Thrill Kill
The “Kill Team” as they have come to be known are sadly not characters ripped from a Hollywood movie. They are real American soldiers who committed acts of torture and murder during the war in Afghanistan. Also known as the “Maywand District Murders,” located in Kandahar province, the extrajudicial killings were the handy work of young Infantrymen who claimed they were influenced by their charismatic squad leader, Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs.
Dan Krauss’ 2013 film relates the story of Specialist Adam Winfield, a 21-year-old soldier in southern Afghanistan who tried, with the help of his father, to alert the military to the war crimes that were being committed by his fellow soldiers. Winfield along with the other soldiers were members of the 3rd Platoon, Bravo Company, which was part of the 5th Stryker Brigade based out of Tacoma, Washington.
The film, which you can preview in the trailer below, won first place in the category of Best Documentary Feature at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival. More recently, filming has begun for a dramatic rendering of the story, starring Alexander Skarsgard in the role of Gibbs (release est. 2017).
What Happened?
In an article written by Mark Boal, we learn how a group of American soldiers, all trained Infantrymen, decided it was “finally time to kill a haji.” The squad had apparently deliberated at length about how to do it over the course of numerous conversations and “late-night bull sessions.” Bagging “savages” as they termed it, carried a low probability of getting caught. Some of the soldiers “agonized over the idea; others were gung-ho from the start.” Eventually, their talking gave way to action, as the soldiers took active steps to execute a plan to commit organized murder.
As part of an effort to root out the Taliban located in their sector of responsibility, the platoon made their way to La Mohammad Kalay, an isolated farming village framed by poppy fields. It was here that the soldiers seized upon an opportunity when their officers retreated to the interior of the compound to talk to a village elder. As Boal explains, when their leadership was effectively distracted, it was at this point that the soldiers began looking for someone to kill. One soldier confessed to investigators: “The general consensus was “if we are going to do something that fucking crazy, no one wanted anybody around to witness it.” It was soon afterward that a young Afghan farmer was killed under dubious circumstances.
Boal described the victim in his article: “He was a smooth-faced kid, about 15 years old. Not much younger than they were (Morlock was 21, Holmes was 19). His name, they would later learn, was Gul Mudin, a common name in Afghanistan. He was wearing a little cap and a Western-style green jacket. He held nothing in his hand that could be interpreted as a weapon, not even a shovel. The expression on his face was welcoming. “He was not a threat,” according to Morlock, who later confessed to the killing.
Not satisfied with simply taking an innocent life, the soldiers celebrated their kill and took photographs of themselves with the young teen they murdered. One soldier (Holmes) posed for the camera holding a cigarette as he hovered over Mudin’s bloody and half-naked corpse; he grabbed the boy by the hair in the same manner as one might hold a deer taken as a trophy. Morlock (shown below) did the same, after which he snipped off the finger of the boy to keep as a souvenir.
When it was all over and done, Sergeant Gibbs was found guilty by a military court of being the leader of a U.S. Army “thrill kill team” that murdered a total of three (there were likely more) Afghan civilians for sport. He was sentenced to life in prison, although he will be eligible for parole in nine years. Additionally, Gibbs was found guilty of 12 other related charges, which included the taking of body parts from corpses as trophies. In summary, three soldiers, who also pled guilty in the case, testified against Gibbs, whom the accused of masterminding a scheme to kill unarmed civilians, using planted weapons to make the deaths appear justified.
Gibbs testified in his own defense, where he denied murdering civilians, even though he did admit to taking trophies from Afghans that he maintained were killed legitimately. As part of his testimony, he compared his cutting off of fingers from his human kills to “keeping antlers” from deer he’d shot.
In taped testimony obtained by ABC News, Jeremy Morlock told investigators: “He just really doesn’t have any problems with f—ing killing these people.” “And so we identify a guy. Gibbs makes a comment, like, you know, you guys wanna wax this guy or what?” Morlock said.” And you know, he set it up, like, he grabbed the dude.” Morlock said that killing people came “too easy” to Gibbs (Moal).
Specialist Winfield, the lone soldier who had originally warned his parents that his fellow soldiers were executing innocent Afghan civilians, pled guilty to reduced charges; he was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in the third killing. Originally, military prosecutors had charged him with premeditated murder, which would have carried a sentence of life in prison without parole.
