The Guardian has an engaging account of the 200 veterans, led by Iraq Veterans Against the War, who marked the third anniversary of the war by marching from Mobile, Alabama to New Orleans. [
'If you start looking at them as humans, then how are you gonna kill them?'] The article gives a sense of the tremendous guilt these veterans bear and their desire to find a way to make restitution for what they did. As a psychoanalyst, I would love to understand why some soldiers take this path and others follow that of denial. Of course, there probably are some who truly believe they are doing good, but it is unlikely that number is very high. Rather, most do their “duty,” which means obeying orders and remaining a fighting machine. But, as Chris Hedges movingly emphasized in War is a force that gives us meaning, back home we have little need for the exquisite fighting machines that successful soldiers have been turned into. Antiwar or pro-war, we all have an interest in figuring out how to transform killing machines back into human beings who can live at peace with themselves and the rest of us. IVAW, with its “religious” zeal, shows one such route.
< strong>Excerpts:
Blake says that the turning point for him came one day when his unit spent eight hours guarding a group of Iraqi women and children whose men were being questioned. He recalls: “The men were taken away and the women were screaming and crying, and I just remember thinking: this was exactly what Saddam used to do - and now we’re doing it.”
Becoming a peace activist, he says, has been a “cleansing” experience. “I’ll never be normal again. I’ll always have a sense of guilt.” He tells us that he witnessed civilian Iraqis being killed indiscriminately. It would not be the most startling admission by the soldiers on the march.
“When IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices] would go off by the side of the road, the instructions were - or the practice was - to basically shoot up the landscape, anything that moved. And that kind of thing would happen a lot.” So innocent people were killed? “It happened, yes.” (He says he did not carry out any such killings himself.)
….
Jody Casey left the army five days ago and came straight to join the vets. The 29-year-old is no pacifist; he still firmly backs the military but says that he is speaking out in the hope of correcting many of the mistakes being made. He served as a scout sniper for a year until last February, based, like Blake, in the Sunni triangle.
He clearly feels a little ill at ease with some of the protesters’ rhetoric, but eventually agrees to talk to us. He says that the turning point for him came after he returned from Iraq and watched videos that he and other soldiers in his unit shot while out on raids, including hour after hour of Iraqi soldiers beating up Iraqi civilians. While reviewing them back home he decided “it was not right”.
What upset him the most about Iraq? “The total disregard for human life,” he says, matter of factly. “I mean, you do what you do at the time because you feel like you need to. But then to watch it get kind of covered up, shoved under a rug … ‘Oh, that did not happen’.”
What kind of abuses did he witness? “Well, I mean, I have seen innocent people being killed. IEDs go off and [you] just zap any farmer that is close to you. You know, those people were out there trying to make a living, but on the other hand, you get hit by four or five of those IEDs and you get pretty tired of that, too.”
Casey told us how, from the top down, there was little regard for the Iraqis, who were routinely called “hajjis”, the Iraq equivalent of “gook”. “They basically jam into your head: ‘This is hajji! This is hajji!’ You totally take the human being out of it and make them into a video game.”
It was a way of dehumanising the Iraqis? “I mean, yeah - if you start looking at them as humans, and stuff like that, then how are you going to kill them?”
That last question is one to be remembered as we hear all the nonsense about American troops “liberating” the Iraqis. You can’t liberate those you don’t regard as people.
March 28th, 2006
A new Reuters article [University students in Basra fight sectarian violence] reports on one of very few bright spots in the horrific Iraqi scene. According to the article, students in Basra and Baghdad are organizing to oppose the drift toward sectarian war:
“The idea was originally the brainchild of a Sunni student whose family was killed in sectarian violence, Haydar explained. “We’re more than 200 students from different colleges in Basra working with the same aim,” Haydar said. “To open the hearts of the population and ease feelings of revolt and revenge.”
Half of the students involved in the project spend at least five hours a day in internet chat rooms discussing sectarian problems and urging their compatriots to help avert an escalation of the violence into civil war. According to local officials, there is currently at least one computer for every seven Iraqis. Under the regime of Saddam Hussein, they added, one in 20 had access to a personal computer.
