Talk of the Nation featured a discussion titled “The Things Civilians Don’t Understand About War.” The discussion was in response to the Wikileaks video showing US gunners killing 12 people in Baghdad. The question under discussion: Who, if anyone, should be accountable for what appeared to be criminal behavior? The panel included former Army officer and author Matt Gallagher and Georgetown University professor of law Gary Solis. Both Gallagher and Solis were invited to present their interpretation of the recent Wikileaks video from a military perspective.
While this panel provided useful information on the context of combat and the military Rules of Engagement, what stood out to me was the repeated notion of fear for the future to come. The future is discussed as if it is known or could be known. Since the 9/11 bombings our government and society has subscribed to and responded to this fear using preemptive action. Preemptive action has become our antidote for fear, as if it will protect us from the possibility that future attacks “may” occur. This fear for what “might” come is troubling to the extent that as a society we were willing to forgo many of the founding principles of our country. Principles such as “freedom” that we (without a sense of irony) pronounce to spread across the globe. Some say this is okay, if it means that we “might” be safer. But, what/who are we safe from? What/who are we protecting ourselves from?
What strikes me as problematic is the ability justify preemptive actions, based on perceived threats. Solis argues that the US gunners followed protocol and are legally protected under the Rules of Engagement. Solis explains that the:
ROE doesn’t explain what constitutes a war crime or what doesn’t. What the law of armed conflict says through case law, not in the Geneva Conventions or the additional protocols, is that if those pilots and those gunners honestly and reasonably believed that those individuals constituted a threat to American forces, they could lawfully target them.
The Rules of Engagement absolves soldiers of murder. Though it also absolves those who provoke engagement. I’m not making the case that we shouldn’t lawfully protect our soldiers against charges of murder. In fact, I think that it may provide them with a sense of solace on the dark nights of their return from war. Rather Solis’ phrasing “if those pilots and those gunners honestly and reasonably believed” is troubling. How can the protocol determine what is “reasonably believed”? Is it so that we can lawfully justify violence by consulting our inner butterflies? This to me sounds too holistic like The Men Who Stare at Goats.
Gallagher defends the gunners by explaining that we don’t know why the helicopter was following the group of civilians. True. The Wikileaks video does not provide context for the situation. In the video, Iraqi civilians are seen with an RPG. What does that say about their intentions? Gallagher in defense of the gunners, explains:
you know, who’s to say that that guy with the RPG was doing five minutes before. You know, what is the context of why the helicopter had followed those particular people there, and had they posed a threat in the past, clearly they’re going to pose a threat in the future, as well.
Gallagher’s word choice is typical of the way we discuss threats. The past threat is explained as a definite future threat. Notice Gallagher used the adverb “clearly” which presents itself as a statement of fact. Of course we can’t predict the intentions of the Iraqi civilians, but lives their lives were cut short due to a negative projection of the future.
Gallagher argues that civilians “don’t get it”; they can’t imagine the feeling of fear during war time. It is true that civilians can’t know the gruesome frontline experience of war. However, it is precisely the imagination that fear feeds upon that makes civilians critical of war in general. Many people have connections to those with frontline experience. Many bear witness to the changes in the returning soldiers. So, it is not enough to say that civilians “don’t get it.” We want to (need to) understand how to heal wounds. We, like the returning soldiers, are trying to make sense of the lives lost throughout our country’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. We may not have battle experience, but we certainly know the fear our country has promoted.
Solis explains:
You are constantly in an environment where you don’t know who’s coming, what’s coming, who’s going to be the means of your death or what the manner may be, and you learn to react, and you react in violent ways.
What is revealed by the panelists is a direct result of the pandemic of fear brought forth by the Bush Doctrine. How can we say with certainty someone is coming? or who is “going to be the means of your death”? These things can’t be predicted; they are not present to us. These violent thoughts and actions are provoked by spectrality–a memory of the past. In other words, this very moment (our evolvement in Iraq and Afghanistan) is connected to the past–the tragedy of 9/11. We don’t want such a tragedy to happen again. However, our rich American history is an account of those that came before us. We mourn their contribution to our present, without which we would cease to be. Thus, we are presently haunted by this idea that I am here because they are not. But within this very moment there is a possibility of the future to come. But what is to come is something that can’t/shouldn’t be known or anticipated. In other words,we must not program ourselves to fear the future to come because when we do so, we risk all possibility for those that will carry on after us.
The rhetoric of fear has paralyzed our society to the extent that the future to come is never the land of hope and promise, but rather one filled with fear and loathing for what “may come.” What kind of future is that?