“Killing Rag-heads for Jesus”
In the article “Killing Ragheads for Jesus,” Chris Hedges dives deep into a discussion of the moral issues and contradictions that characterize military service in the contemporary U.S. It has become a feature of our culture that people reflexively confer praise on everyone that wears a uniform, “thanking” soldiers for their service. As a result, there is almost no critical thought afforded to how military culture can, by virtue of being good at making good soldiers, simultaneously produce killers and other ambiguous characters like Army sniper Chris Kyle. Our national narratives, it might be argued, memorialize and even lionize soldiers as heroes, without giving much thought to human complexity.
Hedges is perhaps best known for his prize-winning work, including War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002) and Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (2009). He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent working in Central America, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In 2002 Hedges was part of a group of eight reporters at The New York Times awarded the Pulitzer Prize for that paper’s coverage of global terrorism. An educated theologian from Harvard’s Divinity School (he is also a Presbyterian Minister), Hedges has taught at Columbia University, New York University, and Princeton University. He now teaches at a maximum security prison in New Jersey.
As for the “Kill Team,” crime and deviance, which is to say “murder,” were produced as a byproduct of military training (it’s a feature, not a bug). Soldiers are taught to kill and to do so without thought. To put in another way, killing does not occur as part of a rational thought process; it’s conditioned behavior. Humans are emptied of their human contents in order to serve as targets. Our failure to recognize this to some extent dishonors people who serve.
As I have stated in my own research, when military service is celebrated to the point it is fetishized, soldiers are objectified; they are rendered object-like and are emptied of their humanity because we, as a nation, want to indulge collective national fantasies (Trappen, 2016).
War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning
In his book, Hedges writes about his wartime experiences, where he observes that “in spite of its destructive capacity, war can give us what we long for most….a sense of purpose, meaning, and a reason for living….it allows us to be noble in a life often dominated by trivia and routine.” (p.3). Art and filmmaking play an important role in this process, as he asserts that art “becomes infected with the platitudes of patriotism; the use of a nation’s cultural resources to back up the war effort is essential to mask the contradictions needed to sustain the war.” (p.63).
One of the dangers he calls attention to is how culture plays a role in solidifying the wartime narrative. In the U.S. in particular, he points out, children are taught to believe in the superiority of their culture, where the U.S. and by association its soldiers are always depicted on the side of the angels. Once we see ourselves on the side of the angels, where we embrace an ideological belief system that defines itself in terms of goodness and light, it’s only a matter of HOW we carry out murder (p.9).
“War,” he says, “promotes killers and racists; each side reduces the other to objects” (p.21). “Rape, mutilation, sexual abuse are the natural outcome of a world in which human beings are objects” (p.103-104). Thus it follows, the excuse for immoral behavior derives from the belief that the work they carry out is merely their duty, which they carry out for the greater good (p.10).
“A soldier who is able to see the humanity of an enemy is not an effective killer” (p.73) Militaries want “believers” not “thinkers.” Because “thinkers might not follow orders; self-awareness and self-criticism must, therefore, be obliterated (p.74).
War as Myth
According to Hedges, “the dirty secret of war is that the ideals that propel us into war are myths…and in some cases lies.” In light of this, “when wars lose their mythic stature for the public, they are exposed for what they are—organized murder (p.21).
“The potency of myth is that it allows us to make sense of mayhem and violent death; it justifies human cruelty and stupidity; it disguises our powerlessness and hides the impotence and ordinariness of our leaders. It’s only when the veneer of the myth is punctured (as in Vietnam) that the press begins to report in a sensory, rather than a mythic manner (the press, in other words, does not lead, it follows) (p.23).
Most national myths, he says, “are at their core racist and fed by ignorance” (p.24).
“The myth of war sells and legitimizes the drug of war” (p. 25).
“The myth of war is necessary to justify the sacrifices of war, for its only by denying the reality of war that it can be turned into a heroic endeavor.”
“The rhetoric of patriotism is exposed as myth” (p.39)
“National myths ignite collective amnesia during war; they give past generations a nobility they never had” (p.46).
Inconsistencies are ignored by those who are intoxicated by a new found sense of national pride (p.47).
Nationalist triumphalism was discredited after Vietnam, but surged again under Reagan; they became ascendant once more in the Gulf War” (p.61).
“Peddling the myth of heroism is essential to entice soldiers to war.” Without this, recruiters wouldn’t be able to do their jobs.
