Urinating on Sanctimony

Abu Gharib: Now that was bad press. Those guys were still alive.

sanc·ti·mo·ni·ous

   [sangk-tuh-moh-nee-uhs] Show IPA

adjective

1.

making a hypocritical show of religious devotion, piety,righteousness, etc.: They resented his sanctimoniouscomments on immorality in America.

2.

Obsolete . holy; sacred.

I have never been to war.

I have never, most especially been to an asymmetrical war, like Viet Nam, where one side has a vast superiority of firepower and numbers, which drives the other side to stealth and blind sided hits, and, in the current war in Afghanistan, to remotely triggered explosive devices, so as a soldier you are hit without ever having seen your enemy.

The Taliban, no doubt, feels the same way about drone attacks as our troops feel about IEP's.

I can only imagine, if you are face to face with your enemy, it is a slightly different experience than our current modes of guerrilla war. But I am just guessing.

But I do not have to guess about some things.

We have now embarked on a course of endless war. The war on terrorism, Bush called it.

This is a whole new concept. As Carver said about the war on drugs, in The Wire, "You can't even call this war. Wars end."

But we are now engaged in endless war, against an indistinct enemy, whose motives are not clear and whose objectives even less, other than to kill our soldiers.

And who are our soldiers?

There may have been some who enlisted like Pat Tighlman, after 9/11, to "fight" the "terrorists."

But that was a decade ago. What has evolved now is our army is, in Bob Dylan's words from the 1960's, "Join the army, if you fail."

Which is not to say our arm forces are comprised of losers. But, think of it this way, what percentage of our arm forces would be doing this work if they had a better way of earning a living?

I think I heard your answer. Less than 10%, and after one tour, if they had the money, most soldiers would never return.

There is nothing new about mercenaries. The British hired them to fight American colonists, who were no match for their military training and firepower. But the colonists won because they got aid from the French, because John Adams and Franklin and Jefferson were able to play the geopolitical game. And they won, because the colonists were still going to be in America, when the hired guns had gone home.

Taliban, according to a friend who returned from Afghanistan, have a lovely technique of arriving at a school for girl and beheading the teacher in front of his 8 year old students, as a way of expressing the Taliban disapproval of educating women.

American marines, learning this, one might imagine, would not react dispassionately.

But we call the current armed forces, "Professional." Which is a gussied up way of saying they are doing it for the money, and they are well trained and well equipped.

But what are their motivations, that is, what is going on in their minds?

The current army, navy and marine "professionals" (aka mercenaries) must know what they are doing is more like what the police do. They can try to kill "bad guys," i.e. people who mean to do violence, but they must have no illusions they can do any more to prevent the next attack than a policeman can do to prevent the next bank robbery, mugging or rape.

Which brings me to the word "sanctimony," which is what we saw from Hiliary Clinton, the head of the Marine Corps, Leon Panetta, and various senators and congressmen, all of whom saw videos of marines urinating on dead Taliban as a marketing disaster.

Oh, very bad marines.

You can kill people, but you cannot urinate on them.

Urinating on dead bodies is a statement. We here up in the higher echelons of the government are the only people allowed to make statements.

You just get to kill people.

When you start making statements, that's immoral, hideous, un American and very bad press.

You don't have to have been to war to understand how those marines must have felt. You only have to have watched The Wire, to understand the gap between the troops in the trenches and the brass who are safe and warm in their wood paneled offices.

Of course, the Obama administration is no worse in this respect than the Bush administration. As bureaucrats, they have no choice but to say the expected words and to get all sanctimonious, to sustain the fantasy we are killing people in Afghanistan to "kill the bad guys," who would otherwise get on jets and kill Americans here in the USA.

As if the Taliban cannot afford to buy a few tickets to New York.

Better to fight them over there than over here.

Isn't that just so American? Dream up some catchy phrase that cannot hold up to scrutiny and send your sons and daughters to die for it.

Actually, don't send your sons and daughters. Send the sons and daughters of the people whose sons and daughters cannot find a better job than killing people in Afghanistan.