The paper that I posted on the subject of rape in warfare arose from work I did in a comparative studies course last year (Comparative Studies: War in Literature and Film) . For our final paper we were asked to address any overarching theme that was present in the various works of art, literature, and film that were covered. I immediately latched on to the overarching images of rape that were present. Why rape? It is one of the most uncomfortable topics that one can discuss is most societies and is not often examined in terms of military history. Moreover, the links between genocide and rape are to compelling to ignore. Researching these accounts was not easy work , not because there is not ample evidence of the phenomenon but because of the horror that is contained within them. I went into a deep depression upon realzing how deeply the pairing between war, sex, violence, art, literature, and film had become.
I plan to present several short postscripts to my original paper in order to illuminate some of the current issues surrounding sexual violence on the battlefield and these incidents have affected the recent cultural output. It also must be noted that I do not hold the view that every solder with post traumatic stress disorder is a rapist at heart. While presenting my paper on at the University of Calgary a veteran of the Canadian Forces (with post traumatic stress disorder) took great offense to my linkage of post traumatic stress syndrome with rape in combat. He stated that he was unable to be sexually intimate with a woman because of his condition. I explained that I had come to understand that combat stress effects every soldier differently, and where he had trouble being sexually intimate; some individuals' disorders manifests itself in other ways. In this way it is my hope that any members of the Armed Services that come upon my writings understand that I believe war itself creates the conditions for such inhumanity while not removing culpability for its' individual participants.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The Use of Rape in Warfare: A Multicultural Literary and Historical Review
Rape is generally seen as the most abhorrent act that one can commit. It is the only violent crime for which there no possible mitigation. Even the most mild mannered among us can see the necessity for killing in self defense, but the act of rape is much less accessible. Why, then; has rape been a part of warfare sense antiquity? Individual acts of rape on the battlefield occur due to a combination of one or more biological, psychological, and sociological factors which are often unique to combat zones. While isolated rapes have occurred in nearly every armed conflict, it is important to explain the role that these factors play on the battlefield when armies decide to use rape in a deliberate fashion. To this end, I plan on examining the use of rape as a tool of warfare from an individual and cultural perspective. I will delve into the connection between rape as a form of individual terrorism and the wider destruction of culture that is often present where state sanctioned rape is pursued as a tactic of war. I will examine these issues in light of several pieces of literature in tandem with their accompanying visual works that span time and cultural boundaries. For works of literature and art, unlike the often dry narrative of history, are often able to capture the collective uncensored experience of war[1]. In this way, each story presents the interplay between rape as genocide and genocide as rape in a way that is unique to the author’s cultural and historical perspective.
Why do Soldiers Rape on the Battlefield?
The question of why soldiers commit acts of rape on the battlefield is as old as war itself. Acts of rape in warfare present a historical constant that bridges both time and culture in a way that no other factor does. Modern science and scholarship have done much to shed light on the connection between violence and sexuality on the battlefield. Individual acts of rape in combat are now tied to number of factors that comprise a rape ‘syndrome’. Lt. Colonel David Grossman in his seminal work On Killing charts the perceived connection between a soldier’s virility and his ability to kill in combat[2]. Grossman notes that this link was made by ancient cultures that used killing as a right of passage into manhood. The link has been maintained throughout western history. Roman women actively pursued sexual liaisons with victorious gladiators and today’s western societies hold up professional athletes who participate in violent sports as the epitome of manhood. In this way, soldiers are socialized into the belief that heterosexual sexual prowess and killing are somehow inextricably tied together. A U.S. Navy medical officer during World War stated that “The men in a successfully trained army or navy are stamped into a mold…They cannot, and they must not be mollycoddled, and this very education benefits nature, induces sexual aggression, and makes them stern, dynamic type of men we associate with the armed forces. This sexual aggressiveness cannot be stifled.”[3] The philosophy that was espoused by the medical officer is a common philosophy among military leadership throughout history and in modern times, implicit in this conditioning equation is the belief that homosexuality and weakness go hand in hand. In the United State’s military admitting to homosexuality will earn one a dishonorable discharge and considerable embarrassment. While this punishment is harsh, other armies throughout history have prescribed the death penalty for homosexuality amongst its ranks. In this climate, it is no wonder why a soldier would want to prove his (or her) sexual prowess at every turn[4].
Popular culture has also played a role in how sexuality and violence is combined on the battlefield. In the United States and elsewhere, violent movies often have a strong sexual component. The sexual prowess of characters such as James Bond is directly linked to their ability to kill and cause destruction. Martial Arts movies such as the “Kill Bill” series and a myriad of others pair hyper-sexualized images with unmatched violent content. Even war movies such as Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket contain sexual scenes and themes. Moreover, when sex and violence are paired this way violent films and media can become a kind of pornography. In his memoir, American veteran Anthony Swafford had this to regarding the impact of film on his Marine platoon’s preparations on eve of the Gulf War; “They would send a few guys downtown, to rent all the war movies they could get there hands on…..we-head butt and beat the crap out of each other and we get off on the various visions of carnage violence and deceit, the raping, killing, and pillaging…Fight, rape, war, pillage, burn. Filmic images of death and destruction are pornography to the military man.” [5] The situation that Swafford describes is not unique. The use of sexually violent images that portray soldiers using rape has a long history that dates from the beginning of western civilization. Film is merely the latest medium in which to convey the violence of war to an audience that is eager to receive it.
Beyond the sociological factors that contribute to a rape culture on the battlefield, individual psychological traumas also play a prominent role. Combat stress or what is now referred to as post traumatic stress disorder, can manifest itself sexually in several ways. First soldiers can learn to equate sexuality with the exhilaration that one feels in combat. Israeli military psychologist Ben Shalit observed a soldier firing a heavy machine and stated that “ The Gunner was firing away with what can only be described as a beatific smile. He was exhilarated by the squeezing of the trigger, the hammering of the gun………these are the pleasures of combat, not in terms of the intellectual planning…but of the primal aggression, the release, the orgasmic discharge.”[6] This complex combination of endocrine secretions can also lead soldiers to be hyper sexualized off the battle. They are in essence chasing the ‘ghost’ of the drug of combat. Soldiers who engage in this behavior are trying to prolong the high while at the same time trying to escape the horrors that they have witnessed. A U.S. Navy SEAL who fought in Vietnam stated that “In Nam you just grabbed some broad and you fucked them. It was to let you know that you were still a human being…..Picture this you come off of an operation you just killed some people, you helped take some of them apart… what do you do? There is not enough booze in the world.”[7] Sex then, becomes a driving force unto itself for some. It literally becomes a primary, rather than ancillary objective that juxtapositions that of killing.
