Speaking from my own experience, people working on bases that are distant from the action still make use of some nasty language, e.g. everyone in the Middle East was referred to as “Haji” or “the Hajis”. Waiting for a local service person (delivering jet fuel, serving food, driving past the installation) became, “I’m waiting for Haji to bring the truck around…” or whatever. Feels like step 1b(?) or 2(?) to the dehumanization–and I make that a second step b/c I’m not really sure where the first step begins.
Military types (with generalizations being equal to opinions in that they all suck) prefer have a deep need for situational clarity–nuance is not appreciated, in the least, ever, for obvious reasons.
This cropped up in another thread, and whilst these guys were probably drafted and certainly not under Clarkes doctrine as I mentioned above, it seemed like an appropriate comment.
As I understand it, it was explicitly labeled an Israeli Soldier outfit. So, why that, instead of just a generic soldier outfit? And was there a Palestinian counterpart offered right along with it? (As I understand it – no.) Not only is the idea of a specifically Israeli soldier legitimized, and thus, yes, promoted, only one side of the conflict is represented – the other is simply erased. And this erasure promotes another implication, which is that the only legitmate fighters in that conflict are on one side of it.
Given that medical staff(who are pretty high on the warm-and-fuzzy-moral-brownie-points scale) are notorious for a strain of dark humor and some deeply unflattering jargon for various sorts of patients; I can only imagine that people in situations at least as stressful and less morally fuzzy indulge in the same sorts of things.
Hardly difficult to imagine a marksman unit generally shit-talking and eventually coming around to the question of how you could do better than ‘one shot, one kill’; somebody proposing pregnant women, and everyone thinking that was hilarious.
I’d actually be slightly more surprised if the shirt was inspired by a specific actual shooting: not because such shootings never happen; but because anyone even slightly concerned with PR and/or getting away with criminal activity would be rather foolish to boast about it, rather than just keep quiet and wait for the whitewashed inquiry to blow over.
I imagine that they had a grand old time with that joke until somebody higher up decided to give them a stern talking to about how not losing the PR war was hard enough without their contribution.
The ‘hardly difficult to imagine’ is exactly the central point of my post. What are even you telling me here? The abject horror of war can sometimes lead to whoopsie PR hiccups? Just a joke to whittle away the time, pay no mind?
I’m not entirely sure I understand what you don’t understand: my thesis is that definitely, it is neither particularly uncommon nor especially surprising that very dark humor would be found among soldiers; and that marksmen(where the ‘one shot; one kill’ cliche is especially likely; would very plausibly develop a joke out of the question of whether a better than 1 to 1 ratio was possible, and how.
I don’t claim that it’s an optimistic conclusion; but it seems reasonable enough, given the known morbidity of humor in stressful situations and how jokes tend to evolve.
As for the speculation that the shirt isn’t based on a specific incident; it seemed a reasonable guess given that people doing things that they know would be criminal if they came to light usually stay quiet about them(and also, even after the story became reasonably widely known, no sources that I’ve been able to find have proposed a plausible candidate from among Palestinian civilian casualties).
In our context, it’s why I’m not surprised that “Napalm Sticks to Kids” was an actual song; but I would be very surprised if anyone would be dumb enough to wear an “I got laid in My Lai” T-shirt, especially if that were true.
I dunno man, your comment reeks of just world. Like, maybe there was an incident and it’s not the case that the whole fucked up and dehumanising slaughter of innocent women and children goes on wholesale all the time throughout war. Not that the jokes aren’t made. And not that people on either side are trying to minimise the total horror that they are engaged in. There’s some weird kind of minimising going on in your comment that creeps me out and makes me sad.
I’m perfectly willing to address these topics, but the angle you’re coming at it from is really disheartening.
And again, your conclusion is my primary assumption and the question I’m asking is if this is the case, and it really does appear to be, what the hell are we supposed to do with such a fucked up mindset?
Just pointing out it happens in response is… I really don;t know. I guess you’re not justifying it. I’m talking about horror and you come back with PR slip up. I’m talking about the rotten fruit of war poisoning the whole enterprise of civil society and the damage that implicitly does to the people who are engaged with it and the effect they have on society and it’s all this giant fucked up unconscionable mess and… What?
Oh that’s probably why they make jokes about it. Yes. It fucking is.
Sorry. I just. I dunno.
ETA: I like your comments on the board and I don’t want you to think I’m attacking you … We’re just having a misaligned disconnect here. Apologies for swearing.
I disagree. Doesn’t that imply that we look to Walmart for legitimacy in national affairs? I’d bet they offer uniforms of various American military forces, so by your logic, they should offer the uniforms of Viet Cong (really the NLF), or North Korean uniforms, etc. I don’t know that we look to Walmart to be the arbiter of nation-state legitimacy.
Right, we don’t consciously look to it for that. And yet, it ended up doing that, just the same.
Interesting parallel. I don’t think you quite mean to imply the following, but it’s actually what you’re doing –
Since American soldier uniforms (“our side”) don’t need to be accompanied by their counterparts, the opposite of Israeli soldier uniforms (“our side”) don’t need to be there either.
See how the absence of one on Wal-Mart’s shelves implies that it’s the “wrong” side, not “our side”? Even you fell for it.
ETA, I think I can make that problem even clearer:
Since American soldier uniforms (“our side”) don’t need to be accompanied by their counterparts, Israeli soldier uniforms (“our side”) don’t need to be accompanied by their counterparts either.
Got me on that–I picked poor examples: You imply that Walmart has to offer the opposing side of any military uniform costume they sell so as not to be seen to promote one side over the other.
And yeah, I see my “promote” there…but I think promotion, in this case, applies to their promotion of a particular object, just as they’d promote every other object they sell and not as a promotion of the ways, means, ideas, objectives that any particular group might be attach to that object.
Hmm…which makes me consider the selling of a particular flag. Thinking about this…
EDIT: Further, if we banned Walmart from selling X, what other objects could be said to hold enough social significance to require that we ban it so as not to promote an idea (following that logic). Does Walmart sell Mein Kamph or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
FURTHER EDIT: And I’ve just come from the American Visionary Art Museum (which is as kick-ass as it sounds, thankyouverymuch), which had an artwork saying, essentially, that even toy soldiers must be removed from our schools so as not to promote violence/warfare (can’t recall the artist…maybe Margaret Munz-Losch? Chris Roberts-Antieau?).
“Terminatrix”? Really? I haven’t seen the latest movie, somebody PLEASE tell me this is a term they actually use in the movie. I will watch it tonight.
