A Zeon worth fighting for.
Well now that work is out of the way and I am currently waiting for orders during Spring Break I am finally able to fully address IKnight’s “War Sucks!” post in a fuller manner. IKnight raises an important distinction between the war sucks theme and the prevalent misnomer that it essentially means that such a work is by nature anti-war. For the most part Gundam is anything but anti-war and with exception to a few animated works such as Waltz with Bashir and Grave of the Fireflies there aren’t many animated works that are at their core anti-war. For the most part Gundam is not anti-war since all mecha is a glorification of violence on some level and not an out right rejection of violence as a means to an end. In most cases those who do writing probably have never fought a war nor have ever served in uniform, even then there is a great deal of difference between a conscript and a volunteer. The only widely read writer that I can think of (note there are many more that may or may not have seen combat) who actually fought in a modern war was George Orwell, given that anime is done almost exclusively by Japanese writers and given that they hardly talk of the full scope of the last war that they fought it is unlikely that they are capable of fully understanding the great big mess that is war. IKinght is largely correct in deducing that opposition to one war does not automatically mean that such a person is anti-war, the notion that there can be a just war is proof enough that there are few true pacifists.
If there were to be an anti-war Gundam the protagonist would have to be a GM pilot, not some invincible kid.
I’ll be honest I don’t think that most civilian can even begin to understand what war is and how it is possible for decent people to irrationally enlist. Even if IKnight says that all the conflicts he hears about were in far off places he does ignore the situation in Northern Ireland or what it would have been known to him as “the Troubles” thereby demonstrating what I think is a fundamental issue with civilians in general and idealists in particular, willful ignorance. War is at its core death on an industrial scale nothing will ever change that, not the Geneva Convention, weapons bans, or the International Court of Justice. The creation of such institutions is simply a mark of the notion of a just war and a clean war which is in my experience rather prevalent in the better off places in the world but by no means universally held even there. What mecha, and in keeping with IKnight’s example, such as Gundam does is vindicate acts of war on the part of the titular heroes, with notable exception to UC. In the case of UC it was the chronicle of a long running war with distinctions between good and evil harder to define as it dragged on since both the Federation and Zeon engaged in atrocities of one sort or another at various times. Most importantly of all is that no matter how great a pilot Amuro, Char, or any one for that matter none of them could put an end to it. For all of the heroism, camaraderie, and nobility none of mattered in the grand scheme of things, it was all in vain. More recent Gundams aren’t anti-war as they amount to little more than power fantasies of the lone teenage hero doing superhuman things on par with curing blindness there by dumbing down the issue of war down to moralistic platitudes of little if any value. Nevertheless ‘War Sucks’ is a universal theme in Gundam, along with all the romanticism associated with war adventure, romance, and heroics, and for good reason, since mecha in Gundam are machines of war and not machines that play basketball.
These days it seems child conscripts are quite fashionable, and as such there will be much tomfoolery and SNAFUs.
‘War Sucks’ is common enough sentiment but because morals differ from place to place making moral judgments on war is largely a futile exercise. The idea that there can be a just war ought to confirm to everyone that war will not be going out of fashion anytime soon. In the case of the Neo-Conservatives the 2003 invasion was justified, not every one agreed and heated and ugly arguments were tossed about across the globe largely over the rather pointless issue of whether or not it was right. Herein lies the crucial divergence of how a soldier and a civilian would think, for the civilian having the moral high ground is important, for the soldier the thing he/she cares about most is victory and how to live to see it. I know for me that once the die was cast there would be no take backs and the only thing that really mattered is and always will be victory, since in all honesty I’d rather deal with the consequences of winning than the consequences of losing and like Patton I’d don’t give two shits for some one who lost and laughed. Even if an indeterminate number of servicemen take issue with the dice being tossed in the first place assigning blame doesn’t help me or anyone else who is in country, but for any civilian that cares about politics (which is pretty much everyone) being right helps them in ways I don’t fully understand. The fixation on moral high ground and moral justification plays a large role in Gundam, sure the side they are on can be wrong, but the hero is always right and largely free of any sort of misbehavior and if there is even the slightest bit of ambiguity there is usually an excuse which is harped upon constantly. In addition the in the recent Gundam series there is a distinct lack of death on the hero faction which automatically removes much of the PTSD factor further making war a mere backdrop for mecha beating each other to pieces.
As for the those who actually volunteer there is much less bitching, though a lot more trash talk.
Within the mecha genre the most glamorous of all soldier subtypes is already chosen, the pilot. There is a great difference between a pilot and infantry, after all a pilot will rarely see the first hand the results of his/her handiwork in the same way a ground pounder would, the fact that pilots do put kill markers on their planes is indicative of how each group has different views on killing. Moreover a pilot is usually an officer with better pay and better facilities than the enlisted. Things are easier for a pilot since IFF is usually good and for the most civilians don’t go off getting in the way in fighters or mobile suits, hence by default a mecha pilot will rarely if ever accidentally kill civilians as opposed to the infantry whose environment is far more confused and IFF is depended sole on a snap judgment measured in milliseconds. For the most part if a pilot does pull off a blue on blue it’s because he/she hit a ground target that was misidentified. So by default Gundam and mecha can’t ever really be anti-war because they deal with a sanitized aspect of war the only more sanitized version would be something about sailors on ships bravely swabbing the deck, not to say that their contribution is unimportant (as the Carrier Battle Group is the primary arm of force projection) but rather that they do have a sanitized environment which they swab on a regular basis. Moreover pilots don’t as a rule have it any where near as bad as the infantry since the idea of digging a hole to shit in with toilet paper being a luxury item is often enough to disabuse anyone with a romantic notion of war.
Damn civilians always getting in the way, this is not a photo op people!
While IKnight is right that every serviceman thinks that war sucks, the important difference is that for the most part those who choose to enlist or accept a commission broadly fall into the following categories the guys with no where else to go, mild misanthropes, guys who want the benefits, the guys who believe in their nation, and any combination there of. The guys who only sign for the benefits are often the first to desert and flee to other places seeking asylum and as a result their thought processes are utterly alien to me. Of the remainder for the most part there is the prevailing belief that while killing is bad letting the Jihad-kuns of the world to go about unopposed is far worse and war being war casualties, even collateral ones, are inevitable since fitting everyone with IFF would be impractical not to mention hard to implement on consenting people given potential overtones of Orwellian Dystopia.
As distasteful as civilian casualties are, it is militarily difficult to solve the problem. First off since the advent of fast moving columns in the post blitzkrieg years armies can move faster than civilians can run (also since civilians have more fat people, children, and senior citizens among them speed is further hampered) and even when they can run some for various reasons choose to stay put or are abandoned, speed being a critical to the success of any campaign seizing the objective is going to take precedence over letting every civilian get a good enough head start. Secondly moving all civilians into camps away from the baddies only sounds good in theory even if they don’t die from bullets they can still die from neglect. Thirdly the Jihad-kuns of the world do like to hide out amongst civilians and since Mao wrote the latest best selling book (to get rich is glorious) on guerrilla warfare every revolution in the making makes a point to get civilians involved in a People’s War. You can make a smart bomb but even then it still relies on a kill radius and there is no guarantee that civilians won’t simply get in the way. Then there is the issue of a huge amount of dumb ordinance that militaries all over the world use, and sadly bullets are very democratic in that they generally don’t give a toss about what they pass through or what they end up in. More often than not any killing of civilians is almost always portrayed as a deliberate act, when the reality is that accidents do occur and a slight shift in the wind can result in unintended consequences.
