The Good Sheherd - Sicko - No End In Sight

Thursday evening we went to see "The Good Shepherd".

The title itself suggests the resistance to the usual commercial norms of the film (the French title is "Raisons d'Etat"), it is also nearly three hours long, has a complex time structure - jumping backwards and forwards), an intelligent script - so even I, who already knows quite a bit about the CIA, Cold War, etc., was grateful to Wikipedia afterwards for clearing up some points in its plot summary.

 A woman and her fidgety son left the cinema halfway through (to my relief) - it's not your usual Hollywood, action-and special effects packed product. So it is very welcome; as a number of actors and film critics have noted, there aren't very many intelligent films being made these days and it's significant that it was directed by an actor, Robert De Niro.

The reaction to it amongst critics was very mixed, about 56% being negative (www.rottentomatoes.com); but significantly the audience reaction (admittedly a self-selected group, but over 15,000 of them), was 70% positive. As Chomsky would point out, this tends to reflect the fact that the general US population, despite the usual propaganda, tend to be to the Left of the supposedly "liberal media".

Public reaction was more positive, with members of the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), giving the movie an average score of 7.0 out of 10 from 15,318 ratings.

Wikipedia - Good Shepherd

By contrast one gets this kind of patronising put-down from the Salon:

You can hear the movie's impending themes thundering through the forest before their massive heads even start poking through the trees, chief among them the idea that duplicitousness in the name of duty - particularly when you're working for the U.S. government - can poison not just your heart but your whole family. This is a somber, weighty, gray picture, one that pays clear tribute to the "Godfather" movies as it tries to scale some very rocky moral territory. But it's so unsatisfying to watch that even its biggest, most meditative right-and-wrong quandaries come to seem puny.

Salon

A Salon reader helps put this in context and reveals her anti-liberal bias:

Do what I've done, and look back over the long list of highly accclaimed movies with a strong social or political message component and try to find one strong positive review from Ms. Zacharek. Particularly when the movie has a liberal bent to it. Most particularly there.

She near uniformly takes the same track in all of them; angles like-- nice try, or cute message, or boring, or badly constructed-- jeese, she hated American Beauty AND Jarhead, LOVED "Charlies Angels", loved Anapolis, hated Syrinia (too complicated)-- and so on. Get the picture? She usually doesn't.

Salon

But, to avoid generalizing about the mainstream media, there were also very positive reviews, e.g. from the Los Angeles Times:

It's taken a dozen years for Eric Roth's smart, thoughtful, psychologically complicated script to reach the screen under Robert De Niro's careful and methodical direction, and it is easy to see why.

When Hollywood thinks spies, it thinks "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," it doesn't want to deal with an intricate, deliberately paced 2-hour and 37-minute work that not only quietly presents this quicksand world but also makes us feel what it would be like to live in it.

At the heart of this drama is Edward Wilson (Matt Damon), whose life in and out of the agency we follow for more than 35 years. He is the spymaster's spymaster, in the espionage business from the earliest World War II days of the Office of Strategic Services, the organization that gave birth to the CIA.

... Damon, in his second major role of the year (after "The Departed") once again demonstrates his ability to convey emotional reserves, to animate a character from the inside out and create a man we can sense has more of an interior life than he is willing to let on.

An argument could be made, in fact, that De Niro himself, famously undemonstrative in interview situations, was in part able to direct this role and this picture so well because he perhaps saw something of himself in its protagonist.

Because of the great regard his fellow performers have for him, De Niro was able to attract an impressive cast of costars.

By Kenneth Turan, LA Times Staff Writer

LA Times

I think they also wanted to be involved because it was an intelligent script and involved some serious acting rather than a set of stunts (significantly a number of stars have taken time out from films to play stage roles for a tiny fraction of their usual fees).

I found the scene with the Soviet defector (who claims to be the real thing and the one the Americans have been using is a double-agent masquerading as him) to be very powerful. It reminded one of the revelations about Abu Ghraib and the hair-splitting of US gov legal apologists about the distinction between torture and inhumane treatment of captives. They beat him up in an attempt to get him to retract his claim about his identity, and when that doesn't work, wrap a cloth round his head and pour water on it till he is choking. They then try using LSD on him as a "truth drug".

