mills

My name is Mills Baker; I write about love, culture, art, religion, mental illness, philosophy, memory, politics and the rather random.

My Photo Blog
Flickr / Videos
Facebook / Twitter
Email / Archive


Posts tagged war.

Terror and Torture

I am opposed to all forms of torture for many reasons. Nevertheless:

Two of my father’s colleagues were severely injured in the Jakarta hotel bombings, and while both are expected to survive they have suffered and will continue to suffer extraordinarily as innocent victims of a murderous act of premeditated violence. One has extensive burns and wounds over his face and body from flying glass; the other had a leg “shattered,” and both will need multiple operations. Of course: many others weren’t so lucky.

My father wrote to me today with the following questions, and should you like to answer them I’d be interested in your replies, but do keep in mind that to write something uncivil simply because we believe ourselves right exemplifies why discourse is usually fruitless. He wrote:

“Pause now to reflect for a moment on the days and nights (including no doubt today and tonight -right now) of pain and anguish these men are in for. Consider that there will be effects that last for the rest of their lives.

(1) Now tell me whether these considerations weigh or should weigh in how we think about the “enhanced” interrogation techniques used on Mullah Omar and other important terrorists likely to possess critical information.

(2) Is it relevant that, forced to choose, most of us would readily submit to water boarding and sleep deprivation before going through what the Americans and Indonesians are experiencing? If not, why not?

(3) Is it relevant that the victims of enhanced interrogation techniques can stop their ordeal by answering questions, but the victims of terrorist bombs can’t? Explain your answer.”

I have my own answers to some of these questions, and particularly the last one, but I am curious of yours. Lengthier comments are welcome here. Thoughts?

Tags: politics morality war dad
“Perhaps rationality isn’t enough.”

Robert McNamara, quoted by Errol Morris in his phenomenal NYT obituary on him: “McNamara in Context.” Morris’ profound moral gift is his insistence that we view all humans in context, from those some consider war criminals to holocaust-deniers to murderers; reading the comments on his piece, one can see how rare this gift is.

In the clarity of their own purported rationality, of their own pristine, crystalline worldview -their own systems, all failures of integrity- the harshest judges fail to learn the most important lesson McNamara, and Kennedy and Johnson and all the others, can teach: rationality isn’t enough, systems of analysis aren’t enough, belief isn’t enough to safeguard against the real essence of human existence: error.

How morally culpable is someone who is in error? How do we judge the mistaken? Does the intent to do good mitigate the accomplishment of evil? If it doesn’t, how do we make it less likely that we err? More democracy? More technocracy? More intellectualism? More emphasis on morality? Every answer has attendant historical disasters.

McNamara wanted desperately that we should learn from failed history, and in his memoir noted that because we are not omniscient we should never act violently when allies who share our morality tell us we are wrong to do so: error is too easy, and only a kind of democratic deference to others can restrain our stupidity. I would add, although he wouldn’t, that without omniscience we ought try -harder than we think reasonable- to not make irrevocable decisions involving human life. We should not kill; we should not put to death; we should not make war. We don’t know enough, cannot predict enough, and are wrong too often.

But -and I don’t mean this flippantly- it is easy enough to problematize that assertion, easy enough to see that it too could be wrong: what about the necessary war? And if there is a necessary war, is there a necessary murder, to use Auden’s regretted phrase? All human judgments are subjective assertions that strive towards objectivity; we all aspire to rationality, and sometimes must act on it whether it is sufficient or not.

(See this note, too, from Gospel of Moll: that McNamara attempted to answer these questions honestly did not protect him from grave error; if sincerity won’t, if intelligence won’t, if morality won’t, what will?)

Tags: errol morris politics morality robert mcnamara war
The ruins of the oldest monastery in the Western world, destroyed by allied bombing during the Battle of Monte Cassino. The novelist Walter Miller, who participated in the destruction of the abbey where St. Benedict first organized monastic life in 524 CE, despaired for the rest of his life over our tendency to grind into dust all that we cherish with our periodic wars and our ever-advancing technology. In addition to writing the remarkable A Canticle for Leibowitz, Miller practiced Catholicism for many years, and his novel proposes that the role of religion is to preserve the human -the individual- from the indifferent tyranny of history, politics, and “just” wars. That religion is often part of history, politics, and wars is a problem of its practitioners. Miller opposed, then committed, suicide: another illustration of the tensions between belief and practice, tragic and archetypal. Whether wars are just or not is an unanswerable question; every war is just to some participants, unjust to others, and a catastrophe for all, whether they know it or not. This is neither to say that no wars should be fought or that all wars are equally justifiable; it is merely a fact that all humans believe in their moral code, will kill for it even, and do not care in the inevitable conflicts about the opposing moral codes of their enemies (which they will accuse of incoherence, disingenuousness, or brutality but which are no less felt). Everyone can be given a hypothetical to which they will answer: “Yes, kill, kill!” All there is to say about war is that we are sorry that history and circumstance and the deeds of the dead place us in opposition to one another, that our memories of slaughtered kin compel us to seek revenge, that it is impossible to establish the point at which the acts of entities like armies and governments can be repaid on individuals, that this world has innumerable conflicts without solutions and that history says only power resolves these by annihilating disagreement, and that our nature ensures all this more or less in perpetuity. The destruction of the abbey turned out to have been a mistake, an unnecessary poetic flourish to a forgotten part of World War II. As with most mistakes, it tells more about us than the well-executed parts of our hideous plans: While the original manuscripts and rare artifacts were safely removed from the site, there were several sick and bed-ridden monks and nuns who remained in the monastery. Several of the healthier nuns refused to leave the bedsides of the sick unless they too could be removed. After very limited, unsuccessful attempts by German officers to have the healthier nuns evacuate, German forces retreated down the north side of the mountain late on May 11, leaving the ill nuns in the complex. Several Catholic German soldiers protested this order, but it was ironically a 36-year old Lutheran Obergefreiter of the German 305th Infantry Division, 305th Artillery Regiment who defied the order to abandon the nuns. Eugen Schmid of Stuttgart, a veteran of the Battle of Stalingrad who was one of the few surviving members of the 305th to return to action, told his superior officers that he could not in good conscience let the ill nuns succumb to bombing. German officers refused to give Schmid any motorized equipment or personnel assistance, telling him that he would undertake the operation solo and at his own risk. At around 0100 on May 12, Schmid borrowed a rickety, wooden cart and horse from a nearby farmer and defiantly organized a squad of mostly privates to accompany him to the monastery. Once at the top, Schmid pleaded with the nuns to come, telling them that he brought a cart to evacuate the ill monks and nuns, along with each of the attending nuns. Schmid and his team carried the ill nuns and monks to the cart. They slowly started down the mountain, reaching the north side of Monte Cassino by around 0700 on May 12. Schmid was given no decorations by German authorities for his daring rescue, but received a centuries-old, gold medal bearing the likeness of St. Benedict from the Mother Superior of Monte Cassino, who placed the medal around his neck and said a short prayer with him and his volunteers. She wished for them health and safety, and that they each return home with God’s will and with the praise and thanks of each of the nuns and brothers of Monte Cassino. There were doubtless other acts of heroism, of decency across national, ethnic, and linguistic lines, and of sacrifice beyond that compelled by hatred and strife. There was also a bear…