Sure they look magnificent, but we all know how tough they really are…
Then there are the mild misanthropes like me who consider the entire concept of innocent civilian to be a farce, it’s not so much that the civilian label is disagreeable but the notion that humans are in any way innocent is something I for one consider blatantly disingenuous. In Gundam and most series dealing with war there are plenty innocent civilians to be killed by the forces of evil they are little more that objects to be killed and then mourned for so that the forces of evil can be made all the more abhorrent and ultimately easier to kill while remaining “noble” and “just.” Truth is in war civilians will screw each other over to get what they need, crime doesn’t stop, theft goes up during duress, misdemeanors are committed, felonies continue, and for the most part a declaration of war does not put an end to the petty squabbles and crimes of non-combatants. Profiteering also occurs, so I fail to see how every civilian can be considered innocent when you can have Ann Coulters, Al Frankens, Bernard Madoffs, Charles Mansons, and Josef Fritzls amongst the civilian population. You also have the Janjaweed Rifle Association and the Hamas Rocket Society under the aegis of civilian organization, even then even if captured the members of such associations can’t be shot as spies without some controversy. Lastly I am sure most if not all of you have bought stuff with the Made in China sticker and even with Made in USA the truth is perhaps it too was made in a sweatshop, so if you think about it the ubiquitous presence of Chinese goods means that most of us have taken advantage of sweatshop labor at some point. Given the complexity of the civilian label and the general treatment of most civilians as innocent civilians, most shows dumb it down any anti-war message is already compromised.
Freedom means different things to different people.
While the average mecha protagonist in the recent Gundams is an idealist, the prevalent cynicism within most formal all volunteer militaries, is absent. (I’d imagine that it be much worse for a conscript, but I wouldn’t know) It’s fairly easy to become a misanthrope, I used to believe in human decency and the notion of innocent civilian, but 9/11 changed everything (doesn’t it always). I remember clearly, I woke up at about 0630 local time heard about he attack over 106.1 FM, thought it was bullshit, turned on the news to see the second plane go right into the tower, went to school, attended my advanced algebra class, and then the announcement at about 0830 is made to go home. To my shock and surprise I hear the loud cheers of high school students at the early dismissal, only one girl was crying in that class showing any hint of grief her name oddly enough was Mary (who I am sure was a virgin at the time, the Virgin Mary), and it was then I came to the conclusion that humans are savages.
War ages people in unexpected ways.
It’s my belief that decency was only possible when people were given the chance to be decent and if that loud cheer I heard was indicative of anything it was that not all of us even choose to be decent when given the choice. After that I had no doubt in my mind what I was going to do after high school and in 2003 I started the enlistment process. Having venerated Prussians and reading books about war, and now that a war was inevitable, I answered the call that I had felt for most of my life. The question of whether or not I could live with myself after having participated in so cruel (and uniquely human) an endeavor that might harm innocent civilians was answered with a thunderous cheer, which resulted in a general loss of faith in the human species. I think that is something no one else can understand and as a result most character development from civilian to ace is, to me, fanciful. Fundamentally my reasons for enlisting were irrational, and perhaps that is the thing that is glossed over, humans are irrational. While everyone wants peace the caveat is that we all want it on our terms, and that’s the point of violent disagreement across the globe. It’s easy to say you will die to protect your countrymen, but if given the choice to take a bullet for David Duke…I’d rudely decline. Moreover no one ever won a war by dying for his country, he won it by making the other poor bastard die for his, as such the issue is not whether one is willing to die to protect people, but if they are willing to kill to ensure their safety.
Pretty much sums up Pumpkin Scissors, the setting is depressing, but her antics are odd to say the least.
While Gundam and mecha are not anti-war, what does come to mind when I think of anti-war themes is Pumpkin Scissors, though admittedly not the best series in the world, it nonetheless went to a place few anti-war themed works go, the post war period. It’s a romantic notion that once the guns fall silent that the worst is over, on the contrary, the widespread destruction of infrastructure, displaced persons, the break down of order, botched demobilizations, and in the case of the defeated nations that signed a mildly Carthaginian peace, occupation or reparations. Most worryingly of all is the emotional ill will and anger of the populace after a war, if it is long perhaps the feeling of relief will allay the worst of it, but in a short war hatreds persist because the sacrifices more often than not were simply minimal. Unless of course the victor was waging war in someone else’s backyard in which case the post war period needn’t be painful at all. Even if it was not handled superbly Pumpkin Scissors at least covered many aspects of the shitty post war period, wide spread unemployment, loss of infrastructure, meager harvests, continued rationing, banditry, women turning to prostitution, a generation of women who may not even find a husband, disease, illicit drugs, organized crime, etc. Had it been GRIMDARK it certainly could have succeeded in that regard, but a bubbly happy overtone makes it more digestible since the any overly serious treatment of it might have been to depressing to slog through for 24 episodes.
Tl;dr C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre. C’est de la folie.
60 Comments
LOL at the Balalaika reference.
Anyways…..speaking of Balalaika…..Crusader, Why haven’t you reviewed Black Lagoon? I certainly thought you would like that anime.
Anyways….I’ve heard there’s an upcoming Season 3 of Black Lagoon…hope you would be willing to cover it.
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?s=7b3463f5928e394c6fa464f391a5d627&t=68702&page=10
And that is why, the 00 OVA/movie will feature a badass bigger than Ali, Mr.Chang. AN ASIAN GUY IN 00 THAT CAN SHOOT. WHODA THUNK IT?
Among mecha anime, SDF Macross comes to mind when tackling the post-war condition. Though it’s not very detailed as it was only a few episodes before the end of the series, the depiction of poverty was there. I liked that they showed that even though the war was won, the consequences would still have to be tackled.
That was most certainly an interesting read – especially your distinction between the infantry and the flyboys. I won’t claim I can relate to your take, not being a soldier myself beyond the tomfoolery I did during ROTC.
However, I was raised by my grandfather who fought in the fall of Bataan. My uncles are (and were) retired officers. My mother in law is a retired General, and my lovely wife is a reservist captain (JAG). I can sympathize if I can’t relate.
The Philippines has never known true peace, there’s always fighting going on whether it’s against the New People’s Army (commies), to militant Islamic groups (MNLF, MILF, and the Abu Sayyaf), or bandit factions of all kinds.
The soldiers I get to talk to (mostly 30-40 something vets) do have some (or a lot) of the misanthropy you mentioned. I do find it remarkable that it’s my gramps who went through WW2 who had none of it. The difference I saw was that my gramps enlisted during (world)wartime. It was a good time to be patriotic, even for a half-breed Chinese/Filipino like him. The misanthropy I see are from the soldiers who soldiered for a living, and fought in conflicts that were not classified as wars, and against their own people.
That they had to do it in ugly jungle fights probably didn’t help.
This is a good case against using the ‘innocent civilian’ tag. I will use ‘noncombatant’ from now on, or at least just plain civilian. The phenomenon during the Japanese occupation was called “Makapili” here, the term used for the locals who sold out their own people to the occupying forces. We’ve had a long tradition of those since when we aren’t being occupied, we were always colonized.
But as for myself, I don’t hate or distrust people – nor do I idealize them. I do admittedly find myself trying my best, consciously or not, to go back to the kind of idyll that Al Izuhara had before he met Bernie, or at least before shit got real.
*Returns to watching Zeta Gundam TV*
“The only widely read writer that I can think of who actually fought in a modern war was George Orwell,”
Making a statement such as this is a bad idea as it is likely to elicit the following responses:
“How did you manage to graduate from college without reading Slaughterhouse-Five?”
“Hemingway saw action in WW 1 and served on a Q-boat in WW2.”
“For Chrissakes, Salinger fought on Utah Beach!”
“It never occurred to you that the guy who wrote Catch-22 might have served in the military and seen action?”
etc.
It would take a little effort on your part, but I think you will be surprised by just how many authors have seen military action.
dts
Muv-Luv Alternative actually has the hero getting diagnosed with PTSD and being prescribed tranquilizers and mandatory counseling sessions.
Also, yeah “For the most part Gundam is not anti-war since all mecha is a glorification of violence on some level and not an out right rejection of violence as a means to an end.” is basically what Trauffaut was getting at when he said that it’s almost impossible to make a truly anti-war movie because the very visual aspects will make war look exciting.
As someone who has served as a conscript, I can guarantee that war for the citizen-soldier is indeed hell. Especially if like me you served as a ground pounder in the mud, bugs and blood. You know its really bad when the locals attempt to jump the troops just to get a crack at the rations and currency we all carry. Honestly under such circumstances, the civilians are the people not actively trying to kill me and so I can worry about them later.
Back on topic, I think another good anti-war anime film is “Barefoot Gen” which portrays the stark facelessness of modern weaponry. No jackbooted thugs waving a rifle in your face and ravishing your womenfolk. Just a normal day until the nuke drops and your entire corner of the world vanishes in a blast of light and fire. Equally applicable to smaller ordnance such as artillery shells, “small” of course being entirely relative. Also the movie of “The Irresponsible Captain Tylor” springs to mind. Allowing your dinky destroyer to be captured by the enemy just so that you can bring a vision of peace between your peoples before the enemy’s Empress? Now that takes serious balls.
For some strange reason, I really like “Pumpkin Scissors”. Alice is incredibly lucky she never saw real combat; the first time she stood up and waved her little sword on the battlefield would probably have been her last courtesy of an enemy sniper. However it does have this contrast between the people needed to fight a war and the people needed to rebuild from one. Its like a soldier’s fairytale; when the shooting stops there will be this innocent, naive princess who will somehow make all the hurting stop.
War is just a chaos ..
Without war there’s no Gundam..
I feel really bad. I always thought that the apparently blond girl in Pumpkin scissors was a boy. I was shocked to see the picture with her in a dress. Oooops.
Wait, people cheered when the plane hit? Or did I mis-read?
That FreeDom is hilarious. Anyway, well done for pointing out the Troubles; Britons have been good at forgetting about what’s going on in Ireland for centuries. (Indeed, students of the history of the British Empire often forget that, as one of my teachers put it, ‘colonialism begins at home’, and fail to consider all the practice colonisation that went on in Ireland.) In my defence I shall say that by the time I was paying attention to news programs, the Troubles had (more or less) calmed down.
It’s true that there aren’t any innocent civilians. We used to have the doctrine of original sin, but even without that a cursory examination of our own lives, and the lives of those around us, will turn up plenty of guilt. This is actually (to digress a little) something that irks me about the discussion of the current economic crisis: bankers and regulators undoubtedly have a lot to explain, but so do all the ordinary people who borrowed beyond their means to repay. Still, I think the distinction between civilians and soldiers is something which we ought to try to maintain. I know it’s impossible to maintain, but I think the effort of trying will be good for us.
After War Gundam X does touch on the problems of life in a country (well, on a planet) trying to recover after a war (it’s in the title, after all), but it’s Gundam, so it doesn’t focus on them in the way that Pumpkin Scissors does.
@grss1982
Sure when the subs start showing up.
@D=
What’s wrong with Master Asia?
@hayase
SDF Macross at least made the point that the worse was not yet over once the big battle was over and done with, though it was hardly GRIMDARK considering some of the events that took place.
@ghostlightning
In the case of the Fillipino Army I suspect much of it is also due to fighting in a series of conflicts without end, and then there is the issue of what happens to you should you survive and get the chance to retire, even then it ain’t all roses.
@grendel
I should have been more clear but considering how not every one goes to college and not every one takes upper division English based off of what I remember of high school English courses Homage to Catalonia, Animal Farm, and 1984 were common.
As for dts, let’s actually look at the prevailing situation in education, specifically in the US since most of the authors you mention are American.
JD Salinger was more known for Catcher in the Rye which was written before he hit Utah, after that I can’t recall any other piece that was as widely read as Catcher in the Rye.
Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms was not as common place as The Old Man and the Sea when I was in high school, more over back when I was a teenager I didn’t meet anyone who did. If you look at what A Farewell to Arms is about it is abundantly clear why it is not a great part of high school readings, in the age of “think of the children.” The Old Man and the Sea had little to do with any sort of war related theme.
Slaughterhouse Five is not exactly without controversy and there have been attempts to ban it, also being science fiction it was unlikely to have been widely read given the state of education in the US, it is doubtful that outside of the US that Slaughter House Five is used to teach kids in high school in the rest of the Anglo-sphere.
Joseph Heller who wrote Catch 22 even admits that all he ever did were Milk Runs and by the time he flew in 1944 the Luftwaffe was largely swept out of the skies.
I did mention widely read…why don’t you look at the chronology and look deeper into what military action they did see. It would take a little effort on your part.
@jpmeyer
Sounds like Muv-Luv romanticizes even that aspect, not all of PTSD cases are treated even then effectiveness is unknown.
@Mechamorph
Indeed it takes a different kind of person to rebuild than to fight a war, I doubt Patton would have been as fond of reconstruction as he was of going faster than everyone else. Pumpkin Scissor is like a fairy tale now that you mention it.
@mangatoread
G Gundam says hello.
@Karen
The people in my math class cheered when we were all told to go home, people in the Arab world cheered here and there when the second plane hit, which I fully understand why they did.
@IKnight
Things did calm down, but the issues has yet to be fully resolved. I think that while there is merit to distinguishing combatants from non-combatants that use of the word innocent leads to a faulty notion of war in that the confusion is ignored entirely. Moreover it makes a value judgment that then leads to labels like evil being tossed about. Once emotional passions take over things really start getting ugly because things are easier to justify.
Whatever the consequences of this economic fallout will be the world will be very different from what it is now. In the US at least the financial sector will probably never recover the reputation it once enjoyed.
I am about a third of the way in for Gundam X and it doesn’t seem focus on the post war situation much at all at this point, will see how it goes.
Mm, X is much more interested in Mobile Suits than in reconstruction. And I definitely agree on the use of the specific word ‘innocent’.
