"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring)
So Osama bin Laden is dead. After 10 years, we've finally tracked the bastard down and killed him (maybe: people have been claiming he's been "dead" since at least 2006).
And all it took was the destruction of two nations, hundreds of thousands of innocent lives lost, millions become refugees, turning the Middle East and neighboring regions into a free-fire zone, setting up a concentration camp in Cuba, giving Israel even greater opportunity to oppress the Palestinians (see the latest outrage here), and the continued erosion of our civil rights and the on-going militarization of our country.
And then there're the self-righteous congratulations that our state-sponsored terrorists and their political allies are spouting.
Are we getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan? How much deeper are we going to get in Libya? When's Guantanamo closing? When's habeas corpus going to be restored? When is the "defense" budget going to be reduced?
When any of these things happen, then I may consider celebrating.
Showing posts with label war (in general). Show all posts
Showing posts with label war (in general). Show all posts
08 February 2011
REVIEW: War Is Not Over When It's Over: Women and the Consequences of Conflict
I quote some graphic excerpts in the review below. If you have a low threshold for such, skip the italicized quotes. You’ve been warned.
It is impossible for me to objectively review this book for the reason that I do not think it’s possible for any sane human being to justify war, violence, or any culture or tradition that denies a voice to half of our species if they read this book. (Or similar ones: From my own bookshelf I can list The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East (Robert Fisk) and Vietnam at War (Mark Philip Bradley), and there are more.) When you read books like this, it’s also difficult to swallow what passes for reasoned discourse in our public sphere where you see the appalling arrogance, ruthlessness and ignorance of our governing classes (who are only too happy to keep the hoi polloi equally arrogant, ruthless and clueless).
In War Is Not Over When It’s Over, Ann Jones argues that war is only the most visible face of violence and that its consequences destroy lives well after any peace accords have been signed and all the politicians have gone home. Even when it’s over, war ingrains the habits of violence and dehumanization, which leak over into civil life. Jones doesn’t address the issue in relation to the U.S. but you can easily find stories about increasing domestic violence and rape perpetrated by returning veterans or by soldiers in the field.
The origins of this book come out of Jones’ work with the UN and the International Red Cross (IRC) in their efforts to aide and protect refugees and the victims of the myriad wars afflicting our planet. Jones visited several countries where she organized groups of women who would photographically document their lives. It wasn’t meant to be a witness to the atrocity of violence (though that was a part of the project) but the women were meant to document their communities’ needs and the positives in their lives. At the end of the projects, the women hosted an exhibition displaying their efforts. In every case, Jones found that the experience made its participants more confident. In some cases it helped bring about real change. For example, in one village in Côte d’Ivoire, its chief, Zatta, declared that the violence documented in the photos must end and began including women in his council (which he continued to do even after the UN mission left, according to Jones). Among the Burmese refugee camps along the Thai border, the women learned to document rape and abuse cases and have made some progress in having offenders prosecuted. Both examples point up to the forces of inertia and tradition women struggle against. Everywhere she went, Jones faced societies that relegated women to second-class status and blamed their oppression on them (an attitude the enlightened West still falls prey to all too often).
I’ve written enough – let a few representative excerpts speak for themselves now:
From Sierra Leone:
“Official reports document appalling crimes: fathers forced to rape their own daughters; brothers forced to rape their sisters; boy soldiers who gang-rape old women, then chop off their arms; pregnant women eviscerated alive and the fetus snatched from the womb to satisfy soldiers’ bet on its sex. A brother is hacked to death and eviscerated; his heart and liver are placed in the hands of his eighteen-year-old sister, who is commanded to eat them. She refuses. She is told that her two children and her sister have been abducted. She's taken to the place where her sister and two other women are held. She sees them murdered. Their heads are placed in her lap. Such crimes deliberately violate primal taboos; they aim to crush not only the individual victims but also those who physically survive the violence. They are meant to destroy a way of life and the values that inform it. Yet the individual victims are important in their own right, and in most cases they are women and children.” (pp. 96-7)
From Congo:
“Charlotte had become a leader in CFK, working on the cases of young girls who had recently been raped, not by militiamen but by civilians right there in Kamanyola. A twelve-year-old girl was raped by her teacher. A nine-year-old was raped by a young boy. A seven-year-old was raped by a middle-aged man. An eleven-year-old was raped by her father. A seven-year-old was raped by her pastor. Charlotte was one of the women who visited the parents, persuaded them not to compromise, and helped them take their child’s case to court. But the rape of these young girls by civilians – by teachers, pastors, fathers – this was something new in the community, since the war, and the women of CFK were struggling to understand it. Later I told Charlotte and others about the way the habits of war carry over into peacetime, the way the habits of soldiers are taken up by civilians. I told them about the civilian rapes of little girls in Liberia, snatched even from church, and in Sierra Leone. Unknown before the war, civilian rapists and child rape in Kamanyola – like gang rape – were becoming normal.” (pp. 146-7)
And two examples from our “glorious liberation” of Iraq:
“The violence done by ordinary men to other ordinary men like Othman and Sayed destroys the victims. Men told me of being kidnapped as teenagers, beaten, confined without food or water, and coerced to provide sexual gratification to their captors. They spoke without apparent feeling, having retreated behind some psychic barrier where safety lay. Although most men won’t tell - `A raped man is not a man,’ one said – UNHCR in Amman had recorded nearly three hundred cases of sexual violence against men. Captivity and torture of men in Iraq always seemed to have about it this peculiar quality of homoerotic sadism, the effluence of a culture that adores men far more than women yet sets them officially out of reach.” (p. 215)
“Mona was attacked in her Baghdad home by a gang of men in black who broke down the door at four o’clock in the morning. They dragged her about by her hair and slapped her around, demanding to know where her husband was. She told them the truth, that he had fled to Lebanon for fear of kidnapping. She said she had stayed behind so that her children could finish school…. They told her to write down the names of people in the neighborhood and whether they were Sunni or Shia…. She refused. They broke her arm, they ripped off her nightclothes, they twisted her broken arm behind her back, and they raped her. She begged for mercy, saying, `I am Muslim, like you.’ One of them said, `You are a Sunni infidel. If you were a Muslim you would not let your daughter do gymnastics.’… `They raped my sister, too,’ she said, gesturing toward the corner where a skeletal figure lay on the floor, staring at us with vacant eyes. `She was an invalid; she couldn’t use her legs. The rape finished her. All those men. Now she just lies on her mat and pisses herself.’ That night, Mona feared for her children, but after the men left the house, the two little boys crept out of the cupboards, and she found her daughter on the roof, hiding in the water tank. She phoned her husband, and he blamed her. A year later, long after her brother helped her move the family to Damascus, her husband came to join her. He raped her too, and she became pregnant, but before long he beat her so badly that she miscarried. He left again for Lebanon and sent notice of their divorce. Her daughter was not able to finish school.” (pp. 223-4)
Jones also points out the iniquities and hypocrisy of the U.S. government. In Iraq we’ve (the U.S.) managed to refuse a significant number of refugees by the simple expedient of accusing them of violating the PATRIOT Act: “Families that had redeemed relatives from kidnappers were excluded on the grounds that paying ransom amounted to providing `material support’ to terrorists…” (p. 232). Refugees in Jordan get more aid than those “fortunate” enough to reach the U.S., and many of those advise their relatives still in Iraq to reject the U.S. if they can.
