Mark Wignall | The lunacy of war

Those enrolled in any advanced study of war must face up to the philosophical considerations and questions born out of history. The first is that  war is inevitable, and in a most perverse way, we are forced to ask, are wars necessary even just to change the gears of geopolitics?

A difficult fact to accept is that a war is much more than massed, armed conflict. Wars suck the humanity out of the members of the military and transform humans into genocidal maniacs and rapists. Plus, those terrible traits generate the behaviours needed for the execution of future wars. 

In the Vietnam war in 1968, agitated US troops, under the command of Lt William Calley, entered the village of My Lai poised for engagement with their elusive enemy.

As the "search and destroy" mission unfolded, it soon degenerated into the massacre of over 300 unarmed civilians, including women, children, and the elderly. Calley ordered his men to enter the village firing though there had been no report of opposing fire. 

According to eyewitness reports offered after the event, several old men were bayoneted, praying women and children were shot in the back of the head, and at least one girl was raped and then killed. For his part, Calley was said to have rounded up a group of the villagers, ordered them into a ditch, and mowed them down in a fury of machine gun fire.

Those clean-cut soldiers were transformed into ravenous beasts by the hell of war and by the cancelling of all codes of humanity.  

After the four torturous years of the Great War (WWI 1914 to 1918) philosophical and economic debates grew exponentially. It was in vogue to detest wars even as the foundations needed to avoid future conflicts were being shaken by other troubling global social and economic factors.  

Meanwhile, the lunacy continues with Iran. We are now in excess of 60 days on since the war started. Iran has been bombed heavily, its leaders killed, its people suffering, but it has not submitted. Moreover, the new leaders who have stepped up may well be more radical and hateful of America.  

And in all this China sits pretty. It is well known that the Chinese are Iran’s “money carriers” -  so to speak.  The Chinese, despite the sanctions levied by the US on Iranian oil, buy a huge amount of Iranian oil and through a vast complex of shell companies and intermediaries, moves the Iranian oil money to Iran and China’s benefit.  

The US is very frustrated but powerless to do anything but complain. So 60 days-plus, it appears that Iran has held its own against the might of Israel and the US and is clearly playing for time. Meanwhile, the entire world economy is suffering due to the war.  Oil prices have spiked, and the cost of living has risen sharply.  A huge problem for Jamaica and many other countries - developed and poor alike.  

Globally, the US is not very popular for deciding to declare war on Iran.  The war drags on and the whole world suffers.  After giving some thought to how the war started, it seems that the US President and Israeli Prime Minister conspired to start the war due to mutual interests.  

Trump has an ‘Epstein’ problem, high cost-of-living problem in the US, and low approval ratings.  The Israeli PM has a corruption trial he wishes to avoid, and even more ominously, he wishes to avoid accountability for the horrible Hamas attack on Israel, where it is apparent that the military and security services were caught badly flat footed and some 1,300 Israeli’s were slaughtered, and he was PM at that time.  

Such an inquest would be very damaging to him. So both men are horribly tainted and have an accountability problem, and starting and maintaining a war distracts from them having to deal with the consequences of their actions.   

But Iran has proven to be a very cunning opponent even though it is badly outgunned. Power corrupts and the US president and Israeli PM are two perfect examples of that.

ENERGISING THE TOP OF JCF

JCF Commissioner Dr Blake exhorted “cops to exercise self-discipline” because it is “more important than the checks and balances that come with oversight”.  Dr Blake also encouraged fellow Jamaicans to appeal to “violent and hardened criminals” not to engage the JCF with deadly force.   

From my observations, Dr Blake is smart and well-spoken. It would have been better for him to respond to the concerns about body-worn cameras than any other thing. Second, by urging his own officers to exercise self-discipline, did Dr Blake just make the case that body-worn cameras are urgently needed? The JCF has the ghost of its past conduct to deal with.  Many, I repeat many Jamaicans have been killed by the JCF under questionable circumstances, and the JCF has a history of lying about what occurred during operations that resulted in the killing of many men in Jamaica.  

The high number of killings by the JCF in the last 30 months causes justified concern among Jamaicans even as the murder rate declines significantly.  Moreover, if JCF members are engaging in unjustified killings without consequences, those members will believe that they are omnipotent and come back to wreak havoc on their fellow Jamaicans. We must always be careful what path we walk.

Mark Wignall is a political and public affairs analyst. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com.