torture as a macho American virtue

[fpb]

If the Republicans wanted to win at the coming elections - and, perhaps even more important, not to confirm every commonplace of anti-American propaganda throughout the world - they should have sent Cheney (and perhaps Rumsfeld) on a diplomatic mission to Antarctica for the last couple of months. His outburst about pretend drowning being a

Comments

[fpb]

Let us not delude ourselves. Our enemies are monsters and will not treat any prisoners in any way but monstrously. In the days of the Empire, there was a commonplace that a British soldier left wounded and alone in Afghanistan should use his last bullet for himself - it would be better than what awaited him at the hands of the natives. The point is simply the same old, old, old one: what kind of victory do we achieve over our enemies, if, in fighting them, we become like them?

It is a practical point, too. Deskbound politicians in the capital and bloodthirsty newspaper warriors away from the front may think it more useful and efficient - and more pleasing to their anger and their frustration - to violate the rules of law in order to strike at the enemy; but it degrades the troops at the front. It teaches them to behave like bandits rather than like the soldiers of a state built on law and order; and the effects on discipline are inevitably disastrous. The German Army found that out in WWII: told by their political leaders to rob, murder and rape, their discipline collapsed. The number of court martials, executions and penal battalions was proportionately higher in the Wehrmacht than in the Red Army - an army built on terror. And there is no greater weapon than discipline. The Israeli Army repeatedly crushed stronger enemies, armed to the teeth by the world's greatest powers, quite simply because they had military discipline in their bones. Anything that endangers the fighting man's discipline at the front is a criminal threat to his morale and his very life. Period.

[bufo_viridis]

The number of court martials, executions and penal battalions was proportionately higher in the Wehrmacht than in the Red Army - an army built on terror.

I'd rather think it was because Red Army usually did not bother with tedious paperwork of court martials etc., nor it registered all the instances of officers shooting beligerent subordinates ;)

[fpb]

Maybe, but the proportion was huge - something like two to one per number of men enlisted, if I remember Richard Overy's data correctly. I think that the correspondence between the criminalization of warfare and the collapse of troop morale is something that can be found in many places - it is, for instance, the only thing that explains the triumph in 1994 of the smaller, disciplined Tutsi force in Rwanda against the larger Hutu army, backed by the government and by France, but made drunk and disorderly by repeated massacres of civilians.

[bufo_viridis]

I'd think that yes, criminalization of warfare doesn't work well for morale, so it makes harsher methods to keep up the discipline. However, there's no direct link between criminalization and ineffectiveness, of which Wehrmacht would be the best example. As much as "criminalised" the German army was it maintained v. high fighting ability basically to the very end. Possibly thanks to the strict disciplinary methods you mentioned. Similarly, if the Hutu's were disorderly by drinking alone, cue the massacres, they would be defeated anyway, I reckon.

V. high ratio indeed - what kind of penalties did the statistics include? Because such high ratio suggest large number of relatively minor charges (say, same guy serving monthly stints in penal battalion five times during the war). V. interesting.

[fpb]

http://www.geocities.com/vortigernstudies/fabio/app9.htm

This is a curious place for this kind of data, but you will find the numbers and the reference for the sources.

[bufo_viridis]

Thanks! I'll have a look.