Do Not Imagine You Can Abdicate
“And always, they would ask you with an emotion whose intensity would shock you to please tell it, because they really did have the feeling that it wasn’t being told for them, that they were going through all of this and that somehow no one back in the World knew about it.”
– Michael Herr, Dispatches
As Amanda discussed in her recent post, there is something really spectacular about our ability to ignore what is going on around us. Whether it means walking past a homeless person and paying no mind, or simply riding the subway two stops without looking up from our BlackBerries, it is rather remarkable how easy it is to move through life without seeing the world around us, never mind thinking about it.
I have become increasingly aware of this over the course of the past two years as a result of studying the U.S. military (bias alert: this post will primarily comment on the American case). The U.S. is a country of 310 million people, less than one percent of whom serve in our armed forces. The asymmetry is significant, and nowhere is it more visible than in dissociated ambivalence the American public displays towards the wars our country is fighting, primarily in Afghanistan and Iraq. While reading the end of Herr’s wonderful and gut-wrenching Vietnam memoir “Dispatches” yesterday, I found myself understanding these wars as my generation’s Vietnam, complete with a disaffected American citizenry and a generation of wounded warriors who live in our country’s shadows. To call these wars just a little bit of history repeating would result in too many false analogies, but by merit of the wealth of qualitative information available to us, we have the ability to prevent some of history’s saddest tragedies, at least here at home.
In future posts on this blog, I will cover some of the current debate about the war’s strategy and outcomes. But before I approach any discussion of the war’s leitmotif, I want to ask readers a few simple questions: what do you know about the war? When is the last time you read a story about the war’s trajectory, or those who fight it? Have you heard of Robert Kelly, or Corey Owens?
Since ISAF forces include troops from forty seven countries, the chances are high that your home country contributes to this war effort, if not others. In most Western countries, we enjoy unimaginable peace and prosperity. JFK said, “Of those to whom much is given, much is required.” I won’t say we have a civic or a moral obligation to care about these wars and our troops, but more, a human imperative to remain deliberately engaged. The degree to which this human imperative asks us to look up, to try to understand one another’s lives, it feels perhaps most acute with respect to the most unknowable of things to those of us privileged enough to have lived our entire lives in peace: what does it mean to be at war?
As Thomas Ricks mentioned in The Cable, former U.S. congressman Ike Skelton said “those who protect us are psychologically divorced from those who are being protected.” I agree. I’d like to frame my plea for engagement around three key aspects:
1. Politics and Money. The war matters in determining our national interest. Clausewitz called war “politics by other means,” and these wars are a political mechanism through which our national interest is being shaped and defined. As citizens, we don’t have to agree with what our government does to see the merit of learning about it and indeed, even within the armed forces, there is significant dissent about the war’s principle and practice. The war consumes a huge amount of our resources- both human and fiscal- and if we as citizens are passive in our engagement about such a substantial policy arena, we risk electing to maintain what I’ll call unmanufactured consent (although I’m not a huge Chomsky fan).
2. Global Relevance and the Future. The war matters because it is the platform on which we are defining what it means to live in a global era. Major things are changing in the world. The ways in which countries will conduct relations with one another, and the ways in which individuals interact with other individuals and countries, are shifting and evolving. The implications of this war (and, it merits saying, all war) on the future not just of war, but also of things like aid, development, and international relations in general, will be significant.
3. Common Humanity. The war matters most of all because people are fighting and dying. When American troops come home, they have lived lives civilians don’t understand and we risk treating them like aliens. Our troops struggle overwhelmingly with PTSD and other invisible scars, and bearing witness to what they experience might enable us to help ease their transition home. Particularly in an age of increased interconnection, we also have unprecedented opportunities to learn about others implicated in war- Afghan women and Iraqi men, for example, who are also fighting and also dying. Choosing to seek or consume information about people and war shifts the focus to individuals, stressing nationality less and humanity more.
We don’t have to fight in or live at war to build compassion and at least a sense of context. Thanks to new forms of media and technology, the information is readily available, if only we look for it. It turns out our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and Seabees are already telling us their stories, giving us every possible opportunity to understand what their lives are like. And while this post has mostly focused on our chance to understand the lives of our troops, the same information is available about civilians residing in war zones around the world. The next time you see a man or a woman in uniform, ask yourself the same sort of questions you would ask if you took a moment to pause and really think about the homeless person you saw walking home in Oxford: how did they get here? Where have they been and what have they seen, or done, and why? Who are they and what can they teach us?
These are human questions, the kind I hope we ask of those around us with increasing regularity. War, as the commander of U.S. Central Command General James Mattis said, is a human endeavor (reflecting war’s characterization in the Marine Corps’ capstone doctrine as “one of the most demanding and trying of human endeavors.”). More simply, we civilians struggle to make sense of what it means to go to war, and luckily for us, we likely won’t be asked to. But there are areas of commonality like shaving and eating, traveling and sleeping that may look a little different at war, but that form the basis of our everyday lives at home. Seeing how our troops, or the Afghan or Iraqi people, do the same things that we do enables us to start a dialogue, which, in these days of major global change, can only be a good thing.
For some enlightenment on the American case, below is a short list of suggestions for places to turn for just a little context. I will make many further suggestions in future posts, but these offer a starting point. My big point is that we cannot afford to abdicate, and that this information is out there. It exists everywhere. Just look for it, and let these human stories move you.
Media
The entire “At War” and “Home Fires” series on the New York Times- recent favorites include this, this and this.
Relevant series on “The Big Picture.” Recent Afghanistan sets include December and February.
YouTube. There is a treasure trove of footage of soldiers undertaking their work- fighting, building, and, especially relatable, playing. (This is one of the most interesting ways to get a sense of what it means to be at war: search for anything and check it out). The Faces of the Fallen project at the Washington Post.
There are great pieces on Frontline covering the war.
Literature
One Bullet Away, Nathaniel Fick
The Forever War, Dexter Filkins
Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War, Matt Gallagher
Every Man in This Village is a Liar, Megan Stack
War, Sebastian Junger
Film
The Battle for Marjah, HBO
Restrepo
The War Tapes
Gunner Palace
War Photographer
Control Room
The Global Breakfast Club 
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