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Dohar -> RE: Hatred (10/12/2006 1:47:29 PM)
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Hi all,
first post for me, but as a long time reader I have no fear...[;)]
In my personal view dehumanising the enemy is a kind of regularity wich exists in every armed conflict all around the world in the past, in the present, and I guess in the future.
It makes things easier to do.
The leaders wants the enemy to be dehumanised and inspire their soldiers with hatred for motivating them. And if you got a common and hatred enemy it's easier to share the people behind you.
The soldiers dehumanising their enemy to make it easier for them to do the kill, wich I hope is not easy for everyone. Even not for a soldier, but I think they get used to it. This also helps in boosting the fighting spirit of the units. It's the "we are better than them"-principle, wich always works well.
But not always, this won't work for everyone. As an example my parents were/are of the war generation, my father even fights '44 in the Ardennes(actually he didn't get an oppertunity to shoot a single round: he marched, cleared a minefield, marched again, build a bridge, followed the offensive, retreated to the Siegfried Line and was taken prisoner by the americans -> yes, he was a pioneer and damn lucky about his POW status[:D]).
I've spoken a lot with them about this topic, but they never feel hatred for the allied forces. I was puzzled because at least my mother was bombed out in Kassel and later strafed by fighter bombers in a train. But she always said: It was war, all this has to be expected.
Of course the propaganda spoke in a different way, once the allied pilots were american terror bombers, once the american soldiers were only questionable and dubious guys from different races. The result was, that in some occasions bailed out pilots were killed by germans and allied prisoners of war were gunned down. Because sometime this mechanics work all to well......[:(]
Back to initial question about the japanese and the americans in the pacific. First the japanese attack at pearl harbour made it easy for Roosevelt to share the americans behind his back and it made it easy to hate them because of this way to start a war. Second the japanese culture of honoring death over life and continue fighting in hopeless situations and therefore costing lives of their enemies without a cause (in the american eyes) made it also very easy to hate them.
As a long time wargamer maybe I'm past these thoughts. Hatred and revenge (as KG Erwin stated the "Pearl Harbour"-Mentality) are bad advisors in a campaign and in a battle. But this only counts for wargaming, in a real conflict I doubt that I'm able to suppress this feelings and be such a clean strategist and commander.....damn I even loosing my nerves if the third tank in a row is destroyed by a nasty but heavily suppressed ATG....[:D]
Wow....long post, let's see what happens next.
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