RE: The real cost of war

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Miserlou -> RE: The real cost of war (1/17/2012 7:06:56 AM)
who cares about the money! the tens and hundreds of thousands killed, maimed, and crippled. and the lives destroyed and those never lived. that is of far more importance than the damned money.

kalikshama -> RE: The real cost of war (1/17/2012 7:34:08 AM)
quote: As a side note on the subject of the real cost of war, there's been a series on the survivors of UNIKOM in a local newspaper I didn't catch that this was going to be about the first Gulf War, which is when I served, and had I still been in Okinawa in 1990, I would have been deployed to the Middle East. Thank you so much for translating!

Aswad -> RE: The real cost of war (1/17/2012 8:46:31 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kalikshama I didn't catch that this was going to be about the first Gulf War, which is when I served, and had I still been in Okinawa in 1990, I would have been deployed to the Middle East. Thank you so much for translating! You're welcome, of course. It's not strictly speaking just about the first Gulf War, it just starts off by introducing the readers to a group of people that have been on several int.ops., by going into one of the more demanding ones, while at the same time giving a glimpse of what war entails on a level that strikes a decent balance for people who have an inkling but have never had to confront it. Essentially, it is just stark enough to really grasp that people can come back with real issues, without numbing the reader down too much to have empathy with those that can't deal with those issues. Leaving room for the veterans' problems by not drowning the reader in the civilians' problems entirely. The follow-up articles (two more) deal with the fallout for these people, while there's side articles (that I can summarize) about the political debate that was sparked by the coverage. The newspaper in question has a long track record of going into difficult terrain and bringing back a story that is comprehensible to the uninitiated, while highlighting issues which should be on the agenda. For me, and many others in this part of the country, they're a source of pride, being generally more accurate, reliable and balanced on most issues than the ones that operate out of the capital. For instance, they've broken scandals in most major branches of government, and stay on the issues with timely follow up articles that investigate how the handling has been after the initial media frenzy passes and so forth. Quite a number of official institutions are rather upset about them, as they have this tendency to get a hold of all the stuff they're not meant to know, filtering out anything that's operationally or personally sensitive, and then doing a rational analysis of the rest. Among things their reporters can be credited with, is the Fact Checker, a service which checks all the statements made by politicians around election time, rating their accuracy and providing the details. Similarly, they have a running tally of the election promises made, which ones have been delivered on, which ones have been attempted unsuccessfully, and which ones haven't even been attempted. All of it is sourced verifiably. The same people have been involved with keeping record of the percentage of official documents marked classified, up until the Labor Party made it illegal to do so. The Labor Party has a 50 year postwar history of being the party with the most classified documents, along with political persecution, illegal surveillance and so forth. Keeping such statistics is not exactly in their best interests. Incidentally, that is also the party that has done the most to reform the military into an offensive force to augment NATO operations, while decimating national defense strength, counterterrorism and police. They've sent the most people off into int.ops., and done the least for those who've come back. During WW2, many of their most prominent figures collaborated with the Nazi occupation above and beyond what was requested, and after the occupation ended, they executed shitloads of people who had done far less and under duress. About the only member of the party I can summon any respect for is Gro Bruntland, though not necessarily agreeing with her politics. Health, al-Aswad.

tweakabelle -> RE: The real cost of war (1/17/2012 12:05:45 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: MrBukani 90% of national debt in the world is a direct consequence of wartime efforts. I found this statistic startling. Far from incredible but startling nonetheless. Could be be kind enough to supply a citation for this statistic please? I would love to be able to use it, but don't feel able to unless I can supply a source to back it up.

PeonForHer -> RE: The real cost of war (1/17/2012 1:55:50 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad Likewise - thanks for the translation, Aswad. Not pleasant reading, is it?

PeonForHer -> RE: The real cost of war (1/17/2012 2:03:59 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad Any stats on UK and German forces for comparison? I'm still searching for the UK figures. So far, though: "More Falklands veterans have committed suicide than were killed during the conflict. More than five times the number of British troops killed in the last Gulf war have also committed suicide." From www.ppu.org.uk/whitepoppy/white_relatedtx/a1.html

Aswad -> RE: The real cost of war (1/17/2012 2:39:39 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer Not pleasant reading, is it? It's war. If it made for pleasant reading, one would imagine it's time for some R&R. Health, al-Aswad.

tweakabelle -> RE: The real cost of war (1/17/2012 7:35:25 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad Any stats on UK and German forces for comparison? I'm still searching for the UK figures. So far, though: "More Falklands veterans have committed suicide than were killed during the conflict. More than five times the number of British troops killed in the last Gulf war have also committed suicide." From www.ppu.org.uk/whitepoppy/white_relatedtx/a1.html Do I need to point out that every member of every family of those people who suicided never stops paying the price for that war? Nor does this seem a specifically UK problem. It has already been pointed out that the levels of suicide among US veterans are shockingly high. As Aswad has demonstrated, the casualties of war extend far beyond the actual combat veterans and combat casualties. (btw thanks for translating that piece - it was eye opening!) The real price of war seems to growing exponentially.

