The Beastification of Men

War is an ugly thing. There are casualities, prisoners of war, and men do are forced to do things from nightmares,
The beastification of men is unavoidable in war. The human psyche can not handle the things that happens during war. And when one is forced into a kill or be killed situation the beast in us is released. As war was brought into our living rooms in the Vietname war we began to see just how ugly war was.
Women were raped, children slaughtered and old men left weeping. There were many soldiers who will never be the same because of what they did and what they saw. When someone is desperate and not properly trained bad things can happen.
Abu Ghraib is one example of the beastification of men. If you take lowly soldiers and tell them that they have a couple of days before the higher ups come and when they come the prisoners better be talking you can bet that they will get desperate. Add in to the fact that they are angery about their fellow soldiers dying, 9/11, and group think, it is no surprise that what happened did happen.
What is group think? Group think is when in a desperate situation people have to come up with an immediate solution. It is typically reactive rather than proactive and it lacks logic. Also in group think you are either in the group or out...and it's better to be in.
So what is the point in this blog entry? To inform. To tell you that all soldiers will have terrors of the war. That it is ugly and not glorious. That it is not worth it.
This is the first blog of mine for the new semester of the contest. This semester I will devote most of my blogs to war and peace. So I decided to start with some stuff that I will mention later on.
What is the solution to The beastification of men? Knowledge. What is a legal order? What can a soldier do? What can't he do? Can we end war? Is it human nature? I plan to explore many of these this semester as I take my Peace Making in the Modern World class. But don't worry my blog will of course cover other things, but War and Peace is my theme. So buckle up. and get ready. I plan to cause a rauckous.