This originally appeared on my political blog at https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2020/12/reflections-on-war.html.
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Growing up as a kid, my favourite Uncle was a man (Uncle Clive) who had a gentle sense of humour. Unlike the other rellies, he would never push a joke too far, whereas the others would not notice when something had gone from funny to upsetting. He also had been what was derided as “a choco” in Papua-New Guinea (PNG), at that time an Australian territory (two, technically), during World War Two - a chocolate soldier, or member of Australia’s Citizen Military Force (CMF), what is now generally referred to as our Reserve Army, which is the way a small standing force is enlarged during times of war.
He had a joke about his time in the CMF as well. After they finally got tin helmets (they were underequipped and undertrained, partly because they were initially allowed to go to PNG only for non-combat purposes - so they were meant to build roads, defences, etc, but they were not supposed to actively fight, but that decision was taken away by the Japanese invasion of PNG), he said they should have two, because when they went into combat, their face was buried so deeply in the mud their backside was what stuck up most, and it should have a tin helmet of its own.
He was, in my view, a lovely man, and we kids all loved him.
He also told me that they “didn’t always bring back prisoners” during their time fighting in the jungle.
It was a shock to try to reconcile this gentle - to us - man, now long dead, with war crimes, but there it was.
There was a lot to understand - depths beyond the pleasant presentation, depths which reflect the trauma of the war he and others were thrust into, unprepared, the savagery of war generally - and of that particular campaign.
On that, anyone who wants to understand those times should see the film “Kokoda”, and read Peter FitzSimons’ book “Kokoda”. It was jungle warfare, which compounded the horrors, as would later become clearer to the world in the first “television war”, what we call the Viêt Nám War, what the Vietnamese call the American War.
When I was working in Hà Nôi in the mid-90s, I had time (it was the only one of my overseas work trips where I ever had any significant time off - and the energy to do anything during that time off: in most cases, the clients considered us expensive and wanted to get every seconds of work they could, no matter how exhausting it was) to go to the museum of their fights against foreign invaders for independence (dating back to around 200 CE).
(Don’t underestimate the Communist [“Marxist-Leninist”] ideology of that fight: Viêt Nám is still a totalitarian state, and there were massive human rights abuses after the South fell. If the USA had not been blinded by ideology itself and restricted by what it was trying to achieve in post-war Europe, it could possibly have taken a different, minimalist path in Viêt Nám, and the scale of horrors would have been lesser. The support for Communists would also have been more easily undermined without the rallying effect of an external threat, and I consider it quite possible that USSR-backed Communism in that nation would have collapsed in the early 90s, as it did in so much of the USSR’s regime. Viêt Nám and China have a two millennia long history of conflict: if there had been no third party forcing the USSR aligned Viêt Nám to accept China providing weapons and other supplies, that historical enmity [IMO] is likely to have been a stronger ongoing factor than any ideological loyalty - and is, in fact, re-emerging as China is becoming more aggressive and South China Sea disputes flare - again. Those two nations fought a war in 1979 [with ongoing clashes until 1991]. [One of my uni lecturers who had come from Viêt Nám had just been approved for a one year sabbatical to study overseas: he joked with us that he had been called up to fight.)
A few years after that, I met two people who had been in Australia’s military in that war. One had been an orderly to a senior officer in the navy, and was transferred off the HMAS Hobart just before US aircraft attacked the ship and two US destroyers in a “friendly fire” incident that killed two and wounded seven Australians; the other had been in the SAS.
They, in common with all others I’ve known - including Uncle Clive - who served in active combat, thought “war is a terrible thing”.
At that time I had moved on to a boat, and at one stage the boat next to me was a lovely timber H28 owned by a man who had been in the British Eighth Army during World War Two. The quote in the previous paragraph is from him, but the sentiment is common.
The damage done by war to people lasts. There is a glib sentiment that the heroes are those who have died, but there is courage - another form of courage - required by those who survive, and continue living.
There can, of course, be physical injuries. In the 80s I used to travel on trains (before tickets got more expensive than travel by car), and on one trip I wound up talking to a man who had been a waist gunner on a Catalina, the flying boats that were used for long range patrols, night action and other purposes. My adoptive father had been training as a navigator in the RAAF when the war ended (I still have his air training manual), and he had actually just recently loaned me a book about the “Black Cats”, so we had a good chat. (Ironically, when I moved onto my boat, I wound up making friends with someone who used to be a hostie on a civilian-use Catalina - she also loved the plane, as it seems many who flew on them did.)