“For those who swallow the nationalist myth, life is transformed; collective glorification permits people to abandon their usual preoccupation with the petty concerns of daily life; they get to see themselves as players in a momentous historical drama. This vision is accepted at the expense of self-annihilation” (p.54).
“The desire to give oneself over to the ‘crowd’ to become one of the masses is easier; it places fewer mental demands on the individual (See Erich Fromm’s work “Escape from Freedom,” where he discusses social-psychological escape mechanisms.)
Sources
“The Kill Team: How U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan Murdered Innocent Civilians,” RollingStone Magazine article by Mark Boal
“Calvin Gibbs, Leader of ‘Thrill Kill’ Soldiers, Guilty of Murder,” by Mark Schone and Matthew Cole
War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges
Empty Metal Jacket: The Biopolitical Economy of War and Medicine, by Sandra Trappen
Discussion Questions
Are war crimes and other atrocities “naturally” occurring social phenomena and if so who is ultimately responsible, since they are by definition a crime – the soldier or the state?
Where does the law stand when people claim they were merely “doing their job” and/or just”following orders?”
When the institution (government/military) sanctions torture can we blame soldiers for war crimes?
How might our national narratives/ideals as it pertains to soldiers (the myths of war) preclude understanding the root of the problem as it pertains to war crimes? Is it a case of “bad apples” or a “rotten basket?”
What role to social group dynamics, particularly in-group/out-group dynamics, play in facilitating deviant behavior, including murder and torture?
What does it say about the military as an institution when only low-ranking soldiers are prosecuted for war crimes?
How might “religiosity” (i.e. Christian “Dominionism”) feed into the problem?
I 100% disagree with blaming soldiers for war crimes. Soldiers are to follow all rules that their Sergeant tells them, that is what they were sworn in for. For example, serve their country, listen to the person in charge, etc. I do agree with blaming their Sergeant because they are the ones serving horrific crimes when half the soldiers do not want to kill the innocent people that are targeted. What happened in Afghanistan was awful and the Sergeant is to blame for all of the innocent killing. Yes, he is not the one who physically murdered them all but he is the one who put the hit out. Most soldiers do not feel comfortable doing what they did but they obviously had no choice whatsoever. Sergeants have the ability to control and take over soldiers. They have so much power and with them having power they can tell soldiers to do or say what they want them to. So I am strongly in disbelief of blaming soldiers for war crimes because they are taken advantage of most of the time.
I don’t believe we should blame solider’s who are ordered by their employer (the government) for crimes such as torture. Sure, it is something very horrific at times but when it comes right down to it, the solider does not have a choice when your government is ordering you to do something so horrific. You have to think to yourself, especially regarding other countries, what might happen to that solider if they refuse the order? What types of torture may they endure for refusing a direct order. You have to take into consideration the mental issues the actor must endure to even follow through with torturing another person, even if it is someone on the opposite side. In addition, it is difficult to judge as our military can and may take part in the same type of torture against our enemies. It isn’t right and it is dishonorable at times but it is something that does take place within every military and every country. It is a sad truth we all must live with but the blame does not belong on the solider’s. In some areas, this is what they learn, this is how their military may operate.
In this case, your “beliefs” are in conflict with the law as it is practiced by many countries. Torture (including abusive interrogation tactics) are illegal under both U.S. law and international law. Not only torture is prohibited under federal law, but so are lesser forms of combatant/detainee abuse that include cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
Any U.S. soldier directed by a superior to engage in torture has a right to refuse what is essentially an “unlawful” order. That is to say, they have a “choice” to refuse the order. All soldiers are taught this in basic training. That they might have to fear repercussions from their fellow soldiers or chain of command for exercising their choice to refuse actually says a lot about who they are serving with and for. It may not be easy but soldiers do have a choice in the matter. If they don’t choose wisely and refuse, they are engaging in what is explicitly defined as illegal conduct, which makes them subject to prosecution by the U.S. as well as other countries. They will not be held blameless.
The “I was only following orders” defense was the defense offered by the Nazis during WWII at Nuremberg. That defense didn’t absolve them at that time and it still is not accepted as a defense in our current era…though some people have tried to use it just the same.
Notwithstanding all this, it has been acknowledged by US Presidents G.W. Bush and Barack Obama that the US used torture as part of the CIA’s post 9/11 interrogation program. International criminal courts and human rights groups have upheld that things like “waterboarding” constitute torture. Bush, in fact, argued, that torture is legal; that “enhanced interrogation techniques” were not torture. The summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program confirms this information which continues to fuel debate around this issue. The claims of those who argue these techniques did not constitute torture are, as a matter of fact, contradicted by past US statements, where it has criticized other countries for using those same techniques.
