UNTOLD
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
…AND THEN WE SEE HIM
TAGS: WARS IN SYRIA, IRAQ, ACROSS NORTH AFRICA, ETHNIC CLEANSING,
WAR CRIMES, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, HUMANITARIAN CRISIS,
THE REAL COSTS OF WAR, WAR AND WARFARE THROUGH THE AGES
(Saturday August 20, 2016
Central Park, NYC) Before the syndrome was officially named after much clinical
study of the afflicted what we know today as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD) there were less refined diagnosis of Shell Shock, Combat Stress, Battle
Fatigue and the wholly descriptive “Thousand Yard Stare” that many combat
veterans wore long after the fighting was over.
After WWI and WWII there was shame assigned to returning veterans who
somehow seemed different; they had returned from the horrors they witnessed and
participated in sometimes as empty husks of the men they had been before going
to war. In the decades since, much has
been learned about PTSD, its etiology, symptomology, testing, and diagnosis
(often a laborious process) and methodology regarding standards of care,
support and treatment.
As the fields of neurology,
neuropsychiatry, sophisticated brain imaging, psychology and pharmacology have
continued to establish more truths and a body of working knowledge about all aspects
of PTSD, it is heartening to see that this latest generation of combat veterans
we have produced over the last 15 years are getting diagnosed and treated
without stigma.
It is more than academic to
note that men who have been prepared for the execution of the wars we send them
off to, men and women who have received the highest quality training,
equipment, and support can still succumb to the ravages of battles past that
rattle around in their brains long after they have returned home. If such highly trained and readied Soldiers,
Airmen, and Marines and Special Forces operatives are susceptible to PTSD, what
must battle do to a young child’s brain?
Because, in the on-going wars as in wars past, children in the combat
zone suffer the most. That point was
forcefully brought into sharp focus as the photograph of a 5-year-old boy in
Syria spread across the world. Yes, a
picture is worth a thousand words and this particular one speaks volumes;
volumes of the chaos and death, destruction of homes and families, of lives and
minds that is a unique side effect of life in a war zone.
OUR CHILDREN
Central Park in Manhattan is a
400-acre oasis of greenery, foliage, playgrounds and meadows, bike and walking
paths, family picnics and impromptu soccer games, stickball and pick-up
baseball games and is in a very real way just another neighborhood park albeit
larger and better known than most others.
On a recent warm afternoon kids could be seen playing on the various
swing sets as hyper alert moms sat on the periphery carefully monitoring their
children’s activities. Flocks of young
girls riding brightly colored two wheelers while donning equally colorful crash
helmets just in case they take a tumble.
On an open field with a gentle rise young girls in soccer uniforms were
doing practice drills wearing protective shin guards also, just in case.
From the moment children are
born today they are handled, packaged, transported, tended to as extreme
fragile goods. As toddlers they are
strapped into to “baby seats” that offer more protection than the tiny space
capsule John Glenn rode as he orbited the earth. Any sniffle, sneeze, wheeze and whimper could
signify the onset of some disease and must be addressed by the family pediatrician. You get the point. We do know the fragility of our children;
their developing minds and bodies require a certain amount of attention. Fortunately, at least to the naked eye, all
the park attendees the other day appeared to have at least some level of
financial means to provide all the protective equipment.
And then we saw that picture,
as iconic a war photo as has ever been published. We see a small boy, 5-year-old wounded Syrian
child Omran Daqneesh, blood and dust stained sitting in the back of an
ambulance after being plucked from the mangled rumble that had once been his
home. Young Omran’s face tells a tale of
age and ages. His look is not stoic;
clearly his young mind may have shut down in a reflex of self-preserving neural
activity. Having lived through lord knows how many bombing raids and occasions
of death up close he now wears the “Thousand Yard Stare”. Omran
has never taken a breath of air in his five years on earth that was not somehow
infused with the horrors of war. What
can the future hold for him and the millions of other young children who’ve
spent the entirety of their lives thus far living amid the death and
destruction of war? The true casualties
of war – any war – are the children in harm’s way. But this is nothing new; we just seem at
times to forget to imagine what their perception of their world is.
WARFARE
As is the case with all areas
of human endeavors war and warfare have evolved. Early humans fought other families and small
groups over territory with sticks and stones.
