Unformatted text preview:

Munoz 1Robin MunozProfessor AshkenasEnglish 111December 10th 2008War on Terror policies are not based on a moral sense that does not exist in times of war, but on the need to win and save as many lives of soldiers and civilians on the American side as possible. What is right or wrong for American people at their homelanddiffers drastically from what those words mean in the battlefield at the Middle East. After a process of dehumanization built through destruction and mutilation, what we perceive as savage events may only be another common day for soldiers at War. There is little moral sense at war; the only right thing to do is to stay alive. There are no human rights on battle; it is either to kill or die, but while there are people sitting down on an oval room deciding what to do with the life of soldiers, those are courageously fighting with the hope of getting to live a tomorrow.American Troops could be called heroes after what they do to keep American land in peace. But what do they do? They bombard the terrain where the enemy is suppose tobe hidden; shut rocket launchers at trucks and tanks; use their own tanks to blow up buildings with strategic meanings such as communication towers and bridges. For a one on one combat they are able to use their bare hands to strangle insurgents. In other wordsthey destruct cities and murder hundreds of people every day fighting terror with terror. These are our heroes who risk their lives on a daily basis to keep us safe, who have got used to the blood on their hands and the look of it bursting out from the bodies of their enemies and friends as the machineguns are fired. Those are the heroes who have no time to think about moral issues before pulling the trigger when their lives depend on it. To these heroes I dare to call dehumanized.Theaters show blood and gore movies and people like to watch them. They know it is something fake, but what happens when a car runs over a person bursting the body into pieces on the street right after the movie. The guy covers the little kid’s eyes preventing him from seeing it; the girl across the street takes her hand to her lips and triesto do not scream, while the family of the unfortunate pedestrian cries uncontrollably. Imaging this scenes happening everyday at war, then the movie becomes reality and soldiers are so used to it that feel indifference. Tim O’Brien emphasizes the dehumanization of soldiers and their indifference to gore and blood as Rat, a character from one of his short stories writes to the sister of a fallen comrade “how her brother made the war seem almost fun, always raising hell and lighting up villes and bringing smoke to bear ever which way” (543). These kinds of things are not very fun for civilians who prefer drink a cup of coffee in the afternoons. Kandi Tayebi also hints a comparison between these different perspectives when she tells her husband how she observed among an “increasing number of students” (558) how a poor squirrel slowly dies. “Imagine if that were a human being” (558) Tahebi’s husbandsreplies. Lines before, Teyabi had said the squirrels were the only thing that “seem a familiar sight” (558). Well, in war that is what a familiar sight looks like for humans instead of squirrels, and they do not fall from trees by accident, but by the hands of other human beings. Many people owed their lives to the dehumanization soldiers suffer at war. It is not a surprised for them to live hell on earth because they already wait for it. And at the moment any President declares war to other countries he is also expecting the nation’s troops to be dehumanized. A war is not fought with moral sense, neither is started with it.Unless a person has been drafted to military services in the Middle East against hiswill; this soldier is determined to serve and is ready to die for his country. If duty calls, soldiers will without questioning attend to serve. In the front they will take their rifles totheir shoulders, get on their trucks and patrol around the perimeter to make sure the battalion is safe. If a threat is discovered it will be eliminated to ensure safety. By a threat I mean any suspicious artifact or person who could be holding a belt made of C4 around his waist. In battle they will not think twice before shooting heavy artillery or launching grenades at the enemy. Hell has been raised in the Middle East, and American soldiers are dying in order to keep the homeland at peace, those who survive will definitely not see life the same way. Kandi Tayebi agrees to this thought when she describes her husband “the new men”(555) as an objective man at the moment of watching young soldiers wearing golden accessories on TV. As she thinks of the young soldiers as in a “basketball tournament”(554) and stares at the “golden wedding ring” of one of them, her husband describes how “for gold, their fingers will be cut off” (554-5), once the enemy finds their death bodies. It is clear how thoughts from a person who did not experience war at its best and has onlywatched what a dramatization of it on TV is. Differ drastically from those of a veteran of war.Back in the white house people can talk about moral sense and the rules of war butat the field it all comes to surviving. Once I heard from Mr. Tom Schelstrate a sociology teacher at Washington Lee high school who had been at the Vietnam War; that as many soldiers did, he took drugs before going to battle, “I did not have the nuts to do it otherwise” the teacher said. The battlefield forgets about the human rights since the first bullet is shot and so do the warriors fighting for their lives. Most of the time it is every man by himself, about this state of mind Schelstrate also exclaimed “the only people I cared about was me and the person besides me because if he dies it would only be me against them”. Mr. Schelstrate did not care about the Geneva Conventions or the human rights of his enemies; he just fought to stay alive. For the Vietnam War many Americans were drafted by its social security number; people like the Washington Lee sociology teacher. Some of the called to duty soldiers would have never kill a man, but under the extreme circumstances of war when it was either to kill or be killed, they did it because they had to. There has not been a draft for the War on Terror yet, but the necessity to do things people are not even capable to


View Full Document

NOVA ENG 111 - RESEARCH ARTICLE Eng III

Download RESEARCH ARTICLE Eng III
Our administrator received your request to download this document. We will send you the file to your email shortly.
Loading Unlocking...
Login

Join to view RESEARCH ARTICLE Eng III and access 3M+ class-specific study document.

or
We will never post anything without your permission.
Don't have an account?
Sign Up

Join to view RESEARCH ARTICLE Eng III 2 2 and access 3M+ class-specific study document.

or

By creating an account you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Of Use

Already a member?