Attitudes to warfare

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Tue, 2006-06-06 18:25

2Lou

Attitudes to warfare

There's an article about how the US military's attitude to warfare and training could have led to the Haditha massacre.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5049214.stm

What caught my eye was a quote from Lt Gen Peter Chiarelli, who said,
"We have to understand that the way we treat Iraqis has a direct effect on the number of insurgents that we are fighting. For every one that I kill, I create almost 10 more."

'Well, duh - that should have been blindingly obvious from the start,' was my initial response.

However, as the article points out, just because the British army seems to take these things into consideration now, doesn't mean we always have. We've had our fair share of massacres in the distant past. Moreover, in the recent past, we had Bloody Sunday and paid for it for years because of the huge surge in support that one incident created for the IRA.

Is it possible that the alleged differences in gung-ho-ness between the two armies is purely a matter of learning from past experiences? Or is it some fundamental difference in national psyche? If it's one and not the other, they'll have a better chance of turning things around.

Tue, 2006-06-06 21:58

yan

Noone has enemies until governments invent them. Once invented, then provoked, then realised, then heroically defeated, history books are written, we all go hooharr....we showed 'em and it's alllll in the miiiinnnd!! And the bank! :)

There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed -
Dennett

Tue, 2006-06-06 23:21

styx

As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. Oscar Wilde. Why that piece of genius from O.W. was lying by my computer when I read this thread I can only put down to coincidence. I used to live next to an American airbase Brize Norton. The village that adjoined it, Carterton, was small and typically quiet. So we knew the Americans as very brash and had a can-do attitude. And I loved them for it. But when I grew up and began working on the base for a British contractor, their in-yer-face hegemony did begin to grate. They used to have an alert called 7high which was a practise emergency. And it's not stretching it to say it was like something out of Monty Python. "Quick, run around, make a lot of noise, flash your car lights, toot your horn!" And we Brits used to laugh at the pointlessness of it all. Once when the gang that I worked with, had been working on the airfield at the fire station and known to all the GIs. A 7high went off and horror of horrors we didn't have our special passes with us. (we hadn't needed them for the two weeks we'd been working there) We were all arrested, put into a truck by MPs with guns - who all knew us - driven to a building, made to stand against said building and frisked by these guys who knew we were contractors. Christ we'd been playing pool with these guys. It's the WE MUST DO SOMETHING AND WE MUST BE SEEN TO BE DOING SOMETHING - NOW!. AND LOUDLY! America is a new country, peopled by people who risked life and limb to get there for a better life, and they have that gung-ho attitude. But sometimes it's not appropriate. Sometimes it's better to sit back and think, okay what should we do now? In 500 years if we haven't destroyed the planet, and they're are not the major player in the world, I think there will be a very different America. There will be a much more sombre and reflective country.

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