Now and Then Here and There was pretty good anti-war anime
Just throwing it out there, but Tolkien fought in WWI (the degree of which I am too lazy to look up) and wrote all his famous stuff afterwards. Then again, I don’t think any of his works are really anti-war anyway~
According to Wikipedia, Tolkien volunteered, spent some months in France in 1916, caught Trench Fever and wound up too weakened to be returned to front-line duty. He later wrote
Since he’s so often mentioned in tandem with Tolkien, C.S. Lewis fought in WW1 too. And of course there are the ‘First World War Poets’, though I can only remember Graves, Owen and Sassoon off-hand. Quite how well-known they are, especially outside the UK, I can’t say.
Even though I hated the Titans so much, I can’t figure out why I enjoy the design that they apply to their mobile suits especially with the Titans emblem on the GM’s shield.
As for military experience, I was a cadet in my high school years. But I was one of the few who joined with the military police when I was studying in the Philippines. The MPs are considered to be elite BTW.
@anon
Well the publisher is gone now will check it out if it shows up somewhere.
@Eej
IKnight is correct Tolkien did serve but the degree to which it affected him didn’t seem to come into his works, more over Tolkien seems to have found solace in God and didn’t go to the PTSD levels of some other writers.
@IKnight
There is a lot of literature and poems about war though more often than not they are not taught in English classes in the states and certainly not within the confines of the San Francisco School district. Like Tolkien CS Lewis also found solace in religion and doesn’t seem to have suffered the general apathy to humans that other writers to fought in the First World War went through. Certainly there is a lot of material out there, just little if any of it taught and only read by people who actively look for it.
@Ominae
It’s probably because the Titan’s paint scheme looks a lot like SWAT guys in fatigues and Black LE Gear. Given how you are an MP that might be a factor. MPs are elite in some ways after all you have to be able to take down rowdy soldiers and sailors when things get out of hand.
Well, Heinlein served in the Navy as an engineer, IIRC, and ended up glorifying war (to a point – he made sure it wasn’t just about ‘rah rah Patriotism kick-alien-ass’ the way the Starship Troopers movie – or for that matter, Independence Day – did), but I’d have to say Gundam isn’t quite anti-war so much as being a show which, originally, rubbed the faces of the viewer in shit for a while… which was jarring for anyone who grew up, or enjoyed, the super-robot shows which were popular at the time Gundam aired. It showed people dying, including main characters (a big no-no), and they usually weren’t magically resurrected; the characters on the ‘bad’ side of the conflict had human sides as well as motivations which weren’t simple “I will take over the world, because I am so deliciously evil” statements; the mecha was extremely powerful but not a complete game-breaker unlike the super-robot shows which preceded it, and was vulnerable to damage; even the pilot wasn’t perfect, and had his own issues, and wasn’t strictly in this to be a hero.
Recent Gundam shows, on the other hand, tend more towards glorifying war (and specifically, the machines which make the heroes ‘the heroes’) than their predecessors, but at least they don’t always ignore the consequences of war… even if things like wrecked infrastructure, down-the-shitter economies, nationalist politics, and so forth seem to be ignored on a regular basis with recent shows. Oh, and poverty actually meaning people are struggling to eat and survive – I’m looking at you right now, fat Kataron kid.
The fact that a majority of Heller’s combat flights were milk runs was meaningful… how? Clearly he had combat experience. And the fact that Slaughterhouse-Five was controversial is a meaningful observation in the present context? Nevertheless, I took your statement at face value, but I could add more names to the list if you wish to add provisos and caveats, and if you really wish to further embarrass yourself.
Tolkien is one of the more widely read English authors of the 20th century. Harold Bloom may not be a fan of Tolkien (and frankly neither am I,) but it is hard to dismiss his works.
Robert Graves wrote I, Claudius, a novel which shows up on nearly every Top 100 Novel list. Mr. Graves fought in WW1 and the novel was published in 1936.
The guy who wrote Lord of the Flies, William Golding, saw action while serving in the Royal Navy in WW2. He published Lord of the Flies in 1954.
The author of Watership Down was a WW2 vet. The novel was published in the 1970s
Frank Herbert literally saw action during ww2. He was, I believe, a seabee and a photographer in the US Navy.
Erich Maria Remarque, Tim O’Brien, Irwin Shaw, & James Jones are novelists who had combat experience and wrote best selling and popular works based on those experiences.
It isn’t a crime to be ignorant, but to willingly stay that way just may be.
@Haesslich
IIRC Heinlein was discharged for medical reasons and his works generally aren’t anti war in any sense. Indeed the current glossing over of the consequences is certainly a sign of the times
@grendel
Why do you seem so hurt over this? If I insulted you too badly I am sorry, but coming off as holier than thou avid reader isn’t terribly polite. Your list is impressive, but again not every one in this country reads that much and certainly I have never heard of all the people you mention and if you can’t name one author I suggest you chill for a bit. More importantly not every author who fights in war goes on an anti-war tirade or hell even wants to remember it all. Let me be very clear hear I originally meant in the context of what is used in High school since not every one can go to college nor does every one read all the top 100 lists of literary authorities. I apologize for being poor and ignorant, I don’t have as much money to blow on books and much of my free time is usually occupied in reading field manuals for the business of war to keep the well to do safe and sound while they read their books. So what would you have me do then?
Lord of the Flies wasn’t that heavy on the war theme, it was more for ambiance for the boys to eventually have a power struggle and raping pigs. Dune wasn’t exactly anti-war and I have met few that have managed to read the rest of it. Moreover I thought the ecology and religious themes were more important than any reflection on war itself.
Milk Runs means no trouble, hence there was no opposition of any significance, as he flew in combat 1944 Heller did not assuming he used the term correctly even fought a Luftwaffe pilot in air to air action. Also Just because you serve doesn’t mean you actually see combat. Slaughter House Five being controversial is relevant because as a result it is not always in libraries and not used in High School. Frank Herbert was a seebee, but he was medically discharged after six months, even if he was still in the Navy around June 1942 he would have missed out on some of the bloodiest campaigns. As I don’t think he was a POW it’s reasonable to assume he did not find himself in the desperate attempts to blunt the Japanese offenses of 1941 and early 1942. I don’t know for sure I can’t find much on it but since you are smart and not like me please do tell me if you find out. So how is this entirely irrelevant in the context of war and anti-war themes when not everyone you mentioned necessarily saw combat?
You presume far too much if you think everyone can read that much, not every one has the means or the time. You can decry it all you want and wish for God to make it a crime, but for poor folk like me we can’t afford as much leisure time as you. If you wish to donate some of those books to me I’ll gladly read them and get out of my criminal ignorance.
All Hail Yukari Sensei!!!
“Why do you seem so hurt over this?”
*chuckle*
Were you shooting for irony? Clearly you feel insulted that I challenged your erroneous statement. I don’t see what is so hard about admitting that you were wrong, but I am not the least bit hurt by your continued attempts to extricate yourself from the hole you dug. I am amused, but not hurt.
dts
@grendel
Oh so you’re one of those okay I am wrong, I also heard you leik mudkips and read over 9000 books a day.