But during his "trip" he does come out with the truth but not the one they wanted; he says that the USSR is not a great power, that it has major systemic weaknesses and that the US only pretends it is a real threat in order to justify its military-industrial complex and imperial ambitions.

Coppola is an executive director on the film, and that the frequent return in The Good Shepherd to the taped conversation, and attempts by the CIA technicians to clarify, it is very reminiscent of Coppola's own great but often neglected film, "The Conversation". He directed The Godfather in order to be able to make it ! The Conversation is also not a very commercial film and Gene Hackman plays a very introverted, paranoid character rather like Wilson (Matt Damon) in The Good Shepherd (and so different from the the extrovert cop role Hackman played in The French Connection 1 & 2):

The Conversation By Roger Ebert January 1, 1974

... It's a movie not so much about bugging as about the man who does it, and Gene Hackman's performance is a great one. He does not want to get involved (whenever he says anything like that, it sounds in italics) -- but he does. After he has recorded the conversation, he plays it again and again [and filters out background sound to clarify the conversation] and becomes convinced that a death may result from it, if he turns the tape in. The ways in which he interprets the tape, and the different nuances of meaning it seems to contain at different moments, remind us of Antonioni's "Blow Up." Both movies are about the unreality of what seems real: We have here in our hands a document that is maddeningly concrete and yet refuses to reveal its meaning. And the meaning seems to be a matter of life and death.

The movie is a thriller with a shocking twist at the end, but it is also a character study. Hackman plays a craftsman who has perfected his skill at the expense of all other human qualities ...

Ebert review

While I found the film interesting and only occasionally "ponderous" (cf the otherwise positive review by Philip French in the Observer) and I welcome such thoughtful films about major political issues, it was a pity that, as usual with a Hollywood drama, the focus was so much on the individual. Thus it concludes with a shot of the protagonist (Matt Damon, in another almost non-speaking part) entering the new CIA, having lost his wife and (it's implied) having killed his son's fiance and his own grandson.

But what is obviously more important is what the creation of organisations like the CIA, did, not only to those who worked in them, but to others around the globe and thus to Americans through "blowback". Though, to be fair to the CIA (OK, maybe this is taking fairness too far :-) ), they have given accurate, pessimistic assessments (apparently this was the case with Iraq as well as Vietnam) only to have these ignored by crazies like Bush, Cheney, et al.

While I haven't yet seen Michael Moore's "Sicko" I'm very pleased to read about its success, even though being so overtly political. But then it's easier to do that in a documentary, and Moore's big achievement is to make popular documentaries, which also get people talking and stir things up. The Democrats are currently pushing for a better medical system; I think the timing is no coincidence, cf:

Michael Moore's new film, "Sicko," is a communal experience that begins the moment you stand in line to get tickets and continues through the laughter and moans you hear during the film to the tears and outrage you see expressed as you exit the theater. This is more than a movie, it's an experience to share with others.

Michael Moore has done it again. He has sparked a hot conversation that has the potential to start a raging fire under our national politicians to actually do something about something that everyone admits is a problem.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=10073

Moore is a politico-comic genius, here's his latest idea, which is bound to get yet more TV coverage;

You now have the opportunity to print and carry your very own "'SiCKO' Health Care Card." Playing the 'SiCKO' card has worked for a family in DeBary, Florida, whose daughter suffered profound hearing loss and was denied a cochlear implant. Her father sent a letter to Cigna asking, "has your CEO ever been in a film before?" Before he knew it, his daughter's denial was overturned. It also worked for a family in Flint, Michigan who was stuck with a $66,000 medical bill until they posted their healthcare horror story on YouTube ...

http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/what-can-i-do/health-card/

Arguably Moore's success has helped the cause of other documentary makers; docs aren't now seen as inherently rather boring.

Richard Schickel thinks "No End In Sight" is likely to be the most important film you'll see this year, and, despite the largely "talking heads" material, it is by no means boring:

No End in Sight: Iraq in Harsh Light

TIME magazine Friday, Jul. 27, 2007 By RICHARD SCHICKEL

Ambassador Paul Bremer and General Jay Garner from No End in Sight, directed by Charles Ferguson.

