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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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October 30th, 2006 - Civilian
Massacres: From Vietnam to Iraq |
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Civilian Massacres: From
Vietnam to Iraq Evil in the Valley By Brian Downing Counterpunch October 30, 2006 For several months now,
there have been troubling reports of a number of Iraqi civilians murdered
over the past year by American troops. The military has recently indicted
several soldiers and marines. Not all the evidence is at hand and no one has
been convicted. However, the enormity of the incident and its ramifications
for the war as well as for what's left of our standing in the Middle East
(and the world as a whole) call for reflection, however preliminary it might
be. How do massacres of civilians happen? What forces are at work? What will
the impact be on the war? Cultural Images Pointing out sordid currents
in American life for answers will recall the accusations of racism and
militarism during the Vietnam War. Many who remember the heated rhetoric of
the time will reflexively reject similar arguments to explain events in Iraq.
But the assertion that American troops are shaped by their nation's values is
not manifestly implausible, and in any case the connection is eagerly praised
when framing acts of courage in battle and largesse toward civilians. We
boast of our compassionate traits when displayed in war; we should acknowledge
abhorrent ones if they appear. The soldiers who went off to
Southeast Asia brought with them supreme confidence that right and wrong were
clearly defined, any American cause was just, and killing the enemy virtuous.
These beliefs had entered the American mind at the country's inception in
battle, but the Second World War deepened them and made the nation's mission
in the world more insistent. Fighting, killing, and prominent display of
weapons were every-where in youth culture, signaling that war and violence
were natural and essential to resolving matters. The media beamed out the
message, repeatedly, in countless war films, magazines, news stories, and
even comic books. America was blessed,
ordained to enlighten the world. The beliefs and institutions that had
defeated fascism would hold the line against if not rollback communism then
spread the freedom and abundance we enjoyed. Attitudes toward the Third
World, including Vietnam, ranged from a patronizing view that it had to be
placed on the proper developmental track, by force if need be, to a darker
one that saw its people as sinister jungle denizens, much like the Japs in
the films we boys watched so devotedly from the early forties on. The defeat in Vietnam gave
rise to short-lived antimilitarism but more importantly to new war myths that
permeated youth culture and inspired the next generation of soldiers. We
lost, it was widely held, because we had to fight (all together now) with one
arm tied behind our backs and because civilians meddled with war policy.
These legends were driven home, repetitively and iconically, in a slew of
vengeance films, whose stars, despite their age and good health, had adroitly
avoided the opportunity to show their mettle in Southeast Asia and to teach
us that an insurgency is best fought through massive firepower followed by
magnanimously patting the head of a grateful local national. Operating
outside the contemptibly pusillanimous command structure, a lone man achieves
an ersatz victory through the proper use of force that had been denied the
American soldier. Many Vietnam veterans wryly smiled or wistfully
contemplated the creation before their very eyes of a new heroic war
mythology, one at least as alluring and illusory as the old one John Wayne
had embodied, the one that had brought hope and joy to their youths but
bitterness and alienation to their adolescence. Over the years, the cinema
has made great efforts to portray non-whites and non-Americans in a more
respectable light than had earlier efforts. Blacks, Asians, and other
minorities are presented in a more favorable manner, but not so the benighted
denizens of the Middle Eastern wastelands. Numerous films, many churned out
by the Golan-Globus mill, depicted Arabs as treacherous, unreasonable,
backward, fanatical, and bloodthirsty beasts who had to be nobly confronted
and justly slain, mano a mano, by American warriors, often disillusioned
Vietnam veterans, often the same actors who had earlier proven their valor
and craft in the vengeance genre. Once again, our champions manfully operated
outside the confines of spineless authority. Though not necessarily well
known among cinema-goers, such films did well with boys the rank and file
of our next wars who learned that the only good Arab was one immolated or
blown to bits. The nettlesome matter of collateral damage, with which only
pacifists and defeatists concern themselves anyway, was deftly handled by the
unguent credo proclaimed on the young war enthusiast's T-shirt of choice:
Kill Them All - Let God Sort Them Out. World events, it must be admitted, did
little to balance the Golan-Globus depiction of the Arab; but, it must also
be admitted, neither did other filmmakers. The 9/11 attacks solidified the
image, and while much of it remained with the war enthusiasts who stayed
a-bed, it was also carried along by many troops going off to the Middle East.
