Tuesday, March 27, 2012
UMW HIST300F: War Crimes and War Hates
This week, you have two critiques of the U.S. military occupations in Haiti and Afghanistan (one far more openly critical than the other). Compare the two takes on wartime abuses by American troops, noting similarities and differences between the particular contexts of alleged and real atrocities. Also consider the "rogue unit" theory versus critiques of systemic problems that facilitate atrocities during occupations. Is the "rogue unit" theory valid or is there more to it? Are these atrocities surprising when considering the nature of colonial occupations?
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One of the main differences between the two accounts is the availbility of evidence. In this present day, the videos and photographs are available to support the allegations of atrocities against the U.S. Soldiers. The Nation reading does not have photos, nor video, but most of the accusations seem to be accurate given that some of the accusations are similar to present day atrocities committed, such as the shooting of civilians carrying guns( or given guns post-shooting). Also both accounts discuss the activities of the soldiers as being described by the men themselves as a form of hunting. In The Nation reading, it is described as duck hunting, and in the Rolling Stone article, the murders are described as similar to deer hunting. In both cases, the soldiers do not trust the native inhabitants and it is difficult to separate the "good guys" from the "bad guys," so agression of the soldiers becomes indiscriminate. Occupations will inherently drive soldiers to acts of atrocities. This has been the case in many points in history as far back as Rome, and as recent as Vietnam, Germany, and Japan.
ReplyDeleteWhat was interesting for me in reading these articles is the similarities between the Haitian and Afghanistan occupation. In both instances the troops who went rogue in the occupation were able to treat the killing of native populations as a sport. Part of what I see as a problem is that the troops allowed themselves to think of the native populations as sub-human, referring to the native populations names such as ‘gooks’ or ‘haji’. Part of the problem with these ‘rogue units’ is that they allow themselves to be desensitized to the violence around them. By being desensitized to the violence the troops are able to justify their actions to themselves. They have allowed themselves to forgot about the value of human life. Another part of the problem is that the troops allow themselves to see the natives of the countries they are occupying as less than human. Both articles refer to the troops justifying the killing of civilians as a sport. This indicates that the troops view there ‘prey’ as animals. This dehumanization of the foreign ‘others’ is a huge problem and in my view a very important part of why troops can sometimes go rogue.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I think the first blogger made an excellent point about the availability of viewing current day atrocities because of all the new technology readily available. Secondly, when one nation occupies another the tension is obviously going to be higher than it usually would. With that, it creates a very evident disconnect between nations that can easily raise the tension levels and cause issues between the two parties. As far as the two types of atrocities go, the ones in Afghanistan and Haiti have similarities and differences. The mindset the offenders seem to have adopted is a fatalistic one that turned into a very destructive and hostile disposition. To say this is an excusable act due to the stresses of war is unacceptable. However, I think it is important to acknowledge that the likelihood of war time atrocities such as the ones suggested are very much a part of war and its repercussions.
ReplyDeleteThese two articles contained brutal information in regards to the atrocities that the United States' militia have inflicted on both the Haitians and the people in Afghanistan. After reading the Rolling Stone article, it was interesting to find out that there was so much information about the cruel tactics that the US troops did to the Afghani civilians. Before reading this article I was well aware of this, but I did not realize that it was this egregious. In regards to the Nation reading, it was akin to the Rolling Stone article because the US troops did not feel like occupying both lands, and it was basically the US troops obliterating inferior people. The US troops called Afghani's "haji," and the US troops called the Haitians "Gooks." Killing scores of these innocent races was a game for the troops. What really aggravated me was troop officials did not care about the crimes that they committed against the Haitians and the Afganis. Like the person said above, this "game" of killing numerous human beings cannot be tolerated. I am not saying that all troops behave like this, and I will always support the troops until I die, but a few soldiers killing civilians just for the hell of it is inexcusable, and they should be punished severely. After finishing reading these two articles, the troops killed these two races because they disliked them, and it was obviously due to their color. The United States entered Haiti during the days of the Jim Crow era, and most of the troop officials were from the south. Also, the US troops took their anger out of the Afghani's due to 9/11. It's beneficial that these reports are available to the public, but it seems that nothing has been accomplished.
