The Seeds of McCain's War Views

McCain

Am I the only one having trouble getting the link to work?

I think you meant this one

Anyway, if the one I linked to is the same one, it is very interesting. Seems McCain thought a good dose of brainwashing would keep US troops from reacting to anti-war sentiments.

This man is too dangerous to have anywhere in government.

I think McCain's view of Iraq and our involvement in it is permanently distorted by his Vietnam experience. McCain was totally out of circulation from 1967-1973 and thus missed much of the monumental shift of public opinion against the war. This lack of perspective coupled with his POW trauma hardened his views in a way that makes him unreceptive to new information.

Very damgerous for a potential commander in chief.

i'm not sure it's fair to use the term 'brainwashing', even though McCain himself used it with qualification. to more liberal minds, basic combat training is a form of 'brainwashing'; what McCain proposed in that paper, at least as presented in the linked article, would be much, much less extreme than anything that occurs in BCT.

he's touching on an issue that i think has been argued before: basically, how much freedom a soldier should be allowed--specifically, freedom of thought and speech. it sounds terrible to say, but soldiers as a group require a certain amount of brainwashing--or, to use the more accurate term, indoctrination--to function properly. as i said above, that's what BCT is all about--shaping soldiers' minds (and, secondarily, their bodies) to be able to work within the military mindset.

and yes, freedom of thought and speech are basic human rights that nobody should be denied. but that's why soldiers are, in my opinion, worthy of such respect: they aren't being denied freedom of thought and speech. they have voluntarily given up a certain amount of freedom of thought and speech, in order to serve their country.

so to me, the issue isn't whether it's morally or ethically permissible to 'brainwash' soldiers on foreign policy and other subjects, it's whether such a strategy would work. the problem, as the article points out, is that foreign policy isn't set in stone. Eurasia might really be the enemy, tomorrow; and since we don't live in a police state (yet (thank god)), there might be some difficulties in explaining to soldiers exactly why Eurasia is the enemy now, when they were told yesterday that Eurasia was the good guys.

I don't remember it being debated here. But the basic point was conceded in 1945, IIRC.

IIRC, you were a serving soldier. Am I correct in thinking that your freedom to think and speak would be constrained by that? Because that seems to be what you're saying.

the Nuremberg trials didn't invalidate the concept of military groupthink/indoctrination, they merely placed limits on how much thinking the military is allowed to do for its soldiers.

i served in the military, yes. during my time in the military, my freedom to think and speak were more limited than what i enjoy as a civilian. as i'm no longer active-duty military, i'm no longer constrained by those limitations.

You assume that the change was reversible, then?

reversible? no, no experience is reversible. however, few experiences leave an impression deep enough to retain a strong hold on the mind and personality as time goes on.

and regardless of whether the effects are lasting or not, i chose to submit myself to the experience of serving in the military. now that i am out, i am free to try to hold onto or discard what i experienced there.