Armies from around the world have exploited these sociological and psychological factors to encourage their soldiers to commit strategic acts of rape. While rape is wide spread on the battlefield, in some cases that would otherwise be disparate acts are purposefully organized. Rape and killing are then brought to bare simultaneously both to maximize the terror felt by the affected population. The following historic and literary case studies are examples of that very phenomenon.
Case Studies
Trojan Women and the Athenians
Euripides’ Trojan Women is arguably the best anti-war literature that has survived from antiquity. It tells the story of the women of Troy after it has been destroyed by the invading Greek army. The Greek expeditionary force killed all the men of Troy, threw the male children of the city from its walls to their deaths and decided to take the women of the city as forced concubines. In this way, the rape of Troy’s culture was undertaken simultaneously with the rape of its women. This ‘total warfare’ strategy predates Clausewitz’s strategic model by several thousand years. In this way, the Greek soldiers sought to dominate the city of Troy entirely. By killing the men and boys in addition to practically erasing city from the earth, the Greek’s are able to control even the memory of the city’s existence. For after all the men and boys were killed, there would never again be a person born of Trojan decent. Every child born thereafter would be of Greek parentage because only the father’s cultural history would have been recognized. It is interesting to note that the destruction of Troy and the rape of its women is one of the first western images of war. In the image known as the Kleophardes Painter the rape of Troy’s women is presented both as heroic depiction of combat and a protest to the dishonorable destruction of the city of Troy. [8]It depicts the rape of Cassandra as;
“The Warrior Ajax marked as a solider by his helmet and greaves, carries a long sword, which protrudes beyond his genital region in a phallic manner. He strides forcefully over a dead warrior in order to grab Cassandra by the hair, a gesture which denotes sexual violence…..The only unclothed figure on the vase, she is rare example of frontal female nudity in fifth century Greek art. Her arms and legs are open to display her genitals, and scholars agree that this scene of a nude aristocratic woman would have shocked viewers. Ajax’s phallic sword and gesture of force make this clear that this was a matter of rape”.[9]
While the Kleophardes Painter would be the first artistic production of this nature it would not be the last[10]. It is important to understand that rape and genocide in war are not unique to the modern world. Although this was a fictional account of war’s wrath on the civilian population of Troy, it is indicative of a culture that exulted warrior’s manhood which tied to his ability to kill and conduct sexual congress with women. We must strive understand the mindset of the ancient past; lest we become like “Nestor in the Iliad, reciting the litany of fallen heroes that went before to spur on a new generation”. [11]
Trojan Women is not in and of itself a piece of historical fiction. It was designed to be a social commentary regarding the city state of Athens’ military actions on a number of occasions. The armies of Athens had decided to pursue a policy of genocide in their quest to dominate the city states of Scione and Melos. There is almost no doubt that Euripides one or both of these conflicts in mind when he first composed Trojan Women. [12] In both cases, the Athenians committed the very same atrocities that were depicted in Trojan Women. On the island Melos, they killed all of the adult men and sold the women and children into slavery in the same fashion that Euripides describes in his dramatic prose.[13]
The Comfort Women of Korea
Although it has been more than sixty years since the end of World War II in the pacific theater, Japan’s use of rape as a distinct strategy is still a hotly debated within that nation. Many in Japan, including the former Prime Minister of Japan, still believe that the infamous ‘Rape of Nanjing’ was widely over stated and that the ‘comfort battalions’ that sexually serviced troops contained only willing participants. The ‘Rape of Nanjing’ was one of the most horrific war crimes perpetrated by the Japanese however; the use of nearly 200,000 Korean and Chinese women as forced prostitutes affected the Korean nations in a way that they have yet to heal from[14]. They were known collectively as ‘Comfort Women’ taken or lured from their villages and forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers in army organized brothels during the Second World War. The rape of Korea itself began in 1905 when Japan invaded Korea and took possession of the nation as a territory of Japan. The Korean people were seen as subhuman inhabitants that were subject to the whims of there Japanese masters. As early as 1932, the Japanese army began to construct ‘comfort’ stations’ populated by the women of Korea because they were thought to be virginal and free of disease[15].
There were many survivors of the Japanese military’s forced prostitution camps that were willing to tell their stories. Due to this fact, a wide body of fictional literature exists that has helped to tell the tales of women that can scarcely be spoken about in conservative Korean society. The novel Comfort Women by Nora Okja Keller is one of the best examples of literature that seeks to convey the horrors of the forced prostitution camps and the effects that those camps had on one Korean woman named Akido. At first, Akido was too young to be a prostitute in the camp that she was taken to. She instead served the women of the camp and was witness to the ‘total institution’ within its walls. She stated that “Unless they (the women of the camp) had to visit the camp doctor, their freedom outside their stalls consisted of weekly baths at the river and scheduled trips to the outhouse”.[16] Though the character of Akido, Keller is able to tell the story of the women who dared to resist there Japanese oppressors. In one passage, Akido speaks about a woman who tried to resist the repeated episodes of rape; she stated that “Just before daybreak, they took her out of her stall and into the woods, where we couldn’t hear her anymore.” [17]This passage sets the stage for the rest of the novel where Akido relates her experiences in the camps with a series of flashbacks. One night after she is forced to have an abortion in the camp after listening to a Japanese military doctor speak of the “evolutionary differences between the races, biological quirks that made one race so pure and the women of another so promiscuous. Base, really almost like animals, he said.”; Akido escaped from the camp.[18] She, like the other ‘comfort women’ of Korea may have survived their experiences but they did not come away unscathed. Nearly an entire generation of Korean women was affected by the policy pursued by the Japanese military. Instead of happily producing Korean children in loving relationships, they were instead forced to abort the fetuses of their Japanese rapists. This was a calculated strategy on the part the Japanese military to decimate the Korean population and heritage by forcing the life givers of Korea into prostitution. Their actions have exacted a cost which can barely be calculated and in the face of Japanese denial, it continues to cause strain between the two countries.
S and the Bosnian Conflict
While the Trojan Women is a timeless tale that tells of the tragedy that befalls women in zones of combat, Slavenka Drakulic’ S reminds the reader that this type of horror carries on into the present. The break up of the former Yugoslav Republic could have scarcely been more of a disaster. Men of the worst character came to power in the three biggest nations within the former Republic of Yugoslavia which included Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia. Each nation constructed the myth of cultural superiority and when war broke out they did not hesitate to use destruction to uphold their vision of history. According to one Bosnian Serb, “The war began with words, but none of us paid attention. The extremist Serbs and Muslims were misfits, criminals, and failures. But soon they held rallies and talked of racial purity, things like that. We dismissed them-until violence began”.[19] What followed was the wholesale destruction of cultural elements that did not fit the myth that one side or the other was attempting to propagate. Chris Hedges in his book War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning states that “In Bosnia the Serbs, desperately trying to deny the Muslim character of Bosnia, dynamited or plowed over libraries, museums, universities, historic monuments, and cemeteries, but most of all Mosques…The Serbs standing in flattened fields were able to argue that their were ever churches of mosques on the spot because they had been removed .” [20] In many instances, cultural destruction of this nature is merely the precursor to the destruction of the people that are the living embodiment of the cultural output which is so despised.
