The
force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
Dylan Thomas
THE GOOD SOLDIER AND THE CONVENTIONS OF WAR
I’ve
always been mystified – well, if the truth be told,
discombobulated -- by the conventions of war, the almost
elegant rules of the game that pretend to put a humane face
on what is an incorrigibly savage, dehumanizing enterprise.
Where every war produces soldiers who rape, abuse drugs
and alcohol, and suffer from Post Dramatic Stress Disorder,
I’ve often wondered what kind of soldier I’d
make, and conclude unofficially the best, officially the
worst. Here’s why.
Take the soldier who has been trained to kill, whose duty
it is to kill, but finds himself in a combat situation where
he fails in his primary task: he only wounds the enemy.
If the rules of the game weren't choking his trigger finger
and the coast were clear, this “good soldier”
would matter-of-factly approach the wounded combatant and
without blinking an eye finish him off and return to his
work. But he is not allowed to get the job done, for if
he does, it is at the risk of being either stripped of his
rank or court-martialed.
If I were this soldier, not particularly beholding to someone
who only seconds ago wanted to kill me, I would be wondering
whose directives are these anyway? Why should I not be permitted
to complete the task for which I have been trained: kill
the enemy who would just as soon kill me? Instead, at the
behest of the rules of the game, I am first of all asked
to back off from my mission, and then provide the wounded
soldier medical assistance until his rehabilitation is complete.
If a truce is signed, the enemy soldier will be returned
home where, now healthy, he can rejoin his unit and live
to fight another day, and perhaps even kill me—this
same soldier whom I could have killed right then and there.
For the sake of some desk-bound general's extravagant notions
of honour and probity, what the tidy conventions of war
demand of the soldier boggle the mind in the context of
lethal conflict. Show me the justice and integrity of the
man, who, bursting with ambition, thinks nothing of risking
the lives of thousands of soldiers to secure a territory
that will add to his global ranking and prestige and/or
make him more attractive to a woman who isn’t sure
about him.
There once was a time when wars were fought honestly, that
is out of grim necessity, in the absence of ulterior motive.
In fighting over the necessities of life, one tribe would
attempt to eliminate the other by whatever means or cunning
could be summoned, including the surprise attack in the
dead of night where as many men, women, and children as
possible were killed. If we could time-travel a contemporary
journalist to those battlegrounds of yore, it would be impossible
to describe the above without reference to genocide, holocaust,
or pogrom.
In the modern era, even though necessity is only rarely
a provocation to war, man, hostage to his innate bellicosity,
continues to act upon his lust for territory and prestige,
but he's now obliged to dress up his naked ambition since
he has signed on to a world order that values the appearance
of civility more than it abhors the slaughter and carnage
that characterize every war. Kinder and gentler than his
barbaric antecedents, he now wears a suit and tie and listens
to a favourite music while studying maps of the various
regions under his conflagration.
And I, the good soldier, am expected to march to the drumbeat
of those ennobling lies and deceits?
If my Prime Minister requires of me to put my life on the
line in combat for the sake of his, at worst, unwholesome
ambition, at best, a noble cause, the one motto that I’ll
be beholding to is: all is fair in war.
Besides having an interest in preserving my one and only
life—every soldier’s forbidden conceit—don't
I, a pawn in a game I don’t really understand, surely
owe it to myself to annihilate the enemy by any means necessary?
Feel free to call it by whatever term that pleases as you
tune into the first of your three Sunday football games
while my gluteals are out there in the line of fire, but
if a job well done translates into the unthinkable, so be
it; and if torture translates into reduced personal or national
risk, again, so be it. No apologies. And if you are revolted
by these frightfully easy conclusions and consequences,
especially as they concern civilians and collateral damage,
may the ugly and horrific truth of all wars provide the
incentive to interdict them forever.
In the heart and imagination of every soldier lies the total
capitulation of the enemy by any means necessary so he can
finally return home to family, friends and fishing rod.
This is the discomfiting, defogged truth of war, that gets
a hearing thanks to the many who have sacrificed their lives
for cause of freedom.
The time has come to speak what remains unspoken in every
war; that there isn’t a soldier alive who wants to
save the life of an enemy who wants him dead.
Those of you who have imposed the tidy conventions of war
on the fighting men and women of the world, if there is
punishment equal to your unholy righteousness and ambition,
it condemns you to explain to parents why their sons and
daughters weren't allowed to finish the task for which they
were trained, and soldiers died as a consequence.