PeonForHer -> RE: The real cost of war (1/18/2012 2:34:27 AM)
I saw a documentary some while ago about wars and soldiers' attitudes to killing. It turns out that, frequently, soldiers in battlefields shoot to miss. Elsewhere, (a feminist tract, from what I remember) I read of the difficulties of training men for war. Far from men being "naturally" inclined to fight, it takes a great deal of socialisation (and breaking of socialisation) to get them to go into battle. This is one major reason why military training depends so much on discipline; on following orders for no other reason other than the fact that they are orders. These things, added to the figures about suicide - as well as those showing how high a percentage of those living on the streets are ex-military - have led me to suspect that humans are not built to fight wars, despite literally centuries of propaganda that's conveyed the opposite idea. No great surprise, in a sense, because no other animal is built to fight wars, either.

Aswad -> RE: The real cost of war (1/18/2012 4:06:30 AM)
From what I can see, it appears the post return suicide rates are fairly comparable, once adjusted for differences in the baseline suicide rate. Field suicide rates appear to be lower. I'm not familiar with any recent incidents of violence in the field (by which I mean things like shooting up the camp, attacking fellow soldiers and the like). While a mental health perspective is always difficult to get good figures for, PTSD appears to be nearly twice as common among veterans as in the general population. I'm getting on the next article in the series when my writers' block returns, no doubt in the next day or so. Meanwhile, there's a story that deserves to be written, rather than translated. [:D] Health, al-Aswad. P.S.: Convergence of opinion in the west that mines are undesireable due to future costs outweighing present gain is doing good things for the human cost of war. It's kind of comparable to pollution, in that sense: you borrow against someone else's future to realize a present gain that we're starting to learn won't pay off overall. It's one globe, and what we do comes back to bite us all on the ass, eventually, regardless of who first stuck what to whom. P.P.S.: Ironically enough, Norway produces and exports mines. That being said, our recent offerings have a highly effective self destruct, and the trigger decays rapidly so as to have any mines that don't self destruct cease to function after a reasonably short period of time. This prevents the land from being littered with active mines when it stops being a battlefield. We still find WW2 mines back home, sometimes. P.P.P.S.: Mines make a nearly inexhaustible supply of IED materials in some parts of the world, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, permitting locals to take some risk in order to acquire large quantities of stable, high brisance explosives of professional quality, along with the parts to make effective bombs. Having picked up remote control techniques based on TV remotes and such, they are also able to switch to remote triggering more often now. Overall, we are reaping what we sowed. P.P.P.P.S.: We've all sowed a whole lot.

