Quote Originally Posted by Sarajevo071 View Post
Hi, Tom

First “source” that came in my mind is “Ground Truth” DVD showing interviews of US military veterans where they explain they training and then frames from boot camp (Marines maybe!?) and drill sergeant yelling, “kill that haji! stab that towel-head!” and stuff like it. Plus number other videos and soldiers stories of time there and they training/conditioning before Iraq. You think all those massacres and abusing coming from nowhere!?

But, I believe marct explaned that way better and tequila helped.

The use of the term, Hajji, was somewhat common, especially in the 2003-2004 time frame before we started to get our heads straight. Gratefully leaders like COL McMasterrs in 3rd ACR and others started to get a handle on it. I know we do not use it here or any of the other typical terms you cite. First of all as you no using Hajji as a diminutive is ultimately stupid because it identifies the user as at best ignorant--since Hajji is a title of respect.

Secondly as Marc states below, we have used this technique in larger conflicts. I have an WWII lessons learned pamphlet circa 1943 that said we must teach our soldiers to hate. Such training makes it easier to kill.
Most people have difficulty killing other people (those that don't are usually called sociopaths). So, here's the problem - how do you get someone to kill someone else in an organized fashion, but not indiscriminately? One way to do this is to "train" them such that they will engage an opponent only when they receive certain stereotypical sensory input. In an ongoing fight, this stereotypical sensory input starts to get crystallized into names - the "muj", the "geek", the "Hun". At other times, you end up picking a stereotype that already exists in the culture and is perceived as "dangerous" and use that. Since cultural stereotypes can come from almost any medium, I'm not at all surprised to hear about the German example. Anyone played any video games recently?
But in a COIN environment, that sort of training is ultimately counter-productive because if you are fighting to win the support and trust of the locals, you have to put a human face on those locals. Moreover you can ill-afford to dehumanize the enemy or worse demonize the enemy because ultimately, you hope to win him over too, through amnesty or similar programs.

Finally such terms are in fact self-destructive in the long run--I go back to my Rwanda experience in saying this--because once you successfuly dehumanize your opponent you are dehuminizing yourself at the same time. The Hutu extremists took this to the extreme; Dallaire talks about being in the presence of pure evil. Stan and I along with a female former peace corps member got to where we made black jokes about bodies. All of us by the end of Goma would have welcomed a volcanic eruption--often promised never delivered--as a final solution to the refugee/killers. By my second month in Rwanda, I began to despise the killers in a way that left me in a slow boil anger. I pretty much stayed that way for the next year and a half and I paid for it when I got home.

Best

Tom