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Thoughts on the tactics of war

Back in the day, during World War I and World War II in America, and back to the beginning of recorded time in the rest of the world, there has been a war tactic that is based on dehumanizing the enemy. It is also called objectifying the enemy. This philosophy teaches soldiers that the enemy is not human, and therefore deserves to be slaughtered. After all, dangerous animals are to be slaughtered. During World War II, posters on Army bases would depict Germans and Japanese as sub-human to condition soldiers to dehumanize the enemy and kill without conscious. Since soldiers were convinced the enemies were sub-human (by the way, this happened on all sides during World War II, it was not just the Americans) then soldiers could do anything to win.

Today, Hezbollah and Hamas actually have nursery rhymes teaching the young children that the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, drinks blood and grinds up children for his breakfast. This is taught from a very young age, in cartoons on TV and in comic books, Dehumanizing Jews, so when rockets are shot into residential areas of Israel, there is no moral evil, because Jews are animals.

Armies have been doing this since there were armies. When the Assyrians marched across the world, slaughtering everything that moved, they were able to do this because they viewed the rest of the world as less than themselves. The Babylonians did it, the Greeks did it, the Romans did and most armies today do it. America has gotten off that train because it is not politically correct. World War II posters would be considered racist today.

Instead we, in America, have moved this into the political arena. During the election of 2016, people became very angry at the candidates. Usually the candidates on the other side, but not always. When Hillary Clinton lost, it seems like all the stops were removed to fight against and destroy Donald Trump. I understand political discord, but it is improper to dehumanize the opponent in politics.

The most recent activity involved Kathy Gifford holding the severed head of Donald Trump. The media exploded. Some thinking it was funny and good (because Donald Trump had been dehumanized) and others were horrified. Now the discussion surrounds Trump’s son, Barron who is 11, and apparently he was traumatized by this. In response to that, a news commentator said that if Barron saw a pile of rotting baloney with a tie, he would think it was his dad.

When the enemy is dehumanized, there are not rules. Everything is permitted. The right has dehumanized Hillary Clinton and the left has dehumanized Donald Trump. Because of this we have moved our of political rhetoric and have moved into nasty, bottom of the barrel warfare. "Antifa" believes that violence, property destruction and even murder is allowed to promote their ends. This is dangerous. Political correctness has removed dehumanizing the enemy out of warfare and moved it into the political arena where anything goes, people are getting hurt and people are dying.



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