When you’ve come to the end of a book like this, the inevitable question is, “What can I do?” It’s a depressing situation, and it seems intractable. On my part, inadequate as it may be, the IRC has joined the list of charities I support. It’s amazing what they manage to accomplish in the face of misogynistic tradition and political indifference. And I’m going to pester my representatives to stop frakking around with our obligations under the UN and international law, and to support family planning even if it does include (gasp!) abortion counseling. (I’m fortunate in that all my reps are Democratic women so I hold out the hope that they might listen – an admittedly faint one, I’ll grant you.)
There are a few flaws in the book that, I believe, weaken its impact:
There’s a certain lack of passion or connection in the first few chapters that only begins to lift when we reach Congo and makes the second half more intense and memorable. Perhaps Jones had a more personal interest invested in these later venues. Whatever the case, the greater passion she’s capable of while still maintaining the necessary distance makes me want to see what she’s written about her experience in Afghanistan – Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan.
Not enough photos. I don’t mean that I wanted to see photos of torture or rape victims but I did want to see more evidence of the conditions these people endure and of the good things they were able to find in their lives.
I wish there was a section dedicated to resources and sources. They are there but buried in the Notes section.
These are decidedly minor quibbles and certainly shouldn’t deter you from reading this important witness to the atrocity of violence.
It is impossible for me to objectively review this book for the reason that I do not think it’s possible for any sane human being to justify war, violence, or any culture or tradition that denies a voice to half of our species if they read this book. (Or similar ones: From my own bookshelf I can list The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East (Robert Fisk) and Vietnam at War (Mark Philip Bradley), and there are more.) When you read books like this, it’s also difficult to swallow what passes for reasoned discourse in our public sphere where you see the appalling arrogance, ruthlessness and ignorance of our governing classes (who are only too happy to keep the hoi polloi equally arrogant, ruthless and clueless).
In War Is Not Over When It’s Over, Ann Jones argues that war is only the most visible face of violence and that its consequences destroy lives well after any peace accords have been signed and all the politicians have gone home. Even when it’s over, war ingrains the habits of violence and dehumanization, which leak over into civil life. Jones doesn’t address the issue in relation to the U.S. but you can easily find stories about increasing domestic violence and rape perpetrated by returning veterans or by soldiers in the field.
The origins of this book come out of Jones’ work with the UN and the International Red Cross (IRC) in their efforts to aide and protect refugees and the victims of the myriad wars afflicting our planet. Jones visited several countries where she organized groups of women who would photographically document their lives. It wasn’t meant to be a witness to the atrocity of violence (though that was a part of the project) but the women were meant to document their communities’ needs and the positives in their lives. At the end of the projects, the women hosted an exhibition displaying their efforts. In every case, Jones found that the experience made its participants more confident. In some cases it helped bring about real change. For example, in one village in Côte d’Ivoire, its chief, Zatta, declared that the violence documented in the photos must end and began including women in his council (which he continued to do even after the UN mission left, according to Jones). Among the Burmese refugee camps along the Thai border, the women learned to document rape and abuse cases and have made some progress in having offenders prosecuted. Both examples point up to the forces of inertia and tradition women struggle against. Everywhere she went, Jones faced societies that relegated women to second-class status and blamed their oppression on them (an attitude the enlightened West still falls prey to all too often).
I’ve written enough – let a few representative excerpts speak for themselves now:
From Sierra Leone:
“Official reports document appalling crimes: fathers forced to rape their own daughters; brothers forced to rape their sisters; boy soldiers who gang-rape old women, then chop off their arms; pregnant women eviscerated alive and the fetus snatched from the womb to satisfy soldiers’ bet on its sex. A brother is hacked to death and eviscerated; his heart and liver are placed in the hands of his eighteen-year-old sister, who is commanded to eat them. She refuses. She is told that her two children and her sister have been abducted. She's taken to the place where her sister and two other women are held. She sees them murdered. Their heads are placed in her lap. Such crimes deliberately violate primal taboos; they aim to crush not only the individual victims but also those who physically survive the violence. They are meant to destroy a way of life and the values that inform it. Yet the individual victims are important in their own right, and in most cases they are women and children.” (pp. 96-7)
From Congo:
“Charlotte had become a leader in CFK, working on the cases of young girls who had recently been raped, not by militiamen but by civilians right there in Kamanyola. A twelve-year-old girl was raped by her teacher. A nine-year-old was raped by a young boy. A seven-year-old was raped by a middle-aged man. An eleven-year-old was raped by her father. A seven-year-old was raped by her pastor. Charlotte was one of the women who visited the parents, persuaded them not to compromise, and helped them take their child’s case to court. But the rape of these young girls by civilians – by teachers, pastors, fathers – this was something new in the community, since the war, and the women of CFK were struggling to understand it. Later I told Charlotte and others about the way the habits of war carry over into peacetime, the way the habits of soldiers are taken up by civilians. I told them about the civilian rapes of little girls in Liberia, snatched even from church, and in Sierra Leone. Unknown before the war, civilian rapists and child rape in Kamanyola – like gang rape – were becoming normal.” (pp. 146-7)
And two examples from our “glorious liberation” of Iraq:
“The violence done by ordinary men to other ordinary men like Othman and Sayed destroys the victims. Men told me of being kidnapped as teenagers, beaten, confined without food or water, and coerced to provide sexual gratification to their captors. They spoke without apparent feeling, having retreated behind some psychic barrier where safety lay. Although most men won’t tell - `A raped man is not a man,’ one said – UNHCR in Amman had recorded nearly three hundred cases of sexual violence against men. Captivity and torture of men in Iraq always seemed to have about it this peculiar quality of homoerotic sadism, the effluence of a culture that adores men far more than women yet sets them officially out of reach.” (p. 215)
“Mona was attacked in her Baghdad home by a gang of men in black who broke down the door at four o’clock in the morning. They dragged her about by her hair and slapped her around, demanding to know where her husband was. She told them the truth, that he had fled to Lebanon for fear of kidnapping. She said she had stayed behind so that her children could finish school…. They told her to write down the names of people in the neighborhood and whether they were Sunni or Shia…. She refused. They broke her arm, they ripped off her nightclothes, they twisted her broken arm behind her back, and they raped her. She begged for mercy, saying, `I am Muslim, like you.’ One of them said, `You are a Sunni infidel. If you were a Muslim you would not let your daughter do gymnastics.’… `They raped my sister, too,’ she said, gesturing toward the corner where a skeletal figure lay on the floor, staring at us with vacant eyes. `She was an invalid; she couldn’t use her legs. The rape finished her. All those men. Now she just lies on her mat and pisses herself.’ That night, Mona feared for her children, but after the men left the house, the two little boys crept out of the cupboards, and she found her daughter on the roof, hiding in the water tank. She phoned her husband, and he blamed her. A year later, long after her brother helped her move the family to Damascus, her husband came to join her. He raped her too, and she became pregnant, but before long he beat her so badly that she miscarried. He left again for Lebanon and sent notice of their divorce. Her daughter was not able to finish school.” (pp. 223-4)
Jones also points out the iniquities and hypocrisy of the U.S. government. In Iraq we’ve (the U.S.) managed to refuse a significant number of refugees by the simple expedient of accusing them of violating the PATRIOT Act: “Families that had redeemed relatives from kidnappers were excluded on the grounds that paying ransom amounted to providing `material support’ to terrorists…” (p. 232). Refugees in Jordan get more aid than those “fortunate” enough to reach the U.S., and many of those advise their relatives still in Iraq to reject the U.S. if they can.
When you’ve come to the end of a book like this, the inevitable question is, “What can I do?” It’s a depressing situation, and it seems intractable. On my part, inadequate as it may be, the IRC has joined the list of charities I support. It’s amazing what they manage to accomplish in the face of misogynistic tradition and political indifference. And I’m going to pester my representatives to stop frakking around with our obligations under the UN and international law, and to support family planning even if it does include (gasp!) abortion counseling. (I’m fortunate in that all my reps are Democratic women so I hold out the hope that they might listen – an admittedly faint one, I’ll grant you.)
There are a few flaws in the book that, I believe, weaken its impact:
There’s a certain lack of passion or connection in the first few chapters that only begins to lift when we reach Congo and makes the second half more intense and memorable. Perhaps Jones had a more personal interest invested in these later venues. Whatever the case, the greater passion she’s capable of while still maintaining the necessary distance makes me want to see what she’s written about her experience in Afghanistan – Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan.
Not enough photos. I don’t mean that I wanted to see photos of torture or rape victims but I did want to see more evidence of the conditions these people endure and of the good things they were able to find in their lives.
I wish there was a section dedicated to resources and sources. They are there but buried in the Notes section.
These are decidedly minor quibbles and certainly shouldn’t deter you from reading this important witness to the atrocity of violence.
11 November 2010
Happy Armistice Day 2010
Happy Armistice Day!
I remain "old school" when it comes to remembering the past. Instead of celebrating state-sanctioned killers we should be celebrating the restoration of peace (a semblance at any rate - the years between 1918 and 1939 were far from peaceful for far too many people).
It's tragic but not unexpected that on this day we learn that the deadline for withdrawing US troops from Iraq has been extended to 2014.
Vae victis and sieg heil, comrades!
"It is right that the murder of many people
be mourned and lamented.
It is right that a victor in war
be received with funeral ceremonies." (Tao te ching, Ursula Le Guin, translator)
I remain "old school" when it comes to remembering the past. Instead of celebrating state-sanctioned killers we should be celebrating the restoration of peace (a semblance at any rate - the years between 1918 and 1939 were far from peaceful for far too many people).
It's tragic but not unexpected that on this day we learn that the deadline for withdrawing US troops from Iraq has been extended to 2014.
Vae victis and sieg heil, comrades!
"It is right that the murder of many people
be mourned and lamented.
It is right that a victor in war
be received with funeral ceremonies." (Tao te ching, Ursula Le Guin, translator)
06 August 2010
Hiroshima Day 2010
For the interested my thoughts anent Hiroshima can be found on my post from August 2009. I think it's a good thing that, for the first time, we're sending a relatively high ranking representative - the U.S. ambassador to Japan - to the commemorative ceremony but I feel there's still a long way to go before we own up to the consequences of our choice to drop the A-bomb in the first place.
Actually, this year's anniversary brings to mind the recent revelations from WikiLeaks concerning the failing occupation in Afghanistan and the continued existence of the same moral blinkers that made Hiroshima possible. Tom Engelhardt's latest TomDispatch asks the question about just whose hands are bloody - hypothetically Mr. Assange's or the architects of the Afghan War's whose casualties are all too real. The following are all examples of the real blood on the real hands of the real war criminals in this affair:
Except for the actors, what's really changed in 2,000 years?
Actually, this year's anniversary brings to mind the recent revelations from WikiLeaks concerning the failing occupation in Afghanistan and the continued existence of the same moral blinkers that made Hiroshima possible. Tom Engelhardt's latest TomDispatch asks the question about just whose hands are bloody - hypothetically Mr. Assange's or the architects of the Afghan War's whose casualties are all too real. The following are all examples of the real blood on the real hands of the real war criminals in this affair:
- July 2008 - An American plane or planes "take out" an Afghan bridal party -- 70 to 90 strong and made up mostly of women -- on a road near the Pakistani border.
