The Geneva Convention. We've all heard about it and we tend to assume that it is both necessary and respected. The Iraq torture scandal has proved that the latter is not the case, so how about the former? Is it an oxymoron to draft rules for war?
The pictures from Iraq have given me plenty to think about, but the responses even more so. I can't help but think that the soldiers are being used as scapegoats to direct our anger towards while the soldiers bombing and killing indiscriminately are seemingly above blame. How do we draw the line between their actions? Why is it the act of a monster to lead a captive around by a leash but to send thousands to the next world in a variety of agonizing ways, from bullets to bombs, starvation and suicide, is within the bounds of civilized behaviour?
It seems to me that this is a throwback to notions of civilized combat that supposedly obtained once upon a time. March out to a field at an appointed time, fight till one sight retreats, then go back home for toast and tea satisfied that you taught the others a lesson. I heartily doubt that warfare was ever like that, and it is certainly not like that now.
Furthermore, I have been wondering this afternoon whether is not only the case that "normal" people put in such circumstances will act in this way due to the environment and their experiences (as in the prison experimenets mentioned inthe other threads), but that it may in fact be a necessary state for combatants to be in. You have to dehumanize the enemy in order to fight them effectively. If you can see their humanity then it will make it difficult to do the many things you will be called upon to do as a soldier, and the slightest hesitation to do these things can cost you your life or that of your fellow soldiers who rely upon you.
I believe that all wars will of necessity include such incidents, just as all wars will result in the death of many civilians, by accident and by design. If you support a war, then you support all of these actions, plain and simple. If you think a cause is noble enough to go to war over, then not only are you accepting that many combatants will be killed, but you are accepting that torture will take place and civilians will die. It is a given from before the first shot is fired.
So these are just my general rambling thoughts, not very well organized as usual. But onto the specifics of the Geneva Convention ...
I don't think it's too idealistic to have some general rules, outlawing practices such as ethnic cleansing and systematic killing of civilians, such that when a war is over those involved in such practices can be brought to trial within an established framework. But I think many of the rules governing prisoners of war are fairly unrealistic. On a battlefield you try and kill as many of the enemy as you can, but after the final whistle you become a war criminal if you kill those same people. Torture is one thing, but I don't see how executing prisoners is any different to killing them in battle. If you think they are a security risk to you or if you simply cannot afford the spare food and shelter for them (obviously not relevant in this war but certainly has been the case throughout history), then I don't see how execution is monstrous. I'd rather that myself than to be shot in combat and lie bleeding in a ditch and die after an agonizing three days from loss of blood.
It's also against the Convention to kill someone who is wounded. Well who the fuck was trying to wound them in the first place? Aren't you aiming to kill them? Can such an arbitrary line be drawn?
Same goes for the dignity thing. Dehumanizing prisoners for your own enjoyment is adolescent and cheap, but victors have paraded through the streets with captives and spoils for as long as humanity has existed. It doesn't seem so unnatural to me. If it's civilized to invade a country and destroy half of it, then taking a photo of yourself holding a captured enemy soldier on a leash is hardly worth mentioning.
Again, I think these actions are all horrible, but I am suggesting that they are no more horrible than every other part of this war, to which they are in my view inextricably linked. The whole affair is one double decker shit sandwich. But carrying out such an invasion and then appealing to laws of civilized combat is more than faintly ridiculous to me. In our society people get the shit kicked out of them for spilling someone's pint, so pushing someone around and humiliating them when they were shooting at you only the day before does not seem the act of a monster.
Hmmm. I'm not normally someone who blames crime on society rather than the people who commit the acts, but there's just something about the reaction to these pictures that unsettles me. Perhaps the Geneva Convention makes it too easy for us to pat ourselves on the back for not being like "them", when we were the ones who created them. I dunno. Maybe my moral compass has spent too long in a drawer next to a box of magnets. Have I missed the whole point? |
