Homeland Security charter school will train tomorrow's prison guards
Jason sez, "A new charter school in Wilmington, DE is in the works. The charter? Homeland security! Young adults, titled 'cadets,' will be trained in SWAT and 'prison guard, water rescue, paramedic, fireman, professional demolition and emergency response operator' skills.
Kids are definitely our guinea pigs: give it to them at school, at home and at their Disneyland vacation!"
The Project Manager for the Delaware Academy for Public Safety and Security, New Castle Attorney Thomas Little, signed a contract with Innovative Schools, a professional firm which will coordinate the mechanics of preparing the school for its eventual opening...Link (Thanks, Jason!)The first Principal of the institution is to be Dr. Fred Fitzgerald. A retired Captain in the Marine Corps, Fitzgerald teaches English, speech and debate at New Castle Christian Academy. Fitzgerald is also a former executive for Coca Cola in Jacksonville, Florida, and a former Director of Operations for the Port of Wilmington.
Also, a course on photographing sexual humiliation.
Would this be considered more of a voc-tech high school? Kind of creepy, I'll admit.
Kind of creepy? This sounds terrifying.
Been done:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
They left out astronaut.
Who needs world history when you can learn SWAT operator tactics. By the way, how would one reconcile the zero-tolerance policy with courses whose name includes "weapons?"
Personally, I think it's cool, although I would have to question the usefulness of some of these options in a school environment. Consider that training requirements for being firefighter are normally having to get your firefighter one & two, plus an emt certification, and that these take only a couple hundred hours of training. High schools (normally) includes around 4000 classroom hours, and you have to ask how dedicated this school is to the areas of focus. As a point of reference, I'm studying civil engineering at a Big-Ten university, and have managed to take care of these requirements while going to school with an average of 17 credits. It's not that much work. Also, pretty much all fire schools require that you be 18+ to do any live burn exercises.
The only thing I can really think of is that it is more like a school with flavor to it(ala military academy), as opposed to a more vocational like school.
As a voc-tech school, it could work. Most of those positions are straight up emergency personnel (paramedics, firefighters, emergency dispatchers, etc), I don't see anything wrong with those (except for prison guard and SWAT, but those are still necessary jobs...).
If they start training for positions in "information extraction technician," or waterboarding specialist, I'd get nervous.
Sounds like it good be a good trade school for a lot of youth. We have to do something with all these humans, better they have useful skills than not.
Hitler Youth? er, um sorry, I meant Homeland Youth
My thoughts exactly #9...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth
Fascism, it's a growth industry!
I have been following this for about a year and it seems to me that it is primarily for emergency services. There are many places in both the private and govt sectors that could use better trained personal to handle disasters like: hurricanes, earthquakes, twisters, etc.
I know here in California, there are many companies who have emergency plans and incident commanders to help protect their employees during quakes and other natural and human caused disasters.
I do think that the title "homeland security" is a bit unfortunate though. I think that emergency planning or something like that would be much more appropriate and fit better.
Guinea pigs? More like Fascist Pigs...
What about all those Israeli youth that have to serve in the defense corps? Do you think they called themselves Hitler Youth? Granted, they are 18 year-olds, not children. But service is manditory.
@#9: That would be "Homeland Cadets"
I hope this school will encourage the arts with classes like "Photography for Non-terrorists" and "Security Theater." Maybe Bruce Schneier can teach?
At the very least I want to see "TSA Calculus" so we can learn how to calculate the wait at airport security!
There may be a legitimate need for well trained emergency personnel but I see no reason for HS to be involved. I see no reason for Homeland Security to even exist frankly.
Jeff @14:
Israel's hardly the only country with mandatory military service. The UK used to have National Service, and Germany has some form of conscription, IIRC.
(Hell, the US used to have a draft, once upon a time...)
I like the idea of highly trained emergency personnel as much as the next person, but I don't think this should be mixed up with a high school education. Any additional training should be extracurricular.
I separate the emergency planning stuff from the SWAT and prison guard stuff. WTF is *that* doing in a high school?
Awesome. Looks like they'll be training the jack-booted, para-military government thugs of the future. I for one welcome the coming police state, I think we earned it.
Has anybody introduced these guys to their (big) sister school in Maryland? They're only about forty miles apart as the car drives.
And, to be fair, we should be talking about the Bush Youth, not the Hitler Youth. Brown's still a good colour choice.
Sounds like it good be a good trade school for a lot of youth.
The things is that the children who go to vocational schools are usually the ones who failed academic subjects and commonly had disciplinary problems. So we're now going to sort out the thugs and give them weapons and training.
@#14 Jeff, To be fair, the mere mention of Israeli army doesn't conjure immediate images of Gitmo, wiretapping and the eradication of civil rights in the name of nationalism (or patriotism, whichever you prefer). In the past couple of years, the name "Homeland Security" has begun to have the same sour ring as "Das Fatherland". The mere thought of indoctrinating young people into that organization make me wonder just how much longer we will remain a Democracy.
"Water Rescue"? Is that what we're calling it these days?