Basically, it is just a talking-heads documentary, interleaved with some routinely dismaying shots of deadly carnage in a far-away place. Moreover, what those heads are talking about is a failed political policy -- not, on the face of it, the most riveting of cinematic subjects.

That said, prepare to be riveted: No End in Sight, Charles Ferguson's first film, is without question the most important movie you are likely to see this year. It is not a film that simply massages your pre-existing attitudes about the war in Iraq. Rather it is a work that tells you things you almost certainly did not know about that disaster or things that have been lost to sight as chaos, anarchy and our feelings of helplessness have grown over the years since the invasion of 2003.

...

It can be argued that this film is largely addressing mistakes and grievances that are now beyond redress. But that's not strictly true. The kinds of errors it examines are entirely duplicable. And it is important to have this grand compilation of serious, sometimes anguished, testimony to remind us that big talk is always cheap and essentially dreamy. Who knew that a bunch of medium shots of well-spoken, nicely dressed men and women could transcend mere journalism and bring us very close to the authentic tragedy lurking behind the Green Zone's concrete walls.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1647716,00.html

A celebration

of what we are trying to preserve with energy policies which will help avoid climate change:

Nice has a lovely museum of Asiatic Art in beautiful grounds with pool close to Phoenix Parc. It is an example of what stste/local taxes provide, though sadly there were very few people there, though the beaches of Nice are packed at the moment.

"Le plan de ce musée posé sur un lac artificiel parcouru d'oiseaux aquatiques, repose sur deux formes géométriques fondamentales en Asie: le carré, symbole de la terre et le cercle, symbole du ciel."

http://www.arts-asiatiques.com/html/start.html

Art in a lovely setting (before I was told, very politely, that no photos were allowed inside the building).



In addition to the permanent exhibition, there was an exhibition of treasures of Georgia with some very impressive works in gold:





Toison D'Or


Then time for a meal: "OK, so you have the healthier dish - but you need it more than me."



Then we went to the nearby Parc Phoenix.



What a delight.



Beautiful, precious water.



The tropical house.



Inside.





Some flowers are gorgeous but quite obscene.



"If you're going to San Fransisco, better wear some flowers in your hair ..."



Worth protecting.

The Marne and Normandy - the personal and the historical

After the Eurotrib Paris meetup we went to M's relatives, first to her parents who live close to the Marne river:

It's a lovely, tranquil place - now:

Miracle of the Marne

But, as with so much of France, it has seen its fair share of horrors. In fact it's where the Germans lost the First World War, in the first weeks of the first year - but the war dragged bloodily on for four years - slaughter on an industrial scale.

Dead soldiers remain on the battlefield after the battle of the Marne in September 1914. After this battle, the opposing armies in World War I began digging defensive trenches across from each other. This defensive strategy, known as trench warfare, characterized the rest of the war. AP

The First Battle of the Marne (also known as the Miracle of the Marne) was a World War I battle fought from September 5 to September 12, 1914. It was a Franco-British victory against the German army under Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke the Younger.

By the end of August 1914, the whole Allied army on the Western Front had been forced into a general retreat back towards Paris. Meanwhile the two main German armies continued through France. It seemed that Paris would be taken as both the French Army and the British Expeditionary Force fell back towards the Marne River.

...As the German First and Second Armies approached Paris, they began to swerve to the southeast away from Paris, exposing their right flank to the allies. By September 3, Joffre recognized the German armies' tactical error, and quickly made plans to halt the French and British withdrawal and attack the Germans all along the front.

... By September 9, it looked as though the German First and Second Armies would be totally encircled and destroyed. General von Moltke suffered a nervous breakdown upon hearing of the danger.

... The German retreat between September 9 and September 13 marked the abandonment of the Schlieffen Plan [i.e. as the Germans estimated that it would take the Ruusians weeks to mobilise, the plan was to quickly attack and defeat France, then move the bulk of the German armies to the East to confront the Russians].

 Moltke is said to have reported to the Kaiser: "Your Majesty, we have lost the war." In the aftermath of the battle, both sides dug in and four years of stalemate ensued.

