[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Drug Troops to Numb Them to Horrors of War

[Morton K. Brussel]

Pretty nauseating and horrifying… to even think of.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Carol Herzenberg <carol at herzenberg.net>
>
>
>
> "The DoD is flirting with the idea of medicating soldiers to  
> desensitize them to combat trauma -- will an army of unfeeling  
> monsters result?"
>
> Could the Holocaust have been orders of magnitude worse if such  
> medication had been available for use in Nazi Germany?
>
> - Carol
>
> .....................................................
>
>
> Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug Troops to Numb Them to Horrors of War
> By Penny Coleman, AlterNet
> Posted on January 10, 2008, Printed on January 12, 2008
> http://www.alternet.org/story/72956/
>
> In June, the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health
> acknowledged "daunting and growing" psychological problems among our
> troops: Nearly 40 percent of soldiers, a third of Marines and half of
> National Guard members are presenting with serious mental health  
> issues.
> They also reported "fundamental weaknesses" in the U.S. military's
> approach to psychological health. That report was followed in  
> August by
> the Army Suicide Event Report (ASER), which reported that 2006 saw the
> highest rate of military suicides in 26 years. And last month, CBS  
> News
> reported that, based on its own extensive research, over 6,250  
> American
> veterans took their own lives in 2005 alone -- that works out to a  
> little
> more than 17 suicides every day.
>
> That's all pretty bleak, but there is reason for optimism in the
> long-overdue attention being paid to the emotional and psychic cost of
> these new wars. The shrill hypocrisy of an administration that has  
> decked
> itself in yellow ribbons and mandatory lapel pins while ignoring a  
> human
> crisis of monumental proportion is finally being exposed.
>
> On Dec. 12, Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., chairman of the House Veterans
> Affairs Committee, called a hearing on "Stopping Suicides: Mental  
> Health
> Challenges Within the Department of Veterans Affairs." At that hearing
> suggestions were raised and conversations begun that hopefully will  
> bear
> fruit.
>
> But I find myself extremely anxious in the face of some of these new
> suggestions, specifically what is being called the Psychological  
> Kevlar
> Act of 2007 and use of the drug propranalol to treat the symptoms of
> posttraumatic stress injuries. Though both, at least in theory, sound
> entirely reasonable, even desirable, in the wrong hands, under the  
> wrong
> leadership, they could make the sci-fi fantasies of Blade Runner seem
> prescient.
>
> The Psychological Kevlar Act "directs the secretary of defense to  
> develop
> and implement a plan to incorporate preventive and early-intervention
> measures, practices or procedures that reduce the likelihood that
> personnel in combat will develop post-traumatic stress disorder  
> (PTSD) or
> other stress-related psychopathologies, including substance use
> conditions. (Kevlar, a DuPont fiber, is an essential component of U.S.
> military helmets and bullet-proof vests advertised to be "five times
> stronger than steel.") The stated purpose of this legislation is to  
> make
> American soldiers less vulnerable to the combat stressors that so  
> often
> result in psychic injuries.
>
> On the face of it, the bill sounds logical and even compassionate.  
> After
> all, our soldiers are supplied with physical armor -- at least in  
> theory.
> So why not mental? My guess is that the representatives who have  
> signed on
> to this bill are genuinely concerned about the welfare of troops  
> and their
> families. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., is the bill's sponsor, and I  
> have no
> reason to question his genuine commitment to mental health issues,  
> both
> within and outside of the military. Still, I find myself chilled at  
> the
> prospects. To explain my discomfort, I need to go briefly into the  
> history
> of military training.
>
> Since World War II, our military has sought and found any number of  
> ways
> to override the values and belief systems recruits have absorbed from
> their families, schools, communities and religions. Using the  
> principles
> of operant conditioning, the military has found ways to reprogram  
> their
> human software, overriding those characteristics that are  
> inconvenient in
> a military context, most particularly the inherent resistance human  
> beings
> have to killing others of their own species. "Modern combat training
> conditions soldiers to act reflexively to stimuli," says Lt. Col.  