- August 2008 - A memorial service for a tribal leader in the village of Azizabad in Afghanistan’s Herat Province is hit by repeated U.S. air strikes that kill at least 90 civilians, including perhaps 15 women and up to 60 children.
- April 2009 - Members of the family of Awal Khan, an Afghan army artillery commander on duty elsewhere, are killed in a U.S.-led raid in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan. Among them are his "schoolteacher wife, a 17-year-old daughter named Nadia, a 15-year-old son, Aimal, and his brother, employed by a government department.” Another daughter is wounded and the pregnant wife of Khan's cousin is shot five times in the abdomen.
- November 2009 - Two relatives of Majidullah Qarar, the spokesman for the Minister of Agriculture, are shot down in cold blood in Ghazni City in a Special Operations night raid.
- February 2010 - U.S. Special Forces troops in helicopters strike a convoy of mini-buses, killing up to 27 civilians, including women and children.
- February 2010 - In a special operations night raid, two pregnant women and a teenage girl, as well as a police officer and his brother, are shot to death in their home.
- July 2010 - Residents of a small town in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan claim that a NATO missile attack killed 52 civilians.
Except for the actors, what's really changed in 2,000 years?
01 February 2010
Why we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan
I quote from the Jan. 28 Tomgram from Anand Gopal:
An officer who has worked in the Field Detention Sites says that it takes dozens of raids to turn up a useful suspect. “Sometimes you’ve got to bust down doors. Sometimes you’ve got to twist arms. You have to cast a wide net, but when you get the right person it makes all the difference.”
For [Rodrigo] Arias, [a Marine based in the northeastern province of Kunar], it’s a matter of survival. “I want to go home in one piece. If that means rounding people up, then round them up.” To question this, he says, is to question whether the war itself is worth fighting. “That’s not my job. The people in Washington can figure that out.”
The first quote illustrates at the macro level why we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. The second shows how we failed at the micro level. Not only has Arias been successfully conditioned to see everyone as the enemy but he's also a poster child for 30 years of Civics-less education.
"That's not my job"?! - As an American citizen that's exactly your job, Mr. Arias!
An officer who has worked in the Field Detention Sites says that it takes dozens of raids to turn up a useful suspect. “Sometimes you’ve got to bust down doors. Sometimes you’ve got to twist arms. You have to cast a wide net, but when you get the right person it makes all the difference.”
For [Rodrigo] Arias, [a Marine based in the northeastern province of Kunar], it’s a matter of survival. “I want to go home in one piece. If that means rounding people up, then round them up.” To question this, he says, is to question whether the war itself is worth fighting. “That’s not my job. The people in Washington can figure that out.”
The first quote illustrates at the macro level why we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. The second shows how we failed at the micro level. Not only has Arias been successfully conditioned to see everyone as the enemy but he's also a poster child for 30 years of Civics-less education.
"That's not my job"?! - As an American citizen that's exactly your job, Mr. Arias!
12 November 2009
Armistice Day - 2009
Another Armistice (aka Veterans) Day and another year where America and her legions appear to have gone out of their way to make the world a more violent place.
I tried to find something positive to mention here and this is the best that I could do:
MIA dog found in Afghanistan after 14 months
And as for the continued insanity of the Long War:
Britain's last WWI veteran shuns Remembrance Day (the UK's equivalent of Veterans)
And remember, Next Wednesday, Nov. 18, is the second anniversary of Collateral Damage Day!
I tried to find something positive to mention here and this is the best that I could do:
MIA dog found in Afghanistan after 14 months
And as for the continued insanity of the Long War:
Britain's last WWI veteran shuns Remembrance Day (the UK's equivalent of Veterans)
And remember, Next Wednesday, Nov. 18, is the second anniversary of Collateral Damage Day!
06 August 2009
Hiroshima Musings
I hope it doesn't need to be said that today and Sunday will mark the 64th anniversary of the days we instantly incinerated 100,000+ people and condemned even more to lives scarred by cancers and other fallout from dropping the "Bomb" on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
If not, you can refresh your memories here, here and here.
But it also terrified the Japanese into ending then and there a war that had lasted nearly five years and had claimed its own enormous share of casualties.
And that's the moral question: Considering the qualitatively different nature of atomic weaponry, were we justified in using the A-bomb? (Actually, it raises the broader question of bombing at all when we know full well the targets are primarily civilians but I confine myself today to the "atomic" aspect of the question.)
When my brother and I were kids, we collected quite a bit of WW2-related stuff - from Time-Life books to Avalon Hill's plethora of war-related games (remember "Axis & Allies"?). The question of the Bomb's morality and whether or not there had been alternatives hardly signified. (Let's be honest, at least in American literature, the Bomb was "good" and "justified.") As I've grown older, though, my feelings about war and the military have changed; I've read a wide range of views on the subject, and I've thought about it (particularly during those first weeks of August when it seems no one but the survivors and their kin remember Hiroshima). When it comes down to landing on one side of the issue or the other, I have to say that dropping the Bomb was both a moral and a (long-term) strategic mistake. Morally because waging war is an obscenity (a mortal sin, if you want to go Catholic about it). Even though we were forced into conflict, our moral imperative was to limit the damage inflicted on ourselves and our foes. Strategically because we set a precedent: If the putative "leader of the Free World" saw fit to use a device of such destructive power why can't a similarly righteously motivated nation use it? Or, far worse, why can't atomic weapons simply be counted as just another sword in the arsenal?
But...
There's a scene in Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns where the retiring Commissioner Gordon is explaining to his replacement why she shouldn't oppose the Batman. The context is the beginning of World War 2 and Pearl Harbor but I think the point is still valid:
GORDON: A few years back, I was reading a news magazine. A lot of people with a lot of evidence said that Roosevelt knew Pearl was going to be attacked and that he let it happen.
Wasn't proven. Things like that never are. I couldn't stop thinking how horrible that would be, and how Pearl was what got us off our duffs in time to stop the Axis.
But a lot of innocent men died.
But we won the war.
