Soldaten полностью

Group thinking and mutual confirmation of what is perceived replaced the factual situation with an imagined one. Viewers watching the video now don’t see what the soldiers see. But the viewer doesn’t bear the burden of having to make decisions. What happens in the video may unfold before his eyes, but it has nothing to do with him. The task of U.S. helicopter crews as well as ground troops, however, is to battle insurgents. Every person on the street is perceived under this condition. Moreover, every suspicion those on the street raise, for whatever reason, carries a fatal tendency to be confirmed by further indications. When a group of people that has seemingly been clearly identified then disappears from view, soldiers perceive extreme danger. From that point on everything is directed toward combating the target:

Within the blink of an eye, eight people are dead, and one seriously wounded. The attack itself has confirmed the definition of the situation beyond any doubt. A combat situation does in fact exist, whereas before it was simply imagined.

The video caused a sensation when it was illegally made public in 2010, since it depicted American GIs killing a group of defenseless civilians from the air without being in any real danger. Yet upon closer examination it is completely unspectacular. Everything shown happens within the frame of reference “war” and carries a certain degree of inevitability. The “Collateral Murder” video is a perfect illustration that the consequences are real whenever people define a situation as real. The soldiers have a task, and they are trying to carry it out. In order to do that, they see the world through professional eyes. Everyone down below is suspect. Part of seeing the world professionally is exchanging impressions with others, and the tendency is that observations and comments that have been made once will be confirmed. Thus a single weapon becomes many, and passersby become combatants. One can call this phenomenon a “dynamic of violence,” an instance of “group thinking,” or a “path dependency.” In practice, all these elements come together with fatal consequences for eleven people within the space of a few minutes.

But the procedure is by no means over when the targets are destroyed. On the contrary, the soldiers take stock of their work:

What might appear to outsiders, and the media who reported on the video, as sheer cynicism is nothing other than professional acknowledgment after a job well done. The soldiers’ mutual congratulations once again make it clear that, from their perspective, they have destroyed completely legitimate targets.

The other side’s casualties are almost always regarded as fighters, partisans, terrorists, or insurgents. We recall here the rule among U.S. troops from the Vietnam War “If it’s dead and Vietnamese, it’s Vietcong,”⁸⁵⁰ as well as the Wehrmacht soldiers who justified killing women and children by saying they were “partisans.” It is the violent act following the definition that confirms the definition’s accuracy. In this way, violence serves as proof that one has correctly assessed a situation. The “Collateral Murder” video clearly illustrates how violence transforms a murky situation, in which men suffer from a lack of orientation and don’t know what to do, into something crystal clear. When all the targets are dead, order has been restored. Once the procedure has been set in motion, any further details will be seen in light of the original definition. The delivery truck with the men who are trying to help the wounded civilians to safety is an enemy vehicle. And as a logical extension, the would-be rescuers are further terrorists.

Even the fact that there were children in the vehicle, who were badly wounded by American gunfire, can be made to confirm the original definition of the situation: