Will to resist the old lie: Dulce et Decorum est, Pro patria mori
The Will to Resist by Dahr Jamail
Haymarket Books, £14.99
War is an horrific experience for all involved. The more advanced the weaponry, the worse it gets. The lower our politics, the worse it gets. And the worse it gets, the more those involved in the military become aware of the nonsense it makes of them as human beings. Nowhere has this been thrown into sharper focus than in the unjust and illegal wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dahr Jamail, who has reported extensively from Iraq, in particular, draws together the strands of American military opposition in this moving testimony to life on the front line. It is a remarkable book telling, as it does, how opposition to the Bush-Blair wars runs deeper and wider within the US military than perhaps the world realises.
Opposition to war is, of course, not new. Wilfred Owen encapsulated the views of many ordinary soldiers in his poems written in the trenches during the Great War. Those unforgettable lines from Dulce et Decorum Est echo down the years and conflicts: “My friend, you would not tell with such high zest / To children ardent for some desperate glory, / The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est / Pro patria mori.”
Dulce et Decorum Est in Iraq and Afghanistan for Halliburton’s profits and Dubya’s election campaign. Jamail details how ordinary soldiers, in the main, have been to Iraq and Afghanistan, return traumatised, only to be sent back against their will and in spite of evidence of post traumatic stress disorder. The brave few who have resisted the American military have been castigated by the establishment but, through their websites, blogs, TV interviews, speeches at rallies, art, writing and example have inspired others. Their eloquence, born of battle, comes across clearly.
One of the most erudite and charismatic is First Lieutenant Ehren Watada, a much decorated officer, who refused to return to Iraq. He says: “As the order to take part in an illegal act is ultimately unlawful as well, I must refuse that order.” He laid down a challenge to his comrades and the body politic by saying: “To stop an illegal and unjust war, the soldiers can choose to stop fighting it.” Revolutionary stuff indeed, especially when he challenged US citizens: “Should citizens choose to remain silent through self-imposed ignorance or choice, it makes them as culpable as the soldier in these crimes.”
The evidence from American soldiers of atrocities against civilians in Iraq and the cynicism of a compliant media in ignoring them comes through time and again. That in itself is shocking but the cover-ups perpetrated by the military over instances of abuse in their own ranks are equally chilling. Jamail reveals the racism, sexism and discrimination which many soldiers experience. The case of a woman soldier who was found dead with gunshot wounds to the head, extensive burns, bruising, mutilation and evidently raped only for a post-mortem verdict of suicide engenders both anger and passion. The wonder is that so few soldiers speak out but adds to our feelings of admiration for those with the guts to do so.
Jamail writes in the passionate terms of an eyewitness shocked by what he sees. Shocked by why these things happen in the name of profit, commercial contracts and politics and ashamed by the veneer of political respectability sought from and given by an establishment keen to promote a “war on terror”.
The Will to Resist should be required reading for any politician talking about the Anglo-American adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. For an electorate becoming increasingly frustrated and angry about the waste of lives in Afghanistan following fast on the mess made in Iraq – at the expense of more than a million Iraqi people – Jamail’s accounts should warrant the relatively short time it will take to read this book. Sometimes a book hits the stands which changes lives, views and outlooks. This is one of those. Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.
