NYT magazine cover story: ‘A Beast Within the Hear

[EmptyTimCup]

NYT magazine cover story: ‘A Beast Within the Heart of Every Fighting Man’ (Update: Blackfive fisks the story)

We’ll call this the mother of all narrative fails. The very week that the NYT magazine runs a negative, anti-military cover story with a brooding graphic on the cover, the beast within the heart of the US Navy SEALs takes down the world’s worst terrorist. No kidding.

Beneath that cover over at the mag’s web site, we get this for a teaser:

The case against American soldiers accused of murdering Afghan civilians turns on the idea of a rogue unit. But what if the killings are a symptom of a deeper problem?

Well. The case of the New York Times trashing the military the very week that it efficiently takes down Osama bin Laden turns on some yellow journalism and awful timing. But what if the Times‘ releasing of US war plans before the invasion of Iraq, its cheerleading for the Soviets and the Viet Cong and whoever else happens to be against America at the moment, is a symptom of a deeper problem?

(thanks to gus)

Update: Blackfive drops in on the NYT magazine in the dead of night and does what needs to be done to their story.

The NYT tries to revive the “crazy vet” meme

Instead of telling the story of the now infamous “kill squad” from the 5th Stryker Brigade out of Ft. Lewis WA, and the reasons for their actions and activities, Mogelson does what many hacks do and tries to conflate what happened in a single platoon out in the middle of nowhere in Afghanistan with a problem that infects the entire military.

Granted – no, stipulated – war is hell, it changes people, it is something which anyone who has ever experienced it up close and personal would never wish on another person. And yes, there are stresses that come from multiple deployments, leaving your family behind and watching men you think more of than anyone in the world die in action. But those stresses aren’t unique to these wars. Yes, multiple deployments are fairly unique. But then the alternative is the duration – which my parents did in WWII – 4 years of war, from beginning to end.

But that’s not the point of the article. Mogelson does a credible job of telling the “kill squad” story. It’s a horrible story in which a deviant but charismatic junior leader, in an isolated outpost, talks some impressionable squad members into doing the unthinkable all while the weak leadership in charge of the platoon failed in their roles.

Had he left it here, I could actually find myself saying nice things about it. It is a story that must be told.

But he didn’t leave it there. He started to veer in that old and predictable lane in which the military is indicted for making robot killers out of their charges and becoming so good at it that things like this happen.

In fact, just the treatment of the title outlines his attempt. And interestingly, later on in the article, he uses the full quote from Gen. George C Marshall from which the line comes:

“Once an army is involved in war, there is a beast in every fighting man which begins tugging at its chains. And a good officer must learn early on how to keep the beast under control, both in his men and himself.”​

Welcome to my world of those long gone days of the Viet Nam era when exactly this sort of nonsense was written about Viet Nam and it’s vets. And, if you read the comments to this story, you’ll find “mission accomplished” is appropriate:

These men and women return to abuse and often kill innocent people stateside. Their minds are permanently mangled.

The United States military is not protecting us but putting every US citizen in grave danger from the killing robots they have created..

END the military. We will all be safer.​

And

In sum, the military's purpose in training young men and women is to twist, destroy, and pervert basic human decency, empathy and consideration of other human beings-- everything that most likely his or her family has also strived to cultivate in him or her-- in order to serve the aims of empire.

Thus, the military is essentially an evil institution.​

The old meme is resurfacing and gaining some traction. As I said way back then, “never again”.

I suppose these people would roll over for what ever invader came over the hill, in through the front door ..... refusing to defend themselves ......

 

[BOP]

He does make a salient point with respect to how the military, over time, has refined its training methods in order to make soldiers (using it generically) more willing to shoot at, and kill, the enemy. He even quotes LtCol Grossman, author of "On Killing," which I have a copy of, and highly recommend.

Continuing on point, the nature of war has changed, has been changing, in the American military experience, since Vietnam. Even as the military has reworked its training so that more soldiers are more likely to close with, engage, and kill the enemy, the nature of the wars we have been, and are facing, is such that every gook isn't a bad guy, if I can put it that way.

In other words, we've gotten really good at training soldiers to kill, but haven't yet trained them on the rules of engagement that are more appropriate to domestic police agencies than to men and women engaged in combat operations.