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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26226120
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17887604
"Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered. But never before have I watched as soldiers enticed children like mice into a trap and murdered them for sport."
- Christopher Hedges American journalist on assignment in Gaza
There's a distinction here. It's quite natural to hate the person trying to kill you. No matter how you got into the situation. It's a mental defense mechanism.
What's usually done to make soldiers hate everyone in an area is to conflate enemies with civilians. Without that hard line between the two it's really easy to push people into hating everyone and really easy to commit war crimes at that point.
A "healthy" military has strict rules of engagement that reinforce that line. Like not shooting unarmed people unless you can attach them to the enemy somehow. (Every time we get mortared, that guy is filming it and their propaganda videos are from his angle) And even then you'd prefer to capture him for intelligence gains. There's a clear preference against killing in asymmetric warfare because it causes so many problems. So soldiers learn to hate on demand, basically once you cross the line and become an enemy fighter the hate turns on. Almost like a light switch.
A "sick" military erases that line and prefers killing to capturing. The hate is just turned on all the time. The leadership actively takes steps to conflate civilians and enemies and take advantage of the brain's defense mechanism to ensure their soldiers shoot anyone who comes close unless they're under strict orders at the time.
Israel has a sick military that needs to be disarmed.