ACX99,
LOL. While simultaneously weeping.
#23: They already take them into the Army and Marines. If you're breathing, they'll waver almost anything.
Antinous, there are so many kids in trouble, that getting them into a program that helps teach them some kind of discipline has to be better. You can straighten a kid out if you get them in time. It's not a perfect answer, but it's not a perfect world either.
#24
Wow, that's not the Israeli army I know.. (maybe not gitmo, but yes to the wiretapping and erosion of civil rights, plus sledge-hammer surgical strikes and multiple collateral damage.. a sour ring indeed)
A sign of how sick american society is becoming, and I fear the worst is yet to come!
Cute.
I actually go to school in Wilmington, so I find this extra amusing.
getting them into a program that helps teach them some kind of discipline has to be better.
Teach? In a school? I thought that you lived in the US. Who do you think will be teaching them and what do you think the lessons will be? You can teach many things. I wouldn't put any money on them being kind and benevolent things.
I just re-read Snow Crash last week, and it seems that this Fitzgerald guy is the same sort of creepy Jeebus-military-establishment type that YT and Hiro were fighting against.
Seriously, though, protestants like this guy have no business teaching debate. Leave that to Jesuits.
I, however, would have paid goooood money to go to "Learn to be a badass High School back in high school," so they're going to get more than their fair share of wannabe panty-sniffers...
I want to see a charter school for Mall Ninjas.
FRIGHTENING.
Antinous, we do not live in a kind world. I find there are more troubling things than the prospects of sending youth off to school to learn how to fight fires or whatever. We will not survive as a culture if we are weak. But I guess if a kid wants out all they have to do is say "I'm queer! I'm a big horney homo and I want out!" That should work.
I fail to see the issue here.
..you mean there's NO gay fire fighters?
Wow, I never knew that..
And: "We will not survive as a culture if we are weak"
*chuckle*
I didn't know people still talked like that.. What in the world does it mean in this context Jeff?
This brings up an interesting question: better to encourage ethical, bright, patriotic kids to go to Homeland Security High, and risk having them learn that torture is okay, etc., or to discourage bright, ethical kids from going to the school, and ensure that the only kids in there are kids who would need moral waivers to get into the military?
I think this question also applies to any institution that has become notoriously immoral (like a corrupt police department): ethical, capable people are that much less likely to enter it. Given that the institution will continue, is it better for ethical people to boycott it by not working for it (ensuring that the thugs continue to rule), or is it their duty, in a sense, to enter the institution, despite the fact that their influence will probably be slight, and they might end up corrupted themselves?
Avar1ce - the "issue" is quite obvious:
There's a voc-tech school that specializes in law enforcement/emergency services careers, so naturally the whole thing must be evil and corrupt. Just like all of law enforcement and emergency services.
At least, that's what the tone of the post and the majority of comments are assuming. But don't think twice, just Think of the Children(tm)!
But i digest...
Just because the article has "homeland security" in the title doesn't mean DHS has anything to do with this school. In fact, by not capitalizing it, the article is very careful not to imply any sort of sponsorship. The reputation that the "Department of" has arguably earned notwithstanding, the concept of "homeland security" is to integrate efforts of law enforcement, emergency services, search and rescue, antiterrorism, disaster response, public safety. After all, these things are very much related, why not have a vocational school that specializes in those careers?
Lduvall - I agree, but don't assume all the comments are American :)
Yikes. I think this means it's time to get the hell out of dodge.
First thing I thought of #9, after I thought, "What? The FBI, CIA, DHS, etc., will scoop these kids up."
It's the perfect indoctrination program for government goons: obedient to the core, soulless, physically fit, trained in warfare. They are the Constitution de facto.
mrfitz - really, how would THIS be different from the military?
Going to the school would be a choice, like any other votech or magnet school. Same as US military service. (Actually, not really the same at all, because this school apparently focuses on civilian careers... non-police and non-military)
"obedient to the core, soulless, physically fit, trained in warfare."
Well, aside from the inflammatory 'soulless' bit, that's your ideal soldier. Are you accusing everyone who has served honorably of being a government goon? I know a lot of people who serve or have served in the military who can still think for themselves and are in fact VERY critical of the US Government. It's their right, and believe it or not, they can think for themselves.
Not to mention all the civilians actually working as prison guards, and also fire, 911, rescue, public safety... you know, the civilian careers this school is going to focus on.
Go tell someone who is proud to be serve their country how they have been trained to be good little Nazis and see what kind of response you get.
Most of the comments I've seen so far have been very ignorant. Who bothered to RTFA and see that this really has very little to do with DHS or any government agency? The somewhat inaccurate summary and overall tone didn't help too much...
FYI, Homeland Security should not be capitalized unless you're referring to the department, and this has nothing to do with them. In fact, this has about as much to do with Homeland Security as the spam I get for "a career in Homeland Security" ... which is of course, some bogus private investigator school.
We will not survive as a culture if we are weak.
"We Germans are armed against weakness and decay, and the blows and misfortunes of the war only give us additional strength, firm resolve, and a spiritual and fighting activity to overcome difficulties and barriers with revolutionary elan."