Serbia would become the most prolific executer of this genocidal ideal during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. They resurrected the concentration camp for use in ethnic cleansing operations on European soil for the first time since the defeat of the Third Reich in 1945. The most disturbing element of their plan to exact genocide upon the Bosnian and Croatian populations was their use of rape camps. S is the fictional composite sketch of one such camp, as seen through the eyes of a young Bosnian Muslim school teacher named S. In these camps, Bosnian women were subjected to humiliation that was in many ways worse than death. This type of denegation was used to augment the killing and cultural destruction that was occurring both within and outside their walls. S was first raped by three soldiers in the camp and she was utterly dehumanized even before the violation occurs and Drakulic states “Now she is standing naked in the office, learning against the wall. She is surrounded by hunters. She can feel them crawl all over her. They are wet, slimy, hot, as they touch her nipples and descend her belly into her loins. This is perhaps the worst thing that will engrave itself on her memory: the eyes of the strange men reveling in their trophy just before the attack”. [21] The strategy that was being pursued within the camps was even more diabolical than state sanctioned rape centers in and of themselves. Beverly Allen in her book Rape Warfare coined the term “genocidal rape” to describe the Serbian policy that was conducted within the rape centers. Serbian leaders not only wished to totally dominate Bosnian Muslim women but wish to use their bodies as incubators for Serbian babies.[22]Allen sums up the absurdity of the idea when she states that “Initially the idea that Serbs could kill off the Bosnian- Herzegovina and Croatian peoples by producing more of them, by fathering babies was utterly ludicrous…I finally understood that to its perpetrators such a equation was possible on the condition that they cancel every aspect of the mother’s identity….other than that as sexual container.” [23] S is subjected to this grim fate, and is forced to carry the baby to term. She views the being inside of her as “a tumor which will grow and spread and become increasingly visible and her body as mere receptacle, like a rent a womb” [24] This was not the first time that rape was used in an attempt to form the foundation of nation state. The rape of the Sarbines women by the army of Romulus is central to the creation story of Rome, for the children born of these unholy unions would go on to become its first citizens. Allen argues that the rape of the Sarbines Women was essentially an act of creation and not one of destruction, as is the case with the rape of the women of Serbia[25]. Serbian leaders, however, most likely missed this philosophical distinction and might have used this myth as a blue print towards their genocidal aims.
With in S, Drakulic also delves into the use of rape against men and boys in the Balkan Conflict. While far less prolific, Serbian soldiers did force fathers and sons to rape each other.[26] The novel contains a scene where a Bosnian man was forced to rape his son at gun point. After they were finished another father and son pair were forced to do the same and executed.[27] While the images may seem gratuitous even for this novel, they stand to illustrate an important point. They show that the sexually sadistic cruelty of the soldiers in the novel extends to men as well as women and that no one is safe from its terror. All too often, the use of rape in war is seen only as a women’s issue. Thus, male historians, combat commanders, and politicians do not full recognize the impact that the weapon of rape can have on every member of a society in war time regardless of any demographic factors.
The Ronan Children of Africa and Beasts of No Nation
During the past decade the living conditions for people in central Africa has declined dramatically. AIDS, civil wars, and chronically malignant leadership have all lead to some of the most abhorrent situations imaginable. In Uzodinmae Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation readers are introduced to a young boy named Agu who is forced to conscript in to the militia of an unknown rebel group fighting in a nameless civil war that rages in central Africa. What makes this story more all the more disturbing is that unlike the two previously discussed pieces of literature on rape; soldiers socialized young boys to the techniques of rape and murder. Agu is forced to kill unarmed civilians or be killed by his Commandant. During his first kill, Agu is forced to hack a man to death with a machete with the help of the militia Commandant.[28] Agu is also subjected to repeated sexual abuse at the hands of the Commandant which breaks down Agu’s unwillingness to do the same to others.[29] In Central Africa, victims of rape at the hands of combatants are often left alive to serve as living reminders to the terror that can be brought to any one who resists. In the Congo, women often have knives inserted and guns discharged into their vaginas. This brutality causes a problem known as a fistula, which is a condition where the thin layer of skin between the anus and vagina is ruptured and the affected women is unable to control her bowels[30]. An article in News Week, states that the perpetrators of this crime are careful to leave their victims alive in order to spread terror and humiliation[31]. This to, is a form of genocide because it condemns its victims as undesirables and renders them unable to bare children. Agu participates in several graphic incidents of rape that are equally as troubling. In this way, terror is spread like a virus, which Agu catches and spreads to his victims with the same force that it was spread to him. These child soldiers (and adult soldiers for that matter) will continue to plague the societies that created them. In the countries that utilize child soldiers most prolifically, there is little in the way of reintegration efforts. African nations face tremendous consequences if the problem of child soldiers is left unchecked and as a recent CNN article points out “Without intervention, they could grow up to become a lost generation of migrant professional killers.”[32]
Conclusion
Rape in war is an occurrence that will continue to haunt humanity. Wars throughout history are ripe with images of rape and destruction. However, it is important that scholars begin look at the interplay between rape and genocide. For rape is as powerful a genocidal tool as any gun or bomb and should be recognized as such. For until rape is recognized as a precursor or even a tool for genocide by the whole of the international community, it will continue to be practiced as it has been for centuries. Rape is perhaps one of the few ‘perfect’ weapons for those who would endeavor to use it as tool of terror. It is a weapon that costs nothing and can be manipulated by anyone regardless of gender, age, or physical ability. The proceeding discussion regarding the fictional literature that contained rape in war as a theme, illustrates that impact of rape on the individual is as great as any other physical or mental injury. The act of rape is able to terrorize a victim a way that is often worse than death; where the humiliation, physical injury, and social ostracism remove them from society for all practical purposes. In countries such as the Congo, local non governmental organizations are seeking to assist victims of war rape but “Despite their heroic efforts, however, many organizations lack training and resources needed to assist the survivors”. [33] Western countries then, must vigorously assist countries who have faced the use of wide spread rape in war in order to reintegration the victims. Only reintegration will begin to facilitate a healing process within a particular country. For if this reintegration does not occur, the full terror of the rapist’s weapon will continue to be wielded with its full ferocity exacting a maximum toll on its victims.
[1] In this case the concept of ‘collective experience’ is only referencing the experience of the individuals that are party to a particular incident not a collective cultural memory.
