Posted on 05/20/2005 11:43:53 PM PDT by Dr. Marten
(If you're new here, welcome. The regulars usually grab some coffee and relax. This will take about an hour, and, as usual, the end point of our journey is not visible from the beginning.)
What’s worse than crawling under your beloved house and seeing the foundations rotten with decades of termite damage?
NOT crawling under your beloved house and seeing the foundations rotten with decades of termite damage.
I’ve been away for a while, doing a little thinking. Usually, my thoughts for these past few years have started at home and then taken me to Iraq, and the war. Lately, though, I have been thinking about Iraq, and my thoughts turn more and more to home.
I started thinking along these lines six months ago, after a young Marine shot and killed a wounded Iraqi in a mosque in Fallujah
The ideas behind this little adventure we are about to embark upon have changed enormously since then. I have, quite frankly, been at a loss to know how to put so many wide-ranging snapshots together into this montage, this image, this idea of Sanctuary that I think holds the key to many of the problems we face today.
Stay with me -- our first stop is not our destination, but it is a necessary one. So let me first take you on that original journey, and show you how events in Iraq can show us how to fight and win a much wider and deeper conflict, right here at home.
Now to hear some fellers tell it, the entire idea of “Unlawful Combatants” came to Sith mastermind Darth Rover in a vision, and he instructed his familiars Chimpy McBushitler and Torture Master Rumsfeld to use it as an excuse to begin the unjustified savagery that is such an essential part of the American character.
Absent from this worldview is…well…just about everything.
During the actual Major Combat Operations of Iraqi Freedom, US generosity and grace toward defeated elements of the Iraqi regular army was in the highest tradition of the US Military, which is justifiably well-known for its benevolence toward a defeated adversary on the battlefield. Surrendering Iraqi regular units were given rations and medical care, and their officers were allowed to keep their sidearms as a show of respect and authority. I have not seen or heard of a single case of anything less than exemplary conduct regarding enemy regular-army soldiers.
So why were the Taliban and Al Qaeda and Fedayeen insurgents treated so differently? Why the hoods and shackles? Why the humiliation at Abu Graib?
It is not because these men shot at US soldiers. Regular Iraqi units, NVA units, North Korean Units, Germans, Japanese, Confederates and Redcoats have shot at American soldiers and upon their surrender their treatment has been, on the whole, exemplary. Why are these different?
It is not because they are opposing us. It is – to put it as bluntly as possible – because they are cheating – cheating in a way that none of the above ever did.
They have willfully and repeatedly broken the covenant of Sanctuary.
Let’s speak to the Perennially Outraged as if they were the fully grown, post-pubescent children they pride themselves on being.
What is the obvious difference between an enemy Prisoner of War, and an Unlawful Combatant? Suppose two of them were standing in a line-up. What one glaringly obvious thing sets them apart?
That’s right! One is wearing a uniform, and the other isn’t.
And why do soldiers wear uniforms?
It certainly is not to protect the soldier. As a matter of fact, a soldier’s uniform is actually a big flashing neon arrow pointing to some kid that says to the enemy, SHOOT ME!
And that’s exactly what a uniform is for. It makes the soldier into a target to be killed.
Now if that’s all there was to it, you might say that the whole uniform thing is not such a groovy idea. BUT! What a uniform also does -- the corollary to the whole idea of a uniformed person – is to say that if the individual wearing a uniform is a legitimate target, then the person standing next to him in civilian clothes is not.
By wearing uniforms, soldiers differentiate themselves to the enemy. They assume additional risk in order to protect the civilian population. In other words, by identifying themselves as targets with their uniforms, the fighters provide a Sanctuary to the unarmed civilian population.
And this Sanctuary is as old as human history. The first civilized people on Earth, these very same Iraqis, who had cities and agriculture and arts and letters when my ancestors were living in caves, wore uniforms as soldiers of Babylon. This is an ancient covenant, and willfully breaking it is unspeakably dishonorable.
Now, imagine you are involved in street-to-street fighting…
We should actually stop right here. No one can imagine street-to-street fighting. It is a refined horror that you have lived through or you have not, and all I can do with the full power of my imagination does not get to the shadow of it. Nevertheless, there are men who have peered around corners in Fallujah, and Hue, and Carentan and a hundred unknown places; places where the enemy’s rifle may be leveled inches away from your nose, awaiting the last split-second of your young life.
Most of the time, you do not have time to think. A person jumps up from below a window three feet away. If he is wearing a grey tunic and a coal-scuttle helmet, it’s a Kraut and you let him have it before he kills you and your buddies. But what if he is wearing street clothes? What if he is smiling at you?
For brutal soldiers – like the Nazi’s those of the far left accuse us of being precisely equal to – this is a moot point. The SS killed everything that moved. They executed prisoners in uniforms, partisans, hostages and children. They were animals.
Our soldiers are civilized, compassionate and decent citizens doing a tough, horrible job. That means when they see someone who might be a civilian, they hesitate. That hesitation can and has killed them. And some people wonder why enemy soldiers without the honor and courage to wear a uniform are treated less than honorably after being captured by men full of courage and restraint.
Heads up!
This is a long one, but d@mn it's good.
BTTT
when a soldier doesn’t have a uniform or tags I don’t believe he is protected by the Geneva convention.
Wasn't "Sanctuary" a metaphor for freedom in the film "Logan's Run"?
Bump! :)
[finishing Pt. 1]
O.M.F.G. Just brutal.
By the way: No, ponytail guy. Not like the Nazis. A Nazi wouldn't have wasted his time arguing with you. He'd have drawn his pistol, given you a real quick third eye, and invited the crowd to step forward over your corpse.
It's not just damn good......it's great. Very very very very very looooong.
I second that. A long read but DAMNED insightful.
Exactly. Absolutely fantastic!!! If this were ever posted/read by anyone on DoUchebags, they'd just drop F-bombs before it was removed.
Well worth the read.
That is One Righteous Rant
A must Read.
Marked for later...
Only one thing absent from this otherwise amazing screed: God. With a capital G, not as in goddam.
Let's applaud the technology that allowed me to finish this great piece in my reading Sanctuary. KUDOs to WiFi and long life computer batteries. Sorry Janeane. Didn't mean to go unapologetic capitalist on you.
Everytime I read an essay by this incredible man, I am in awe of his thought processes. Thanks SO MUCH for posting this! It is extemely long, but every word is precious.
DUer are oh so sophisticated, they know all the words. When I grow up and get big I want to be just like them.
O.M.F.G.
what does this mean?
Thanks.
As I sat reading that piece of work, I thought to myself, I just wish I could put my thoughts together in such a clear way to write something as magnificent as that.
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