Rarely had an enemy been so demonized before the outbreak of war. Military Training In basic training, the
recruit is uprooted and reoriented into a new moral environment to reduce
individuality, accept harshness, and put aside civilian norms. Military life
after initial indoctrination continues to be rough, wearing down
sensibilities and inculcating obedience. Soldiers must distance themselves
from family and community to become parts of a total institution dedicated to
controlled violence. In 1942, civilians went into
the service reluctantly, often despised the harsh regimen, and did their
duty. But postwar youths were eager to be converted into warriors and looked
forward to their war. Military training became harsher and more brutal than
during World War Two, in part because studies found that training had not
adequately prepared soldiers for combat. But it also stemmed from the
increasingly militarized society recruits came from, and from the aura
surrounding drill instructors who had won their spurs at Normandy and Okinawa
and were held in awe by postwar youth. Owing to renewed interest in World War
Two, the pathos of Vietnam, and attendant mythologies, similar eagerness has
been found in young soldiers of recent years. Whatever their generation and
war sentiments, soldiers learn to put aside much of their pasts and become
willing if not eager to pull the trigger. They are taught to obey the
commandment all but engraved into every part of military life Thou Shalt
Kill. But only at the appropriate time. No effective military can be
an assemblage of wanton killers, and ours certainly isn't one. Killing is
circumscribed by lawful orders, directed through the chain of command, based
on international principles of warfare and specific rules of engagement. The
zeal for violence instilled by early socialization and military training must
be held in check by NCOs and officers. They must assess specific situations
as they appear in combat, control their troops' aggressive impulses, and
channel them into lawful and tactically appropriate directions, lest hatreds
and frustrations erupt into murderousness and engagements degenerate into
slaughter. At the tactical level, the
Dak Tos and Ramadis, the A Shau and Tigris valleys, this responsibility is
placed on soldiers in their early twenties, young men under more stress than
most can imagine. If there is a greater responsibility heaped on a young man,
I don't want to know it. At the elevated and remote level of geopolitics, the
onus of maintaining the line between civilization and barbarism lies with
presidents and generals. If there is a place at which killing has been more
effectively planned and carried through, I don't want to know it. As the
dismal history of wartime massacres attests, each level has failed. The Experience of War Readers can to some extent
understand the culture from which soldiers come, and perhaps also the
training and coarsening they go through, but the experience of combat is far
from the ken of almost all Americans hence our naiveté on many matters of
war. As a young soldier is sent into combat, he feels horribly vulnerable and
for the first time mortal. He ponders the superficiality of his preparation
for war and the puerile understanding of it his upbringing conveyed. The
entrancing surrealism of war begins to take hold, from the vacant or hostile
stares of experienced soldiers (two weeks often suffice), bullet and blast
marks on vehicles, shrapnel singing homage to the Doppler effect, and the
occasional glimpse of the wounded, or worse. The mind looks for analogous
experiences in one's past. It's not playing war in the backyard. It's not
television or a movie. The mind jumps from worthless experiences and stock
footage to the deadly present, and a sense of cold immediacy takes hold.
"So this is war. A new world; different rules; us versus them." In
time (two months often suffice), emotion flattens, one's death there is
accepted, and the ensuing resignation of hopes and fears allows for proper
functioning. It is perhaps a sine qua non. War becomes an almost
dispassionate routine of maneuver and destruction, which though corrosive to the
soul is at least an obstacle to bloodlust. It is well known that an
insurgency has no frontline, except for the thousands of them that pop up
suddenly and disappear just as suddenly, usually after an inconclusive
exchange of ordnance. In that imprecise and ill-boding world, soldiers see
civilians around them, Vietnamese or Iraqi, as adepts in the guerilla
movement or at least aware of ambush positions and mine locales. A villager
selling a drink is surely trying to poison you; a farmer's concerned look as
a patrol nears is proof of membership in a local cell; and it's common
knowledge that even little kids will pop a frag on you. The bleak almost
paranoid outlook is a natural evolution of the us-versus-them world of the
infantry, which is a useful operating assumption in some places, but the
basis of a lethal reaction in others. In combat, the theory of NCO
and junior officer discipline at the squad, platoon, and company levels has
to be put into practice more firmly than at Bragg or Pendleton. It is there,
naturally, that it is most prone to breaking. Ever mindful of the breakdown
of authority in Vietnam, the military now strictly enforces uniform and
personal appearance regs, doubtless in the expectation that a tidy,
close-shaven soldier is a more controlled one in combat. Army doctrine and
socio-consultants tell us so. In combat, however, new
leaders come in as more experienced ones become casualties on the daily
patrols. The fluidity of an action can require detaching a squad and sending
it to the next village or block. The frustrations of continuous casualties
landmines and snipers often figure here without the ugly, primal, but
disturbingly mollifying experience of killing an enemy combatant come to a
head. And the failure of a young sergeant or lieutenant to repel the swarming
rages and push aside the seductive answer of slipping off the safety (a
simple silent thumb motion, this) and repeatedly squeezing the trigger
hooch to hooch, room to room results in a My Lai, perhaps in a Haditha. Socialization, training, and
combat stress account for only so much. They only make the murderous release
a little faster, the remorse a little slower and maybe less sincere. As much
as many of us wish to lay blame on politicos in Washington, only partisan casuistry,
of which there is no shortage today, can do so. The fault for a My Lai-like
massacre lies squarely with the local commander: the sergeant or lieutenant
in the hamlet or town. Though many faults may be ascribed to our war
leadership, they are no more responsible for a massacre in Iraq than they are
for an act of decency there, of which there is certainly no shortage either. Consequences What effects will Haditha,
in fact and hearsay, have on the war? Domestic support for the war has
already fallen so far that the event is unlikely to alter many Americans'
opinions. The allegations, even if borne out by investigation and trial,
might have little impact on the Sunni Arabs. Fear of losing support in the
Sunni Triangle might rest upon illusions that most Iraqis there do not
already dislike or even loathe us. It has long been widely assumed in central
Iraq (and also in the Islamic world) that Hadithas are commonplace, parts of
a systematic, centuries-long campaign to divide and humiliate them. It is disagreeable
commentary on present sectarian animosities in Iraq that many Kurds and
Shi'as will welcome reports of US troops slaughtering Sunni Arabs, whom hard
experience, through many decades, has taught them to despise. They might feel
that the US has finally realized what they have long known: that successive
Sunni Arab regimes have misruled the majority of Iraqis in a heavy-handed
manner, and that the end of Saddam's regime has afforded the opportunity to
exert the will of the majority and to right no, avenge past wrongs,
fearful and bloody though that will be. The impact could be most
pronounced among our troops there. Transformation from cheery optimism to
sullen disillusionment has been the tragic experience of soldiers in war at
least since the First World War, and this war, whatever we come to call it,
will be no different. Haditha may bring to the fore what they have long
suspected or known but felt obliged because of official doctrine, mythic
self-images, and fear of sanctions to relegate to the back of their minds:
that the cause of winning over the Iraqi people and westernizing them is
lost. And it has been a lost cause for over a year, perhaps since Abu Ghraib,
perhaps when we crossed the Kuwait-Iraq frontier. Rebuilding schools and
bridges, dispensing the talismanic American candy bars, and even smiling at
local nationals will be increasingly reckoned as absurd mummery decreed by
distant leaders with no comprehension of the situation in Baquba, Baghdad, or
the entire region for that matter. They will see more clearly that the grins
of children whom they give small tokens of the American Idea give way swiftly
to joy when a convoy is hit by an IED. A redeployment of their us-versus-them
outlook will reveal that their dedication and idealism have been cynically
manipulated by authority figures their upbringing taught to respect. They
will see war policy emanates from men who evaded military service as adroitly
as they later cashed out of foundering holdings, by men who value the lives
of young Americans much as noblemen once did those of the Hessians and Sepoys
they sent off to fight for empire. The administration is fond
of the vogue phrase "tipping point," and invokes its accompanying
imagery from time to time to suggest progress in the war, a corner turned, a
light ... But other, less beneficial junctures are being reached, if they
have not been already. Our soldiers are coming to realize that a majority of
Iraqis and Arabs and Muslims see them, as many Vietnamese saw us who came of
age in their war-ravaged country, not as the munificent avatars of the
American Way as we initially saw ourselves, but increasingly as the Evil in the
Valley. Brian M. Downing is a
veteran of the Vietnam War and author of several works of political and
military history, including The Military Revolution and Political Change and
The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great War to
Vietnam. He can be reached at: brianmdowning@gmail.com © Brian M. Downing External link:
http://www.counterpunch.org/downing10302006.html |