The First Battle of the Marne is best remembered for the approximately six hundred Parisian taxicabs, mainly Renault AG's, commandeered by French authorities and used to transport six thousand French reserve infantry troops to the battle. Their arrival has traditionally been described as critical in stopping a possible German breakthrough against the 6th Army. Today, some historians question their real impact. Their impact on morale, however, is undeniable: the taxis de la Marne were perceived as a manifestation of the union sacrée of the French civilian population and its soldiers at the front, reminiscent of the people in arms who had saved the French Republic in 1794.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_the_Marne

The La Ferté-sous-Jouarre memorial is a World War I memorial in France, located on the south bank of the River Marne ... Also known as the Memorial to the Missing of the Marne, it commemorates over 3,700 British soldiers with no known grave, who fell in battle in this area in August, September and early October 1914.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Fert%C3%A9-sous-Jouarre_memorial </font>

Then to Normandy to meet M's sister and family - a very French welcome:

The dog is clearly French:

Unfortunately the weather (which had been very good earlier in the year) was rather depressing, but we made the effort to get out and took advantage of the few breaks in the clouds.

But, if you have some knowledge of history, you can't help thinking of who else has been on these beaches.

Once more unto the beach

Laurence Olivier in "Henry V"

It was somewhere near here that Henry V waded ashore with his army. Of course in England he is generally thought of as the great hero of Shakespeare's play, memorably played by Laurence Olivier in his excellent film version, and more recently by Kenneth Branagh.

So it comes as a bit of shock, even for a Lefty like me, to read the last sentence of this:

Those who admire Shakespeare's Henry V and Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation, and who are curious about the real King Henry, will find this book to be a good read [Henry V As Warlord by Desmond Seward] fluently and clearly written, neither too short nor too long. Henry was a sort of monster; he was also a great man. The human race naturally admires such men, and for that reason one should not fault Shakespeare for creating a great national hero out of a ruthless military genius. What is remarkable is that so much of the real Harry comes through in the play. Even so, the disasters of war inflicted on the French are appalling to read about in this book. The Nazi occupation was mild in comparison.

http://www.amazon.ca/Classic-Military-History-Henry-Warlord/dp/0141390581

And when one reads the quotation below one is tempted to say cynically: "Tout ca change, tout ca reste la meme chose":

Most historians agree that Henry's goal of conquering France was far beyond English resources. Thus, although Henry's premature death at the height of his success assured personal glory, his short-sighted ambitions left his son's administration burdens heavy enough to make civil strife inevitable.

The cost of the war later bankrupted the Lancastrian government, and territories were permanently lost which had been held securely for over 400 years.

http://ise.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/history/henryv.html

But Olivier's film version was made during WWII and was powerful propaganda (though unfortunate that our allies, the French, were the enemy). 500 years after Henry's brutal attack, we returned with the Americans and troops from the colonies to liberate France. This is the usual focus of Hollywood and British films, largely ignoring the far greater struggle in the Soviet Union, which really determined the final outcome of WWII. But on both fronts the suffering was appalling:

The gates of hell:

An American soldier wrote at the time:

Death & wreckage and I don't want to be a hero.  Shells and mines exploding all around.

7-21-44 Finally got news  all other boats but 3 were sunk.  About 10 of my personal friends were on them.  They drifted in the night to Island of Guernsey.  No ammunition or nothing it was German occupied.  They had no chance Just like clay pidgeons (sic).  We had no maps or course when we started out some one really fucked up. 12 boats left out of 36.  it sure is hell.  Will I ever be the same again...

Joe Baker, July-August 1944

http://www.daughtersofd-day.com/lettershome.htm

Cf.:

I made my way forward as best I could. My rifle jammed, so I picked up a carbine and got off a couple of rounds. We were shooting at something that seemed inconsequential. There was no way I was going to knock out a German concrete emplacement with a .30-caliber rifle. I was hit again, once in the left thigh, which broke my hip bone, and a couple of times in my pack, and then my chin strap on my helmet was severed by a bullet. I worked my way up onto the beach, and staggered up against a wall, and collapsed there. The bodies of the other guys washed ashore, and I was one live body amongst many of my friends who were dead and, in many cases, blown to pieces.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dday/sfeature/sf_voices_04.html

A later reflection on that awful time; it's not the most sophisticated poetry but has deeply felt memories of that "hell on earth":

 A Quiet Place

It's quiet here ... so quiet

Standing on this hill

But if I stand here too much longer

My eyes with tears will fill

Looking down ... I'm there again

On that beach ... just down below

Far different ... to that morning

That I remember so

That beach ... it was a hell on earth

Where no man ... should ever go

I remember

I was down there

I should know

Don't cry now ... dear old soldier

That was many years ago

http://www.combinedops.com/Poetry.htm

Honfleur

Honfleur is now a quaint place full of tourists and it has the very nice Eugene Boudin museum (I don't recommend the trendily confusing Erik Satie Museum, though some might like it):

It's full of images of happier times in the area:

Eugene Boudin, Beach scene, Trouville, 1864

"When will they ever learn ..."

