If you read
the historical commentary by Prof. Bacevich (A Less than
Splendid Little War, posted 040103) about the dramatic ‘born
again’ transformation of the US military and political worldview after the 1991
Gulf War, then Michael Gordon’s Dispatch from Iraq yesterday, The Test for
Rumsfeld: Will Strategy Work? @ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/01/international/worldspecial/01STRA.html
continues the unfolding story that military wars as we knew them
are history, and the future of warfare, and perhaps global politics, is being
made with new strategies and tools. It still seems
to me like the first Star Wars movie or any of the battle episodes of Babylon
5, confirming what Bacevich wrote, that we have wedded our military leaders and
political leaders as Rome did, with proconsuls. Now since our economic engine is sputtering and in need of a
tune-up, what will the New American Empire’s best export be? Are we already
there? As part of the
ongoing story about the rescued female soldier and the one still missing (11
bodies recovered in that same rescue yesterday which should hopefully identify
some of the 19 listed as missing as of yesterday), excerpts below from this
historical commentary about The POW in the
American Imagination @ http://slate.msn.com/id/2080944. We can expect to hear a lot about the successful
rescue mission, as we eagerly look away for a moment from the horrors that are
there on the battlefield and in the towns and cities. Excerpts: “During the Korean War, fantasies about the POW experience centered on
the fear of brainwashing (a term whose usage dates to that war). Throughout history, captors had often
tried, with little success, to convert their prisoners to their religion or worldview
– see, for example, the Allied “de-Nazification” programs in World War II. But the Communist Chinese during the
Korean War were exceptionally intensive in their effort to indoctrinate Western
POWs.”…In 1955, President Eisenhower set forth a code of conduct for apprehended
soldiers that addressed the fear of apostasy. The code ordered soldiers to tell their captors only their
name, rank, service number, and date of birth and required them to ‘make no
oral or written statements disloyal to my country.’ 2…By the late 1960s, Americans had come to see Vietnam as a moral as
well as a military quagmire. US soldiers and
citizens struggled to find honor in a losing battle and painfully
reckoned with war crimes committed by the American side, including the mistreatment
of Vietnamese captives. From this
morass sprung the culture of the POW. Partly
the impetus was political.
With funding and organizational help from Ross Perot, then a relatively
anonymous Texas billionaire, President Nixon put together a media blitz,
replete with rallies, TV shows, and merchandise, to fix public attention on
those missing or captured in Vietnam…The PR campaign, promoting images of
victimized Americans in peril of being forsaken and in need of support from
back home, aimed to drive from people’s TV screens and conversations
the less welcome images of massacred Vietnamese villagers and napalmed
children. Hungry for a story line that cast American soldiers as heroic victims,
not oppressors, a large segment of the public took up the POW/MIA cause. Families of the unaccounted-for-soldiers
formed groups to lobby the government to retrieve the missing – waging their
campaigns long after the war ended and Nixon resigned. Spreading the fiction
that American servicemen remained imprisoned in Southeast Asia, the cause won
legions of adherents and managed to get the now-familiar black-and-white
POW/MIA flag to fly over the White House once a year, on National POW/MIA
Recognition Day – the only flag other than Old Glory given that honor. 3…The glamorizing of the Vietnam POW, like that of the hostages taken
captive in Iran in 1979 who became celebrities upon their release, marked an effort to replace
weakness and defeat with heroism and redemption. But the Vietnam-era image of the POW
may not, like so much else in this new Gulf War, be in flux – its masculine
imagery no longer adequate for an Army touting virtues of flexibility and
mobility and featuring women on the front lines.” Let’s rejoice
when captured soldiers are returned to the safety of their comrades and
families. Let us honor those slain
in battle, and those who fight with honor. While we are demonizing our enemy, let’s not mindlessly
devote ourselves to hero-worshipping warriors in battle; rather, let us praise
wisdom and the courage to use force only when it must be used, not
indiscriminately or recklessly – and just to make myself clear, I’m aiming at our
leaders, not just those armed to die in battle who face lethal split-second decisions. We are at a
turning point once again, and must keep in mind our recent experiences and our own
military, political and cultural history as we lived through previous wars and be
aware how they transformed us. And
let us not forget that the enemy pays the ultimate price, too, as those on the
battlefield know only too well. Final note, at least
in Oregon, shops that usually do most of their business in sports trophies are
busy producing inexpensive blue and red bracelets to wear in support of the
troops. According to news reports,
they can’t make them fast enough.
You can buy a generic version commemorating Operation Iraqi Freedom
supporting the troops in general for $8 and have a name engraved for $11. Expect to see them on those genuinely
caring and those politically correct and those shamelessly profiting. If you are looking for photos and names
of those confirmed KIA, both the NYT and PBS Newshour are providing this
service. Karen – trying
to stay in the middle of the road East of
Portland, West of Mt Hood Outgoing mail
scanned by NAV 2002 |
- Re: [Futurework] History in Real Time 2 Karen Watters Cole
- Re: [Futurework] History in Real Time 2 Harry Pollard