I seriously believe that the “kill teams” mission that they talk about in this article is definitely out of hand. This “kill team” shot a young child who was outside his home. First of this is just wrong regardless of the situation. Even if this child was seriously linked to some horrid crime witch I think it is unlikely it doesn’t make it right to kill a child. On top of that, they took a picture with the kid’s body after he was shot and killed. This team isn’t meant to kill children they are supposed to be protecting us from the “Bad Guy’s.” It is a situation that we definitely cannot take seriously. We need a solution to things like this and I think we will find one in time. It is super troubling to hear of stuff like this and I hope that this doesn’t continue to happen.
I don’t believe war crimes are a natural occurring phenomena. From the article that is shown and overall, I believe the soldier and the state are responsible. I 100% agree that soldiers are taught to kill without thought. Whether their morals are to fight for their country or to kill as many people as they can, it is not a natural thought to kill random people. The story behind why these soldiers are fighting can be exaggerated and the state (government) could be feeding them lies-just like how propaganda is seen to join the military in the first place. I believe that’s what also contributes to millions of veterans that come home with PTSD. Also in general it’s the society’s fault too because without them, their would be no one to fight. I’m sure their are plenty of more stories that’s not brought to the media about soldiers killing innocent people. This is just a prime example about how the the state controls the soldiers and what the soldiers tend to do with this power.
I don’t believe war is natural. War is a byproduct of nationalism. Like Hedges says, it promotes and encourages murder, racism, rape, and all sorts of atrocities that we would normally condemn, if it was committed against our own. Our society, however, chooses to celebrate these crimes as long as its against the “other side.”
In The Kill Team’s case, it was an especially gruesome and exposed killing that affected the publics perception, but how are any of the other war killings justified? I believe gruesome killings such as this case are far more common in war than we like to think, they are just purposely kept from our knowledge.
Who’s at fault for the crimes? I would say both the soldiers and the state.
That’s not to say I have no sympathy for the soldiers. After all, most are taken into the military straight out of high school, effectively brainwashed, and in some cases, trained to be killers. When placed in war, they are very likely to be put in situations where they need to kill to survive. So they are in a way, victims of the state. However, we can’t keep using the tired excuse of “just following order,” to justify murder. Like Winfield, soldiers are still capable of knowing when they are doing something wrong and should make the decision to not commit those actions, although I recognize that in the case of the military, that can be much easier said than done.
On the other hand, I have no sympathy for the state that glorifies war and harms the “enemy” and its own people all the same. It creates the wars, then coerces its people, particularly soldiers, to commit crimes and atrocities on its behalf. However, its easy to call out the government and military for their part. To take it a step further, its our society at large that shares the blame for choosing to be okay with this, content in assuming we are the “good guys,” thanking soldiers for their service, and never thinking critically about what they’re being asked to do.
One soldier in the trailer asks why are we upset when they kill like they were trained to. I think a better question is why aren’t we upset for taking some of our most vulnerable people and sending them to go kill in the first place, as if there are no other options.
The idea of organized murder is obviously wrong. The kill teams plan is completely out of proportion here. The image shown of the solider with the young boy that he murdered laying there naked and with a finger cut off as some souvenir is more than disturbing. Reading and seeing that these soldiers enjoyed doing this killing of people and posing for pictures as if these bodies are some type of prize allows me to realize that you are not there to serve your country, you are there to make yourself feel as if you have some type of power by killing people because you want to. This type of “war” is a crime because you are simply using it to your advantage to just kill people. Just like it says in the article, using war as an excuse for crime will eventually be exposed. “When wars lose their mythic stature for the public, they are exposed for what they are—organized murder (p.21).
When the institution (government/military) sanctions torture can we blame soldiers for war crimes?
When comparing torture to war crimes, I believe there is a fine line between the two. On one hand, the Government is permitting torture (for what I assume would be) for information that is needed to complete a task asked of a unit. This information can be found in the form of someone who knows this information but will not tell you. This is where torture comes into the equation.
The fine line here is in between the torture itself and exceeding the threshold of morality. And this is why it is a very difficult subject, how hard is too hard and how much is too much? For example, I need information on the location of a group of U.S P.O.Ws. The informant in concern will not tell me anything, even after exhausting all verbal tactics. The next step would be a lower level of physical harm to extract the info. Where this turns into a war crime would be immediately physically harming the informant in a way that would be morally questionable. Therefore, the fine line in question would be the difference between recycling the training you received in a simulated torture exercise vs letting yourself become too immersed in temper or stress etc.
