GarandMarine, it's not just conditioning to the kill - you mention the ugly aspect of dehumanising the enemy, and that's an interesting psychological process of its own. My god daughter served recently (Iraq was still on) as a weapons tech in HI and came back from basic talking about "Hadjis", an attempt at a derogatory nickname for Iraqi's rather like Vietnam's "Gooks".
Or even WWI's "Huns".
I won't mention what the Nazi's called their enemies...
Dehumanising takes place on many levels, and she was back for two or three years before she was even able to think of a person with "Hadji" characteristics as human. It was a major breakthrough for her - with a good bit of tears involved.
I mention that in the full article if you click through to link. Dehumanization in reference to killing was mentioned in this thread so I only linked the relevant part about killing and rates of fire when engaging the enemy circa WW1/WW2. It's an eight page psych paper that I did my own research for, I promise I have a complete picture of dehumanization. That said I still refer to hadji as hadji, though I make a point of distinguishing (as do most of my mates) between Iraqi and Afghani civilians and hadji. Hadji is the bad guy who kills your friends, wants to kill you, and murders women and children on the regular, he has no honor, no self respect and only deserve swift violence visited upon him and his ilk. Dehumanization? Yes absolutely. However an enemy who rigs an ice cream cart with an IED in downtown Kabul specifically to target children does half the world on that himself.
What's interesting to me is how dehumanization as a psychological structure towards the enemy has moved, it's become a more complex form, allowing for the compartmentalization of "the enemy" and "the civilian populace who's getting just as shot up by the enemy as you are" there's guys who don't make that distinction, especially after tours in primarily hostile areas but I'd say in my experience they're the exception not the rule. Further dehumanization in the classic sense is at the very least officially discouraged in the military, a lieutenant who gives a briefing to his platoon and uses terms like "hadji" in a derogatory fashion around his company commander will probably get a talking to, if tape of it leaks to youtube and the command is forced to take notice, mast is certainly possible. Obviously propaganda posters (of which I have some excellent examples if you click through to my article) are a thing of a bygone age, yet still it lives. Some of it's the enemy we're fighting, but the process has moved underground into the barracks and the "grape vine" (a.k.a "the underground") where it continues to live to these days.
Again, not that it's hard to cast our current enemy in the bad guy's light, murdering women and children on the regular kinda sets that to easy mode for the average American lad or lass.
Or stories from the locals like the picture this letter from the mayor of Tal Afar, Iraq to the 3rd ACR (a local unit) paints:
http://www.hardchargers.com/3dacr.pdfIt honestly sounds complementary. Not intentionally so, but "fear those fuckers, they're crazy" is a pretty big complement to give to an opposing army.
That's why I've always liked some of the nicknames they've given Marines through out the world. Even if the Teufuel Hunden one is completely made up. Whenever enemy propaganda talks about us, from WW2 to modern times we're listed as psychotic murder machines. Whether they're calling us shock troops, Marines, black boots or white sleeves (old desert nickname, Somalia in particular) or just referring to us as America's elite soldiers who have to murder a family member to join. (that is REAL enemy propaganda)