Crusader: Heinlein worked in the Naval Yards at the same time as Asimov, IIRC – recruited him and a few other engineer-writers into it. And I’d say he’s less anti-war than anti-’just’ war; Starship Troopers took the idealism out of fighting a war, mostly by showing that the war could be messy, dangerous, and something most sane people wouldn’t willingly get into… but at the same time, you couldn’t necessarily escape the necessity for fighting either, and all the rest of the justifications that people tended to throw into the conflicts to justify their stance for or against were usually hogwash.
You know, sorta like the arguments that certain wars were “just” wars or “unjust” ones – you fight because there’s either a need to, or because there are goals that are to be achieved in doing so – gaining power, surviving against people who want to gain power over you or the place you’re living, preemptive strikes to eliminate threats, etc.
Good post. Chalk up one more for the ‘no such thing as innocent’ school of thought.
Not trying to seem ‘holier than thou’, but on the whole books thing:
A lot of people fought in WWII, many of them became authors, some of whose works were recognized as classics, and a few of these have pretty wide readership still. However, if we narrow up your definition of ‘modern war’ to only covering the post-WWII period . . .
I honestly can’t think of any popular, ‘classic’ novels by Vietnam or Iraq veterans (although Vietnam vets have made a big splash in the SF scene). I expect that we’ll be seeing more from War on Terror veterans in coming years (or OCO or whatever they’re calling it now), but I’m surprised that the Vietnam veterans had so little impact.
I rarely read more than 3 or 4 books a day.
@Haesslich
Heinlein clearly was not anti-war. The “Patrick Henry League” was Heinlein’s response to the growing movement within the US to stop American testing of nuclear weapons. Of course, other than Heinlein and his wife, the Patrick Henry League had 0 members. Heinlein got tired of defending himself and his views, so he wrote Starship Troopers to clarify his position.
oops.
After Starship Troopers was released Heinlein was accused of being a fascist and a misogynist and a number of other unpleasant ists. Of course, I suspect that most of the people who criticized the book and Heinlein never actually read it.
dts
To tell you the truth, I had some VIP protection training and were suppose to be issued handcuffs. That never came and the only time that I was suppose to be mobilized (supposedly) was in a concert show when the audience was almost getting a bit rowdy (by 99.9998 percent)
And yeah, I never utilized the VIP protection training though. I can give you details if you’re interested.
@Haesslich
I read once that if time travel were real and someone cured Heinlein of his tuberculosis that it would have been Admiral Heinlein and the Soviets would have been crushed and he’d be launching a Martian expedition. Still I think most of what Starship Troopers was remembered for was cool sci-fi shit, though I suppose it’s not nearly as fascist as some would have us believe. War is merely the continuation (perhaps failure) of policy through other means.
The reasons for war are many and varied but it’s important to remember that war is bloody business and if pursued the only legitimate out come is victory unless you happen to be Job Trunicht…
@Ian K
I changed the wording a bit as not insult every literary fan there is on Earth, though I had no idea some could be so passionate. Good to know I disdain for innocent is vindicated even when it comes to literature majors.
I think many people forget that while WWI was just as shitty as WWII that most of the issues of civilian casualties was the result of war related famine and disease and not soldier going to town and shooting the place up. I think the Spanish Civil War and WWII are modern in the sense that it laid the foundations to what doctrines are used today.
Most Vietnam vets seem to be devoting their literary talents outside of fiction whether defending or arguing against the war or providing reasons why it was a failure, same goes for the first and second Iraq wars though in the case of the second much has been written about it in the realm of non-fiction.
@Ominae
I get trained on plenty of weapons as well and like you it doesn’t mean I will be using it. It’s not like there is any reason for me to use AT missiles, but it’s important to know how.
Where though? I’m curious. Unless you can’t tell of course…
@ Crusader
Firstly your post is a very interesting read, and in constructing my reply I did not delve thoroughly either, and for reasons I have explained in the last paragraph. And I believe you are aware of my next point; that your article raises many issues (philosophical, historical, social and psychological) which are far deeper than anything MSG could possibly shed light into (a point you tried to convey) but in doing so you have offered a narrow view of the subject: war.
I do understand it may be what you intended or for other practical reasons you didn’t elaborate. Whilst I can understand anyone, especially a present or ex soldier, can enunciate finely their views on war, its effects etc. I hesitate to accept merely being a participant of war, that individual can understand the social nuances of war as a social and human creature greater than a ‘civilian’. You don’t need to have served to write about war because what interests most is not its aftermath but its cause. Further you don’t need to have served to understand what war is or its effects, but only the immediate sensation of war and the dilemmas soldiers immediately are confronted with.
Secondly, ‘morals’ do not differ geographically, they differ categorically – deontological or teleological (major arms etc.) or a mix. Moral judgment may be futile, but it is necessarily something everyone will adjudge for himself, whether he uses religion or atheism or Western or Eastern moral codes as their benchmark, the morality of war. Morality is a human concept. And ‘war’ is a human force. The exercise is not futile because it pinpoints for the individual the locality within which that individual operates as a part of the human world. It will direct his movements, shape his beliefs, mould his plans and affect his relations with other humans and the world. A moral belief to exert no moral judgment or that it is pointless is a moral judgment itself. Why? What is right and wrong is something humans grew up having to distinguish. This is why ‘moral justification’ is so important. In every war each side has their ‘moral justification.’ It is a belief that what is being done to them or what they are doing to others is ‘just.’ It is a form of institutionalized subjective ‘justice’ – a creature of society just as is war. There can be no segregation of morality, justice, war and all the other intimately ‘human’ concepts and forces.
As a soldier, if you were ordered to clear a village of civilians dwelling in neutral territory because your platoon requires that right of way which this neutral country’s government did not grant – will you kill them? And if you don’t invade this country, you know that your opposing enemy will do the same and thus gain the advantage. As a soldier, is there no moral judgment in there? Or would you kill this village of civilians because “for the soldier the thing he/she cares about most is victory and how to live to see it”? If before you decide to clear these obstacles you felt a tiny bit of hesitation you would have felt fully the human force called morality, and you would have felt it as a soldier.
The problem for ‘war’ is not to find a military solution. It is to find a human solution. A social solution. The problem of civilian casualties is a factor war, as a force, reconciles with. It isn’t a problem. It is an aspect. The further removed civilians are from war, the greater potential it is to wage war, as the final moral reason for its abstention is removed.
And I would hardly take Mao or Stalin as an authority figure for anything – period.
I do agree that most anime and other shows dumb down ‘war’ as a social and human force. But I don’t see how platforms appealing to the masses would do otherwise. The construct of the ‘innocent civilian’ attaches ‘innocence’ as synonymous to ‘non-participation’ or ‘not an active’ instigator of war. You created a devious example from a word popularly ambiguous to which you have contorted to argue a point that ‘no person’ is truly ‘innocent’ because of the goods we buy or the idiosyncratic individuals we habour within the term ‘civilian’. This is a irresponsible generalisation I hope you can see and in truth does not serve your point but contradicts. You have placed a moral judgment on citizens – therefore you yourself have taken a ‘moral high ground.’ You as a soldier in a civilian capacity has judged others. It simply means soldiers are civilians. Morality belongs to all. Soldiers occupy a duality of roles. And ‘war’ has the unnerving ability to relegate, temporarily, most moral values.