The reason I met him was that he was travelling in for the next round of medical treatment for injuries he had received while a waist gunner - more than four decades earlier.
For anyone who is prepared to face the horror, there is a great deal of information about those suffering from long term injuries - some of the information goes back to the US Civil War, when “modern” medical treatment was in its barbaric infancy, but there is also information available about the development of medical treatment during World Wars One and Two to deal with injuries - development which relied on those injured having yet another form of courage, and which led to medical benefits that the rest of us now share.
Benefits that could likely have been realised more effectively by a genuine commitment to medical research and development (R&D) in peacetime.
The other area of medical treatment I want to mention is that of managing psychological trauma.
Wartime traumas (there are a range of types) are not a new thing - for instance, Paul K Chappell wrote of how the ancient Greek stories (or at least one) describe grief and trauma, which shows how far back it goes - see also here. As a more recent example, many of the British survivors of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift in 1879 (fought as part of the British Empire’s invasion of the expansionist Zululand, and just after a major Zulu victory) had PTSD, and several took their lives. (The problem of trauma / PTSD may have become worse after wars started going for longer and included night combat - for more on this, see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)
The ex-navy man I mentioned was probably the first person I personally met who I knew to have PTSD, but rellies, friends and acquaintances who have fought in wars in recent decades have also had to have the courage of living with PTSD. Some have received help from other former servicemembers at the RSL - which is a terribly bigoted and conservative right wing organisation (attitudes which drive many former military people away) actively causing massive harm to members of minorities now, but it has that one redeeming grace. (There had been another organisation after WW2, but they lost the competition for members to the better connected conservative lot.)
There is more I know about the effects of PTSD (apart from my own lived experience of complex trauma - a lot of which is due to being on the receiving end of bigotry, and surviving that requires yet another form of courage), but this article is not the place for that.
What I do want to write about, is, as I've already mentioned, that all of these people have, when I talked to them about it, all of them said war is a terrible thing.
There is also a similar sentiment amongst some senior level officers. Even the racist, paternalistic and harsh slave owner Robert E Lee said “It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it”.
If I had ever stood successfully for Parliament, before voting on anything to do with war being considered, I would have sought the opinion of those who had fought before, and see if they thought the war being considered was justifiable or not.
And there are wars which are justifiable - for instance, World War Two, which was against the evils of the aggressive Nazi party of Germany and the expansionist factions in Japan.
The original limited conflict in Afghanistan, aimed at removing the violent extremists behind 9/11 (from the Wikipedia link: “the destruction of terrorist training camps and infrastructure within Afghanistan, the capture of _ leaders, and the cessation of terrorist activities in Afghanistan” [1] ) was, in my opinion, justified. There are, however, valid questions about what happened after that - and I consider the invasion of Iraq disastrous both to Iraq and the region, and the war in Afghanistan.
The invasion of Iraq was never justifiable as part of the response to 9/11, and I am still staggered that anyone could be duped by the obvious crud in most of the media. (Did the believers in obvious government lies do so out of blind loyalty, or an inability to think, or abdicating their responsibility to be mature adult humans? One US soldier refused deployment - on that, also see here and here.)
Ironically, the first Gulf War was to free Kuwait after the invasion by Iraq - and was by a coalition, after diplomatic efforts and economic sanctions, so also was probably justifiable.
It also stopped when Kuwait was liberated - which, had that been done in Korea in 1950 (see here), would have saved the better part of three million lives.
The Viêt Nám War also killed - not 500 nor 58,000 but 1.35 million.
The Vietnamese are people also: their losses also count.
(After my work trip to Hà Nôi, I once saw a photo from that war which showed one woman dead in the streets of Saigon who was the exact image of a friend from that trip - someone I had got so close to she wanted me to bring her daughter back to Australia for an education [which was impractical for many reasons, including her daughter’s obvious desire to stay with Mum]. That victim wasn’t Thuyên, but she was so alike I would have wondered about a family connection if they hadn’t been at opposite ends of that nation. I was also quite shaken.)
Something else that is associated with the Viêt Nám War is conscription, which gets us into the reasons people join the military.
I do not personally know anyone who joined the military to kill or be sadistic or commit war crimes.
Some, like Uncle Clive, joined out of a sense of duty - less fashionable after the 60s and 70s, but currently fashionable attitudes and opinions do not change the historical reality of those past motivations (even if such motivations were arguable - sometimes even at that time).
Currently fashionable cynicism also does not change the historical reality that, after prolonged peace, many people have forgotten they might have to fight and thus joined the military for the reasons such as the training it offers, to get a job, or to travel.
I actually consider it more likely that people will join for nefarious reasons now, owing to a combination of the militaries of the world being better at getting people to kill - after they found out how few actually did that during World War Two - and the desensitisation of violent war games, which is apparently not supported by evidence at the moment, but I think we need to hone in on the smaller percentages of people and we may find that there is at least a small group of people it does harm.
Wars, however, are not caused by mid and low level soldiers wanting to kill.
If we look at World War One, which in my opinion was largely attributable to Prussian-controlled Germany, the motivation ultimately goes back to the desire of people, and groups of people, to feel good about themselves.
With a single individual, that desire to feel good may lead to setting and achieving a goal such as obtaining a job qualification, developing a skill, or making a life change - or something less constructive if the individual has personal problems (there has been much written about psychopaths running companies, for instance - although, based on my experience, I consider that to be changing for the better over the last couple of decades: my immediate manager is the best I have ever worked for, and I am satisfied we not only have no psychopaths, but we have a generally good bunch of managers in the company I work for - I may disagree with their policy priorities/approaches, but they are decent people that such matters as policy differences can be discussed with).
With a group, that desire to feel good may lead to a campaign for recognition of their human rights. In larger groups - i.e., nations, it can lead to patriotism or nationalism. In other words, the desire to feel good may lead to a pride in one’s own nation - which, when it becomes blind, is a problem. Worse, when people are taught that nations are considered “good” if they are powerful or large, that leads to desire for empires (which is under-acknowledged but still present in the USA).
In modern Germany after its formation in the second half of the 1800s, such mob thinking allowed Prussia to take a lead and push Germany onto an expansionist path - the older nations had empires, so Germany wanted one too.
That, and the hubris of flawed military thinking, led to a situation where Germany thought it could knock out France and Russia, and wrongly thought that it was justifiable to do so.
But here’s the thing: apart from their military thinking being wrong, it was never justified - the space they wanted to live in was not necessary, and human rights are never at the expense of others’ rights (and those who feel they are losing rights because they are losing the unearned advantage [2] they have are, quite simply, wrong).
The damage done by colonial thinking - Germany's, and those who caused Germany to have such "aspirations" - is devastating, and goes well beyond World War One.
On that, what we are seeing in China now is a re-emergence after two centuries of oppression by the West - beginning with forced sale of opium, which is solely the West’s fault.
What we saw in Japan in the first half of the 20th Century was Japan emulating Western nations - which were all imperialist.
It is ironic that, had the West given Japan and Italy some acknowledgement and concessions in the peace negotiations after World War One, two of the major sources of World War Two - fascism in Italy and aggressive expansionism in Japan - may not have happened.
The utterly wrong “stab in the back” fantasy (which goes back to people wanting to feel good by denying unpleasant truths and personal and/or group failings) would still have existed in Germany (together with the equally wrong fantasy that they had not been militarily defeated “in the field” [3] ), and the effects of the Versailles Treaty (which included an embarrassment in some other nations at its excesses that I consider contributed to allowing Germany to re-establish its military might in the 30s [4] ) would also still have existed, however, so it is likely there would still have been a war, but it may not have been as severe - for instance, those arguing for peace in Japan may, unlike those arguing for peace in Germany in July 1914, have prevailed, thus avoiding widespread war in the Asia-Pacific, allowing greater concentration of force against Germany and thus possibly a quicker victory - although possibly denying the entry of the USA into open conflict, which may have lengthened the war.
Speculative history is uncertain at best (see Richard Ned Lebow’s “Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives!: A World without World War I”, which considers two possible paths had Archduke Ferdinand not been assassinated), but we should, in my opinion, consider such things so we can learn - just as the military uses “war games” to learn, partly from the past, but also to assess the possible impacts of current circumstances and changes.
Of course, the military doesn’t always do that learning well. Apart from Germany’s fanciful hubris before World War One, as I’ve already mentioned, if MacArthur and other senior officers hadn’t been so gung-ho and dismissive of China in Korea in 1950 and the conflict had ended when North Korea was pushed out of South Korea, millions of lives and a staggering level of devastation would have been avoided.
