Re: [Marxism] Military ethicist kills himself over Iraq abuses

["acpollack2@xxxxxxxx" <acpollack2@xxxxxxxx>]

I'm surprised no-one commented yet on this piece of the article:
"A psychologist... said that Westhusing had placed too much pressure 
on himself to succeed and that he was unusually rigid in his thinking. 
Westhusing struggled with the idea that monetary values could outweigh 
moral ones in war. This, she said, was a flaw.

"Despite his intelligence, his ability to grasp the idea that profit is an 
important goal for people working in the private sector was 
surprisingly limited," wrote Lt. Col. Lisa Breitenbach. "He could not 
shift his mind-set from the military notion of completing a mission 
irrespective of cost, nor could he change his belief that doing the 
right thing because it was the right thing to do should be the sole 
motivator for businesses."

Do you hear what this pig is saying? She's not talking about private 
corruption (certainly because to protect her job she'll deny it 
exists). She's saying that Westhusing was wrong -- in fact, that he
was mentally unbalanced -- to think his military ethics were more 
valid than profit-seeking!

The US military has always been the source of rampant corruption by
camp travellers and back-home contractors -- but this shrink is
saying the new, open level to which it's been taken by Bush is to be
considered the norm and that anyone who challenges it is crazy!

Now Brian is right about the pitfalls of an overly rigid mortality for 
a soldier, and that would be true no matter the class character of
the army (although a proletarian army has to have a superior,
if still flexible, moral code). But that's separate from the range
of what's considered acceptable -- and even sane -- in various
bourgeois armies.


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