Category Archives: War

Zero Dark Thirty

Americana, Film, War

Michele and I saw Zero Dark Thirty Sunday night and we liked it alot. I was prepared to not like it, because of the torture controversy, and my general lack of enthusiasm for Hurt Locker (which won six Academy Awards including Best Picture, so what do I know). The best way I can describe the picture is that it is gritty and dense. I have never been to Pakistan – and, apparently, the picture hasn’t either having been filmed in  Jordan and India, which pissed off both the Pakistanis and Indians – but the movie fit my imagined picture of Pakistan exactly.

Driving through the streets of Lahore, it seemed like they were either using thousands of extras or they really were there. I loved Django Unchained  and Argo but, compared to Zero Dark Thirty, they seemed like cartoons shot on a set. Zero Dark Thirty seemed like the real deal. It was thrilling and, at the end, the audience cheered the winning team. Our Team! And I think that may be a problem.

The movie, sort of, presents itself as a documentary or fictionized documentary like Truman Capote’s True Blood. But it is not the real deal. It is not an objective look at what happened and today I am a little hung over from feeling so good while I watched the movie. There are several people who say it better than me, Jane Mayer and Matt Taibbi for example, and I think that I can best serve my point by giving a couple of quotes.

From Jane Mayer: In addition to providing false advertising for waterboarding, “Zero Dark Thirty” endorses torture in several other subtle ways. At one point, the film’s chief C.I.A. interrogator claims, without being challenged, that “everyone breaks in the end,” adding, “it’s biology.” Maybe that’s what they think in Hollywood, but experts on the history of torture disagree. Indeed, many prisoners have been tortured to death without ever revealing secrets, while many others—including some of those who were brutalized during the Bush years—have fabricated disinformation while being tortured. Some of the disinformation provided under duress during those years, in fact, helped to lead the U.S. into the war in Iraq under false premises.

From Matt Taibbi: Mohammed Al-Qatani, the so-called “20th hijacker,” who may have been some part of the inspiration for the “Ammar” character who was tortured in the opening scene, might have been the first detainee to mention the name of bin Laden’s courier. But as Gibney points out, al-Qatani gave that information up to the FBI, in legit, torture-free interrogations, before he was whisked away to Gitmo for 49 days of torture that included such insanities as forcing him to urinate on himself (by force-feeding him liquids while in restraints), making him watch a puppet show of him and bin Laden having sex, making him take dance lessons, making him wear panties on his head, and making him wear a “smiley-face” mask, along with the usual sleep and sensory deprivation, arm-hanging, etc. In other words, the key info may have come before they chucked our supposed standards for human decency.

In the end, nursing my post movie hangover, the, movie makes me a little sad.

and one quote…From Jane Mayer: Knowing the real facts—the ones that led the European Court of Human Rights to condemn America for torture this week—I had trouble enjoying the movie. I’ve interviewed Khaled El-Masri, the German citizen whose suit the E.C.H.R. adjudicated. He turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, an innocent car salesman whom the C.I.A. kidnapped and held in a black-site prison for four months, and who was “severely beaten, sodomized, shackled, and hooded.” What Masri lived through was so harrowing that, when I had a cup of coffee with him, a few years ago, he couldn’t describe it to me without crying. Maybe I care too much about all of this to enjoy it with popcorn. But maybe the creators of “Zero Dark Thirty” should care a little bit more.

 

Some thoughts on the military

Americana, War

We Americans love our troops and especially the commanding generals. We always have. Washington was our first commanding general and our first President and the tradition has remained strong that a winning general could ride the adulation to the White House (even before it was the White House). Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Dwight D. Eisenhower all became Presidents and – if rumors are true – Obama was worried so much about David Petraeus running for President that he made him head of the CIA rather than head of the Joint Chiefs.

But I think we are starting to get carried away with our idolatry. Or, it may be more accurate to say, everybody, including the generals, are starting to believe the bullshit. During the Vietnam war, I read and heard lots of stories of civilians – maybe mostly college students – dissing and taunting Soldiers (and Marines, Sailors, and whatever Air Force GIs are called). As an aside; I do want to emphasize that I was not a recipient of hazing although I was in the Army during the run-up to the biggest part of the war in Vietnam and I was dating a woman who lived in the Haight-Ashbury. End aside.

I think the difference was that people were afraid of being drafted, of being sent to Vietnam, and took it out on everybody from President Johnson on down. Now nobody has to do military service and people feel guilty about sending those poor bastards – over, and over, and over  again – into the grinder, so they overcompensate with reverence. And, as the military has gotten smaller and more elite, the top officers, especially the generals, have become incredibly entitled.

During the Civil War, the commanding general, Ulysses S. Grant, had been a civilian just a couple of years before. Much of the time, he wore a privates uniform with his stars pinned on the shoulders, and – more to the point I am trying to make – he had a staff of only eight people and he didn’t wear his medals (he had lots of them). During World war II, Dwight D. Eisenhower wore a simple uniform and only wore his top three medals. Eisenhower had a civilian driver and a small military staff. At the end of my so-called military career, I was a driver for a three-star, General Andrew Lolly, and he had a total staff of three (me, the sergeant/driver, a Captain, and a Colonel). Now it is an entirely different story.

Former defense secretary, Robert Gates, complained I was often jealous because he had four enlisted people helping him all the time. Mullen’s got guys over there who are fixing meals for him, and I’m shoving something into the microwave. And I’m his boss. General Petraeus, who wears every medal he ever got – of which, by the way, only ONE is for bravery under fire – had a staff of fifty when he was the commanding general in Afghanistan.

When there was a draft, there was more exposure  of the average person to the military and more exposure to the average person by the military. The military priesthood was not as strong and isolated as it is now.

