The Sanitation Of War
By Frank Thomas
19 November, 2004
Countercurrents.orgAerial bombardment, civilian deaths, widespread destruction of homes and buildings. The troops are sent in and more civilians dead and wounded, more soldiers sacrificed. Fallujah and Mosul are just the start of the on-going strategy for war. The filmed murder of the captive and wounded Iraqi is indicative of the stepping up of violence and the madness. Nevertheless, it’s also part of the sensationalism that the media feeds on and which the public gets to focus on, in the same way that the videos of beheading hostages foster outrage and aid the view that all Iraqi resistance fighters are cold blooded assassins. Both actions are readily condemned; both take your eyes off the bigger picture of the killing. The latest count of civilian deaths is around 15,000. Rules of engagement? Tell that to all those who lost family during bombing raids.
The onslaught of Fallujah got the go ahead right after Bush was re-elected, no doubt to steer the invasion of Iraq back to the battleground, back to eliminating the enemy. They call it ‘dealing with pockets of insurgents’ and ‘flushing out of terrorists’. What they mean is killing those that for whatever reasons are resisting the US/British led invasion. Since the world has been turned upside down, where liberation=violence, where security=repression, the terminology and presentation are fundamental, they are what we have to get a grip on the situation, if we still can, but they are also the ways in which the warmongering forces in government have orchestrated the big lie of modern warfare .
The way war is now conceived dates back to first Gulf War. This was to be a hi-tech military display. The smart bomb, incisive attacks with minimum collateral damage, the video-game war with the Pentagon presenting its film clips of targets struck from the air. A new vision of imposing order. Innate in the concept is western supremacy, technical superiority over backward and poor nations that would be awestruck by such impressive technology. The language of technology, the action movie campaign names like ‘Shock and Awe’, are used to set the terrain to conceive as warfare as a smooth business-like transaction, a routine project with few casualties and little destruction.
One of the big lies to have gone down is this sanitation of war. It is not about having your skin burnt off from an exploding warhead: it is about a surgical intervention brought about by an intelligent precise missile. Warfare is being reshaped in our minds. Since the Gulf War, the green-screen techno-war of smart bombs, the idea that an enemy can be defeated using weapons that strike one particular anti-aircraft position right there in that bunker – we have the film to prove it - without any civilians casualties, is the new mythology to window dress an old lie. If you believe that a battle may be won with surgical, almost benevolent, accuracy then you are well on your way to giving the go ahead to a war
There’s little doubt that the rationale behind the conflicts in the Gulf and Afghanistan not only stem from this notion of the swift hi-tech removal of the enemy, but also from the idea you can strike with impunity. It’s not necessary to come face to face with the opposition because they’re getting wiped out from the skies above. We’ll erase all the enemy units, get in there to mop things up, do the job and go home again, simple as that. We’ve got the superiority, we’re so confident we can do the photo-op video conference afterward.
The estimates of civilians killed directly by American and allied forces in the first Gulf War vary broadly between 5,000--15,000. After the end of the war 4,000-6,000 more civilians died due to wounds, lack of medical care, or malnutrition. Yugoslavia, 1999, dubbed a humanitarian intervention, was the second instance of the ‘smart’ war. In the 11 week bombing campaign, some estimate around 500 civilians, though others put the total in the thousands, were killed and more than 6,000 sustained serious injuries.
The on-going operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan has killed between 3000-3400 civilians to date.
The on-going Iraqi Freedom operation has killed up to 15,000 civilians to date.
Thousands have died in four major campaigns that we were persuaded would ‘do the job’ and keep unnecessary deaths to a minimum.
The military chiefs have fallen foul of their own lie. The commanders subscribe to the ruse of technological superiority, making warfare a clean, virtually push button operation.
