Seated at a long table next to other military commanders, Mattis told about 200 people at the San Diego Convention Center: "Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling."
Mattis added: "You go into Afghanistan, you've got guys who slapped women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
First off, let's just state the painfully obvious and point out that this is the last thing we need in the war for hearts n' minds. The practical ramifications are not as bad as they're being made out to be; still, it's a rather public misstep.
That said, I have no problem with any of this, frankly. I think Gen. Mattis' candor should be accepted for exactly what it is -- the honest thoughts of a guy who is out there fighting some bad hombres.
Gen. Mattis did not say that he got off on napalming villages full of women and children. He was quite explicit about what sort of people we are fighting. Men who beat women for not wearing a burqa, for being in public with a man other than her husband or a relative, for grocery shopping without her male guardian, for finding another spouse after hers has been killed in this ultra-violent society. We all have mothers, wives, sisters, daughters -- we would not put up with any of them being treated in this fashion.
The Taliban, and the various Islamofascist subcultures in the area (including some that have been in the region for centuries), have thrown Afghan society for a huge loop over the last two decades. Before the Soviets came in, Afghan women did not face this sort of oppression. And that's exactly what it is. We do them no favors by holding a brief for cultural equality; any culture that actively and violently suppresses half its population is not only morally repugnant but doomed to fail.
So Gen. Mattis has merely called a spade a spade. I expect that most Marines have enjoyed a barroom brawl at one time or another; indeed, I used to as well back when I was young(er) and stupid(er). It's not a cardinal sin to have understood the bracing clarity and immediacy of a good fistfight.
The political correctness of the cultural anthropologists has come to insulate us from the ugly reality of some cultures, by convincing us that they're all equal, and all equally "good". This is simply untrue. It does not entitle us to cultural imperialism, but at least you'd expect that Americans would know better than to equate our system of relatively benign neglect with the Taliban system of murder, rape, beatings, public executions, etc., etc.
If any of these American Muslim groups have been up in arms this much about the evil deeds of the religious fanatics in their homelands, I'll be damned if I've heard a thing about it. Selectivity in what they decide to publicize and complain about, once again, isn't doing anybody any favors.
In the meantime, I'll take General Mattis' honesty about precisely who we are facing, and what sort of nihilistic death-cult philosophy brought down the World Trade Center 3½ years ago, and why. Better that than pallid PC nonsense.
It was stupid of him to say this publicly, and for that he should be punished. Someone in a position of authority should learn discretion. As for the substance of what he said? I assume warriors like warring, or there'd be no volunteer army.
ReplyDeleteCraig:
ReplyDeleteDon't worry about taking issue with a post. I prefer dialogue over echo chamber. So let's address your points:
1. I would certainly agree that the *rise* of the Taliban, and in turn its attendant culture, was fomented by US policy. But the culture was already there; it wasn't inculcated by US policy. The ironic part is that it's the exact same fundamentalist culture that we helped the Shah *oppress* in Iran all those years. I would also agree that that is an excellent illustration of blowback occurring on the practice of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" foreign policy (for that matter, so was our Iran policy).
I would even submit that had 9/11 never happened, we'd probably still be paying the Taliban to eradicate poppies while they continued to treat women abysmally. Yes, we created and nurtured the golem, and now that he's turned on us, we're stopping him. The fact of the matter is, we've sent US troops and aid several times over the last two decades to *defend* Muslims. It should certainly be an object lesson to us, and to them. But the Taliban and al-Qaeda are psychopaths and sadists, and I don't mind sending them to their 72 virgins, not one bit.
2. General Mattis specifically said he enjoyed killing the men who were abusing women, and the context seemed to be that of a firefight, rather than, say, an indiscriminate carpet-bombing. We would certainly hope that he, and all soldiers, feel a great sense of regret whenever innocent life is lost in wartime, and make an honest effort to avoid that. (I understand that the reality of that is not as cut-and-dried.) As with capital punishment, this is a problem with process and procedure, rather than principle. (In my humble opinion, of course.) If General Mattis is merely assuming that everyone within range of his gun is by definition a "bad guy" deserving of his wrath and ammunition, yeah, he's goofy. I did not get that impression from the article, nor from his direct quote. But it's possible. For what it's worth, this was my main area of discomfort with Gen. Mattis' words; unless everyone he's killed has literally been in the middle of the act of abusing women, which is unlikely, the elements of circumstance and hearsay automatically enter the picture.
3. Obviously a huge part of a combat soldier's psyche is invested in literally demonizing his opponent, in painting that opponent as subhuman either by deed or philosophy. This was essential in carrying out explicitly civilian attacks in WW2, such as the firebombing of Dresden, or the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The key there was coming to the unfortunate realization that German concentration camps and Japanese military atrocities like the Rape of Nanking did not happen in a vacuum. They occurred with the tacit -- and at times, overt -- acceptance and complicity of a significant portion of the civilian populace.
I do not feel ashamed at any damage I've ever inflicted in a fight. I've never taken a swing at anyone who didn't have it coming, who didn't swing at me first. I would assume the same is also true of you. I understand your point about *enjoying* the killing in war, but I also give the benefit of the doubt to the guys who are seeing the results of these psychopaths first-hand, rather than just reading about them. I think about what sort of assholes would push a brick wall on to people buried up to their waists, for bullshit crimes, and I have to say, while I may not actively enjoy the elimination of such assholes, it doesn't exactly bother me either. It is not a misunderstood cultural practice, it is sheer cruelty.
I suppose there is some psychic "toggle switch" that gets flipped in combat, to facilitate the killing of another human being. I imagine this switch does not easily flip back. This may not excuse General Mattis, but it might help explain his words and thoughts -- which, after all, were not expressed as those of an official policy spokesman, but rather recorded at a small military forum and made public.
The more I think about Gen. Mattis' quote, the less thrilled I am with it, but I think we're still a long way from Gen. Boykin's infamous "my God can beat up your God" idiocy. Gen. Mattis, while a bit too jubilant at the grim prospect of killing another human being, at least seems grounded in the rational elements of Why We Are There.
As for the Eagles, maybe next time. They put up a better fight than anyone thought they would, but their clock management in the final five minutes was for shit, as were McNabb's decisions and throws on that final possession. He'll be back, and he'll eventually win, maybe as soon as next year.