Remembering The Context Of War Crimes ~ The Crime Of War Itself

One would think that,

by now,

America

https://www.trendsnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/car-free-pedestrian-times-square-panorama-3.jpg

would have made the connection between war and atrocity.


Or,

are we too obsessed with our consumer-driven lifestyles,

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or too apathetic to even pay attention?

Or perhaps we believe the military is a refuge for miscreants and deviants

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capable of unspeakable acts of cruelty and barbarism.

More likely,

I think,

confronting the incivility of war,

the murders of civilians in Haditha

https://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02118/roadside_2118866b.jpg

and in Baghdad

– the latter documented in the now infamous WikiLeaks “Collateral Murder” video –

[youtube]5rXPrfnU3G0[/youtube]

provides a welcome

( though, perhaps, unpleasant and regrettable )

opportunity to reassert our commitment to the rule of law

and to the dictates of our individual and/or collective consciences.

As evidenced by the appalling events in Haditha

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and Baghdad,

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and so many others

– including the recent atrocity committed when several Marines urinated on the lifeless bodies of Taliban fighters

https://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/soldierspeeing-screen.jpg

– warriors are dehumanized and desensitized to death and destruction.

Judgments of right and wrong – morality – quickly become irrelevant,

and cruelty and brutality become a primal response to an overwhelming threat of annihilation.

https://english.al-akhbar.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/5cols/leading_images/USMarinesIraq_06012012.jpg

Consequently,

atrocities in such an environment are not isolated,

aberrant occurrences prosecuted by a few deviant individuals.

Rather,

they are commonplace,

intrinsic to the nature and the reality of war …

Having been indoctrinated into the mythology of the “good war”

and the “noble warrior,”

https://hereandnow.wbur.org/files/2011/12/1215_iraq-war2-624x416.jpg

the uninitiated and unaffected,

which includes most civilians and many non-warrior members of the military,

fail to realize this truth:

that all war is barbarism,

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in which cruelty and brutality

– atrocity –

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is the norm,

rather than the exception …

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.

Read the rest here

 

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