Pretty Dead Things

--ISIS and Iraq, 
Arend Van Dam

The image is re-presentation,
which is to say ultimately resurrection, and, as we know,
the intelligible is reputed antipathetic to lived experience

*   *   *

 The type of consciousness the photograph involves
is indeed truly unprecedented,
since it establishes not a consciousness
of the being-there of the thing…
but an awareness of its having-been-there.
What we have is a new space-time category:
spatial immediacy and temporal anteriority,
the photograph being an illogical conjunction
between the here-now and the there-then. 
--Rhetoric of the Image, Roland Barthes

  Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just 
--King Lear, Shakespeare  

Wars and elections are both too big and too small
to matter in the long run.
The daily work - that goes on, it adds up
 --Animal Dreams, 
Barbara Kingsolver
_______________________

ISIS is looking like a one-trick pony, with its latest journo beheading. But sometimes, one good move is all you need. The Afghan national game is Buzkashi, after all, in which a beheaded and be-hooved goat is dragged roughly around the field of play, so it seems playing with dead things can be fun.

The West continues its fascinated horror at these actions, committed even -- especially -- in the face of pathetic begging on behalf of the murdered and their families. Why pretend to care? When the rubber meets the road, the question for most is, "What of me and mine?" and IS is not threatening Kansas, after all.

This is reasonable, as we are neither giants nor martyrs. A martyr would leave his actual family in a lurch, in the name of pursuing the salvation of the universal Family -- the prerogative of very few.

In his book, War, Sebastian Junger mentions the chimpanzees who do not seek to aid their fellows in the face of a threat, but invariably run away from danger in order to save themselves. This self-preservation behavior comports with evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins' theory of the "Selfish Gene", that lives on to fight another day.

For those peoples not burdened by a martyrish savior, the concept of being one's brother's keeper may not have much relevance in the race for survival. But what about those people who do understand the concept of service and martyrdom?

In China recently, members of a forbidden proto-Christian sect bludgeoned a 38-year-old woman to death in a McDonald's restaurant for refusing to give them her contact information. The more remarkable thing, however, is that the murder occurred before the watching eyes of others in the establishment, who were too busy documenting the event on their smartphones to intervene. For those who uploaded their photos to the cloud, it must have been a stellar "capture".

Similarly, the murderous members of the Islamic State (IS) members are mastering the art of social networking, being sure to publicize their gory work on the various platforms, disseminating their handiwork in real time.

A recent NYT piece ("Losing Our Touch") asks if we have entered an age of “excarnation,” where we focus on the body in increasingly disembodied ways "For if incarnation is the image become flesh, excarnation is flesh become image. Incarnation invests flesh; excarnation divests it." And what if, through reliance on the intermediary of the transmitted image, we do lose our sense of touch? Does that equate with losing our compassion?

What is the effect of instantaneous documentation on our tolerance reaction? Will witnessing and documenting preempt the impulse to act?

Chimpanzees, smartphones and brutality ... do you see any nexus here?

Strawberry Fields Forever

 We ain't gon' do shit about it. Close it up.
Throw it back in the trunk. Everybody go home.
Have some pumpkin pie, warm apple cider... 
--American Gangster (2007)
______________________

Rethinking Restrepo, Pt. I:

Last night Ranger couldn't sleep for incursive thoughts of the film "Restrepo" which featured the travails of an Army Airborne Infantry unit stuck out on an Afghan hillside with an unknown mission in the Korengal Valley.

The official cover story is that the Outpost was intercepting anti-government forces infiltrating across the Pakistan border, but the truth seems shadier.

It was clear that the people of the Korengal had no love for the United States' troops and less for the alleged Afghan National Government. Korengal's documentarian, Sebastian Junger, declared the Korengal "the most dangerous place in the world." But it was this assertion which jolted Ranger awake.

Being a Cleveland boy, he wondered about his foundering home city. Only a fool would walk the perimeter of an inner city neighborhood there after nightfall. And further, what of the rest of the Rust Belt, or even our nation's capitol? None safety zones.

The kill rate of our urban metro areas exceeds that of the Korengal occupied by U.S. troops any day of the week. The kills in Detroit enjoy a conviction rate of only 10%, but Detroit's homicide rate and dismal prosecution record is not the subject for any documentary Ranger knows of.  This is not to detract from Junger's and Hetherington's superb efforts, but who speaks for the means streets of America?

During the panel discussion following the film, a member of the 26th Mobile Amphibious Warfare unit took exception with other panel members who lauded the" great beauty" of Afghanistan. He said, "I must've missed that," but that he did remember the blood red fields of poppies in the South. A RAW reader recently sent photos of Marines guarding those fields in Afghanistan (that nation's moneymaker, while the U.S. continues its futile "War on Drugs.")

How much of the world's heroin originated in Afghanistan while our troops protected the crops? How many inner city denizens were imprisoned or died surrounded Afghanistan's bounty, being protected by our soldier. It is a riddle wrapped in an enigma.

As an old guy who once wore an Airborne patch on his right sleeve, Ranger would like to think that his country's wars have (had) real meaning, but the reality belies the belief.

NEXT: Rethinking Restrepo II: PTSD with tab.

Which Way is the Front Line From Here?