In my eyes, for the “kill teams” mission that was talked about in this topic, i think this is where the line is drawn. Their team is meant to kill and stop the horrible people that are doing bad things and to protect our country. But they shot an innocent young boy who was just walking around his home. Where I think the line should be drawn from “doing their job” is when they took it upon themselves to take a picture with this young boys corpse after shooting him. It was hard to look at this picture and not be like ‘what the’, they covered up his nude body and grabbed him by the hair and took a picture. Not to add someone took one of his fingers. They just killed someones son. Reading the part that says “A soldier who is able to see the humanity of an enemy is not an effective killer” i get that because sometimes you need to do what has to be done, but this seems to be way out of anything right (p.73). The leader, Gibbs, he was sentenced to almost life and that wasn’t the first time he has been behind something dirty like that.
Social group dynamics such as in group/out group, the out group homogeneity effect, or the actor-observer bias play pivotal roles in the construction of social perceptions of deviant behavior. In this case, these phenomenons have been manipulated by particular military agendas. For decades military and warfare propaganda have been employed in group and out group dynamics to encourage patriotism, military enlisting, and overall support of warfare engagement. Both extremist and democratic governments have utilized propaganda. When this propaganda works, whether it be digital and print campaigns, or media manipulation, more people enlist and support war. Although these people may think they are enlisting for the “right reasons”, many come to find out these reasons are merely illusions or myths, as Hedges notes. In group/out group perceptions create very black and white dynamics, in the instance of war this can translate to the idea of “we are the good guys, they are the bad guys”. This perception is evident in “The Kill Team” when several members of the 3rd Platoon, Bravo Company expressed what their opinions of local Afghanis were during their deployments. By molding the perception of the out group to seem extraordinarily militant, agitative, violent, etc., soldiers are more likely to follow through with potentially lethal orders because they have been conditioned to perceive them as legitimate.
The nationalistic propaganda executed by the American government and military is one that I always had a hard time understanding while growing up as a first generation American. Although I love my native country more than anything, I was simply not raised with the common patriotism towards America’s war efforts as my peers. Rather, my family comes from a war torn country in the Middle East burdened by centuries of bloody massacres, explosions, and overall hate for the “enemy”–whoever that may be.
Chris Hedges couldn’t have said it any better. The wartime narrative divides countries and groups the civilians within. Everyone always thinks of themselves as the “good guys” due to the utterly biased perceptions written in the history books. The American nationalistic ideals create a zone of honor for all who serve in the military. That is why often times individuals join the military to find purpose, unity, and value. There are financial benefits as well as societal benefits, so individuals are drawn to the adrenaline-filled adventures to break up their routine lives.
I feel as though if Americans weren’t so far removed from the actual realities of the war efforts then they would understand how dark and cruel it truly is. True, we may have some incredible soldiers who do more good than bad. Yet, the dynamics of the military will continue to allow deviant culture to thrive so long as it fails to acknowledge and address the corruption within. It takes a certain type of person to join the military, and when they do they are instantly put in a tight knit, nationalistic group with one common goal—to kill. They are forced to desensitize their fears and abandon their thinking in order to conform to the ideal soldier. Conformity occurs surrounding deviant behavior due to a skewed perception of values, goals, and motivators. Above anything, this contradicts the entire purpose they supposedly served for to begin with.
In my opinion, if the system wasn’t so hard focused on conveying patriotism and the American Ideal, then it would have been able to face the corruption that perpetuated the ideologies of the kill team. They would reward the “good guys” and expose the “bad guys”–except clearly this is detrimental because it gives them a bad name. So the question arises: What do we value? An honest, flawed system or a system that appears mighty and fearless but cowardly masks dishonor?
For people that have no relation to the military most of their information comes from the media. The military propagandas show the education and strength one can gain from joining the military. The media does not showcase what the military soldiers are actually training for, but focuses on their courage. The military is authorized to use deadly force and weapons in order to protect the country. I agree with Chris Hedges statement that war, “promotes killers” as military soldiers are trained to kill. Of course not all people in the military are “bad apples” as respectable soldiers use their training tactics at the necessary moments. But by training people to kill the military is promoting that the only solution to a problem is through war. In accordance with this, I believe the crimes of the kill team are based on institutionalized behavior as they are trained to have the mentality to kill the enemy. This ideology can then travel down to military soldiers and those who are not through the media. A person’s beliefs can then be affected and altered when associated with the institution. This is exemplified in the kill team with Gibbs calling the Afghanis savages and comparing them to animals.