Aswad -> RE: The real cost of war (1/18/2012 4:58:17 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer It turns out that, frequently, soldiers in battlefields shoot to miss. Not for long. Particularly if the enemy shoots to hit. But, yes, this has been a problem for ages. Socialization in the west ingrains such strong aversions to violence in most that it is incredibly difficult to overcome for many, which should come as no surprise to someone in the kink lifestyles, given the amount of effort many of us have put into breaking the hold of socialization with regard to what we do. Thus, armed forces resocialize as well as possible, but we've come a long way since the time when people would stand around reloading blanks rather than firing. quote: Far from men being "naturally" inclined to fight Nobody is naturally inclined to be a soldier. Being a soldier takes codes and discipline, among other things, which takes time to establish for anyone. Some people have natural inclinations that are compatible with it, or even synergistic with it, but nobody is born with the elements that turn an armed (wo)man into a soldier. You will find some that have natural inclinations that are very close to the basic requirements for a sniper or ranger, but infantry- forget it. Don't mistake blustering and posturing and dominance games for violence. First fire rates for women appear to be higher in our recent engagements, which may have something to do with having superior forces and operating as functions in a unit, as women are generally more inclined to judge along lines of bonds, and more inclined to do violence to weaker parties and inferior parties. Failing to fire puts the unit at risk, while firing is an attempt at killing the enemy. Women generally have more of a problem with the former than the latter, so long as they are on top. The situation reverses when they're not, which is why you can't have an all woman army, since morale would be very fickle. Men are opposite in this regard, being at their best when defeat seems the likely outcome, and more likely to spare an enemy when they can, for instance. Some have argued that men are disposed to protecting inferiors, but I've not found this to be universally true, although I've seen indications that it might be a character trait that occurs naturally in some. Regarding the above, it is also quite interesting to pull in experiences from other areas. For instance, women dominate in regard to violence to children, at all levels of severity, and it appears to hold for other essentially helpless beings, as well. That's useful to know for making an army. Also useful is studying top level sports, where the probabilities of success are so strongly contingent on the morale and the morale so strongly contingent on the balance of power that one clearly needs to add a stabilizing element when assembling an army. quote: This is one major reason why military training depends so much on discipline; on following orders for no other reason other than the fact that they are orders. Are you an American? [:D] Following orders is a tiny, tiny part of the picture in many armies. The chain of command resolves ambiguities, most of all. It permits defering morality onto others ("forced bi cocksucker" thread of the week, with guns), while diffusing the responsibility ("the system is messed up" or "the politicians are the problem"). You don't get the problem of who does what and when, because the ranking officer delegates, and a lot of the time the pieces just 'fall into place'. When you're leapfrogging or the like, it's placement that dictates the order in which you switch. When you're timing an entry into a house with potential hostiles, it's the person in charge that synchronizes everyone. When a decision needs to be made, there's no time wasted on what an online acquaintance neatly termed the "democracy-hell", yet your successes (which translates directly into survival of yourself and the people you're responsible for) depend on being able to both know when to listen and who to listen to for what, as well as when to explicitly ask. In some armies (e.g. UK, Norway) your success also depends on being able to interpret orders... ... and sometimes tell people "no fucking way am I carrying out that order, sir/ma'am." Of course, that entails resigning, and goes against human nature, but then... soldiering isn't a very human pursuit. quote: These things, added to the figures about suicide - as well as those showing how high a percentage of those living on the streets are ex-military - have led me to suspect that humans are not built to fight wars, despite literally centuries of propaganda that's conveyed the opposite idea. We've done a fair bit to eliminate the problem of people living on the street up here. It's fairly difficult for a veteran that's just come back to avoid having at least USD 1K/mo left after rent, provided there's anyone around to fill out a four page form for them if they're unable to even do that. The delay in payment can be up to 72 hrs, of course, but that's hardly living on the streets. The problems we're left dealing with are different ones, such as how to improve their quality of life or ability to be gainfully employed and so forth. Most of the time, it's my impression that once you've torn away the illusions of civilization, it's not only hard to go back, but largely undesireable. Some of the problems appear to be friction with civilization, as the fraction that are unable to deceive the military and function back in the field is pretty small when compared to the number who actually qualify for PTSD and so forth when placed in a civilian setting. Would you really want to be a child again? quote: No great surprise, in a sense, because no other animal is built to fight wars, either. This doesn't stop several animals, such as the other great apes, from waging war. Besides, since when did the world / reality care what we're built for? And since when were humans built for much of anything? Health, al-Aswad.

PeonForHer -> RE: The real cost of war (1/18/2012 5:36:08 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer It turns out that, frequently, soldiers in battlefields shoot to miss. Not for long. Particularly if the enemy shoots to hit. Granted - but the key is that it has to feel like self defence or defence of one's friends, apparently. Here's an excerpt from the study in question. My bolds. "Studies of combat activity during the Napoleonic and Civil Wars revealed striking statistics. Given the ability of the men, their proximity to the enemy, and the capacity of their weapons, the number of enemy soldiers hit should have been well over 50 percent, resulting in a killing rate of hundreds per minute. Instead, however, the hit rate was only one o two per minute. And a similar phenomenon occured during World War I: according to british Lieutenant George Roupell, the only way he could get his men to stop firing into the air was by drawing his sword, walking down the trench, "beating [them] on the backside and ... telling them to fire low".1 World War II fire rates were also remarkably low: historian and US Army Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall rerported that, during battle, the firing rate was a mere 15 to 20 percent; in other words, out of every hundred men engaged in a firefight, only fifteen to twenty actually used their weapons. And in Vietnam, for every enemy soldiers killed, more than fifty thousand bullets were fired.2 What these studies have taught the miltiary is that in order to get soldiers to shoot to kill, to actively participate in violence, the soldiers must be sufficiencly desensitized to the act of killing. In other words, they have to learn not to feel -- and not to ffeel responsible -- for their actions. They must be taught to override their own conscience. yet these studies also demonstrate that even in the face of immediate danger, in situations of extreme violence, most people are averse to killing. In other words, as Marshall concludes, "the vast majority of combatants throughout history, at the moment of truth when they could and should kill the enemy, have found themselves to be 'conscientious objectors'". quote: This doesn't stop several animals, such as the other great apes, from waging war. That, for me, is an anthropomorphism. At most, I'd say we could talk of, perhaps, kinds of 'battles' between groupings of chimps.

