Why “Collateral Damage” Elicits So Little Empathy Among Americans

[marmar]

from tomdispatch:


Ted Cruz’s Stone-Age Brain and Yours
Why “Collateral Damage” Elicits So Little Empathy Among Americans

By Rick Shenkman


After Senator Ted Cruz suggested that the United States begin carpet bombing Islamic State (IS) forces in Syria, the reaction was swift. Hillary Clinton mocked candidates who use “bluster and bigotry.” Jeb Bush insisted the idea was “foolish.” Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, tweeted: “You can't carpet bomb an insurgency out of existence. This is just silly.”

When CNN’s Wolf Blitzer objected that Cruz’s proposal would lead to lots of civilian casualties, the senator retorted somewhat incoherently: "You would carpet bomb where ISIS is -- not a city, but the location of the troops. You use air power directed -- and you have embedded special forces to direction the air power. But the object isn't to level a city. The object is to kill the ISIS terrorists." PolitiFact drily noted that Cruz apparently didn’t understand what the process of carpet (or “saturation”) bombing entails. By definition, it means bombing a wide area regardless of the human cost.

By almost any standard Cruz’s proposal was laughable and his rivals and the media called him on it. What happened next? By all rights after such a mixture of inanity and ruthlessness, not to say bloody-mindedness against civilian populations, his poll numbers should have begun to sag. After all, he’d just flunked the commander-in-chief test and what might have seemed like a test of his humanity as well. In fact, his poll numbers actually crept up. The week before the imbroglio, an ABC opinion poll had registered him at 15% nationally. By the following week, he was up to 18% and one poll even had him at a resounding 24%.

How to explain this? While many factors can affect a candidate’s polling numbers, one uncomfortable conclusion can’t be overlooked when it comes to reactions to Cruz’s comments: by and large, Americans don’t think or care much about the real-world consequences of the unleashing of American air power or that of our allies. The other day, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that, in September and October, a Saudi Arabian coalition backed by the United States “carried out at least six apparently unlawful airstrikes in residential areas of the (Yemeni) capital,” Sana’a. The attacks resulted in the deaths of 60 civilians. Just about no one in the United States took notice, nor was it given significant media coverage. More than likely, this is the first time you’ve heard about the HRW findings. ................(more)

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176088/tomgram%3A_rick_shenkman%2C_how_we_learned_to_stop_worrying_about_people_and_love_the_bombing/

[EdwardBernays]

1. Bomb bomb Iran

Even here on DU there is considerable:

- support of bombing other countries for various random reasons
- willful ignorance and self-delusion about the violence Americans have perpetrated and abroad for decades

They don't know and they don't wanna know, unless the media says the scary bad guy is coming and then they're all for indiscriminate bombing.

[elljay]

2. Polarization

This is a part of the polarization and personalization of politics. As long as the people being harmed are on the "other side," it is ok. No problem with Palestinians stabbing Israeli children for the Electronic Intifada crowd. No problem with bombing Yemeni for the anti-Iran crowd. Fine to kill Muslims in general for the Republicans. It goes on and on and is a problem on both ends of the spectrum. Since when is morality based on one's politics? Morality is morality.

[forest444]

3. Plus, Republicans don't believe it would ever happen to them.

Until, of course, their son or daughter comes back maimed or in a body bag from whatever war of choice some GOP lowlife thought God told him to wage.

[Blue_Tires]

4. If folks hardly cared about

Assad slaughtering 350,000 and Russia's hamfisted air campaign, why would they care about our collateral damage??

By the way --- Russia bombed a schoolhouse and killed 12 kids in Syria today... Make a thread with that story and see how fast it drops off the page...

http://news.yahoo.com/8-children-dead-russia-strike-hits-syria-school-102506556.html

[Fumesucker]

7. We aren't responsible for what Russia or Assad might do

We are however responsible for our own actions and those of our government.

[Blue_Tires]

8. We aren't "responsible" for a lot of things in the world

and that hasn't stopped DU or the political left in general from speaking out...

But now all of a sudden it does??

[swilton]

5. 'Techno-hype'

The public becomes mesmerized by the technology of war as propagandized by the military pundits - thus the shock and awe becomes entertainment and a distraction from feelings of empathy.

[Moral Compass]

6. It is not reported on

I used to travel overseas often and the difference in the covers of even standard magazines like Time and Newsweek in London or Caracas--not to mention all of the other publications.

At least back then (this was around 12-15 years ago) journalism was still being practiced outside of this country.

What almost no one realizes is that the what America does simply isn't reported here.

And when it is reported it is softened with terms like "collateral damage". You could make a list of the terms we've come up with for our routine violence. Since we can't see it, smell it, hear it--well those terms suck the impact from what America does.

The funny thing is that many of us still think we're the good guys--even while we're doing things that would have impressed the SS.

If we had journalists that had any interest in doing their jobs who worked for news providers that had any interest in reporting even a fraction of the actual truth we might begin to question what our leaders are doing in our name.

But for now, we are the country that dispenses summary justice from the sky and imprisons people without trial or charges in Guantanamo and black sites we don't even know about.

We're a long way from being the good guys now.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that we're producing creatures like Ted Cruz as presidential candidates when our current President is addicted to drone warfare.

[KoKo]

10. ...!

[Fast Walker 52]

9. there was also Ben Carson's appalling claim in the last GOP debate that he would be willing to kill

hundreds of thousands of children in a war against the enemy (presumably the Islamic state). It was one of the most fucking monstrous things I've even heard in my life, and he prefaced it with some gross story about talking to kids before dong brain surgery on them.

Overall, I'm just thoroughly disgusted by the lack of understanding by most Americans what war and bombing is all about.