressive war is a crime against humanity.
I’ve heard the “freedom fighter” analogy before but I don’t buy it. Which faction are freedom fighters and which are illegitimate armed groups trying to carve out their own piece of Iraq?
I make no comment about whatever else they do, or the moral situation of being in a civil war. I am not defending anyone blowing up marketplaces, shooting unarmed civilians, or even shooting at the neighbouring militia. I just thank God I don’t live in a country in a time of civil war.
In that they are attacking American occupiers, and only in as far as they are attacking American occupiers, they are not attempting murder.
And your comment: “Having gone in wrongfully and busted the place up, we have some obligation to help fix it back up and to help establish some kind of legitimate government.” is remarkably close to self-serving propaganda. You do indeed have an obligation - but manipulating the Iraqi so-called “sovereignty” to your own profit, building permanent military bases in the country, and re-writing the laws to suit yourselves are not “helping”.
The Iraqis are not stupid. Having pissed in their faces for the last four years, they’re not inclined to believe your “Lemonade Stand” signs, no matter how hard your politicians wave them.
I’d be a little more cautious of what one doubts, Sixties.
“An Associated Press review of historical documents and records _ some never before translated into English _ shows American authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution. The Americans also had full knowledge by then of Japan’s atrocious treatment of women in countries across Asia that it conquered during the war.
Tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to U.S. troops until the spring of 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur shut the brothels down.
The documents show the brothels were rushed into operation as American forces poured into Japan beginning in August 1945.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042501801.html
It’s documented. Easier to make a justification. What will that be?
Much better source, STP, thanks. That was some bad shit. It was still different in character than the accounts I have read of Nanking, different than saying almost all GI’s were rapists and different than saying that rape is a goal of war. I am no great MacArthur fan but he gets some credit for putting a stop to it even if it took him almost 4 months past reports that some prostitutes were coerced into it.
Almost forgot to add that doubt and skepticism are much better than blind acceptance in my book, I’ll have to decline your invitation not to be cautious about such stories, or any others.
Different in character. Let’s look a tad closer.
“In World War II, Japanese soldiers forced between 100,000 and 200,000 women into sexual slavery. Most were from Korea, but others came from Burma, China, Holland, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Taiwan.[4] These so-called “comfort women” were usually sent to the front lines where they were forced into sexual slavery. Some underwent forced hysterectomies to prevent menstruation and thereby make them constantly available.[4] More than half of the women and girls died as a direct result of the treatment they received.[5] Many survivors were detained in the program for 3 to 5 years, and most were raped 5 to 20 times per day.[5] For 3 years of enslavement, this comes to a low estimate of 7500 rapes per person. Japan has not compensated any of these victims.[5]”
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/491147
Lets look at the statistics from the point of view of a single victim. At an average of 10 rapes per day (still a low figure), and a five day work week, each comfort girl was raped 50 times per week or 2,500 times per year. For three years of service — the average — a comfort girl was raped 7,500 times.
http://www.webcom.com/hrin/parker/c95-11.html
Good thing it was different in character. Whew, thought we might have to acknowledge the atrocity of war rape for a minute, no matter who is doing it or how they came to line up to take part in it. And with war rape being so prevalent, it sure is good to hear it’s not necessarily a goal of war, except for when it is.
“The sequence of events is “drive up to checkpoint, pull out guns and shoot.” ”
Actually, the sequence of events that the soldiers are guarding themselves against is “drive up to checkpoint and explode car”. They don’t have any other indicator of aggression than the car not stopping. I can’t really blame the soldiers- this is yet another example of the tactics favored by terrorists being difficult to guard against. The car bomb is favored for exactly this reason- the fact that nervous soldiers sometimes kill innocents in cars is all part of it’s appeal to terorists.
