Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 14, 1991 TAG: 9104160445
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: COLLEEN REDMAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The mutilation stories were probably what prompted Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf to say that the Iraqi soldiers were not of the same human race as the rest of us. But over the course of history, atrocities have always been committed, whether associated with war or not.
While we should always be horrified by senseless violence, we should also keep in mind that an atrocity is a matter of definition, degree and custom. To single out one form of violence, while condoning or participating in another, only serves to inflate a false sense of self-righteousness.
Not long ago, it was a Sioux custom to cut off the head of a killed enemy and bury it. This was a warrior's act and not considered an atrocity by Native Americans and not so different from the chopping off of people's heads, a well-documented practice in English history.
White soldiers, while viewing Native Americans and their customs as "savage," never acknowledged their own atrocious acts in using guns to massacre villages full of innocent Native American families - a more accepted technology for killing without touching.
It wasn't long ago that we (in the United States and Europe) burned people alive at the stake in a frenzy of paranoia and hateful suspicion, largely directed toward women.
Recently, I viewed what I consider an atrocity, the death of a 10-year-old African girl. She was so feeble and malnourished that her family, covered by a blanket, held her nose and mouth shut until she died - all the while being filmed by "60 Minutes."
The atrocity was not in the mercy-killing performed by her family, but in the fact that so many people waste away from hunger while others have so much. Americans consume a disproportionate amount of world resources, considering the small percentage of world population they represent.
But probably the worst and most current atrocity, of which Americans are the guiltiest, is the bombing of people and cities in government-sanctioned killings - in the name of war.
An anonymous Vietnam veteran on a radio talk-show tearfully described his regrets upon seeing people fused together like soldered metal after bombing. "I don't think the American people really understand war," he said. Bombs kill men, women, children, old people, animals and vegetation indiscriminately, and in large numbers. Bombing is the ultimate form of killing without touching or seeing the faces of your victims.
In this most recent war, bombing was referred to as an "air campaign" that "went well." More than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed, largely due to bombing. It's a mistake to define "atrocity" only by the amount of physical contact or blood spilled.
It's a mistake for governments to censor wartime news in a way that gives the illusion that war is quick, easy or bloodless. What is now being called "the highway of death" - a 50-mile backup of bombed Iraqi soldiers and vehicles, reportedly attacked while withdrawing from Kuwait - was anything but bloodless.
Wasn't the atomic bomb an atrocity, even though at the time it was considered spectacular? Awesome? America is the only country that has used the atomic bomb.
Until we can begin to acknowledge and take responsibility for our own aggressive history, I don't think we have the credibility to accuse others. When we can begin to grieve for all atrocities committed against humankind, I will have hope for a "new world order" truly based in peace, fairness and freedom for all.
Colleen Redman is a poet and co-editor of "The Bell: A Call to Peace," published in Blacksburg.
by CNB