Would a modern army rape and pillage?

a reply to: JoshuaCox

Project Pheonix:

Project Pheonix

Methods of reported torture that author Douglas Valentine wrote were used at the interrogation centers included:

Rape, gang rape, rape using eels, snakes, or hard objects, and rape followed by murder; electric shock ('the Bell Telephone Hour') rendered by attaching wires to the genitals or other sensitive parts of the body, like the tongue; the 'water treatment'; the 'airplane' in which the prisoner's arms were tied behind the back, and the rope looped over a hook on the ceiling, suspending the prisoner in midair, after which he or she was beaten; beatings with rubber hoses and whips; the use of police dogs to maul prisoners (quoted in Blakely).[17]

Military intelligence officer K. Milton Osborne reports that he witnessed the following use of torture:

The use of the insertion of the 6-inch dowel into the canal of one of my detainee's ears, and the tapping through the brain until dead. The starvation to death (in a cage), of a Vietnamese woman who was suspected of being part of the local political education cadre in one of the local villages...The use of electronic gear such as sealed telephones attached to...both the women's vaginas and men's testicles [to] shock them into submission.[18]

I know, I know...old news. But relevant to the title of the OP.

a reply to: JoshuaCox

I agree. However, I can see how if the indoctrination process of militaries can predispose someone to a reaction of brutality against percieved weakness which is why I was checking if he meant natural instinct or trained instinct.

a reply to: Anaana

Training is the main thing. Age is another. Officers are trained for a completely different role than enlisted. Officers are the thinkers. They are trained to command, trained to a higher standard, and their more baser instincts are trained down and out. Where as enlisted, you are trained only to do your job, and to do what you are told. As they used to tell us "you aren't paid to think". The amount of training and discipline officers receive is higher. The standards of becoming an officer are higher.

Another thing is age. Unit Commanders, and senior NCOs and above, tend to be older, usually in their 30s or even 40s. As we know, age and experience mellow us out. By contrast, the majority of lower enlisted and junior NCOs are young men in their teens and 20's. Naturally flooded with testosterone and heightened sexual/aggressive urges that are part of a man's biology. In civilian life, this is the age demographic that is responsible for the highest crime rates for the same reason. I am certainly not saying young men are bad horrible violent rapists, or scum. Far from it. It's just a known medical, social, biological fact that young men have natural high testosterone levels. It's why they make up the bulk of armies. They tend to be more fearless. Physically strong and healthy. Act before they think. Traits you actually want in a soldier or other dangerous profession. However, just like in the civilian world, unless you have the older, wiser people in society to keep a reign on the young, and mentor them right, you will have anarchy. Hormones aside, youth itself, and the young, inexperienced mind, are other reasons. Thus the age, wisdom, and training of NCOs and officers is critical to keeping the worst parts of youth at bay.

With females, it's different in many regards, but still the basics apply. While women don't have the levels of testosterone and aggression that young males do, they still have them, and just like men, unless you have strong leaders and elders to keep that bad behavior in check, female soldiers can engage in all sorts of bad behavior and war crimes. While the classic "war rape" scenario might not apply, they can still sexually abuse, assault, and torture civilians (Abu Grahib) loot, and do all sorts of horrible things.

originally posted by: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
Training is the main thing. Age is another. Officers are trained for a completely different role than enlisted. Officers are the thinkers. They are trained to command, trained to a higher standard, and their more baser instincts are trained down and out. Where as enlisted, you are trained only to do your job, and to do what you are told. As they used to tell us "you aren't paid to think". The amount of training and discipline officers receive is higher. The standards of becoming an officer are higher.

I understand this, but if we look at My Lai, and specifically William Calley.

Calley underwent eight weeks of basic combat training at Fort Bliss, Texas,[6] followed by eight weeks of advanced individual training as a company clerk at Fort Lewis, Washington. Having scored high enough on his Armed Forces Qualification tests, he applied for and was subsequently accepted into Officer Candidate School (OCS). He then began 26 weeks of junior officer training at Fort Benning in mid-March 1967. Upon graduating from OCS Class No. 51 on September 7, 1967,[5] he was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry. Following his commission, Calley was assigned to 1st Platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Infantry Brigade,[1] and began training at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, in preparation for deployment to South Vietnam.

Calley's evaluations described him as "average" as an officer.[4] Later, as the My Lai investigation progressed, a more negative picture emerged. Men in his platoon reported to army investigators that Calley lacked common sense and could not read a map or compass properly.[7] A number of men assigned under Calley claimed that because he was so disliked, some secretly discussed fragging him.[3]

en.wikipedia.org...

Two things strike me here, in the context of what you say about training. Calley was very young to have a command, and despite his training, considered incompetent by his men. In short, they did not respect him. And yet, when he gave the order to massacre the village, they refused, ignored him, until he began to do so himself, then many joined in. They became “feral”, for want of a better word, only once that example had been set, not because, or not solely because they were ordered to, or indeed because they were unable to control their ‘baser instincts’.

originally posted by: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
Another thing is age. Unit Commanders, and senior NCOs and above, tend to be older, usually in their 30s or even 40s. As we know, age and experience mellow us out. By contrast, the majority of lower enlisted and junior NCOs are young men in their teens and 20's. Naturally flooded with testosterone and heightened sexual/aggressive urges that are part of a man's biology.

If we contrast My Lai with the “Incident on Hill 192”, we see a different situation that belongs to a much more familiar pattern in modern conflicts, particularly those that are laid upon ethnic divisions that have been exacerbated by dehumanising propaganda and conditioning such as we find in the conflicts following the break up of Yugoslavia, where rapes camps were clearly used as a weapon of attrition.

