Omid Safi | Jun 29, 2012
"Here is a very curious story from a paper in Virginia Beach:
The story talks about the difficult conditions under which the Navy special warfare community (Navy SEALs) have to train, including simulated conditions in which they go through rooms that are designed to resemble “a mosque, bank, post office, market and residential compound. In one section, nine chairs painted in primary hues sit behind desks in an elementary school classroom.”
The story doesn’t mention it, but something caught my eye: the image that they are using for target practice is unmistakably that of a Muslim woman wearing hijab, with what looks like Qur’anic inscriptions behind her on the wall.
These houses are called “kill houses.”
The person who designed these so-called “kill houses” touts their high technology: Larry Pacifico, “who manages the complex, said instructors will control each scenario using an iPad to adjust the lighting and movement of the targets. Cameras will record the action, so SEALs will find out where the bullets they fired came to rest, he said, down to specific bones and organs.”
Apparently the Navy has enough concern about technology to want to know which bones and which organs the Navy SEALs would be hitting, but not enough concern to know that they are taking target practice shooting at Muslim women.
Yeah, we are not at war with Islam, they keep telling us.
We just train our most skilled soldiers to kill Muslim women.
God have mercy on us.
It’s not so much that this looks bad.
This is bad. It’s rotten to the core.
Can the folks in charge at the NAVY not see how this contributes to the dehumanizing of Muslims, not just Muslim women, not just Muslim civilians, but all Muslims?
Link to the source
http://www.religionnews.com/blogs/o
OP:
My inner-Psychology geek is spitting flames, and wanting to rage about the racist and bigot'ed types of mental techniques (like this one) that are being used to de-humanize the 'enemy'.
"Here is a very curious story from a paper in Virginia Beach:
The story talks about the difficult conditions under which the Navy special warfare community (Navy SEALs) have to train, including simulated conditions in which they go through rooms that are designed to resemble “a mosque, bank, post office, market and residential compound. In one section, nine chairs painted in primary hues sit behind desks in an elementary school classroom.”
The story doesn’t mention it, but something caught my eye: the image that they are using for target practice is unmistakably that of a Muslim woman wearing hijab, with what looks like Qur’anic inscriptions behind her on the wall.
These houses are called “kill houses.”
The person who designed these so-called “kill houses” touts their high technology: Larry Pacifico, “who manages the complex, said instructors will control each scenario using an iPad to adjust the lighting and movement of the targets. Cameras will record the action, so SEALs will find out where the bullets they fired came to rest, he said, down to specific bones and organs.”
Apparently the Navy has enough concern about technology to want to know which bones and which organs the Navy SEALs would be hitting, but not enough concern to know that they are taking target practice shooting at Muslim women.
Yeah, we are not at war with Islam, they keep telling us.
We just train our most skilled soldiers to kill Muslim women.
God have mercy on us.
It’s not so much that this looks bad.
This is bad. It’s rotten to the core.
Can the folks in charge at the NAVY not see how this contributes to the dehumanizing of Muslims, not just Muslim women, not just Muslim civilians, but all Muslims?
Link to the source
http://www.religionnews.com/blogs/o
OP:
My inner-Psychology geek is spitting flames, and wanting to rage about the racist and bigot'ed types of mental techniques (like this one) that are being used to de-humanize the 'enemy'.
Or just use drones.
Please tell me you're being sarcastic.
But I follow the cold logic of the hawkes.
This is why drones are deployed every four days. It does save money and the civilian collatoral is worth not putting american soldiers lives on the line. It also gets around that messy 'official war' thing. If you don't technically put boots on the ground of another sovereign nation, you're not at war. Brilliant.
All this just makes me think of is that one scene from Apocalypse Now where the one guy is going "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning."
Or just use drones.
Honestly, I'm waiting for the moment someone has found a way to hack them. Then it'll be like we have our very own potential RL version of the Toclafane from Doctor Who.
Now, what could possibly go wrong!