Since Godwin's law has already been invoked and all.
Go tell someone who is proud to be serve their country how they have been trained to be good little Nazis and see what kind of response you get.
There IS a difference, WeightedCompanionCube.
These are children. 14-18 year olds. You want a group of people who will be subsumed into the war machine with no protest whatsoever and indeed delight and pride? Take the teenagers. We're so desperate to fit in, to be a part of something better than ourselves, to have the group approve, that we'll hurt ourselves and others doing it. Without a second thought.
And continue doing it for the rest of our lives.
Also- this high school will set a precedent. It'll make a middle school reasonable. And then elementary.
Rescue tactics, fine. Professional demolition and SWAT tactics? Why in hell for? Why can't those things be learned as an adult, when you're searching for those jobs? Rescue tactics are fantastic- they will help any civilian. SWAT tactics will only provide an opening for militarization of people too young to not mouth off in D-Hall. They'll also allow the kid who thinks he knows everything since he took a few classes in school to try to be a hero in a situation the real SWAT should handle, and get himself and someone else killed.
tenn - who's jumping to conclusions here? How is giving a head start to young adults who want a career in public safety or law enforcement a bad thing? I think you'll get better results out of a school like this than if you take your pick of public HS grads/GED holders who have suffered at least 4 years of poorly funded, unmotivated education. You want to talk about indoctrination? That kind of mind-numbing wasteland is what turns some people into bullies and sheep. At least at a school like this, you can pick a career and they'll help you get there.
This school is trying to give inner city kids an option, and all you want to do is take that elitist point of view that unless you were "smart" enough to go straight to a higher education, you're too dumb to be anything but a pawn or a tool. I've seen that sentiment in a lot of comments on public-servant related issues, all the remarks about high-school dropouts as TSA screeners, etc, etc..
I am friends with and work with people who were lucky if they graduated from public school. Some of them either dropped out and went to a tech school or went there in the first place because they knew a generic HS wasn't right for them. They got training, found jobs, made a living, then went back to school and got their college degrees. Do you think you are better than them?
Look at the vast difference between crappy on-the-job training and a real classroom environment. Have you ever considered that maybe what law enforcement/public safety/homeland security needs is capable graduates from an academy that gives them the training and thinking skills they need to do their job effectively?
Regarding the slide of the US into an fascist state, I was wondering when a 'Hitler Youth' analogue would appear.
Now it's here. The conditions are nearly complete.
Go tell someone who is proud to be serve their country how they have been trained to be good little Nazis and see what kind of response you get.
Um, they might beat the crap out of you because they're good little Nazis? Many members of our military have been taught to shoot, but not to think. How much worse would it be if they were indoctrinated at an even younger age?
I, for one, do not welcome our new "never read a book, saw a play or listened to a symphony, but have guns and tasers" overlords.
I'm just glad to see better arguments than OMG HITLER YOUTH!!!11!!... Frankly, I don't think I would have taken the time to even comment if I hadn't been greeted by such 'wisdom'. Things like that (in the comments or the posts) make BB look... well.. amateur.
Antinous - actually, I was thinking you'd get more of a verbal ass-kicking than a physical one.
Because, you know, that's how rational people act.
Irrational people just resort to violence or ASSUME people will resort to violence.
Irrational people just resort to violence or ASSUME people will resort to violence.
Oddly, I have no atrocities on my record. Many members of our armed forces do. And you're reaching the point where the use of the word irrational is creating irony.
Much like you, I can define something as vague as "atrocity" to be anything I want it to be. But let's be a bit more specific: Let's go with torture. Well, ok, how many members of the armed forces have committed acts of torture out of all soldiers. I think you'll find the number very very low.
Now, let's consider a soldier shooting back in self-defense: I guess you can call shooting someone for any reason an atrocity. Now suddenly everyone who's seen combat has comitted an atrocity.
Using that logic, how about we just assume every person of your choice of race or ethnicity is a criminal because a few are. They're all the same right?
See my point? If you're going to make off-topic comments like how you have no atrocities on your record, and imply that everyone who has been in the military is an unstable brute looking for a fight, you better be able to back it up.
I am done with this discussion. It was supposed to be about a school.
Too early, too young. This school concept would do more harm than benefit. It is a function of a society's wealth to extend childhood. This school would be perfectly normal in a third world country.
Is America going backwards?
This specialization closes doors in the name of developing narrow technique. How about Olympic athlete training schools? They have been done in Russia and China, they work.
and all you want to do is take that elitist point of view that unless you were "smart" enough to go straight to a higher education, you're too dumb to be anything but a pawn or a tool
I don't see how any thing I wrote correlates to elitism. Excuse me, but your assertions on my character are unfounded and unwelcomed. I am currently considering dropping out and getting a GED for the simple sake that I could make more money doing what I know than going to school in unnecessary classes that I am currently struggling in - failing, even.
At least at a school like this, you can pick a career and they'll help you get there.
