By Martin Samuel (THE TIMES, 14/02/06):
SO WHAT DID you think happens in a war? What did you think happens when you take a group of young men, school them in violence and the need to obey without question orders to behave in an aggressive manner, and then place them in a situation in which confrontation, tension and a threat to personal safety is ever-present; a quarrel in which their physical superiority is so great that they know, by using violence, they can always win.
The rules of engagement, the oxymoronic concept of an ethical war, is the sugar to sweeten the pill, the subtle way the brutal reality of invasion, subjugation and death is sold back home and in recruitment campaigns. While we sleep tight and with clear consciences over what is done in our name, the Iraqis have different words for what our leaders call collateral damage. Mum. Dad. Junior.
Yesterday’s bulletins led on concerns over reaction in the Muslim world to video evidence of British soldiers administering savage beatings after a riot in Basra, but it is fear of a loss of faith within our home environment that remains our first anxiety. This is why, at these moments, forces are always mobilised to reassure us glibly that brutality is the work of a handful of bad apples and the remaining servicemen are heroes. Some may be. Acts of sacrifice and bravery are common. Yet, unquestioning and unquestionable, the public is told that our Armed Forces in their entirety and all they stand for represents the best of British.
In this way, a sequence of film that should open a debate is instead used to close one. There is a party line, regardless of political empathy, that suggests that to dwell too long on the subject of state-sponsored violence is part of the problem. “British soldiers were braced for a violent backlash . . .” (Daily Mail), “Army on alert for backlash . . .” (The Times), “Army fear reprisals . . .” (The Guardian). The inference is plain: to make too much of these rogue individuals puts heroic comrades at risk.
Here is an alternative theory. The repeated assertion that the best, bravest and most admirable citizens are those that seek employment in which part of the job is to maim and kill an enemy not of ones choosing is perhaps the single most harmful falsehood in Western civilisation, and until it is rejected will continue to keep mankind in an unending state of turmoil and misery.
The increasingly desperate Gordon Brown chose yesterday, of all days, to unveil a plan that peddles the tired old association of militarism and self-restraint, with an expansion of the school cadets scheme. Against the backdrop of British soldiers demonstrating the lack of control that army life is supposed to eradicate, Mr Brown announced he wanted tens of thousands of state school pupils to volunteer for uniformed training in the Army, Navy or Air Force, to teach discipline and national pride. The focus for his trial project, naturally, will be deprived areas. It would be risible as a suggestion from a retired colonel on The Daily Telegraph’s letters page; from a future prime minister it is terrifying. At least Tony Blair’s right-wing tendencies had an air of sincerity. Mr Brown appears to have got his from watching reruns of Till Death Us Do Part in the hope he makes a connection with a daytime talk radio audience.
If all Mr Brown has to offer the next generation of working-class lads is another generous opportunity to surrender their individuality and start on the well-worn path to government-endorsed violence, then he will have failed not just the people of Britain but also the human race. Is this truly the best you can offer them, Gordon? The chance to tuck that shirt in and get their hair cut? From a wasteland in England to a poppy field in Helmand, courtesy of our radical prime minister.
As a theory it is as flawed as the notion that joining the local boxing club turns every young thug into a sportsman. Surely there is greater discipline in determinedly mining the peaceable aspect of human nature than the hostile one? Surely there is more personal pride in learning to question, rather than thoughtlessly obey? If my kids wanted to join the military in peacetime I would feel I had failed. Sorry. Mr Brown’s lazy equation of disaffected male youth + uniform and drill = better citizen does not add up. This is not about British or American soldiers, but the act of soldiering. There is something basically askew in the motivation to do the job. Those that believe they are social workers have fallen for a fantastic lie; those that are motivated by a cold love of violence are the last people that should be in military service.
On the day of the attacks, the British Army had been under primitive assault. Soldiers were sent out to arrest suspects for interrogation. There was no question of winning hearts and minds. That is for the news bulletins and cheerleaders for the war, not for the men at the sharp end. What they did, we are told by every military expert, overstepped the boundary. This is flawed logic. What they do oversteps the boundary; indeed, the very idea that armed conflict can be waged, daily, within parameters of acceptability, oversteps all boundaries. I have a friend, an old football man, who, when riled, occasionally tells mouthy teenagers that he shot better people than them in Malaya. His regiment did not believe in being slowed by prisoners. They were at war, you see.
Society will evolve only when we divorce heroism and war and accept that it is equally valiant to not want to drive a tank. You know that recruitment campaign with the slogan that says 99.9 per cent need not apply? I love that 99.9 per cent. My kind of people, the 99.9 per cent. Get up, go to work, nobody gets hurt. The best of British, I mean that. Heroes all.