Human decency is another term for morality. I can’t understand the term in any different manner. I don’t believe the loud cheers of high school teenagers in the face of tragedy are indicative of anything to be generalised. Wouldn’t an example of the Nazis be far better? Whilst I don’t believe you have lost faith in humanity, but just choosing to seek it in a different manner. No one will freely die for an unrelated other. Its part of human conscience. Inversely, no one will kill an unrelated under free will. The necessity to kill and be cruel is a factor of social and human forces which war is innately the highest expression thereof; it is not to be alienated from the studies of such forces.
Finally, I don’t mean to dissuade you from your thought or offend, but I figured your post deserves a balanced view or at least thought-provocation from the ‘other’ side of the fence to be fair since you do touch on some very queasy and significant issues. And finally, I do personally believe that if war is to oust a truly radical autocratic antagonist, can there be a truly ‘just war.’ Any thing else is but a play of social and human forces.
@ grendel
If you want to understand war beyond its immediate atrocities, that is *really* understand ‘war’ as a phenomenon and not just its individualistic consequences then your list seems to stagnate.
@Ominae
It’s an island that is uninhabited according to the US census and lots of units use it because there is only one ship to shore facility for live fire.
@SDS
I don’t think I am making a moral judgment per se, I just don’t think that we should attach the innocent epithet to them, after all the act of war requires civilian cooperation or at least no serious opposition of any value on their part. They are fully capable of aggravating armed troops even if they are technically unarmed, like throwing rocks which can kill, but “rules” of war being what they are responding in kind is not permissible. To put it simply they are fundamentally people and attaching the term innocent to them wrongly elevates them to a near saintly status that is harped upon in casualty reports, and glosses over the fact that they are capable of doing belligerent things.
In you scenario, first off I would disagree with the platoon commander in writing and appeal to the commander of the next higher formation to reconsider. The US being what it is would probably let the enemy occupy the town and liberate before they can dig in. That way if people get hurt the enemy was using them as human shields. Still first option would be to forcibly evacuate them or convince them to leave citing how we are expecting the mother of all battles and how the enemy certainly plans on shelling the place. Since the US can fire for effect call in a small barrage on the out skirts to let them know that war be a knocking. Hint that there might be the use of chemical or biological agents by the enemy as you have heard some disturbing rumors to that effect and that there are not enough gas masks to go around. Beg them to at least evacuate the old, the sick, the young, and the women surely then the women folk would beg the men to go with them. Indulge them with stories of suspected rape, torture, and massacres that you have heard the enemy has perpetuated. Tell them that an advancing column was sighted about 50 km away and you expect probing attacks during the night. Offer to help them pack and provide help in moving their precious belongings and tell them to head to a safe area toward the enemy’s lines or if that isn’t possible then a place that isn’t too far away to keep the illusion that this is all temporary and they will be home soon enough probably in two weeks tops. Hand them a few rations and wish them luck on their mandatory vacation. I would also proved a small team of troops to escort them as far as point whatever, as I do want them to feel safe as they kindly get out of the way. Failing that confine them to their homes, do all that you can to “bomb proof” them and if they get blown up, oh well I tried. Because after that if they still feel like staying and they get caught in the crossfire well at least you know they were guilty of being stupid. Still the important thing is that you don’t line them up and shoot them, one it hardly helps in the long run, and two I wouldn’t want to have a bunch of conscientious objectors all of a sudden. I am sure this would violate a good number of rules, but I’d rather they all be displaced than dead on the spot. Now if I were working for the USSR or PRC I’d probably just torch the place.
Ideally these civilians could serve nicely as refugees for the enemy to take care of if they really are killing and raping though I’d tell them where the enemy doesn’t appear to be going but if they get caught it will be really bad for them but great for my PR machine to spread headlines of Massacre of X Refugees by the opposing force. Otherwise they are a nuisance that just gets in the way, we aren’t Kataron we don’t run kiddie day care by the ammo dump.
@ Crusader
Attaching ‘innocent’ to dead civilians is a media and political tool. You have to see over that and not dwell on it. Civilians can of course aggravate soldiers, but so can allied soldiers and enemy soldiers. The problem is where the war is waged, its a social and human force impacting with reciprocal social and human forces (civilians). Its not a perfect world. You can’t expect perfect cooperation. People have homes, cultures, values and histories. You can’t impose your own system by war. And you certainly cannot expect civilians to adjust themselves to appease a force which itself is borne from economic or politic farce that civilians don’t understand.
I am not ameliorating the belligerent civilian. I am however resolved to argue there should be no presupposition that civilians must act cooperatively, rationally or morally. Civilians, solider, politicians, capitalists, autocrats are all contributors of the social force war is borne from. But, and this is the categorical imperative, a civilian insofar as he/she is a civilian who is not belligerent in terms of being an active instigator and participant to war, is ‘innocent’ in its immediate sense of the war. The term isn’t intended to denote saintly status, its just a shorthand to lump everyone who is not part of the army whom dies due to military operations. But I do recognize it can be taken to connote saintly status since the media does play with the truth.
The hypothetical I constructed was more a rhetorical whichever way you decided to answer. Its there more for personal realization. And I did not expect your reply to be directed to this. However in your long analysis of alternative actions your final sentence was the one which is of importance in terms of the hypothetical. First I will have to distinguish between (i) the soldier working under the USSR/PRC torches the place for fear if he does not do so he will incur the wrath of the oppressive regime itself (coerced); or (ii) the soldier working under the USSR/PRC torches the place because under such regimes there will be no political repercussions if the goal is achieved. Second I will now ask, when you said “Now if I were working for…” were you insinuating you were the type of soldier in (i) or (ii).
If your answer is (i), then I can reason with. If your answer is (ii), meaning you show a general disposition to ‘kill’ those who impede your goals then you will be in danger of serving yourself a very contradictory life.
At the bottom of the matter though it may be considered a difference of opinion. Truths and morals are susceptible to subjectivity. It really depends on the individuals perspective. But even if you are the rat bastard who is willing to do everything and anything to serve your own interests, you simply operate on an egotistic moral theory. Its still moral, but just the least moral of morals.
@SDS
Hear, hear!
Tim O’Brien served in Vietnam War and he wrote poignant (and very well-known) fictions about his experience, like “The Things They Carried.” Just my 2 cents here!
I agree with you that Gundam gives a sanitized version of war and it can never be anti-war.
@Crusader
Master Asia is too GAR for GUNS. His only projectile is made of 500% GAR.
@sds
?
I am not quite sure that I “get” your point. Crusader opined that, “The only widely read writer that I can think of who actually fought in a modern war was George Orwell”. (note: Crusader did edit his contribution, but I am choosing to quote his original and unaltered text as that is what I had available to me when I posted my reply.) Crusader’s list of one was anemic to say the least. Without any real effort I listed almost a dozen such authors. I was not arguing the merits of specific works or authors. I took Crusader’s misguided standard, and applied it, and found more than a handful of authors that fit his requirements.
The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara, has been touted by experts of Literature AND Military History alike as possibly the finest novel about the American Civil War. Nevertheless, Crusader could quibble that the Shaara’s books have not been widely read. Seeing as how he was willing to quibble over minutiae, I chose to keep things simple and relatively unassailable.
