Mixed messages

OK, so we tell our soldiers that some guys are bad enough to deserve killing, but pissing on their bodies is right out. I guess they gave them a nice, respectful bullet to the head. Wouldn't want to disrespect the fact that you just killed their asses by pissing on them.

Seriously, soldiers have to hate their enemy. How else can you ask good men to shoot people in cold blood? That's what our enemies do with us -- those guys who have murdered our soldiers and dragged them through the streets don't respect us. That's normal human nature once you've designated someone as your enemy. Do the politically correct desk jockeys who make the rules really expect that every time a U.S. soldier pulls the trigger it's with a pang of regret and a tear shed for the wasted life? That's not even emotionally healthy for the soldiers.

In World War II it was completely accepted for the soldiers to hate and dehumanize the "krauts" and the "japs." That's the only way a normal person can maintain his own humanity in the face of what he's doing -- thinking "those guys were evil bastards and deserved to die." If you expect our soldiers to go into battle with love and respect for their enemies in their hearts, you're asking to traumatize them.

If you think a war can be fought with guns and shrapnel one second, and diplomatic expressions of respect the next, by the same man, you don't understand human nature.

You can already see the dehumanizing propaganda from the other side right in the story (great how CNN is a water carrier for the other side's propaganda):

And no religion that follows a holy text would accept such conduct. This inhuman act reveals their real face to the world," Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said via text message Thursday.

See? "This inhuman act reveals their real face to the world." Don't think the Taliban aren't going to use that as one more thing to remind their soldiers that our guys are inhuman bastards who deserve killing. They never treat our dead with respect, and it's fantasy to think they would if only we treated their dead better. Their entire strategy is to dehumanize us in the eyes of Afghanis. If we didn't provide the incidents, they'd make it up.

We should be dehumanizing them in our propaganda. They certainly give us enough fodder.