SmallTownPsychosis,
The link is actually not surprising to me as I read about this in the course of studying the Japanese Colonial legacy during my undergrad nearly a decade ago. Unfortunately, those accounts were sparse as most of the books I read about the Comfort Women dealt with their enslavement on Japanese occupation bases throughout Asia. The Japanese government were following the same policy they used in their occupied lands supposedly to “protect the local women” from depredations by their own soldiers. Of course, judging by their actions then and now, it is mostly BS. If it was really done so “honorably” and assuming as they like to contend the women were supposed “volunteers”, why does the Japanese government still feel the need to deny their role in this horrific policy..even when a prominent Japanese historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki has found damning evidence in their own defense agency archives back in the early ’90s??
However, I have some misgivings about how the commenter kinku stated the following:
The end of war is in the beginning of female power and equality in power. The end of prostitution is in the beginning of female economic advantage, or at the very least, equality. When women are no longer oppressed, there will be no need for war, because violence and war at it’s very base is a tool that men created to keep women oppressed. There simply won’t be a need for it anymore.
From my limited study of Germany and Japan from the 1920s to the end of the war, women have proven themselves to be just as cruel and dehumanizing as their male counterparts when placed in wartime situations such as the female Concentration Camp guards at Bergen Belsen to the Japanese-sponsored Manchurian spy Eastern Jewel/Yoshiko Kawashima whose actions led to the brutalizations and killings of untold numbers of Chinese civilians during the Second Sino-Japanese War/WWII.
“In World War II, Japanese soldiers forced between 100,000 and 200,000 women into sexual slavery. Most were from Korea, but others came from Burma, China, Holland, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Taiwan.[4] These so-called “comfort women” were usually sent to the front lines where they were forced into sexual slavery. Some underwent forced hysterectomies to prevent menstruation and thereby make them constantly available.[4] More than half of the women and girls died as a direct result of the treatment they received.[5] Many survivors were detained in the program for 3 to 5 years, and most were raped 5 to 20 times per day.[5] For 3 years of enslavement, this comes to a low estimate of 7500 rapes per person. Japan has not compensated any of these victims.[5]”
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/491147
Lets look at the statistics from the point of view of a single victim. At an average of 10 rapes per day (still a low figure), and a five day work week, each comfort girl was raped 50 times per week or 2,500 times per year. For three years of service — the average — a comfort girl was raped 7,500 times.
http://www.webcom.com/hrin/parker/c95-11.html
Good thing it was different in character. Whew, thought we might have to acknowledge the atrocity of war rape for a minute, no matter who is doing it or how they arrived to line up to take part in it. The point being, soldiers should not be left to the illusion that it’s ok to take part in such activities.
And with war rape being so prevalent, it sure is good to hear it’s not necessarily a goal of war, except for when it is.
Even terming these women “comfort women” is part of the ostrich effect. I guess it’s so much easier on the eyes than “women and young girls who were enslaved for systematic mass-scale rape.”
Another interesting, but off topic note. Many of today’s neocons called themselves liberals in the 1960s. So, there’s that while we’re being all skeptical and doubting.
Now that we’re a war-making country, I do think it prudent to remind the young soldiers that war rape is a crime against humanity. Not only should they be reminded to the horror of Mai Lai, but also to the horror of these women who were enslaved for systematic rape under the guise of “rest and relaxation.”
I’m no neocon, never have never will be. Despise me for classic liberalism if you like. That would be closer to the truth than trying to say I have Wolfowitz as a fellow traveler.
“Japanese soldiers forced between 100,000 and 200,000 women into sexual slavery.” Yeah, I’d say that was of a different character than GI’s lining up at the brothels. Still bad shit as I said before and MacArthur should have stopped it before the nearly 4 months it took him to stop it according to your WaPost link.
The US GIs weren’t lining up at brothels. They were lining up at systematic rape chambers.
Americans — reluctant to confront certain raw realities of the war — have placed strong filters and screens on the facts and images they receive.
Indeed.
UNDER ANAESTHETIC
I do not feel the wound
The house dresses on my heart.
I do not suffer the nightmares
The house is exorcising from my head.