[2] Grossman, Lt. Col. Dave. On Killing. New York: Back Bay Books, 1996. pg 136
[3] Costello, John. Love, Sex, and War. London: Collins, 1985. pg 120
[4] Women have only recently been allowed to serve in frontline units and as we saw with the Abu Ghraib incident, women are equally capable of perpetrating acts of sexualized violence on the battlefield.
[5]Swofford, Anthony. Jarhead: a marine's chronicle of the Gulf War and other Battles. New York: Scribner, 2003
[6] Grossman, pg 136
[7] Shay, John M.D., PhD. Odysseus In America. New York: Scribner Press, 2001. pg 114
[8] Wolfthal, Diane. Images of Rape . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. pg 61, 62
[9] Wolfthal, pg 61
[10] Wolfthal wonderfully illustrates the “dualistic nature” that historical images of rape present. One the one hand they note the abhorrence of act of rape, while on the other they depict the manhood of the soldiers that commit the acts of rape.
[11] Hedges, Chris. War is Force that Gives Us Meaning. New York: Anchor Books, 2002. pg 11
[12] Mcann, David. Strauss, Barry S. War and Democracy: A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War. New York: M. E. Sharpe Inc, 2001. pg xxvi
[13] Thucydides. Trans: Richard Crawley History. Book V, Chapter XVII. http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/History/Thucydides/HistoryPeloponnesianWar17.html.
[14] “Abe: No new apology for war brothels” The Associated Press. March 12, 2007. http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/03/04/japan.sexslaves.ap/index.html
[15] Chunghee Sarah Soh. The Korean “Comfort Women”: Movement for Redress Asian Survey, Vol. 36, No. 12. (Dec., 1996), pg. 1228
[16] Keller, Nora Okja. The Comfort Women. New York. Penguin Books, 1998. pg. 20
[17] Keller, pg. 21
[18] Keller, pg. 20
[19] Hedges, pg 110.
[20] Hedges, pg 76
[21] Drackulic, Slavenka. S. New York: Viking Press, 1999. Pg 60
[22] Allen, Beverly. Rape Warfare. Minnesota.: University of Minnesota Press, pg xxi
[23] Allen, pg xxi
[24] Drakulic, pgs 144, 145.
[25] Allen, pg. 91
[26] Carpenter, Charli R. “ Recognizing Gender Based Violence Against Civilian Men and Boys” Security Dialogue. Vol. 37. pg. 95
[27] Drakulic, pg. 109
[28] Iweala, Uzondinma. Beasts of No Nation. New York, Harper Collins, 2005. pg 21
[29] Iweala, pg 83
[30] Nordland, Rod. “More Vicious than Rape”. News Week, November 13, 2006.
[31] Nordland (2006)
[32] O’Neil, Anne. “Stolen kids turned into terrifying killers”. 2007. CNN. February 12, 2007.http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/02/12/child.soldiers/index.html
[33] Pratt, Marion, Ph.D. Werchick, Leah, J.D. Sexual Terrorism: Rape as a Weapon of War in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. USAID Assessment Report, 2004. pg 16
Why do Soldiers Rape on the Battlefield?
The question of why soldiers commit acts of rape on the battlefield is as old as war itself. Acts of rape in warfare present a historical constant that bridges both time and culture in a way that no other factor does. Modern science and scholarship have done much to shed light on the connection between violence and sexuality on the battlefield. Individual acts of rape in combat are now tied to number of factors that comprise a rape ‘syndrome’. Lt. Colonel David Grossman in his seminal work On Killing charts the perceived connection between a soldier’s virility and his ability to kill in combat[2]. Grossman notes that this link was made by ancient cultures that used killing as a right of passage into manhood. The link has been maintained throughout western history. Roman women actively pursued sexual liaisons with victorious gladiators and today’s western societies hold up professional athletes who participate in violent sports as the epitome of manhood. In this way, soldiers are socialized into the belief that heterosexual sexual prowess and killing are somehow inextricably tied together. A U.S. Navy medical officer during World War stated that “The men in a successfully trained army or navy are stamped into a mold…They cannot, and they must not be mollycoddled, and this very education benefits nature, induces sexual aggression, and makes them stern, dynamic type of men we associate with the armed forces. This sexual aggressiveness cannot be stifled.”[3] The philosophy that was espoused by the medical officer is a common philosophy among military leadership throughout history and in modern times, implicit in this conditioning equation is the belief that homosexuality and weakness go hand in hand. In the United State’s military admitting to homosexuality will earn one a dishonorable discharge and considerable embarrassment. While this punishment is harsh, other armies throughout history have prescribed the death penalty for homosexuality amongst its ranks. In this climate, it is no wonder why a soldier would want to prove his (or her) sexual prowess at every turn[4].
Popular culture has also played a role in how sexuality and violence is combined on the battlefield. In the United States and elsewhere, violent movies often have a strong sexual component. The sexual prowess of characters such as James Bond is directly linked to their ability to kill and cause destruction. Martial Arts movies such as the “Kill Bill” series and a myriad of others pair hyper-sexualized images with unmatched violent content. Even war movies such as Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket contain sexual scenes and themes. Moreover, when sex and violence are paired this way violent films and media can become a kind of pornography. In his memoir, American veteran Anthony Swafford had this to regarding the impact of film on his Marine platoon’s preparations on eve of the Gulf War; “They would send a few guys downtown, to rent all the war movies they could get there hands on…..we-head butt and beat the crap out of each other and we get off on the various visions of carnage violence and deceit, the raping, killing, and pillaging…Fight, rape, war, pillage, burn. Filmic images of death and destruction are pornography to the military man.” [5] The situation that Swafford describes is not unique. The use of sexually violent images that portray soldiers using rape has a long history that dates from the beginning of western civilization. Film is merely the latest medium in which to convey the violence of war to an audience that is eager to receive it.
Beyond the sociological factors that contribute to a rape culture on the battlefield, individual psychological traumas also play a prominent role. Combat stress or what is now referred to as post traumatic stress disorder, can manifest itself sexually in several ways. First soldiers can learn to equate sexuality with the exhilaration that one feels in combat. Israeli military psychologist Ben Shalit observed a soldier firing a heavy machine and stated that “ The Gunner was firing away with what can only be described as a beatific smile. He was exhilarated by the squeezing of the trigger, the hammering of the gun………these are the pleasures of combat, not in terms of the intellectual planning…but of the primal aggression, the release, the orgasmic discharge.”[6] This complex combination of endocrine secretions can also lead soldiers to be hyper sexualized off the battle. They are in essence chasing the ‘ghost’ of the drug of combat. Soldiers who engage in this behavior are trying to prolong the high while at the same time trying to escape the horrors that they have witnessed. A U.S. Navy SEAL who fought in Vietnam stated that “In Nam you just grabbed some broad and you fucked them. It was to let you know that you were still a human being…..Picture this you come off of an operation you just killed some people, you helped take some of them apart… what do you do? There is not enough booze in the world.”[7] Sex then, becomes a driving force unto itself for some. It literally becomes a primary, rather than ancillary objective that juxtapositions that of killing.
