That issue is addressed at the end of the article, and I can vouch for it - soldiers have to find a way to take the situation lightly at the time. It's the only way they can deal with what's going on at the time.
Well, I won't argue with you that the more honorable response to accidentally killing children would probably be to break down in tears, go home and commit ritual seppukku.
However, these guys are paid to carry out the nasty state business of killing. It's their job. The immediate question is whether they did their job properly here. Did they carry out their orders properly? A bigger question is whether those orders were correct in the first place.
The question is NOT whether they responded to a killing with appropriate remorse. That part is pretty much irrelevant as soon as you volunteer to kill for the state.
I'm afraid you've got it the wrong way round. The detached non-emotional tone adopted in the recording doesn't contradict the assertion that fighters may adopt a detached attitude during conflict as a way of pushing down emotions.
I guess we project our prejudices into how we interpret the vid. Their job is to kill enemy combatants. Do you expect them to say "oh dear, we hit the people we were aiming at, how terrible". Of course not. To me the judgements on who and what to hit were verging on the 'trigger happy', but sorry, I didn't see or hear evil bloodthirsty yanqui imperialists.
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That's somewhat contrary to the voice over from the guy flying the chopper.
That issue is addressed at the end of the article, and I can vouch for it - soldiers have to find a way to take the situation lightly at the time. It's the only way they can deal with what's going on at the time.
Well, I won't argue with you that the more honorable response to accidentally killing children would probably be to break down in tears, go home and commit ritual seppukku.
However, these guys are paid to carry out the nasty state business of killing. It's their job. The immediate question is whether they did their job properly here. Did they carry out their orders properly? A bigger question is whether those orders were correct in the first place.
The question is NOT whether they responded to a killing with appropriate remorse. That part is pretty much irrelevant as soon as you volunteer to kill for the state.
I'm afraid you've got it the wrong way round. The detached non-emotional tone adopted in the recording doesn't contradict the assertion that fighters may adopt a detached attitude during conflict as a way of pushing down emotions.
He's not detached and non-emotional, to me he sounds eager to kill, definitely not without emotion.
I guess we project our prejudices into how we interpret the vid. Their job is to kill enemy combatants. Do you expect them to say "oh dear, we hit the people we were aiming at, how terrible". Of course not. To me the judgements on who and what to hit were verging on the 'trigger happy', but sorry, I didn't see or hear evil bloodthirsty yanqui imperialists.