We are thankful to the members of the U.S. military. In addition to risking
life and limb to defend America, they also sometimes weather politically
motivated slanders, like John Kerry's against Vietnam veterans or John
Murtha's against Iraq veterans. Apparently this didn't start with Vietnam,
either. An outline of a Continuing Legal Education program sponsored by
one
Todd Winegar, makes the following claim:
- Difficult Cases and Clients
• Brainwa****ng and propaganda principles
• WWII - virtually no U.S. soldiers collaborated with the enemy;
Korean War - more than 90% collaborated. The "step-by-step" process
We did a little Googling to find out what this was all about. It appears
the
reference is to _prisoners_of_war_ in Korea, not soldiers in general, and
that
the claim is exaggerated to say the least. In 2004, Robert Chaldini, an
Arizona State University psychologist, told ASU Research magazine (Arizona
State University) that North Korean captors used "consistency," which is
"one
of the six basic principles of influence":
After the Korean War, a high percentage of American prisoners
were found to have collaborated with the enemy in some way. Yet
their behavior was not a result of physical torture, according
to Cialdini. The prisoners were subjected to some very skillful
uses of two key principles of influence.
The Korean captors began their work on prisoners based on the
premise that Americans try to behave consistently with what
they've said and done. They first asked prisoners to agree with
seemingly innocuous statements, such as "The United States is
not perfect."
Once a prisoner had agreed to that statement, he might be asked
to explain some of the ways in which his country is not perfect.
He was then asked to write down those ways and sign his name to
the document. Not wanting to become inconsistent in their actions
or words, prisoners would comply with the request.
This request, and the ones that came after, would have been
followed by a "public" reading. The prisoner would be told to
read his list of imperfections to his fellow prisoners. They,
in turn, would be more likely to also agree to imperfections
in the United States because one of their fellow prisoners had
already cited them. At that point, these prisoners succumbed
to the principle of social proof. Humans rely heavily on the
people around us for cues on how to think, feel, and act.
Eventually, the small step of consistently acknowledging
imperfections, and the strong need for social proof, would
lead to collaboration and charges of aiding and abetting the
enemy.
Author Marty O'Brien has a somewhat different take:
American POWs in Korea were held to much stricter standards by
their fellow Americans than their World War II fathers and older
brothers who died in the prison camps in that war--and they were
severely criticized for the slightest infraction of rules.
During World War II in Germany, it was commonplace for Americans
who were captured by the Germans to cooperate with them in order
to make life easier for themselves. In some of the Stalags,
Germans and Americans cooperated quite freely and even put on
Christmas shows together. Trading between the captors and the
captives was winked at. Red Cross parcels were given up for
privileges. In some instances, lasting friend****ps were developed
between the enemies. The two sides got along quite well and there
were no instances of Germans killing Americans in a systematic
and brutal way in the prison camps.
Although POWs in other wars were regarded differently, in Korea,
no slack was given to American G.I.s who were forced, upon threat
of certain death, to cooperate with the enemy. The POWs behaved
no differently than U.S. and allied POWs during the war in the
Pacific in such places as Bataan, Corregidor, Singa****e and
Mukden, China, where the murderous Unit 731 operated.
The perfidious slander of our POWs came mostly from an alarming
number of Americans who seemingly were sympathetic to or duped
by the Communist propaganda apparatus and who were too willing
to believe the worst about their fellow Americans. Others, who
had never been POWs themselves, honestly believed that Americans
under no circumstances should ever cooperate with the enemy even
in the face of certain death.
The harsher standards dictated that even passive "cooperation"
with the enemy was deemed to be traitorous "collaboration."
Sadly, too many Americans peddled that line and in the process
slandered everyone unfortunate enough to get captured by the
Communists. That rigid mind set led to the establishment of
a new Code Conduct. Although the 1955 code had beneficial
aspects, it should be noted that it was, nevertheless,
scrapped in 1977 as unrealistic and unworkable--so much for
good intentions!
By the way, the military's America Sup****ts You Web site [1] is running a
"Giving Thanks Campaign" so that you can send a text message of sup****t to
the
troops in the field.
[1]:
http://www.americasup****tsyou.mil/americasup****tsyou/thanks/index.aspx
--
It is simply breathtaking to watch the glee and abandon with which
the liberal media and the Angry Left have been attempting to turn
our military victory in Iraq into a second Vietnam quagmire. Too bad
for them, it's failing.
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