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Under the Sun Cynthia Oi |
Young bodies and souls
poisoned by absurd war
ANOTHER Marine from Kaneohe was counted among the dead in Iraq this week. His hometown is listed as Phoenix, but he passed through his short life among us. The sands of island beaches dusted his feet and the warm trades brushed his face, imprinting him as one of our own. Fate gave Michael A. Downey just 21 birthdays but deprived him of the same number of Thanksgivings to share with his family and friends.
His death and those of the 1,217 others killed thus far in Iraq are visible, distinct losses. So, too, are the wounded, which the military places at 15,000 after culling out what it terms as "noncombat" injuries of another 15,000 in an attempt to tamp down unease about the mortal cost of the conflict.
Less evident are the toxic fibers of fear and anxiety that weave through all who bear weapons in war. They unwittingly mutate the basic human construct of compassion into hate and anger.
It is not uncommon in reports from Fallujah, Baghdad or other red zones in Iraq to read of soldiers who ordinarily would not crow about destroying lives. Yet in the turmoil of explosions and shooting that could take their own, they celebrate bloodshed.
There is something scary about a 19-year-old whooping in glee upon seeing "body parts all over" an alley in Fallujah after a comrade in arms shattered an insurgent hideout -- much as he would if his high school football team scored a touchdown. It is disturbing to hear the baby-faced brother of a soldier who lost a leg and an arm in battle vow "to make them pay."
They can't be blamed, can't be faulted for wanting revenge. They are fighting an enemy of the United States of America, who gray-haired men in hand-tailored suits far away from the dangers have identified for them as hostile, evil forces.
Here lies the awful tragedy of their transformation.
This war, disguised as a noble quest to establish a democracy, will likely produce a thin veneer of the principle, if at all. It is an obscene experiment, a cynical test of a premise that its sheltered proponents wanted administered without foundation or resources or solid appraisals for success.
Without recognition, perhaps without care, of the trial's effects on those who would carry it out, these mad scientists put guns in their hands and sent them onward.
Predictably, the unpredictable has happened. A petite, dark-haired young woman from West Virginia, her lover and others found the climate of war gave license to torment prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Their culpability parallels the declarations of the White House counsel -- soon to be attorney general -- that Geneva Convention rules for treatment of prisoners are "quaint" and do not apply in the new age of terrorism.
On the battlefields, soldiers knowing that their lives can end in a millisecond shoot first, think later. So how does anyone who did not stand in the dusty wreckage of a Fallujah mosque calculate the danger of a moment when an edgy, scared Marine spots a wounded enemy and fires his weapon to kill him?
The scene caught on video has touched off second guesses and the tiresome blame-the-messenger criticism when broadcast in America and used for propaganda elsewhere. The cameraman who filmed the incident later described the Marine as angry and shouting in one minute and fearful the next.
"I can't know what was in the mind of the Marine," the cameraman said, and it appears the Marine himself was confused. "I didn't know, sir. I didn't know," the remorseful warrior said, another soul scarred and stolen by the virulent contamination of war.