Armies from around the world have exploited these sociological and psychological factors to encourage their soldiers to commit strategic acts of rape. While rape is wide spread on the battlefield, in some cases that would otherwise be disparate acts are purposefully organized. Rape and killing are then brought to bare simultaneously both to maximize the terror felt by the affected population. The following historic and literary case studies are examples of that very phenomenon.
Case Studies
Trojan Women and the Athenians
Euripides’ Trojan Women is arguably the best anti-war literature that has survived from antiquity. It tells the story of the women of Troy after it has been destroyed by the invading Greek army. The Greek expeditionary force killed all the men of Troy, threw the male children of the city from its walls to their deaths and decided to take the women of the city as forced concubines. In this way, the rape of Troy’s culture was undertaken simultaneously with the rape of its women. This ‘total warfare’ strategy predates Clausewitz’s strategic model by several thousand years. In this way, the Greek soldiers sought to dominate the city of Troy entirely. By killing the men and boys in addition to practically erasing city from the earth, the Greek’s are able to control even the memory of the city’s existence. For after all the men and boys were killed, there would never again be a person born of Trojan decent. Every child born thereafter would be of Greek parentage because only the father’s cultural history would have been recognized. It is interesting to note that the destruction of Troy and the rape of its women is one of the first western images of war. In the image known as the Kleophardes Painter the rape of Troy’s women is presented both as heroic depiction of combat and a protest to the dishonorable destruction of the city of Troy. [8]It depicts the rape of Cassandra as;
“The Warrior Ajax marked as a solider by his helmet and greaves, carries a long sword, which protrudes beyond his genital region in a phallic manner. He strides forcefully over a dead warrior in order to grab Cassandra by the hair, a gesture which denotes sexual violence…..The only unclothed figure on the vase, she is rare example of frontal female nudity in fifth century Greek art. Her arms and legs are open to display her genitals, and scholars agree that this scene of a nude aristocratic woman would have shocked viewers. Ajax’s phallic sword and gesture of force make this clear that this was a matter of rape”.[9]
While the Kleophardes Painter would be the first artistic production of this nature it would not be the last[10]. It is important to understand that rape and genocide in war are not unique to the modern world. Although this was a fictional account of war’s wrath on the civilian population of Troy, it is indicative of a culture that exulted warrior’s manhood which tied to his ability to kill and conduct sexual congress with women. We must strive understand the mindset of the ancient past; lest we become like “Nestor in the Iliad, reciting the litany of fallen heroes that went before to spur on a new generation”. [11]
Trojan Women is not in and of itself a piece of historical fiction. It was designed to be a social commentary regarding the city state of Athens’ military actions on a number of occasions. The armies of Athens had decided to pursue a policy of genocide in their quest to dominate the city states of Scione and Melos. There is almost no doubt that Euripides one or both of these conflicts in mind when he first composed Trojan Women. [12] In both cases, the Athenians committed the very same atrocities that were depicted in Trojan Women. On the island Melos, they killed all of the adult men and sold the women and children into slavery in the same fashion that Euripides describes in his dramatic prose.[13]
The Comfort Women of Korea
Although it has been more than sixty years since the end of World War II in the pacific theater, Japan’s use of rape as a distinct strategy is still a hotly debated within that nation. Many in Japan, including the former Prime Minister of Japan, still believe that the infamous ‘Rape of Nanjing’ was widely over stated and that the ‘comfort battalions’ that sexually serviced troops contained only willing participants. The ‘Rape of Nanjing’ was one of the most horrific war crimes perpetrated by the Japanese however; the use of nearly 200,000 Korean and Chinese women as forced prostitutes affected the Korean nations in a way that they have yet to heal from[14]. They were known collectively as ‘Comfort Women’ taken or lured from their villages and forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers in army organized brothels during the Second World War. The rape of Korea itself began in 1905 when Japan invaded Korea and took possession of the nation as a territory of Japan. The Korean people were seen as subhuman inhabitants that were subject to the whims of there Japanese masters. As early as 1932, the Japanese army began to construct ‘comfort’ stations’ populated by the women of Korea because they were thought to be virginal and free of disease[15].
There were many survivors of the Japanese military’s forced prostitution camps that were willing to tell their stories. Due to this fact, a wide body of fictional literature exists that has helped to tell the tales of women that can scarcely be spoken about in conservative Korean society. The novel Comfort Women by Nora Okja Keller is one of the best examples of literature that seeks to convey the horrors of the forced prostitution camps and the effects that those camps had on one Korean woman named Akido. At first, Akido was too young to be a prostitute in the camp that she was taken to. She instead served the women of the camp and was witness to the ‘total institution’ within its walls. She stated that “Unless they (the women of the camp) had to visit the camp doctor, their freedom outside their stalls consisted of weekly baths at the river and scheduled trips to the outhouse”.[16] Though the character of Akido, Keller is able to tell the story of the women who dared to resist there Japanese oppressors. In one passage, Akido speaks about a woman who tried to resist the repeated episodes of rape; she stated that “Just before daybreak, they took her out of her stall and into the woods, where we couldn’t hear her anymore.” [17]This passage sets the stage for the rest of the novel where Akido relates her experiences in the camps with a series of flashbacks. One night after she is forced to have an abortion in the camp after listening to a Japanese military doctor speak of the “evolutionary differences between the races, biological quirks that made one race so pure and the women of another so promiscuous. Base, really almost like animals, he said.”; Akido escaped from the camp.[18] She, like the other ‘comfort women’ of Korea may have survived their experiences but they did not come away unscathed. Nearly an entire generation of Korean women was affected by the policy pursued by the Japanese military. Instead of happily producing Korean children in loving relationships, they were instead forced to abort the fetuses of their Japanese rapists. This was a calculated strategy on the part the Japanese military to decimate the Korean population and heritage by forcing the life givers of Korea into prostitution. Their actions have exacted a cost which can barely be calculated and in the face of Japanese denial, it continues to cause strain between the two countries.
