Alright y'all welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio Seems like the one thing I learned most often is how little I know about things Here I've been doing nothing but complain about war for ten years in a row And I'm not even familiar at all with this term bug splat which apparently is what all government employees now Call their civilian casualties.
Is that about right?
Welcome to show Robert Kohler.
How are you doing?
Tyler Kohler.
Yeah.
Yeah Kohler.
You're right.
You got it, right?
Hi.
Hi.
Nice to be here.
Thank you Welcome happy to have you here Bob Kohler is an award-winning Chicago based journalist and nationally synced a writer He's got a book called courage grows strong at the wound.
You can find his articles all over the place This one is called bug splat the civilian toll of war It's at the Baltimore Sun and we got it linked up in the viewpoint section today at anti-war calm And I really didn't know about this or maybe I had heard it here and there But I certainly didn't understand that this is a really widespread thing Bugs splat.
Can you elaborate?
Well, yes.
Okay.
Well, I am very Only newly acquainted with this term myself.
I I thought in a piece I read on common dreams, you know a month ago I mean not too long ago and Started looking into just the term itself because once it enters the brain, it's impossible to get out Yeah, I mean I couldn't get it out of my my head just this idea.
Um, there was a Washington Post article that ran way back in February of 2003 Before we went into Iraq, but you know as the build-up was, you know Gaining, you know serious momentum that talked about this new computer program that the Pentagon had and it was allegedly a humane Program it it it it Helped planners of this coming invasion more accurately predict civilian casualties, you know in various targets various, you know Areas of a bag that they had decided to target But they called it bug splat.
They called it operation or the bug splat program something like that I mean, but the word bug splat was who was the key word?
Yeah, I picked up on that thing because there was actually a lot of propaganda I remember especially like on the Lair News Hour that kind of level propaganda where they just spent all this time Talking about boy, the Air Force has gotten so good at never killing innocent people They're just brilliant and they're working so hard To protect the innocent, etc, etc on the evil war before the war.
Yes, absolutely This is what they were talking about was this program yes, well that yes apparently so and but the but you know, what's revealed in the name is the inner dimension of the whole thing the inner indifference to civilian life the inner lack of humanity that Allows allowed that invasion to occur and that you know in my opinion allowed war in general war in general to occur but it was just so graphic a term that I Had to do something, you know, so I wrote I wrote a column about it.
Yeah, there you go well and you talk about am I do I have it right here that the The cop at UC Davis that pepper sprayed all those kids in the face that that's what he called them to or not No, no, that's what I called.
I mean in in linking the whole concept of this, you know inhumanity No, that was not used by the police or by that police officer But same difference, but but looking at the photo, you know, you know at the you know at the at the YouTube video, you know It looked like the spraying of bugs.
I mean it it it it was that Same level of indifference.
It was not the same level of lethality because these were American kids and we're not gonna You know quite ready to start You know killing our protesters, you know our domestic protesters at this point, you know Calling them insurgents and then killing them like bugs, but we will spray them with pepper sprayers though They're you know, you know cockroaches running along at the counter Well now you also saying here that the British organization repeat reprieve calls its effort to track Civilians killed in drone strikes project bug splat.
Do you know why is that?
Well, they call it project bug splat not not out of their belief.
These are bugs, but the the that program is an attempt to track you know civilian casualties and The term, you know just comes from the Pentagon that they're just trying to highlight the term base.
They're highlighting the term They're not manifesting indifference or inhumanity they are highlighting the term So that that that is it.
That's it.
And I and I hope yes I mean as I read my reread my column, I saw the possibility of them Misunderstanding that I was condemning that organization, which I'm not At all.
I they they yes, as you say they were highlighting the term, right?
Yeah, and that's what I thought that must have meant too, but I didn't look into it Yeah Interview you and ask it and it worked out Okay, but so now here's my thing too because of course racism basically or at least all this Racist language throughout history its primary purpose is to make it.
Okay to kill people, right?
I mean, that's what it's all for is to right.
Yeah.
Yeah, basically shout at someone.
I deny you're actually a human Therefore I can cut your guts out with this bayonet and try to get over it later or whatever.
Yeah, sure Well, it's it's much easier to do perhaps.
It's not easier to get over it as our inner, you know conscience, you know Absorbs, you know what we have done.
I mean, that's you know It there's studies that demonstrate that PTSD is far more prevalent Not among not so much among people that have witnessed the horrors of war or Even seen their comrades die so much as those who have killed in in war, especially if they've killed unarmed civilians, that's the sort of thing that that really feeds the You know the PTSD syndrome and I think that's very important and the idea of war being any, you know I mean the inhumanity of war certainly is not a new concept I mean, it's you know, why he widely discussed all of the names we have for our enemies, you know from you know The gook era to the you know to the raghead to the haji, you know any name that just Erases the humanity.
