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SandorMarton-FirstPaper 8 - 03 Mar 2008 - Main.EbenMoglen
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| | | However, do we actually want such a change to take place? Current American policy calls for using the military to secure U.S. interests by force of arms worldwide; a policy which many would argue undercuts the foundation of combat ethics (empathy). Further, if Abu Ghraib is any indicator, our government condones the emphasis on the killing ethos in the pursuit of its policy objectives. After all, a more ethics-focused military would challenge orders which, although helpful in supporting U.S. interests, violate rules of war. Creating a workable solution to reduce human rights violations by our military must therefore start with a change in civilian leadership and policy direction. | |
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- Was there something new here? If, as appears, you are well-informed about military affairs or at least about the current war, surely pretty much everything here is a platitude that has passed under your eye at least once recently. The poor fit between the "close" reading of military culture in the body of the paper and the shoddy rapidity of the conclusion (want to prevent war crimes? change foreign policy) is a further indication of writing on auto-pilot. I'm also puzzled by the peculiar emphasis given to the details of Marine training. As of October 2007, according to the Pentagon, there were roughly 25,000 Marines in Iraq, out of roughly 160,000 all arms deployed. Unless 16% of the soldiers were committing the bulk of the war crimes, we don't need a close survey of the boot camp curriculum at Camp Lejeune. On the other hand, you do miss one important area of inquiry, which is the effect of the military's accelerating success in raising the participation rate in killing over time. Putting, say, Dave Grossman's On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society together with statistics over time on your two questions might very well produce something new: guidance on whether the conditioning that leads troops to convert themselves by "removing the safety catch" also produces difficulty in securing compliance with the laws of war.
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