I think it is misleading to label the single platoon that was investigated in these specific Afghan civilian murder cases “The Kill Team.” The way I perceived the language and attitude with which the soldiers interviewed for this film spoke of the events they witnessed and/or participated in, leads me to believe it is the norm among many platoons during periods of extended wartime.
The dynamics we saw play out in this platoon show that soldiers who become infantrymen are generally commended for their “warrior-like” qualities, and their attributes that could potentially make them skilled killers. I think it would be naive to think that this same dynamic does not occur in many other platoons, and in other branches of the military.
When loyalty is established between members of a platoon, paired with dynamics like that of Calvin Gibbs as the extremely dangerous, intimidating leader, and the others as subservient soldiers who felt that they would be putting their own lives in danger by questioning him, I think it is possible that worse atrocities can occur that were originally inspired by one extremist, like Gibbs. The system in place allows extremism like Gibbs’ the be carried out and perpetuated.
The being said, every infantryman is trained to kill. Every infantryman becomes instilled with intense nationalism. And, as Chris Hedges discusses, the training infantrymen go through teaches them to see people in war zones who are not American as objects, and not as humans. All of these things, along with the fear that inevitably sets in for soldiers, makes them see everyone as enemies. I do not think this excuses what any of these men did, but I do think the greater lie, and the greater evil is the war itself. As idealistic as this may be, I do not think any human being should ever be trained the way these men were, or put into a situation that brings out the worst qualities they have.
The presence of social group dynamics are a very big part of the military, which I have never even thought about before. Until this class, I did not know that The Kill Team existed. Adam Winfield is the perfect example of how the social group about being in or out is apparent in the military. When this horrible activity of killing innocent people started, he knew it was wrong and personally needed to do something. His action of doing something was telling his father what was happening. However, he knew that he was becoming an outcast and if he did something about the wrong doings, he was potentially going to be harmed. Adam did not want to be known as a whistle blower to his platoon. However, since nothing was done about the killings when he spoke out about it, he had to continue with the group. When he was given orders, he knew he had to be in the “in group” or else his life was on the line at that point. In order to be in the “in group” for this platoon, he had to shot his gun to supposedly kill an innocent civilian. This speaks a lot about the military that there are situations like this where one has to do a wrong doing like this in order to save his own life. In these type of situations, if you speak out in that moment, you take a big risk of what is going to happen to your life.
I am not quite sure what to do about the military just punishing low ranking soldiers for the crimes. For instance, Gibbs, who many people testified against about how terrible he was and how he went out to kill, is eligible for parole after 9 years. He planned and suggested many terrible things and probably should be sentenced for life. However, a lower ranked soldier like Winfield gets time in jail with no mentioned chance of parole for way less crime. It shows how messed up the system is, but unfortunately I am not sure if that will ever change.
“The Kill Team” revealed the unsurprising effects of prolonged combat. Soldiers, especially in war zones, are trained to protect themselves, and, in doing so, this protective element creates an environment of primeval-like warrior mentalities that completely dissociates them from our notions of civilized society. War in general has the tendency of sprouting atrocities because of this warrior-like mentality. A soldier on the battlefield does not always have the time to practice good judgement and morality, so it is understandable that this dehumanization can enthrall seemingly good people into murderers. Granted, soldiers that ‘justifiably’ kill enemy combatants are still taking away life, so in reality the end result is still death whether it was justifiable or not. Thus, soldiers are literally becoming killers, yet they are still expected not to mistreat innocents. The logic and theory behind war just does not add up to a positive outcome where no atrocities exist. Rather, war is pinnacled by the fear of your enemies, so whatever steps that are taken to entrench fear in your enemy will have understandable and “Kill Team” results.
War is a concept that most people have a skewed view of. Documentaries and movies can depict war as menacing, horrific, and down right brutal. Many people can watch a documentary and say it was a good depiction of war and how America deals with issues around the world. However, watching a movie or reading about war is nothing like what soldiers actually go through during it. We can always say that soldiers only fight for our country and do it for the love of America and freedom. Rather, this example of soldiers killing innocent victims just for “sport” exemplifies that there is so much more to war and being in a war zone than what its talked up to be. The soldiers apart of “Thrill Kill Team” were out to kill anyone in the Afghanistan area just because they wanted to. Killing a young 15 year old boy who was not posed as a threat in any way can make one think that there are these “bad apples” in the military. Gibbs wanted to kill anyone he saw because of the military mindset that gets imprinted in these peoples minds, which is to “kill”. Gibbs intentions were not one of the intentions we people who are not in war would think of an American soldier. The ideologies of war revolve around the idea to protect the country of yours at all costs by using coercive action. However, the idea of this can be exaggerated in someones mind, such as the thrill kill team, and can have drastic measures, in this case killing innocent people. While no one will understand war unless they have been through it, I believe that it will never be acceptable to kill innocent victims for the fun of it. Yes, war ideologies have a huge impact on how people assert their actions, but soldiers should have the steady mindset to know not to kill what isn’t harmful. Some soldiers might go through PTSD or have psychological problems during war, but that is not the case here. These killings were purely done for “sport” which hurts the American war values. I do not think that these bad apples will hurt the rest of the military, but it surely does not help it. We now know that there can be sick minded people in our very military as there can be someone who fights to protect the country through the right military morals. Moreover, the actions of “Thrill Kill Team” cannot be justified or looked over and I believe that it’s not institutionalized because American military values don’t advocate for torture. These actions were strictly through the twisted minded bad apples that committed them and I think their “killing” mindset took over and therefore made them make a tragic mistake.
I believe that the in group/out group dynamic of group settings plays a large role in the type of deviant behaviors included in this article, and in the military in general. From what it seems like from my outsider’s perspective, the military itself seems very like an “us and them” type of situation. As someone with family members in the military, i constantly feel out of the loop when they discuss military topics that in their minds, I couldn’t begin to understand. I think this type of group mentality acts as a hypothetical barrier, or justification, for people who commit deviance acts such as those written about in this article. I’m sure that some of the members of the Kill Team would say that if you weren’t there at the time of the killings, you couldn’t begin to understand what their experiences were like. While there may be some validity to not being able to fully comprehend the atrocities of war without any war experience, it is unbelievable to me that these murderous acts would attempt to be justified by such a concept. This in group/out group mentality also reminds me of the discussion of black police officers acting deviantly against members of their own racial group. Despite what similarities those officers, and potentially the members of the Kill Team, may have had with their victims, the group mentality always prevails.
In America, most people think that members of the military should be highly respected. This is what I have always heard, rather it be from my family, school, or the media. The topic of military deviance is never discussed because most Americans want to hold their nationalistic view. Before talking about military deviance in class and reading this blog, I thought that the majority of people who volunteered to join the military joined for nationalistic beliefs. In class we learned that this is not true in 70% of the cases. While I do not believe that the military is filled with evil people, I believe that since most of the people participating in the military are vulnerable, they are easily susceptible to the corruptness that can arise from the military system. I think that soldiers oversea should be supervised more carefully so that innocent lives are not lost, and especially celebrated, such as the pictures taken of the soldiers holding the dead bodies. Murder should not be excused for soldiers in the military and this type of deviance should be made aware to more people so that the system can be changed.
I do not believe that the crimes of the kill team were isolated incidents committed by a few bad apples. If anything, crimes like this happen more often than the public could ever know. However, I do believe that if it weren’t for “a few bad apples” then perhaps these crimes would have never occurred. Meaning, systematically, military culture has varying levels of consequences on soldiers. I think that all soldiers are affected by this in one way or another, explicitly or implicitly. Some members of the military are more internally damaged by these effects; i.e. committing suicide because soldiers are supposed to be “emotionally strong” to the point of not seeking out therapy to cope with the trauma they may have experienced. Whereas others externally damage others. This can be seen in the high level of sexual assaults reported in the military (because women have not been historically allowed into this “military culture), and in instances of unreported murder, rape, and mutilations of enemy forces.
How these effects manifest is determined by a soldiers’ peers or leaders. If a solider is surrounded and affirmed by positive role models who are more “thinkers” than “believers,” (as Chris Hedges defines it) then they are more likely to become a thinker. This might ameliorate or even deter some of the devastating effects of military culture. But, when surrounded by believers, or the “bad apples,” especially those in authority positions, then it is harder not to become one. If the military doesn’t want thinkers and only believers, then institutionally the military is grooming deviant behavior. Fear of being in the out-group drives people even not in the army to do things different from their beliefs. That, paired with the actual fear of dying as a result of not being in the out group in the military makes it especially hard soldiers to not participate in “military culture.” Overall, I think that the “bad apples” are the ones who exploit the broken system to the most extreme level, but overall group-dynamics paired with the aforementioned broken system are to blame for allowing these “bad apples” to exploit it.
The Kill Team is something I personally had no idea existed. Yet we are so often told from those that go across seas that it is not what we perceive it to be, and I guess this is one good example. While war is vicious at its core, the overall purpose as mentioned in the article is reflected on a country to be for the good of our people and our superiority as a country. Children are taught at a young age that a soldier is a hero who is sacrificing himself for the good of his country, but children are not taught the realities of holding this title.
What stuck out to me in this article was the dehumanization that takes place. The reason Gibbs had no problem killing innocent people was due to the effects the ideologies of war had on him. War is so focused on carrying out one’s duties, which involve killing the “others”, that they don’t see that what they are doing is immorally wrong. Soldiers are trained to see the enemy as object’s rather than people, and lead to these tragedies that go beyond the tragedies of warfare. We see soldier’s as heroes because that is what they are supposed to be, and unfortunately that is not the reality. While Gibbs’ immoral behavior is not condoned in any way, it is easy to argue that war promoted this thought process in him, and led him further down this road while forgetting what his duty as a soldier really meant.
Adam was a soldier who would be seen as imperfect, because he saw humanity in the enemy, which apparently does not make an “effective killer.” Adam’s ability to maintain humanity in the intensities of warfare is what may bring war back to its purpose, and hopefully save more innocent lives. War is not something we want to happen in the first place, and to letting it off its hinges with people such as “The Kill Team” will not help our society in generations to come.
The readings on war deviance have given me a new perspective on the contradictory behavior that occurs during war, particularly regarding soldiers killing innocent citizens. I was shocked when I saw the pictures of the murders committed by Gibbs and the “thrill kill team,” especially the one of Gibbs posing with the dead victim. He is smiling as if to show that he is proud of what he did, which was almost as disturbing as reading about the murder itself. The fact that he was charged with being involved with 12 other cases in which is took body parts of the victims as trophies supports the fact that he enjoys the kill. Taking trophies is a behavior that is found among serial killers, and it is hard to view Gibbs as something other than that. He compared his victims to animals, which is how he sees those he kills. I do not believe that Gibbs’ behavior depicts that of everyone involved in the military, and I do think he is among the few “bad apples” of the war. However, the number of these “bad apples” might be greater than people may actually think. It is one thing to dehumanize other soldiers from different countries in order to cope with the killing, but it is something completely different to kill innocent people that have no involvement in the war at all. Any violent acts that are associated with war are hard to justify and cope with, but blatantly harming innocent beings as a “sport” cannot be justified or forgiven, and those involved should receive proper punishment.
The military similar to that of the police force that when it is under pressure from civilian criticism, prosecutes those who are at the bottom of the institutional hierarchy. It is fundamentally unjust; as people should theoretically all be equal and prosecuted for their crimes equally, regardless of rank. This is exemplified in the trailer for the documentary “The Kill Team”. Specialist Adam Winfiled was prosecuted for his role in the killings of innocent civilians despite his attempts at trying to inform others of the crimes being committed. In this way the secrecy surrounding military culture helps feed into deviant behavior. The military seeks to handle their problems outside of the laws that govern civilians. This can cause issues with how the general population perceives how the military seeks to define and handle their institutionally sanctioned deviant behaviors. Moving forward, I believe that the crimes committed by “The Kill Team” were a part of an isolated incident and this is not completely institutionalized and systemic behavior. I believe there are some teams in the military who are not in worn torn zones that are involved in different types of work, and not looking to kill innocent bystanders. The Kill Team squad seemed to have members who generally derived pleasure from killing and taking body parts of humans as trophies. I do not think that would be something the military teaches soldiers. Torture is a contested part of war, although I do not personally agree with it there are others who see the necessity of it. As I do not think it should be used at all, I think soldiers who do utilize torture should be prosecuted, as well as the rest of the institution that allows these acts to occur.
“Moving forward, I believe that the crimes committed by “The Kill Team” were a part of an isolated incident and this is not completely institutionalized and systemic behavior.” Upon what evidence do you stand to advance such a “belief?”