BUSINESS AS USUAL
Was there ever a war fought in which prisoners, civilian & military, were not violated by their captors? If any amongst the Great & the Good who rule us really are shocked at the current revelations then I worry at their unworldliness. Had these accusations & the illustrations providing the substantiating evidence (spurious or otherwise) not emerged at some point, it would have been a first in the long history of warfare.
There are many worthy, conscientious, right-minded & honourable soldiers in Iraq. Even the most committed of anti-militarists must accept that many join up & serve from the noblest of motives & the truest of hearts. But equally, many don't. Long-term unemployment, institutionalisation, the desire to learn a specific skill or trade whilst drawing a wage, the desire to have a legitimised context for a tendency towards violence - these & many other purely instrumental or pragmatic motives (not all of them by any means ignoble) may account for a decision to join the armed forces.
But at some point during a soldier's, a pilot's, a sailor's service, the reasonable likelihood will arise that he or she will be required to participate, directly or indirectly, in the organised killing of people. The armed forces exist for that express purpose; that's why they are provided with weapons. However much we equivocate, however much we cloak the processes in euphemisms, a soldier, a pilot, a sailor is trained to take life when ordered to do so. So the principle informing intention of the training must be to overcome that most fundamental of moral precepts, namely, that killing is utterly wrong. Any such programme is going to be harsh, brutal & violent &, if it is to be practically effective, its effects must endure.
The imagination is taxed to the limit trying to conceive of a programme of training that could successfully incorporate the subtle paradox of the merciless prosecution of duty as ordered that combines with a deep & abiding respect for the human rights of the enemy. It certainly plays no part in the schooling of terrorists, nor was it a conspicuous element in the various wars that scarred the last century. It is an absolute requirement of the soldier in the field that he (& now she) kills & maims for whatever duration & to whatever degree is required by the orders given.
Whilst there will be many serving in Iraq who have been, who are now, & who will be sickened & revolted by the implementation of those obligations on the soldier being extended into non-combat situations, many others will be unable to draw a moral distinction. And if some crude rationalisation is needed by the persecutors, it's easy enough to cite the savagery of the suicide bomber or the fanaticism of the self-style 'mujaheddin' & the requirements of rough justice.
So the authenticity of the photographs is only an issue with respect to the specific soldiers concerned. If the pictures were posed - 'stunted up', in the parlance - it merely highlights one relatively mild stage in a consistent pattern of gross behaviour on the part of a small number of soldiers. The progress from 'stunting up' apparent persecution sessions for the amusement of self & others to actually engaging in acts ranging from ritual humiliation through to torturing a victim to death is steady & logical, & for some the movement across the spectrum will be inexorable.
#
You’ve probably all seen it, the e-folk process being what it is. But here’s a link to a remarkable piece of agit-prop art. I tracked this back to its creator, one ‘Joe’ of the blog American Leftist, but couldn’t get the link to work. So here’s the pic on the blog Photo Matt.
Click on ‘Home’ & scroll down.
#
Twenty-five years today since Margaret Thatcher took the throne. Her voters knew that things would never be the same again & they were jubilant; we knew that things would never be the same again & we were in despair. We were all correct. The only prediction that could not have been made with confidence at the time was that so many of those who voted for her now regret deeply that they helped to bring about one of the most sustained processes of political vandalism in British constitutional history. They were years of shame, not least of all because they nurtured & brought into being ‘New Labour’, the party that dumped its conscience.
Jamie K. of Blood & Treasure* laments that day 25 years ago & shares with us a pithy quote from John Holbo’s John & Belle Have A Blog*. It seeks to explain ‘the philosophy behind the Conservative approach to work & the people who do it’. It runs thus:
“The great, overwhelming fact of a capitalist economy is risk. Everyone is at constant risk of the loss of his job, or of the destruction of his business by a competitor, or of the crash of his investment portfolio. Risk makes people circumspect. It disciplines them and teaches them self-control. Without a safety net, people won’t try to vault across the big top. Social security, student loans, and other government programs make it far less catastrophic than it used to be for middle-class people to dissolve their families. Without welfare and food stamps, poor people would cling harder to working-class respectability than they do not.”
The thing that makes capitalism good, apparently, is not that it generates wealth more efficiently than other known economic engines. No, the thing that makes capitalism good is that, by forcing people to live precarious lives, it causes them to live in fear of losing everything and therefore to adopt – as fearful people will – a cowed and subservient posture: in a word, they behave ‘conservatively’. Of course, crouching to protect themselves and their loved ones from the eternal lash of risk precisely won’t preserve these workers from risk. But the point isn’t to induce a society-wide conformist crouch by way of making the workers safe and happy. The point is to induce a society-wide conformist crouch. Period. A solid foundation is hereby laid for a desirable social order.
*Unless I've sorted it out this time, these are two more bad links. A shame if so - these are two good weblogs.
10:40:47 PM 
|