Generals are not always so militaristic: Eisenhower, for instance - was the second general to warn against the military-industrial complex, although the first general, Smedley Butler, didn’t use that term.
What is also important here is the attitudes of everyday people.
In the 1930s,a widespread survey (the “Peace Ballot”) in the UK showed most people wanted peace, including international organisations and arms reduction, but would support collaborative defence against an aggressor.
That was an enlightened result, an outcome that showed humanity at its best, but it must be understood that we have a shared responsibility to prevent war - and not just by commitment to the avoidance of violence, but by a positivist advocacy for decency, human rights, and the better advancement that occurs in peace.
In terms of how to act against unjustified war, I respectfully submit that it is worth considering the following:
- Good intentions can backfire - which is probably partially illustrated by the altered ending to the film “Charlie Wilson’s War”;
- People need to be able to think critically about
what they are being told, and thus, in my opinion, people - especially
school children - should be taught how to be resistant to advertising, and -
in this day and age - how to detect fake news on social media. That need
has always been there, although the form of delivery of message to analyse may
have changed - and there have been people who have showed that it is possible
to resist propaganda, even without teaching.
As illustrations of that, consider:
- I mentioned the ancient Greek stories: the fact that trauma and grief is mentioned and talked about is an early example of rejecting nationalistic propaganda;
- a few centuries later, Julius Caesar’s wars in Gaul (now France) were criticised by one Roman as an illegal expansionist war, although that may also have been part of the political twists of that time and place. Unfortunately, that era’s use of bread and circuses and “triumphs” (celebrations of successes at war) were early examples of the successes of propaganda. (Although the successful general awarded a “triumph” had a slave riding with him and reminding the general that he was mortal); and
- in recent centuries, Quakers and others led the campaigns against slavery (called an economic necessity by the businesses of that time - some of whom, particularly in the USA, continue to have limited thinking, although against paying decent wages nowadays). The film “Amazing Grace”, about the abolition of slavery in the United Kingdom, shows some MPs discussing the casualty tolls of the British war against US independence; - We need to remember the human vulnerabilities of
ourselves and others, especially because, as John F Kennedy put it, “We
enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought”.
This also includes the human tendency to put things off or otherwise avoid responsibility. That doesn’t actually lead to feeling good, and we need to be cognisant of that - we are more likely to feel good by taking careful, considered action.
On that, one of the reasons that Gandhi was so successful in striving for Indian independence is that he implemented a programme of “constructive action” - a programme which built India’s self-confidence and pride.
On this don’t blame those who are still being duped or don’t have power - yes, members of the military need to be held to account for their deeds and misdeeds, but calling them all “baby killers” is not going to achieve anything constructive.
On the other hand, it wouldn’t hurt members of the military to avoid being absolute ****s in their language and attitudes. They possibly think they’re using the equivalent of “locker room talk”, but that does not apply to killing; - Further to that last point, street marches do
not always work - Thatcher’s
regime in the United Kingdom showed that.
My experience of a concerning number of people who advocate for street marches is that they do so because it will make them feel good. Paul K Chappell (mentioned above, with links) argues that peace activists need to study their craft as carefully as the military studies war - and points out the amount of thinking that went into everything people like Gandhi, Dr Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela did.
If you write a letter, don’t do it to have an emotional dump, do it in a way that is likely to change the mind (or heart) of whoever you are writing to.
That’s a lesson I learned as a member of Amnesty International when I first joined, back in the 80s; - Going back to the military, be nuanced. We are
not going to go to “no more war” overnight, and it is likely - given the
very real complexities of the very real people involved on all (likely more
than just two) sides - that improvements may be incremental. Where you can,
don’t just jump straight to condemnation - acknowledge improvements, perhaps
along the lines of “Although it is good that you have X, it would, in my
opinion, be even better if we could have no war whatsoever”.
You’re more likely to get a positive reaction than by just full-on attacking someone.
On improvements, one of the things I consider should be noted is that, during World War Two, allied bombing was so hopelessly inaccurate (see here, here, and here), that they gave up on “precision” bombing and went to “area bombing” - ostensibly aiming to “de-house” workers, but in reality about killing workers and civilians as much as anything else.
Civilians are still dying from air bombing when they shouldn’t (in fact, civilians are still the main casualties), but there have been some improvement such as guided munitions; - Prevention is better than cure, and thus changing
attitudes - including making elected politicians in democracies know they will
be held to account by voters on matters of peace and war - is important.
