War's Lingering Phantoms

[unhappycamper]

http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17818-war-s-lingering-phantoms

War's Lingering Phantoms
ROBERT C. KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
Thursday, 21 February 2013 14:16

~snip~

As two hellish, costly and needless wars struggle toward collapse, this is the time — now, right this minute, before the next false alarm goes off — for us to look honestly at the cost and quality of national security based on militarism. It’s time to squeeze the romance out of war and get it through our heads that war is not inevitable.

War is just another form of mass murder. Its core principle is dehumanization — of all participants, the enemy and the good guys. This is because you can’t hate, dehumanize and train to kill “the other” without dehumanizing yourself and damaging your soul.

~snip~

The dehumanization happens at an individual level, to soldiers who, in basic training, go through an intense process of overriding their humanity and establishing “muscle memory” that allows them to kill on command; and who then participate in the killing of the enemy — often enough, in our current wars, the killing of civilians, including children — in battle situations.

And the dehumanization also happens, less perceptibly, perhaps, at a collective level, to whole societies that pump themselves into a war mentality and think they’re protecting themselves and their values, only to see the suffering they inflict come home and the values go permanently on hold.