I support schools that do that. I do not support schools that make it possible for children to practice military tactics at young ages. It's never worked out. Ever. Sparta, Africa, and Germany have taught us this. Children are children. I'm a member of JROTC, which is as far as it should go. You learn leadership there but we're strictly kept from learning actual military tactics beyond first aid and marching. We target shoot. SWAT tactics are something else entirely. Busting in doors and effective invasion of buildings in dangerous situations does not equal a necessary pre-job training. You can get those skills at the job.
"Crappy on the job training?" That's for things that don't have Military Police Academies. I should hope our SWAT officers aren't getting thirty minutes of instructional videos- which they aren't.
If you're going to make off-topic comments like how you have no atrocities on your record, and imply that everyone who has been in the military is an unstable brute looking for a fight, you better be able to back it up.
Being as you initiated the comments which led to his 'off-topic comments', I think this is a case of pot and kettle. Hurrah, you.
I am friends with and work with people who were lucky if they graduated from public school.
I'm going to one. Your 'well I have friends who are -----' argument is trumped by my daily experience, I'm afraid. I see these kids every day. Whether you're 'elitist' or someone I apparently perceive as dumb (which, for the record, I don't, thanks), you're still subject to the social pressures that are going to make these schools dangerous.
Yes, options are needed. No, this is not that option. Vocational school, yes. I'd fully support this- minus the military aspect.
"From that time, he has been groomed to be the best possible military leader that the government can make.In every encounter, he not only wins, but wins completely, something the military appreciates. The military tests and trains its students, most notably Ender, through games. Ender is the most successful student ever at Battle School. Ender trained relentlessly, and finds success when under the most emotional and social strain — when he is angry and isolated. the adults recognize this and capitalize on it — isolating and angering Ender as often as possible.When assigned to an army, Ender rises to the top of the leader board. From this point on, he was the one everyone compared themselves to. As training progresses, Ender becomes a commander of his own army, and wins handily again. He is the best strategist the school has ever seen."
@49:
Antinous - actually, I was thinking you'd get more of a verbal ass-kicking than a physical one.
Because, you know, that's how rational people act.
Irrational people just resort to violence or ASSUME people will resort to violence.
Funny, I wasn't aware that the recruits these days were getting trained in reasoned debate and conflict resolution.
Cutting through all the Patriotically Correct nonsense, the average combat soldier is trained to resolve conflicts through use of physical force, they are trained to accept orders to use that force almost without question and they are steeped in a culture that says their country can do no wrong or that when it does that wrong is vastly outweighed by all the good it supposedly does.
This is not conducive to a mindset that can tolerate direct verbal criticism without feeling an instinctive need to smash the source of said criticism. I personally wouldn't take my chances with those odds. I'm also fairly certain that a "verbal ass-kicking" is not the outcome you'd be hoping for in such a situation. The "why don't you try saying that to a soldier" shtick is very dated and the implication behind it is pretty clear: Please say this to a soldier so they'll hopefully do you the harm you richly deserve, you un-American hippie commie pinko.
But I'm sure you were just engaging in satire. That is the usual excuse isn't it?
Ugh.
As to the whole "try saying this to a soldier" argument? I never made that argument. I said "serve their country", which can mean a variety of things, and this school would teach a lot of those careers. However, it very much irritates me when people assume the military is nothing more that a death squad.
Has anyone else realized that this school is NOT a military school? It has academy in it's name and has ex-military leadership on board. That does not make it a military school any more than any other private school. The whole "SWAT Tactics" thing was undoubtedly media exaggeration... my reasonable guess would be you'd learn as much about SWAT tactics as you'd learn surgery in pre-med.
from antinous:
The things is that the children who go to vocational schools are usually the ones who failed academic subjects and commonly had disciplinary problems
This is really a failing of our school system and leave no child behind. We have a school system which focuses on college bound kids. the ones who are "problemed" goto vocational. Most kids get left between the cracks (neither college bound or stuggling in college, and have no vocational skills)
nothing more than a natzi youth training camp....when they get out... they will be cannon fodder for the rest of us
Serving the country "honorably"?
When you join the military you swear an oath to defend the Constitution, but this is just BS. When you are a soldier, you do what you're told regardless of whether it's constitutional. I'm a veteran, I know.
For those that joined the military in the hope of doing something like saving helpless civilians from genocide--something honorable--I'm sorry that you are in Iraq and not Sudan or Rawanda. You should have seen it coming from our country's history.
For those of you who were given a choice of jail or the military, or if you just like to cause other beings pain and suffering, I have no respect for you.
So can the "honorable" bit. It's a myth.
A compromise: ask the teens if they want to go to a school where they would learn these skills. There are always going to be kids that want to be firemen and soldiers. Oh, and please make sure they get to read a book too. And if they want to go see a movie or a play or anything else that has the endorsement of our cultural elite, please let them. God knows, we don't want our SWAT personnel being culturally deficient. Anyone who doesn't think in terms of "perceived" weakness or strength, knows very little about world politics, local politics, family politics, basic human psychology, primate psychology or animal behavior and is too naïve to take seriously.
no respect for bullies, i concur, but why no respect for those who chose the military over jail? At least the military has a chance of teaching you right from wrong, and giving you some skills.
more of then than not, the people given that choice are the people who don't really deserve some inflated mandatory sentence or perhaps any time at all for what they did. Truly reprehensible felons don't get the choice to serve, because the military doesn't want them.