It bounced back and forth in my head until I realized I couldn't judge it. It was too big. (page 96 in my edition)
Without the benefit of hindsight, can we legitimately judge Truman and his advisors?
Perhaps not. Perhaps - no, definitely - where we've failed as a country and as moral agents is facing the consequences of the action, and deciding that it will never happen again, and taking the necessary steps to ensure that it doesn't.
If not, you can refresh your memories here, here and here.
But it also terrified the Japanese into ending then and there a war that had lasted nearly five years and had claimed its own enormous share of casualties.
And that's the moral question: Considering the qualitatively different nature of atomic weaponry, were we justified in using the A-bomb? (Actually, it raises the broader question of bombing at all when we know full well the targets are primarily civilians but I confine myself today to the "atomic" aspect of the question.)
When my brother and I were kids, we collected quite a bit of WW2-related stuff - from Time-Life books to Avalon Hill's plethora of war-related games (remember "Axis & Allies"?). The question of the Bomb's morality and whether or not there had been alternatives hardly signified. (Let's be honest, at least in American literature, the Bomb was "good" and "justified.") As I've grown older, though, my feelings about war and the military have changed; I've read a wide range of views on the subject, and I've thought about it (particularly during those first weeks of August when it seems no one but the survivors and their kin remember Hiroshima). When it comes down to landing on one side of the issue or the other, I have to say that dropping the Bomb was both a moral and a (long-term) strategic mistake. Morally because waging war is an obscenity (a mortal sin, if you want to go Catholic about it). Even though we were forced into conflict, our moral imperative was to limit the damage inflicted on ourselves and our foes. Strategically because we set a precedent: If the putative "leader of the Free World" saw fit to use a device of such destructive power why can't a similarly righteously motivated nation use it? Or, far worse, why can't atomic weapons simply be counted as just another sword in the arsenal?
But...
There's a scene in Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns where the retiring Commissioner Gordon is explaining to his replacement why she shouldn't oppose the Batman. The context is the beginning of World War 2 and Pearl Harbor but I think the point is still valid:
GORDON: A few years back, I was reading a news magazine. A lot of people with a lot of evidence said that Roosevelt knew Pearl was going to be attacked and that he let it happen.
Wasn't proven. Things like that never are. I couldn't stop thinking how horrible that would be, and how Pearl was what got us off our duffs in time to stop the Axis.
But a lot of innocent men died.
But we won the war.
It bounced back and forth in my head until I realized I couldn't judge it. It was too big. (page 96 in my edition)
Without the benefit of hindsight, can we legitimately judge Truman and his advisors?
Perhaps not. Perhaps - no, definitely - where we've failed as a country and as moral agents is facing the consequences of the action, and deciding that it will never happen again, and taking the necessary steps to ensure that it doesn't.
03 July 2009
Happy Fourth of July
Oh, come on! You knew it was coming. July 4th? The most patriotic day on the U.S. calendar? It just cries out for one of my “anti-American” screeds, doesn’t it?
Well, not quite.
Make no mistake, I still loathe what our government descended to over the last eight years (and more) and that it appears to want to remain in the sewer under Obama but I don’t have any new targets. Sites like AlterNet.org or programs like Frontline or Bill Moyer’s Journal do far better and more credible jobs than I can aspire to in exposing how rotten and corrupt this country has (unfortunately) become.
No, I want to look back today at the founding of our Republic and ask “Was the Revolution really necessary?” or, at least, was a war necessary to wrest the colonies from Britain? I was reminded of the topic because this month’s issue of The Progressive carries an essay by the historian Howard Zinn, “A Just Cause ≠ A Just War.” In it he asks us to consider what alternatives there may have been not just to the Revolutionary War but to the other “good” wars in American history – the Civil War and World War II. I don’t think I can entirely agree with his contention that there were alternatives to war in the latter two cases. From my reading of Civil War history, Lincoln bent over backwards to placate Southern fears, and it was South Carolina’s precipitate action at Fort Sumter that forced the federal government to act. True, the president could have let the South go, and good riddance, but that would have left I-don’t-know-how-many African-Americans slaves. What, possibly bloodier, violence would have lain ahead if that cancer hadn’t been addressed? And, if the South had successfully seceded, what would have happened to the idea of the Union? More than any other president before him, Lincoln made “these United States” into “the United States,” a truly unified nation.
In the case of World War II, the fascist dictatorships forced war on us. Again, it’s true, preceding actions on all sides often didn’t help defuse tensions or actively abetted the fascists (the Versailles Treaty being just the poster boy of a long string of foolish mistakes) but fascist ideology needed war. No matter what the Allies did, even if they had made no mistakes, it was only a matter of time.
That doesn’t make these wars “just” or “good.” Violence is never so but I can’t make the case to myself (much less you) that it’s never necessary.
The Revolutionary War, on the other hand? Maybe not so necessary. After all, who were we revolting against? The British Empire? A nation on the cutting-edge of democratic reform at least from the Glorious Revolution in 1688? As oppressive dictators go, George III was pretty tame; and given the inevitable change in government, the colonists’ complaints (so eloquently set out in the Declaration of Independence) could have been addressed by a new Prime Minister. Zinn points out in his essay that a year before “the shot heard round the world,” “…farmers in Western Massachusetts had driven the British government out without firing a single shot. They had assembled by the thousands and thousands around courthouses and colonial offices and they had just taken over and they said goodbye to the British officials.” Zinn argues that it was the richer colonists’ desire for land that provoked their decisive break with London. After the French and Indian War, treaties with Native Americans blocked the Colonies’ expansion westward, and that, more even than stamp taxes or no representation in Parliament, incensed certain sectors to no end. Of course, it wasn’t as simple as all that but it does suggest that the motives behind the rebellion were not as pure as the common wisdom would pretend, and there were alternatives, if anyone had had the vision to pursue them.
Would the Colonies have eventually won their independence without war? Almost certainly. Look at Canada or Australia or any other province of the Empire. Even if they hadn’t, would things really be so bloody awful today? I can’t think so. Perhaps the abolition of slavery (which came about quite bloodlessly in the British case) wouldn’t have required 600,000+ dead and a further 150 years of segregation and Jim Crow. Perhaps a Great Britain that included the “kingdoms” of England, Scotland, Ireland and the Thirteen Colonies would have been too daunting for the fascists to challenge. Perhaps a happier relationship could have pertained between us and the Native nations. Perhaps.
