You folks just need to learn to deal with it...

[markomalley]

...yup, I said it.

The photos of prisoners, civilians, and so on, getting abused, raped and murdered are simply a cost of having a powerful army, navy, and air force. We have built a capability to destroy entire landmasses, much less any form of life that exists on those landmasses. Training people to commit mayhem is a part of it. Sure, the military trains their folks in professionalism. Sure, the law of armed conflict is briefed, re-briefed, trained, tested, practiced...but we still train people to maim, kill, and destroy -- "the mission comes first" is a commonly heard saying in military circles.

The army doesn't use target circles for training their people on marksmanship -- they use a head and shoulders pattern that looks like the silhouette of a person. They have pop-up targets that look the same on their courses. Why? Because you will see a head and shoulders more often than a simple circle when you are doing it for real. The same thing in other services. Maybe somebody in the navy can verify this, but if I remember correctly, we call our ships "she/her," but call enemy ships, "it." Why? to not think about the hundreds or thousands of lives that are on that ship -- its easier to sink an "it" than a "them" or a "her."

How many of you think you could go out and kill, maim, and destroy and keep your psyche straight -- especially after a year of doing it? Should it be small wonder why some of our folks out there are going a little nuts -- and taking a few liberties with some of the enemy (the same ones that may have killed a buddy not too long ago and may have been trying to kill YOU???) I think they are doing pretty darned good out there under the circumstances...no support from home...knowing that there are cries of "baby killer" just waiting for them when they get off the plane at BWI airport...

Do you know that they deploy shrinks out there with the troops to help them cope -- a little bit of "immediate action" psychotherapy so they can keep killing??? (http://pao.hood.army.mil/4id/Iraqi/desert_news/Ironhorse%20Update-15.pdf -- look at page 5)

What is wrong with this picture? Do we not see what we are doing to our fellow citizens? How many thousands of people have been permanently scarred by war -- not just this one but any of them? When will we ever learn??? This kind of thing (rape, pillage, abuse, torture) is going to happen when we send people to kill and to die...

Thus, the subject line of my post. This is going to happen. I am not excusing it (in fact, my position is that the war criminals need to be turned over to the host nation for adjudication)...but this is going to happen. A good percentage of the country (including a lot of people right here on DU) have indicated that they want to maintain a strong military so that we can "help" when needed. So it will happen again...there may not be somebody stupid enough to document their own crimes with their own pictures...but it will happen again...proof or no proof.

This is why my personal position is that of almost a pure pacifist. We need to do away with the army and the navy and the air force. We need to trim the people and the weaponry to that which is legitimately needed to defend our borders and the seas immediately adjacent to our borders. Since we don't need to worry too much about an invasion from Canada, Mexico, or the Dominican Republic, I really don't think that those needs are very high. We need to remove the temptation that having such a force brings. Look...every president...not just the shrub, but every one of them has fallen prey to that temptation...maybe not for "combat" but for something. There has not been a single presidential administration where there wasn't some kind of deployment of troops into a hostile territory. I can think of very few of them that were actually necessary to "defend the country." Why do we need an Imperialist army???

Just remember, if you think we need one...then you'd better just learn to deal with it...

</rant>