Re: Nobody’s plans had worked. Everyone was decimated.
In Smedley Butler's War is a Racket, there are the famous paragraphs:
"In the World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their income tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dugout? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried the bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?"
Re: men after men annihilated with ease through no martial failing of their own
A book that is often talked about is "Jarhead". I haven't read it, but the summary says:
"When the marines -- or "jarheads," as they call themselves -- were sent in 1990 to Saudi Arabia to fight the Iraqis, Swofford was there, with a hundred-pound pack on his shoulders and a sniper's rifle in his hands. It was one misery upon another. He lived in sand for six months, his girlfriend back home betrayed him for a scrawny hotel clerk, he was punished by boredom and fear, he considered suicide, he pulled a gun on one of his fellow marines, and he was shot at by both Iraqis and Americans. At the end of the war, Swofford hiked for miles through a landscape of incinerated Iraqi soldiers and later was nearly killed in a booby-trapped Iraqi bunker."
Even the most one-sided victory was reported as "one misery upon another" by one of the victorious soldiers.
This is a very, very interesting piece, and I’ll be thinking about it for a while. Nevertheless, I have a few quick reactions.
Similar thoughts can be elicited when encountering works such as Jean Renoir’s “The Grand Illusion,” which is routinely cited as “one of the greatest anti-war films ever made.” In this WW1 P.O.W. drama, one of the main characters gets to choreograph his own death in the most meaningful and useful way imaginable; another lives to wistfully rue the passing of the old order, symbolized by snipping off a flower he grew; a third finds his true love behind enemy lines, for chrissakes. It’s all so poignant and human and hopeful, albeit tempered with much pain. These men are leading much more fully realized lives in war than most of us find in peacetime. Also, one of the main themes is how the war is bringing down the aristocracy, and raising the common man – unquestionably in accord with the filmmaker’s politics, even if he allows himself a tender tear at the old regime’s passing.
It *is* a lovely film (though Renoir, like his father, wasn’t the artistic genius he’s made out to be), but anti-war? If this is what we can expect, bring on the world wars.
Kurt Vonnegut shows himself aware of the problem in the introduction to “Slaughterhouse-Five.” His claim is that he is writing a *real* anti-war novel. Not coincidentally, the main war action depicted in the book is the British bombing of Dresden, just the kind of mechanized, dehumanized, one-sided slaughter that A-E says should characterize “the most antiwar book of them all.” Vonnegut tried to square that circle, getting at the truth while also writing a good book. Does he succeed at both?
The sleight-of-hand A-E sees in Kipling’s “Fuzzy Wuzzy” is, I think, central to the film “Zulu,” except that there the British square *does* hold at the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, though just barely. While the film’s perspective is that of the besieged redcoats, the viewer can feel queasy at the disproportionate carnage wrought by these crack troops sloshing their Martinis at the tribesmen armed with spears and a few rifles they don’t know how to shoot (and, needless to say, this is taking place in southern Africa, a continent away from England).
The point is made concisely in Terry Gilliam’s “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” when our 18th-century comical heroes are thrown into Mount Etna and visit the god Vulcan at his forge, fabricating weapons for the world’s wars. He’s most proud of the anachronistic ICBM he’s working on, which, he explains, “kills the enemy … all of them. All their wives, and all their children, and all their sheep, and all their cattle, and all their cats and dogs. All of them. All of them gone for good. … You see, the advantage is you don't have to see one single one of them die. You just sit comfortably thousands of miles away from the battlefield and simply press the button.” To which Eric Idle’s character responds, “Well, where's the fun in that?” Well said.
I think the Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” video from Iraq was so discomfiting to the U.S. because the technological detachment of the killers in the helicopter juxtaposed awkwardly with the humanity of the Iraqis, not to mention their innocence (and courage, as the later victims tried to pull out the earlier). Those button-pressers were thousands of yards away, rather than miles, but the feeling was similar.
It’s worth pointing out that, as horrible and wasteful as war has always been, the particular truth that A-E is pointing out here and which has to be kept from the people, is inseparable from its modern, technological manifestation. I wouldn’t have wanted to be conquered by Timur or raided by Vikings, but at least I’d have been able to see and curse my enemies, maybe even ineffectually swing my hoe at one before I died. Warfare has been moving ever further from that for 200 years.
I wouldn’t discount the number of people who can find even pressing that button “fun” (as long as “we’re” aiming at “them”), but, as with covid lockdowns, clothing the post-human sociocide in human, or even humanitarian, drag does broaden the appeal.
My dad was a conscientious objector in 1939 - they pilloried him and finally got him into a non-combatant role. He had the last laugh as they sent him to N Africa in 1942 to mend Beaufighter aircraft - humm - they reassigned him to organise the entertainment of the troops across the whole N African war-zone. he had a ball and met all the celebs of the day. he was the last the be demobbed and I finally met him in 1949 aged 5!
But it was good for me and good for him - so who is to say what happens to you is necessarily bad - give it time - and the positives emerge! I narrowly missed Nam in 1965 - again a positive - eventually....I posted this a while ago - Woodstock:
Re: Nobody’s plans had worked. Everyone was decimated.