Perhaps, too, the world would be in even worse shape politically, economically and environmentally today (though that’s hard to imagine).
The point is, however, not “might have beens” but that violence unleashes so much chaos, destruction and pointless death that its justification has to be nigh unassailable. It’s not a Manichaean choice between war and pacifism but one between war and how do we create a world where that option is not ever on the table.
Was the death and destruction of the Revolutionary War a necessary price to pay?
Well, not quite.
Make no mistake, I still loathe what our government descended to over the last eight years (and more) and that it appears to want to remain in the sewer under Obama but I don’t have any new targets. Sites like AlterNet.org or programs like Frontline or Bill Moyer’s Journal do far better and more credible jobs than I can aspire to in exposing how rotten and corrupt this country has (unfortunately) become.
No, I want to look back today at the founding of our Republic and ask “Was the Revolution really necessary?” or, at least, was a war necessary to wrest the colonies from Britain? I was reminded of the topic because this month’s issue of The Progressive carries an essay by the historian Howard Zinn, “A Just Cause ≠ A Just War.” In it he asks us to consider what alternatives there may have been not just to the Revolutionary War but to the other “good” wars in American history – the Civil War and World War II. I don’t think I can entirely agree with his contention that there were alternatives to war in the latter two cases. From my reading of Civil War history, Lincoln bent over backwards to placate Southern fears, and it was South Carolina’s precipitate action at Fort Sumter that forced the federal government to act. True, the president could have let the South go, and good riddance, but that would have left I-don’t-know-how-many African-Americans slaves. What, possibly bloodier, violence would have lain ahead if that cancer hadn’t been addressed? And, if the South had successfully seceded, what would have happened to the idea of the Union? More than any other president before him, Lincoln made “these United States” into “the United States,” a truly unified nation.
In the case of World War II, the fascist dictatorships forced war on us. Again, it’s true, preceding actions on all sides often didn’t help defuse tensions or actively abetted the fascists (the Versailles Treaty being just the poster boy of a long string of foolish mistakes) but fascist ideology needed war. No matter what the Allies did, even if they had made no mistakes, it was only a matter of time.
That doesn’t make these wars “just” or “good.” Violence is never so but I can’t make the case to myself (much less you) that it’s never necessary.
The Revolutionary War, on the other hand? Maybe not so necessary. After all, who were we revolting against? The British Empire? A nation on the cutting-edge of democratic reform at least from the Glorious Revolution in 1688? As oppressive dictators go, George III was pretty tame; and given the inevitable change in government, the colonists’ complaints (so eloquently set out in the Declaration of Independence) could have been addressed by a new Prime Minister. Zinn points out in his essay that a year before “the shot heard round the world,” “…farmers in Western Massachusetts had driven the British government out without firing a single shot. They had assembled by the thousands and thousands around courthouses and colonial offices and they had just taken over and they said goodbye to the British officials.” Zinn argues that it was the richer colonists’ desire for land that provoked their decisive break with London. After the French and Indian War, treaties with Native Americans blocked the Colonies’ expansion westward, and that, more even than stamp taxes or no representation in Parliament, incensed certain sectors to no end. Of course, it wasn’t as simple as all that but it does suggest that the motives behind the rebellion were not as pure as the common wisdom would pretend, and there were alternatives, if anyone had had the vision to pursue them.
Would the Colonies have eventually won their independence without war? Almost certainly. Look at Canada or Australia or any other province of the Empire. Even if they hadn’t, would things really be so bloody awful today? I can’t think so. Perhaps the abolition of slavery (which came about quite bloodlessly in the British case) wouldn’t have required 600,000+ dead and a further 150 years of segregation and Jim Crow. Perhaps a Great Britain that included the “kingdoms” of England, Scotland, Ireland and the Thirteen Colonies would have been too daunting for the fascists to challenge. Perhaps a happier relationship could have pertained between us and the Native nations. Perhaps.
Perhaps, too, the world would be in even worse shape politically, economically and environmentally today (though that’s hard to imagine).
The point is, however, not “might have beens” but that violence unleashes so much chaos, destruction and pointless death that its justification has to be nigh unassailable. It’s not a Manichaean choice between war and pacifism but one between war and how do we create a world where that option is not ever on the table.
Was the death and destruction of the Revolutionary War a necessary price to pay?
18 November 2008
Collateral Damage Day - November 18
COLLATERAL
DAMAGE
DAY
DAMAGE
DAY
Unfortunately it is all too easy to find images of the people who are paying the price to keep us "free." "Free" being a relative term as Congress and the judiciary has acquiesced over the last 60 years (but particularly in the last 8) in eviscerating the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments.
Isn't it great to live in the land of the free, home of the brave?
The image above was lifted from the blogsite Nixon Is In Hell, and the boy's name (at least from what I can tell from the file name) is Ali.
I know that the overwhelming majority of our soldiers are "good" people (heck, my brother was a Marine and he's not so bad) but they're also individuals with a moral conscience. When they surrender that conscience to collaborate in the murderous policies of the Bush (or any other) Administration, then they become culpable in those crimes.
I'll quote again from Ursula Le Guin's translation of Chapter 31 of Tao Te Ching:
"It is right that the murder of many people
be mourned and lamented.
It is right that a victor in war
be received with funeral ceremonies."
11 November 2008
In praise of Armistice Day
Yes, Armistice Day.
I prefer the older name because I think the power of what we're supposedly remembering and honoring is diluted (and, in this culture, commodified) by making it a general one for every veteran from every war. November 11 is meant to honor the veterans of World War I (aka, The Great War) and that's what it should remain.
If we want to honor the vets from WW2, let's have a day for them. (V-J Day works for me. If I remember correctly, it happened in May, a nice month to have a holiday.) Korea? The day the cease fire was signed (technically, we and South Korea and North Korea are still at war with each other). Vietnam? Well, we lost that one so we probably don't want to remember it. Grenada? Panama? The two Gulf Wars? Afghanistan? Hmm, the first two were so picayune, I doubt many people even remember them anymore. The latter? Sadly, like 'Nam, we're losing in both so it's not something people will want to be reminded about.
