Thursday, June 10, 2010

Collateral Damage

The truth shall set you free or so I was told. I wanted to start this blog with a question about war. What do most people consider acceptable during war? I recently posted a link on a social website to an article about 22-year-old SPC Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst with the US Army. The article stated that he had been arrested by federal agents because he had allegedly leaked the "Collateral Murder" Wikileaks video. The controversial video, was released in April 2010, and shows a 2007 Apache helicopter attack that left several noncombatants dead, including two Reuters employees and three civilians.

I was very surprised at the comments this post received. One person said "God bless the gunship pilot" and another person said "Manning should be charged as a traitor and shot." Furthermore someone quipped "this guy should be hanged... we have no business knowing this stuff." It pains and angers me to hear people say "hang the messenger" when what is clearly the most important thing is the message. The fact that anyone can hunt innocent people down like dogs is at best atrocious. The last comment stated,"I don't care how many are wiped out in the middle east. I have a spec ops friend on his third tour who said there are no innocents. Those that stand quietly by are just as guilty as any." In my opinion, these statements reach a level of hypocrisy that makes me want to scream!

I'd like to give mainstream media a round of applause. Together with the war on terror they have succeeded in dehumanizing the Iraqi people. They are people just like you and me. The fact that Bradely Manning thought the American people had a right to know what terrible acts were being committed in their name, is not a act of treason but an act of bravery. He just could not stand by in good conscience without disseminating the information. He was quoted saying that the networks he hacked contained "incredible things, awful things ... that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC."

We the people right? We are in this together right? Essentially what we are saying to our service men and woman is do what you're told without question. But make sure you keep it to yourself soldier. What we don't know won't hurt us. But I say, what we don't know does hurt us.

More and more soldiers are returning home with the truth but sadly it's truth that no one wants to hear or can't bare. Eighteen soldiers commit suicide everyday because they can not live with what they have seen or perhaps even done. If they speak out they are traitors. How can we as a nation let this happen to our soldiers. I guess the only that will change popular opinion is when we experience first hand what it feels like to be a targeted innocent civilian or an American soldier, and when we like they, ultimately end up being just, collateral damage.












5 comments:

Anonymous said...

War and the large military establishments are the greatest sources of violence in the world. Whether their purpose is defensive or offensive, these vast powerful organizations exist solely to kill human beings. We should think carefully about the reality of war. Most of us have been conditioned to regard military combat as exciting and glamorous - an opportunity for men to prove their competence and courage. Since armies are legal, we feel that war is acceptable; in general, nobody feels that war is criminal or that accepting it is criminal attitude. In fact, we have been brainwashed. War is neither glamorous nor attractive. It is monstrous. Its very nature is one of tragedy and suffering.

Unknown said...

I agree Mariana, thanks for you insightful input:)

Anonymous said...

Actually more wars, killings and murders have been done in the name of religion than any other entity. People die every day due to their religious beliefs.

Collateral damage occurs in all wars. The truth is that the United States of America is the ONLY nation that tries to reduce collateral damage as much as possible. In fact, the US has called off many air strikes and attacks specifically because of the possibility of collateral damage.

This is a very hard and tedious thing to do when you consider most countries we go to war with realize this and take advantage of it. In Iraq and Afghanistan enemy soldiers embed themselves with women and children whenever possible.

Any reporter worth his weight in salt knows that 'embedding' with the enemy carries with it certain inherent consequences.

On the other hand, there is not a Taliban soldier or terrorist out there that wouldn't kill ten of their own people, women or children, to kill one American soldier.

These people are not like you and me. Yes they are human but they come from an uncivilized third-world country that does not concern themselves with civility, much less collateral damage.

If collateral damage was not an important concern of the military we would have won this war a long time ago and saved hundreds, if not thousands of American Soldiers lives.

Iraq would look like a parking lot and Afghanistan would be a sandpile...

Christopher said...

Most of us walk around in a semi-secure state of assurance of what we believe. As part of that belief system, we also conceive in our mind what we would do in life's various circumstances. The problem is that most of us are only one extenuating circumstance away from making a choice that we never thought we would. I've seen it many times in discussing the principals of just war and pacifism. The pacifist insists they would never commit a violent action or even advocate for violence on their behalf but I don't know that I have met one yet that when presented a scenario so terrible, so horrific, wouldn't compromise their belief system. Invariably that scenario is one where a loved one is being mortally threatened. It is "easy" to say they are willing to lay down their own life for their cause or belief, but they are not prepared to make that decision for those whom they love. In much the same way, an individual can choose pacifism for themselves, but a government cannot choose that course of action on behalf of its citizens.

It would be nice if we could all walk around in a world alternating with the colors black and white. This is wrong, that is right. We would just always know which was which. Unfortunately, anyone who has spent even the smallest amount of time debating a moral course of action knows that at best, life is a series of grays. And not even grays with real distinct changes in contrast, but the smallest, barely noticeable changes. In a second, a decision could progress (or digress, I suppose) from being completely unacceptable, to morally ambiguous, to tolerable, to mandated by circumstance. Never was that made so perfectly clear to me then in combat situations. One day you are sitting safely in America, confident that all your morals and beliefs are intact, and the next day your buddy is reduced to an indistinguishable mass by a roadside bomb. All of a sudden, you have a different perspective on things.

Theologians, philosophers, poets, bloggers...its doesn't matter, they can opine on what they think war is or isn't. They can use fanciful words to describe its horrors or its glories. People can offer their opinions that society has been conditioned to believe that war is "exciting and glamourous" where men can "prove their courage." It's all crap. The boxer Mike Tyson is credited with saying, "Everyone has a plan until they are punched in the face." Well a slightly different spin on that saying might be, "Everyone has a plan until they are shot at, or blown up." Hell, the guy that is mostly widely regarded as the expert on the philosophies surrounding Just War Theory is a guy named Michael Walzer, but he even he writes from the safety of Princeton. I've read his books and I agree with most of what he has to say; it boils down to this - you don't know what you are able or willing to do until you are put in a situation that requires you to do it. The situation will dictate your response. Everything before that or outside of that experience is merely hypothetical and speculative. It is a philosophical empiricism that undergirds my position on this.

So express your opinions, have your say, but unless you've been in those types of life and death situations presented to military personnel in a combat situation, don't think you have one damn thing to say that means anything to those of us who have. At least, that is my say and isn't that what blogging is all about. I'm not trying to be [overly] confrontational about this, but the reason I'm up blogging in the middle of the night isn't because I wouldn't rather be curled up next to my beautiful wife; it's because of what I see when I lay down and close my eyes.

Master Chief Christopher Smith, United States Navy 1989-2010 (now retired)
Desert Shield Veteran, Iraqi Freedom Veteran (2 tours)

Unknown said...

My father was in the Navy for 20 years..He would wake me up screaming in his sleep.. but would never talk about it. I can not fathom the horrors of war. With that said, I don't think Bradly Manning is a traitor for doing what he did. For the same reasons my perspective holds little value, his perspective holds greater value,as you said. For him it was life or death.