If my aim was to supply great literature that also included themes and settings that involved armed conflict, my list of authors and books would be far different.
dts
“To my shock and surprise I hear the loud cheers of high school students at the early dismissal, only one girl was crying in that class showing any hint of grief her name oddly enough was Mary (who I am sure was a virgin at the time, the Virgin Mary), and it was then I came to the conclusion that humans are savages.”
Wait… What? This sentence was meant to me ironic… Right?!
Actually, since I’m watching VOTOMS again, what do you think about that as a mecha anime about war?
Eej: VOTOMS treats mecha as a tool, just like Area 88 treated the planes as a tool to wage war – it’s equipment, which makes it almost an afterthought. And it depends on which VOTOMS series you’re looking at, for the message: the most recent one (Paisen Files) IMO was more of a war story where the fighting was the source of the internal conflict which drove the drama, and where the stress created by the actions required of the characters propelled the plot, whereas something like Merowlink is more about the consequences of the fighting and how the scars left on the survivors can motivate people to do irrational things… or so I’d call it. I wouldn’t say they’re anti-war, but neither do they glorify it like recent Gundam series have (even Wing with it’s so-called ‘war is bad’ message tends towards making fighting and killing hundreds of people something that is expected of heroes and good guys… a ‘just’ war, of sorts).
@SDS
Wow, you are making me use my crash crse in ethics (taught in law school, of all places!!1!!!11). The ethics and morality of armed conflict is one that has generated discussion almost as long as war itself, so I’m not sure where to dip my toesies…
I believe Sgt “Hoot” in the movie adaptation Black Hawk Down expressed it best: as soon as the first bullet flies by, all that sh*t about politics just goes out the window…I suspect Crusader is expressing a similar opinion on combat. To continue onto morality, the profession of arms requires the individual agent to subordinate his interests to that of the group (the subunit, but ultimately the political authority in “Western” democracies) and the Rule of Law (Law of Armed Conflict etc.) Whether that is achieved in RL is another story. Everyone has a conscience, but the question is how to resolve it when thrust into very problematic situations. The law of war would require a well-trained soldier to take exception to the order (and protest to his leader) but even leaving the extreme situation, what of the decision to participate in conflict and take the lives of others? That, I think, is one major moral dilemma that underlies the whole enterprise of war.
Your comment on civilians provided an excellent counter-point to Crusader’s cynicism about civies. Your comments that the distinction exists as an important moral distinction is at the heart of the conduct of war that tries to strive to respect some semblance of the “just” war. I’m guessing Crusader is expressing the realist school where civilians are seen as fueling conflict yet hypocritically considering themselves (or are portrayed as) “innocent” (a point I think you acknowledge), or are instrumental objects to be used to achieve a mission. A bit of devil’s advocate: are all civilians “innocent,” or are some more innocent than others? Are the reasons we classify the person building the bomb and the person dropping the bomb morally sound, or is it a practical necessity to regulate armed conflict?
How about something different: if conflict is understood to not just include the military forces and political leadership, but also individuals (through implicit/explicit action), would positive peace be possible? The suggestion that a leader who wants to start a war should grab a rifle and head to the front could has a certain attractive quality to it…
Back to animu: mecha, usually with cool graphics and lasers, if made to sell toys can glorify war. The medium lends itself to fluid, impressive and dramatic stimuli (and to sell toys). I would agree that a ground level view of the true consequences of conflict (orphans, environmental destruction, poverty) would go some ways towards de-glorifying war. Unfortunately, the most effective way to deglorify conflict is to live through it…
@Grendel et al.
Yes, I concede that Crusader-kun’s off the top of his head remark about Orwell as the only combatant-author did open the floodgates there to some potshots, but I take it more as an indictment of the US San Fran’s high school system and science majors in general (*snap*)…um wait, I was one too (kinda sorta) but I did some other crses too…argh…
@PO2(?) Crusader-kun
Good god man, where do you find the time to write all this? Your love of the anime (and Yuri) most be over 9000 to blog this much. Perhaps a trip to your book depository to be learned about combatant-authors would be a nice change of pace (*snapX2*) j/k…you know it’s cool
SDS has an important point: war is too important to leave to the specialists (soldiers or politicians), as it affects such a wide cross-section of humanity. The indoctrination process of trg and serving imparts a particular worldview on military members which can lull us into forgetting that “the outside” may have very valid points to make about a complicated, messy business. It just so happens that in your front row seat and handed a bangstick your perspective and interest in the enterprise is substantially different from civy back home.
As for misanthrope, people are people, I think that sums it up best (as someone else has mentioned here).
By the way, this has been the Sphinx on THAT blog: what rating are you going for in the Navy? Is Uncle Sam picking, or do you have a career stream in mind? Wait hold on…it says here in my commissioning scroll that you must tell me, in fact I order you to make it so, the power of the scroll compells you =)
TL;dr: give peace a chance =)
What is ypur opinion about Flag ?
Hi Crusader,
While I broadly agree with your points (and always find your Gundam 00 commentary interesting and entertaining), I was a bit confused by your paragraph about “innocent civilians”. Are you saying that civilian deaths don’t matter, as they all deserve to die for being irregular combatants, buying unethically sourced goods or just not being saints, something I find highly objectionable (I despise all “original sin” and “kill them all and let god sort them out” type arguments)? Doesn’t this essentially mean that at least in theory, murder shouldn’t be punished because the victim probably deserved death for something? Or that if I accidentally run someone over in a car, it doesn’t matter because they stole a cookie from the cookie jar when they were 10?
Perhaps you could give some examples of how your view applies to combat situations and how they should be handled/portrayed? That might help clarify your point of view.
Controversial post. Thats why Crusader is one of my favorite bloggers。
I can understand the idea that not all civilians are inocents, I readed enough chickenhawks opinions of people spilling the word freedom, justice and democracy, for send soldiers to fight in some God`s forsaken place, but they never joined the armed forces like Crusader did. Also I can remember how many south and central americans soldiers graduated in the USA Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation and ended making Coup d`etats in their countries. So, I agree that the people that made 9/11 attack are savages, but I dont think that the US civilians are all that inocents. Maybe because I born in one of that countries with two graduated from the WHISC and my own father was interrogated by soldiers only because he joined a political party and asked for free elections. For the record: I dont hate the US or soldiers, is old history now, I made some good american and soldier friends, but I am not so naive to believe that the world is white and black or that there is anyone free of sin. If we vote idiots we have some responsability. Also I can remember how much the word patriotism brainwash civilians and get the majority of the population support a stupid war like the Falkland war, the gob killed the ecomomy and tortured people, but even my own father was infected by nationalism and supported the military dictatorship in war time. I think that overseas wars are even more apealing to the civilians, because they dont see risk for their own lifes, there is minimun or no chance of retaliation on the country soil. A veteran from the war said: “I killed humans beings and some of my comrades died, but here in home people talk about war like if we only lost the soccer World Cup, they talk like the body count is the score of a game.” There is a high rate of suidice of war veterans.
