As I'm writing this, Iraqi video broadcast on Al-Jeezera indicates that not only have the Iraqis captured American soldiers, but they have executed many of them. It's an eerie feeling, the one I have right now. On the one hand, if I had to choose a way to die, I might prefer a gunshot to the head rather than a helicopter collision, where at least one has the ability to make peace with the fact that your life is ending, rather than laying dismembered on some godforsaken desert. Macabre pragmatism aside, I cannot shake a subtle rage. War is certainly cruel, but the Geneva Convention, of which Iraq is in blatant violation (if the reports are accurate), emerged after the mass extermination of World War II. Summary executions are the building blocks for genocide; once individual units start killing unarmed people. be they civilian or military, the stage is set for unrelenting murder.
Recent reports bring to memory the vicious scenes from Mogadishu, Somalia, when angry mobs dragged the bodies of dead U.S. soldiers through the streets after an attempt to kidnap a Somali warlord ignited urban street combat. I think America finds these kinds of images most disturbing because they represent a sort of primitive chaos. I use the word primitive deliberately, because rightly or wrongly, the Western world views civilization as progressive in its desire to escape such actions. We believe organized violence should be as professionalized as possible. Acts of police brutality, such as the 1992 Rodney King beating, alarm us greatly.
Moreover, the average American, particularly of the middle and upper classes that govern our country's political structure, rarely sees death face to face. How many of us faint at the mere sight of blood? Many Americans will no doubt reflect the fury they feel in the upcoming days. Their anger, and probably my own as well, will increase when those most vehemently opposed to this war, who call our government greedy mercenaries out to kill for oil, say that those soldiers got what they deserved.
What episodes like these illustrate is that there is a vast chasm that separates the rich and prosperous Western world from the second and third world countries that surround it. That cultural division is not religion. As much as suicide bombing cut a large red swath through Islam and its followers, I don't think it's a difference of religion that inspires such acts of cruelty. Christianity certainly has not spared the West from cultural viciousness. Instead, the gap exists in this manner: The West has spent so many decades distancing itself from violence that it has forgotten how ruthless humanity has always been.
This is a relatively new phenomenon. Lynchings used to occur regularly in this country. A lynching, by the way, often entailed watching a corpse burn in the street and taking teeth and fingernails as souvenirs. Although violent video games and movies bring violence into constant visibility, their effect is not the same. Seeing even the bloodiest of films, like Saving Private Ryan, or the gruesome spectacle of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., does not compare to seeing something in the face.
Prosperity has brought America a certain level of distance from such realism, something our anti-war protests reflect. I have heard so many people declare how horrid it is that the United States would kill in the name of war. A lot point to the hunger and poverty that war could create in Iraq and say that our war does more harm to the Iraqi people than anything else. I respect these sentiments very much. Profound distaste for death and suffering is not just admirable, it represents the best of what humanity is capable.
When I was a child, I remember crying all the time whenever I saw something terrible. I felt so much empathy towards anyone feeling sad. My mom used to sing "You are my Sunshine" to me, and I broke down in tears when I was old enough to understand the second verse, the one that ends "please don't take my sunshine away."
I hope that I haven't lost that innocence. I hope I never lose it. But since my childhood, and its safe schools and loving home environment, my eyes and ears have opened. I realized that I was very, very lucky. I realized that some of my friends didn't have the same childhood of tranquility. Their fathers hit them, some with fists, some with frying pans. Their boyfriends had hit them, and, worse, had raped them. I learned a very, very hard lesson during my adolescence: Innocence has its price.
Those opposed to the war with Iraq are welcome to feel that violence can never have good connotations (furthermore, those opposed because they think it will wreck global peace and increase terrorism can stand on what they believe is the most rational conclusion to this conflict). There is no denying that left unmolested, Saddam Hussein will forever deny the Iraqi people the innocence that the Western world has the luxury of having. Concerns over hunger and suffering are very important, but what about comfort and prosperity?
Without these things the Middle East will always be at war. The conflict between Sunni and Shi'a Muslim, between Muslim and Jew or between any other of the ethnic groups in the region will never end without the removal of vicious autocracies.
I repeat: It will never end. Ever.
We talk in this country about revolution being something a people should do on its own. I wish to bring attention to the Kurdish population. During their last attempt at revolt in Iraq, after the U.S. encouraged them to revolt and then turned its back in cowardice in 1991, 100,000 Kurds lost their lives. It takes a generation to replace such losses and try again. The Kurds are spread across many countries, however. Each attempt at independence has been crushed by Syria, by Turkey and by Iran. Without violence, they will never have the safety of the West. Parts of Africa and Asia are suffering through the same tribal warfare as they did a millennium ago. Only the weapons have changed.
Violence is therefore necessary until the majority of nations enjoy the prosperity and comfort of the West. War is necessary. America can not simply close its eyes and act like a little child.
Nick Christie is a Trinity senior. His column appears every other Monday.
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