S and the Bosnian Conflict
While the Trojan Women is a timeless tale that tells of the tragedy that befalls women in zones of combat, Slavenka Drakulic’ S reminds the reader that this type of horror carries on into the present. The break up of the former Yugoslav Republic could have scarcely been more of a disaster. Men of the worst character came to power in the three biggest nations within the former Republic of Yugoslavia which included Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia. Each nation constructed the myth of cultural superiority and when war broke out they did not hesitate to use destruction to uphold their vision of history. According to one Bosnian Serb, “The war began with words, but none of us paid attention. The extremist Serbs and Muslims were misfits, criminals, and failures. But soon they held rallies and talked of racial purity, things like that. We dismissed them-until violence began”.[19] What followed was the wholesale destruction of cultural elements that did not fit the myth that one side or the other was attempting to propagate. Chris Hedges in his book War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning states that “In Bosnia the Serbs, desperately trying to deny the Muslim character of Bosnia, dynamited or plowed over libraries, museums, universities, historic monuments, and cemeteries, but most of all Mosques…The Serbs standing in flattened fields were able to argue that their were ever churches of mosques on the spot because they had been removed .” [20] In many instances, cultural destruction of this nature is merely the precursor to the destruction of the people that are the living embodiment of the cultural output which is so despised.
Serbia would become the most prolific executer of this genocidal ideal during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. They resurrected the concentration camp for use in ethnic cleansing operations on European soil for the first time since the defeat of the Third Reich in 1945. The most disturbing element of their plan to exact genocide upon the Bosnian and Croatian populations was their use of rape camps. S is the fictional composite sketch of one such camp, as seen through the eyes of a young Bosnian Muslim school teacher named S. In these camps, Bosnian women were subjected to humiliation that was in many ways worse than death. This type of denegation was used to augment the killing and cultural destruction that was occurring both within and outside their walls. S was first raped by three soldiers in the camp and she was utterly dehumanized even before the violation occurs and Drakulic states “Now she is standing naked in the office, learning against the wall. She is surrounded by hunters. She can feel them crawl all over her. They are wet, slimy, hot, as they touch her nipples and descend her belly into her loins. This is perhaps the worst thing that will engrave itself on her memory: the eyes of the strange men reveling in their trophy just before the attack”. [21] The strategy that was being pursued within the camps was even more diabolical than state sanctioned rape centers in and of themselves. Beverly Allen in her book Rape Warfare coined the term “genocidal rape” to describe the Serbian policy that was conducted within the rape centers. Serbian leaders not only wished to totally dominate Bosnian Muslim women but wish to use their bodies as incubators for Serbian babies.[22]Allen sums up the absurdity of the idea when she states that “Initially the idea that Serbs could kill off the Bosnian- Herzegovina and Croatian peoples by producing more of them, by fathering babies was utterly ludicrous…I finally understood that to its perpetrators such a equation was possible on the condition that they cancel every aspect of the mother’s identity….other than that as sexual container.” [23] S is subjected to this grim fate, and is forced to carry the baby to term. She views the being inside of her as “a tumor which will grow and spread and become increasingly visible and her body as mere receptacle, like a rent a womb” [24] This was not the first time that rape was used in an attempt to form the foundation of nation state. The rape of the Sarbines women by the army of Romulus is central to the creation story of Rome, for the children born of these unholy unions would go on to become its first citizens. Allen argues that the rape of the Sarbines Women was essentially an act of creation and not one of destruction, as is the case with the rape of the women of Serbia[25]. Serbian leaders, however, most likely missed this philosophical distinction and might have used this myth as a blue print towards their genocidal aims.
With in S, Drakulic also delves into the use of rape against men and boys in the Balkan Conflict. While far less prolific, Serbian soldiers did force fathers and sons to rape each other.[26] The novel contains a scene where a Bosnian man was forced to rape his son at gun point. After they were finished another father and son pair were forced to do the same and executed.[27] While the images may seem gratuitous even for this novel, they stand to illustrate an important point. They show that the sexually sadistic cruelty of the soldiers in the novel extends to men as well as women and that no one is safe from its terror. All too often, the use of rape in war is seen only as a women’s issue. Thus, male historians, combat commanders, and politicians do not full recognize the impact that the weapon of rape can have on every member of a society in war time regardless of any demographic factors.
The Ronan Children of Africa and Beasts of No Nation
During the past decade the living conditions for people in central Africa has declined dramatically. AIDS, civil wars, and chronically malignant leadership have all lead to some of the most abhorrent situations imaginable. In Uzodinmae Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation readers are introduced to a young boy named Agu who is forced to conscript in to the militia of an unknown rebel group fighting in a nameless civil war that rages in central Africa. What makes this story more all the more disturbing is that unlike the two previously discussed pieces of literature on rape; soldiers socialized young boys to the techniques of rape and murder. Agu is forced to kill unarmed civilians or be killed by his Commandant. During his first kill, Agu is forced to hack a man to death with a machete with the help of the militia Commandant.[28] Agu is also subjected to repeated sexual abuse at the hands of the Commandant which breaks down Agu’s unwillingness to do the same to others.[29] In Central Africa, victims of rape at the hands of combatants are often left alive to serve as living reminders to the terror that can be brought to any one who resists. In the Congo, women often have knives inserted and guns discharged into their vaginas. This brutality causes a problem known as a fistula, which is a condition where the thin layer of skin between the anus and vagina is ruptured and the affected women is unable to control her bowels[30]. An article in News Week, states that the perpetrators of this crime are careful to leave their victims alive in order to spread terror and humiliation[31]. This to, is a form of genocide because it condemns its victims as undesirables and renders them unable to bare children. Agu participates in several graphic incidents of rape that are equally as troubling. In this way, terror is spread like a virus, which Agu catches and spreads to his victims with the same force that it was spread to him. These child soldiers (and adult soldiers for that matter) will continue to plague the societies that created them. In the countries that utilize child soldiers most prolifically, there is little in the way of reintegration efforts. African nations face tremendous consequences if the problem of child soldiers is left unchecked and as a recent CNN article points out “Without intervention, they could grow up to become a lost generation of migrant professional killers.”[32]
Conclusion
Rape in war is an occurrence that will continue to haunt humanity. Wars throughout history are ripe with images of rape and destruction. However, it is important that scholars begin look at the interplay between rape and genocide. For rape is as powerful a genocidal tool as any gun or bomb and should be recognized as such. For until rape is recognized as a precursor or even a tool for genocide by the whole of the international community, it will continue to be practiced as it has been for centuries. Rape is perhaps one of the few ‘perfect’ weapons for those who would endeavor to use it as tool of terror. It is a weapon that costs nothing and can be manipulated by anyone regardless of gender, age, or physical ability. The proceeding discussion regarding the fictional literature that contained rape in war as a theme, illustrates that impact of rape on the individual is as great as any other physical or mental injury. The act of rape is able to terrorize a victim a way that is often worse than death; where the humiliation, physical injury, and social ostracism remove them from society for all practical purposes. In countries such as the Congo, local non governmental organizations are seeking to assist victims of war rape but “Despite their heroic efforts, however, many organizations lack training and resources needed to assist the survivors”. [33] Western countries then, must vigorously assist countries who have faced the use of wide spread rape in war in order to reintegration the victims. Only reintegration will begin to facilitate a healing process within a particular country. For if this reintegration does not occur, the full terror of the rapist’s weapon will continue to be wielded with its full ferocity exacting a maximum toll on its victims.
