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| quote: | Originally posted by aNYthing
I'm curious how this sort of behavior would have been treated during WW2. |
Considering we were fire-bombing entire civilian populations in Germany and Japan, I'm not sure such an event would have amounted to much. News of direct actions during World War II was also highly restricted. It wasn't until the My Lai Massacre that the United States had to contend with blow-back from such events. The parallels are somewhat striking, given that My Lai originated from an incompetent military command structure based around a civilian population who made it very clear that our soldiers were unwelcome intruders. The difference is that this latest event was carried out by one soldier.
Still, he is one soldier who was stationed at a base where a couple of atrocities have already originated from. The soldiers responsible for urinating on Afghans and collecting their body parts were under the same command as Robert Bales. This is also the same command which authorized the burning of Korans. While it might be premature to claim a relation with the standing correlation, the fact remains that, from a propaganda standpoint, winning the war seems to be an absurd proposition simply because of these events. Vietnam's Hearts and Minds campaign is as much a failure as the sum of positive outcomes that have been attempted in Afghanistan; particularly in the face of numerous military calamities involving civilians. What is worse is that WWII had a clear moral narrative where its combatant nations could be cast in terms of "Good" and "Evil"; "Victims" and "Aggressors."
If there is a strategic advantage to holding the moral high-ground, the shades of gray issuing from the War on Terror serve to undermine it. Looking back on Vietnam, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which precipitated the massive escalation of our involvement there, was simply and explicitly fabricated; there-by conceding the moral high-ground before American Soldiers had their first major battle in La Drang Valley. While 9-11 functions as the analogue to WWII's Pearl Harbor, our betrayal of Afghanistan occurred much earlier, precipitated by the Soviet Union's withdrawal there.
Charlie Wilson had sewn the seeds with CIA involvement. The Soviet Union, as nasty an aggressor as they were, had little tolerance for Stinger Missiles let alone finding its soldiers skinned alive and still breathing. It left a vacuum in which competing factions, ultimately winding up with the Taliban as victor, would vie to fill. When Benazir Bhutto's warning to Reagan about the monster we'd created went unheeded, we had planted the seed of Staff Sargent Bales' actions. The short answer to your question is that the two can't compare because, in terms of moral complexity, WWII is dwarfed.
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Now with extra singles!
my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012
Last edited by EddieZilker on Mar-18-2012 at 16:23
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