A break in the clouds, Ouistreham (Sword Beach), Normandy 2007

Killing chivalry

July 14th is a very appropriate day here in France to try to conclude some thoughts about the military (that was a bit optimistic and, as usual, it's grown).

 It also coincides with the publication in the US of an edition of the magazine The Nation which has interviews with 50 Americans who have served in Iraq. The image which emerges hardly matches the usual official line:

It is an axiom of American political life that the actions of the US military are beyond criticism. Democrats and Republicans praise the men and women in uniform at every turn. Apart from the odd bad apple at Abu Ghraib, the US military in Iraq is deemed to be doing a heroic job under trying circumstances.

That perception will take a severe knock today with the publication in The Nation magazine of a series of in-depth interviews with 50 combat veterans of the Iraq war from across the US. In the interviews, veterans have described acts of violence in which US forces have abused or killed Iraqi men, women and children with impunity.

The report steers clear of widely reported atrocities, such as the massacre in Haditha in 2005, but instead unearths a pattern of human rights abuses. "It's not individual atrocity," Specialist Garett Reppenhagen, a sniper from the 263rd Armour Battalion, said. "It's the fact that the entire war is an atrocity."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18004.htm

Of course there have probably been atrocities in all wars, and wars begin in the earliest records of history. However it seems that there is a natural reluctance to kill members of our own species, even when one's own life is at risk:

THE SCIENCE OF CREATING KILLERS

... In World War II, when U.S. soldiers got a clear shot at the enemy, only about 1 in 5 actually fired, according to sensational and controversial research by Army historian Brig. Gen. S.L.A. Marshall. It wasn't that they were cowards: On the contrary, they performed other perilous feats, including running onto the battlefield to rescue fellow soldiers, and sometimes they even placed themselves in greater personal danger by refusing to fire. And yet at the moment of truth, they just couldn't kill.

... The reality is that the brains of human beings - unless they fall within the demographic sliver we call psychopaths - are hardwired not to kill other humans. Like rattlesnakes that fatally bite other species but fight fellow rattlers by wrestling them, humans overwhelmingly recoil from homicide.

That's usually a good thing, because it prevents society from disintegrating into bloodthirsty anarchy.

THE SCIENCE OF CREATING KILLERS, Vicki Haddock, Insight Staff Writer, Sunday, August 13, 2006

Creating killers

But for the military this is a problem, and since WWII and Marshall's study, they have tried to turn the majority into something more like "the demographic sliver we call psychopaths" - with considerable success:

The Pentagon improved firing rates. Research suggests that 55 percent of U.S. soldiers fired on the enemy in the Korean War. By Vietnam that rate had climbed to more than 90 percent.

Ibid.

Revolutionary heroes

Reminders of an earlier, often more chivalrous age surround one in Nice; just up the road from us is Rue Général Hoche. So who was this general, I wondered?

Wikipedia (largely borrowing from the Encyclopaedia Britannica Eleventh Edition) had the answer, which took me back to the Revolutionary era again, and to this autodidact-soldier:

Louis Lazare Hoche (June 24, 1768 - September 19, 1797) was a French soldier who rose to be general of the Revolutionary army. Born of poor parents near Versailles, he enlisted at sixteen as a private soldier in the Gardes Francaises. He spent his entire leisure in earning extra pay by civil work, his object being to provide himself with books, and this love of study, which was combined with a strong sense of duty and personal courage, soon led to his promotion. ... he defeated the Austrians at Neuwied (April 1797) ...