ReplyDeleteBoth of these articles display a bellicose United States military force. Occupation in Haiti improved the country's infrastructure, but at a brutal price (for the country). The mass amounts of open firing on the crowds of unarmed civilians just shows that there is more to the story than just restoring American investments. Just like the Rolling Stone article, it becomes a game of racial profiling and killing men "just because." The similarities in both of the articles are the unrestrained troops in their attempts to eliminate either "gooks" or "hajis" whether or not they were really enemies. After reading the part about the man who was shot because he failed to listen to the "warnings" of the troops (who turned out to be deaf) I was mortified. I don't see any logistics behind staging murder to look like it was self-defense, and how killing the man was a precautionary measure. Yet, the disguise worked and that was the end of that. There doesn't really seem to be a logical explanation of these staged killings. Not only is the morality within these men compromised, but it gives an incredibly bad name to US troops. It is an awful thing, since the US military is full of great men who do so much for us, to then have men like the ones in the article feed the wrong type of ideas into other societies. Like Matt says above, it seems like nothing has been accomplished now that the reports are available, but like we discussed yesterday with the whole iPad thing...as civilians, we are getting what we need. "It's terrible to think about what our military is doing overseas, but as long as it doesn't bother us, oh well." I don't think with minds like that anything will ever get accomplished. Killing has become a "sport" in comparison to duck hunting and deer hunting, and although it seems like all of this comes as a shock to those who have just been exposed to these articles and similar stories, it really shouldn't. Past insurgencies have shown what our military is capable of, and unfortunately in the past, unethical actions such as the ones we have learned about so far seemed to have worked. That is why this continues, it is historical and mostly proves success for the country "in charge." A difference in these articles are the time frames. The time of Jim Crow already was a struggle for racial superiority and as a society, we had not risen above white supremacy. However, the occupation in Afghanistan is more recent and way after Civil Rights. We have come far in desegregating our own society, that it is just a huge step backwards for our country for these rogue units and their murders against the enemy (which in the troops' case, anyone who is not white).
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kyle’s comment that there seems to be more evidence readily available to readers of the Rolling Stone article than the article from The Nation, and I would attribute a lot of that to the more advanced technology we have today, more thorough documentation and procedures, and the ongoing investigations into the unit members. Like others, what struck me about both of these articles was that the crimes against natives were described as akin to hunting. This characterization of the activities as hunting just highlights the fact that Americans treated the natives as a subhuman, even animalistic species. While reading The Nation article I asked myself what were the justifications for this terrible treatment of the natives? At this point, was race still the deciding factor? The motivations were clear in the Rolling Stone article: the soldiers had lost all regard for the civilians because they associated the civilians with the Taliban they had been fighting for so long. The motivations in Haiti seemed much less clear to me. In both cases the government tried to cover up the war crimes. I think the “rogue unit” theory is valid, but it’s a coalescence of several different factors. Being in the military, particularly out in the battlefield, is an entirely different culture than that of a “normal” American lifestyle. The military culture involves a fair amount violence, as well as isolation from home comforts, surrounded by many unfamiliar things, as well as the need to be tough and “manly.” Fighting an enemy for so long, as Ashley said, desensitizes one to violence, and I think it also leads to generalizations about the native populations. All of these issues, coupled with failures on the battlefield, lead to a situation that is very conducive to wartime atrocities. I wouldn’t say the atrocities are inevitable, but the probability is very high. And just because the conditions are ripe, it by no means justifies the atrocities—under no circumstances are wartime atrocities acceptable.
ReplyDeleteI agree with James and Kyle's statements that the atrocities committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan are easier to prove because of modern social media. The stress of combat and occupation can have an effect on the minds of soldiers and in both Haiti and Afghanistan it allowed these atrocities to occur. To soldiers they are justified because they more often than not cannot tell the difference between natives and the enemy and they realize that eventually that difference will kill them. I believe that they attempt to justify these atrocities by basically saying to themselves that they are going to kill as many as they can in an attempt to basically preempt that one time when they will miss the difference and be killed themselves.