JEFF - right. It's a private school and not a prison camp for training future prison guards. Of course you have the choice to go there or not. And if it's going to meet state requirements for secondary education, there's going to have to be academic subjects. I still stand by my opinion that especially when it comes to positions of authority or public safety, you need to teach them in an academic environment.
Consider the police academy: Sure you get some bad cops coming out of it, but imagine what the police force would be like if they hired off the street and trained like McDonalds.
Has anyone else realized that this school is NOT a military school?
The military part doesn't really alarm me. If they're going into the military, they'll get military training which will be either good or bad. Whatever they did in high school will be largely irrelevant. I'm more concerned with the 'security' track. Private Security has been a euphemism for Paid Bully since the time of the pharaohs. Taking potential bullies away from a school that might impress some humanity on them and putting them into paid bully training at such a young age is asking for trouble.
As to the whole "try saying this to a soldier" argument? I never made that argument. I said "serve their country", which can mean a variety of things, and this school would teach a lot of those careers.
Yes, of course, it can mean a variety of things. Even though the primary focus here seems to be on the military aspect. Even though MrFitz was talking about people trained in warfare. Even though you felt the need to respond to MrFitz by saying that all the people you know who've served in the military think for themselves and aren't just unswervingly obedient. Obviously you weren't talking about soldiers when you said "I know a lot of people who serve or have served in the military", you must've been talking about schoolteachers or EMTs.
However, it very much irritates me when people assume the military is nothing more that a death squad.
Welcome to the internet. People here may say things you don't agree with, like hearing, or want to hear. Your irritation is inconsequential beyond the extent that it may or may not be entertaining.
Nobody said "death squad". I guess that's what you keep hearing whenever someone makes the outrageous suggestion that people who have the ability to kill without legal sanction as part of their job should be held to some higher standard of conduct. Additionally, the idea that anyone should be automatically granted respect simply due to the position they hold in society or the uniform they wear is the mentality of the servile.
However it very much amuses me when someone says in a huff that they're quitting the discussion only to reappear a few posts later.
WeightedCompanionCube:
Allow me (as a soldier) to say... I am more concerned about this because it's not actually a DHS program. It's a percolating of the Idea of "Homeland" and that implies and "outland".
I don't see anyone in this thread calling me, or my fellows, facists (though I can see where they might, and in context, I might not get annoyed), they are saying that this is a creeping trend. The idea that we need to have Voc/Trade Schools with a "Homeland Security" focus is bothersome.
That they aren't actually following a gov't curricula is more so; because that allows for secondary indoctrinations and private ideas of "how things ought to be" to end up in people who go into those lines of work.
It's a bad thing because of how it's cast. The connotations of the name are that this is either sanctioned, or that there is some existential threat to, "our way of life" which needs to have large chunks of the populace mobilised from an early age to combat.
That's not the same as an Explorer program with the fire and police depts. You are reading a lot into what's been said (with the ham-handed attempt to play the anti-intellectual card, "elitist"). We don't have a trade school system, so pulling someone from the ideal we've set up (a broad education) and shunting them into something else will have the effect (intended, or not) of making the professions they are being tracked to, seem less intelligent.
Police depts get graduates from acadamies with rigorous training, and a POST certificate isn't something these places are going to be handing out. What is more likely to happen is that those who go to this school, and don't make the cut, will acquire an arrogance (like "cop-lite") and become insufferable in some other, probably related, job.
Antinious: I take some exception to the characterisation that "Many members of our military have been taught to shhot, but not to think." The training on weapons is actually really good in that regard. There are behavioral constraints built into the program, and the ROE are pounded into everyone. Some may be more aggressive than others, but the number of intelligent, thinking; and reflective, people in service is higher than usually believed.
You may have no atrocities on your record, but many civilians do (sweeping characterisations from limited sets are easy to make). Are there atrocities. Yes, most certainly (and if you want to talk Milgram, and reactions to stress and strain; command influence, and all the like, I'd be glad to. There are some, serious; systemic, problem (IM, personal,O) and they reflect badly on some very specific part of the army, the command structure and the oversight of both, but I digress).
Even if systemic, are they widespread? No. They are, perhaps, becoming institutional, but that's, largely, a problem with the civilian leadership imposing ignorant ideas on an overly compliant general staff; with the active encouragement of a jingoistic public, fed nonsense by a pushover press.
I'll now step off that soapbox.
WEIGHTEDCOMPANIONCUBE: Do me a favor, define torture, because you seem to be using it fast and loose (at least, to me, from here). I have an intimate understanding of what it is; a deep comprehension of how it's defined (in the Geneva Conventions, International Law [and understandings] and the US Code, and I'd like to know we're using the same music before we start to dance.