“Many people have changed their minds while chatting online,” said Rasha Adnan, a philosophy student and chat-room moderator. “Some of them have even opened their own web pages to inform others on the dangers of sectarian violence.”
The other half of the group, meanwhile, is responsible for visiting schools, universities and other institutes of learning to talk to students, distribute leaflets and mount posters encouraging peace and coexistence. “After our talks, students would often ask to join us,” Haydar said. “It’s uplifting to see our simple work bringing results.””
Those of us outside Iraq should publicize this effort and lend it support in any way we can.
March 28th, 2006
I have received the following Comment from another Vietnam vet on “Sending mentally ill soldiers back to Iraq”. While it is posted as a comment, I know that many readers do not read the Comments, So I’ve decided to post it here as well:
Mr. Stoldz: I read your article, but I should not have. It was a “trigger.” Beyond that, I think you missed a group of people who are also endangered when someone suffering from combat-stress reaction or PTSD is sent back to war. What about the other members of that soldier’s unit?
It seems to me that they stand a greater chance of being wounded physically and/or mentally by that soldier’s presence. We can all imagine an instance where that soldier’s actions could result in others being wounded during combat. But his actions can also cause other soldiers to suffer mental injury.
Think of that mentally ill soldier as having a communicable disease – that disease being mental illness. If his judgment is flawed because he is a “bit crazy,” isn’t he more likely to commit atrocities? What happens when that individual goes into a house and wipes out a family (something that appears to be happening recently with some regularity)? The other soldiers there are now traumatized. He has “spread” his illness to others. How many others will subsequently become a “bit crazy” and imitate his actions.
Even if his fellow soldiers don’t lose their humanity completely and engage in this behavior, it takes a lot of courage for them to report atrocities. I know. I turned my back when four GI’s killed a prisoner in 1968. I didn’t try to stop it, and I did not report it. That was almost forty years ago, but some times the emotions are so raw, it seems like yesterday.
March 28th, 2006
I have received the following email from a disbled Vietnam vet who goes by 91Charlie (posted here with permission) in response to my recent article regarding the military’s sending “mentally ill” GIs back to Iraq:
Sir,
I am a disabled (mostly mental health issues) Vietnam vet. As medics our motto was “to conserve the fighting strength.” That always rankled, but that is the deal. The military is it’s own society/world with it’s own norms, ethics, goals, etc.
You seem to have a couple of blind spots that could only occur in a person who has not been a soldier in a war. And one that is very common in thinking of Mr. Bush’s wars these days.
Some mentally ill troops in combat (the distinction is entirely subjective) will get themselves and their cohorts killed. Therefore, the really screwed up guy will sometimes die from “friendly fire”, “suicide” or “OD”. And the death will be reported as a battle casualty. When I say that what is considered mentally ill is subjective I mean that the behaviors that endanger cohorts are the ones that are considered. Some dissociations, like the ones you noted, are functional ego defenses. Some of the troops with the highest degree of mental illness are ready made for killing folks. Being declared unfit for duty is a generator of shame and loss of self esteem.
You also seem to have only one side of the depersonalization deal in hand. I envision you shuddering at what troops call each other. The enemy can not be human. Your peers can not be human. Your buddies can’t really be human. Therefore, you yourself obviously can not human either. I notice these symptoms more and more in the civilian members of society in the USA. Depersonalization seems to be government/social policy these day. Human life here certainly does not have the intrinsic value that it seemed to be accorded when I was growing up after WWII. Cognitive dissonance as a societal norm, perhaps as the only way to succeed? “Retail Christians” on the rise? Maybe we will end up in the same detention camp and can talk about this more.
Mentally ill troops are being returned to Afghanistan, too. And as combatants in South America and elsewhere.
How different do you think it is:
sending mentally ill troops back in with the other mentally ill troops in combat
sending mentally ill patients back to their mentally ill families, and sick city streets?
Sincerely,
March 28th, 2006