“Robert McNamara, one of those responsible for the war in Vietnam, wrote a book in which he admitted it was a mistake. That war, which killed more than three million Vietnamese and fifty-eight thousand Americans, was a mistake not because it was unjust but because the United States carried on in full knowledge that it could not win. By 1965, according to McNamara, there was already overwhelming evidence that the invading force could not prevail; nonetheless, the U.S. government continued as if victory were possible. The fact that the United States spent fifteen years visiting international terrorism on Vietnam in order to impose a government the Vietnamese did not want does not even enter into the discussion. That the world’s premier military power dropped more bombs on a small country than all the bombs dropped during the Second World War is utterly irrelevant.”
– pg. 32, UPSIDE DOWN, by Eduardo Galeano, Picador, New York, 1998.
“ … of every ten dollars spent on arms in the world, four and a half end up in the United States. Statistics compiled by the International Institute of Strategic Studies show the largest weapons dealers to be the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia. China figures on the list as well, a few places back. And these five countries, by some odd coincidence, are the very ones that can exercise vetoes in the UN Security Council. The right to a veto really means the power to decide. The General Assembly of the highest international institution, in which all countries take part, makes recommendations, but it’s the Security Council that makes decisions. The Assembly speaks or remains silent; the Council does or undoes. In other words, world peace lies in the hands of the five powers that profit most from the big business of war.”
– pg. 116, ibid.
Firepower is sure enough a hell of a thing. On Thursday at Fort Hood, Texas, the largest military base in the United States, one man with two automatic handguns killed 13 people and wounded about 30. That’s about what we know so far.
When these types of things occur, the shooter usually ends up killing himself or is killed by security forces. But the individual who went berserk at Ford Hood, a Major in the United States Army, is in stable physical condition after being shot four times. We may learn more about the condition of his mind at a later date.
There is a great irony involved with this incident, because the Major who began murdering his fellow soldiers is a highly trained psychiatrist. His job had been to counsel, console and minister to those American military personnel who had suffered psychological damage in the war in Afghanistan. Reports are that he himself was to be deployed to Afghanistan, and the stress of that prospect blew up his mind, so to speak.
I don’t know if the war in Afghanistan is worse than the war in Vietnam, and if it is, how much worse, but I know that Vietnam was bad. If you survived Vietnam physically, then the chances were high that you would suffer some kind of mental disorder. I don’t know if the young Belizean soldiers in the U.S. military who were being sent to Vietnam in the 1960s really knew how dangerous that war was. Thinking about it, I am positive that they were innocents.
But the Major at Fort Hood on Thursday was not an innocent. In fact, it appears that he knew too much. I suppose in cases like his, the old adage that “ignorance is bliss” is applicable. One presumes that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s assignment in Afghanistan would have been in line with his professional training and duties in the United States – counseling and ministering to psychological casualties. In other words, this Major would not have been on the firing lines. But, we have begun to surmise. So.
The president of the United States, Barack Obama, has been considering whether he should send additional American troops and firepower to Afghanistan. During his presidential campaign, Barack had declared that whereas Iraq was a war of choice, and he would seek to reduce American involvement there, Afghanistan was a war of necessity, and he would pursue America military engagement there. Presently, the war in Afghanistan is not going well for the United States. American generals say they need more soldiers. This was, of course, how it was in Vietnam. Once a war is being fought, the generals become more and more powerful where foreign policy decisions are concerned. No president wants to be blamed for losing a war. So he will do what the generals advise.
One of the mysteries of our Belizean reality is how many of our citizens are enlisted in the United States armed forces – Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Special Forces, etc. About twenty-five or thirty years ago, the United States gave up the draft system for their military. It used to be that once you were a United States citizen, when you became eighteen years of age you had to register for the draft. The draft essentially meant that American wars were largely being fought by Americans. Without the draft, there is still the need for hundreds of thousands of bodies. Not enough American citizens are volunteering to fill the military quotas. Hence, there are opportunities for able-bodied young foreigners whose documentation is irregular or incomplete, to join the American military without a lot of questions being asked. The United States military was the first equal opportunity employer in America. After a while, you didn’t have to be white in order to kill and to die for Uncle Sam.
When my generation was growing up in British Honduras in the 1950s and 1960s, we were very pro-American, especially those of us who were being educated in Roman Catholic schools, where many of our teachers were American priests and nuns. The movies being shown on the movie screens in Belize glorified war and always had the Americans, mostly white ones, as the heroes. So that, when we began migrating to the United States after Hurricane Hattie in 1961, a lot of Belizeans entered the United States military. Our young men wanted to be heroes.
No one can say how many Belizeans were killed in Vietnam or became psychologically ruined there. There was only one funeral held in Belize for a Vietnam war casualty, and that was Lino Dillett’s around 1971. But, of course, there were others. Only their families and close friends know of those Belizean men who fought and died for a future they dreamed of in the United States.
There was one Belizean I knew who fought in Vietnam, was seriously wounded but survived, and later worked with the New York City Police Department before he died some years ago. That was Vernon Alcoser. Vernon was just a quiet, ordinary guy who did extraordinary things on the battlefield. There was nothing about him to indicate to those of us who knew him in Belize that he would be a great soldier.
On Thursday, one Major in the United States military exploded under pressure and began shooting. The firepower at his disposal made him a lethal weapon for many of his colleagues. The world, Belize included, now contains so many weapons of multiple destruction, it is surprising that more of us Belizeans and our psyches are not seriously damaged by the manifest dangers around us. We find ways to put the reports of automatic weapons, machine guns, hand grenades and the like out of the way as we continue our daily lives. But the psychological toxins build up in our systems. This is what happened to Thursday’s Major. He couldn’t take it any more. He became homicidal. So how far was that from being suicidal? And have you heard of any young men like that in Belize? Think about it. Or, as Aretha sang, “Think about what you’re trying to do to me.” Real.