Where
Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer, 2010, Excerpts
If the United States’
involvement in future wars is inevitable, so, too, is it inevitable that
American soldiers will fall victim to friendly fire in those conflicts, for the
simple reason that fratricide is part and parcel of every war. While acknowledging
that the statistical dimensions of the friendly fire problem have yet to be
defined; reliable data are simply not available in most cases. The Oxford
Companion to American Military History estimates that between 2 percent and 25
percent of the casualties in America’s wars are attributable to friendly fire.
Whatever the statistical likelihood of being killed or wounded by friendly
fire, it seems to deter few men and women from enlisting in the Armed Forces.
When one talks to soldiers on the front lines, most of them accept that
fratricide occasionally comes with the territory; they view it as just one of
many occupational hazards in their line of work.
Military
investigations of friendly-fire incidents have a well-documented history of
obscuring the truth more often than revealing it. If fratricide is an untoward
but inevitable aspect of warfare, so, too, is the tendency by military
commanders to sweep such tragedies under the rug. The temptation among generals
and politicians to control how the press portrays their military campaigns all
too often leads them to misrepresent the truth in order to bolster public
support for the war of the moment. What is alarming is the scale and
sophistication of these recent propaganda efforts, and the unabashedness of their
executors. The Strategic Command is authorized to engage in “military
deception” – defined as “presenting false information, images, or statements”.
Never before in history has such an extensive secret network been established
to shape the entire world’s perception of the Global War on Terror.
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