You would I remember the Struggle
This museum, memorabilia of massacres;
But television on my mind has imprinted
Worse day-to-day horrors I am only
Startled, wounded, by the spectacle of kisses
and kindness.
d marechera
STP,
I suspect that a filter you look through equates sex at any brothel in an area where women have few other economic choices with rape. With that filter you would see no difference between GI Joe from Kansas who has no idea how the women in what he sees as a brothel he’s in line for got there and the soldiers in the Serbia/Croatia/Bosnia conflict that killed civilian men in their homes and raped the women.
I am not and was not defending the “comfort women” horror. I am just not willing to label “almost every GI in Japan, 1945″ a rapist. But if you believe that sincerely and want to get the story more coverage, I suggest you do this: Print up placards with “almost every GI in Japan, 1945 were rapists” on them, call your local news outlets and picket the closest VFW hall. That should get you some coverage, maybe a libel suit, too, if there are any old guys left with enough energy to sue you.
A population’s general unwillingness to recognize the evils of a course of action, past or present, is not uniquely American.
Sixties,
From the WaPo article.
“… American authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution. The Americans also had full knowledge by then of Japan’s atrocious treatment of women in countries across Asia that it conquered during the war.”
They didn’t know, except for when they did. Gee, go sue WaPo.
RE: “I suspect that a filter you look through equates sex at any brothel in an area where women have few other economic choices with rape.”
In turn, I suspect you’d see any starving 5-year-old in a war torn country who agreed to have sex with an occupying soldier for food just an economic transaction. What? No? But it’s ok if they’re 11 or 12, right? Maybe 13 or 14? Then it starts to be ok. Oh hell, who really knows, right?
If you’re in an occupied/wartorn terrirtory and someone is selling you little girls and women to stick your penis in, I’d pretty much think common decency would dictate that you don’t partake in the transaction. Since, you know, you don’t know the circumstances and therefore very well might be participating in systematic rape. Like the GIs in Japan in 1945.
Of course, when you just have to put your penis in something, well, there’s that.
I suspect you’re a “classic liberal” who isn’t well versed in the right to liberty. Around here, I think they just call them libertarians.
I’m not exactly sure why you’re so angry at me. I’ve agreed that the “comfort women” horror was bad, that it shouldn’t have happened and that U.S. authorities were too slow to act on it (though I gave credit for stopping it).
I gather my crimes are:
1. Questioning your original source for making a sweeping overly broad statement and challenging the assertion that almost all GI’s in Japan were rapists.
2. Thanking you for bringing another source to the discussion.
3. Giving U.S. military leadership credit for stopping the horror, though they were slow to do so (almost 4 months from the memo to top brass).
4. Recognizing gradations in evil or bad conduct, some which are so different to be different in character. Genarlow Wilson’s offense was of a different character than that of Chester Stiles. Perhaps I focus too much for your taste on the knowledge and intent of the perpetrators. That’s a byproduct of my law degree, for which I do not apologize.
I plead guilty to all of those.
To those offenses I’ll add another. The U.S. military deserves credit for defeating Japan in WWII, which meant that the Japanese atrocities committed all over Asia, including the system of sexual slavery, would be stopped.
Knowledge of the atrocities of past wars should be publicized, in hopes that they will not be repeated.
I’m not one for excessive hope, myself, Sixties.
There is no such thing as a “redeeming feature” when it comes to atrocities.
It is no virtue that the U.S. beat Japan.
It is no virtue that the North crushed the Confederacy.
It is vice where the U.S. sponsored rape camps.
It is vice where the North enjoyed the fruits of slavery — which, by the way, was also a rape camp.
Given that there is Hell, there will be no “bonus points for virtue” for the leaders that won the war and raped their way through it.
You have a peverted view here. The “good war” is not a virtue — it was merely a convenient vehicle for raping others.
You might as well give a child molester a reduced sentence because he was volunteering at the orphanage where he raped kids.
NOC,
I disagree with all you said except for #1, #2 and #5 and even that agreement requires qualifications.