tweakabelle -> RE: The real cost of war (1/18/2012 2:27:17 PM)
This is a really interesting perspective Peon! Thanks for bring it to our attention. I've never heard about this research before - though I have occasionally wondered whether people can be conditioned to kill by compulsory participation in square marches and other mindless tasks interminably. It would make sense that the various militaries (who appear to have organised the research) have a vested interest in such results not becoming widely known. Has anyone tied this in with the practice of 'fragging'? That soldiers might be more likely/at least as likely to shoot their own officers who insist on putting them in harm's way than 'engaging' the enemy? That has the potential to add up to an interesting argument if the research and data back it up. Whatever about that bit of speculation, this research also has interesting implications for those who still cling to the Naturalist Fallacy in the broader field of human behaviour.

kalikshama -> RE: The real cost of war (1/18/2012 2:54:46 PM)
quote: Naturalist Fallacy Be right back after I look that up on Wikipedia...oh :(

Musicmystery -> RE: The real cost of war (1/18/2012 3:15:39 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kalikshama quote: Naturalist Fallacy Be right back after I look that up on Wikipedia...oh :( http://www.answers.com/topic/open-question

tweakabelle -> RE: The real cost of war (1/18/2012 3:24:27 PM)
"Naturalist Fallacy" also has a specific meaning in some areas of Humanities studies. It refers (pejoratively) to the notion that human behaviour is naturally determined, that certain human behaviours are given in Nature. The popular notion of Man (sic) as a predatory killer whose natural instinct involves violence and killing is one myth. I had these notions in mind when I used the term.

PeonForHer -> RE: The real cost of war (1/18/2012 3:54:12 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle This is a really interesting perspective Peon! Thanks for bring it to our attention. You're welcome. :-) I've been feeding on 'horrors of war' stuff since school. Catch-22 remains one of my favourite books ever. Nonetheless, those findings about soldiers' shooting above the enemy's head were counterintuitive to me. Truly, the 'glories of war' narrative must be one of the oldest and most 'respected' propaganda exercises in history. The most highly-regarded of poets, novelists and dramatists have fed it - Shakespeare included. And yes, I think you're right: knowledge about the effects of war on participants seem to have been suppressed for just as long. Yup. The 'Naturalistic Fallacy'. Those 'hawks' amongst politicians who consider themselves 'realists', think that they're the ones who know what humans are, and how warlike a species humanity is. In fact it seems that they're idealists after all.

Aswad -> RE: The real cost of war (1/18/2012 10:06:01 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle I've never heard about this research before - though I have occasionally wondered whether people can be conditioned to kill by compulsory participation in square marches and other mindless tasks interminably. It would make sense that the various militaries (who appear to have organised the research) have a vested interest in such results not becoming widely known. Search for Lt. Col. D. Grossman, who has published substantial works on the subject. The results are as widely known as people care for them to be, and compiled on the basis of the experiences of modern militaries in times of war, as well as drawing on police, special police, counterterrorism units, survivors of major disasters and people who have killed in self defense. It also draws on older data, of course. This is an active area of research, and the findings are usually published for general consumption. What was quoted above is old data. Come right down to it, humanity has sheep and predators. Or, if you will, farmers and hunter-gatherers. The predators are best subdivided on the axis of concern for their fellow man. If a predator lacks that, the flock falls prey to it. If it has that, the flock derives protection from it. Of course, some prefer to weed out the predators they can find, and pretend there are no others. As one with said concern, I am inclined to disagree with any agenda that includes eliminating me, and rather skeptical of the notion that one can locate them all. Especially since we humans are so apt at creating institutions that are predatorial without the capacity for concern for humans. Grossman uses the analogy of sheep, wolves and wolfdogs instead. quote: Has anyone tied this in with the practice of 'fragging'? That soldiers might be more likely/at least as likely to shoot their own officers who insist on putting them in harm's way than 'engaging' the enemy? That has the potential to add up to an interesting argument if the research and data back it up. Clearly, morale and leadership matter. Send young idealists off into a war of aggression, and morale ends up being the second casualty of war. Some do sign up from being drawn toward the armed forces, and some sign up because they're convinced it's the right thing to do. Obviously, few nations' politicians are interested in dividing the armed forces into aggressive and defensive units, as that depletes the effective capacity for aggression. The same goes for the population among many countries. How many of those who cried out for a punitive war after 9/11 were veterans of one? An informed decision is needed to consider anything but a strictly defensive war, and a lot of politicians and citizens are ignorant of the real cost of war. Thus, they decide to get into wars that they would've never considered if they had even the slightest inkling. That they can be at home, without any risk of being the one returning home covered in a flag, lets them make decisions without any of the factors that give rise to good decisionmaking among humans. Excluding the related industrial complex, I would like to think that the US armed forces have the same attitude as ours: that they wish to avoid war, for they are the ones who must bear the cost of the decision to wage one. No good officer is untouched by the loss of the people who serve under their command, regardless of what rank they've arrived at. Being able to bear those losses is not the same as approving of the reasons behind them. But a military goes where the civilians point, because the alternative is deciding for themselves in a country where they are the sole armed force, a dangerous proposition for the civilian population most desire to protect and/or serve. quote: Whatever about that bit of speculation, this research also has interesting implications for those who still cling to the Naturalist Fallacy in the broader field of human behaviour. It is widespread, this misconception that it is easy to divide essential instinct from cultural imperative, and it is sadly also all too common to simplify the process, and to further simplify the findings, so as to end up at an idea that is far better suited to Hollywood mythmaking than to describing life itself. Health, al-Aswad.

