The NY Giants, Smart Bombs, the Hero Warrior and the Death of Our Humanity

January 27th, 1991 is a day I will always remember. That day, I watched from my home on Long Island, as the New York Football Giants-Big Blue defeated the Buffalo Bills in what some consider the greatest Super Bowl game of all-time. Besides my Giants winning their second Super Bowl, the game stands out in my memory because it coincided with the Gulf War, in which the American behemoth military decimated the vastly inferior Iraqi army and "liberated" Kuwait, returning control of the super oil rich nation to the Kuwaiti monarchy, and fulfilling a domestic political agenda here in the US.

It couldn't have been scripted any better-the Giants wore red, white & blue; the Bills wore red, white & blue; Old Glory as far as the eye could see; F-16's roaring overhead; Whitney Houston performing one of the most stirring renditions of the National Anthem ever-all in honor, and to rally American spirits behind our benevolent effort to reinstall the Kuwaiti monarchy. Indeed, on that day -whether the Giants or the Bills emerged victorious - the one big winner would be the United States of America.

I remember being really into it. I thought it was awesome - my Giants winning the Super Bowl in dramatic fashion; our boys over there beating back those damn Iraqi's and that evil Saddam; jets flying overhead, flags waving! I remember being filled with pride and being annoyed when Spike Lee controversially likened the whole thing to a "Nazi rally" - now, in the wake of my political awakening, I see what Spike was trying to say - that Super Bowl Sunday was a signal that we were losing our humanity.

The Gulf War is said to have restored our pride as Americans; finishing off once and for all, the embarrassment, divisions and pain left over from Vietnam. During our glorious war against Iraq, to reinstall the Kuwaiti monarchy and keep intact the Saudi monarchy, the term "smart bombs" entered the American lexicon - laser guided weapons so accurate that we could put a weapon fired from thousands of miles in the air, or even from ground artillery, through a small window on any given building. These are believed to be weapons so accurate that the threat of "collateral damage" - a technical term for killing defenseless civilians - would be a thing of the past, or so we were led to believe by the twenty-four hour, sci-fi, video game, Hollywood coverage of the war, complete with night-vision video footage of soon to be destroyed targets from the bomb's perspective.

Of course, the "smart bomb" technology, and others, may have measurably increased the accuracy of weaponry, but it is nowhere near what it has been touted as - whether its satellite, laser guided or otherwise. As a Fire Direction Specialist for the Army in the late 90's, I can speak first hand of the frequent inaccuracy of the artillery my units worked with, whether by human or mechanical error. The highly regarded film, Why We Fight, chronicles the amazement of American Stealth Bomber pilots Tooms and Fuji, as they discovered that not one of the first 50 bombs they dropped on Baghdad to start off the invasion of 2003 had hit their target - many falling in civilian areas. The film suggests, and rightly so, that the reputation of "smart bombs", is more a product of clever weapons manufacturer marketing and salesmanship than anything else - a wonderful byproduct of the "military industrial complex" that Eisenhower warned us of; in Ike's own words, "humanity hanging from a cross of iron".

The American glorification of war that occurred during that Super Bowl Sunday in 1991, played an important role in distorting sensibilities about warfare and its consequences in order to make it more palatable to Americans. Sure there had been attempts in the years prior - with the invasions of Grenada & Panama - to convince Americans that, "hey, war in the modern age is no biggie!! Don't worry about it". But the Gulf War provided the perfect opportunity to dismiss once and for all the notion that armed conflict is something to be avoided at all costs. It was the perfect opportunity to convince the people, as George Dubya would put it that, "when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace", and thanks to our wonderful "smart bombs" and other neat gadgets, the American military can conduct military strikes without risk of killing civilians. Furthermore, although the truth is that the US only invades countries with defenseless, antiquated militaries, with little in the way of morale; the American people are given the impression that we are fighting powerful armies, giving the doctrine of, war, war, war, even more credence because, "Hey, even Iraq 's million man army couldn't get to our valiant, volunteer American fighters".

Which brings us to the American manifestation of the "all volunteer military", and all the platitudes associated with it. This too is simply a tool devised to glorify warfare and render it more palatable to Americans, and for some, to compensate for the regrettable maltreatment of American fighters returning from Vietnam. It seems, however, that there has been overcompensation. Surely, service to ones country should be commended and held in high esteem, but the notion that American fighters are a group of heroic Chuck Norris figures is pure Hollywood style manipulation. It is a familiar conversation - people thanking soldiers for their service and referring to them as "heroes". Of course there is a measure of heroism involved in wearing the uniform, and their service shouldn't be thankless. However, the debate-killing tactic of hiding behind the troops through the use of empty rhetoric has become all too common. This also is common dialogue - brave men and women, heroically defending our freedoms...blah, blah, blah. In reality, this sort of language has become little more than the mantra of the American chicken hawk. Those in government who employ this language do so most often for political purposes, and the rest to make themselves feel better about war, and even sadder still, because they know that they won't have to fight thanks to some volunteer "hero".