In Smedley Butler's War is a Racket, there are the famous paragraphs:
"In the World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their income tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dugout? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried the bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?"
Re: men after men annihilated with ease through no martial failing of their own
A book that is often talked about is "Jarhead". I haven't read it, but the summary says:
"When the marines -- or "jarheads," as they call themselves -- were sent in 1990 to Saudi Arabia to fight the Iraqis, Swofford was there, with a hundred-pound pack on his shoulders and a sniper's rifle in his hands. It was one misery upon another. He lived in sand for six months, his girlfriend back home betrayed him for a scrawny hotel clerk, he was punished by boredom and fear, he considered suicide, he pulled a gun on one of his fellow marines, and he was shot at by both Iraqis and Americans. At the end of the war, Swofford hiked for miles through a landscape of incinerated Iraqi soldiers and later was nearly killed in a booby-trapped Iraqi bunker."
Even the most one-sided victory was reported as "one misery upon another" by one of the victorious soldiers.
This is a very, very interesting piece, and I’ll be thinking about it for a while. Nevertheless, I have a few quick reactions.
Similar thoughts can be elicited when encountering works such as Jean Renoir’s “The Grand Illusion,” which is routinely cited as “one of the greatest anti-war films ever made.” In this WW1 P.O.W. drama, one of the main characters gets to choreograph his own death in the most meaningful and useful way imaginable; another lives to wistfully rue the passing of the old order, symbolized by snipping off a flower he grew; a third finds his true love behind enemy lines, for chrissakes. It’s all so poignant and human and hopeful, albeit tempered with much pain. These men are leading much more fully realized lives in war than most of us find in peacetime. Also, one of the main themes is how the war is bringing down the aristocracy, and raising the common man – unquestionably in accord with the filmmaker’s politics, even if he allows himself a tender tear at the old regime’s passing.
It *is* a lovely film (though Renoir, like his father, wasn’t the artistic genius he’s made out to be), but anti-war? If this is what we can expect, bring on the world wars.
Kurt Vonnegut shows himself aware of the problem in the introduction to “Slaughterhouse-Five.” His claim is that he is writing a *real* anti-war novel. Not coincidentally, the main war action depicted in the book is the British bombing of Dresden, just the kind of mechanized, dehumanized, one-sided slaughter that A-E says should characterize “the most antiwar book of them all.” Vonnegut tried to square that circle, getting at the truth while also writing a good book. Does he succeed at both?
The sleight-of-hand A-E sees in Kipling’s “Fuzzy Wuzzy” is, I think, central to the film “Zulu,” except that there the British square *does* hold at the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, though just barely. While the film’s perspective is that of the besieged redcoats, the viewer can feel queasy at the disproportionate carnage wrought by these crack troops sloshing their Martinis at the tribesmen armed with spears and a few rifles they don’t know how to shoot (and, needless to say, this is taking place in southern Africa, a continent away from England).
The point is made concisely in Terry Gilliam’s “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” when our 18th-century comical heroes are thrown into Mount Etna and visit the god Vulcan at his forge, fabricating weapons for the world’s wars. He’s most proud of the anachronistic ICBM he’s working on, which, he explains, “kills the enemy … all of them. All their wives, and all their children, and all their sheep, and all their cattle, and all their cats and dogs. All of them. All of them gone for good. … You see, the advantage is you don't have to see one single one of them die. You just sit comfortably thousands of miles away from the battlefield and simply press the button.” To which Eric Idle’s character responds, “Well, where's the fun in that?” Well said.
I think the Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” video from Iraq was so discomfiting to the U.S. because the technological detachment of the killers in the helicopter juxtaposed awkwardly with the humanity of the Iraqis, not to mention their innocence (and courage, as the later victims tried to pull out the earlier). Those button-pressers were thousands of yards away, rather than miles, but the feeling was similar.
It’s worth pointing out that, as horrible and wasteful as war has always been, the particular truth that A-E is pointing out here and which has to be kept from the people, is inseparable from its modern, technological manifestation. I wouldn’t have wanted to be conquered by Timur or raided by Vikings, but at least I’d have been able to see and curse my enemies, maybe even ineffectually swing my hoe at one before I died. Warfare has been moving ever further from that for 200 years.
I wouldn’t discount the number of people who can find even pressing that button “fun” (as long as “we’re” aiming at “them”), but, as with covid lockdowns, clothing the post-human sociocide in human, or even humanitarian, drag does broaden the appeal.
My dad was a conscientious objector in 1939 - they pilloried him and finally got him into a non-combatant role. He had the last laugh as they sent him to N Africa in 1942 to mend Beaufighter aircraft - humm - they reassigned him to organise the entertainment of the troops across the whole N African war-zone. he had a ball and met all the celebs of the day. he was the last the be demobbed and I finally met him in 1949 aged 5!
But it was good for me and good for him - so who is to say what happens to you is necessarily bad - give it time - and the positives emerge! I narrowly missed Nam in 1965 - again a positive - eventually....I posted this a while ago - Woodstock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXspsfoPX50