But that is what elites are trained to do - manipulate ordinary people to do the dirty work, even if that means their own destruction at the end (cf. nazi victims digging their own graves).
But that is based on the simple principle - divide et impera, divide and conquer. The trick is to isolate people form each other, and then put them is a situation where they have to do what the elites want them in order to save their own lives. Take the case of an ordinary soldier sent to Vietnam. If he was isolated from social support networks facilitating his draft dogging or draft resistance, he risked prison for his refusal to serve in the army. That was the real risk, here and now, whereas the danger of the battle was an abstract and a distance one, and the elites made everything to keep it that way, so that soldier saw it as less risky to be drafted than refusing and going to jail.
Once in Vietnam he was put in the harm's way and had no choice to fight, for is he refused he would be killed - either by the enemy of his officer. Fighting, on th eother hand, means not only survival but also rewards that the elites woul dbestow on him.
So the point is that refusal to fight in such situaltion was a realy Herculean effort that very few peope could actually afford. Of course, those with social capital (like daddy paying Harvard tuition, or uncle in Sweden) could refuse without much personal risk, but that option was not available to most. Of course there were undoubtedly bloodthirsty perverts who willingly participated in the war to satisfy their urge to kill - but I suppose they were a minority.
On the other hand, the elites enginered the slaughter quite consciously and willingly - and had many other options available with little risk to themselves. As a matter of fact, their college education prepared them for their role as "leaders" meaning: those who make other doing the dirty work, and hide behind abstractions when it comes to personal responsibility for the actions they ordered. Their responsibility is infinitely gerater than that of the foot soldiers because:
- they knew what they were doing, - they had other options they could take with litlle or no personal risk, and - they had the means of avoiding responsibility by being in the position of making others do the dirty work, and by being suffciently skilled in punditry to wrap themseleves in abstractions and ideas to justify their own decisions.
As Stalin used to say, for these folks, Trumans, MacNamaras, Nixons et al. (including the author himself), four walls are three too many.
wojtek