{"id":6228,"date":"2010-07-05T00:00:53","date_gmt":"2010-07-04T22:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=6228"},"modified":"2018-10-13T11:53:29","modified_gmt":"2018-10-13T10:53:29","slug":"veterans-of-current-wars-some-perspectives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/07\/veterans-of-current-wars-some-perspectives\/","title":{"rendered":"Veterans of Current Wars: Some Perspectives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amsterdam<\/span><\/em>: TRANSCEND is exploring how recent war veterans react to their experiences.\u00a0 The following are some tentative theory perspectives for that comparative project.<\/em><\/p>\n

Like any social institution wars are changing, from traditional warfare, even with chivalry, via modern warfare with “no holds barred”, to postmodern warfare where civilians are not only targets but major, not “collateral” targets.\u00a0 World War II was at the interface between modern and postmodern.\u00a0 After that, civilian casualties have dominated the Korea, Vi\u00eat Nam Wars, the War on Terrorism, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.\u00a0 And the veterans?<\/p>\n

Depends on the war.\u00a0 There is what Americans call the good war<\/em>–victorious, for good causes, with collective and individual glory, bemedaled heroes, even post-glory-exuberance-disorder, a PGED: nice, let us do it again!<\/em>.\u00a0 And on the other the bad war–lost<\/em>, or at least not victorious–with collective and individual post-traumatic-stress-disorders, PTSD, with a never more war<\/em>, or revenge<\/em>, let them also suffer.\u00a0 PGED is a disaster to states, to nations, classes; PTSD to individuals, those who suffered most, often lower down, soldiers or civilians, on one side or both.\u00a0 To lose a meaningful war is bad, to win a meaningless war is also bad; to lose a meaningless war is catastrophic.<\/p>\n

And that is what the West in general, and the USA in particular, are in for these years.\u00a0 The West is protecting residual imperialisms, and the USA a dying but still active empire, against forces–called “communist”, “terrorist” by the West-USA–of liberation that have considerable world support.\u00a0 The West-USA send their troops, even using NATO offensively, “out of area”, brief them in tightly protected propaganda sessions, making their shock with reality even more painful.<\/p>\n

And these are not good wars<\/em>, in the sense of clear-cut wars of Good against Evil.\u00a0 The goals of USA-West, beyond suppressing “insurrection”, seem to include revenge, pure paranoia, clear economic interests, getting bases for future wars that may also be far from “good”.\u00a0 The goals of the enemy, defined by the US-West as Evil, are often very badly understood or not at all.<\/p>\n

These are not winnable wars<\/em>.\u00a0 Like the English experienced 19 April 1775, being attacked by an invisible American enemy on the Boston-Concord road fighting “like savages”: savages have a tendency to win, even it may take time.\u00a0 “Asymmetric war” is in their favor, fighting for sacred values, freedom, human rights, ready to sacrifice their lives, with unlimited time perspective.<\/p>\n

A neither good nor winnable war is doubly frustrating. <\/em>Had it been “bad” but winnable, then the idea of “let us get the job done and over with” might take the upper hand.\u00a0 Had it been good but not winnable then the idea of “going on and on, for final victory” (after a Pearl Harbor or two) might prevail.\u00a0 But bad and<\/em> unwinnable, immorality + stupidity = frustration+++.<\/em><\/p>\n

A serious situation with implications at the micro personal level, the meso social level, and at the macro-mega world level.<\/p>\n

Some PTSD micro implications: deep somatic traumas, mental disorders, suicide (more than killing enemies?), inability to resume family and work roles, deep violence.\u00a0 They have killed and seen buddies killed.\u00a0 War is about that, a simple reason for PTSD.\u00a0 But the deeper reasons for not coping, neither with the war, nor with civilian life, is that the war is a bad war.\u00a0 But, are they against wars in general, or only against losing wars?<\/p>\n

Hence, high rates of desertion, war resistance, remorse, needs to reconcile.\u00a0 Not only inability to cope, to practice “trained to kill and kill”, but deep demoralization.<\/p>\n

By certifying “pre-existing personality disorder” in veterans with “troubles”, the US Army saves itself expenses and court martials,<\/em> forcing the veterans and their families to pay the costs for bad wars and bad fighting, ad bellum<\/em> and in bello<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And heroism as meaning-creation is out<\/em>.\u00a0 Heroism is at the interface between risk incurred to Self and damage incurred to Other, like Heroism = Risk to Self x Damage to Other.\u00a0 No damage no heroism but stupidity rather, no risk–killing with drones from an office computer or from 44,000 feet-no heroism either.<\/p>\n

Clausewitzian modern warfare created its own negations.<\/em> Terrorism-guerrilla, fighting upward against the state when the means for “symmetric” state-to-state war are unavailable may generate anger and state terrorist revenge but not a “good war”; attacking nonviolent resistance or direct action even less so.<\/p>\n

A war based on the propaganda lies of embedded journalism makes for even more feeling of having been cheated<\/em>.\u00a0 Soldiers are first line observers, including of their own acts of commission and omission.\u00a0 The feeling of having been lied to, or cheated by manipulated and manipulating media may prevail.<\/p>\n

Lowering the soldiers socially and intellectually<\/em> channels the frustration into aggression against self, family, workplace rather than into political action to change policy, making society less democratic precisely when democracy is most needed.<\/p>\n

US conclusions from the Vietnam War were counterproductive. <\/em>Canceling conscription, buying a volunteer army with incentives (green cards, college education, “employment” in a crisis) pushed the soldiers and their violence.\u00a0 Embedded journalism created feelings of being manipulated.\u00a0 And “shock and awe”, no slow incrementalism, as if wrong direction is compensated by driving faster, has not worked either.\u00a0 Bad wars remain bad.<\/p>\n

The USA and ISAF-International Security Assistance Force members, the coalition of the increasingly unwilling, will suffer these consequences for decades, even generations.\u00a0 The sooner this deep irrationality is brought to an end by solving the conflicts, the better for all parties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And these are not good wars, in the sense of clear-cut wars of Good against Evil. The goals of USA-West, beyond suppressing “insurrection”, seem to include revenge, pure paranoia, clear economic interests, getting bases for future wars that may also be far from “good”. The goals of the enemy, defined by the US-West as Evil, are often very badly understood or not at all. These are not winnable wars. Like the English experienced 19 April 1775, being attacked by an invisible American enemy on the Boston-Concord road fighting “like savages”: savages have a tendency to win, even it may take time. “Asymmetric war” is in their favor, fighting for sacred values, freedom, human rights, ready to sacrifice their lives, with unlimited time perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252095,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6228\/revisions\/252095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}