As to the nature of the discussion, you were the one who took exception to the rhetorical flourishes, so I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for your attempt to flounce.
SKULLHUNTER: Cutting through all the Patriotically Correct nonsense, the average combat soldier is trained to resolve conflicts through use of physical force, they are trained to accept orders to use that force almost without question and they are steeped in a culture that says their country can do no wrong or that when it does that wrong is vastly outweighed by all the good it supposedly does.
Nonsense. Stupid nonsense. Insulting nonsense. More offensive to me than the thing WEIGHTEDCOMPANIONCUBE imputed to the people you are trying to beat up on.
And you compound it when you say: Even though you felt the need to respond to MrFitz by saying that all the people you know who've served in the military think for themselves and aren't just unswervingly obedient. Obviously you weren't talking about soldiers when you said "I know a lot of people who serve or have served in the military", you must've been talking about schoolteachers or EMTs.
Wow. Sixteen-year-old boys with TASERs and and batons with authority over each other. What could possibly go wrong?
There are behavioral constraints built into the program, and the ROE are pounded into everyone.
Rules of engagement that are still violated, altered or just plain ignored and then either excused or covered-up with the complicity of the command structure. Surely I can't be the only one who remembers how the story went regarding Fallujah and the use of white phosphorus weapons? Or the idea of setting "bomb making materials" out in the open, watched over by snipers assigned to kill anyone attempting to take them?
Some may be more aggressive than others, but the number of intelligent, thinking; and reflective, people in service is higher than usually believed.
And yet still the military continues to be used as a tool of capitalist and imperialist designs. Apparently the intelligence level isn't high enough to make an actual difference where it matters, just enough so that some people can act self-congratulatory about how truly smart the members of the military are. As long as you're still being used like this, you'll excuse me if my estimation of your collective intelligence is a bit off from what you think it should be
There are behavioral constraints built into the program, and the ROE are pounded into everyone.
Abu Ghraib.
Skullhunter (great name for someone arguing about reflexive violence) it's clear you are speaking without any real knowledge of the subject.
Tenn: You are conflating a number of things. ROE are tools for the use of weapons. Abu Ghraib was a circumstance where the ROE are no longer in play, and a different set of procedures are in place (see my comments about instutional problems; and systemic failures)
I know a lot about Abu Ghraib. Interrogation, and teaching it, are what I do (just google my name, with interrogation, and/or torture. You can also use "pecunium" in that string. For some outside insight as to my credentials, you may ask Xopher, or Teresa Nielsen Hayden).
There were a lot of problems at Abu Ghraib. I know a number of the people who were punished (not harshly enough, if you ask me). I am aware (but in now way which can be entered into evidence) of things which were swept under the rug.
1: MPs have no business in dealing with prisoners in any capacity other than protecting them and keeping them in the correct locations.
2: There were contract interrogators.
3: There were non-army/military interrogations: being done in military facilities.
4: Bullshit imported from the idiocy of Gitmo was appended to the procedures at Abu Ghraib.
5: There was no oversight of the three different pieces of prisoner interaction (MP, OGA/contract interrogators, Army).
6: There were too many prisoners.
There are a lot of other things I could say, they would border on the ridiculously esoteric.
Even accepting that Abi Ghraib wasn't an abberation (which I will stipulate, for the purpose of this discussion), it was a small number of people (that doesn't mean I think they were independent actors, the, "bad apple," theory; so don't try to argue I am making an apologia) it wasn't widespread.
And it had nothing to do with ROE, and the controls on the uses of force. In fact (because of all the things I just said) it can be argued the limited applications (limiting it, so far as is known to Abu Ghraib) supports the limits I said are built into the training.
I'm not saying this to pick a fight, but since you know the subject, you might as well address the Haditha killings.
Terry,
Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification on Abu Ghraib. It was a quick two word reply meant to convey the idea that the military is not infallible, and that ethics teachings often fail, as you explain, less than remarking on ROE at Abu Ghraib. I by no means disapprove of the military. I have many friends who are enlisted men and women, and I at one time (very recently) considered it a path for myself.
I simply believe it's very hard to police any institution like this, and when you have loyalty inbuilt to children, that there is likely to be less objection to a travesty such as Abu Ghraib.
When I have more time, I will analyze what you've said more clearly; I much appreciate the information and will be sure to reevaluate my stand on the prison scandal.
Antinious: The short, and terribly unsatisfying answer: War zones are psycopathic, and shit happens.
Flip, and callous and not at all helpful.
Combat zones are insane. One learns to think in ways which aren't normal, or rational or even reasonable; to anything other than the situation.
They were wound up. They were pissed off. Where John Q. Citizen might be so fed up at something from work that he goes to a bar where folks of the group the offending parties belong to (say a bar where lawyers hang out) and pick a fight, the Marines in Haditha went in with guns.
They snapped. They were held in the line so long the rules stopped working.
The shooting in the mosque in Fallujah was much the same (and that one had me lose it in a conversation... screaming and foaming at the mouth to the idiot civilian who was telling me I didn't understand what it was like and that shooting a wounded captive was justified; and proper. I had to be hauled up short by someone else who was in the Army. I then took a walk, but I digress).