The ruins of the oldest monastery in the Western world, destroyed by allied bombing during the Battle of Monte Cassino.

The novelist Walter Miller, who participated in the destruction of the abbey where St. Benedict first organized monastic life in 524 CE, despaired for the rest of his life over our tendency to grind into dust all that we cherish with our periodic wars and our ever-advancing technology. In addition to writing the remarkable A Canticle for Leibowitz, Miller practiced Catholicism for many years, and his novel proposes that the role of religion is to preserve the human -the individual- from the indifferent tyranny of history, politics, and “just” wars. That religion is often part of history, politics, and wars is a problem of its practitioners. Miller opposed, then committed, suicide: another illustration of the tensions between belief and practice, tragic and archetypal.

Whether wars are just or not is an unanswerable question; every war is just to some participants, unjust to others, and a catastrophe for all, whether they know it or not. This is neither to say that no wars should be fought or that all wars are equally justifiable; it is merely a fact that all humans believe in their moral code, will kill for it even, and do not care in the inevitable conflicts about the opposing moral codes of their enemies (which they will accuse of incoherence, disingenuousness, or brutality but which are no less felt). Everyone can be given a hypothetical to which they will answer: “Yes, kill, kill!”

All there is to say about war is that we are sorry that history and circumstance and the deeds of the dead place us in opposition to one another, that our memories of slaughtered kin compel us to seek revenge, that it is impossible to establish the point at which the acts of entities like armies and governments can be repaid on individuals, that this world has innumerable conflicts without solutions and that history says only power resolves these by annihilating disagreement, and that our nature ensures all this more or less in perpetuity.

The destruction of the abbey turned out to have been a mistake, an unnecessary poetic flourish to a forgotten part of World War II. As with most mistakes, it tells more about us than the well-executed parts of our hideous plans:

While the original manuscripts and rare artifacts were safely removed from the site, there were several sick and bed-ridden monks and nuns who remained in the monastery. Several of the healthier nuns refused to leave the bedsides of the sick unless they too could be removed. After very limited, unsuccessful attempts by German officers to have the healthier nuns evacuate, German forces retreated down the north side of the mountain late on May 11, leaving the ill nuns in the complex. Several Catholic German soldiers protested this order, but it was ironically a 36-year old Lutheran Obergefreiter of the German 305th Infantry Division, 305th Artillery Regiment who defied the order to abandon the nuns. Eugen Schmid of Stuttgart, a veteran of the Battle of Stalingrad who was one of the few surviving members of the 305th to return to action, told his superior officers that he could not in good conscience let the ill nuns succumb to bombing. German officers refused to give Schmid any motorized equipment or personnel assistance, telling him that he would undertake the operation solo and at his own risk. At around 0100 on May 12, Schmid borrowed a rickety, wooden cart and horse from a nearby farmer and defiantly organized a squad of mostly privates to accompany him to the monastery. Once at the top, Schmid pleaded with the nuns to come, telling them that he brought a cart to evacuate the ill monks and nuns, along with each of the attending nuns. Schmid and his team carried the ill nuns and monks to the cart. They slowly started down the mountain, reaching the north side of Monte Cassino by around 0700 on May 12. Schmid was given no decorations by German authorities for his daring rescue, but received a centuries-old, gold medal bearing the likeness of St. Benedict from the Mother Superior of Monte Cassino, who placed the medal around his neck and said a short prayer with him and his volunteers. She wished for them health and safety, and that they each return home with God’s will and with the praise and thanks of each of the nuns and brothers of Monte Cassino.

There were doubtless other acts of heroism, of decency across national, ethnic, and linguistic lines, and of sacrifice beyond that compelled by hatred and strife. There was also a bear…

Tags: history morality politics war religion
“Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.”

William Burroughs. I think it’s an inexact analogy but a good point, and one of the central reasons why happiness eludes those who seek it by pursuing materialist comforts (or the absence of discomfort).

I found this looking for another quote, used at the beginning of the excellent videogame gladiator movie The King of Kong, which frankb brought to my deathbed the other day; that quote follows. 

This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.
Tags: philosophy war happiness psychology