The Glory of War

Writing about the glory of war is easy because there isn’t any. See this quotation from Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman:

“I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have never fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.”

The idea that there is glory in war is a public relations job that disregards hideous death, mayhem and property destruction involved. The movies, parades, history textbooks and Memorial Day give the idea that war is unavoidable and that our cause has always been right and that our nation has usually been dealing with Absolute Evil. Our country always fights not just to defend our country but to free others from oppression.

Of course, there is something to this. Nazi Germany was as close to absolute evil as one could possibly imagine. The Soviet Union under Stalin and Mao Se Tung’s China were close behind.

American presidents have lied about other nations’ intentions and actions as well as our own. This is not new in Bush II’s actions. Specifically, presidents have lied about wars with Mexico, Spain, Vietnam and Iraq.

President Polk sent troops into territory both occupied and claimed by Mexico. When Mexican troops resisted, President Polk said that the troops were attacked and the country should go to war. Congressman Abraham Lincoln and others objected to the war. President Polk’s intention was to acquire Mexican territory. Since the United States obtained half of Mexico in the peace settlement, one can say he accomplished his job.

President McKinley unnecessarily took our country to war as a result of what was probably a boiler explosion on the battleship USS Maine when it was visiting Havana harbor. Historians to this day have not forged a consensus on what did happen. Since the Spanish offered restitution, the theory that the Spanish fired a torpedo to damage the Maine is the least likely explanation. The true reason for the war was to acquire an overseas empire in the Philippines and Puerto Rico.

In 1965, President Johnson asked for the equivalent of a declaration of war after the North Vietnamese attacked the US destroyers, the Maddox and the Turner Joy, in international waters, the Gulf of Tonkin. Congressional investigation a few years later revealed that the destroyers were in fact in North Vietnamese territorial waters when the attack took place. I find no credible reason for our involvement in Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh was more a nationalist than a Communist. Since the US to this day vigorously supports oppressive regimes (e.g., Saudi Arabia and China), I can say that we did not go there to bring freedom. I am puzzled here.

The first Iraq war is equally puzzling the Reagan and Bush I administrations actively backed Saddam Hussein up to and including the time when he was openly preparing for war with Kuwait. The Reagan administration wholeheartedly supported Iraq in its war with Iran by organizing an arms embargo against Iran, providing satellite data to help Iraqi Army operations, asking allies to send modern equipment and covering up Iraqi atrocities. When Saddam Hussein used poison gas against Kurdish citizens, our State Department alleged that Iran had performed the foul deed. When Saddam Hussein was massing his army near the Kuwait border, our ambassador, April Glaspie, told the Iraqi government the US was not interested in border disputes in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein may have been genuinely surprised when the US government reacted to his Kuwaiti invasion.

Since the Kuwaiti government was an oppressive regime and Iraqi government would keep supplying oil to the world market, most US citizens sure would have regretted the event but not considered the invasion a bid deal. After all, it was OK when Iraq invited Iran in 1980.

The Kuwaiti government with the cooperation of the Bush I administration hired the high powered public relations firm, Hill & Knowlton, to represent them and form public opinion. The firm generated a well-played strategy of demonizing the enemy, reminiscent of British stories of Germans killing babies during World War I. Hill & Knowlton coached the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador and a member of the royal family to pose as a refugee who had seen atrocities. According to her, the Iraqi Army removed 312 babies from incubators to leave them to die on the hospital floors. After the American occupation of Kuwait, investigators found that the incident never took place. Later, when the role of Hill & Knowlton became known, the Bush I administration was not even embarrassed.

To induce Saudi cooperation, the Bush I administration faked satellite reconnaissance pictures that showed the Iraqi Army organizing for the invasion of Saudi Arabia.

The only reason for the American invasion of Iraq was old-fashioned realpolitik. Allow no other country to be strong enough to lead an independent course in the Middle East.

Soldiers and civilians do not support wars because of balance of power, acquisition of empire or realpolitik but to protect their country and, when possible, correct injustice elsewhere.

The closer one gets to the battlefield, the less one hears abstract nouns, even freedom. When soldiers are in front of news cameras, they say things that comfort the home front but are meaningless in a combat zone. There is a sense of comradeship and trust in the military that is seldom felt elsewhere. Each soldier’s actions or inactions can cause casualties.

War promoters use this comradeship in movies, novels, plays, documentaries and songs to glorify war. War promoters downplay the deaths, injuries, stupidities, deprivations and property destruction. Until the Vietnam War, magazines and newspapers only published pictures of dead soldiers with all their body parts and their uniforms intact. The soldiers looked like they were asleep. There were no burn victims or anybody with missing body parts. In this current war, our government has forbidden the media even to take pictures of coffins. We have a president who has not attended a military funeral.

War promoters use the drama of war similar to that of sports for a close football game. Think of the 2006 Rose Bowl with the University of California Trojans and the University of Texas Longhorns. Think of Super Bowl LXII with the New England Patriots and the New York Giants. I remember reading the sports section of the Sunday Houston Post during the Houston Oilers 1991 football season: This afternoon’s game with the New York Jets will be a dogfight. The lead will change five times. The winning team will be the one who scores last, probably in the last minute of regulation play. That is usually the way it did happen with the Oilers coming from behind to score the go ahead touchdown with seven seconds left in the game.

The Victory at Sea documentary series presented war and the accompanying drama at its best. There was excellent narration and fine music performed by the NBC Orchestra. There were few references to Allied errors and none at all to Allied atrocities.

I would like to see a society that honors its peacemakers who bring social justice, income equality and sustainable development. While honoring our soldiers’ valor, I want to honor war dissenters and conscientious objectors actions, as well.

For most of human existence, actions in one part of the world had little or no effect anywhere else. There was a limit to the size of empires. In the days of the Roman Empire, for example, the Chinese and Romans had little contact or trade. There was no knowledge of the New World. Today, we are all interconnected, and have been so for at least two centuries. Like it or not, 6.4 billion human beings are all in the same boat. Environmental degradation, poverty, global warming and nuclear weapons affect us all. For humans to survive, we will have to cease military action and through cooperative efforts, face the non-military issues that threaten our existence. Remember Benjamin Franklin’s words, “Gentlemen, we will hang together or we will hang separately.” With common action and courage, no one needs to hang at all.

Let us hope that our novelists, playwrights, songwriters and movie directors will begin to glorify peace. Tommy James and the Shondells’ song Crystal Blue Persuasion, for example, envisions peace. Together, we will turn swords into plowshares.

Ed O’Rourke is an environmental accountant in Houston.