The US Military's Core Values Preclude Murdering Children Except From a Distance

BW Richardson doesn’t reckon that “core values” training will do much good: http://bwrmontag.blogspot.com/2006/06/core-values-training-wont-erase-stain.html

I agree. Based on my experience instructing soldiers in the Law of Land Warfare and as a soldier myself, I don’t hold out much hope for core values training. Many of the soldiers I taught had very dismissive attitudes about limitations on their right to kill people. They figured that the rationale for the instruction was to help them know what killings to cover up so they would keep out of trouble. They were going to kill anything that moved anyway, and it was helpful to them to know how they should spin the situation if they were ever investigated for war crimes.

These ideas came in part from movies and stories about Vietnam. It was also the case that a lot of the soldiers I knew were downright bloodthirsty and keen to kill people. They had no moral scruples whatsoever about killing people in a combat zone, especially funny looking foreigners who weren’t even really human in their estimation.

I don’t think soldiers will believe for a minute that the military’s core values are to protect noncombatants. The military kills noncombatants all the time and chalks it up as “collateral damage”. The military incinerates entire cities on purpose. Rather, the troops are going to take any such training with a nudge, nudge, wink, wink attitude. They are going to learn to write better reports, make better statements to investigators and cover up incidents better. It is hard to get soldiers to turn in guys from their outfits for war crimes since loyalty to one’s comrades is so strong and since you might get killed if you seem like somebody who might snitch.