Show us the real war

I finally got around to watching the 2001 film Black Hawk Down and recommend that the loyal readers of AFP do the same. The movie tells the story of a 1993 US military incursion into Mogadishu, Somalia that went horribly astray. The planned 30 minute mission degenerates into an overnight siege that cost the lives of 19 American troops and more than 1000 locals. The majority of the movie shows the struggle of the US troops to get to safety, confronted with hordes of local militia men – in gruesome details. While there are critics of the historical accuracy of this film, it reminded me of two things relevant to our current predicament in Iraq: 1) war isn’t a good idea. You don’t sell a war; you go to war to defend (or so sing The Herd in The Metres Gained). Real people get maimed and die – and 2) our media do a pathetic job of conveying this message to us on a consistent basis.

So it’s not a new idea that war is a bad idea and people get killed. It’s just that we easily forget. Iraq is a long way away. The nearly 4 years of war have passed quickly, with few reminders aside from the occasional troop death toll update (3,075 US and 235 coalition). The mainstream media quickly grew bored with news from the gulf and actual footage from the battles is rare. For an hour or so each night, our TV’s are filled instead with feuding neighbours, P-plate driver accidents, petrol prices, and commentary from people on the street about who thinks a Muslim candidate should run for parliament. It’s all irrelevant on a world or even national scale. It serves the purpose though of distracting us from serious, distressing, even sickening events around the world that make us feel helpless and out of control. Keep us arguing about whether Sarah Murdoch is better in the mornings than Jessica Rowe – and we’ll all sit quietly in our homes and do as we’re told.

Think about it enough and it’s depressing. The true yet upsetting aspects of the world are hidden from us (in the mainstream anyway), and replaced with meaningless filler to help us feel in control and get us to sleep at night. After Black Hawk down, I felt that a little bit of reality had slipped past the censors. I imagined the teenage marines driving their humvee’s through Baghdad and getting blown up by hidden IED’s. Getting sniped from rooftops by faceless gunmen and coming home without an arm or a leg (or both). They are images we should all be digesting every night, because it’s happening in Iraq everyday.

Now, despite all that I’m not for withdrawing from Iraq now. It’s too late for that. It was dumb to go in there in the first place, but dumber to leave another mess behind (the US have done that all too often in the past). We need to stay until some peace can be brokered. Still, during the time that it takes to achieve ‘stability’, each and every citizen should be reminded of the sacrifice of the troops and the horror of war. Maybe then next time we won’t be so hasty to wage war in the first place.