CounterPunch September 16, 2006
Ethos of the Destroyers
The American Military's Cult of Cruelty
By Robert Fisk
In the week that George Bush took to fantasizing that his blood-soaked "war on terror" would lead the 21st century into a "shining age of human liberty" I went through my mail bag to find a frightening letter addressed to me by an American veteran whose son is serving as a lieutenant colonel and medical doctor with U.S. forces in Baghdad. Put simply, my American friend believes the change of military creed under the Bush administration--from that of "soldier" to that of "warrior"--is encouraging American troops to commit atrocities.
and to the "black" prisons of the CIA, humiliation and beatings, rape, anal rape and liquidate have now become so commonplace that each new outrage is creeping into the inside pages of our newspapers.
My reporting notebooks are full of Afghan and Iraqi complaints of torture and beatings from August 2002, and then from 2003 to the present point. How, I keep asking myself, did this happen? Obviously, the trail leads to the top. But where did this cult of cruelty begin?
So first, here's the official U.S. Army "Soldier's Creed" originally drawn up to prevent anymore Vietnam atrocities:
"I am an American soldier.
I am a member of the United States Army--a protector of the greatest nation on earth. Because I am proud of the uniform I wear, I will always act in ways creditable to the military service and the nation that it is sworn to guard ...