Well, that's the interesting part about this to me Is that gook and haji and all those those are really mean right?
They have this whole they have disdain built into them But yeah bug in the in the case of bug splat the computer Programmer bug splat the ratio of civilian casualties or whatever It's not so me it's not even calling them insects like like the who to's call the tootsies or whatever cockroaches or some like That it's more just like an offhand kind of thing it denies them their humanity, but not necessarily in a mean way, but just in sort of a like maybe in a Software ish fashion where yeah, I think you're right.
I think it's one step removed from The the hostility there's really no hostility.
It's simply indifference, right?
I'm nervous.
That's the term.
I was there before I guess.
Yeah, and and and and I think that it's a scarier phenomenon or a further You know a further step in the phenomenon of dehumanization.
We're so indifferent that hmm, you know You know, you know, we wipe them away like, you know, like like bugs and any other Vermin that are in our way weeds, whatever, you know, what's funny though is Well, you know I don't hold myself Responsible for believing in this crap when I was a little kid because I was just a little kid and they said killing is okay As long as you're wearing green and you're doing it for your country like in World War two or whatever That's the founding myth of America.
We yes, we do fight overseas from here all the time But it's only always to stop Hitler and whatever and and that that makes it.
All right I was a little kid.
So, okay But what I don't understand is how do people live to be 80 years old believe in this crap?
We're like as long as you're born between Canada and Mexico It's perfectly alright for you to massacre anyone as long as they're outside of these lines.
Yeah, I don't get it well, I think I think as long as you stay within the faith and The walls of your faith are strong enough, you know women and by faith, I mean, you know the faith of nationalism Religion, you know and and don't yeah, and and and You know don't open your mind Beyond those walls that you have, you know built over the lifetime around yourself then you know and and you've been luckily lucky enough not to have been exposed to the Consequences of the inhumanity you support then you stay with within it easily enough.
I mean, right?
All right.
Now hold it right there.
We got to take this break.
We'll be right back Okay.
All right, everybody.
It's Robert Kohler.
He's got a new one at the Baltimore Sun All right, y'all welcome back to the show It's anti-war radio I'm Scott Horton and I'm talking with Bob Kohler Is the first time I haven't screwed up his name this whole time, but here we are It's the Baltimore Sun.
He's got a piece bug splat the civilian toll of War and yeah, basically we're talking about how little human life means to American government employees, particularly the military ones and The manipulation of language that makes it all okay.
That's really the trip to me It's a sort of Orwellian George Carlinian thing about how you think in language.
And so yeah, I agree absolutely and You can really justify any horror with an argument if you got one, right?
Yes.
Yes I you you can't lie in body language.
You can only lie in you know, you know our you know The language we have invented It's you know, it's an it's an incredible tool for telling the truth and for lying we build our reality with our language and You know, I was reminded when I saw your article again, it's running in the viewpoint section today at anti-war calm When I saw it I thought a menial of Admiral Fallon who I believe heroically pretty much single-handedly stopped the war with Iran in 2007, okay, and He was the the head of Central Command at the time and he basically said over my dead body Well this same guy gave an interview to I think it was Thomas Barnett later on where he said or maybe this was the one That got him fired.
Anyway at one point he said hey look the people of Iran are ants and when the time comes We will crush them.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes, and so And this was the hero.
This is the guy that stopped the war It certainly wasn't because anyone inside Persia has a right to be alive.
Yeah one minute It was just I guess a he was worried American soldiers in Iraq would get bombed all the hell I guess was right, right, right Well, yeah, it's reminiscent of the Graham Greene Story the third man and the Orson Welles character, you know, who is that kind of guy, you know You know, he and Joseph Cotner writing on on the Ferris wheel and it's at the very top as they look down You know the Orson Welles character says look at those, you know ants down there, you know Which is essentially what they look like from that height.
Do you really honestly say you care about any of them?
Anyway, it's it's the same thing of course Graham Greene wrote it to be critical of that and But you know, I think that was one of the things I saw on on Which movie was it about the financial crisis where they talked about I think the the CEO or or the CEO or something?
Amen brothers took the elevator straight up that no one else.
It didn't even stop at any other floors Yeah, right elevator went straight up to the very top.
Yeah, only ever saw people from the top of that building down, you know Yes, yes.
Yeah.
Well, that's the whole the structure of organizations as a hierarchy creates that situation where You know, oh, you know only at the higher level, you know, is there humanity and Those below are subordinate rather than you know, you know a flow of humanity in every direction and You know, I'm all for creating that kind of world And I would say that's my life.
My life project is to contribute to that I what I call it is power with versus power over, you know, we You know live in a society that seems to believe in domination but You know, we built, you know, we built our you know human civilization out of cooperation and power with one another and I think we just have to Acknowledge that and acknowledge the implications and and ask the questions.
What does it mean to build a power with?society, you know and You know move beyond this power over society.
That's going to drive us all into You know Extinction I would say yeah, well and you know, of course within that is the more it's not a mine It's not a more minor point.
It's just a more technical matter or whatever.
No, that's not the right word either It's just a maybe a narrower point just as important but narrower within that same framework would be the life of you know some kid who right now is a junior in high school and is thinking seriously about joining the Marine Corps because everybody he knows thinks it's the right thing to do when and and everybody he knows would at least if not tell him outright would you know more or less go along with and reinforce the idea that The government loves its soldiers that the whole society loves its soldiers And and we'll all think of you as a hero and take good good care of you when the reality is not just hyperbole But now we know for a fact the reality is the government will throw your dead body in the garbage dump when they're through with Yeah And that's the part that really gets me is 17 year old kids Yeah head full of mush being told that after all this after a decade of war after all you and I've Have seen happen in the last ten years all these wars that they know nothing of they're just fresh joining up right now to go Fight in Afghanistan, for example, precisely.
Yeah, and I'll throw you in the gutter even if the body isn't quite dead When once they're dead once they're done with you that that's it Yeah, I'm fair, you know because I know when I was 17, I thought I knew a lot of stuff But I know I knew starting probably around the time.
I was 19 that actually I didn't know anything when I was 17 Yeah, amen.
Amen.
It's yeah.
Yeah, the older you get the more you realize, you know, how little you know I mean, I think that's how it works if you're You know living, you know living with a with an open mind in any case, right?
Yeah, I mean, I mean what one of the things that upsets me is you know One of the things that upsets me a great deal is the way The army will will troll for young people with that head full of mush that you know, you know the gamers You know the what is it us army.com or whatever?
I forget.
It's one of the there's some website with a name Something like that and I'm forgetting the exact name But you know, it's it's a gamer site, you know sponsored by the military and it's got hundreds of thousands of participants If not, you know even you know Another decimal up beyond that but um, you know It's 13 year old boys and and older that you know get pulled into these great combat games And but it but it's it's a it's a recruiting strategy, you know reaching, you know way into the earliest childhood You know or the earliest adolescents at any case of you know of mostly boys, you know And and and pulling that pulling them into you know The idea of a military life so that they can have an ongoing flow of some cannon fodder It's it's I mean, it's a very disturbing Phenomenon.
Yeah, and you know when I was a kid, I used to love playing video games things like that all the time But uh, yes, but it's certainly different when it's Wow the actual army itself They're not just relying on you know kids love of war games to carry through they have their own They put millions into making their own.
Yeah, pro-us army specifically games In fact, there was one where they had it in the mall where you actually climb in a Humvee Yeah, shoot virtual people with your mounting machine gun and these kinds of things, right?
Right, right.
Yes I think there are recruitment centers that are that I have that have gaming parlors in them and you know Young guys can Hang out there and and you know and play as young as young people too young to be a recruiter They can still play the game and then when they're old enough, you know, they're much easier prey You know that combined with you know that you know that the the horrific economy, you know the disappearance of jobs at every level, you know, so a mill at the military becomes a you know a place for young people to You know find some security plus there's all the promises of this that you know education, etc, etc You know for just a two-year commitment or whatever that then turns out to be something far more horrific than these folks young people thought they had signed up for often enough and You know plus the lack of any sort of other alternative for Patriotic service that's you know, that also pains me.
I mean there could be other ways to serve our community in a patriotic sense besides going and killing gooks or Haji's or you know bugs, you know producing bug splat.
Yeah.
Well, and you know, there's the whole blowback, too I mean if if bombing Iraq and blockading Iraq for 10 years from bases in Saudi Arabia Got us attacked on September 11th And then that became the excuse for all this entire terror war that's raged ever since then what kind of blowback are we facing?
Next, you know, we're gonna have Roy Gutman on the show just back from over there It's all you know, everybody's talking now about Iran and Saudi Arabia having a proxy war in Iraq and all this stuff Yeah, we only just started setting up the the tinderbox from one point of view It's only just now gonna blow up in our face Absolutely.
We we are we're setting it up so that you know, the coming generations will inherit the problems that we inherited and You know, but probably much larger scale.
So It's very it's very disturbing Alright.
Well, hey, thanks very much for your writing and for your time on the show today Bob.
I really thought thank you very much It was a great day.
It was a pleasure to talk to you and happy new year.
Happy new year to you, too Alright.
Bye.
Bye everybody.
That's Bob Kohler He is an award-winning journalist and nationally syndicated writer His book is called courage grows strong at the wound and his website is common wonders.com.
We'll be back
