Suppressing conscience in soldiers led directly to military torture

Evidence

Alfred de Vigny wrote, “The paid man, the soldier, is a glorious pauper, victim, and executioner.” A soldier wields violence and is also exposed to it; he is both an executioner and a victim. But what does he become once the very possibility of being exposed to violence is removed? The fatal conclusion is that he becomes a mere executioner. And that is why he must somehow continue to be a victim if he wishes to continue to be called a soldier. There is a difficulty, though: what could he be the victim of? The only possibility is that he is psychically the victim of having to act as an executioner. That is the only way he can be defined in his own eyes, as in those of society, as the fighter that he no longer is. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 367 (#expands, via linked claim)

In a civilised society, torture has no more counter-productive and insidious long-term effect than the way that it tends to demoralise the inflicter even more than his victim. Frantz Fanon, the militant Martiniquais psychiatrist, cites several examples of acute, lingering neurosis induced among the tortured; a kind of anorexia suffered by the innocent who had been put to la question wrongfully; pins-and-needles and a lasting fear of turning on a light switch, or touching a telephone, in those who had experienced the gégène. But just as psychically impaired were numerous cases like that of the European police inspector found guilty of torturing his own wife and children, which he explained as resulting from what he had been required to do to Algerian suspects — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 614 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Suppressing conscience in brutal counterinsurgency leads directly to the adoption of torture.; Brutalizing war and fear of losing drove army torture institutionalization; Removing combat exposure reduces soldiers to mere executioners — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 367 (+4 more)

Related

• Military histories written from commander viewpoint erase soldiers’ humanity (similarity 0.87)
• Torture psychologically damages the torturer even more than the victim (similarity 0.84)
• Brutalizing war and fear of losing drove army torture institutionalization (similarity 0.83)
• Removing combat exposure reduces soldiers to mere executioners (similarity 0.82)
• Conscripts forced to commit torture brought psychological scars back to metropolitan France (similarity 0.80)
• Distant warfare shifts psychiatry from victims’ trauma to perpetrators’ guilt. (similarity 0.79)
• Institutionalized torture corrupts every institution it touches (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Brutalizing war and fear of losing drove army torture institutionalization #corroborates (0.70)
• Removing combat exposure reduces soldiers to mere executioners #expands (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 367
• Torture psychologically damages the torturer even more than the victim #complicates (0.40) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 614
• Military histories written from commander viewpoint erase soldiers’ humanity #complicates (0.30)