[1] In this case the concept of ‘collective experience’ is only referencing the experience of the individuals that are party to a particular incident not a collective cultural memory.
[2] Grossman, Lt. Col. Dave. On Killing. New York: Back Bay Books, 1996. pg 136
[3] Costello, John. Love, Sex, and War. London: Collins, 1985. pg 120
[4] Women have only recently been allowed to serve in frontline units and as we saw with the Abu Ghraib incident, women are equally capable of perpetrating acts of sexualized violence on the battlefield.
[5]Swofford, Anthony. Jarhead: a marine's chronicle of the Gulf War and other Battles. New York: Scribner, 2003
[6] Grossman, pg 136
[7] Shay, John M.D., PhD. Odysseus In America. New York: Scribner Press, 2001. pg 114
[8] Wolfthal, Diane. Images of Rape . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. pg 61, 62
[9] Wolfthal, pg 61
[10] Wolfthal wonderfully illustrates the “dualistic nature” that historical images of rape present. One the one hand they note the abhorrence of act of rape, while on the other they depict the manhood of the soldiers that commit the acts of rape.
[11] Hedges, Chris. War is Force that Gives Us Meaning. New York: Anchor Books, 2002. pg 11
[12] Mcann, David. Strauss, Barry S. War and Democracy: A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War. New York: M. E. Sharpe Inc, 2001. pg xxvi
[13] Thucydides. Trans: Richard Crawley History. Book V, Chapter XVII. http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/History/Thucydides/HistoryPeloponnesianWar17.html.
[14] “Abe: No new apology for war brothels” The Associated Press. March 12, 2007. http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/03/04/japan.sexslaves.ap/index.html
[15] Chunghee Sarah Soh. The Korean “Comfort Women”: Movement for Redress Asian Survey, Vol. 36, No. 12. (Dec., 1996), pg. 1228
[16] Keller, Nora Okja. The Comfort Women. New York. Penguin Books, 1998. pg. 20
[17] Keller, pg. 21
[18] Keller, pg. 20
[19] Hedges, pg 110.
[20] Hedges, pg 76
[21] Drackulic, Slavenka. S. New York: Viking Press, 1999. Pg 60
[22] Allen, Beverly. Rape Warfare. Minnesota.: University of Minnesota Press, pg xxi
[23] Allen, pg xxi
[24] Drakulic, pgs 144, 145.
[25] Allen, pg. 91
[26] Carpenter, Charli R. “ Recognizing Gender Based Violence Against Civilian Men and Boys” Security Dialogue. Vol. 37. pg. 95
[27] Drakulic, pg. 109
[28] Iweala, Uzondinma. Beasts of No Nation. New York, Harper Collins, 2005. pg 21
[29] Iweala, pg 83
[30] Nordland, Rod. “More Vicious than Rape”. News Week, November 13, 2006.
[31] Nordland (2006)
[32] O’Neil, Anne. “Stolen kids turned into terrifying killers”. 2007. CNN. February 12, 2007.http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/02/12/child.soldiers/index.html
[33] Pratt, Marion, Ph.D. Werchick, Leah, J.D. Sexual Terrorism: Rape as a Weapon of War in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. USAID Assessment Report, 2004. pg 16
Monday, March 31, 2008
V-Day
Last Friday I attended:
Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer on March 28 @ 8pm in Hitchcock Hall Auditorium. This is a groundbreaking collection of monologues by world-renowned authors and playwrights, edited by Eve Ensler and Mollie Doyle and commissioned by V-Day for the first V-Day: UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS festival, which took place June 2006 in New York City. All proceeds from the book will benefit V-Day.These diverse voices rise up in a collective roar to break open, expose, and examine the insidiousness of violence at all levels: brutality, neglect, a punch, even a put-down.The volume features such authors and topics as: Edward Albee on S&M; Maya Angelou on women's work; Michael Cunningham on self-mutilation; Dave Eggers on a Sudanese abduction; Edwidge Danticat on a border crossing; Carol Gilligan on a daughter witnessing her mother being hit; Susan Miller on raising a son as a single mother; Sharon Olds on a bra; Patricia Bosworth on her own physically abusive relationship; Jane Fonda on reclaiming our Mojo; and many more.These writings are inspired, funny, angry, heartfelt, tragic, and beautiful. But above all, together they create a true and profound portrait of how violence against women affects every one of us. The book includes information on how to organize V-Day events and readings of the book. A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, And A Prayer is a call to the world to demand an end to violence against women. ~
Although there were many thought provoking moments in the performance, I thought the most interesting thing that happened was something that was not stated at anytime, i.e. whether or not the monologues were 'real' or based on fictional composites. I have long held the position that because of the nature of sexually based violence that audiences of either print or visual material are most moved when they consume partially fictionalized accounts. I think that this is true for several reasons. Institutional accounts of sexually based violence in both war and peace time use clinical terms to describe what has occurred. The reports use terms like 'rape' and 'sexual assault', the legal definitions for which vary widely. Those terms are also unable to convey to emotional terror that sexually based violence wages on its victims. On the other side of the coin, victims of such violence also have a tough road when they give their account of what has happened to them. While there are many people that enjoy watching fictionalized stories of sexually based violence on programs such as Law and Order Special Victims Unit or CSI, very few of us are able to stomach having to assist a rape victim in the aftermath of the crime and look him or her in the eye to the see victim relive the terror. Moreover, because of the personal nature of sexual assault victims are reluctant to tell their stories publicly because of the shame surrounded with victimization. Let me know what you think. Remember mark your calendar for V-Day on April 11& 12.
The Iraq War: 5 Years Later
I posted this to my facebook account two weeks ago but I figured it was a good lead off post for the new effort here.
Five years ago this week my roommates and I were huddled around a nearly obsolete television set that dated from the early 90’s. In the background Guns n’ Rose’s “Welcome to the Jungle” was set on repeat and helped to sonically illustrate what we were about to witness visually. The channel was tuned to CNN. For the first time in history, civilians were able to ride ‘shotgun’ while an army representing one country spilled over the boarder of another with the aim of invasion. Sure, pictures of war had been available since the Civil War. During World War II newsreels upped the ante by providing an edited motion picture version of war. Coverage of the Vietnam War went further still by beaming the day’s action into the living rooms of millions of Americans during the nightly news. The Gulf War gave us a glimpse of what was to come with the cruise missile camera footage that was featured so prominently during Storm’n Norman’s daily press briefings. The resolution of the cameras was so high you could identify individual bricks on the buildings that were destroyed. The images were every little boy’s video game fantasy about what war could be. What we witnessed on CNN that night differed exponentially in scope because of the immediacy of the broadcast stream. As the tanks of the 3rd Infantry Division pounded through the mounds of sand that marked the border between Kuwait and Iraq we were there in real time. The tension in the room was amplified by the smell of sweat and testosterone. This was the ultimate in real time ‘gonzo’ snuff films for the enjoyment of anyone who wanted to witness it. It felt as if we were going into combat but, of course we were not.
