On Killing

A recent comment about the morality of killing made me realize that I have failed in a goal of mine in the weblog. Namely, that I would bring subtle issues of the military to the “masses.” The comment actually primarily addressed the issue of the level of responsibility that military leaders and soldiers bear in the decision to take a life, at least in my mind. I will treat that in a later post, but I will accept opinions on that in this post as well. However, it is apparent to me that many people do not realize the mechanics of killing someone.

Towards the end of my training, I was talking with another soldier, and the subject came up of things we wish we never knew. I said I wish I never knew how to kill someone. He said everyone knows that, but I replied that while everyone knows the process not everyone knows how. Somewhat like everyone knows the process of kicking a field goal, but not everyone knows how to do it.

A built in mechanism prevents people from taking another persons life. One of three things can overcome that mechanism: extreme emotion, psychological dysfunction, and conditioning. Psychological dysfunction results in socio- or psychopathy, and such people are very dangerous to society. Because being under extreme emotional stress indicates that a person is not a psychopathic threat, jealous rage is considered a mitigating circumstance in law cases. Conditioning is what we do in the military. (There are two books for people who are really interested in topic: On Killing & Men Under Fire)

The military’s conditioning is exclusively reactionary. This means that we are only conditioned to fire when we are threatened. There is a practical reason for this. If you do not condition people to be reactionary, they will: 1) Kill a lot more of your own people, and 2) Not be able to respond quickly when they are threatened, which is much more time sensitive than a pre-planned attack.

What this means in practical terms is that we almost always kill in self defense. There are times when we falsely perceive threats and those are tragedies. However, I know of no instance in my area of operations where a soldier has set out to kill someone (which is what I was talking about with the wrath issue). Even, and especially, the soldiers who talk about it all the time, do not do so. Simply put, there are not many psychopaths in the military. (We have them though, but we do our best to limit the damage that they do, and eliminate them from our ranks as quickly as possible.)

I suspect, as well, that this is usually the case in most militaries. It is even true of the insurgency. When they shoot at us, they often do not even look, just pointing in our general direction and pulling the trigger. This is why casualties are generally quite low, when compared to the number of engagements. (A funny example of what happens when two not well conditioned units come into contact, an Iraqi Army Unit and a terrorist group fought each other for two hours of constant gun fire with no casualties at no more than 50m distance.) I also believe that this is why IED’s are the preferred method of attack. It is no safer than shooting and running away, which was the tactic of guerilla warfare until this time, but it is much less humanizing of your enemy, especially at night.

Bottom line is, American soldiers are not cold-blooded, and usually not even hot-blooded killers. Surprise them, or startle them at your own risk. Threaten them, or shoot at them, and you will have a bad day. But in our raids, most come off without a shot fired, even when it is Saddam Hussein. An operation is truly a success when nobody dies.