The training isn't perfect. It can't be, the strains are too many, and the fear is too great. Read, "The Men of Company K" for accounts of the shooting of prisoners because there wasn't time (or manpower) to take them to the rear.
War is ugly beyond the power of language to express. One may gain some sense of it from well written books (generally I commend fiction for that), but it's a pale, and pathetic shadow of what it really is.
You have to see the elephant to know what it is.
Tenn: If you want to talk about it, I am willing to; but (this is important) it's a touchy subject with me. Not because I approve (for a whole lot of reasons I don't. It was stupid, needless, counter-productive and morally reprehensible and repugnant), but because I am close to the subject (being an interrogator; forgetting that I know some of the principals), and it gets tossed out in situations like this a lot.
Add the people who think torture either works (it doesn't) or is acceptable (it isn't) and it's a cross between infuriating, and frustrating.
I know you weren't trying to push buttons (and it's more in sorrow than anger that I react to the sort of mention you made), so don't feel badly: this is a case where intent matters at least as much as the actual deed. I wasn't offended, nor even hurt.
I agree with you about the bad idea of that sort of inculcation of youth.
you resting, Terry?
The school is a pipe dream. It's just an idea being floated by Wilmington GOP politicos and some local wingnuts. It has no charter, no facilities, no funding. But at least it's something for boingboingers to talk about.
I respect you, Terry. And I understand; not well enough to know war, not well enough to know what you know, but enough to respect and believe you based on your experiences, which are doubtless unpleasant.
I'm glad you weren't offended. I'm glad to know we agree.
I'm going to go over what I found on Google on you this weekend. I would earlier, but it seems like it's going to be some in depth reading on our military practices, and as I've got 2 college exams in the coming 2 weeks, I'd rather give both school the attention it deserves and your information the respect it deserves. I'm sure we here at BoingBoing would like to hear what you know about what's going on.
They were held in the line so long the rules stopped working.
Do you mean battle fatigue/shell shock? I've seen the Swank & Marchand data from 1946 that after 60 days of continuous combat, 98% of all soldiers become some form of psychiatric casualty (the 2% left over is in line with the prevalence of sociopathy). (I came into contact with this from Lt. Dave Grossman's book On Killing - he prefers the term "shell shock" because he thinks other terms are too euphemistic.)
I thought (perhaps naively) that the armed forces were well aware of this and didn't put kids in continuous combat for that long anymore, but rotated them out. Do you think they're just failing to do that, or that it's impossible to really "rotate out" over there - that there just isn't a "rear" anymore? Or is it something else going on?
I read yesterday that the number of US soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who commit suicide will probably outnumber those killed in conflict.
what happens to social workers caught in a system that routinely condemns children to ultimate neglect and death? Does it take longer than 60 days?
Terry,
Ive a lot of time for subtleties about this sort of thing, especially since I know from first hand experience the armed forces aren't particularly composed of psycho killers.
Interrogation seems like a very difficult issue. I know from dealing with police, just don't say anything. If you're being interrogated it means they don't have enough evidence to press charges, so keep your mouth shut and you'll probably be home in a while. Of course the game changes when it comes to the military. On the one hand some objective or other theoretically depends on the prisoner talking, so from a military perspective, 'enhanced techniques' become necessary; and on the other hand, guilt is presumed from capture, there are very few effective rights for the prisoner to depend on, and even cooperation only seems to win a release after several years, if, as expected, it turns out that the capture was entirely erroneous. In other words, there is a reason why many tactics employed by the US armed forces [and contractors] are illegal in most other industrialised nations: there is no mediating factor to the remedy. The rights of the institution are privileged without any respect to the rights of the individual. That isn't exactly the sort of philosophy I would want kids to learn.
I remember meeting a Swedish communist once, consumed by self-hatred because he worked as a screw. Dont do it kids. You'll never live with yourselves.
But at any rate, the school trains firemen too. Nobody better be hating on the firemen.
"Still fighting Jim Crow segregation
Black firefighters’ legacy of struggle
By Gloria La Riva
A shocking incident in 1987 exposed to the San Francisco public what Black firefighters in the city had always known. Racism in the virtually all-white fire department was vicious and pervasive.
The incident emboldened the Black firefighters of San Francisco to continue their fight for affirmative action. That struggle led to a historic 1988 court order, which resulted in a major increase in hiring and advancement of Black firefighters, other people of color and women.
It was a battle replicated in nearly every major city of the United States. Black firefighters’ experiences of unmitigated racism and white-only hiring policies endured far longer than in virtually any other industry or institution in the country."
"Unfortunately, in their attempt to correct past issues, the local City of Richmond has been a blatant example of sexist/racist discrimination. They recently announced that they would only hire white males for their fire department if they could not fill all of their vacancies with women or minorities. At they most recent firefighting test that I was at, I did not see one candidate that wasn’t a white male. Not one. Of the six hundred or so candidates that routinely apply to local departments, I would venture to guess that there are less than 50 that aren’t white males. In response to this, Richmond stated that they would be willing to pay for the training of non-white male candidates if need be."
