Letter to Scott Simon
Letter to Scott Simon
National Public Radio
by
Stephen B. Waters
February 27, 1996
"America's conscience may have become another casualty of this war," according to Scott Simon, Saturday. Interlocking attrocities, he said, may have choked it; refering to cockpitcrazy pilots who might try to convince themselves those blips aren't real.
Simon's observation overlooked that once in war, conscience is not forgotten, it is put temporarily on the shelf. The Colonel's monolog in "Apocalypse Now" should be studied by hawks and doves, politicians and priests, before, during and after wars. It is a compelling reason not to tempt war in the first place. Listen to what the Colonel said:
"It is impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.
I remember when I was with special forces.... It seems a thousand centuries ago - we went into a camp to innoculate the children. We'd left the camp after we'd inoculated the children for Polio and this old man came running after us, And he was crying and he couldn't say....
"We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of. . . little arms. And, I remember, . . . I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized, like I was shot.... Like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God, the genius of that! The genius, the will to do thatl Perfect and complete. Crystaline. Pure.
"Then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand it. These were not monsters, they were men; trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who have families, who have children, who are filled with love, but they have strength. . . to do that.
"If I had ten divisions of these men, then our troubles here would be over very quickly.
"You have to have men who are moral, and at the same time, who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill. . . without feeling, without passion, without judgment; - without judgment, because it's judgment that defeats us.
"I worry that my son might not understand what I've tried to be. And if I were to be killed, Willard, I would want someone to go to my home and tell my son everything: everything I did, everything I saw. Because there is nothing I detest more than the stench of. . . Iies. And if you understand me, Willard, you will do this for me."
As far as conscience goes, few men in history have had as well-reasoned morality as Socrates, yet he was reported to have been a fierce and tenacious fighter in battle. Was his conscience choked? Not one bit. Why? Because he understood that war plays by WNo Rules" and that "No Rules" is a nasty place to be - a place at the mercy of the laws of nature, not man, where there are no guarantees that good guys on either side will win.
It is a little late in the game to discover the horror of war, but even if more people had discovered it sooner, there are still times to fight.
Why is this one of them? Because Iraq violated the umbrella of protection that extends to those who agree to peaceful problem resolution. By his own violence Saddam Hussein moved himself into the law of the jungle where no rules apply - where any means may be used to assure that the initial violence does not succeed.
The rules of those who continue to live under the umbrella needn't extend to those who do not. Hussein opened his country to any response.Conscience is not obliged to sit in the cockpit.
But, simply because we have the option of striking with tactics forbidden under the umbrella does not mean that it necessarily is to our advantage to do so. Often it is not. Our restraint so far in the Gulf speaks well. It seems that while conscience is not obliged to sit in our cockpit, to our credit, it often does.
We must meet the unfortunate loss of life there with sadness and with strength. Weep not simply for the casualties of war, but for the missed opportunity to convince those who move outside the umbrella that it is not worth the cost.. In the race to convince all humanity of the advantage of living under an umbrella of peaceful problem resolution, there is no guarantee that civilization will win.
An unrelenting support of free and open communication is our best hope. The first condition for peace with Iraq should be to pry open the channels of communication throughout the world. Hussein could not do what he does without media control. If the horrors of war are sent to our living rooms and to their living rooms on the other side as well, then maybe this war will be the last one.
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Copyright 1998 by Stephen B. Waters. This page was last built on 11/25/98; 4:18:10 PM. sbwaters@rny.com At the moment I am using Macintosh OS to work on this website. |