> Peter
> Kilner, a professor of philosophy and ethics at West Point, "and this
> maximizes soldiers' lethality, but it does so by bypassing their moral
> autonomy. Soldiers are conditioned to act without considering the  
> moral
> repercussions of their actions; they are enabled to kill without  
> making
> the conscious decision to do so. If they are unable to justify to
> themselves the fact that they killed another human being, they will  
> likely
> -- and understandably -- suffer enormous guilt. This guilt manifests
> itself as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and it has damaged  
> the
> lives of thousands of men who performed their duty in combat."
>
> By military standards, operant conditioning has been highly effective.
> It's enabled American soldiers to kill more often and more  
> efficiently,
> and that ability continues to exact a terrible toll on those we have
> designated as the "enemy." But the toll on the troops themselves is  
> also
> tragic. Even when troops struggle honorably with the difference  
> between a
> protected person and a permissible target (and I believe that the vast
> majority do so struggle, though the distinction is one I find both
> ethically and humanely problematic) in war "shit happens." When  
> soldiers
> are witness to overwhelming horror, or because of a reflexive  
> accident, an
> illegitimate order, or because multiple deployments have thoroughly
> distorted their perceptions, or simply because they are in the  
> wrong place
> at the wrong time -- those are the moments that will continue to haunt
> them, the memories they will not be able to forgive or forget, and the
> stuff of posttraumatic stress injuries.
>
> And it's not just the inherent conscientious objector our military  
> finds
> inconvenient: current U.S. military training also includes a  
> component to
> desensitize male soldiers to the sounds of women being raped, so  
> the enemy
> cannot use the cries of their fellow soldiers to leverage  
> information. I
> think it not unreasonable to connect such desensitization  
> techniques to
> the rates of domestic violence in the military, which are,  
> according to
> the DoD, five times those in the civilian population. Is anyone really
> surprised that men who have been specifically trained to ignore the  
> pain
> and fear of women have a difficult time coming home to their wives and
> families? And clearly they do. There were 2,374 reported cases of  
> sexual
> assault in the military in 2005, a 40 percent increase over 2004.  
> But that
> figure represents only reported cases, and, as Air Force Brig. Gen.  
> K.C.
> McClain, commander of DoD's Joint Task Force for Sexual Assault  
> Prevention
> and Response pointed out, "Studies indicate that only 5 percent of  
> sexual
> assaults are reported."
>
> I have thought a lot about the implications of "psychological  
> Kevlar" --
> what kind of "preventive and early-intervention measures, practices or
> procedures" might be developed that would "reduce the likelihood that
> personnel in combat will develop post-traumatic stress disorder." How
> would a soldier with a shield against moral response "five times  
> stronger
> than steel" behave?
>
> I cannot convince myself that what is really being promoted isn't a  
> form
> of moral lobotomy.
>
> I cannot imagine what aspects of selfhood will have to be excised or
> paralyzed so soldiers will no longer be troubled by what they, not to
> mention we, would otherwise consider morally repugnant. A soldier  
> who has
> lost an arm can be welcomed home because he or she still shares
> fundamental societal values. But the soldier who sees her friend
> emulsified by a bomb, or who is ordered to run over children in the  
> road
> rather than slow down the convoy, or who realizes too late that the  
> woman
> was carrying a baby, not a bomb -- if that soldier's ability to feel
> terror and horror has been amputated, if he or she can no longer be
> appalled or haunted, something far more precious has been lost. I am
> afraid that the training or conditioning or drug that will be  
> developed to
> protect soldiers from such injuries will leave an indifference to  
> violence
> that will make them unrecognizable to themselves and to those who love
> them. They will be alienated and isolated, and finally unable to  
> come home.