With each step up the epochal ladder man become ever more effective in
developing weapons by which to wage war.
The reasons for war evolved as well and, in a global sense, since the
early 20th century war had become a “conventional” apparatus by
which to acquire or secure expanding territory, control natural resources, and,
by WWII the means to advance political ideology. The “Cold War” pitted Democratic Capitalism
against Fascist Communism as represented by the United State and the Soviet
Union respectively. Many “proxy” wars
were fought under that overarching rubric.
As the weaponry had advanced through all manner of new armaments,
artillery and military/naval/aerial platforms that could more effectively
deliver death and destruction farther removed from the fields of battle, we had
learned to split the atom, to use plutonium and hydrogen as the ultimate means
to literally destroy the world as we know it.
The USA versus the USSR was a stand-off codified by the notion of MAD -
Mutually Assured Destruction.
Recently there has been a
retrograde development in what had been an uninterrupted continuum of ever
increasing military sophistication as well as the reasons behind the conflicts
of today as well. The wars now ablaze
across vast swathes of regions around the globe are “asymmetrical” and once
again as in the times of antiquity fought among tribes, religions, and age old
ethnic antagonism. With our blunt force
superiority in all manners of executing our wars we have become farther and
farther removed from the blood and rubble. Death can be delivered by Tomahawk missiles
from a thousand miles away or by unmanned drones silently stalking our enemies
before eradicating them. Among all this
death and destruction are the innocents; the native populations paying the
ultimate price for the actions of a certain tribe or religious sect, some
brutal despot, hate filled cleric, or self-appointed crusader. One can take
their pick. Omran Daqneesh is just one such victim suffering as one of the
untold and unknown millions of others in places far and wide. His photograph almost demands comment and
should provoke reasonable thought among the warring parties but, as well all
know far too well, it will not. It will
fade away as just another forgotten image of the strife running rampant in
places some of us couldn’t even find on a map.
MORALS
Some calls to arms are indeed
moral; initiated from a sense of blatant provocation and injustice. Our foray into Afghanistan in October 2001
was one such conflict infused with a distinct moral imperative. We knew exactly why we sent our soldiers to
fight. The al Qeada attacks on our soil
and their Taliban hosts brought the full weight and fury of the United States
military unto themselves. Our efforts
were supported virtually uniformly by countries around the world.
Our “war of choice” against
Iraq was no such similar situation and the aftermath of the fall of Sadaam
Hussein proved that fact in spades. We
quickly found ourselves in a morally ambiguous scenario of our own creation
but, that entire matter is a discussion for another time. Presently our government must seriously
consider our status and purpose in some of the military engagements we are
in. Are these all in our “national
interest”? If so, we should engage
fully, decisively and in haste to end such a conflict to our satisfaction. If not, we should as rapidly disengage and
allow the warring parties to carry on without any further intervention by our
government. These decisions each have
more than a thin veneer of morality; they call into question the very basic
tenets and principals of our governmental and military intervention policies
and practices.
THE FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENTS
Twenty years of uninterrupted
war from the Balkans to Ukraine, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, to Iraq, Syria,
Afghanistan among the most horrific of these conflicts has created a
humanitarian crisis that rivals that induced by WWII. The literal floods of men, women, and
children fleeing on foot with only the clothes on their backs does not get the
amount of attention it should. Be they
referred to as “refugees”, “displaced persons”, “asylum seekers” or just
migrants are merely a matter of terminology.
Millions of people have been uprooted from their homes and homelands as
the ravages of wars consume all vestiges of civilized life. This flood of humanity demands attention
and the burden of aiding these people should be borne by neighboring
countries. What were constructed years
ago as temporary refugee camps or relocation centers have become small
nation/states unto themselves. The
wealthy Arab countries should take in Arab refugees just as Muslim countries
should accept the hordes of the displaced Muslims. Removing these masses of humanity from their
home region essentially assures they will never again have the chance to return
to their homeland and restart their lives.
All the United States can and
should do is provide humanitarian resources.
This epic trek of humanity can only be made right some day in the future
if these people can be repatriated to the places they had called home for
centuries.
Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2016 © All Rights Reserved
Copyright Brooding Cynyc 2016 © All Rights Reserved
