The Unreality of War

Samina, Hobbes,

Interesting thoughts. Without wishing to make this too much of an academic affair (that just seems inappropriate at this time and place, sorry), allow me to say that both alienation as well as primal bloodlust play a part in our uncomfortable fascination with violence. Who among us has not longed for or dreamt of something untoward happening merely to shock/shake us out of our existential comas. To this extent, I think many of us do wish, at some level, for more televised gore. Hopefully, this lust will be tempered, as Samina points out, by spriritual, emotional, intellectual mediations.

However, I`m not as convinced as I once was in the alienation-by-modernity/mechinization theory as an explanation for this fascination, for were it true you`d expect to find less, not more, blood and gore in the Urdu dailies and tabloids than in the English ones, given the respective readership-- and even allowing for stylistic and `political` restrictions.

My chief concern in this piece is not so much the `voyeuristic` side of the affair. Whatever its degree and origins, I think it still leaves enough space for thought, reflection and decision. It is the glamourization of the event --perhaps even complete with blood and gore-- and the (resultant?) indistinguishability between reality and fiction (in this case, paplable suffering and filmic suspended disblief) that I sought to address. The latter aspect has some pretty sinister implications, if you think about its potential as a manipulative tool.

Admittedly, I`m a little confused myself. Thanks again for the valuable input.

re. #1,
Urstruly, the casualty figures of the Dresden levelling are, I am almost relieved to say :), quite shocking!
What about Berlin? And London? (ok.. i``m being lazy here, I admit)

Hobbes,

Certainly we live with the reality of disconnection in many aspects of our lives; from the languages, customs, systems of interaction and belief that disappear daily, the mythologies each country invents, erases, reinvents for themselves, our forced or self directed movements towards places that are new or that will help us``progress``.

Arguably, alienation is a human condition as accute as any other. Are/were we never alienated from something, or have we not understood the loss of an idea, a feeling, an experience or reality? I don`t think so.

But I do agree with your last point-the experience of modernity that some of us live has forced us into participation of violence of proxy-the spectacle without the tangible brutality of it. A participation that is presented like a video game or as Patrick pointed out, a Hollywood movie- a constructed and imaginary fairytale.

We need to be fed this fairy tale because otherwise we would be awake to the the reality of this violence by proxy.

And I`d like to point out that people who understand the many deliverances of violence-tuition cuts, lack of adequate educations, disenfranchisement of political voice, the dehumanization of living in circumstances umameliorated by social services-are most likely less sanguine about the US`s campaign-media packaging and all.

It`s ``infotainment`` amigo - If it`s on TV, it cannot be without ``entertainment`` value, perhaps not entirely, but ceratinly it cannot be far in the minds of producrs and advertisers. It`s dangerous and unhealthy.

Samina

Is it our bloodlust? or is it that our lives no longer seem to us to the the stuff of our dreams, our ambitions. It`s almost as if an ``alienation`` from the struggle to to live, to be the persons we imagine ourselves to be, to realize that person.

Locked up in our homes, gaurding our privacy, locked in our cars, in our offices, in our jobs, constrained by our imperatives of securing ourselves and our progeny - where is it that the person we imagine ourselves ot be even has the slightest chance to imagine being, existing, experiencing, fulfilling.

We were once ``real``, we knew of death, we knew of brutality, not just intellectually, but emotionally, we experienced it, survived it, we were alive in it.

There is a French theorist who has written that for the modern age, there is something subconsciously satisfying about watching a car crash, in other words, each of us has a primal instinct that responds to violence. Whether our impulses are conditioned by biochemistry (the body going into chemical overdrive upon the stimulation of fear, excitement). Hence, ``rubbernecking`` (cars that slow down as they pass a car crash to look at the car, the inhabitants, the damage), or the why our media, as Micheal Moore so memorably pointed out in Bowling for Columbine, the emphasis on blue collar crime and not white collar crime, etc.