Truly, Veterans Day, Armistice Day, whatever you want to call it should be marked by mourning for all the wasted lives ended by war, and a protest against a world where the use of force is still considered a viable option in international diplomacy.
And while we're at it, I'm calling for a Collateral Damage Day to honor and mourn all of the innocent men, women and children slaughtered by the indiscriminate bombing and the callous disregard for life of our armed forces and others.
We should apply the same standard to Presidents Day. Do we really want to honor all of our presidents? Buchanan? Polk? Fillmore? Harding? Reagan? Both Bushes?
Give Washington and Lincoln back their own days, and we should probably give FDR one while we're at it. Then we could have a Pretty Good Presidents Day, which would honor the "good" but "not great" presidents of the country: Adams, Madison, JFK (for the Cuban Missile Crisis), LBJ (for his domestic policies), Carter (for intentions; the execution sucked), maybe a few others.
Finally, it wouldn't surprise me if a few years down the road MLK Day becomes Civil Rights Day, honoring all of the people who fought in the Civil Rights movement, in the process drowning their individuality in a sea of names.
I prefer the older name because I think the power of what we're supposedly remembering and honoring is diluted (and, in this culture, commodified) by making it a general one for every veteran from every war. November 11 is meant to honor the veterans of World War I (aka, The Great War) and that's what it should remain.
If we want to honor the vets from WW2, let's have a day for them. (V-J Day works for me. If I remember correctly, it happened in May, a nice month to have a holiday.) Korea? The day the cease fire was signed (technically, we and South Korea and North Korea are still at war with each other). Vietnam? Well, we lost that one so we probably don't want to remember it. Grenada? Panama? The two Gulf Wars? Afghanistan? Hmm, the first two were so picayune, I doubt many people even remember them anymore. The latter? Sadly, like 'Nam, we're losing in both so it's not something people will want to be reminded about.
Truly, Veterans Day, Armistice Day, whatever you want to call it should be marked by mourning for all the wasted lives ended by war, and a protest against a world where the use of force is still considered a viable option in international diplomacy.
And while we're at it, I'm calling for a Collateral Damage Day to honor and mourn all of the innocent men, women and children slaughtered by the indiscriminate bombing and the callous disregard for life of our armed forces and others.
We should apply the same standard to Presidents Day. Do we really want to honor all of our presidents? Buchanan? Polk? Fillmore? Harding? Reagan? Both Bushes?
Give Washington and Lincoln back their own days, and we should probably give FDR one while we're at it. Then we could have a Pretty Good Presidents Day, which would honor the "good" but "not great" presidents of the country: Adams, Madison, JFK (for the Cuban Missile Crisis), LBJ (for his domestic policies), Carter (for intentions; the execution sucked), maybe a few others.
Finally, it wouldn't surprise me if a few years down the road MLK Day becomes Civil Rights Day, honoring all of the people who fought in the Civil Rights movement, in the process drowning their individuality in a sea of names.
16 August 2008
The Limits of Power
Just a short post to publish links to two essays on TomDispatch taken from Andrew Bacevich's latest book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism:
The American Military Crisis
The Lessons of Endless War
He's also appearing on the Aug 15 episode of Bill Moyer's Journal so you should look him up there as well.
I'm probably (no, definitely) more radical in my solutions to our imperial overreach but even his reasonable, even-handed voice is inaudible in the current discussion about foreign policy and America's future role in the world (from both parties and candidates).
The American Military Crisis
The Lessons of Endless War
He's also appearing on the Aug 15 episode of Bill Moyer's Journal so you should look him up there as well.
I'm probably (no, definitely) more radical in my solutions to our imperial overreach but even his reasonable, even-handed voice is inaudible in the current discussion about foreign policy and America's future role in the world (from both parties and candidates).
26 July 2008
Let's bury the word "warfighter"
Readers (few though you may be) know by now that one of my bete noires is the militarization of this country. Today, I read Lt. Col. William Astore's essay at TomDispatch.com, and urge you to follow the link and read it yourself.
I quote here the colonel's most cogent point since he makes it far more eloquently than I could paraphrase it:
"Being 'the best soldiers' meant that senior German leaders...always expected them to prevail. The mentality was: 'We're number one. How can we possibly lose unless we quit -- or those [fill in your civilian quislings of choice] stab us in the back?'
"If this mentality sounds increasingly familiar, it's because it's the one we ourselves have internalized in these last years [Note: I would argue we've been internalizing it for the last 50 years]. German warfighters and their leaders knew no limitations until it was too late for them to recover from ceaseless combat, imperial overstretch, and economic collapse.
"Today, the U.S. military, and by extension American culture, is caught in a similar bind. After all, if we truly believe our to be 'the world's best military'...how can we possibly be losing in Iraq or Afghanistan? And, if the 'impossible' somehow happens, how can our military be to blame? If our 'warfighters' are indeed 'the best,' someone else must have betrayed them -- appeasing politicians, lily-livered liberals, duplicitous and weak-willed allies like the increasingly recalcitrant Iraqis, you name it.
"Today, our military is arguably the world's best. Certainly, it's the world's most powerful.... But what does it say about our leaders [Note: and our citizenry] that they are so taken with this form of power? And why exactly is it so good to be the 'best' at this? Just ask a German military veteran...in a warrior-state that went berserk in a febrile quest for 'full spectrum dominance.'"
The "best military in the world"? We can't even defeat two third-rate countries who had no significant armies to begin with.
And do we really want to be known for our outstanding ability to bomb civilians back to the Stone Age?
I quote here the colonel's most cogent point since he makes it far more eloquently than I could paraphrase it:
"Being 'the best soldiers' meant that senior German leaders...always expected them to prevail. The mentality was: 'We're number one. How can we possibly lose unless we quit -- or those [fill in your civilian quislings of choice] stab us in the back?'
"If this mentality sounds increasingly familiar, it's because it's the one we ourselves have internalized in these last years [Note: I would argue we've been internalizing it for the last 50 years]. German warfighters and their leaders knew no limitations until it was too late for them to recover from ceaseless combat, imperial overstretch, and economic collapse.