Aswad -> RE: The real cost of war (1/20/2012 7:37:54 PM)
I will digress into another, related subject on the topic of the real cost of war, with a comparison of the USA and my own country on this point. Comparisons with other industrialized nations- such as the UK, Germany, Canada, France and Australia- are of particular interest to extend the comparison. A recent report by the U.S. armed forces, regarding the U.S. armed forces, mentions domestic abuse is at least three times as frequent in veterans with PTSD as in the general population, while violent sex crimes are perpetrated by veterans at a rate of about one incident per 7 hours on average and violent crime has risen significantly between 2006 and 2011 with veterans constituting a majority of the rise for that period. Most of this occurs after returning from war. There has also been a dramatic rise in incidents among actively serving personell, such as a 90% increase in violent sex crimes, now up to 2811 incidents per year among actively serving personell. If I understood correctly, this does not include marital rape, which is not illegal according to the uniform military code §120 (the definition of terms specifically excludes spouses). According to one spokesperson, this constitutes a major improvement over the decade prior. Comparing, then, to my own country, for the past decade or so, I cannot recall any violent sex crimes at all perpetrated by an actively serving soldier. According to the chief of military psychiatry, police statistics indicate no overrepresentation of either veterans or actively serving personell in violent crime, nor in sex crimes. The only groups overrepresented are immigrant populations from a couple of countries, according to the central census and statistics bureau. Reasons for this are presented as including a difference in politics (the US is substantially more aggressive, is far more willing to "spend" soldiers, and has less restrictive rules of engagement), a difference in recruiting (our soldiers tend to be healthy, athletic, middle class citizens from stable backgrounds; the US has substantial recruitment from the lowest social classes and poorer screening), unpredictable duration (we have fixed rotation intervals that tend to be from 3 to 6 months, while the US extensively uses open or variable rotations and often longer rotations), and other factors, which specifically includes less emphasis on codes and discipline in the US armed forces (the two factors I consider to be the distinction between professional soldiers and armed thugs). Now, I'm not sold that either party to the comparison has sufficiently accurate data, and the magnitude of the influence of the different factors is something I'm unsure of (though the preceding paragraph seems to have the broader lines roughly in the right place). Thus, a comparison to other countries as well can be used to get a better idea of why wars seem to be costing the U.S. more- in human terms- than they're costing countries of comparable industrialization and similar culture. Regardless, the actual report itself does illustrate some of the problems. Tack on at least 30.000 rapes to the price tab for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, not counting ones perpetrated by other nationalities, and primarily directed at U.S. citizens by U.S. servicemen. That's assuming a reasonable figure for how many are reported out of the number performed. Add fatalities and national debt, then it seems a rather steep price. Health, al-Aswad.

Hillwilliam -> RE: The real cost of war (1/20/2012 7:51:31 PM)
The main cost isnt money, it's human. I work with these folks some http://www.projecthealingwaters.org/ The vets that come thru our VA are sometimes scarred, in chairs, walkers, crutches, missing body parts even. Those aren't the worst ones. The ones that really get to you appear to be physically whole but they have lost part of something more important. They have lost part of their soul. They have lost their humanity. We try to help with that too. Before you ask, I'm not some kind of medical professional. I'm just a guy that likes to get people out of the river where it's so quiet you can hear the fly line hissing thru the guides when you cast. It's theraputic.

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