I find this outrage prissy. I don't know anything about war, but even I know that it's utterly naive to expect that soldiers wouldn't get off on killing people. It is completely to be expected. The fantasy that war would somehow be more acceptable or even possible without it is not serious; it's a head-in-the-sand refusal to consider the ugliness of the thing. Next up: they aren't faithful to their wives while on tour, either.
Edit: this comment comes across a little more harshly than I intended. The reason isn't you; it's that I just finished watching the Wikileaks founder in an interview, and his self-righteousness in making the same point really turned me off. The guy could barely contain his glee. I think this kind of outrage is all about stroking one's own moral delicacies. Expecting anything at all about killing people to be decent is foolish.
Mainly I'm angry at him for ruining my faith in Wikileaks and turning my world into one in which now no one plays that vital role. Guess I was the naive one. I had thought they were something like the Red Cross of information. Now they seem like ideologues who want to get on TV.
One more edit: now that I think of it, I should have figured this out from the way they were hyping the video before they released it.
Ok one more: there's clearly controversy about whether the soldiers followed the rules or not. That question is serious. But I highly doubt any rules of engagement have anything to say about how much fun killing is not supposed to be. This is part of the don't-ask-don't-tell contract (the real one) that society has with the military: here are the conditions under which you can be a serial killer; we will call you a hero for it; just don't tell us about it.
> I don't know anything about war, but even I know that it's utterly naive to expect that soldiers wouldn't get off on killing people. It is completely to be expected.
How far are you willing to take this argument? Statistically speaking, it's to be expected that invading armies will rape a substantial portion of the female population. Would it therefore be "prissy" to be outraged if this happens?
>This is part of the don't-ask-don't-tell contract (the real one) that society has with the military: here are the conditions under which you can be a serial killer; we will call you a hero for it; just don't tell us about it.
I think it's still ok to be disturbed by that. It may be true that this incident is just one example of the generally terrible nature of war. But that doesn't make it any less terrible, or make people's reactions to it illegitimate.
I hope that this sort of reaction becomes more and more common, so that we eventually figure out that war is, you know, a bad thing.
The difference is that we ask soldiers to kill people, we don't ask them to rape them. To ask, pay, and celebrate them for doing the former and then fastidiously insist that they only do it in a way that conforms to our hero fantasies is incongruent.
That being said, it is naive to unleash violence and not expect it to spill over. So I guess in the case of war rape I would say that while it's not prissy to be outraged by it, it is to be surprised.
As a side note, I've never been comfortable with these kinds of arguments that go too far beyond the immediate context. A context grounds a problem; it gives you a real situation to refer back to and prevent going off the rails. The more purely abstract these things become, the more arbitrary they get. I don't trust disembodied reason. But that is a complete tangent; sorry!
>To ask, pay, and celebrate them for doing the former and then fastidiously insist that they only do it in a way that conforms to our hero fantasies is incongruent.
Well, it would be incongruent to do that, yes, but I don't ask them or pay them or celebrate them.
I expect the soldiers in the video are just doing what a lot of people would do in the same situation. That might make their behavior in some sense "normal", but it doesn't make it OK, or beyond reasonable criticism.
Most of what you're saying could equally well be applied to (e.g.) criticism of suicide bombers. It may well be the case that suicide bombers are not, as a rule, unusually evil people. If you have the relevant life experiences, you might even have a sense that you'd do the same thing if you were in their position -- in the same way that it's easy for an American to feel some sympathy for the soldiers in this video. Nonetheless, the actions of suicide bombers are unambiguously wrong, and are rightly subject to criticism.
(Of course, I'm not attempting to equate the soldiers' actions with suicide bombing, it's just an analogy.)
I expect the soldiers in the video are just doing what a lot of people would do in the same situation.
They are reacting as they have been trained to react; war is hell, the army build in defense mechanisms like this to ensure soldiers can fight (emotional detachment, jock attitude), they also ingrain absolute discipline to try and avoid scenario's exactly like this.
EDIT: supporting evidence - read some military training manuals. They basically detail the attitude training attempts to instill in a soldier. shrug this is common to pretty much every standing army in the history of ever :) (emotional detachment especially)
Most of what you're saying could equally well be applied to (e.g.) criticism of suicide bombers
This is an example of what I meant by going off the rails. You're extrapolating way beyond anything I said, implied, or thought. Premature generalization is the root of all... something.
>You're extrapolating way beyond anything I said, implied, or thought
In other words, I'm asking for you to be consistent in applying your principles across different situations. If you don't extrapolate, you'll never know whether or not you have double standards. And it's really easy to have double standards when considering the acts of your fellow countrymen vs. those of people who you don't like.
Edit: this comment comes across a little more harshly than I intended. The reason isn't you; it's that I just finished watching the Wikileaks founder in an interview, and his self-righteousness in making the same point really turned me off. The guy could barely contain his glee. I think this kind of outrage is all about stroking one's own moral delicacies. Expecting anything at all about killing people to be decent is foolish.
Mainly I'm angry at him for ruining my faith in Wikileaks and turning my world into one in which now no one plays that vital role. Guess I was the naive one. I had thought they were something like the Red Cross of information. Now they seem like ideologues who want to get on TV.
One more edit: now that I think of it, I should have figured this out from the way they were hyping the video before they released it.
Ok one more: there's clearly controversy about whether the soldiers followed the rules or not. That question is serious. But I highly doubt any rules of engagement have anything to say about how much fun killing is not supposed to be. This is part of the don't-ask-don't-tell contract (the real one) that society has with the military: here are the conditions under which you can be a serial killer; we will call you a hero for it; just don't tell us about it.