Later in 1797 he was minister of war for a short period ... he died at Wetzlar on 19 September 1797 of consumption. ...He was buried by the side of his friend Marceau in a fort on the Rhine, mourned by his army and by all France."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Lazare_Hoche

Reading this I had a small  Aha! moment; so it was THAT Marceau that the street just south of us was named after ! After so many reminders of philosophers living in the same streets I've lived in recently, now I'm surrounded by soldiers. Marceau's story takes us back to more  chivalrous times and he was involved in the storming of the Bastille on that first July 14th:

Francois Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers (born March 1, 1769 Died September 21, 1796) was a French general of the Revolutionary Wars. ...

Desgraviers was born at Chartres. His father served as a legal officer, and Marceau received an education for a legal career, but at the age of sixteen he enlisted in the regiment of Savoy-Carignan.

Whilst on furlough in Paris, Marceau joined in the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789.

... In 1796, Jourdan and Jean Victor Moreau's invasion of Germany ended in disaster and Marceau's men covered Jourdan's retreat over the Rhine. Marceau fought in the desperate actions on the Lahn (16-18 September 1796) until at Altenkirchen on September 19, he received a mortal wound. He died two days later, aged only twenty-seven.

[But note the following chivalrous act by his enemies]

The Austrians competed with Marceau's own countrymen to honour to the dead general. His body was burned and the ashes placed under a pyramid in Koblenz designed by Kléber.

The monument in Koblenz

They were transferred to the Panthéon in 1889.

Marceau

Can you imagine the Americans erecting a monument to an Iraqi general, or vice-versa?

Chivalry in WWII

This kind of chivalrous behaviour was even to be found in the German military under Hitler:

Chivalry was far from dead in WWII, even if it was relegated mainly to combat pilots. Galland [one of the most successful German pilots]  was a passionate believer in fair play. When Goering felt him out in 1941 regarding a hypothetical order to shoot at parachuting enemy pilots, Galland exploded with indignation.

 "I should regard such an order as murder," he told Goering, "and I would do everything in my power to disobey such an order."

Happily, the order never came. Unfortunately, the same assurances cannot be given concerning American fighter pilots, who actually were ordered to do so in the case of parachuting [German] Me-262 pilots.

Galland

Cf.London Times obituary:

"Galland typified to a degree the chivalry which existed between combatants in the air and was a popular figure at the air force reunions of his old adversaries. He was, for example, a welcome figure at the thanksgiving service for the life of the legless RAF ace Sir Douglas Bader in St. Clement Danes Church in the strand, in 1982.

http://members.aol.com/geobat66/galland/london.htm

An American WWII pilot demonstrates a very different attitude (which seems to have been given official recognition in the order referred to above):

He quickly abandoned any idea of "chivalry" in combat.

"I don't believe in chivalry," said Schimanski. "I believe in killing them. They're trying to kill me.

Hey, I was in 16 actual combat encounters (either by himself or as a wingman for another plane), and I'll tell you, none of those 16 (enemy) pilots are alive."

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/sections/wwii/storytemplate.asp?ID=ace

Challenging the lunatics

Another German pilot was as successful, chivalrousl and brave in telling the German leadership exactly what he thought as his colleague Galland:

Johannes Steinhoff was truly one of the most charmed fighter pilots in the Luftwaffe. His exploits became legendary ...

... Pilots such as Steinhoff, Hannes Trautloft, Adolf Galland and many others fought not only Allied aviators but also their own corrupt leadership, which was willing to sacrifice Germany's best and bravest to further personal and political agendas. In both arenas, they fought a war of survival.

Aces like Steinhoff risked death every day to defend their nation and, by voicing their opposition to the unbelievable decisions of the Third Reich high command, risked their careers and even their lives.

http://www.tarrif.net/wwii/interviews/johannes_steinhoff.htm

He even told Hitler to his face that he thought the attack on the Soviet Union was doomed:

I first met Hitler around September 3, 1942, when he awarded me the Oak Leaves [to the Knight's Cross]. He asked those of us present about the war, which we were supposed to be winning, and what we thought about the new territory being incorporated into the Reich in the east. I mentioned something to the effect that "I hope the Führer will not become too attached to it, because I don't think we will be taking up long-term residence." He looked at me as if he was going to suffer a stroke. When he asked me to clarify my statement, I simply told him that since the United States had entered the war, and they, along with Britain, were supplying Russia, and we had no method of attacking their industry beyond the Urals, I did not think we would keep making great gains. He sat silent for a moment, then said something like, "We will finish Russia soon, and turn our attentions to the West once again. They will see that supporting Bolshevism is not to their benefit." And then we were dismissed.

