Category: war

>in country: an unembedded view

Published on by TuckerLeave a comment

>Where is journalism today?

The following is a three part look at what it’s like in Iraq today by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. It is worth taking the time to watch all three.

I believe these clips represent real journalism. By way of comparison, ask yourself if what you get from mainstream American news is real journalism. For the most part the answer has to be no.

When it comes to the war against Iraq there are few more problematic issues than the fact of the embedded journalist. Sure there are some good journalists who are embedded and who try to get good stories from within the cocoon, but most do not and cannot. And yet, I do not envy the non-embedded journalists, a number of whom have been killed or wounded in the the war because they operate largely without protection. There is a price to pay for being a non-protected journalist.

But there is also a price for embeddedness – that is the loss of objectivity and integrity.

When the war began I found several non-American news outlets that had video clips and articles about the war (these were mostly German & French news sites online). What I saw was very different than what American news was providing. Interestingly the other news sources didn’t come across as biased, just much better. What one saw was the other side of the conflict. In other words one witnessed what was happening to the Iraqi people, not merely columns of tanks charging ahead or interviews of American soldiers saying they were fighting for freedom and giving payback for 9/11. In fact, it was the American news that seemed biased – biased toward war, biased toward the machines of war, biased toward images of toppling statues.

It is by watching journalism like those clips above that we begin to understand what we generally are not getting in American news.

>Nagasaki mon amour

Published on by Tucker4 Comments

>Three days ago I posted briefly on the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Today is the anniversary of the second nuclear bombed used against humans. That second bomb was, as we know, dropped on the people of Nagasaki.*

Normally I am not focussed on such events, but I had a strong sense that I should not post on Hiroshima without posting Nagasaki. Also, we must remember these events, their ramifications, their implications, and the reasons why they occurred. I am inclined to think that any bomb, no matter how big or small, used against humans, especially civilians – including children – is reprehensible.

The existence of bombs (and all things military for that matter) is a result of failure – failure to love, to forgive, to show mercy, to give grace, to allow for differences, to be content. But there is a unique place in human history for atomic bombs, not merely for the scale of the horror they unleash, but also because they are an ultimate symbol of failure.

Here is a video clip of that bomb and that fateful day:

There are two striking facts in that video: 1) The signing of their names on the bomb itself by those who built it and delivered it. Somehow they knew of the impersonal nature of what they were unleashing, that they had created something of ultimate terror yet were entirely disconnected from the intended victims, so they had to deliver their names with the bomb. And yet, they did not shrink from being merchants of death. 2) The military video only shows the stunning explosion from the air and not of what was really happening under that mushroom cloud. This preserves the images of the bomb’s “beauty” without the suffering. Those are the images most Americans continue to have of those bombs.

These facts continue to our day. Soldiers still sign their names to bombs and give names to their weapons. The news still largely focuses on the awesome beauty of weapons rather than on the horror they unleash. But we are called to something greater.

*It seems more appropriate to say the people of Nagasaki or the people of Hiroshima rather than just use the names of the cities themselves. Sometimes city names conjure images of maps, and those bombs were not dropped on maps.

>lest we forget

Published on by Tucker4 Comments

>

Today, in 1945, at 8:15 AM, the atomic bomb known as Little Boy left the bombay of the U.S. bomber known as The Enola Gay. 57 seconds later it exploded over the city of Hiroshima and its civilian population.

The United States of America is still the only country to use nuclear weapons against humans – including children.

>a foreign policy

Published on by TuckerLeave a comment

>What makes this image so interesting?

Those are U.S. soldiers marching on Russian soil in order to fight the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Yes, the United States, along with several other countries, invaded the fledgling Soviet Union to put an end to their civil war and destroy the chances of Lenin and his comrades from establishing the first communist country. They failed.

Below are a couple of additional pics of U.S. soldiers suffering the harsh winter in northern Russia as they take the fight to the communists. One wonders if the extreme paranoia of the Soviet leadership towards the U.S. government didn’t stem, in part, from this failed attempt to turn the Bolshevik tide at its most critical time. Regardless, it is a fascinating time in history that I knew nothing about.

Here is some movie footage of the event:

There were even ads for government stamps to fund the affair.

I have to add that, although I have no particular feelings of fondness for Lenin and his buddies (to put it mildly), I am often non-plussed by U.S. foreign policy. These are the kinds of actions about which the U.S. public forgets quickly (if they know about it at all), but many others in the world do not forget so quickly. To me that truly is a “foreign” policy.

In Memoriam

Published on by TuckerLeave a comment

War is a nasty business. This Memorial Day gives us a chance to remember those U.S. soldiers who have died fighting in wars. This is important. The sacrifice of a life for any cause is a substantial tear in the fabric of creation. Death affects many, and not only those who die. Death affects families, friends, co-workers, and communities. Death affects us all. Death is ugly, horrible, detestable. Let us then commemorate the sacrifice innumerable soldiers have made over the years.

