In view of his divided soccer loyalties, David Beckham is booed in Los Angeles. In the wake of the expenses scandal, MPs are held in public contempt. And the Royal Family, Her Majesty excepted, has long been the object of lampoon. There is only one place to go for heroes: the soldiers.
But there is a problem: the first casualty of my-country-right-or-wrong patriotism: word-care. The OED defines hero as “a person … who is admired for their courage or outstanding achievements.” In the media, however, all soldiers are now heroes (conversely, all terrorists are “cowards”). Boldness, daring, feats on the battlefield are essentailly irrelevant, if useful, to the jingoist journalist. You may be a user, a slacker, or a thug, but as long as you’re in a uniform, you’re a hero.
Such are the social constructions of identity in an age of mediocrity. But the semantically vapid gets morally coarse when the element of victimhood is added to the mix. Here is John Rentoul in Saturday’s Independent:
“The letters home written by Cyrus Thatcher, the 19-year-old rifleman who was killed in Afghanistan last month, which we published on Monday, were affecting. Fortunately, the effect was independent of an introduction that described him as ‘one of the youngest victims’ of the Afghan war. Everything about those five words is misconceived. ‘One of the youngest’ is meaningless, but all the more so because we had been told that he was 19, and most people know that 18 is the lower limit for combat service. He wasn’t a victim; he was a soldier. And the whole phrase unconsciously excluded hundreds of Afghan casualties of the war, many of them children, who really were victims.”
It is culturally vulgar that, in our therapeutic society, the status of victim has become a badge of honour, and the claim to victimhood immune to examination and critique (for that would be “unfeeling”, “judgmental”, and “offensive”). It is also personally disempowering, for its corollary is the loss of a sense of autonomy, agency, and responsibility. But it becomes morally and politically dangerous when it colonises the discourse of war, with the inevitable anti-democratic implications that such Orwellian usage has for the scrutiny of government policy and military actions.
Soldiers are trained killers. Some may become “heroes”. Some, sadly, may become fatalities. But soldiers are not victims. Only the innocents are victims. To speak otherwise is double-speak. Indeed it is, stricto sensu, bullshit. And as Harry Frankfurt observes, “bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
DH 07.27.09 at 3:34 pm
Soldiers can be the victims of the non-innocent who attempt to destroy the innocent.
There is a difference between “trainned killers” and “trainned murderers”. Terrrorists are “trainned murderers” those who fight against terrorists are “trainned killers”. Not all killing is murder.
Kim 07.27.09 at 4:36 pm
Thanks for so lucidly, comprehensively, categorically, and incontrovertibly clearing that one up, DH. I take it all back.
Beth 07.27.09 at 6:03 pm
The language of “innocent” and “guilty” is, I think, pretty reprehensible when used to describe the killing of human beings. If anything, members of the armed forces are, I would say, outside those categories. If someone is in a war zone in order to fight a war, is armed and prepared for battle, and is killed in that war zone, are they an “innocent victim”? Not in any sense of the term that means anything to me.
But here’s another question. If someone is in a war zone by chance, is unarmed, and is in the middle of raping a woman, and is killed when a bomb drops on the building, are they an “innocent victim”? Again, not in any way that makes sense to me.
Somebody may be a victim of war, but to make judgments about guilt or innocence risks falling into the same trap as those who bandy about the term “hero”. If any civilian who dies in a war is adjudged “innocent”, then all you have to do to be innocent is die in a war. In the same way that all you have to do to be a hero is put on a uniform.
I would risk saying that anyone who dies in a war is a victim of war, whether they’re a terrorist, a freedom fighter, a soldier, a civilian, or a politician. Because nobody is “evil”, and nobody is “innocent”. We’re all just human beings, suffering the consequences of being human beings. And if there isn’t space for God to see even the cowardly bombmaker as an innocent victim, then we’re all lost.
DH 07.27.09 at 6:17 pm
A cowardly bombmaker is an “innocent victim”? Come on. God doesn’t see the terrorist as “innocent”. You are correct we ARE all lost if one has no Faith in Christ alone.
When one makes judgement about innocent and evil one has to look at the one who initiates the battle and/or who murders the unarmed people as the “evil” ones. Also there is a difference between “killing” and “murder”. Murder: The intentional killing of innocent human.
Innocence with regard to this conversation is inreference to those who are not involved in the fight either directly or indirectly. Therefore one can be innocent and evil at the same time depending on what the person is inncoent or evil from. A person can be overal evil by not accepting Christ as one’s Savior but innocent in the battle of war depending on the causes and the initiation of the war itself.
