by guest author Dean Hammer, Psy.D.
The war in Afghanistan has borne a series of gruesome events including: marines urinating on dead civilian victims, U.S. soldiers bringing home victims’ fingers and other body parts as souvenirs, and most recently the rampage by Robert Bales.
The juxtaposition of these events with the scourge of drone warfare raises critical questions regarding the disintegration of the moral fabric of our country.
The etiology of the gruesome actions of the marines and other soldiers in the Afghanistan war is a complex question. However, the deleterious effects of these types of actions on the collective psyche and on the reputation of the U.S. are clearly very severe.
The profile of Robert Bales indicates that he suffers from a traumatic brain injury and was deployed for one too many tours of duty. Adding probable alcohol intoxication, he was an accident waiting to happen.
There is also strong evidence that he did not act alone and that the Pentagon has covered up the complicity of his accomplices.
The immorality of these events seems quite evident. Even Leon Panetta, U.S. Secretary of Defense, has declared the Bales rampage “morally deplorable.”
The repulsive behavior by the U.S. soldiers claiming dead victims’ body parts and urinating on dead victims is mind-boggling and heart-wrenching. Wikipedia’s discussion regarding necrophilia suggests that this type of pathological behavior is related to the impulse to “seek self-esteem by expressing power over a homicide victim.”
This disorder is also likened to thanatophilia, which can be defined as “an obsessive fascination with death and corpses.” Perhaps this is one of the resultant side effects of fighting a war in general.
Dean Hammer practices and teaches clinical psychology in Vermont and New Hampshire. He is a member of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. He may be contacted at dhammer2@tds.net.