Dana Visalli: America's Global War Against Our Planet

Dana Visalli, while in Kabul this year, visited the US military base in "Camp Eggers". The female officer in charge reprimanded the person who had the temerity to accompany Dana, and lead her to the "inner sanctum" of that base. In the mid-1960's political scientist Hannah Arendt published a book-length study of how some of the great evils of history, such as slavery and the Holocaust. managed to occur. Her book, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, concluded that generally such crimes are not carried out by fanatics or sociopaths, but rather by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their superiors and their state, and therefore do what they are told to do, and participate with the view that their actions are normal. The word "banal" is defined as something that is trite, normal, and commonplace. The root of the word comes from the Old French word ban, referring to feudal military service, which was compulsory and thus commonly accepted. Thus, military culture is by definition synonymous with with banal, which my acquaintances at Camp Eggers demonstrated as they strove to find orders to follow and avoid responsibility for their actions. Most members of the military establishment receive extensive training in combat techniques, including of course how to kill other human beings. One common drill at boot camp is to have recruits lunge repeatedly at mock human targets with mounted bayonets, shouting "Kill! Kill!"