On November 17, 1966, Sergeant David E. Gervase (20) and Private First Class Steven Cabbot Thomas (21)—both members of C Company, 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 8th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division—talked to three other squad members (PFC’s Robert M. Storeby, 22; cousins Cipriano S. Garcia, 21, and Joseph C. Garcia, 20)[3] about plans to kidnap a “pretty girl” during their reconnaissance mission planned for the next day.[6] When interviewed by Lang in 1968, PFC Robert M. Storeby (under the alias of Sven Erikson) said “[Gervase] stated that we would get the woman for the purpose of boom-boom, or sexual intercourse, and at the end of five days we would kill her.” Storeby also recalled that Gervase claimed it would be “good for the morale of the squad.”[7]

At approximately 5:00 on the morning of November 18, the squad entered the tiny village of Cat Tuong, in the Phu My District, looking for a woman.[8] After finding Phan Thi Mao (21), they bound her wrists with rope, gagged her and took her on the mission. Later, after setting up camp in an abandoned hooch, four of the soldiers (excluding PFC Storeby) took turns raping Mao. The following day, in the midst of a firefight with the Viet Cong, Thomas and Gervase became worried that the woman would be seen with the squad. Thomas took Mao into a brushy area and although he stabbed her three times with his hunting knife, he failed to kill her. When she tried to flee, three of the soldiers chased after her. Thomas caught her and shot her in the head with his M16 rifle.[6]

en.wikipedia.org...

Quite apart from anything else, Storeby was threatened and eventually given a dishonourable discharge from the military, he was effectively punished for not raping Phan Thi Mao, but doesn’t it also shed a light on how ridiculous a notion it is that young men are predisposed to commit sexual violence?

originally posted by: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
In civilian life, this is the age demographic that is responsible for the highest crime rates for the same reason. I am certainly not saying young men are bad horrible violent rapists, or scum. Far from it. It's just a known medical, social, biological fact that young men have natural high testosterone levels. It's why they make up the bulk of armies. They tend to be more fearless. Physically strong and healthy. Act before they think. Traits you actually want in a soldier or other dangerous profession.

But it doesn’t automatically make them rapists, it appears to me, at the very least there exists within military training an attitude that rape is a valid and useful tool, and that men (and women) who exhibit those proclivities are tolerated.

contd

originally posted by: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
However, just like in the civilian world, unless you have the older, wiser people in society to keep a reign on the young, and mentor them right, you will have anarchy. Hormones aside, youth itself, and the young, inexperienced mind, are other reasons. Thus the age, wisdom, and training of NCOs and officers is critical to keeping the worst parts of youth at bay.

However, if as part of that training you are told that it is “normal” for young men to rape, and you are trained to let them “blow off steam” should the opportunity arise aren’t we looking at a situational permissiveness rather than a unimpeded rampage? If they are not paid to think, then why are they being permitted to think that rape is an acceptable response?

Systematic rape is often used as a weapon of war in 'ethnic cleansing'. More than 20,000 Muslim girls and women have been raped in Bosnia since fighting began in April 1992, according to a European Community fact-finding team. Teenage girls have been a particular target in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, according to The State of the World's Children 1996 report. The report also says that impregnated girls have been forced to bear 'the enemy's' child.

In some raids in Rwanda, virtually every adolescent girl who survived an attack by the militia was subsequently raped. Many of those who became pregnant were ostracized by their families and communities. Some abandoned their babies; others committed suicide.

Sexual violation of women erodes the fabric of a community in a way that few weapons can. Rape's damage can be devastating because of the strong communal reaction to the violation and pain stamped on entire families. The harm inflicted in such cases on a woman by a rapist is an attack on her family and culture, as in many societies women are viewed as repositories of a community's cultural and spiritual values.

www.unicef.org...

originally posted by: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
With females, it's different in many regards, but still the basics apply. While women don't have the levels of testosterone and aggression that young males do, they still have them, and just like men, unless you have strong leaders and elders to keep that bad behavior in check, female soldiers can engage in all sorts of bad behavior and war crimes. While the classic "war rape" scenario might not apply, they can still sexually abuse, assault, and torture civilians (Abu Grahib) loot, and do all sorts of horrible things.

As demonstrated in the concentration and death camps of the Third Reich, some women, given permission to exercise it, are capable of disgusting acts of sadism, take Irma Grese as just one example. I should imagine that there are many, on both sides of the gender fence, who are drawn to such services because of the potential control it gives them over others.

Like traditional military ventures, peacekeepers are deployed in highly unstable areas similar to war zones, where there is absence of the rule of law, disintegration of society and great psychological and economic hardships.[259] Having an image of wealth and authority, peacekeepers can easily exercise power over the local population, which is often abused.[260]

Moreover, as members of their respective country’s militaries, peacekeepers also carry with them in the peace operations the "hyper-masculine culture" that encourages sexual exploitation and abuse.[261] This claim is supported by the fact that most of the peacekeepers are male. As of November 2003, while there are 81,181 male peacekeeping soldiers, there are only 2,322 female peacekeeping troops; on the other hand, while there are 11,644 male police, only female police are only 1,273.[262] The motivations for rape differ from the traditional perpetrators (government and rebel forces) in that rape is not part of a war strategy that contributes to fulfilling the organization’s mission, but rather more as means to relieve the perpetrators’ sexual urges most often related to the military culture.[263] Apart from putting the victim under the threat of physical violence, perpetrators induce sexual acts from the victim through payment, and granting or denying humanitarian aid.[264]v

en.wikipedia.org...