--WSJ Breakfast Briefing w/ 
Sebastian Junger

 Third boxcar, midnight train
Destination...Bangor, Maine.
Old worn out suits and shoes,
I don't pay no union dues 
 --King of the Road,
 Roger Miller
___________________

"Happy Birthday!" cried the four old grandparents as
Charlie came into their room early the next morning.

"Charlie smiled nervously and sat down on the edge
of the bed. He was holding his present, his only present,
very carefully in his two hands.
WONKA'S WHIPPLE- SCRUMPTIOUS 
FUDGEMALLOW DELIGHT, it said on the wrapper."
--Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
Roald Dahl
___________________

[Happy Birthday, to me.]

Mr. Junger has created a moving homage to his friend and fellow film maker, Tim Hetherington, in his Which Way is the Front Line From Here? screened yesterday at the third annual FSU Student Veteran Film Festival.

I see his film Restrepo differently from Ranger, however. The  documentarian's hand was subdued but quite visible in scenes like that of the flummoxed village elder before a Capri Sun drink packet; the frustration of the Captain with the tribal elders he felt were misleading him, and the relentless view into the soldier's faces as they appeared many leagues away from the camera's lens. As Junger said yesterday, the role of the film maker is not to tell you what to think, but rather, what to think about.

The relationship of Mr. Hetherington and Mr. Junger to the wars they covered is complicated, as they say. Mr. Junger's book War covers some of this ground. He looks at war from a sociological viewpoint, and seems most fascinated by the connections between soldiers and the even finer interstitial zones therein. He explained why soldiers miss war in an NPR interview, arguing that understanding is key to their successful reintegration into society.

Hetherington, who died from a mortar round while covering events in Libya in 2011, shared Mr. Junger's interest in the group dynamics of the men who carry out the war policies of their nation or tribal affiliations. In one outtake from the film, Restrepo, Hetherington had labeled that rocky outpost stripped of any civilizing luxuries as a "Man Eden", and we hear a voice over saying that regardless of a man's status or achievements off of the COP, if he's not shoveling sand into a HESCO, he's nothing. There is no "man-caving" to compare to the adrenaline of battle.

While Junger admits this, he said he decided to stop covering war within the hour of hearing of Tim's death. He says that he and Hetherington understood that by the act of documenting these tragedies, they were also playing a part in them. Though both had a goal of understanding how and why men commit these atrocities, they realized that they were at once outside of the action and yet also somehow complicit.

Perhaps Junger understood that though there would always be a new conflict to record, it would simply be a reiteration of the same actions in a new town, with men wearing different uniforms and perhaps toting different weapons; the urge to war always emanated from the same impulses, the bonds between the soldiers would remain. His work will continue now off the front lines.

In recognition of the freelance journalists who will continue the field work -- often without any sponsorship due to the extreme cutbacks in foreign news bureaus -- he has launched the non-profit  Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues (RISC) to help train reporters gratis in basic life-saving procedures. He formed it in response to Hetherington's death, which might have been prevented had someone in his group known basic triage procedure.

Junger's next project involves a cross-country tour of the United States following railroad lines which he took with a couple of ex-soldiers. They lived off the land and gathered perspectives from individuals encountered along the way vis-a vis war.

We wish him luck in his continued endeavors to reveal and heal fractured peoples.

Letter to Mr. Junger

{Yesterday we were pleased to meet director Sebastian Junger at a local screening in the 2013 Veterans Film Festival of his most recent film, Which Way is the Front Line From Here?, an homage to war documantarian Tim Hetherington, his friend and co-director of the award-winning film, Restrepo.

Below is Ranger's open letter to Mr. Junger; I will post my impressions following. --L.}
___________________

Dear Mr, Junger,

Since military matters intersect with political considerations, I wish to clarify my comment yesterday that most documentaries and military coverage discusses the "how" of our wars, but seldom the "why".

Let's start with my war. As I write this I am wearing underwear made in Communist Vietnam, and we are happy with this arrangement. In that war, U.S. Special Forces fought and died protecting the populace from Communist forces. After the battles, the U.S. usually pulled up stakes and the deaths were meaningless. Examples abound, but Lang Vei and Hamburger Hill come to mind. 58,000 of us are still dead.

In Oct '83, 240+ died the Beirut bombing and we pulled up our skirts and left the AO. We did the same after the Day of the Rangers in Mogadishu.

We fought Gulf War I and Kuwait is STILL not a democratic nation. We fought in Iraq an the WOT and what was accomplished of long-term significance or of benefit to the American people?

All those killed are still dead and the wounded are still suffering. For what? Now to Restrepo.

The fights in Korengal, Waygul, Wanat, et. al. were not militarily logical nor did we introduce democracy or anything of value to the Afghan people, nor did America benefit in any appreciable manner. The entire WOT was an emotional response to a senseless act of violence. As such, the U.S. reacted and relied on violence, as did those attacking us. What did the killing in Afghanistan accomplish?

The film festival is a wonderful idea and your work is ideal for such a venue, but it cannot be a venture carried out by wrapping ourselves in the flag and pretending that our violence is somehow different from their violence. We older soldiers must ask, "Why"?

Why is a democratic humanistic-based philosophy so degraded that our policy is to always rely on military power even when there are no meaningful military objectives attainable.

Therein lies the rub.

--Jim H.