I will admit, that night and for several years thereafter; I was drunk on the current Iraq war. I was trumpeting the change to freedom fries and cheering on Donald Rumsfeld’s vaudevillian press briefings. Now it is almost laughable that I had bought into it all but at the time I was energetically engaged with the ROTC program at Ohio State. While I knew that I could not make a career of it because of various congenital back deformities, I lapped up every drop of the military I could. Belief in the mission is the central cannon of the Army and I believed with all of my heart. "Lets Roll" was our battle cry everyday at formation. Much has occurred in the interim. The President has gathered together all of the hubris he could muster and laded on the flight deck of an air craft carrier and declared “Mission Accomplished”. Keith Olbermann reminds us nightly that nearly 1800 days have past and more than 3000 soldiers have died since that declaration. Iraqi has descended into a violent civil war in which coalition soldiers are killed at a rate of nearly one a day while policing it. Several people that I know have been killed or irrevocably damaged in connection to their deployments. The lapses in mental health treatment and physical care for veterans have been shown to be appalling in many VA Hospitals. This is to say nothing of the lies, half truths, and innuendo that brought us into the war in the first place. Then when you think that it can not get any worse the president on the eve of the fifth anniversary of this war describes the service of the troops in Iraq as “Romantic”. Fifteen month deployments are romantic? The death of thousands of Americans is romantic? Harvard trained seminarian and author Chris Hedges stated it best in his book War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning when he said that in regards to war that “we have all become like Nestor in the Iliad reciting the litany of fallen heroes that went before to spur on a new generation”.
I recently attended a group veterans called the “Warrior’s Council” at the First Congregational Church in Tallmadge, Ohio. This group is dedicated to healing the trauma caused by combat in its members and to aiding members of the military currently serving back into civilian life. The veterans and family members that were that attended the meeting spanned several generations of service and ranged from World War II veterans to parents of those currently serving in Iraq. The stories were moving and I could feel their pain reach back up through time to touch all who were in the room. While I do not take the lachrymose view that all war is utterly purposeless, it is most often at the very least a gross misappropriation of society’s resources. One can only image the kind of change that could have been implemented if this country could have back its 4000 dead and trillions of dollars that have been spent on this current misadventure. One can only wonder what humanitarian crisis the United States could have intervened in if its blood and treasure had not been pillaged elsewhere. Darfur? Burma? Tibet? We will never know. On this, a holy week for both Christianity and Judaism, I will be thinking of all of those who are serving, will serve, and who have died in Iraq. I pray that the madness that spurred on the Iraq war will be halted as soon as is reasonably possible.
Five years ago this week my roommates and I were huddled around a nearly obsolete television set that dated from the early 90’s. In the background Guns n’ Rose’s “Welcome to the Jungle” was set on repeat and helped to sonically illustrate what we were about to witness visually. The channel was tuned to CNN. For the first time in history, civilians were able to ride ‘shotgun’ while an army representing one country spilled over the boarder of another with the aim of invasion. Sure, pictures of war had been available since the Civil War. During World War II newsreels upped the ante by providing an edited motion picture version of war. Coverage of the Vietnam War went further still by beaming the day’s action into the living rooms of millions of Americans during the nightly news. The Gulf War gave us a glimpse of what was to come with the cruise missile camera footage that was featured so prominently during Storm’n Norman’s daily press briefings. The resolution of the cameras was so high you could identify individual bricks on the buildings that were destroyed. The images were every little boy’s video game fantasy about what war could be. What we witnessed on CNN that night differed exponentially in scope because of the immediacy of the broadcast stream. As the tanks of the 3rd Infantry Division pounded through the mounds of sand that marked the border between Kuwait and Iraq we were there in real time. The tension in the room was amplified by the smell of sweat and testosterone. This was the ultimate in real time ‘gonzo’ snuff films for the enjoyment of anyone who wanted to witness it. It felt as if we were going into combat but, of course we were not.
I will admit, that night and for several years thereafter; I was drunk on the current Iraq war. I was trumpeting the change to freedom fries and cheering on Donald Rumsfeld’s vaudevillian press briefings. Now it is almost laughable that I had bought into it all but at the time I was energetically engaged with the ROTC program at Ohio State. While I knew that I could not make a career of it because of various congenital back deformities, I lapped up every drop of the military I could. Belief in the mission is the central cannon of the Army and I believed with all of my heart. "Lets Roll" was our battle cry everyday at formation. Much has occurred in the interim. The President has gathered together all of the hubris he could muster and laded on the flight deck of an air craft carrier and declared “Mission Accomplished”. Keith Olbermann reminds us nightly that nearly 1800 days have past and more than 3000 soldiers have died since that declaration. Iraqi has descended into a violent civil war in which coalition soldiers are killed at a rate of nearly one a day while policing it. Several people that I know have been killed or irrevocably damaged in connection to their deployments. The lapses in mental health treatment and physical care for veterans have been shown to be appalling in many VA Hospitals. This is to say nothing of the lies, half truths, and innuendo that brought us into the war in the first place. Then when you think that it can not get any worse the president on the eve of the fifth anniversary of this war describes the service of the troops in Iraq as “Romantic”. Fifteen month deployments are romantic? The death of thousands of Americans is romantic? Harvard trained seminarian and author Chris Hedges stated it best in his book War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning when he said that in regards to war that “we have all become like Nestor in the Iliad reciting the litany of fallen heroes that went before to spur on a new generation”.
I recently attended a group veterans called the “Warrior’s Council” at the First Congregational Church in Tallmadge, Ohio. This group is dedicated to healing the trauma caused by combat in its members and to aiding members of the military currently serving back into civilian life. The veterans and family members that were that attended the meeting spanned several generations of service and ranged from World War II veterans to parents of those currently serving in Iraq. The stories were moving and I could feel their pain reach back up through time to touch all who were in the room. While I do not take the lachrymose view that all war is utterly purposeless, it is most often at the very least a gross misappropriation of society’s resources. One can only image the kind of change that could have been implemented if this country could have back its 4000 dead and trillions of dollars that have been spent on this current misadventure. One can only wonder what humanitarian crisis the United States could have intervened in if its blood and treasure had not been pillaged elsewhere. Darfur? Burma? Tibet? We will never know. On this, a holy week for both Christianity and Judaism, I will be thinking of all of those who are serving, will serve, and who have died in Iraq. I pray that the madness that spurred on the Iraq war will be halted as soon as is reasonably possible.
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