War on the Way
This weekend, like always, I have the choice of watching the news or a movie. What should I stumble upon flipping the satellite dial, but The Great Escape. Back in ninth grade when I spent a year in boarding school at Hebron Academy, The poster of choice among the young male adolescents was Steve McQueen in his chinos and sweatshirt and on his motorcycle with the Nazi barbed wire fence and the distant Swiss Alps in the background. This misogynistic right-wing gun-loving actor was our hero long before we knew anything about him except that he was cool-looking on a motorcycle and in fast cars. Here’s the thing though; as a U.S. airman (a Captain) in captivity in a Nazi Stalag in Bavaria near the Austrian/Swiss border, he was trying to escape by stealing the motorcycle out from under a Third Reich stormtrooper. As such, it was supposed to be a BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH) R75 motorcycle of the sort used by German military during the war. Instead, McQueen and his stunt-riding pal, Bud Etkins, chose to disguise Triumph TR6 Trophy’s as BMW’s because the Triumphs had more power and torque to perform the stunts, especially the 60 foot jump over the barbed wire fence. Oh, yeah, and big strong Steve McQueen had Etkins do the jump since everyone was worried that Steve might injure himself. So much for the hero Steve McQueen.
I was reminded by the ending of the movie of the storyline where the Nazis take fifty of the escaping officers that have been apprehended by the Gestapo at train stations, bus stops and across the Bavarian countryside and after questioning them, they are secretly driven off into the remote hills where a machine gun is set up and used to mow them all down in cold blood. They were American, British, Canadian and Australian prisoners of war who were doing nothing more dastardly than any other civilized combatants; they were trying to escape and perhaps blow up a few strategic things along the way. The Geneva Convention, specifically the Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflicts, says you can’t do that. In fact, Steve McQueen takes off the German uniform he took from the motorcyclist, specifically to not be caught as a spy, which does justify death sentence.
Why does this matter? Because this movie set us as Americans, Brits, Canadians and Aussies (all Anglified sorts) apart, rightly or wrongly, from the unprincipled Nazi Huns that took their fervor to excess and killed innocent prisoners, not for what they did or were doing, but based on what they might do again in the future. They also did not like being embarrassed by these escaping prisoners who challenged the Nazi system of control. None of this rises in any way, shape or form to the level of valid justification for a murderous and barbarian act.
And now to reality and present day. As everyone in the world now knows, the righteous American military has consciously and purposefully attacked the Baghdad Airport with a targeted MQ-9 Reaper drone strike intent on killing the second most powerful man in Iran, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, who was the commander of the powerful Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. He was killed along with other Iranian and Iraqi officials as they drove off in a convoy that was leaving the airport. So, to start with, this was no accident. Even President Trump, who ordered the attack, and the Pentagon, have admitted that it was a purposeful tactical strike. Secondly, it is being claimed by the White House that it was done to prevent a war, not start one because intelligence sources indicated that Suleimani was actively planning offensives against American interests. The Pentagon said, “General Suleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,” and furthermore, that “General Suleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more.” In other words he was a worthy military commander doing his job and positioned in contravention to America and its allies.
The hawks in America always support this sort of preventive action as smart tactics in battling terrorists. For nineteen years, since 9/11 we have felt justified in waging our war on terrorism in whatever way we can. It hasn’t been a Congressionally declared “war”, but few Congressmen have the backbone to stand up to whatever tactics the military or intelligence agencies see fit to use. The recent Adam Driver, Annette Benning and Jon Hamm movie The Report is about the ten years of work it took to unmask the barbaric and largely unsuccessful use of extreme torture techniques to combat terror. I’m pretty certain about every rule in the Geneva Convention’s Humanitarian Rulebook got broken by that process. But at least Congressional pressure at least put a stop to it even if punishment was never inflicted on the perpetrators. President Trump has been clear in endorsing torture and waterboarding as useful intelligence tools. He’s doubled down with Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher, seeing more value in military “strength” at any cost and being willing to go against his own military justice system in undoing some of their punishments for Gallagher’s actions.
International law that transcends the old Geneva Convention and updates the thinking since the advent of the terrorism problems clearly differentiates aggression against specific targets (like Suleimani) based on specific, verifiable evidence of imminent danger and attack versus general retaliation and preventive aggression. Since neither the White House or Pentagon are inclined to release this evidence, going only so far as to suggest that Suleimani “was actively developing plans”, it is fair to suggest that Trump breached international law. It is also a fact that this “act of war” as seen by both the Iranians and the Iraqis, on who’s soil this was all perpetrated, was not only not done with Congressional approval, as is required, but it was even done without proper Congressional bipartisan notice. Why? Perhaps it’s just who Trump is in his random and chaotic approach to international relations. I fear that it was also another Trumpian deflection from the recent damning reports of his direct engagement in the Ukrainian military aide bribery case that has led to his impeachment. Whichever it was, it is another major blemish inflicted on America in a random and highly improper manner.
Apparently, all our analogizing of the Trump administration to Nazis was not so far off. What is so different about Nazis slaughtering 50 otherwise innocent POW’s for retaliatory and preventive purposes and Trump slaying General Suleimani for the same reasons? One thing is that the Nazis were at war, which is a defense Trump cannot claim since he is out there on his own, claiming to be the one and only savior of America as he sullies its good name every day.