War (A Picture Examined)
War becomes an intensely personal journey for those involved in the fighting � the soldiers, their families and those that can view the carnage for themselves. While the overall motives for the start of such a perilous undertaking are never immediately obvious, war always comes to be a satiation of one�s national ego and belief in the system, as well as a stimulation of a sense of binding purpose for the millions of individuals that together comprise a nation. For some, the matter of life and death can instill a higher trust between the people and the national institutions created to protect the people � it revives a sense of patriotism and a reason for existence in both parties. War can be a matter of ritual purification; it can, like the terrorist manhunt slash war after September 11, cleanse the national psyche of its mistaken belief in divine protection as the emblem of freedom around the world. It can also be a purification in the Greek sense � a revenge killing of the attackers can remove the source of pollution of both the attacker and defender states. However, when the personal and individual motivational and moral aspects are removed or defeated, the war becomes invalid, and thus becomes a national self-pollution; worse, the twin themes of violence and sacrifice lose their intended meanings to the political nature of a people. In such a case, the usage of a memorial has many more implications in the political nature of humanity � including the need to have a purpose for their lives in a purposeless war littered with purposeless deaths.
This picture depicts a makeshift memorial for soldiers of the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne that were killed during the Operation Wheeler offensive near Chu Lai in Vietnam between September 11th and November 25th, 1967. The Vietnam War became a watershed in the perception of the American state. It was a crisis, both on national and international terms � the role of Big Brother ushered in the American image of meddling pariah to not only the surrounding Asian nations directly affected by the violence, but to the American people and nations trying to develop their sense of loyalty in the conflicting atmosphere of the Cold War. It was not only one of the first failures of American foreign policy, but the largest and most involved war to not involve the continued existence of the nation as a major goal, or any goal at all.
Before the Vietnam War, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and both World Wars had had political meanings attached that were directly attached to the people. A sacrifice of sons across the nation meant that the family threshold could be kept pure and unblemished from the soiling of the enemy presence, whether of foreign invaders or brother citizens. Those wars were morally justifiable and relevant to the citizens of the nation. President Lincoln, in the beginning stages of the Civil War, justified the conflict breaking up his own nation by announcing that �the fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. . . . In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.� His affirmation of a support of freedom for the free, a central political right guaranteed to all in the contract to citizenry in the United States, placed his usage of violence in the war toward a higher moral purpose, involving both charity to the slave and longevity to the family line. Lincoln�s statement also indicated that to be found guilty of dishonor would tarnish the national spirit forever. The Civil War proved to be a massive realignment of the individual�s loyalty to the political presence of the American Republic. The individual was forced to choose sides; Lincoln�s subtle use of Nietszche�s idea of the contractual relationship reminded the people that it owed a debt to the Presidency and the Union for their position as �free�. Survival revived the collective belief in the divine protection of the Republic and in the ability of the American state to hold its promise of protection to its people.
The Vietnam War, in contrast, did not have a moral justification or collective guilt that could be understood by the average American citizen at home, the young soldier sent to die in the steamy jungles, or the thousands of hippies gathering in fiery criticism of the political decisions that led to the conflict. Application of the utilitarian Greatest Happiness principle resulted in an undeniable vagueness of what was better: an �evil� communist Vietnam, or millions of deaths to achieve a democratic Vietnam. The Kantian, with a deep understanding of duty and universal good, would be left confused � as were the public, who did not necessarily see any benefit, morally or physically, in the endless bloodshed that in the end, didn�t get anywhere. Instead of utilizing the spiritual force mentioned by Virilio, this war proved ineffective by going against a military truth and remaining a purely brute force war in an environment so used to brute force. It is to be remembered that the previous 1000 years before the Vietnam War contained only 2 years of peace within Vietnam; a millennium of conflict had not settled any accounts.