Therefore it is NOT wrong to say that soldiers who die in the fight against terrorists are victims and terrorists who desire to murder people are not. It is not wrong to say the rapist is both evil and innocent for the acts are non-correlated in nature with regard to the battle itself.
The innocence of soldiers depends on which side based on the causes and initiations of the war itself. However, in a war where both are evil (Iran/Iraq War when found out after the evidence became known) that would be a situation where no soldier is “innocent”.
Also I have no problem saying that a person who saves the lives of his fellow soldiers in the battle against terrorists IS a hero. I have no problem saying this nor should anyone.
Beth 07.27.09 at 7:27 pm
“When one makes judgement about innocent and evil…”
That’s my point, dh. One doesn’t make that judgment. God makes it, if at all. It’s of no benefit to us to make judgments like that about other people. All it does it bolster our sense of pride and superiority.
DH 07.27.09 at 7:48 pm
I meant to say God. God DOES determine these things as I described. It isn’t based on “pride or superiority” but the understanding that one cannot placate that everybody is at fault to something where it is clear who started it.
God tells us the definition of “murder” and in Scripture not all killing is murder. So it IS biblical what I’m saying in relation to the fight against terrorism and the fight thereof as I have explained.
Cowardly bombmaker is an innocent victim. It is flat out NOT biblical and it is wrong to say that we all are lost when by Faith in Christ alone we are “Saved through Faith”. “Without Faith it is impossible to please God.”
When one looks at the fighting against the “ites” that the Jewish people did it confirms the concept that I said regarding your innacurate view of how soldiers are looked at. When God told the Israelites to fight the ites it was because of the abuse of the innocent and vulnerable that God called the Jewish people to fight the ites. God clearly in His Word stated the lines of demarkation regarding innocent and evil. The same goes in this day of time. Saddam murdered hundreds of thousands of people and the Western World came to the aid of the innocent for their freedom from that oppression. Same can be said of WWII Western World vs. Hitler or Western World vs. Hirohito.
“God makes it, if at all.”
God DOES makes it (period).
Not all killing is murder and therefore sin. When one looks at all killing as sin one makes the false conclusion that it is okay to not defend oneself when in Scripture God specifically told the Israelites to do the same. Makes no sense in light of Scripture what you are saying. It isn’t me but God who judges. Sorry for the confusion by placing my name on the judgement. Me bad.
TonyBuglass 07.27.09 at 8:55 pm
“Cowardly bombmaker is an innocent victim.”
Were the members of the Maquis who stood up against the Nazi occupiers ‘cowardly bombmakers’, too? Or does your definition depend on whose side you’re on?
I certainly don’t take the side of the Taleban, but I’d never call them cowardly. No more than I’d call NATO pilots cowardly because they bombed from 15,000 feet during the Serbia campaign - theonly way to fight is to put your enemies at risk while putting yourself at as little risk as possible. If that means roadside bombs, that’s what it means. (Personally, I’d be much happier if they blew themselves up, but that’s a different issue!)
Kim 07.27.09 at 9:32 pm
Geez, the “ites” again - from God’s own oracle.
Richard, pace Bene D.’s fortnight embargo, I’m rethinking my position on “comment moderation”.
DH 07.27.09 at 9:39 pm
Kim, why is “comment moderation” needed when I didn’t say anything that is insulting, etc? What is so wrong for bringing up the “ites” when the previous unrelated conversation involving ites was a post months old? Show me some consideration Kim.
Bringing up “ites” with 6 months in between shouldn’t result in comment moderation. Geez, Kim. I show you respect and it is the least you can do with me.
Back to the thread:
‘I don’t consider the Maquis “cowardly” . The term “cowardly” is in reference to intional attack on the innocent aka Saddam, Serb atrocities, Al Quada on 9/11, etc. Cowardly in the sense that the people who are or were intentionally attacked were or are not directly or indirectly involved in the battle.
Beth 07.28.09 at 9:16 am
“intional attack on the innocent”
Once again - who are you to decide who is “innocent”? You’ve already agreed that God judges who is innocent and who is not - why are you pre-empting him and making the decision yourself? As Tony said, your definition of the innocent and the evil depends on whose side you’re on. You disagree with Al Qaeda’s aims, so they’re evil and their victims are innocent. You agree with the Maquis’ aims, so they’re innocent and their victims are evil.
