All troops, when they occupy and battle insurgent forces, as in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Gaza, or Vietnam, are placed in what the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton calls “atrocity-producing situations.” In this environment, surrounded by a hostile population, a simple act such as going to a store to buy a can of Coke means you can be killed. This constant fear and stress push troops to view everyone around them as the enemy. This hostility is compounded when the enemy is elusive, shadowy, and hard to find. The rage soldiers feel after a roadside bomb explodes, killing or maiming their
...more