I met with him again outside Stalingrad a few weeks later when he toured the front. He told me: "Now I have Russia, now I have the Caucasus. I am going to penetrate the River Volga; then after that the rest of Russia will be mine." I remember looking at the others around us and thinking that this guy was nuts.

... It was very depressing to know that our country was in the hands of this madman and the lunatics around him.

In Italy in 1944 a captured American pilot made a chivalrous promise to Steinhoff not to try to escape - but also offered a more pragmatic reason:

WWII [magazine]: Please describe your humorous encounter with a Lockheed P-38 pilot named Widen in Italy in 1944.

Steinhoff: This is a good story. I was test-flying an Me-109 with my aide near our base at Foggia. This was before I had been exiled from Germany, during my first tour as Kommodore of JG.77. Well, we were attacked at low level by a flight of P-38 Lightnings, about 100 American fighters in all, but the two of us figured, why not attack? We turned into them, and I flew through their formation going in the opposite direction, getting good strikes on a couple of them. I poured a good burst into this P-38 and the pilot rolled over, and I saw him bail out. I had this on gun camera also.

Well, he was picked up and made a POW, and I invited him to my tent for a drink and dinner, as well as to spend the night. We drank some of the local wine... and drank and drank. I thought to myself, "What am I going to do with this guy?" Well, it was long after midnight, so I lay down in my tent and stretched my legs so I could reach his head. He woke up and said, "Don't worry, I won't run away, you have my word as an officer and a gentleman. Besides, you got me too drunk." We slept, and he kept his word, and I never placed a guard on him.

WWII: So you subdued your opponent with alcohol?

Steinhoff: Yes, that's right, and it worked very well, you know. He was a very likable man, and I was very pleased to have the victory, but as I told him, I was even more pleased to see him uninjured and safe.

http://www.historynet.com/air_sea/aces/3026146.html?featured=y&c=y

Modern military create better killers

From Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" which provides a vivid image of US military training.

Part of the reason for the modern military's success in increasing killing rates is in deliberately dehumanizing the enemy during training:

Such bloodthirsty language helps "desensitize them to the suffering of an 'enemy' at the same time they are being indoctrinated in the most explicit fashion, as previous generations of soldiers were not, with the notion that their purpose is not just to be brave and to fight well; it is to kill people," observes military historian Gwynne Dyer in his book "War: The Lethal Custom."

Another technique is to create physical and emotional distance between the killer and the target by fostering a sense of us versus them. While physical distance is achieved with bombs, rocket launchers and even night-vision goggles, which reduce humans to ghostly green silhouettes, emotional distance often is achieved by categorizing targets as different because of their race, ethnicity or religion.

Creating killers

Cf.:

"A lot of guys really supported that whole concept that if they don't speak English and they have darker skin, they're not as human as us, so we can do what we want."

Specialist Josh Middleton, 23, of New York City, 2nd Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division. Four-month tour in Baghdad and Mosul beginning December 2004

The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness, by Chris Hedges and Laila al-Arian, appears in the 30 July issue of The Nation

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18004.htm

The psychological price

The military does whatever it can to deny the fellow humanity of enemy soldiers and is loath to repeat the spectacle of Christmas Day in 1914, when German and British soldiers crawled out of their trenches to share cigarettes, candy and soccer.

A more pervasive risk, however, is that soldiers and cops who kill pay a steep psychological price for not only using the new skills they acquire but also for acquiring the skills in the first place. The Pentagon is waging an unprecedented campaign to deal with the mental and emotional scars of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Turning human beings into killers is a tricky business.

Creating killers

Cf.:

"I guess while I was there, the general attitude was, 'A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi... You know, so what?'... [Only when we got home] in... meeting other veterans, it seems like the guilt really takes place, takes root, then."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18004.htm

Turning soldiers into psychotic killers is not what Hoche and Marceau fought for. Galland and Steinhoff resisted it, even in a regime like that of the Nazis. Like Steinhoff, Galland sopke out to Hitler at an awards ceremony, and asked him to stop criticizing the Royal Air Force in his radio broadcasts (Galland respected the RAF). This was a very brave thing to do; Hitler was incensed. Such men deserve to be remembered.

