Why Americans are not upset at 'enjoying' a kill......

[veracity]

The general was truthful.... sometimes he enjoys killing. How nice. We are a society that gets hysterical over an exposed breast, and condones the killing of tens of thousands of innocent people. Conditioning does wonders. If you missed this... check this out. It's a good read:

MEDIA, MURDER AND AMERICAN MORALITY!
TEACHING AMERICA TO ENJOY THE KILL!

When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail….

THOU SHALT NOT KILL! So reads the moral precept that supposedly underscores the morality of a civilized society. So reads the Commandment embraced by those who believe in the guidance of a Supreme Being. And so reads the warning to those who would forget that killing is evil.

And yet, in the name of liberty and freedom, we kill. We kill those whose ideologies we oppose and those whose intentions we suspect. We defend the right kill when our leaders claim, even without validation, that it is necessary. We kill with glory and we kill with honor. We kill with shock and we kill with awe. And we call it war.

As a nation, we are the greatest killing machine the world has ever known. Our unsurpassed killing technology has been sold to the American public as a symbol of pride and superiority. Killing an enemy, real or conceived, is sold to Americans as a positive experience. Through the auspices of a media well versed in hype and promotion, a relentless campaign has been waged in this country to make us comfortable with the killing game that is war.

In the three years since the media helped George Bush & PNAC unleash his invasion on Iraq, half the nation seems to have no problem with the moral questions that are implicit in waging a war for no clear reason. In fact, they seem to have no problem at all with the continuing carnage. On the contrary, there is still an inexplicable pride in watching America at War as staged on the nightly news. One has to wonder if half the nation has any clue at all that killing for an unjustifiable reason is murder.

It’s not surprising that some of the most overwhelming weapons used against the Iraqis have such inoffensive names. Most Americans hardly suspect that daisy cutters, bunker busters, javelins and tomahawks can snuff out so many lives so mercilessly. American WMD’s such as depleted uranium shells that sound a bit more ominous, are never mentioned by the media, despite their long term killing ability. Neither has there been any outcry against the use of outlawed weapons such as napalm, an old friend from another time. The news networks did, however, hype those 500 pound bombs that flattened Fallujah – now there was a weapon to admire !

Of course, there never were any photos of the dead and dismembered women, children and old people who fell victim to the bombs. There were never even photos of our dead and dismembered troops who fell victim to the war itself. For many Americans, there continues to be an illusion of a bloodless war, with minimal collateral damage, with limited civilian casualties, and with surgical, smart weapons that miraculously know whom to kill. If only they knew....

More...

http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/media__murder___american_moral.html

[scarletlib]

1. Read the thread on the principal in a Tennessee

County who banned the Quakers from his campus. The Quakers of course have been pacifists since their beginning hundreds of years ago.

The military was allowed to have recruiters on campus but not the Quakers to promote peace. It is sick.

[Malva Zebrina]

2. Yes, but Bush is going to stop gays from marriage

and protect a baby blastocyst by having the state take over the body and the life of women.

Geez--who cares about the slaughter in Iraq? These other things are so much more important than abject slaughter of women and children, old men, old women, pregnant women and our Amiercan soldiers.

The most important thing is to vote for the guy who loves war and is against gay marriage.

[starroute]

3. Everybody wants to be a Klingon

I'm not sure just how it happened, but somehow a warrior mentality crept in to the culture during the 60's. James Bond. Clint Eastwood movies. Even hippie admiration for frontiersmen and tribal warriors.

None of that was there before. The cowboys and hard-boiled detectives of the 1940's might get into occasional bar brawls or shoot-outs, but they weren't killing machines. The movies weren't all about explosions and car crashes and mass destruction.

I haven't been able to figure out what it was, but something went off the tracks in the national psyche back then, and things haven't been the same since.

[Disturbed]

4. Fun to kill people.

If a serial killer had made those comments people would be appalled. Here we have a General spouting this. He obviously meant what he said and didn't care if he was on TV or not. Do we need to wonder now about the level of atrocities, abuse and torture in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Support the troops, indeed!

[BeFree]

5. starroute, could be ?

The realization that we could blow the world to smithereens in a blink, lowered some inhibitions while balancing out with raising some others?

Notice, the new-age, and Mother Earth, movements at the same time as Ronald Raygun's?

[lectrobyte]

7. I think you are really on to something there

It's funny how the notion of "power corrupts" seems to have gotten lost.

Maybe after JFK, MLK, RFK and Vietnam, we didn't think that justice triumphed and the good guys won?

[hector459]

6. What if Osma is right? We are the infidels!

This administration has brought out the worst in all of us--including me.

[Democrat 4 Ever]

8. Soldiers have to be trained to kill in most cases...

Three, maybe four years ago I was up late one night channel surfing. I generally bounce back and forth between the History, Discovery and A & E late at night. One night I happened upon a program that discussed the difficulty the military had getting their soldiers to kill the enemy - I have no idea what channel I landed upon. Seems innate kindness, evolution, , love of fellow man, hard for a species to kill one of their own, something makes it hard for one human to kill another. (There are always exception to the rule but the program was talking about most people.)

The program put forth that a high percentage of soldiers (like 25-30%) during World War II did not adequately fight in the middle of a battle. (I'm pulling figures out of my butt right now because I don't remember the exact figures but I do recall the figures was pretty high). Said a great many soldiers were afraid, couldn't pull the trigger on another human, etc. Well, our leaders, in their great wisdom (insert sarcasm) decided this was entirely unacceptable and not a good use of their "resources." Now the program did not argue that it a soldier's job to kill if necessary so don't flame me.