#1 “I’m not one for excessive hope”
Neither am I. Neither am I for excessive despair.
#2. “There is no such thing as a “redeeming feature” when it comes to atrocities.”
True. But there is redemption in action taken, individually and collectively, to stop them,
#5. “It is vice where the U.S. sponsored rape camps.”
Yes. But nowhere in the links or cited materials is there an allegation that the U.S. “sponsored” rape camps.
If you see no virtue in Japan’s defeat in WWII (you didn’t mention Germany) or in the Confederacy’s defeat in the US Civil War, then indeed we have nothing in common. I will continue to see your views as perverted as you see mine.
I agree with Dorothy’s comment #37 above. Like I said in comment 42, if you are a pacifist then the discussion is over as to war. Nothing in your mind would justify one.
Sixties created a straw man argument:
If you see no virtue in Japan’s defeat in WWII. . .
That is NOWHERE in my comment. Nowhere. You pulled that straight out of your ass.
I made it abundantly clear that there is no virtue in an individual fighting what would be a justified war when said individual uses that war as an opportunity to do a wrong.
Feel free to argue with yourself — but please, do not take your logical shortcomings and place them at the feet of others.
I pulled that straight out of your prior post. Here it is again, since you apparently can’t read what you wrote:
Nowhere did you say in your prior post that an individual loses any justification for participating in an otherwise justified war by committing immoral acts such as rape during that participation. It may have been abundantly clear in your own mind, but it was not clear in anything you wrote before.
You are completely and undeniably correct, of course, in that new statement, but so what? Does the collective effort (e.g. defeating Japan) lose its moral justification when atrocities are committed or participated in by some of your own troops? There’s probably a better argument for tarnishing the legitimacy of the US war effort in the firebombing of Japanese cities or in the use of atomic bombs, since those decisions to kill civilians were command decisions.
Prospectively, if the leadership trains its troops not to commit recognized atrocities and punishes those who are caught committing them, can it not wage a justified war if that leadership knows some of its troops, however small a percentage, will not obey the training?
Nowhere did you say in your prior post that an individual loses any justification for participating in an otherwise justified war by committing immoral acts such as rape during that participation.
Because the idea that there is something like “group morality” is an absurdity. We are judged as individuals. Thus, the war in Iraq is immoral, but if you did not support it, you are not responsible for it even if you pay taxes in the U.S. You are operating under a concept of justification which is patently absurd.
Does the collective effort (e.g. defeating Japan) lose its moral justification when atrocities are committed or participated in by some of your own troops?
Absurd: one soldier who rapes no one and opposes such vile acts is justified in in his particiaption of the war (barring other information); that is, it is a moral good that he kills and steals in this particular context. It’s not that killing and stealing are bad but now good, those acts aren’t bad in the first place. (Killing in self-defense isn’t “justifiable murder,” it’s not murder at all.) A rapist-soldier is not justified. Only the individual can be judged in this matter. You’ve confused mere policy justification with the inherent goodness of an act. . . a distinction that was evident in my post.
It doesn’t matter how “justified” a general policy or a general course of action is. If an action within that policy is evil, then that act is evil, full stop. They are completely separate concepts, ethically. If they were not, it would be impossble to judge any action because I could just pull back the frame of reference, point out a positive behavior around the offending action, and call it all good. (Since, inevitably, there were some good human beings born as the result of the Rape of Nanking, ergo, the Japanese invasion of China was good, Q.E.D.)
A justified war can be justly started even if individuals fighting on the “right” side do horrible things. The goodness of a policy decision is, again, independent of the actions of individual moral actors. Without that conceptual distinction, ethical distinctions would lose all meaning.
Weak nations do not start wars. Only when the strong think they can dominate the weak easily, are wars begun.
That is why war is like rape.
Weak nations do not start wars. Only when the strong think they can dominate the weak easily, are wars begun.
That is why war is like rape.
All true….unless the nation concerned is the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.