Onto Iraq, second round. After the bombing raids to bring the country to its knees, the soldiers move in. The plan seems to be working but it is not long before the forces are tripping over themselves after their delusions of victory. The dilemma is that the campaign was not conceived as warfare, not considered an invasion or occupation. It is a mission, a crusade to safeguard world peace and order. Then the real trouble begins. Do the armed forces ensure that the country is entirely under control? No, because essentially we are here to restore the water and electricity. Do the troops shoot everyone and anyone who might represent a threat? No, because we are not here to destroy the enemy but to see the transition of the country from tyranny to democracy, besides that would make it appear an invasion. The status is questionable. What exactly is the nature of the beast? Confusion augments concerning the real motives of the project in the first place, as to whether the mission is right or wrong. The lie that war doesn’t get people killed was by now accepted knowledge. But what of the constantly changing rationale for being there, that’s a whole stream of lies to give the war a sanitized framework. First it’s about removing the danger of WMD. Then about getting Saddam and regime change. About punishing Iraq for their involvement in terrorist activities, exploting the so-called ‘moral high ground’ after 911 along the same lines as the war against Afghanistan. Now it’s about freedom and bringing liberty and democracy to a people ruled by a despot. The sanitizing of war has been superseded. It no longer matters because now it is all about terrorism.
This is no relief to most soldiers. There’s no law that says they would have to fight and die on foreign soil in a war that their leaders had concocted. One might argue that soldiers are trained and ready to die, they fall in the line of duty to which they are fully compliant. This is one of the truly age-old lies. A soldier who is killed defending his country is one thing. It is a different case if troops are sent overseas in the name of their president’s charade of the noble purposes of liberty for an oppressed nation. This is why they had to hammer it out that people were being tortured, the dictator was ready to release his bio weapons, tongues were being ripped out in public squares, babies were disappearing, the king’s son likes to use dynamite when he goes fishing. But once in Iraq they are manipulated by the military and government alike, manipulated because they are not sure why they are there, sacrificed because they must die for the lies fabricated in Washington and London. If Bush and Blair are ever to be tried for war-crimes then the sacrifice of their own soldiers should not be forgotten.
But Bush has been reappointed as Commander In Chief and the military are back in the business of total combat. They have fresh orders. It is time to start wiping out the enemy once and for all. The insurgents, rebels, terrorists, resistance, citizens, people, whatever you wish to call them.
The truth is that after 9/11 the USA was primed for a new stint of warfare. The US has always been going to war since 1945, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq follow the pattern. The world’s biggest war machine is the US, they have the stockpiles and manufacturing capabilities and the broadest network of technological development into means of destruction. It is the US government that spends billions on armaments to the detriment of the nation and every nation. The plans were in place for both Afghanistan and Iraq before 9/11.
There is much concern about a 9/11 conspiracy, rightly so given the lack of a thorough investigation or transparency, thereby fuelling the accusations of a cover up. Whether it was an ‘inside’ job or not, we do know there is evidence to show the Bush administration had warnings of the attacks. We also know that it led to the hyped anti-terrorist phase on a global scale and the ruse for war on two fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as a government tactic to boost the police and curb the liberty of citizens in the nation’s very own backyard. Bin Laden? He is not even wanted by the FBI for the 9/11 attacks. The fight against terrorism? Any trooper could tell you that you do not smash a terrorist ring by bombing or invading another country. The point is not about the soldier shooting that wounded Iraqi. It’s not about the brutal execution of hostages either. And it’s not even about Bin Laden or terrorism. It’s about the war party, the warmongers, and they are on the march again. There’s widespread consent in the indignation, outrage as well as fear in the voices against the Bush/Blair regimes, but a lot of sidetracking too when it comes to the issue of war. It’s one thing to focus on the anomalies of 911, on the allegations of fraudulent elections, on the unashamed profiteering of the corporations, on the Trilateral Commission, on the illustrious Skull and Bones that furnished two presidential candidates, and all the rest of the gang making up the bright shining light of the New World Order. It’s another, more urgent, more desperate issue when people are getting killed in order that their plans for empire are taken a step further. They may give their operations new labels depending on political expedients, but they still cannot hide the big lie of the war project. The deaths in Fallujah, Mosul and the other cities to come are the tragic realities of this strategy. This is the work of governments and the military hand in hand with industrial corporations whose ignominy and treachery are reflected in their spiralling weave of lies about war as they push the world further into an insane cycle of destruction.
Frank Thomas is a teacher/translator and freelance writer living in Sicily. He can be reached at [email protected]
