Wars, on Drugs: Highlights from “Drug Intoxicated Irregular Fighters”
Posted Jun 04, 2008 7 comments
I wanted to share some highly memorable excerpts from Paul Rexton Kan's excellent paper "Drug Intoxicated Irregular Fighters: Complications, Dangers and Responses." You can download a PDF copy here. It's a very readable study of the role drugs play in asymmetric warfare around the world.
The first two quotes are entertaining, but the real brainfood is in the third part.
Really Bad Ideas
"Drugged conscripts have been a danger to their own forces; a soldier stationed near the Russian border with Georgia shot and killed eight of his colleagues (and wounded five others) during a hallucinogenic fit brought on by eating magic mushrooms."
Zombie Insurgency
"Combatant behavior is often influenced by an individual’s state of intoxication. For example, U.S. Marines reportedly had to change their tactics when notified that the insurgents in Fallujah were probably high and thus less likely to be stopped by standard shots to the torso. One Marine stated that “on the second day of the fight, word came down to focus on head shots, that body shots were not good enough,” while another compared it to “‘Night of the Living Dead’, people who should have been dead were still alive.”
Secret History of Vietnam
"During the Korean War, American servicemen stationed in Korea and Japan invented the “speedball,” an injectable mixture of amphetamine and heroin. U.S. troops in Vietnam preferred marijuana, but when subject to a sudden marijuana ban, they turned to heroin. Discipline problems quickly rose; as one commanding officer lamented 2 years after the marijuana crackdown, “If it would get them to give up the hard stuff, I would buy all the marijuana and hashish in the Delta as a present.”
"Drug use was so severe among American troops in the later stages of the Vietnam War that more soldiers were evacuated for drug problems than for battlefield wounds."
"The addiction rate of returning troops has been of constant concern to average citizens as well as elites. In November 1971, New York reported nearly 10,000 heroin-addicted Vietnam veterans which, as discussed in this monograph, was the result of the U.S. military’s clamp down on widespread marijuana use by troops.
Heroin use among Vietnam veterans created societal fears of rising crime and disorder. Time magazine reflected the public mood by reporting that “the specter of weapons-trained, addicted combat veterans joining the deadly struggle for drugs in the streets of America is ominous...the Capone era of the ‘20s may look like a Sunday school picnic by comparison."
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Filed in: 5GW Project 2008
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1. Sydney Familiar on Jun 05, 2008 at 7:53 AM permalink
“Zombie Insurgency” is a killer term. Having a drugged out army performing insane acts of violence and super human acts of survival is an interesting historical note, but would it really be something that a 21 first century government’s urban assault team be willing to employ, even covertly hope for? What is the possible 5GW spin? I can see that having kids with guns drugged up, might keep them dumb enough to still fight for any government’s BS. Yet, the collateral damage might be a bit too uncontrollable and make any hope for a clean win that can be media-praised, a bit farther out of reach. In addition, The fall-out from ‘Nam wasn’t druggy-gangland violence [expect for a few isolated cases of dudes drinking in bars and then losing their shit on some fools], it was druggy homelessness and broken homes. I think the same will probably happen from Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. Thirtyseven on Jun 05, 2008 at 10:16 AM permalink
Oh, it’s already happening, we’ve got a ton of homeless vets here in Springfield, Illinois.
This is a topic I touched upon in a Brainsturbator article last year, which I’m in the process of re-writing right now for Key 64. Wars, on drugs, ain’t nothing new. (Neither is anything else apparently.)
3. Eric Patton on Jun 05, 2008 at 12:07 PM permalink
You’ve got a knack for timing…
America’s Medicated Army
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1811858,00.html
4. Mr. Nowhere on Jun 06, 2008 at 9:28 AM permalink
Don’t forget all those Blackwater mercs losing it via http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2007/11/28/blackwater-guards-pumped-on-steroids-and-other-judgment-altering-substances/” ]possible steroid rage[/url], as good an explanation as any for their frequent killing sprees. Been reading <a href="http://www.blackwaterbook.com/"> Jeremy Scahill’s book on Blackwater, fucking unbelievable.
5. Soob on Jun 12, 2008 at 3:13 PM permalink
I don’t see much in the way of a “5GW spin.”
The lesson here (IMO) is thus: “U.S. troops in Vietnam preferred marijuana, but when subject to a sudden marijuana ban, they turned to heroin.”
Blowback is a bitch. Great post.
6. Bruce on Jun 13, 2008 at 1:20 AM permalink
If a government is financing its covert operations through drug trafficking, what a boon to create an army of addicts and then send them home, there to be a customer base and boost for the entrainment of more addicts. And how much more useful for them to be addicted to stuff that they can’t so easily grow at home.
Brilliant strategy or happy coincidence?
7. The Red Son on Jun 15, 2008 at 5:35 AM permalink
Great post. I dream of having my own quat-fueled army of child soldiers one day.