ReplyDeleteI agree with previous responses that a striking feature of both critiques is the soldiers’ attitudes towards the native populations. The “Gooks” in Haiti were treated horribly, and The Nation documents describe the sentiment of U.S. marines that “all the natives should be shot” (7). American forces controlled Haiti starting in July 1915, while President Wilson was in office. In class we discussed his moralism, his desire to make it the American mission to spread democracy, but also his contradiction in spreading democracy and peace by sending marines into Latin America. The Nation documents discuss the motives behind the U.S. occupation of Haiti, namely the implementation of the Monroe Doctrine to keep out foreign aggressors (ahem, the U.S itself), the provision of stability after the coup in which President Guillaume was killed, and the interest the National City Bank of New York had in Haiti, where it would come to control to the National Bank of the country. Laying behind all these motives is also the white supremacy of the time, another aspect of President Wilson. But while racism was an accepted norm of the times in the early 20th century, today there is much less tolerance of it. So what propelled the U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan to see the natives as lowly as the marines saw the Haitians in 1915? I would argue that an ignorance of the Afghani people themselves, completely separate from the culture of the Taliban, certainly led to a blurring of the civilian/target lines. This lack of distinction was a push for the soldiers to treat them as one and the same and allowed them to justify their illegitimate killings.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I found both of these articles really disturbing. I agree with the others who talked about how we have more details for the situation in Afghanistan because of how recently it happened. One would hope that it is just this one unit that committed these atrocities, but I’m not sure how realistic it is to assume that. I think it all boils down to race. It is sad to think that even today, after such a huge struggle for equality in America, there are some who will never fully see people who aren’t white as equals. This view is what causes these problems to occur because they don’t see themselves as killing a human being, they are able to clump civilians and the insurgents into one group based on the color of their skin. One thing that I found particularly upsetting was when officers higher in command were told what was going on they just shrugged it off as “something that happens” and didn’t look into it at all. I think says something about what some of these officers are being taught or trained to expect during an overseas occupation.
ReplyDeleteI will start of by saying that I also see the biggest difference between the two readings being overall evidence. Part of the reason that the Rolling Stone article was so disgraceful was the simple fact that the soldiers were taking pictures of their kills. That right there is evidence unlike the "talk" that occurred in the Haiti situation. I understand that sometime it is hard to see the difference between the innocent and the enemy and the soldiers used this defense to justify what they were doing. The truth of the matter is that that these soldiers were seeking out the innocent for a fun game. Sadly, these are truths of war and men, these articles do not point out the first war time atrocities and I am positive it won't be the last.
ReplyDeleteThe articles on the American occupation of Haiti argue that the United States acted primarily out of material and financial interests, and that color prejudice was rampant among the American military. Contrary to the Adams and Hotchkiss readings from last week, this reading argues that the US did nothing to improve education, the other minor benefits do not justify military occupation, and in fact Haiti was a clean, civilized, and European-like place before US intervention. Given the time period and what we have studied, I have no doubt that American soldiers did kill innocent people, enslave men, and rape women in Haiti. I also believe some were proud of it. I am not sure if this is an accurate portrayal of the military as a whole because it is a very biased article. I think financial control and resource exploitation was the main reason for occupation, but also that some racist soldiers took advantage of the opportunity to go “cacao hunting.”
ReplyDeleteReading the Rolling Stone article made me sick to my stomach. I was unfortunately not surprised that these horrible and tragic things happen. I read through some of the comments and found those perhaps more interesting than the article itself. Some people stood up for the soldiers, saying that we could never understand what it’s like “over there” and were concerned about our army’s reputation. Others called out the military for first allowing these psychopaths to serve and second for allowing them to continue killing unchecked. Of course, I believe that the majority of our soldiers are fighting for the right reasons, but these soldiers were unquestionably racist and dehumanizing, which we have also seen in Haiti, the Philippines, and the South. One comment from Katherine Walker was particularly relevant to our class, “Americans need to get it out of their heads that we are somehow the saviors of the earth who have generously bestowed the gift of "freedom" onto a suffering world... The truth is we've caused many of those problems to begin with, or made them infinitely worse.” One thing that bothers me about incidents like this (besides the obvious) is that attacks on innocent civilians always lead to resentment and retaliation, which only deepens the conflict.
Concerning the “rogue unit” theory, yes these are isolated groups, but their frequency and recurrence throughout history points to a more systematic problem. It’s no longer a secret that the military has used questionable tactics; whether or not they are necessary debatable. No American wants to seem unpatriotic, myself included, so we have a very hard time admitting that something may be wrong with our foreign policy. But this is not the first “rogue unit” story we have heard recently, and I believe there are larger issues of racism and military protocol that need to be addressed.