Let us also remember that the reasons soldiers go to war and are willing to lay down their lives are often very different reasons than of those who send them to war. This is not to say every soldier has pure and righteous motives, but the glory of the soldier often hides the duplicitous and dubious goals of the political and economic motivations that seem to underlie every war. Let us not forget the difference.

And then we have the great burden on all of humanity that are wars. That soldiers die is terrible, but non-soldiers die too, and in often far greater numbers. These other members of humanity include children and other innocents. Let us remember them too.

And let us remember that wars are no grounds upon which to build mythologies.

My desire is to know truth, to understand the consequences, and to act in whatever way I can in light of that truth. My hope is that this Memorial Day is more than just remembering, rather I hope we honor the dead by creating a world in which the soldier is a thing of the past.

Death of even one affects us all.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

~John Donne, from Meditation XVII
Memorial day was first enacted to commemorate Union soldiers who had died in the bloody American Civil War.

Battle of Gettysburg aftermath. Dead soldiers in the
wheatfield near the Emmittsburg road; 1863 July.
Photograph by Alexander Gardner.

As I get older I have a harder time seeing war as an adventure to be enveloped with brass bands and waving flags, and my simplistic reverence for war heroes is being replaced by a deeper sense of the tragedy of war and the stunning sacrifices made by those who have fought and are currently in war zones.

>rationing

Published on by Tucker3 Comments

>I have several posts backing up but I just started a new job – same company, new job – and have been swamped with training and doing. So things might be, and have been, a little slim around here – excluding me, of course. So I am rationing my time a bit more these days.

And speaking of rationing…

I have watched a bit of Ken Burns’ The War. Although it isn’t the final word on WWII, and not without its controversy, I find it quite powerful. Even though I hate war, and I find the current Iraq war to be wrong on so many levels, I still get choked up over stories of WWII, and especially ones like those on which Burns focuses, namely, the very human drama of suffering, loss, and true heroics born out of profound fear and deeply felt necessity.

I was also struck by a statement that Burns recently made in an interview with John Stewart that there is no such thing as a good war. That all war is bad, and that he hopes his film will provide some perspective. Certainly I can say my suffering is minuscule compared to those who struggle(d) to live through war. Any thoughts?

Here are some thoughts on the topic from Bill Moyers.

les carabiniers and the death dance of imperialism

Published on by Tucker3 Comments

Several days ago I watched les carabiniers (Godard, 1963) and I have not been able to get it out of my head since. I won’t go into the details of the story since it’s a film widely known, and I know I should have seen it ages ago, but it’s one of those films that I just passed over, until now. I truly enjoyed the film and I was struck by one scene, for me the most important scene of the film, and the mental connections it produced for me.
 
[Side note: One thing that I find somewhat interesting is that when one is analyzing a Godard film, one is aware that Godard knows you are analyzing it.]
 
The scene is where the carabiniers execute the young Marxist woman. Now this film is a dark comedy, and is obnoxiously (but I love it!) so throughout, but this particular scene has a moment of real pathos and poignancy.
 
The young woman has been caught by the carabiniers and is put in front of the ad hoc firing squad. She has already had a chance to espouse some Marxist philosophy only to make the commander upset. The men raise their rifles and get ready to shoot.
 
However, the woman, with her head covered by a handkerchief, begins to repeat slowly “brothers,” “brothers,” “brothers,” “brothers.”
 
The men have trouble with her simple pleas. Several times their guns waver. Something inside them responds to the reality that they are all brothers in a bigger struggle. The handkerchief is then taken off her head and she recites a parable from Mayakovsky. But finally, they shoot and she is dies. But she doesn’t die quick enough, so as she lies on the ground a soldiers says she is still moving…
 
…while another repeatedly pulls the trigger.

Finally, the scene ends with this quote:

il n’y a pas de victoire
il n’y a que de drapeaux
et des hommes qui tombe

“There is no victory
There are only flags
and fallen men”

In the context of the film this scene shows the extent to which the carabiniers have been brainwashed by their government – the king himself has asked them to do what they do, or so they believe. The scene also extends outward to the whole reality of war, of cinematic depictions of war, and to our present day. For me there is a mental connection with the final scene in Full Metal Jacketwhen the American soldiers come face to face with the young female Vietnamese sniper. As she lies on the floor of the shattered building, mortally wounded and writhing in pain, the soldiers stand around discussing her fate.

 

A portion of that scene goes like this:

The SNIPER gasps, whimpers.


DONLON stares at her.

DONLON
What’s she saying?

JOKER
(after a pause)
She’s praying.

T.H.E. ROCK
No more boom-boom for this baby-san. There’s
nothing we can do for her. She’s dead meat.

