US Combat Troops - Comfortably Numb

I’ve written several times on this blog about the mental state of combat troops; i.e. about their colossal suicide rate or about the way the US Department of Defence is toying with the idea of medicating soldiers to desensitise them to combat trauma. For instance

Hidden cost of the allied invasion and Guilt Free Soldier and Suicide epidemic among US vets

My argument has always been the same, namely that humans are not naturally aggressive, that we are not predisposed to dish out violence and that governments, realising this, will do anything to conceal the true cost of war, particularly with regards combatants and their inability to handle the stress of front line combat. Today’s Herald informs us that one in six American soldiers in Afghanistan and one in eight in Iraq, that the Pentagon claims to know of, are on daily doses of prescription antidepressants, sleeping pills or painkillers to help them cope with the stresses of combat. The Herald reports:

“The findings mean that at least 20,000 troops are on medication such as Prozac or diamorphine while serving in the front line or on equally dangerous convoy escort or driving duties in conflicts where insurgents regularly target the supply chain.

“While the vast majority would have been barred automatically from combat roles in earlier wars on medical and safety grounds, the pressure to provide up to 200,000 soldiers at any given time for the two major deployments has led to a relaxation of the rules.

“The Pentagon admitted that medication was tolerated because those sent to Afghanistan or Iraq were 'younger and healthier than the general population' and had been screened for mental illnesses before enlisting.”

Common sense suggests that the real reason that medication is tolerated is because the US has garrisons totalling 180,000 men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan alone; there to secure its control of world oil, resources and to start dismissing those found to take mind-controlling drugs, or giving them administrative posts, as is the case in the British army, means the only way they could maintain their oil empire is via conscription. And if your troops are comfortably numb, then what the fuck so long as they are doing their job and keeping open the oil pipelines. Which means that any legit or self-prescribed drug that keeps a soldier deployed and fighting also saves money on training and deploying replacements. But there is a downside: the number of soldiers requiring long-term mental-health services back home soars with repeated deployments and lengthy combat tours and this costs $$$$. But what the hell, there are profits to be had and natural resources to secure.

Drug use is nothing new by any means. If soldiers are not self-mediating then their top brass are seeing they are psychologically fit to kill people they have no real grievance with. Generals, history shows, have plied their troops with medicinal palliatives at least since George Washington ordered rum rations at Valley Forge. During World War II, the Nazis fuelled their blitzkrieg into France and Poland with the help of an amphetamine known as Pervitin. The U.S. Army also used amphetamines during the Vietnam War.

Meanwhile, mental trauma has become so common that the Pentagon may expand the list of "qualifying wounds" for a Purple Heart — historically limited to those physically injured on the battlefield — to include posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The Power of Conformity

Candid Camera was a popular television program in the US in the 1960s. The program used the classic methodology of naturalistic experiments in social psychology as the source of its humorous scenarios. The resulting programs were not only entertaining, but also potentially instructive. For example, how independent is the average person when confronted with the all-powerful "consensus of the group?" Not very.

Creating a consensus quickly is the goal of every "shock and awe" propagandist. That's why it's often true that "a lie makes it half way around the world before the truth gets its pants on."

Professional liars - and I could tell you a few recent stories of them - have their stories worked out well in advance and then pump them out hard and fast long before thoughtful, honest analysts have the chance to ask even the first question.

Once the consensus is pointing in one direction, it becomes very difficult to take, hold and promote a contrary point of view, even if that point of view is accurate and the consensus is completely false.

That's why it's prudent to assume that ANYTHING you "know" that is consensus-based and was produced and is continuously supported by the so called "mainstream" news media (news, PR and/or propaganda) is probably the product of a calculated attempt to mislead.

As a simple rule of thumb, the proper response to ANYTHING that makes its way to the network news or the front page of a major newspaper is to ask yourself two questions: "Whose propaganda is this?" and "What facts are they withholding and skewing in a calculated attempt to mislead me?"

One of the most important skills in the propagandist's bag of tricks is controlling where your audience places its attention. In magic, it's called "misdirection." In politics, it's called setting the agenda.

Once you realize that EVERYTHING that's featured by the news media is most likely someone else's propaganda and that the key to successful deception is misdirection, you are well on your way to liberating your mind from a ton of nonsense and misinformation and, in the process, perhaps saving your own life some day.

Take this short test and see how powerful misdirection is and how it works:

Perception is limited - always. The challenge is not to perceive everything, it's to perceive what's important. The primary tool of the propaganda system (also known as "the news media") is misdirection, having you pay attention to the wrong things.