The moral debacle that was the Vietnam War also prevented a way out of the conflict. The very idea of a surrender � though it would have been a surrender of the people that the American nation was supporting � was unacceptable for a proud relatively young nation that had never before harbored a defeat. To sue for peace, the imperative would have resulted from the impossibility of winning legally or morally. To lose would have meant many things. Not only would the American nation be shown to be incapable of winning against �jungle bunnies�, but it would also be forced to confront the lack of morality in starting the war. The obvious result would be a step down in prestige in the masochism contest of the Cold War, but the damage to the concept of the political in the American citizen was far worse than a lowering of international acclaim.
The Vietnam War would have proved to be fodder for Schmitt�s claim of politics as irrationality had he been around to witness the upheaval. To him, it was necessary to understand the friend-enemy distinction in politics to see who �we� are and decide who will take up responsibility for our own existence. The political is finally defined when one can, with clarity, know that his enemy is his enemy. He thought that people can only be responsible for themselves if the realities of death and conflict can remain present � if the existence of the enemy has been realized. The Vietnam War was strikingly absent of a concrete enemy; the generals and diplomats pointed to the Communist North as the enemy, but images of the burning monk and murdered civilian in Saigon pointed out to the public the existence of a terrible evil even on the �good� side. For all those people watching the nightly news or tuned to the radio in the army camps in Vietnam, the absence of a true enemy eliminated any responsibility or moralized rationality that could have been felt. The inclusion of visual and audial media, as Virilio points out, can do much more than words released by the President. Very quickly, the hazy state of the public politic turned into a strangely surreal version of anti-war sentiment and self-loathing, a state which was inescapable considering the unrealistic philosophical grandstanding of the American bureaucracy. Schmitt says that a claim to any moral good, which is essential in the political, will recognize no limits. This is inherently visible, as the American defense of liberalism to date has been a drastic failure after billions of dollars given in foreign aid, mirrored in the tragic Afghanistan conflict and the Gulf Wars.
The feeling of disillusion and loss of the moral high ground led to bitterness and an unwillingness for sacrifice in the American public; no one was very willing to step forward and die in such an ambiguous conflict. The sacrifice of so many soldiers in what was considered a pointless war seemed to be a negation of their humanity. The callous attitude of then-President Nixon to what the public should know about the war was exemplified in the photograph of the shooting at Kent State of anti-war protesters. The dual message conveyed around the nation was that the public did not have a say in this war, and that their government did not care what they had to say. Rather, the war became purely for government�s sake rather than for the people�s sake. It was a pollution of a different sort � it would seem that the government had perverted its duty to act for the people and instead acted for itself.
To many soldiers, the drive for memorials commemorating their deaths was imperative to restore some semblance of humanity to the lives that had passed. When soldiers returned home to ridicule, despair and bitterness, they had only their colleagues alive or dead to remember them as honorable people who died justly and served with conviction, and so, they built more expensive memorials. Even in combat, the need for memorialization was strong; no one would want to disappear into death like he had never existed. Makeshift memorials were often the only way to respect and remember a comrade�s death in the field before being killed too themselves. In this picture, the ritual cross as remembrance of passing has been replaced by the blatantly secular combat gear. The soldier�s existence in a morally righteous war would have allowed for the existence of God and an ultimate purpose for each combatant�s lives; their participation in what they felt was an unjustified war led to a definition of their lives and consequently, their deaths, on a purely military and physical rather than spiritual or emotional level. They understood they were just foot soldiers to be ordered around, rather than men fighting for their ideals, for their families or for the glory of their country. Even if the war had been won, what glory was there to be had? The critical spirit necessary for proper group bonding in the successful Army was lost; Freud�s premise that neglect and omission of a leading idea within an army equaled a practical danger came true in the severe lowering of morale and rampant depression among the troops. Schmitt also realizes the unjustness of a demand for sacrifice on the basis of an economic expediency; this action, he states, contradicts the principles of a liberal order and cannot be justified by the norms and ideals of an economy so conceived. In the end, some lives were just reduced to the empty symbols of what they had fought for: a lonely gun, helmet and boots for each soldier, a nameless death swallowed into the unchanging fields.
