(New Yorker) Seymour Hersh on the Horrible “Kill Team” Photographs

Posted by Kendall Harmon

Why photograph atrocities? And why pass them around to buddies back home or fellow soldiers in other units? How could the soldiers’ sense of what is unacceptable be so lost? No outsider can have a complete answer to such a question. As someone who has been writing about war crimes since My Lai, though, I have come to have a personal belief: these soldiers had come to accept the killing of civilians—recklessly, as payback, or just at random—as a facet of modern unconventional warfare. In other words, killing itself, whether in a firefight with the Taliban or in sport with innocent bystanders in a strange land with a strange language and strange customs, has become ordinary. In long, unsuccessful wars, in which the enemy—the people trying to kill you—do not wear uniforms and are seldom seen, soldiers can lose their bearings, moral and otherwise. The consequences of that lost bearing can be hideous. This is part of the toll wars take on the young people we send to fight them for us. The G.I.s in Afghanistan were responsible for their actions, of course. But it must be said that, in some cases, surely, as in Vietnam, the soldiers can also be victims.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Psychology • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • * Theology • Anthropology • Theodicy

5 Comments
Posted March 24, 2011 at 5:45 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Randy Hoover-Dempsey wrote:

This is part of the toll wars take on the young people we send to fight them for us. The G.I.s in Afghanistan were responsible for their actions, of course. But it must be said that, in some cases, surely, as in Vietnam, the soldiers can also be victims.

We all bear responsibility for the effects of war on the powerless and on our children who we send to fight. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy and save us from the demonic spirits of violence and hatred.

March 24, 10:00 am | [comment link]
2. Caedmon wrote:

Sorry, Randy, I don’t buy it.  Those soldiers aren’t “children”.  Nor are they “victims.”  They are grownup criminals, and deserve to be treated as such.

Nor do we “all bear responsibility for the effects of war”.  Only the warmongers and imperialists do.

I am no pacifist.  Sometimes a people must take up arms in defense of liberty.  But much of the modern military here in the United States and abroad is in the grip of the “military-industrial complex” that President Eisenhower warned us about in his Farewell Address.  And our military long ago jettisoned the code of chivalry for the horrors of total war.  Add to that the general downward spiral in morals and ethics in Western culture, and it’s no wonder the Army produces such monstrosities as William Calley,  Lynndie England, and Jeremy Morlock.  Or the fellows in this video (warning, graphic war footage and profanity):http://novaemilitiae.squarespace.com/storage/CloseAirSupport.wmv

March 24, 12:17 pm | [comment link]
3. Caedmon wrote:

Here’s that link again:
http://novaemilitiae.squarespace.com/storage/CloseAirSupport.wmv

March 24, 12:18 pm | [comment link]
4. SCNCAnglican wrote:

Hersh put all the blame for atrocities like this during Bush’s tenure at Bush’s feet. I see now he avoids associating the current President with this event or with the ongoing military conflicts.

March 25, 8:21 am | [comment link]
5. Joshua 24:15 wrote:

#4, what else would you expect?  Bush will continue to be the scapegoat for all real or perceived woes that the current Administration is dealing with, domestic or foreign, for as long as possible.  And if Mr. Obama’s Libyan adventure turns out to be less than hoped for, he and his advisers will doubtless find some way to lay it at the last administration’s feet.

March 25, 1:23 pm | [comment link]
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