And yet, most of us understand that our primal bloodlust is mediated/informed by the intellectual, spiritual and emotional consciousness that for the all the spectacle, an entity is assaulted, that there is something MORALLY wrong in violence. This struggle between violence and non violence is probably one of the most basic paradoxes of humanity.

And yet we are witnessing the interpreting, excusing and SANITIZING of violence against a people who are already in danger of humanitarian crisis, by institutions who have fed us spectacle night after night. I dare our media to broadcast the full time period of the most intensive US strikes-explosions, disturbing sounds and destruction from start to finish.

Last night, the BBC broadcast images of Iraqi people-women, men and children demented with pain and grief after the bombing of a civillian marketplace. For every godforsaken ``glorious`` explosion- I dare our media to show the truth-how the human beings who are being bombed- are surviving this.

This is pathology.

Haunting Thoughts After a Battle
By STEVEN LEE MYERS


ITH THE THIRD INFANTRY DIVISION, in central Iraq, March 28 — It troubles him, now that the battle is over. Sgt. Mark N. Redmond remembers shouting ``qiff,`` Arabic for halt, but they did not halt. The Iraqi fighters just kept coming.

Sergeant Redmond`s unit spent three days and nights fighting for the bridge at Kifl, a village on the Euphrates River about 75 miles south of Baghdad. By any military definition — the territory seized, the number of enemy killed, the mission accomplished — the unit`s fight ended in victory. After victory, though, comes rest. And with rest comes reflection.

``I mean, I have my wife and kids to go back home to,`` he said, sitting atop a box of rations back at his base camp, whiling away a lull as unexpected as it was appreciated.

``I don`t want them to think I`m a killer.`` (NYT)
________________________________________

no soldier -- you are NOT a killer -- our president is -- He is the Supreme KILLER --

you are just obeying the orders -- as the Germans did.

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Patrick!

...will comment on this later...am out for the moment...btw...go get some life insurance;)

...t

Excuse the many typos, folks! must`ve been warred out of my grammatical wits when typing this piece.
Trust t won`t fly off the handle. :)

MATHEMATICS OF TRUTH & STATISTICS OF LIES

Both Iraq and invading Anglo-Americans are in a kind of catch 22 situations, regarding the declaration of casualties of war. On one hand Iraqi administration has to show the human toll as less as possible to keep the morale of its people up and on the other hand invaders have to show that they are on the mission of mercy as they claimed. So both sides are lying to their teeth as far as statistics of human toll is concerned. If the invaders are ``militarily`` successful after their invasion they will still downplay the casualties and no one will believe Iraqis because we as humans have a tendency of not believing the losers. So, as someone had said, that the first casualty of any war is the truth, I must add that the last casualty of any war is also the truth.

But mathematics never lies. Let us try to see what truth the truth of mathematics reveals to us.

Fact: Germany 13th February 1945

City : Dresden

Population: 650,000

Air Defense: Virtually none, because Dresden was never a significant town from German military point of view and has so far not been attacked by Allied forces either.

Invaders: Britain and USA

First day air raid: 773 British Avro Lancaster bombers bombed Dresden

2nd day air raid: 527 US air force heavy bombers bombed Dresden

Casualties: Allied sources put the figure around 135,000 civilians dead, whereas German sources put the figure around 250,000 dead. Truth is somewhere between these statistics.

Comparison: Hiroshima 70,000 died in American nuclear attack; 51,509 British civilians killed by German air raids in the whole second world war.

Fact: Baghdad, March 2003

City : Baghdad

Population: 4.8 Million

Air Defence: Virtually none, all surface to air missiles have been destroyed by UN inspectors. The radar and SAM missile batteries are useless against Stealth Bombers and Cruise Missiles.

Invaders: Britain and US

Air Raids: During first two days of air strikes, allied invaders launched 320 Tomahawk missiles and more than 1,000 combat sorties against Baghdad and other targets in Iraq.

Casualties: YOU DO THE MATH

APPEAL: I appeal to the all people with live conscience, in this world to raise their voice against this madness. Please show courage to tell them that you don’t want to drive your cars with human blood.