Ethos of the Destroyers The American Military's Cult of Cruelty

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk09162006.html


Ethos of the Destroyers
The American Military's Cult of Cruelty
By ROBERT FISK

In the week that George Bush took to fantasising that his blood-soaked "war on terror" would lead the 21st century into a "shining age of human liberty" I went through my mail bag to find a frightening letter addressed to me by an American veteran whose son is serving as a lieutenant colonel and medical doctor with US forces in Baghdad. Put simply, my American friend believes the change of military creed under the Bush administration--from that of "soldier" to that of "warrior"--is encouraging American troops to commit atrocities.

From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo to Bagram, to the battlefields of Iraq and to the "black" prisons of the CIA, humiliation and beatings, rape, anal rape and murder have now become so commonplace that each new outrage is creeping into the inside pages of our newspapers. My reporting notebooks are full of Afghan and Iraqi complaints of torture and beatings from August 2002, and then from 2003 to the present point. How, I keep asking myself, did this happen? Obviously, the trail leads to the top. But where did this cult of cruelty begin?

So first, here's the official US Army "Soldier's Creed", originally drawn up to prevent anymore Vietnam atrocities:

"I am an American soldier.

I am a member of the United States Army--a protector of the greatest nation on earth. Because I am proud of the uniform I wear, I will always act in ways creditable to the military service and the nation that it is sworn to guard ...

No matter what situation I am in, I will never do anything for pleasure, profit or personal safety, which will disgrace my uniform, my unit or my country.

I will use every means I have, even beyond the line of duty, to restrain my Army comrades from actions, disgraceful to themselves and the uniform.

I am proud of my country and it's flag.

I will try to make the people of this nation proud of the service I represent for I am an American soldier."

Now here's the new version of what is called the "Warrior Ethos":

I am an American soldier.

I am a warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the Unites States and live the Army values.

I will always place the mission first.

I will never accept defeat.

I will never quit.

I will never leave a fallen comrade.

I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills. I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.

I am an expert and I am a professional. I stand ready to deploy, engage and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat. I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.

I am an American soldier.

Like most Europeans--and an awful lot of Americans--I was quite unaware of this ferocious "code" for US armed forces, although it's not hard to see how it fits in with Bush's rantings. I'm tempted to point this out in detail, but my American veteran did so with such eloquence in his letter to me that the response should come in his words: "The Warrior Creed," he wrote, "allows no end to any conflict accept total destruction of the 'enemy'. It allows no defeat ... and does not allow one ever to stop fighting (lending itself to the idea of the 'long war'). It says nothing about following orders, it says nothing about obeying laws or showing restraint. It says nothing about dishonourable actions ...".

Each day now, I come across new examples of American military cruelty in Iraq and Afgha-nistan. Here, for example, is Army Specialist Tony Lagouranis, part of an American mobile interrogation team working with US marines, interviewed by Amy Goodman on the American Democracy Now! programme describing a 2004 operation in Babel, outside Baghdad: "Every time Force Recon went on a raid, they would bring back prisoners who were bruised, with broken bones, sometimes with burns. They were pretty brutal to these guys. And I would ask the prisoners what happened, how they received these wounds. And they would tell me that it was after their capture, while they were subdued, while they were handcuffed and they were being questioned by the Force Recon Marines ... One guy was forced to sit on an exhaust pipe of a Humvee ... he had a giant blister, third-degree burns on the back of his leg."




indeed, they wanted not to know.
http://www.kimel.net/germans.html

In my opinion, none of these statements is false, but one other must be added to complete the picture: in spite of the varied possibilities for information, most Germans did not know because they didn't want to know. Because, indeed, they wanted not to know. It is certainly true that State terrorism is a very strong weapon, very difficult to resist. But it is also true that the German people, as a whole, did not even try to resist. In Hitler's Germany a particular code was widespread: those who knew did not talk; those who did not know did not asked questions; those who did not asked questions received no answers. In this way the typical German citizen won and defended his ignorance, which seemed to him sufficient justification of his adherence to Nazism. Shutting his mouth, his eyes and hears, an accomplice too the things taking place in front of his very door.



Song Of Choice
Early every year, seeds are growing
Unseen, unheard, they lie beneath the ground
Would you know before the leaves are showing
That with weeds all your garden will abound?

If you close your eyes, stop your ears
Hold your mouth, how can you know?
The seeds you cannot see may not be there
The seeds you cannot hear may never grow

In January you've still got the choice
You can cut the weeds before they start to bud
If you leave them to grow higher, they'll silence your voice
And in December you may pay with your blood

Close your eyes, stop your ears
Close your mouth and take it slow
Let others take the lead and you bring up the rear
And later you can say you didn't know

Everyday another vulture takes flight
There's another danger born every morning
In the darkness of your blindness the beast will learn to bite
How can you fight if you can't recognize a warning?

Close your eyes, stop your ears
Close your mouth and then you know
Let others take the lead and you bring up the rear
And later you can say you didn't know

Today you may earn a living wage
Tomorrow you may be on the dole
Though there's millions going hungry, you needn't disengage
For it's them, not you, that's fallen in the hole

It's alright for you if you run with the pack
It's alright if you agree with all they do
If the fascist's party slowly climbing back
It's not here yet, so what's it got to do with you?

The weeds are all around us and they're growing
It will soon be too late for the knife
If you leave them on the wind that around the world is blowing
You may pay for your silence with your life

Close your eyes, stop your ears
Close your mouth, they're never there
And if it happens here, they'll never come for you
Because they'll know you really didn't care

Peggy Segger

[bananas]

1. k&r nt

[Annces]

2. Kick

[Octafish]

3. Fisk is a giant among journalists.

So is seemslikeadream.

Both understand the difference between the soldier and the commander-in-thief.

Thanks for the heads-up, Dreamy.

And now, an image of seemslikeadream at work:



Taming of Evil
2000, by Renata Pabulinkas
oil on canvas, 58 x 62-inches

[malaise]

4. Fisk is one of the best.

The truth and nothing but the truth.

[OneBlueSky]

5. my dad was a career Army officer, and I feel incredible sadness . . .

and furious outrage at the reported behavior of some of our troops toward "the enemy" and toward innocent civilians . . .

this is NOT what our country is all about . . . this is NOT what our military is all about . . .

at least it wasn't until BushCo stole our government from us . . .