The news of the video and story distributed by Wikileaks continues to percolate into the national conversation, including the Christian Science Monitor. Their coverage is concerned with contrasting the story the US Military told Reuters in 2007, with the account told by the video tape. [spoiler alert: there are differences - significant ones]
Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com has been following the story since 06:00 this morning and has posted several updates. He is pretty rough on the slant of publishers such as Mediaite.com (where my original post emanated from) who shoot the messenger for slandering the troops and/or making much of an aberration.
Greenwald also takes the time to flesh out the point that the callous and/or sadistic satisfaction shown by the soldiers shouldn't surprise anyone - they are a product of their training. When we accept that the training process has changed them in this way, it's easier to understand them under these circumstances. It may also help understand the source of the changes we as family members may see in them, when they return home. As Greenwald puts it,
If you take even well-intentioned, young soldiers and stick them in the middle of a dangerous war zone for years and train them to think and act this way, this will inevitably be the result. The video is an indictment of the U.S. government and the war policies it pursues.
He closes his original post with the statement:
The value of the Wikileaks/Iraq video and the Afghanistan revelation is not that they exposed unusually horrific events. The value is in realizing that these events are anything but unusual.
If facets of military training impair a soldier's longterm moral compass when he or she is exposed to trauma, that soldier is being served poorly by a country they are sworn to defend. I think we - that's us - you; me; the bank teller; the grocer; the school teacher... need to advance the need for a thoughtful conversation about this, until improvements are made. It is the least we can do in support of our children, our brothers, sisters, wives and husbands who serve in the military.
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