My Various Thoughts on "The Kill Team"

The article in Rolling Stone:

The Kill TeamHow U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses – and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-kill-team-20110327

My various thoughts on this article and heartbreakingly evil tale:

When the aim of boot camp is to break the spirit of the human recruit, to instill an "obey at all costs automatically" reflex, to despise the "enemy" (including "Suzy Q",) -- in short to become an efficient killing machine, it is no surprise to find the human then loses a sense of morals, develops a ruthlessness & a cold-bloodedness, etc. That is what allows the human to kill other humans and to destroy whole environments without qualm.  Deep down almost all soldiers and combatants know the evil they did willingly or were forced to do when, perhaps, their reasons for joining in the first place were nobler or even out of desperation (economic terrorism comes to mind.) And, PTSD hits hard once the traumas of war hit that inner core of the human. Some will never ever recover. None come out without very deep gaping wounds in their minds, hearts, and spirits.

And yet, humans seem to want to kill each other over so many things-- greedy things, covetous things, jealous things, stupid things... "I am better than you because I can maim, torture, and kill you if you don't do what I say, hand over all I want from you, or just get in my way at the wrong time." Psychopaths may lead and start the wars, and are so cowardly not to fight in them themselves, but the ones who go into combat are most often volunteers, willing to kill, maim, torture, and be killed, maimed, tortured, etc. for ... what? A paycheck? Honor? Glory? Lies. All lies.

And my heart breaks for the soldiers, for their victims, for us all. We are all culpable in this. All of us. Hatred and evil are equal opportunity inhabitants of humans.

And so the soldiers come home with PTSD and the learned skills of destroying life. Many turn to abuse - of others or of self. Many go insane to find some escape from the terror of what the saw and what they did. No one at home recognizes the returning soldier really. How could someone not familiar with all out evil really know that deep abyss the soldier is trying to return from? But, that does not excuse that we all sent the soldier out to do exactly what was done. Nor does it excuse our refusing to take the soldier back and care for those many deep wounds. We sent them out to die period.

I am not anti-military. We need a defense, especially since humans are as we are. But, I am anti-militarism. I am pro-peace and pro-non-violence. We humans must learn a new way of being. We must learn to stop making war and violence. We must learn how to forgive and be compassionate, to show mercy while keeping justice. We must or perish together. We can do it. The question is will we?

29 March 2011, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw