Friday No-Fun Link, War Propaganda Division

Brian Doherty | September 12, 2008

Via the always bracing, entertainingly long-winded, radically retrograde blogger who calls himself "Mencius Moldbug" comes this World War II era U.S. War Department manual called "Guide to the Use of Information Materials." Some gentle reminder of what even "good wars" are all about, from quotes Moldbug dug from it:

All warfare is retaliation, all acts of war are reprisals, and everything appertaining to the enemy is a military objective. Consequently, such expressions as "reprisal raids" or "retaliatory measures" may be all right for civilians but they are not for soldiers. The "eye-for-an-eye" principle is old testament doctrine. In war's new testament, if your enemy shoots your toe, you shoot his head.

........

Since killing is the primary means by which the enemy is compelled to submit to one's own discipline, one of the ends of the training must be to so indoctrinate the soldier that he is not only willing but anxious to work bodily destruction upon the foes of his country. That state of mind is not possible unless the soldier is motivated by hatred in the hour when he is at grips with his enemy.

.........

Let there be no more talk of war as if it were a sporting proposition fought under the Marquis [sic] of Queensberry rules. When a German or Japanese acts sporting, it is time to smell a rat.

And here's the entire manual, shot page by page and stuck on Flickr.

Comments

|9.12.08 @ 3:26PM|#

LOCKHART(reading)

"Not While We're Eating--N.V.A. learn marines on a search and destroy mission don't like to be interrupted while eating chow."

Search and destroy. Uh, we have a new directive from M.A.F. on this. In the future, in place of"search and destroy," substitute the phrase "sweep and clear." Got it?

JOKER
Got it. Very catchy.

George S Patton|9.12.08 @ 3:31PM|#

Don't make me slap you.

|9.12.08 @ 3:39PM|#

"The deadliest weapon in the world is a marine and his rifle. It is your killer instinct which must be harnessed if you expect to survive in combat. Your rifle is only a tool. It is a hard heart that kills. If your killer instincts are not clean and strong you will hesitate at the moment of truth. You will not kill. You will become dead marines and then you will be in a world of shit because marines are not allowed to die without permission. Do you maggots understand?"

mr simple|9.12.08 @ 3:42PM|#

one of the ends of the training must be to so indoctrinate the soldier that he is not only willing but anxious to work bodily destruction upon the foes of his country.

Why would they want a soldier that is willing but filled with anxiety over killing his enemy. I think he means eager.

economist|9.12.08 @ 4:02PM|#

Actually, most of this makes sense.

|9.12.08 @ 4:24PM|#

If there's one thing I've learned from hit and run comment threads, it's that Episiarch likes to quote movies.

No Name Guy|9.12.08 @ 5:02PM|#

"Since killing is the primary means by which the enemy is compelled to submit to one's own discipline, one of the ends of the training must be to so indoctrinate the soldier that he is not only willing but anxious to work bodily destruction upon the foes of his country. That state of mind is not possible unless the soldier is motivated by hatred in the hour when he is at grips with his enemy."

I read something about this. Apparently, after Korea, the Army did a study to find out why only a small fraction of infantry were doing most of the actual killing of the enemy.

Turned out that shooting at bullseye targets in training doesn't prepare a person to shoot at real people on the battlefield. Yeah, sure, they learn how to operate the rifle, hit a target, etc. But, that one little part - shooting at PEOPLE, was missing from the training. They had to un-learn a life time of 'thou shall not kill'.

Part of basic back then was also to find the most agressive, wanna be killers in the bunch, then assign them the most powerful weapons in the squad / company - turn 'em into machine gunners and B.A.R. men.

Something my dad told me about 'Nam - he always said the braggarts were 98% blow hards. It was the quiet ones to worry about....

All the self defense pistol I've seen also shoot at full on printed pictures of perp types for the same reason - to get used to pulling the trigger on a human.

|9.12.08 @ 7:24PM|#

Not until I did some Googling after seeing that "sic" had I ever seen it as "Marquess of Queensberry." Google says:

"Marquess of Queensberry rules" = 10,700
"Marquis of Queensbury rules" = 8,540
"Marquis of Queensberry rules" = 861
"Marquess of Queensbury rules" = 573

Apparently "Marquess" is correct, though "Marquis" is the French form.

|9.13.08 @ 9:07PM|#

Who said that?
Who the fuck said that?
Who's the slimy little communist shit, twinkle-toed cocksucker down here who just signed his own death warrant?
Nobody, huh? The fairy fucking godmother said it. Out-fucking-standing! I will PT you all until you fucking die! I'll PT you until your assholes are sucking buttermilk!