BTW, when I say that “civilians are not inocents” sounds to me like when terrorists say that “there is no inocents” for justify targeting civilians. From an intelectual point of view, is not different from when USA nuked two japanese cities, for end the war before the Soviet Union invaded beyond the Kurile Islands. Let’s see… even if people can be held resposible for support or not opose to war or overseas support to murderous regimes (AKA key allies). Can kids be killed for the sins of the parents? If the answer is yes, then we are like terrorist. “When the bullets fly, wining at any cost is all that matter”, so killing 200k civilians, innocent kids included, is fine if that save the lives of tousands of american soldiers. I dont like it, is what savages do, but I can understand that, the concept of “Total War”. What I really cant stand is the hypocrisy. The big farce of the moral reasons for invade a country. Ie. Japan excuse of invade Asian countries for free them from the white men, when in reality was all about secure the suply of oil for runing their empire. Hmm… I made another wall of text, better that I stop here.
An really interesting article, especially the part about “heroes” in war. If you ever have the time I recommend reading ““All Quiet on the Western Front” (org. Title: “Im Westen nichts neues”) by Erich Maria Remarque. While widely recognized as anti-war, the author himself states it as “neutral” (grabed this bit of wiki).
Basically it’s about a whole class happily volunteering to fight in WWI only to find out that war has no real ideals, morals and anything else that were spouted in the beginning. It’s only kill to survive. Death. Even when the enemy is after all just the same as you.
There is a truly remarkable scene (one that stuck long in my mind when I read this book back in school) with the main protagonist fighting a Russian Soldier in a mud hole while taking shelter of an artillery attack. In fear of being killed he uses a knife to kill said Russian Soldier. But because of the artillery he can’t leave the shelter hole and so hours later the Russian Soldier regains consciousness. Afraid what the “evil Russian” would do to him, he prepares to stab him again, this time to kill him for sure. But what he finds is a mortally wounded young man, about his own age as scared as he is himself. He realizes his “enemy” is just the same. A kid hoping to survive.
Every time I hear someone sprouting slogans like “It’s for justice”, “to make the world a better place” I think back to this scene. Really does a “war” make for a better place ? Aren’t the people your killing believing the same. Then who is right?
Back to Gundam: That’s probably the reason why I couldn’t warm up to Gundam 00 and to most other Gundam stuff (which is only GSD, half of GS and half of Wing – the “emo teen” nowadays don’t really help either) I have seen. (But I enjoyed your articles a lot so keep ‘em coming).
On the part of “innocent” civilians. True there might be a lot not so innocent ones. Mankind, as you pointed out, is quite savage and way to many people do things they would never do would they have to face the consequences.
But what about let’s say a kid getting it’s legs blown off by landmine set in a war long past. Can’t such a kid be considered innocent? The child might not even have been born at the time the war was fought, so what did it do to deserve this?
My memory betrayed me – it was a French soldier not a Russian.
With all the potential controversy going on in the post, why is the most persistent argument in the thread one of literary smugness? And terribly smug smugness at that. I dare say he’s arguing more for his ego than to make a real point.
At least the second-most persistent dialogue concerns the position of civilian in wartime. That’s a good read.
Civilians do not need to be innocent to not be targets.
I wholeheartedly agree with the idea that there are no innocent civilians. There are no innocent humans except young children, by definition. With or without intent, the citizens of a nation at war form momentum to its war effort in one way or another. Japan’s own citizens beat the idea of Sinic racial inferiority in the second World War. They built the bombs, chanted the chants, and when it came right down to it, created the setting in which thousands of people were killed, raped, medically experimented on, whatever. I pay taxes to my state and to my government, which procures bullets that fly into the heads of Taliban and civilian alike in Afghanistan.
But that was then, this is now. War is different, the idea of a front is in its dying throes, and honestly, I see the line between military and paramilitary blurring. Civilians should not be targeted for the blunt fact that killing them is counterintuitive. Soldiers exist as the sword of their government, and particularly in the case of the United States, it is the duty of servicemen to exercise American foreign policy overseas– not to levy justice to the innocent or to the guilty. A uniform is not a hammer.
This is why we have ROE; because war isn’t about killing the enemy anymore.
Now that that’s out of the way, allow me to say that I generally agree. Nearly all mecha anime nowadays are huge power trips, not the least of whom is 00. As for the distinction between pilots and the duckfoot, I disagree with the take on friendly fire and collateral damage there. Infantrymen rarely shoot each other, or kill each other by friendly fire. They are, after, rather close together, and trained in tandem with one another. Pilots, however, often blow friendlies to death, and not because of misidentification but because of incompetency. A commander will look at the map wrong and order a JDAM danger-close and blow up some of his guys. Similarly, the majority of civilian deaths in war aren’t due to soldiers shooting them. Civies aren’t stupid, and they’ll run from a threat they can see, IE a soldier in 100 lbs of gear, body armor, and an assault carbine. When a jet they can’t even see drops a laser guided bomb on their house, well, it’s different.
And I agree with Dorian. This literary snobbery is besides the point. Crusader’s general point stands. Anime is powertrip, and Japanese do not know war. Not in the slightest.
It might not be mecha, but it’s worth mentioning that Starship Operators isn’t bad for a war drama. I did wince when one of the antagonists of the show turned out to be named ‘Truman’, but by and by the show wasn’t about show-offs and aces. It dealt with capital ship combat, after all.
@ anyone interested
The reason for my posts is to generate thought on certain very important points Crusader picks up but does not elaborate. And I’m talking beyond the whole ‘anime’ is a crap representation of ‘war’ one. There are two good reasons if you read my posts, why they appear incoherent and verbose.
Firstly my posts are more of a dialogue than an essay or even a self-contained article like what Crusader wrote. I pick up points I feel is significant which Crusader has alluded to and dropped the anime comparisons.
Second, they are incoherent because, if you cannot see, I’m writing about issues that are very abstract? I did not ground it concretely. Hell you can even say I’m f*cking around with everyone who bothered to read any of it.
I accept not everyone enjoys a metaphysical workout, but in life – especially these days, you often have to get back to first principles. Being a realist is one thing, being an informed realist is another.
@ cspdelta
Haha, a crash course on ethics in law school isn’t going to cut it! You’ll need to take 2-3 more courses dealing with knowledge and reality, then some sociology stuff and a few miscellaneous Wikipedia searches.
Ethics is a beautiful thing, if not because its every warmongers political propaganda. Whilst I saw the particular issues Crusader raised, I preferred to comment on them in a more general respect. I personally don’t see the value in picking up the moral and social shambles during or after war. You can discuss all you want about the practical realities and difficulties of soldiers at war, it gets us nowhere. Why? Because the soldier is every bit as vulnerable as the civilian who both are enveloped in this gigantic social machine and lose sight of it all. You need to know its causes. And sadly, history tells us most wars are fought due to: resource/power/religion throw in some misunderstanding, sprinkle some egoism and obstinacy, mix well, and serve hot.
The point is: war is a social and human force. I did not intend to ‘argue’ but just generate discussion.
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[...] humanity is such a dismal light. In the present, we can find quite bleak views on human beings. Crusader writes, Then there are the mild misanthropes like me who consider the entire concept of innocent civilian [...]
[...] fact, it might even be that unless you look at it from the eyes of an innocent civilian, you might not understand what the point of the exercise [...]
[...] post has been brought to you by IKnight, this grumpy dude, White Wolf, and sup/tg/. Part of a series talking about [...]
[...] Crusader wrote interesting things related to Gundam (real robot anime context) [->]: In addition the in the recent Gundam series there is a distinct lack of death on the hero faction [...]