The generals did highly classified studies and developed programs to address this problem. During the Korean War but especially in the middle to late 50's the training was modified to desensitize soldiers to killing. This training really was found successful during the Viet Nam War and has continued up until today's training.

Now the program was putting forth the premise that is why we are seeing such violence in today's society. For 50 years we have been taking young men and women into the military, training them in very sophisticated and efficient means of killing and deadening any compulsion to not take a life. Then after their tour, turning them loose upon society. These people then have children who have children and finally we have the situation we have today where violence is fun, cool and necessary. The program did not put forth the idea that everyone who came out of the military was a murderer just roaming the streets but that some people were more easily or throughly desensitized and that these people, in addition to people with the already natural propensity to kill have been slowly evolving into the society we have today.

So I guess having a soldier go on TV in front of hundreds of people saying it is fun to kill dredge up my memory of that program. I thought only serial killers enjoy that sport.

I wish I could remember the name of the program, or the channel but would love to discuss this program if anyone happen to have seen it or knows anything about this military program. (These channels re-run everything at least 20 times and I have been looking for it ever since with no luck!)

We hear so much about the good ol days, and how much kinder and gentler it was way back when. I don't know if there is any truth to any of that but I do now my childhood was much nicer (society wise) than my children had to deal with in their childhood and teens. I roamed all over the small town I lived in as a child and the only thing I really feared was getting caught doing something I knew I shouldn't and the news getting back home before I could get there to explain. My kids had to be taught not to trust strangers and to x-ray their Halloween candy and that some kids bring guns to school.

So if anyone saw this program, knows about the government program would you please let me know I'm not crazy? It was late at night...I might have had a drink or two...but I don't think so.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Democrat 4 Ever]

10. Coldforged - I didn't say that - a program on TV said that.

If you will read my posting a little closer you will see that the program went into the discussion saying that soldiers need to know how to kill, of course they do, but are they going too far in the desensitizing - removing, if you will - the moral stop gap most humans have innately to perfect a more efficient killing machine? And if so, what has society reaped from this? If we have a more violent society due in some part because of training by our government I would think it bears discussion. I was asking if it was a baseless conjecture or if the TV program was on to something. If someone at DU was aware of this theory, program, training or fairy tale I would appreciate someone setting me straight. DU is an excellent place to come to talk over, discussion, disseminate and come away wiser. Did you happen to see the show? It gave a very compelling argument, that was all I was saying.

Either you have something to add to the conversation or your don't, but just blowing off a question as baseless conjecture sounds so, uh..., so..., uh..., ...freeperish. Are you lost?

[Undercover Owl]

11. coldforged has a point.

A very cynical point. Some soldiers enjoy their work.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[veracity]

13. Enjoying the kill is quite different....

Of course soldiers have to be trained to kill. We dehumanize an enemy to make that easier. War still is the first line of response to political greed....and has become more and more acceptable as a way to solve any problems that come up. Young people can always be sacrificed and convinced that their lives are worth giving up for a cause. Just look at the Iraq bit....when so many soldiers were convinced they were repaying the Iraqis for 9/11 - a total lie.

The general in question said that sometimes you just enjoy killing the enemy. I cannot imagine that honorable people can feel that way. Sometimes it is NECESSSARY to defend your country or fight for a noble cause..... but never, ever, to enjoy taking lives of others fighting to defend their goals and values. Bush has made war a fight between good and evil.....and of course, we are good. Yeah, right.

[Malva Zebrina]

18. murdering 100,000 innocent children and women and those

who did NOT threaten us, is NOT protecdting our freedoms.

Can it already with the slogans that are lies.

No way can our freedoms be usurped by little defenseless countries, and no way are our freedoms a threat to them, who were , unfortunatly born where they were born and had not a gaddam thing to do with it.

A good percentage of those innocents who were killed and murdered by our military were children--a real threat to our freedoms, right?

Cut that crap out--the military is brainwashed to think they are defending our freedoms. That makes them brave heroes in the minds of many ignorant people, when actually all they are are robotic, trained murderers. The only military that will ever defend our freedoms is one that actually defends this country should it be attacked and not the one that is sent to any country that an insane man, a coward, who went AWOL himself in wartime, orders them to attack and kill for his own greedy and megolomaniacle reasons.

The doctrine of pre-emption in the hands of a stupid and evil leader is a doctrine of USING the military by feeding the meme that indeed they are heroes because they are "defending our freedoms"

That is an abject lie and is a deplorable, immoral and unethical manipulation of the military.

[Stop_the_War]

14. Welcome to Nazi Amerika, where morality is considered anti-American....n/t

[Canuckistanian]

15. Aggressive soldiers are a necessity

But they should be kept under lock and key, like a weapon. And never, ever let them decide or influence foreign policy or try to speak for the people.

[Texicrat]

16. I don't think our soldiers are much of a problem...

Civilian control of the military is and always has been a supreme and unquestioned tenet in America.

As far as not influincing foreign policy, and being kept under lock and key, how? Are you suggesting they become second-class citizens, not allowed to vote? Not allowed to raise families and be a part of society?

[Canuckistanian]

17. I meant it metaphorically

And by "aggressive soldiers", I mean this type of character.
Look, this guy is extreme. All I'm saying is that everyone should recognize that and distance themselves from any opinion he may have and not mistake it for official policy.
I am not suggesting that he be 'removed from society' like a criminal, but neither should he be given credence by having him on a stage and announcing to the world his extreme views.
And if he does, he should pay the consequences, like he's probably doing right now.

[zmdem]

19. General Patton's thoughts on the matter

General Patton to the Third Army
June 5, 1944

Quoted from his famous address, with some language sanitized:

We're not going to just shoot the SOBs, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Huns by the bushel-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it's the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do !