I agree with what everyone has said earlier, about one of the main differences is going to be with the technology that is available at that time to show whats going on in the war. And because of the level of technology were at makes it easier for the world to see what atrocities are going on. Although these atrocities were horrible I thibk its also important to keep in mind that things like this happen a lot when it comes to war like we saw with the americans in the Philippines.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what everyone has said earlier, about one of the main differences is going to be with the technology that is available at that time to show whats going on in the war. And because of the level of technology were at makes it easier for the world to see what atrocities are going on. Although these atrocities were horrible I thibk its also important to keep in mind that things like this happen a lot when it comes to war like we saw with the americans in the Philippines.
ReplyDeleteThe difference for the both of these occupations is more people are willing to oppose what the military is doing publically now than they were back in the Haitian occupation. With technology and more people being able to have access to seeing the harsh actions that the soldiers in Afghanistan were performing, has more people stand up to have the soldiers be punished harsher than those in the Haitian occupation. People are also able to blog now, which impacts how the government will respond to the situation. Everyone agrees that the Afghani were being treated harshly without any reason. In both occupations the soldiers were doing things to innocent citizens of that country which is not morally correct or the way that the United States wants to be viewed by that country. For instance in The Nation by Herbert Seligmann he mentions that, “For Haitian men, women and children to a number of estimated 3,000 innocent for the most part of any offense have been shot down by American Machine gun and rifle bullets…” (Pg 5) with that being on the first page it is stressing how bad the soldiers were killing. Then for The Rolling Stone article “The Kill Team: How U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan Murdered Innocent Civilians” by Mark Boal, it mentions how the soldiers would just go out into villages and kill. Boal does not really mention how many people were killed all together like Seligmann does. The reason that Boal does not have to mention the amount of people killed is because of the pictures that are posted on the internet with the soldiers and the corpses or body parts. One would say that the soldiers in both of the occupations were abusing their power and saw killing as a game for them to play. Nobody likes to think that there are members of the military participating in the rouge unit theory but they are and it makes the wars bloodier than every before. The rouge unit theory could also be compared to when the English settlers were taking over land from the Indians. The English made it look as if they were killing Indians because they were barbarous but they were not all crazy some of them were innocent victims. When the English settlers wanted to acquire more land they were attacking and killing some Indian villages just because they feared the Indians would revolt one day. Overall in both the Haitian and Afghanistan had soldiers doing things that are what one can consider “un-American”, but the punishments for those soldiers are varied because of everything being publicized more with all of the technological advances that are used in America today.
ReplyDeleteI am honestly not surprised reading about atrocities American soldiers inflicted on the Haitians and Afghanis during the US's occupation. American forces were granted complete control over the natives. Forcing the natives to comply was easy through the intimidating use of guns and bombs. The US occupation in Afghanistan was well documented and followed through popular social mediums and any injustices or atrocities committed by US soldiers would be monitored and scrutinized internationally. For instance, the Rolling Stone article showed the brutality of a rogue unit of US soldiers aimed at the Afghani natives. The combination of revenge and a false belief of native compliance with the Taliban pushed the rogue unit to open fire on the village. I personally thought the execution of the 15 year Afghani boy was very disturbing because it was unjustified, like all the killings, completely random, and their was no motive to murder the young boy. The actions of the unit were met with no punishment from their commanding officer which allowed for more tolerated injustices. What I find it truly interesting is the American view of acting as a "world police force." Americans are suppose to be moral and ethical, however from these articles it is apparent that all countries -- developed and moral -- are susceptible to unjustified brutality and mass murder. Unlike Afghanistan, Haiti was significantly less documented which most posts acknowledge, but both dealt with the murdering of innocent natives. The two instances of US rogue unit intervention with occupied natives proved several beliefs I had: 1. The US Military cannot control the entire occupying force. 2. Native populations, not all, suffer from exploitation and discrimination from the occupying force. 3. US rogue units always emerge during occupation and indulge themselves with murder, rape, enslavement. 4. No matter what country it is occupying the nation, even the US, there will be numerous accounts of injustices committed by the occupying force. I bring up the point about the recent US soldier who killed 17 Afghanis last month. He killed these natives for no just cause. There will always be rogue units during occupation, it is inevitable.
ReplyDeleteWhether it is in Afghanistan or in Haiti, the atrocities were the same: both texts deal with random shooting of civilian, torture… But in the Rolling Stone article, atrocities go further, indeed in this race war, American soldiers ‘play’ with corpses, with their victims.
ReplyDeleteIn Haiti, the US was there in order to ‘clean the country’ as we can read in the Nation document. So they are not actually fighting a specific enemy but they are more for the elimination of the race. In Afghanistan were it was supposed to be more against a specific enemy, the Taliban, soldiers acted the same way than in Haiti, with more hate, which makes them mutilate and taking photos of their ‘achievements’. Consequently, playing with the dead body, taking pictures next to them or taking trophies (like a finger in the Rolling Stone article) seems more ‘normal’.
In the article dealing with Haiti, details and description of everything American soldiers did was enunciated. The critics are really important and we can see that the writer knows what he is talking about and knows that it happens ‘frequently’. On the opposite, on the Rolling Stone article even if completed with photos and a video, I would qualified it as more ‘uptight’, meaning that the writer seems shocked by these events, that it doesn’t fit ‘the American standards’. The way, I read this article was that US soldiers normally don’t do that, ‘we (the American) are not like that’. (But don’t take it wrong, this article was full of resources, facts and quotations and really interesting, but the point of view kind of different from the one of the Nation article).
‘Rogue Unit’ was also called the ‘Killing team’; I saw them as a bunch of young people wanting to have fun through ‘uncommon ways’, or during a wartime, the video they make on the shooting of two kids of almost their age sounds like a video game. No distinction between reality and games. They did not think of the consequences because they knew the government would never admit that US soldiers actually killed unarmed civilian just for fun or proud.
Indeed, the response of the government when these facts started to spread out was that this unit was working on its own, and it has nothing to do with them. But once it became an important topic, stories were invented to protect the American soldiers; moreover it happened in another country full of US enemies, so who is going to be trust?
I would say that no, these atrocities are not surprising since it is a race war, so US soldiers are just there to kill everyone, erase this inferior population which thinks in a wrong way. They don’t make differences between civilian and soldiers because they have the same ‘race’. So for me, the fact that they killed and/or torture soldiers and civilians can be understandable. However, the part that I don’t really get is how they can play with the body of the persons they killed. I get that fact that it is humiliation and manhood/power… but ‘normal’ people won’t be able to do that. So we can see that Morlock was already condemned for burning his wife with a cigarette, so in his case, I get it, but for all the others?
Wow. Everybody has some great comments here.
ReplyDeleteLike most people have pointed out, the main difference between the two articles is the amount of evidence. Because of today's technology and more investigative methods of determining information, the Rolling Stone article is going to seem more horrific, which it is, because more evidence can be uncovered. In both articles, as many people have already mentioned, the killing of Haitians and the killing of Afghans are likened to hunting, though the Rolling Stone article makes the slaughter seem almost artistic. On one hand, yes, the act of war makes people do unspeakable horrors, because simply put, that's the ugly side of war.
However, as Leah pointed out, war takes soldiers away from their families and generally throws them into an arena where they are taught to fight for their lives and countries. However, without the simple comforts of home, such as a homecooked meal or even a basic hug, soldiers sometimes create hardened personas to help them deal with the horrors of the battlefield. This is by no means a justification for behavior such as senseless slaughter, but maybe another angle to it. Soldiers are taught not to show fear; they need to remain courageous and strong, to prove their worth as men so that they may efficiently defend their nation and their honor among their peers. War hardens even the most generous and selfless of people. Psychologically, every soldier suffers some sort of wound--physical injuries are not the only types of damage endured on the battlefield. These psychological injuries can cause soldiers to snap. Is it right or morally sound? Of course not. But I do believe that some war crimes occur because of "deviant" and "rogue" behavior, as seen in the case of Morlock while other horrific crimes occur because of the emotional and national environment and values in which combatants are immersed.
Sorry I know this is late
ReplyDeleteI thought both articles described incredibly horrific acts not just that fact that innocent people were being slaughtered but for the fact that these crimes were being hidden. In both cases the US military was trying to hide these actions from the American public. The secrecy behind both of these kinds of murders is amazing. I think it is unbelievable that the Pentagon went as far to go to soldiers homes to collect the photos of dead innocent civilians but still dragged there feet when actually discipline these soldiers. It was really surprising to me the amount of similarities that both of these cases have. It’s clear that the motivation in both of these cases is race by looking at the way in both cases the soldiers named the enemy ‘gook’ and ‘hadji’. Even though, in the case of Haiti the racism may have been quicker to develop and in Afghanistan the racism developed out of the frustration with the type of fighting that arose from the insurgency. As many people have noted before me its clear to see that in both cases the US troops saw the slaughtering of civilians as hunting. Its described as duck hunting in Haiti and in the Photos from Afghanistan you can see the men holding the dead boys head like it’s a prize deer they shot as if it’s a sport. In both articles they describe killing innocent civilians for the smallest offenses like not following orders or not showing proper identification which both seemed to be proper use of military procedures, which raises the question, is the US military supportive of these kind of killing? In both cases the troops had an extermination mindset. In the videos from Rolling stone you can hear how excited that the soldiers actually get when they kill just one or two of the enemy. It just seems to me that this is what happens in these types of occupations. There are certain types of people that join the military to kill (probably a lot more than people would like to think). When you give a 19-20 year old a machine gun with little supervision this kind of stuff will happen, especially when race is a factor. I do not buy this ‘rogue theory’ its not rogue when there are this many occurrences throughout every occupation that the US has been involved in. It happened in the Philippines, Haiti, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It probably happens more than anybody will ever be able to know. Even recently there is the case of the US soldier that killed 17 innocent Afghans. I think it’s a mix between the type of people that soldiers are and the type fighting that develops out of an insurgency that causes these atrocities to occur
The two articles cover American troops committing atrocities abroad. To a large degree, the two articles could be completely interchanged, as there are many similarities. The Rolling Stone Article emphasized an Army Unit whose members systematically devised ways to murder innocent Afghans. Then it goes into depth over the subsequent cover-up by the higher ranking officers to brush the events under the rug and hide them under the cloak of wartime inevitability.
ReplyDeleteThe Haiti example similarly challenged the ideology of democracy and freedom for the reality of vast atrocities that took place. The article cites the murder of thousands of Haitians at the hands of our troops. It talks about the stealing, arson, and barbarism that the troops displayed via daily interaction with the locals. Throughout all these examples, it was the military officials who prevented the media from publishing the atrocities. The military as an organization forcibly covered up the events, similar to today's Afghanistan.
Both of these examples point to the horrors of war. But nobody should be surprised to understand these as new or unexpected. War remains abstract to those who aren't living it, but for those asked to kill at the hands of the state, war is very real. And it shouldn't be surprising when atrocities occur because they are the spoils of war. Raping, killing, and pillaging are consequences of War that go back to the beginning of time. The problem our troops face with this are conflicting ideologies. Is there such thing as a Gentleman's Army who wins hearts and minds while spreading democracy? I don't believe this can truly exist because war is too murky. The protection of our own troops outweighs the protection of the civilians we occupy, so our military will always err on the behalf of our troops words. This provides the rhetoric for troops to commit atrocities, yet report them with their own spins.
And if I was deployed right now, I would want officers who would take my world over others. I would want the full support of my military and my country. So I am not surprised when the military issues cover ups to protect their own.
The only real difference between the events in Haiti and Afganistan is the availability of reporting. The world of today is much more transparent than the world of the early twentieth century. Greater demands for public information as well as the popularity of photography, blogging, television, and radio have made the United States' government more transparent (or so we would like to think) than it was 100 years ago. With this transparency Americans today know more about wartime atrocities than they did during the Haitian insurgency. This does not mean that warcrimes did not happen in Haiti, it strictly means that people were more oblivious.
ReplyDeleteThe question of whether the military's "rouge unit" theory or the theory that people just follow orders was answered for me when reading these articles: I think that one cannot happen without the other. Psychopaths would not be able to convence these units to do these war crimes if the environment did not foster it, and on the other side the soldiers would not have committed these crimes had they not been incited by these psychopaths.
In both articles it is clear an environment which encourages masculinity, racism, supremacy, and power will lead people to do things he or she thought themselves incapable. This begs the question: why do only certain units decide to take trophies and hunt their opposition and go on killing sprees? People will do terrible things in war to protect themselves and their friends, and when you are shooting to kill it is easy to dehumanize a population. This is why it should not surprise us that these events happen; crimes against humanity have been a part of war since the first concept of war. When people, men especially, are in a wartime situation he or she becomes a different person; they become the kind of person who follows orders first and thinks second.