>
> Posttraumatic stress injuries can devastate the lives of soldiers and
> their families. The suicides that are so often the result of such  
> injuries
> make it clear that they can be every bit as lethal as bullets or  
> bombs,
> and to date no cure has been found. Treatment and disability payments,
> both for injured troops and their families, are a huge budgetary  
> concern
> that becomes ever more daunting as these wars drag on. The  
> Psychological
> Kevlar Act perhaps holds out the promise of a prophylactic remedy,  
> but it
> should come as no surprise that Big Pharma has been looking for a  
> chemical
> intervention.
>
> What they have come up with has already been dubbed "the mourning  
> after
> pill." Propranalol, if taken immediately following a traumatic  
> event, can
> subdue a victim's stress response and so soften his or her  
> perception of
> the memory. That does not mean the memory has been erased, but  
> proponents
> claim that the drug can render it emotionally toothless.
>
> If your daughter were raped, the argument goes, wouldn't you want  
> to spare
> her a traumatic memory that might well ruin her life? As the mother  
> of a
> 23-year old daughter, I can certainly understand the appeal of that
> argument. And a drug that could prevent the terrible effects of  
> traumatic
> injuries in soldiers? If I were the parent of a soldier suffering from
> such a life-altering injury, I can imagine being similarly persuaded.
>
> Not surprisingly, the Army is already on board. Propranolol is a
> well-tolerated medication that has been used for years for other  
> purposes.
>
> And it is inexpensive.
>
> But is it moral to weaken memories of horrendous acts a person has
> committed? Some would say that there is no difference between offering
> injured soldiers penicillin to prevent an infection and giving a  
> drug that
> prevents them from suffering from a posttraumatic stress injury for  
> the
> rest of their lives. Others, like Leon Kass, former chairman of the
> President's Council on Bioethics, object to propranolol's use on the
> grounds that it medicates away one's conscience. "It's the morning- 
> after
> pill for just about anything that produces regret, remorse, pain or
> guilt," he says. Barry Romo, a national coordinator for Vietnam  
> Veterans
> Against the War, is even more blunt. "That's the devil pill," he says.
> "That's the monster pill, the anti-morality pill. That's the pill  
> that can
> make men and women do anything and think they can get away with it.  
> Even
> if it doesn't work, what's scary is that a young soldier could  
> believe it
> will."
>
> It doesn't take a neuroscientist to see the problem with both of these
> solutions. Though both hold the promise of relief from the effects  
> of an
> injury that causes unspeakable pain, they do so at what appears to be
> great cost. Whatever research projects might be funded by the
> Psychological Kevlar Act and whatever use is made of propranolol, they
> will almost certainly involve a diminished range of feelings and  
> memory,
> without which soldiers and veterans will be different. But in what  
> ways?
>
> I wish I could trust the leadership of our country to prioritize  
> the lives
> and well-being of our citizens. I don't. The last six years have  
> clearly
> shown the extent to which this administration is willing to go to use
> soldiers for its own ends, discarding them when they are damaged. Will
> efforts be made to fix what has been broken? Return what has been  
> taken?
> Bring them home? Will citizens be enlightened about what we are  
> condoning
> in our ignorance, dispassion or indifference? Or will these two  
> solutions
> simply bring us closer to realizing the bullet-proof mind, devoid  
> of the
> inconvenient vulnerability of decent human beings to atrocity and  
> horror?
> And finally, these are all questions about the morality of  
> proposals that
> are trying to prevent injuries without changing the social  
> circumstances
> that bring them about, which sidestep the most fundamental moral  
> dilemma:
> that of sending people to war in the first place.
>
> Penny Coleman is the widow of a Vietnam veteran who took his own life
> after coming home. Her latest book, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress
> Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War, was released on Memorial  
> Day,
> 2006. Her blog is Flashback.
>
> © 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
>
> View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/72956/
>
> (There are several hundred interesting comments accompanying the  
> original
> at this alternet website - C)

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