Trained to Kill

An Afghan bystander asked plaintively, after US troops shot up a bus in Kandahar, "Why didn't they shoot out the tires? Why did they shoot the people?"

It's a good question.

When I was in Basic Training back in 1961 (Yes, the Dark Ages), our cry as we lunged at stuffed dummies with our bayonets was: "Kill, Kilo, Kill!" It was Kilo Company, you see.

Since 1961, since the Vietnam war, and then the wars since (quite a few), American soldiers (and marines) have been trained to be more and more lethal killers, it seems. With their weaponry, American troops are probably the most deadly military on Earth.

But in wars of counterinsurgency, killing is counterproductive most of the time. As both military and civilian leaders keep on saying, the American mission in Afghanistan is to win over the people to the established Afghan governing institutions. Killing ten civilians here and 5 there, is not going to win their hearts; shooting pregnant women and then gouging the bullets out of their bodies to hide their crime isn't cool, either: it's going to drive them into the hands of the Taliban.

With the Joker we foisted on them (Karzai), what other choice do they have? We prevented them from naming a stable head of state (their former King), which was the Afghans' first choice in the loya jirga, the one in which they finally were persuaded/pressured (by our Ambassador) to pick Karzai, instead.

Yet, it seems clear, from sources like the Wikileaks video of a helicopter gunner, and this report of the bus killing (four or five dead and 30 wounded?) that American soldiers may be there to win hearts and minds, or to "clear, hold and build," but what they seem to be trained to do best is to kill lots of people--very quickly.

Don't get me wrong: American servicemen and women aren't evil. Most of them probably think and hope they're doing good. And many try hard. But the military-industrial-security complex is evil; it drives people to do evil, whether they know it or not.

When I was stationed in Turkey (1962-3), I worked and bunked with fellow Traffic Analysts, and drank with them, too, occasionally. I liked them, and they all meant well. But the common opinion they held of the local Turks was appalling: dirty "abies," who will always cheat you, or kill you if you so much as look at their women.

I doubt that American soldiers in Afghanistan are as well disposed towards the locals as my friends were. After all, none of the Turks were trying to kill us.

We don't belong there; we end up killing civilians--and being killed. Afghanistan could bury the American Empire as it buried the Soviets in the 1980's; it could weaken us as decisively as Goths debilitated Romans when they beat Emperor Galen at Adrianople in 378, beginning Rome's slide into oblivion.