"Today, the U.S. military, and by extension American culture, is caught in a similar bind. After all, if we truly believe our to be 'the world's best military'...how can we possibly be losing in Iraq or Afghanistan? And, if the 'impossible' somehow happens, how can our military be to blame? If our 'warfighters' are indeed 'the best,' someone else must have betrayed them -- appeasing politicians, lily-livered liberals, duplicitous and weak-willed allies like the increasingly recalcitrant Iraqis, you name it.
"Today, our military is arguably the world's best. Certainly, it's the world's most powerful.... But what does it say about our leaders [Note: and our citizenry] that they are so taken with this form of power? And why exactly is it so good to be the 'best' at this? Just ask a German military veteran...in a warrior-state that went berserk in a febrile quest for 'full spectrum dominance.'"
The "best military in the world"? We can't even defeat two third-rate countries who had no significant armies to begin with.
And do we really want to be known for our outstanding ability to bomb civilians back to the Stone Age?
19 February 2008
A Miscellany - 19-Feb-2008
Just a few things on my mind, in no particular order:
1. I urge everyone who may come across this blog to go to the Discovery Channel's web site and register your disgust that they have refused to air the documentary Taxi to the Darkside, which recounts the murder of an innocent Afghani taxi driver in the custody of the U.S. Army.
This is the same outfit that has the Military Channel, which glorifies all things deadly.
2. To get another perspective on just what war/violence costs, go to this latest (Feb 17) dispatch on Tom Engelhardt's page about what's been happening to the women and children of Sierra Leone, Liberia & Cote d'Ivoire -- all countries suspiciously absent from Bush's African itinerary.
[Erratum: I was slightly off in Monsieur Bush's travel agenda - he did go to Liberia, afterall.]
3. And, while I'm thinking about it -- please make Bill Moyer's Journal's homepage one of your favorites, and make a point of watching it on your local PBS station (or get them to carry it, if they don't).
4. Book Recommendations (from the last 6 months or so of my reading schedule):
I just finished Barbara Mertz's popular history of Egypt, Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs. It was written a little too "folksy" for my taste but it gives the reader a taste of just how fascinating history is, and it's sobering in just how little we really know about what's gone on in our pasts. Right now, I'm in the middle of Orville Burton's The Age of Lincoln. I was hoping the author would spend more time on the 1840s and '50s because that's a period of U.S. history I'm woefully unfamiliar with. What he did cover, was interesting because it showed that America has never been "united" in the sense the Republicans (and many Dems) would want us to believe. It was only after the Civil War, in fact, that our modern concept of the federal government and its relationship to the states emerged (for better or for worse).
1. I urge everyone who may come across this blog to go to the Discovery Channel's web site and register your disgust that they have refused to air the documentary Taxi to the Darkside, which recounts the murder of an innocent Afghani taxi driver in the custody of the U.S. Army.
This is the same outfit that has the Military Channel, which glorifies all things deadly.
2. To get another perspective on just what war/violence costs, go to this latest (Feb 17) dispatch on Tom Engelhardt's page about what's been happening to the women and children of Sierra Leone, Liberia & Cote d'Ivoire -- all countries suspiciously absent from Bush's African itinerary.
[Erratum: I was slightly off in Monsieur Bush's travel agenda - he did go to Liberia, afterall.]
3. And, while I'm thinking about it -- please make Bill Moyer's Journal's homepage one of your favorites, and make a point of watching it on your local PBS station (or get them to carry it, if they don't).
4. Book Recommendations (from the last 6 months or so of my reading schedule):
- Cultural Amnesia, Clive James. The book is a series of essays about various people James considers important. Not all of the essays were interesting to me, but I did learn things about people I hadn't known before and James introduced me to several interesting figures that my education had neglected.
- The Blood Knight, Gregory Keyes. Book three in his Kingdoms of Bone and Thorn series.
- Reapers' Gale, Steven Erikson. Book seven in his Malazan Book of the Fallen series. I cannot praise this author enough. He's reminiscent of Glen Cook's Black Company and Dread Empire series, but he's a better writer (though it pains me, somewhat to say that since Croaker of the Black Company is my all-time favorite fantasy character; Signy Mallory of CJ Cherryh's Downbelow Station is my SF fave).
- Legacy of Ashes, Tim Weiner. The sad, sad history of the CIA and its "successes."
- Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn.
- Soon I Will Be Invincible, Austin Grossman. A novel in the tradition of The Watchmen but less grim.
- House of War, James Carroll. The sad, sad history of the Pentagon and the erosion of America's democracy.
- Kushiel's Justice, Jacqueline Carey. The second book in her second series set in the alternate Earth of Terre d'Ange. I was disappointed in Carey's second foray into fantasy (Banewreaker, Godslayer); they're decent enough novels but they didn't grab me the way Terre d'Ange has.
- Takeover, Charlie Savage. Another in those sad, sad chronicles of American decline.
- Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi, and Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi. Two incredible chronicles of life in a theocratic dictatorship. On the one hand, they were windows into a world that would be utterly alien to most Americans; on the other hand, they showed just how much every human being has in common with their fellows.
- The Basic 8, Daniel Handler. This is Handler's first novel (as Handler, he's also the guy who writes the Lemony Snicket books) and his best in my opinion (though the others, Shut Your Mouth and Adverbs are pretty good, too). I identified a lot with the main character Flannery Culp.
- Gentlemen of the Road, Michael Chabon. I chose to read this one because it dealt with my favorite, unknown medieval kingdom -- Khazaria -- not because I'm a fan of Chabon. I still have no great desire to read Chabon but I did enjoy this novel, reminiscent of Fritz Leiber's Fahfrd & the Grey Mouser (in fact, it prompted me to reread Leiber).
I just finished Barbara Mertz's popular history of Egypt, Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs. It was written a little too "folksy" for my taste but it gives the reader a taste of just how fascinating history is, and it's sobering in just how little we really know about what's gone on in our pasts. Right now, I'm in the middle of Orville Burton's The Age of Lincoln. I was hoping the author would spend more time on the 1840s and '50s because that's a period of U.S. history I'm woefully unfamiliar with. What he did cover, was interesting because it showed that America has never been "united" in the sense the Republicans (and many Dems) would want us to believe. It was only after the Civil War, in fact, that our modern concept of the federal government and its relationship to the states emerged (for better or for worse).
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