"A black firefighter who was served dog food in his spaghetti by fellow firefighters will be paid more than $2.7 million to settle a lawsuit alleging racial harassment within the Los Angeles Fire Department.
The award, approved on an 11-1 vote Wednesday by the Los Angeles City Council, is the latest in a recent string of settlements of lawsuits by firefighters claiming discrimination and harassment and retaliation against those who complain. "
I've read "On Killing" There are some really good parts of it, and some real clunkers, but shell shock is a great phrase.
We are aware of it, but there's only so much that can be done.
David Drake, in the introduction to a collection of his stories explained that he had, "a good war," by which he meant that he was rarely aware of anyone trying to kill him; directly.
He also said he spent that entire year living in fear.
I was about 18 when I read that.
Some background. I was 25 when I joined the Army. I turned 36 in Iraq.
I didn't understand what he meant. I thought he meant he was afraid for that entire year.
He wasn't. Fear is a place. After awhile the sense of being afraid, melts away. It's like the muzak which never ends at your workplace, you stop being conciously aware of it, but your brain still hears it.
So the fear becomes a background state of being, even when no one is trying to kill you; retail.
It doesn't require being in the line to get to the breaking point. Adding insult to injury, we are returning people to the line, two, three, even four times.
Given the nature of the beast, soldiers in line untits are getting more time, "in the trenches" than soldiers in WW1. There is no rear, so the mindset of, "any moment" never abates.
The wonder is that we haven't heard of more such incidents.
what changed in the mind and brain of concentration camp survivors? Many mention how something happened inside as a result of living under the certainty that their lives could be extinguished summarily at any time.
The research Grossman points to seems to show that shell shock comes from the experience of combat - not the risk of death, but the experience of having to shoot at people that you can see. He notes that people in positions of equal danger to front-line soldiers, but who aren't expected to shoot people, have lower rates of psychiatric casualties. Also that people killing at a great distance - e.g., bombing from planes - have a lower risk than people who have to shoot at other people up close.
I'm not sure if Terry agrees - the parts of Grossman's book that seem least supported to me are the parts where he makes the (rather unsupported) leap from "conditioning soldiers to kill increases firing rates" to "video games and movies condition people to kill." But his sources on firing rates and casualty rates seem pretty solid.
I once corresponded with a man in agonies of guilt over the meteorology he performed to ensure cruise missile accuracy. I've also worked along side those who's hands were red with innocents and never exhibited symptoms or concern.
You know, something ScottFree just said back there a bit helped me figure out how to articulate something I couldn't find earlier.
The problem is not that the military is composed of aberrant psychotics or that most of them or even a decent number of them are trained to be aberrant psychotics. The problem is that they're mainly perfectly normal average people who either believe they're doing the right thing or who believe there's nothing terribly wrong with how the military works or how the military is utilized by our government.
I understand that people in the military are human. I understand that they're not all slavering psychotics out to maim and kill everyone they see. Life isn't an action movie or a comic book; there's no clearly-defined costume scheme, cheesy accent or anything else to easily delineate villain from hero. In the really real world, perfectly normal average people are quite capable of doing perfectly horrible things to other perfectly normal average people under the auspices of "following orders" or PTSD or whatever other valid or invalid reasons that can be cited. They may afterwards either feel no remorse or they may feel sorrow and regret. Unfortunately either way the tortured don't become untortured and the dead remain silent in their graves. Limbs aren't regrown, disfigurements don't vanish. All the academic regret and heartfelt soul-searching isn't fixing the problem.
Part of the problem is we have a government that uses its military from time to time to project its force onto the rest of the world when other nations don't get with the program regarding American business or security interests, sovereignty of those other nations be damned. Even a knowledge-lacking ill-named peon like myself can figure that one out. Fortunately for my lackwitted self, I've somehow managed to learn to read despite my obvious mental and social failings and thus have this thing called history to refer to. That history doesn't seem to involve a hell of a lot of altruism and good deeds done with no expectation of renumeration and does seem to involve a lot of toppling governments, training thugs and torturers, invasions, aerial bombardments and general miserable behavior towards anyone who has something our government wants.
The other part of the problem is the people who still believe in their heart of hearts that the military is still intrinsically good and noble, that it just needs to be gently guided back to the right path. Sorry, but it left that path a long time before any of us were born. Any good it does is purely coincidental to the designs of the people who ultimately call the shots. Sure, American soldiers are saving lives as well as taking them. They're saving lives that are endangered not just by terrorists and sectarian violence but by policies enacted by the very people who've sent them where they are now. Just like a firearm, the military isn't inherently good or evil, it's a tool put to whatever task the wielder decides upon, but with one important exception. A firearm can't refuse to be aimed and fired.
You don't have to convince me of the humanity of those in the military, Terry. I'm aware of it. Lack of humanity isn't the problem. It's a lack of the will to stand up to institutionalized inhumanity rather than reflexively defend that institution because you happen to belong to it.