But we should not rely on a few brave men; after all, as in most armies, the vast majority of Germans simply followed orders, and were most ruthless when they were encouraged to see the enemy, not as respected rivals, but as inferior, a sub-species. Even Steinhoff admits things were very different in the war against the Soviet Union:

WWII: From what I understand, all chivalry and sportsmanship was absent from the war in Russia; is that correct?

Steinhoff: Absolutely correct. In fighting the Soviets, we fought an apparatus, not a human being--that was the difference. There was no flexibility in their tactical orientation, no individual freedom of action, and in that way they were a little stupid. If we shot down the leader in a Soviet fighter group, the rest were simply sitting ducks, waiting to be taken out.

... the hardest thing about the Russian Front was the weather, that damned cold. The second thing, and probably the most important, was the knowledge that if you were shot down or wounded and became a prisoner of war--that is, if they did not kill you first--you would have it very bad. There was no mutual respect. You were safe only on your side of the lines. The Soviets did not treat our men very well after they were captured, but then again as we have learned, the Soviets we captured did not always fare well either [to put it mildly], which was unfortunate. At least in fighting against the Americans and British, we understood that there was a similar culture, a professional respect. But with the Soviets, this was unheard of. It was a totally different war.

We need many more of us to prevent the "lunatics" (as Steinhoff described the people round Hitler) taking over in the first place. It's easy to slip into pessimism, but one thing is certain, if nobody tries to bring about change it won't happen.

Reviving hope

Few people could be more critical of the current system than Chomsky, but he refuses to give in to cynicism and apathy.

Cf.:

In the past, the US could prevent unwelcome developments such as independence in Latin America, by violence; supporting military coups, subversion, invasion and so on. That doesn't work so well any more. The last time they tried in 2002 in Venezuela, the US had to back down because of enormous protests from Latin America, and of course the coup was overthrown from within. That's very new.

... Furthermore, there is South-South integration going on, so Brazil, and South Africa and India are establishing relations.

And again, the forces below the surface in pressing all of this are international popular organizations of a kind that never existed before; the ones that meet annually in the world social forums. By now several world social forums have spawned lots of regional ones; there's one right here in Boston and many other places. These are very powerful mass movements of a kind without any precedent in history: the first real internationals. Everyone's always talked about internationals on the left but there's never been one. This is the beginning of one.

http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20060307.htm

 Forums like Eurotrib, and many others like them on the internet, also provide some grounds for hope; many people want change, and are getting together (from all kinds of countries and cultures), in all kinds of ways, to inform each other, provide mutual support and to try to change things. After all, co-operation comes much more naturally to us than killing.

Romantic evening in Paris

I don't usually like organised things which are mainly for tourists, but as my angel wanted to do a trip on a Bateau Parisian - that made it quite different. However the evening started badly, the parking area was full and we were directed to the parking at Musee Quai Branly.

But there was a very posh reception at the Musee (it was probably to celebrate its first anniversary and success in attracting more visitors in its first year than anticipated) and a young guy tried to tell us that all the parking was booked and we'd have to try parking at the Eiffel Tower. But M had been a high-ranking executive and used to getting her own way and told the young guy she had no intention of going to the Eiffel Tower as we'd miss our boat and drove past him down into the parking area. We emerged in the middle of this very elite event, with lots of free food and champagne and thought for a moment of staying - it was the kind of event where one might bump into Sarkozy, or Royal. Those entering, many doubtless rather pleased to have been invited, were rather surprised to see us leaving so early!

Back at the bateau, seeing a long line of Japanese tourists queueing, and some people passing them to another entry point, M followed them, cutting our waiting time (something I hate) considerably. Soon we were at our table at the side of the boat, watching the rain dribbling down the glass.



But it was magical:



There was good food, wine and, thankfully, no boring recital of facts in several languages, but live music:



as beautifully illuminated Paris slipped by:







Then, one of those bits of serendipity, I managed to get the Eiffel Tower and the singer, and the Lumix coped wonderfully with the light: