Listening to Rachel Maddow's coverage of the Fort Hood killings last night, I heard her declare that, "Anyone who commits a massacre is criminally insane, or just a criminal." This is the kind of statement that seems obvious to the person saying it and to most of those hearing it, but imagine how it would sound to an Afghani, Pakistani, or Iraqi. Unlike most of the American audience, they'd likely be struck not by the obvious truth of the statement, but by the incredibly deep-rooted ignorance and hypocrisy that allows even someone as knowledgeable and broad-minded as Ms. Maddow to say something so obviously false.
The shameful assumption underlying Maddow's statement, and the predominant American view of world affairs is that thirteen dead Americans is "a colossal loss of life," to quote Brian Williams on NBC news, but twice, three times, or a hundred times that many civilians killed by the American military is hardly worth mentioning at all. Everyone knows that 3,000 Americans died on 9/11, but who knows how many Iraqis have died under American bombs since then? How many Pakistanis died in drone attacks last year? Last month?
To take just one example out of many, how many anguished minutes did NBC News devote to lamenting the "colossal loss of life" occasioned by the mistaken bombing of yet another Afghani wedding party a year ago, in which 33 women and children were killed (as well as an unmentioned number of men)? If "anyone who commits a massacre is ... a criminal," as Maddow asserts, why do we call the guys operating drones from a base in Nevada "soldiers," "heroes," and "patriots" despite the scores of innocent people they've killed on the other side of the world with the push of a button or the click of a mouse? Why aren't they (we) "criminals" as well?
Home of the brave?
American culture is, frankly, pathological. I'm sorry if you're offended by that, but please stay with me here. There is no escaping the fact that our self-image is founded on denial.
We see ourselves as a freedom-loving nation, but no country on Earth has more of its people behind bars than we do. With three times as many people, China has half a million fewer people in its prisons, according to a recent article in The Atlantic. To get a sense of how many Americans are behind bars right now, try to imagine the entire populations of Atlanta, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Des Moines, and Miami ... every person in those cities in a cage.
Land of the free?
Americans see themselves as defending peace in the world, but no country is more war-like than we are. We spend more money on war than the rest of the countries in the world combined. What are we so afraid of? Since WWII, we've been constantly at war (officially or unofficially) somewhere, without pause. American military bases are still spread throughout the world, from Japan and Korea to Australia and Germany. Why? How is the only developed country that's too poor to offer basic medical care to all its citizens the only one rich enough to police the planet? If invading and bombing Afghanistan is the rational response to terrorism having been planned there, why aren't we bombing Tim McVeigh's home town? Does anyone really believe we can bomb the world to peace? (For an unusually intelligent discussion of this issue, see this interview.)
America is at war because it's what we do better than anyone else. Simple as that.
Of the big three American sports (baseball, basketball, and football), only football has failed to catch on anyplace else. While Nicaraguans and Japanese practice their fast-balls and Croatians and Argentineans work on their jump-shots, nobody else is interested in playing American football. Why is that?
I'd propose it's because nobody else takes as much conflicted pleasure in war as we do. American "smash mouth" football is all about war: long bombs, "blitz" surprise attacks, grinding out the ground game, specialized units, penetration of enemy territory, clearly-defined hierarchical chains of command.... Sure, there's a measure of violence in other sports, but there's more pure brutality in a single kick-off return than in an entire season of European soccer.
Having grown up in the United States, I "get it" when Coach Taylor, on TV's Friday Night Lights, talks about how high school football teaches young men about honor, and discipline, and the dignity of suffering. But I wonder about the realities underlying such stirring locker-room speeches.
In a recent article in The Daily Beast called Football's Bloodiest Secret, Buzz Bissinger, the author of the book on which Friday Night Lights is based, recalled some of the young people he met in Odessa, Texas, a couple hundred miles from Fort Hood. He remembers a guy named Allen, talking about his son, Phillip:
"Allen was the first to admit that Phillip was not a gifted athlete, but what he lacked in skill he made up for in toughness. To prove the point, Allen told the story of when Phillip broke his arm at the beginning of a high school football game. Rather than come out, Phillip continued to play. It was only at half time, when his arm had swelled so badly that his forearm pads had to be cut off of his body, that he reluctantly went to the hospital."
This is not sport. This is a culture preparing its sons for war and parents for loss. Toughness, brutality, loyalty to team, blind obedience to authority.... These are the qualities of a warrior. The two places young men can be heard screaming "Yes sir!" at the top of their lungs are Boot Camp and football practice.
Bissinger recalls the pride those Texas parents felt at their kids' suffering on the field of play, "showing fearlessness and the absorption of agony in a tradition linking back to the war heroes of Sparta. No amount of studies and medical warnings," writes Bissinger, "are going to fully extinguish the attitude that playing hurt is all part of the price."
The price of what, exacly?