This lack of a draft has led to an isolation and the resulting arrogance that is hurting the military and our country.  I think we should bring back the draft and reading an article by Tom Ricks, sent to me by Richard Taylor, has only reinforced that belief. The thrust of the article which starts by quoting General McChrystal saying I think we ought to have a draft. I think if a nation goes to war, it shouldn’t be solely be represented by a professional force, because it gets to be unrepresentative of the population. I think if a nation goes to war, every town, every city needs to be at risk. You make that decision and everybody has skin in the game. is how it will help the country. (The article really promotes a two year National Service for everybody with only some people going into the military.) Ours is a time when almost nobody contributes to the National Collective and the sign of a good American is wearing a flag pin and paying as little taxes as possible and the article paints an alternative that I think would make us a better country. I suggest you read it.

But, maybe even more importantly, a Draft would also help end the isolation that is currently ruining the military. The Army hasn’t fired a general for not doing a good job in a long, long time.  General Petraeus, even with his staff of fifty, didn’t win the war in Afghanistan or anywhere else for that matter. The military has ceased to be accountable and guys like Petraeus keep getting less accountable.

 

 

Veterans Day

Americana, Politics, War

Korean War Memorial at the western end of the National Mall, Washington DC       

Washington is full of war memorials; it makes me sad that there are so many. On the east end of the Mall, is the The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial  facing toward the Lincoln Memorial at the west end. They unite the Mall like they united the country. In between are newer monuments: World War II, The Korean Conflict – named Conflict or Police Action so Congress didn’t have to vote for it – The Vietnam War. We are becoming an Empire, filling our capitol with memorials to our distant, empirical, wars.

It is nice we honor our Veterans – I am a Veteran and am proud of it, maybe too much at times, considering that I have never heard a shot fired in anger – but I fear that the Honoring is covering up national policies we shouldn’t have. I fear that the Honoring is covering up the debate and discussion on whether we should even be fighting these wars. I fear that the Honoring is covering up our neglect of the shattered bodies and psyches that are the waste products of these empirical wars.

In all the wars, in each war, young men and, now, women – or old boys and, now girls,  depending on your point of view – have been sent to distant places by old men to kill people whose names they don’t know and, in most cases, can pronounce. They are sent to places we don’t really know or understand. It is not making us great, it is not making us rich, it is not making us safe.

A rant on uniforms

Americana, Psychological Musings, Sports, War

Actually, not those uniforms although I find the whole Olympic rule that women Beach Volleyball players have to wear bikinis weirdly sexist (not that I am complaining, I love looking at young women in scanty clothing). The Olympics presents a squeaky clean, almost innocent image, and they put alot of effort in keeping it that way. At the same time the biggest Olympic women sports are sports that require scanty clothing, think swimming, diving, track, and – of course – gymnastics. Don’t expect to see much women’s fencing or rowing.

As an aside – an aside from uniforms that is – the Olympics are the biggest sexual free-for-all on the planet. There are 10,960 young, hyper-conditioned, attractive, athletes from around the world living together for two weeks. These Olympians are people who are very much in their bodies and, probably, very much into their bodies, all brushing up against each  other on a daily basis in tight  quarters, with lots of alcohol, other drugs, and – once their event is over – free time. Even in China, a fairly controlled place, the athletes went through their allotted 70,000 condoms. In Britain, a much freer place and more understanding host country, they are providing  150,000 condoms which is about 15 condoms per athlete. Watching Michele Jenneke run the hurdles, it is easy to believe they will be used.

End aside.

But that is not my rant, my rant is about camo clothing in the US Military. Obviously camo clothing is very helpful when Soldiers and Marines are on the ground and do not want to stand out.

But an Army general in a rear area command center, in Washington or Qatar, wearing combat fatigues just seems ridiculous. I am not one to worship the past, but I do pine for the days when the rear echelon – known in front line units as REMFs – commanders and support dressed as if they were going to the office, which, of course, they really are. But the military – and police, for that matter – has fetishized camouflaged fatigues and everybody is now in on the act, including the navy with blueish uniforms. It makes no sense at all. It doesn’t hide them on the ship and, of course, it shouldn’t and then – to make it even stupider – in the highly unlikely event that the ship did see combat and did sink, it makes it harder to find the survivors.

It seems sort of wacko that the Navy is building ten $700 million ships designed for operation in near-shore environments but – by the Navy’s own assessment – is not able to take on heavy duty shore defenses, but I understand that there is a lobby for that: I understand there is money to made.  What I don’t understand is why the crew running the ship should be dressed in pseudo- camouflaged fatigues. End of rant.

Paul Fussell R.I.P.

Art, War

Paul Fussell died a week or so ago and I didn’t know until Michele read his obit in Time late last night. Fussell was a writer who I very much admired. Not so much for how he wrote – although he was a very good writer winning a National Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award – but for what he wrote about. At a time when most writers glorified war with books like A Band of Brothers, he wrote – in Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War and The Boys’ Crusade – about the horror of war, about  how people die in war in agony,  mutilated, and disfigured. Fussell wrote about a war that was not honorable, a war that is is gruesome.

He knew first hand, having been a front line infantry officer in Europe when the turn over in junior officers was 100% every six months. One story that is burned into my psyche is how his platoon slaughtered a group of trapped Germans. And that was not the gruesome part, the gruesome part was that the story of the slaughter became a joke told to cheer people up when they were down, Remember the turkeyshoot? when we killed all those Germans trapped in the basement?

Fussell also wrote about Class in America, a topic I know by personal experience to be taboo. His book Class: A Guide Through the American Status System is a classic and, even twenty years after it was written, still dead on.

I won’t say that I will miss him – like I miss David Foster Wallace – but I am saddened that he is no longer with us.