Guilt Free Soldiers

The average human being has a natural aversion to killing other human beings. This is precisely why the military has to spend thousands of hours and billions of dollars training its warriors: they have to drive this out of their heads, or at least lower their inhibitions.

A story in this week's Village Voice suggests that the military is working on a solution to this costly problem: a pill that will make killing people much easier to live with, by assuaging the human conscience.

"It's the morning-after pill for just about anything that produces regret, remorse, pain, or guilt," says Dr. Leon Kass, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, who emphasizes that he's speaking as an individual and not on behalf of the council. Barry Romo, a national coordinator for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, is even more blunt. "That's the devil pill," he says. "That's the monster pill, the anti-morality pill. That's the pill that can make men and women do anything and think they can get away with it. Even if it doesn't work, what's scary is that a young soldier could believe it will."

...[Of course,] The scientists behind this advance into the shadows of memory and fear don't dream of creating morally anesthetized grunts. They're trying to fend off post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, so that women who've been raped can leave their houses without feeling like targets. So that survivors of terrorist attacks can function, raise families, and move forward. And yes, so that those young soldiers aren't left shattered for decades by what they've seen and done in service.

Recall Chris Floyd's take on "Monster's Inc."