The American government painted the Vietnam War as a war against communism, and essentially, a war against the influence of the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Soviet Union and the North Vietnamese were described as the aggressors and regarded as the corruptors of nations � a source of pollution to be ritually discredited and removed by words and force. In the Greek sense, the idea of a pollution involved an act of revenge as a cleansing; this act of revenge was in return for a personal injury. In the case of the Vietnam War, only American policy had dictated that the war was in revenge of a �personal� injury � against democracy and freedom. It was said that any step forward for communism was one step back for democracy. However, all other nations did not perceive it that way.
For them, it was a war that had been provoked by an attack that seemed suspiciously induced by the United States, similar to the Japanese cipher affair before Pearl Harbor in World War II, or the Hearst-arranged explosion as preliminary to the Spanish-American War. It was cleverly arranged, or so it was thought, to be an aggression against the United States � in a situation that was clearly wholly Vietnamese. The United States seemed to think it was the invincible protector and bastion of freedom throughout the world; apparently, no one else even considered the idea that this could be a personal war. Citizens themselves asked the question: if we were dropping bombs on Hanoi, why weren�t they dropping bombs on Washington? The propaganda war was clearly lost and the ritual purification of the United States and Vietnam implicit in American actions was clearly not valid. It was one more offense that the American public would not take. It was believed that America had soiled itself, and that the nation could only come clean by removing the source of the pollution: the President himself. The flower children and other angry citizens had already voted Johnson out and Nixon in, as he had promised to gradually get us out of Vietnam. Nixon�s lies, first about military figures and actions to the public, eventually caused his own removal from office � when the Watergate tapes were found, the revelation of more of his public treachery would have borne a quick impeachment and arrest, had he not quickly resigned and arranged for a mysterious pardon from President Ford. The ignominious loss in Vietnam then led to three more decades of American ambivalence to its own political nature.
The attack on the United States during September 11 started out as a personal sacrifice. To thousands of Americans, the agony of being attacked in the heart of our greatest city became a symbol of the American national spirit. All of a sudden, Americans had found their long lost patriotism, after decades of non-use from the Vietnam War. The United States had been attacked and effectively, it was a declaration of war. The bonds of family and country were never stronger. It was quickly accepted and understood that violence and sacrifice were needed to make the country safe again; America was not invincible and it had to defend itself. A moral reasoning had again been restored, and the impetus for war was unstoppable. The average American again had a reason to bind himself with 30 odd million other Americans in a vow to remove the source of this pollution. As opposed to the Vietnam War, this war was morally justifiable, and purposeful in a way that would make any American proud to die for his country. Some would argue that Schmitt�s premise is still applicable: that the political is irrational. After all, the public had identified an enemy that is not and was not justifiably clear as the right enemy � however, this is for others to decide.
The picture provides a vivid reminder of the varying degrees of rightness in the political sense of a war. Knowing that these symbols of an army, standing at attention, are relics of men that had once fought in the Vietnam War and died for no visible purpose is enough to remind people of their humanity. The simple memorial strengthens our ties to our own lives by revealing moments when dying without a real purpose were so irrational. Having the September 11 disaster happen in the current generation has led to a drastic reversal of American attitudes toward war since the Vietnam War, but it cannot cover up a cynicism and bitterness felt by Americans who lived through that war, based on no morally justifiable issue or idea. War, supported by the themes of violence and sacrifice, can serve as a purifier or as a stimulation of belief in one�s sense of country and family � when these reasons are removed, the war becomes invalid and humanity annulled in the destruction of the politic.
Freud, Sigmund. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Ed. Strachey, J. W.W. Norton: New York, 1959.
Schmitt, Carl. The Concept of the Political. Univ. of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1996.
Lee, Nathan. �Vietnam War Pictures.� http://www.angelfire.com/mn/nathanlee
�Vietnam Online.� PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam
Virilio, Paul. War and Cinema. Verso: New York, 1989.