ANIMAL MOTHER stares down at the SNIPER.

ANIMAL MOTHER
Okay. Let’s get the f**k outta here.

JOKER
What about her?

ANIMAL MOTHER
F**k her. Let her rot.

The SNIPER prays in Vietnamese.

JOKER
We can’t just leave her here.

ANIMAL MOTHER
Hey, asshole … Cowboy’s wasted. You’re fresh out
of friends. I’m running this squad now and

I say we leave the gook for the mother-lovin’ rats.

JOKER stares at ANIMAL MOTHER.

JOKER
I’m not trying to run this squad. I’m just
saying we can’t leave her like this.

ANIMAL MOTHER looks down at the SNIPER.

SNIPER
(whimpering)
Sh . . . sh-shoot . . . me. Shoot . . . me.

ANIMAL MOTHER looks at JOKER.

ANIMAL MOTHER
If you want to waste her, go on, waste her.

JOKER looks at the SNIPER.

The four men look at JOKER.

SNIPER
(gasping)
Shoot . . . me . . . shoot . . . me.

JOKER slowly lifts his pistol and looks into her eyes.

SNIPER
Shoot . . . me.

JOKER jerks the trigger.


BANG!

The four men are silent.

JOKER stares down at the dead girl.

There is a bit more dialogue, and then the final scene is of the soldiers walking through the war ravaged terrain singing the theme from the Mickey Mouse Club.
 

The connection with les carabiniers is not merely that you have a bunch of men killing a solitary, young female. Although that is both powerful and telling in each case. For me the connection is the fact that in each film the female represents a person of character, not necessarily for good or evil, but for something higher and bigger than either the shallow materialistic goals of the soldiers in les carabiniers, or the shallow and aimless goals(?) of the soldiers in Full Metal Jacket. In les carabiniers the young revolutionary quotes Lenin and Mayakovsky. She appeals to their common brotherhood. She willing goes to her death (maybe she didn’t have a choice). In Full Metal Jacket the young sniper is in her own country, fighting for her beliefs and, most telling, she prays. The soldiers of Full Metal Jacket, as is made clear throughout the film, are almost soulless products of American consumer culture fighting from within their own nihilistic world. This contact they have with a soulful, spiritual human being has no impact on them.
 
What I believe is happening here in Full Metal Jacket is a description of how horrible and damaging war is to the soldiers who are involved – not just physically, but spiritually. A more typical modern interpretation of the experience of war is what we find in Platoon. In that film the characters witness the horrors of war, and yet the film still manages to find a way for those involved to grow as people. The Charlie Sheen character speaks of at least learning something valuable at the end, regardless of how bad it got. Full Metal Jacket does not grant such notions. Here soldiers are emotionally and psychologically damaged, just as though they have lost limbs. There is no going back. There is no coming to terms with what they have done, or are doing. I find this perspective to be rather profound, especially in light of a number of the stories coming out of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
 
Then there is another connection in the web of meaning, that is the film Why We Fight (2005) which I also watched recently and highly recommend. Could it be that today (maybe always) war is a financial venture on the part of big business in collusion with big government? For those who have been paying attention, this is an old question. But just in case anyone missed it, Why We Fight takes a close look at the hows and whys of war-mongering.
 
Some salient points in the film:
A slightly younger Dick Cheney hammering out U.S. foreign policy and pulling political strings:
 
 
Cheney then gets hired as CEO of Halliburton. His personal wealth skyrockets from less than a million $ to many, many millions of $$$ in just three years. He uses his political connections to get business for Halliburton.
 
 
The defense industry makes it money from war mongering – as long as politicians are for war then the defense contractors make their money, and apparently they like lots of money.
 
Now Cheney is Vice President. The people of the U.S. elected a defense contractor as second in command!
 
Donald Rumsfeld greets Saddam Hussein, promising friendship, political backing, and weapons of mass destruction for the war against Iran.
 
 
[The popular saying in Washington D.C. before no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq was, “We know he has weapons of mass destruction, we have the receipts.”]
 
Just a few years later tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians die, and many more are seriously wounded, by the U.S. military “shock and awe” strike against the Iraqi people – including thousands of children.
 
 
And the only true interest the U.S. has in the region is the vast oil reserves.
 
Now Iran is in the crosshairs.
 
I cannot help but think that those who are willing to sacrifice something while being sent off to war are caught between mythologies of nobility and the real motivations of those who send them off to war. Are not modern “carabiniers” promised much the same kinds of things promised to those in les carabiniers? Are these not the realities of “surge” and “sacrifice?” Is it not, truly, a dance of death?
 
A final note: I love the connection that Godard makes with Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. Notice the sign of the “Double Cross” on the dictator’s hat with the crosses on the hats of the carabiniers in the image at the beginning of this post. Wonderful!