“God told the Israelites” - yes, precisely. God told them to do it, unambiguously. Has anyone since been able to claim the same justification for going to war? That God directly told them to do it? Well, maybe people have claimed it, but they’ve been lying.
DH 07.28.09 at 2:50 pm
Beth, I’m not “preempting God”. The response to God telling the Israeites was NOT without specific reasons. God gave the reasons, the same reasons that happen to correlate to the fight against Al Quada , Hitler, etc. God DID give the justification for the Israelities to go to war and it was not without a reason for God DID mention the reasons in His Word.
Intentional attack of the inncoent WAS one of the many reasons God told the Israelities to take on the “ites”. That happens to line up with the reasons for taking on Hitler, Al Queda, etc.
If God mentions specificly in His Word who is innocent and who is evil in relation to battles then it isn’t me doing the judging but God.
Saddam and his regime who murdered hundreds of thousands of people are NOT innocent. Hitler and his regime murdering millions of Jews and others are NOT innocent. Al Qaeda murdering over 3000 people on 9/11 are NOT innocent. To say otherwise is EXTREMELY disengenious.
Beth 07.28.09 at 3:22 pm
“God DID give the justification for the Israelities to go to war”
Yes! I know! That’s exactly my point! God gave it directly to them, but he didn’t do the same for Winston Churchill or George Bush, so the analogy is imperfect at best. So God said specifically that the ites were evil. Did he happen to mention that Saddam was evil too? Or Hitler? No, of course not. Yes, there are similarities between what is condemned in the Bible and what regimes like Nazi Germany have done. But that doesn’t mean there’s some divine mandate for war.
As for intentional attack on the innocent, what about the Allied bombing of German civilians during WWII? Wasn’t that intentionally killing innocent people? Or were the Germans all evil in your opinion?
tortoise 07.28.09 at 3:49 pm
Intentional attack of the inncoent WAS one of the many reasons God told the Israelities to take on the “ites”.
DH, I wonder if I could trouble you for a chapter-and-verse reference for this. Thanks.
(BTW Richard, apologies if this appears twice - comments playing up for me)
DH 07.28.09 at 3:51 pm
Beth, you missed my point. There is a correlation between the reasons God called the reasoms for the Israelites to go to war and the reasons to go to war against Saddam and Hitler. To suggest otherwsie is strange. To there WAS a mandate for taking on Hitler in that it was the same reaons as the Israelities going to war the smae goes for Saddam and his regime and Al Qaeda.
God gave the reasons for the Israelites to go to war, they were the same as going to war against Hitler, Saddam and Al Qaeda so for me it would be biblical to take on these three.
With regard to bombing of German civilians. It was unintentional. The fact was there were Nazi facilities but friendly fire occurred unintentionally. So I agree that not all Germans were “evil” but that doesn’t change the fact that Allied bombing was NOT intentional.
Kim 07.28.09 at 4:20 pm
You’re quite wrong, Beth. God DID speak directly to Bush (or at least through the court prophet Cheney):
The Lord said to him: “Destroy the Talibanites, the Saddamites (descendants of the Sodomites), and any other Ites you happen to come across during the slaughter - the odd Iranite, Trotskyite, or Pre-Raphaelite perhaps; and don’t forget the Stalactites and Stalagmites (who are known to hide in caves); nor spare the women and children (the poor little Mites), or any Mennonites (the pacifist bastards!) - spare only the Thatcherites - and thus clear a path in the wilderness for my servant Haliburton.”
Kim 07.28.09 at 4:26 pm
Pilot to co-pilot during the bombing of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, …: “Oops, a civilian!”
DH 07.28.09 at 5:20 pm
‘Kim, I never said God spoke directly to these people but indirectly through God\’s Word which has specific reason for the Israelities to go to war which matches directly the reasons for going to war with Saddam, Hitler and Al Qaeda. Yes unintentional.
CEM 07.30.09 at 3:41 pm
Willard Swartley in his book “Covenant of Peace” contends that God’s actions are not our actions. Swartley argues that simply by being God, what God does in judgment is different from our attempts at retaliation or justice through violence.
Beth 07.30.09 at 7:56 pm
Thank you for that, CEM. It’s a far better statement of what I believe than I could ever have made myself!
DH 07.30.09 at 9:08 pm
I still believe that God can us either directly or indirectly as judgement for justice. I agree it isn’t are actions if God says in His Word the rationale’s for justice and judgement.