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There but for Fortune

July 14, 2007

Happy Bastille Day, y'all. I see from the Encyclopaedia Britannica's "on this date" e-mail that arrives in my inbox every morning that it's also Woody Guthrie's birthday. Rest in peace, Woody. You done good. U.S. leaders haven't done so good, so we're still singing your songs.

I've been reading the war news, particularly accounts by returning soldiers. Plenty of days I can't remember what the date is. Now I'm thinking it's 1969 or 1970. Same shit, different war. Back then was when I started to lose my patience with people who, from the safety of their offices and living rooms, pronounce themselves shocked by the behavior of U.S. troops. Today I scribbled what follows. The soundtrack isn't Woody, it's Phil Ochs: "There but for Fortune."

Why are we surprised? Young USians whose economic options are so limited that the military is one of the best. They don't realize they've been sold a bill of goods till they're in way over their heads, and by that point walking out is a capital offense. They're in this alien and extremely dangerous situation where they can't read the subtleties (or even the blatancies), where they've got orders to follow and powerful weapons in their hands, and relaxing for an instant could get them killed or mutilated.

I wouldn't do very well in that situation. If I wasn't killed right off in a split second of indecision, I'd probably do whatever I had to do to increase my chances of living till the next day. Shooting someone who might be a threat increases my odds. Considering for an instant that they might not be a threat, or that the "Syrian terrorist" behind the door is really a two-year-old kid -- this could get me killed. Maybe I'm totally ripshit with the recruiters for selling me this bill of goods (and with myself for buying it), or with the TV news or the U.S. government or the vets in my family or my town who maintain a conspiracy of silence about what they saw and did in whatever war they were in. But they aren't in range and these ungrateful, unreadable "hajis" are.

Would things be all that different if the Bush administration weren't morally bankrupt and the mass media weren't corporate controlled, if the soldiers had higher IQs or the leaders were better trained? Hell no. Throw ordinary people into appalling situations, and most of us will do things we weren't capable of even imagining in other times and places. If the goal is stopping a Hitler, the cost may be worth it. If it's anything else -- well, maybe, but let's try to be honest about what the cost is and who's going to get stuck paying most of it.

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