Confused Alarms of Struggle and Flight: Where Ignorant Armies Clash in the Night

Confused Alarms of Struggle and Flight:
Where Ignorant Armies Clash in the Night
by Mike Madias, Clinical Sociologist and Columnist

September 30, 2002

Columnist Mike Madias For better than a decade the United States has been actively at war with Iraq. Time magazine in its September 23 issue, reports that the Navy and Air Force have flown in the neighborhood of 250, 000 sorties over Iraq in the last 11 years. Over the last three years (as of the reckoning in TIME magazine) the US dropped bombs or fired missiles on Iraq 323 times. None of our planes have been shot down or crashed. One jet was seriously damaged by anti-aircraft fire, but it made it home safely. We have suffered no injuries or fatalities.

The US has been laying siege on Iraq, and calling it "sanctions." The United Nations has documented that more than 5000 Iraqi children die each month of illnesses and infections that would be easily cured if the US did not limit the flow of antibiotics and other medicines into the country.

During World War I, the British Navy set up a blockade on Germany. It was said to be one of the most deadly sieges in history. Between 400,000 and 800,000 civilians died for lack of life sustaining materials. The body count due to our sanctions on Iraq challenges the world record, currently held by the British Navy.

But, Saddam Hussein is a sadist, on par with Nero. Amnesty International has documented the crimes against humanity perpetrated by his family and his accomplices; including unspeakable torture, and mass murder of his people. He not only has developed chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, he has already used them. In Iran, Kuwait and against the Kurds. In the name of humanity, he and his thugs should be deposed and punished.

After 250,000 air sorties, hundreds and hundreds of bombing runs (aren’t bombs and missiles weapons of mass destruction?), and half a million or so victims of United Nations sanctions, Saddam is still there.

There is such madness and wholesale cruelty on all sides that it seems as though an outright invasion of Iraq by ground troops might even be a kinder and compassionate alternative to our current actions. A kind humanitarian war, led by a compassionate conservative Commander-in-Chief?

Perhaps a surgical military action in Iraq could liberate the country. It worked in Panama. But such an action is unlikely. Americans have utmost respect for grunts. They tend to admire and trust both ordinary and elite forces. But history says that the fates of brave soldiers are usually decided by idiot politicians, and by officers who put self aggrandizement ahead of prudence. A sizable percentage of American troops killed in the first Persian Gulf war were victims of bullets, artillery and smart bombs deployed by our own military.

To prevent death of soldiers due to managerial incompetence, it is the unspoken duty of a sergeant to sell the farm to a green second lieutenant, rather than let the novice officer lead the squad on an ill advised mission.

The way to prevent the death of enlisted men is to assassinate the recent gung-ho graduate of the officer’s candidate college? From stories told by retired infantry non-coms who saw combat in Vietnam, this was the law of the jungle. Lesson one for a second lieutenant: lead your squad well, don’t shoot yourself, when you call in an air strike, hope to hell that the fire isn’t too damn friendly, and watch your own back.

History is a poor teacher here. It can be cited to give persuasiveness to anybody’s political position. Sanctions, a strategy that has deadly consequences and uncertain success in Iraq, have been successful in South Africa. Air power and sanctions led the downfall of Milosevic in Serbia. Smart bombs were smart enough in the first Persian Gulf war, and high tech jockeys with their joysticks tell the press that today’s bombs are even smarter.

It is all so confusing. We don’t know the right way to go, and we can’t know for sure. The doves support the continuation of a genocidal blockade. The hawks want to stage Armageddon in the streets of Baghdad.

A second lieutenant, who brings his squad back safely knows more about the conduct of war than a commander-in chief who once pushed paper in the reserves. Should the commander and the armies he leads fall; all the investment bankers in Texas wont be able to put them back together again. ***

Photo of Mike Madias courtesy of the author

A clinical sociologist living in the Metropolitan Detroit area, Mike's work has appeared in The Detroit News. He may be reached by e-mail at DetroitHardball@aol.com.