cancers – Engaging Peace

This is part 2 of a 3 part series by Ross Caputi. See Investing in Moral Repair, Part 1

Afghanistan War 2001 — Collage of four photos for the Afghanistan War.
By Youngottoman (Own work) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The common assumption that there is a military-civilian gap in our country is not totally unrelated to another conventional wisdom—that Vietnam veterans were spat on, maltreated, and repudiated by their fellow citizens upon their return from war. Nancy Sherman, in her book Afterwar: Healing the Moral Wounds of Our Soldiers (2015,) devotes 32 pages to analyzing the common refrain “Thank you for your service,” which she argues is a “national reaction to a past negative reaction” when “[r]esistance to [the Vietnam] war turned into antipathy toward its warriors” (30-31). Again, Sherman does not engage with the works that question this assumption. For example, Jerry Lembcke fails to find evidence that a significant number of Vietnam veterans were maltreated by protestors in his The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam (2000). Instead, he reminds us that veterans were a large, and very welcomed, constituent of the anti-war movement.

These two assumptions taken together ground a common perception of veterans as a special interest group deserving of special care and special benefits. Perhaps it is this cultural assumption about veterans that motivates Sherman’s assertion that civilians’ post war responsibilities are limited to veterans; though, again, she gives no argument for why this is the case. If civilians are morally responsible for the harm that results from war due to their causal contributions to starting and facilitating wars, why aren’t civilians morally responsible to all parties that are harmed by war, including the civilians of other nations involved in the conflict? Particularly in the case of the recent US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, which caused hundreds of thousands of excess Iraqi deaths, displaced millions, internally and externally, and caused an environmental and public health catastrophe with some of the highest rates of birth defects and cancers the world has ever seen; why are we not morally responsible for what has been done to Iraqis?

Sherman analyzes “Thank you for your service” as a performative expression of gratitude, which she argues is a “token acceptance of . . . shared responsibility and accountability for sending fellow citizens to war, independent of specific causal contributions to war activity or to its support” (39). Correspondingly, she points out the resentment that so many veterans feel towards the ease with which civilians relieve themselves of responsibility by uttering such platitudes. Resentment, after all, is a reactive attitude that “[holds] someone to account” (46). However, there is no acknowledgement of the widespread resentment that Iraqis feel towards Americans and other citizens of Coalition nations. Furthermore, by leaving the vocabulary of our traditional war culture unchallenged, the infelicitous use of the word “service”—and its corresponding semantic frame of a beneficiary, a benevolent act, and a recipient—goes unexamined. By preserving the notion that the war was a service to Americans, a service consciously and willingly performed by our veterans, it obscures any understanding that the war was a wrong done to others and that we might be responsible for the harm that our war caused them. *This review by Engaging Peace Board member Ross Caputi is reprinted from the American Book Review, Volume 36, Number 5, July/August 2015.

Ross is currently on the Board of Directors of ISLAH. He is also a graduate student and a writer. In 2004, he was a US Marine in the US-led occupation of Iraq. His experience there, in particular his experience during the 2nd siege of Fallujah, compelled him to leave the US military and join the anti-war movement. His activism has focused on our society’s moral obligation to our victims in Iraq, and to the responsibility of veterans to renounce their hero status in America.

Child at Fallujah Maternity and Children’s hospital. Photo by Dahr Jamail, used with permission — Child at Fallujah Maternity and Children’s hospital.
Photo by Dahr Jamail, used with permission

There was no casus belli (just cause) for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The leaders of the coalition forces treated the lives of Iraqi civilians with reckless disregard as they bombed and invaded Iraq, citing intelligence they knew to be questionable. The shock-and-awe bombing of Iraq claimed over 7,000 lives, and the subsequent occupation claimed hundreds of thousands more.

The occupation also shredded the social fabric of Iraqi society, exploited a social division in Iraq that previously held little significance, provoked a civil war between the Sunni and Shia communities, and has resulted in entrenched resentments and a divided country.

Entire communities have been displaced, uprooting people, robbing them of their historical bond with their locality. The agricultural system, the historic seed bank, the marshes, have all been forced to change.

The medical and educational systems have been destroyed too. Many Iraqi researchers, instructors, and doctors have been assassinated. Many others have fled the country, leaving these essential services understaffed and incapable of meeting the needs of Iraqis.

Worse yet, pollution from war has left Iraq with a crippling public health crisis. Rises in birth defects and cancers have been reported throughout the country, with extreme rates in cities like Fallujah and Basra. Iraq will remain contaminated with radiation for billions of years because of uranium weapons. And the extent of the contamination from other sources—such as burn pits and lead and mercury from conventional munitions—is still unknown.

The occupation has left Iraq divided, polluted, and silenced under a corrupt political system and an oppressive government that enjoys considerable support from both the US and Iran.

What was taken from Iraqis can never be given back to them in its entirety. The harm our society caused theirs is immeasurable. Reparations are a moral imperative. Though the cause of the harm may be unidirectional, the healing will not be. Assisting Iraqis in the rebuilding of their society will cultivate in us a culture of responsibility, solidarity, and caring.

Join us at Islah [http://www.reparations.org/projects/truth-reconciliation/ in collaborating with Iraqis who are rebuilding the social infrastructure of their society. Help us in confronting the public silence surrounding the crimes committed against the Iraqi people. By campaigning for an international war crimes tribunal too, we hope to collaborate with Iraqis to create the requisite conditions for a future truth and reconciliation commission.

Investing in Moral Repair, Part 2, by Ross Caputi*

Truth & Reconciliation, Part III, by Ross Caputi