When good men go to war
By Douglas Lummis
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良識のある人が戦場で戦うとき
漫画家の小林よしのり氏は、漫画『戦争論』で第二次世界大戦の兵士だった祖父のことを語っている。心優しい祖父のような兵士に対して、日本軍の残虐さを責め続けるような風潮に反対しているが…。
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In his best-selling comic book "On
War (Sensoron)," Yoshinori Kobayashi complains that criticisms
of what the Japanese military did in World War II are cruel
and unfair to his grandfather. The old man, Kobayashi says, was a soldier in
that war, but was a good man, kind to his grandson.
I understand this complaint. Sometimes criticisms of the Japanese military
give the impression that the crimes and horrors
it committed
are unique
to Japan, and that the militaries of other countries respect
the laws
of war, and hardly ever commit war crimes.
This is not true. Let me remind readers of a well-known example.
On the morning of March 16, 1968, a unit
of 105 American soldiers entered the village of My
Lai in South Vietnam, and by noon they had killed about 500 people, all unarmed
civilians. They raped the women and/or stuck
knives in
their vaginas.
They scalped
dead people, and/or carved
the name of their unit — "C Company" — on
their bodies. They also burned down houses.
The only time the commander of this unit, Lieutenant
William L. Calley, restrained
anyone was when he found one of his men forcing a woman to give him oral sex,
and said, "Get
on your goddamn
pants." The reason he gave was that a G.I.
with his pants off is not doing his job. Calley then shot the woman and her
child.
As
it happened, somebody blew
the whistle, and the army was forced to investigate.
Twenty-five soldiers were
indicted, but the charges
were dropped for all except Calley.
When the news came out that Calley was going to trial, many people —
soldiers, veterans
and civilians — came to his support. Civilians who had never been to war went
into denial,
saying, "American boys would never do such a thing."
Veterans took
a different line, saying, "This kind of thing happens in every war. Why
should they pick
on Calley?" Veterans of World War II and the Korean War protested by turning
themselves in to the police, saying, "If this man is guilty, he is guilty
for the same things we did. We shot up villages and killed civilians too."
Calley was
convicted of murder and sentenced
to life imprisonment, but two days later then-President Richard Nixon reduced
the sentence to
house
arrest. The U.S. House
of Representatives, hearing
of Nixon's pardon,
applauded.
In less than three years, he was
released on parole.
I suppose Calley and his troops,
like Kobayashi's grandfather, were good men — or anyway, as
good as one can reasonably expect. The military does not consciously
recruit sadists,
psychopaths
and serial
killers. The problem is different: how does the military recruit ordinary,
good-hearted folks
and train them to behave
like sadists, psychopaths and serial killers?
So the matter is more serious than Kobayashi thinks. It is not just a
question of our gentle grandfathers. If the remilitarization
policies that Kobayashi himself supports are
carried out, we will see our gentle children and grandchildren put in the
same situation.
Shukan ST: Aug. 24, 2001
(C) All rights reserved
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