tlhInghan'a'
In the wake of the overheated fuss stirred up by the red-meat comments of Lieutenant-General James Mattis, I came across a visceral description of what is known as "intimate killing."
Mattis, to re-set the table, said the following to a panel on the future of warfare:
"Actually, its a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. I like brawling."
"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for 5 years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis continued. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
I blogged:
General Mattis is a Marine. Marines are warriors, and this mindset is part of the warrior ethic, particularly in the kind of war in which we're engaged, a war without rules, a war of annihilation. Mercy and "fair play" and rules of engagement will only give the enemy more chances to kill American soldiers.
I can't honestly see how anybody could find fault with the proposition that the only good jihadi is a dead jihadi. And it's far better for them to assume room temperature at our initiative instead of theirs. If that's the objective - and it is, or damned well ought to be - men like General Mattis are the sort of fighting leaders we need on the ground in tactical command.
We civilians may find such warrior candor shocking at times, but I don't think our sensibilities should be allowed to override the mindset that will keep us alive to indulge in such foolishness.
Now read through Retired Major Robert H. Scales' account of the "intimacy" of mortal combat:
Intimate killing is a primal aspect of warfare unchanged since the beginning of civilization. It involves a clash of two warriors, one on one, armed with virtually identical weapons. The decision goes to the soldier with the right stuff, the one with the greater cunning, strength, guile, ruthlessness and will to win.
For a moment put yourself in the place of a young soldier or Marine fighting house to house in the mean streets of Fallujah. Burdened with over 60 pounds of gear, sweat dripping constantly into your face, you can't stop shaking from the fear of what the enemy has in store for you around the next corner. Just ahead is a darkened house with doors and windows closed and shuttered. The only sound is the crunching of your boots on the trash and broken glass as you move in slow motion to surround the dwelling. You watch as the sergeant signals you to cover a side entrance. Through the faint haze you can see your buddy kick in the door and immediately come face to face with an insurgent who greets him with a burst of AK-47 fire that tears a hole in his chest. Your buddy doesn't die. The terrorist wants him to live just long enough for his buddies to rush in for a rescue and become additional trophies to be laid at the altar of heaven.
Now, it's your turn. You use your superior discipline and skill to approach the insurgent such that you're detected just at the last second. Both of you raise your weapons simultaneously and open fire in a crushing tear of bullets that scatter and ricochet wildly across the room. One bullet finds the bad guy and he falls in a bloody lump just inches from your boots.
What exactly do you "feel" at this moment? Relief, to be sure, but also something else that cannot be explained to anyone who hasn't committed an act of intimate killing. It's not joy, exactly, more like exhilaration and an enormous sense of self-satisfaction that in one of the most primal challenges — where all the satellites, planes, ships and smart weapons are of no use whatever — you prevailed, one on one, over a diabolically evil enemy.
Who should be offended by the emotions of "joy" or whatever one feels at the moment of a successful kill? It's a fair fight, you win and the bad guy loses. It's that simple. One more terrorist will not threaten your unit or your buddies. Remember, this isn't a reality show. There are no retakes. Donald Trump doesn't fire you and the price for second place is death.
General William T. Sherman once said, "It is good that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it." The corollary to that is that it is good that there are warriors in our midst who embrace the art of war lest destruction and death fall upon their countrymen. Or, as President Bush has put it on numerous occasions, we fight the enemy over there so that they won't be killing us over here.
To continue the Star Trek motif, it is because of its "Klingons" that the "Federation" can continue to survive and thrive.
Just some more gagh for thought.
UPDATE: NewsMax.com's Fr. Michael Reilly reveals quotes from Lieutenant-General James Mattis that the media doesn't want you to know about:
Displaying its usual knee-jerk antipathy towards the American military, the press seized on Mattis' comments, delivered in the middle of a panel discussion in San Diego last week.
The message was clear. The Iraq war hero is, in reality, a brute. A psychopath. A cold blooded killer whose attitude offered a window into the thinking that lurked behind the abuses at Abu Ghraib.
Amazing. How do elite liberal journalists, who would never dream of joining the military themselves, think a commander prepares his men to engage the enemy? Obviously, these reporters have never been in a football locker room at half-time.
A commander needs to help his men believe that they are risking their lives for a great nation which believes great things; that they fight an enemy who would destroy our way of life and our people. How does one do that without appealing to base emotions?
There are other quotes from the top Marine commander that reporters could have noted, words that show that he's anything but the Neanderthal killer they advertised in press accounts.
Here's the advice General Mattis offered his troops on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom before leading them into battle:
"Our fight is not with the Iraqi people, nor is it with members of the Iraqi army who choose to surrender. While we will move swiftly and aggressively against those who resist, we will treat all others with decency, demonstrating chivalry and soldierly compassion for people who have endured a lifetime under Saddam's oppression . . .
"Use good judgment and act in the best interests of our Nation. You are part of the world's most feared and trusted force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon. Share your courage with each other as we enter the uncertain terrain north of the Line of Departure. Keep faith in your comrades on your left and right and Marine Air overhead. Fight with a happy heart and strong spirit . . . .
"If [Iraqi soldiers] choose to fight they are going to regret it, but we also believe that part of the physicians’ oath that says first do no harm. If, to kill a terrorist, we have got to kill eight innocent people, you don’t kill them."
The words of an out-of-control psycho killer? Hardly. That's why the press didn't want you to hear them.
The anti-military media would rather portray General Mattis as a Ghengis Khan, Jr., executing the policies of a reckless cowboy President who's leading the nation to disaster.
Oddly enough, some of the same pundits calling for Mattis to step down are defending Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor who described 9/11 victims as "little Eichmann’s” who deserved what they got.
Sorry, this priest has buried too many victims and consoled too many families to buy that. I’d rather have General Mattis shooting the perpetrators of 9/11 than have Ward Churchill defending them [at public expense] any day of the week.
Not difficult to discern who are the heroes and who are the petaQ, is it?
Mattis, to re-set the table, said the following to a panel on the future of warfare:
"Actually, its a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. I like brawling."
"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for 5 years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis continued. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
I blogged:
General Mattis is a Marine. Marines are warriors, and this mindset is part of the warrior ethic, particularly in the kind of war in which we're engaged, a war without rules, a war of annihilation. Mercy and "fair play" and rules of engagement will only give the enemy more chances to kill American soldiers.
I can't honestly see how anybody could find fault with the proposition that the only good jihadi is a dead jihadi. And it's far better for them to assume room temperature at our initiative instead of theirs. If that's the objective - and it is, or damned well ought to be - men like General Mattis are the sort of fighting leaders we need on the ground in tactical command.
We civilians may find such warrior candor shocking at times, but I don't think our sensibilities should be allowed to override the mindset that will keep us alive to indulge in such foolishness.
Now read through Retired Major Robert H. Scales' account of the "intimacy" of mortal combat:
Intimate killing is a primal aspect of warfare unchanged since the beginning of civilization. It involves a clash of two warriors, one on one, armed with virtually identical weapons. The decision goes to the soldier with the right stuff, the one with the greater cunning, strength, guile, ruthlessness and will to win.
For a moment put yourself in the place of a young soldier or Marine fighting house to house in the mean streets of Fallujah. Burdened with over 60 pounds of gear, sweat dripping constantly into your face, you can't stop shaking from the fear of what the enemy has in store for you around the next corner. Just ahead is a darkened house with doors and windows closed and shuttered. The only sound is the crunching of your boots on the trash and broken glass as you move in slow motion to surround the dwelling. You watch as the sergeant signals you to cover a side entrance. Through the faint haze you can see your buddy kick in the door and immediately come face to face with an insurgent who greets him with a burst of AK-47 fire that tears a hole in his chest. Your buddy doesn't die. The terrorist wants him to live just long enough for his buddies to rush in for a rescue and become additional trophies to be laid at the altar of heaven.
Now, it's your turn. You use your superior discipline and skill to approach the insurgent such that you're detected just at the last second. Both of you raise your weapons simultaneously and open fire in a crushing tear of bullets that scatter and ricochet wildly across the room. One bullet finds the bad guy and he falls in a bloody lump just inches from your boots.
What exactly do you "feel" at this moment? Relief, to be sure, but also something else that cannot be explained to anyone who hasn't committed an act of intimate killing. It's not joy, exactly, more like exhilaration and an enormous sense of self-satisfaction that in one of the most primal challenges — where all the satellites, planes, ships and smart weapons are of no use whatever — you prevailed, one on one, over a diabolically evil enemy.
Who should be offended by the emotions of "joy" or whatever one feels at the moment of a successful kill? It's a fair fight, you win and the bad guy loses. It's that simple. One more terrorist will not threaten your unit or your buddies. Remember, this isn't a reality show. There are no retakes. Donald Trump doesn't fire you and the price for second place is death.
General William T. Sherman once said, "It is good that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it." The corollary to that is that it is good that there are warriors in our midst who embrace the art of war lest destruction and death fall upon their countrymen. Or, as President Bush has put it on numerous occasions, we fight the enemy over there so that they won't be killing us over here.
To continue the Star Trek motif, it is because of its "Klingons" that the "Federation" can continue to survive and thrive.
Just some more gagh for thought.
UPDATE: NewsMax.com's Fr. Michael Reilly reveals quotes from Lieutenant-General James Mattis that the media doesn't want you to know about:
Displaying its usual knee-jerk antipathy towards the American military, the press seized on Mattis' comments, delivered in the middle of a panel discussion in San Diego last week.
The message was clear. The Iraq war hero is, in reality, a brute. A psychopath. A cold blooded killer whose attitude offered a window into the thinking that lurked behind the abuses at Abu Ghraib.
Amazing. How do elite liberal journalists, who would never dream of joining the military themselves, think a commander prepares his men to engage the enemy? Obviously, these reporters have never been in a football locker room at half-time.
A commander needs to help his men believe that they are risking their lives for a great nation which believes great things; that they fight an enemy who would destroy our way of life and our people. How does one do that without appealing to base emotions?
There are other quotes from the top Marine commander that reporters could have noted, words that show that he's anything but the Neanderthal killer they advertised in press accounts.
Here's the advice General Mattis offered his troops on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom before leading them into battle:
"Our fight is not with the Iraqi people, nor is it with members of the Iraqi army who choose to surrender. While we will move swiftly and aggressively against those who resist, we will treat all others with decency, demonstrating chivalry and soldierly compassion for people who have endured a lifetime under Saddam's oppression . . .
"Use good judgment and act in the best interests of our Nation. You are part of the world's most feared and trusted force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon. Share your courage with each other as we enter the uncertain terrain north of the Line of Departure. Keep faith in your comrades on your left and right and Marine Air overhead. Fight with a happy heart and strong spirit . . . .
"If [Iraqi soldiers] choose to fight they are going to regret it, but we also believe that part of the physicians’ oath that says first do no harm. If, to kill a terrorist, we have got to kill eight innocent people, you don’t kill them."
The words of an out-of-control psycho killer? Hardly. That's why the press didn't want you to hear them.
The anti-military media would rather portray General Mattis as a Ghengis Khan, Jr., executing the policies of a reckless cowboy President who's leading the nation to disaster.
Oddly enough, some of the same pundits calling for Mattis to step down are defending Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor who described 9/11 victims as "little Eichmann’s” who deserved what they got.
Sorry, this priest has buried too many victims and consoled too many families to buy that. I’d rather have General Mattis shooting the perpetrators of 9/11 than have Ward Churchill defending them [at public expense] any day of the week.
Not difficult to discern who are the heroes and who are the petaQ, is it?
posted by JASmius at 7:43 PM
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