In any case, the concept of volunteerism and heroism has taken a firm hold of the American psyche as it relates to the military, and they are useful in framing our rationalizations for the consequences of armed conflict, both just and unjust. In a society where a warrior's death can be written off as a byproduct of their willfully entering into a contract agreement with the US government to follow the orders of some "Commander in Chief", is it any wonder that we find ourselves mired in a seemingly endless and fruitless occupation? Is it any wonder that the chicken hawk brigade can sit around and squawk about "staying the course" and not "cutting and running", secure in the knowledge that they, their sons & daughters, sisters and brothers will not be called upon to fight, thanks to the volunteer hero warrior? Then, when the hero warrior refuses to fight because they feel they have been lied to, speaks out against or warns the public of lies (see Scott Ritter), the hero suddenly has no credibility; or they should shut up because they "volunteered". What a twisted concept indeed.

The "hero warrior" mentality is derived from the romanticism of WWII, which despite our unnecessarily dropping two A-bombs on civilian populations, could be the closest thing to a "just war" that we have experienced this past century, and is romanticized accordingly. After all, the Nazi war machine bent on world domination, needed to be stopped; the Japanese cult of Hirohito needed to be ended-right? Lo and behold, we were successful! Despite entering the war late in the game, and only because we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, America mobilized for war and leapt to the assistance of Europe, ensuring that for all eternity right wing American blowhards would throw it in their faces (see Freedom Fries). But seriously, when American GI's returned from theatres of war in Europe and the Pacific, they were rightfully greeted as heroes, and were rewarded with decades of American prosperity (thank you New Deal).

Craven politicians and well-meaning members of the so-called "liberal" media; like Tom Brokaw, who wrote a book and coined the phrase - The Greatest Generation - referring to the heroes of WWII, often harkens back to this idea of the WWII hero warrior. This Greatest Generation, and the idea of the always altruistic American war fighter, and its equally heroic Commander in Chief President, has become the focus of American pride. Yes - war all too often seems the main source from which American pride flows over the past couple of decades, and this has come about, not because it is something to take pride in under all circumstances, as today's conservatives would have us believe, or because the American people's brains are hard wired to crave war, but rather because we have been conditioned to think this way by well crafted history textbooks, documentaries and docudramas. Sadly, WWII always seems to be the debate buster between hawks and doves when it comes to issues of war & peace - Afterall, who can argue against fighting Nazism, and who are we to sully our grandparents heroism? These days, any suggestion that armed conflict might not be the best solution to America's international disputes, is quickly met by accusations of weakness and appeasement the likes of Neville Chamberlain. It seems that WWII and its veterans have become the almighty trump card of the chicken hawk right.

However, maybe we may reclaim our humanity by returning to a place where American pride and identity is derived from the peoples hard fought freedoms here at home - the Labor Movement, Women's Suffrage, the Civil Rights Movement, overcoming the Civil War to remain a nation united, and the American Revolution, which was a war, yes, but a war fought on American soil, by American men that the Bush administration might define as "terrorists", a war fought to gain independence from the unjust monarchy of King George - fast forward to the Gulf War; a war fought to reinstall the Kuwaiti monarchy, and to ensure the Saudi monarchy would remain intact to further enslave its people. How's that for irony?

Today - similar to the way Americans were shown the horror of war through Vietnam - it seems that the carefully constructed quilt of American war pride, and maybe even the American hero warrior are beginning to fray a bit. It could be that the neo-con conceived invasion and occupation of Iraq is the straw that broke the camels back. Almost 3,000 dead American troops, and God knows how many hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi's, has begun to take their toll on the American psyche, giving us a glimpse of the realities and consequences of war which the "hero warrior" and "smart bomb" mythology are designed to obscure.

Even still, we all too easily turn a blind eye, or rationalize everyday torture and other atrocities in Iraq. Many Americans still write off as "collateral damage", things like blowing up an entire building and all its probably innocent inhabitants, simply to kill a few "suspected terrorists"; or the assaults on Fallujah, which pretty much leveled the entire city, and in which, according to Amnesty International, the American military did not "take necessary precautions to protect non-combatants". Although half the population reportedly evacuated the city before the assault began, the other half was left to fend for itself, caught in cross-fire holding little discretion between insurgents and the innocent. The rationalizations for the resulting massive civilian death in Fallujah range from the standard, "they were warned to evacuate", to "remember 9/11!", to " the insurgents hide among civilians", as if these excuses are valid, or even solutions to our own perceived terrorist threats; and the most recent waves of civilian death in Iraq are chalked up by government and media to "sectarian violence", with little acknowledgement that such violence has erupted due primarily to the chaos created by the US invasion. Why are we so depraved that so many Americans cannot see the immorality of such things? Are we too far-gone to reclaim our humanity?