Knowing people from other nations and groups can help - humanising is important.
However, economic ties do NOT prevent wars - just look at World War One; - Prevention includes implementing the
Responsibility to Protect (R2P).
Implementing R2P does NOT mean go straight to war, but it does mean things like commenting on atrocities when they occur, and implementing and enforcing more realistic sanctions earlier.
Finally, remember: preventing war is our shared responsibility, and successful prevention can be a way to feeling good about oneself.
I’m pretty worn out by writing this article, so I’m going to leave it that for now.
PS - it has taken a while to finish processing what I have been thinking about, so I wish to add a couple of extra points.
Firstly,
don't assume you are morally superior to those who do things like kill
prisoners while on patrol in a jungle. If you are a group of maybe half a
dozen, after having seen several of your friends killed over the
previous week or so - hearing them scream in pain as they die, and now
the six of you have, say, four prisoners - who have a duty to try
to escape (if you think of being a prisoner as a way to get out of
fighting, you do not understand either the laws of war or the motivation
of members of the military, and subsuming such understanding to your
own ethics - or fear), at which point they become combatants again - to
guard while also making sure you stay undetected.
What other options
are there? Well, perhaps tie them up - including gagging them so they
cannot call to their comrades and warn where you are. That, of course,
means they will die, and probably quite slowly, as trying to find people
in a dense jungle is extremely difficult.
I have no solutions or good alternatives to suggest for that.
You
do, however, have the right to question the morality of those who
blatantly kill civilians - as done by the Mongols when expanding their
empire in the 1200s and 1300s, as done by the ancient Romans, as done by
many others since - including Germans and Japanese throughout Word War
Two. Some of the photos of what they did, to women prisoners in
particular, are extremely disturbing - and no-one has been game to take
photos of what they did to babies.
That reminds me that there were
photos of US soldiers committing atrocities at My Lai, but the
photographer thought there was no chance they would ever be published,
so he - stupidly - destroyed them.
That massacre is a good point to raise the issue that some soldiers have always stood up to such illegal orders - Hugh Thompson
and other US soldiers at My Lai, the Australian pilots in the second
Gulf War who pulled out of an air attack the yank brass had ordered
because the target was beside a school, the yanks who refused to go on
patrol with some Australian SAS troopers because the troopers
were committing war crimes against civilians, and some German soldiers
(including members of the Nazi party) during World War Two - some of
whom were declared "Righteous Amongst the Nations" (see here, here, here, and here, for example).
Don't judge unless you have done at least some basic study into what it was like to be in a situation. Human rights cannot be addressed with a schoolyard mentality - this is not about doing something to be popular, and, while a lot of it is driven by wanting to feel good (and sadly interpreted with a schoolyard type mentality), it is too important for that: as Paul K Chappell wrote (see above), you must study peace. Other commented about the need to do such study in relation to human rights.
Secondly, I want to make it clear that I consider Uncle Clive to be, overall, a decent person. Yes, he did some unethical / immoral things in war - beyond the inherently unethical/immoral actions of killing other than in direct defence of the vulnerable (e.g., of a gunman actively murdering others) (this is where all of us have a duty to prevent war by being immune to jingoistic fervour, and be standing up for addressing evil of the type that falls under the R2P umbrella): I consider he atoned for that later, and he was well aware of the wrongness, and experienced remorse - I haven't tried to put all our interactions and talks into this article.PPS - but then again, there's this: https://benferencz.org/articles/2010-present/ben-ferencz-in-boca-raton/
[1] I don’t give violent extremist organisations publicity, so refuse to name them, something I can do because I am not a primary news source. I also refuse to give them the positive feedback of referring to them as t_, as that is what they want - to cause not just fear, but crippling terror.
[2] Often referred to by the at times times inappropriate and often unhelpful academic term “privilege”
[3] One US general who seemed to me to be gung-ho claimed the war should have been continued until Germany was utterly defeated. It is easy to say “yes, that could have some validity”, but the unnecessary continuation of that costly war, and what could be perceived as a deliberate humiliation, might have triggered equally destructive reactions of resentment, desire for vengeance / “redemption”, and so forth.
[4] How the world could have been different if Germany’s arms build-up has been limited or curtailed! WW2 may still have happened, possibly earlier, but may have been less devastating as Germany had not prepared as thoroughly.
