Armistice Day, 90 years on
Every year, on 11/11, the venerable moderators at Making Light dedicate an entry to the War to End All Wars. And every year I find myself so thankful for this, because it seems - in this country, anyway - to remember the first World War is a job for aging veterans and a small collection of historians. Commemoration of this day at all seems restricted to those who fought, someplace, sometime, and promient politicians. This picture, and this opinion page column were the only things the New York Times had on their website's front page about today. (The column is very thoughtful, by the way.)
My Medieval Britain professor (Hudson) introduced class today by talking about Armistice Day, and apologized for leaving his poppy badge on his desk. But still, he spent about five minutes telling us about the history of today, and of the Great War, before launching into his lecture on Edward I, and it was really cool.
A few months ago I re-read W. H. Auden's "The Shield of Achilles." Here it is, for anyone else wanting to do the same. To say it's a powerful poem is an understatement, but it's also true.
This past weekend I began Shirin Ebadi's memoir, Iran Awakening, about her experiences as an Iranian citizen, working first as a judge, then a clerk, and finally a lawyer, in the Islamic Republic. It's pretty harrowing, to be honest. Of course I recommend it. But there was one passage I read on Sunday that had me thinking of today, and how - despite our Veteran's Day being a commemoration of the "good guys", i.e., us - it was appropriate.
This passage concludes her chapter on the Iran-Iraq war, which lasted from 1980-1988. I have not received permission to post it here, but so long as no one protests, I'll leave it be.
What was the legacy of this war? The borders were unchanged. The world soon forgot. Every time I go to [the cemetery] Behesht-e Zahra and gaze at the graves of the war dead, those who will be remembered as a footnote, a numerical estimate, I wonder to myself, Who was the real winner? Not Iran, with its economy in ruins, two-thirds of its provinces devastated, its soldier victims of Saddam's chemical weapons lying in special hospitals, their blistered bodies continually burning. Not Iraq, its population also scarred by war, its Kurds similarly brutalized by nerve gas. Who were the winners then? The arms dealers. The European companies that sold Saddam his chemical weapons, the American firms that sold both sides arms. They amassed fortunes, their bank accounts swollen, their families, in Bonn and Virginia, untouched.
I must linger on the war just a bit longer, because its impact is largely what has shaped current Iranian attitudes about our future and our place in the war. First, the skepticism and mistrust it reinforced in us about America's motives in the region. Imagine if you were an Iranian and watched the boys in your neighborhood board the bus for the front, never to return. Imagine staring in mute horror at the television screen as Saddam rained chemical weapons down on your boys, his death planes guided by U.S. satellite photos. Fast-forward about fifteen years. Now you are watching faded video footage of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam Hussein's hand, smiling at the butcher who made our capital's cemetery a city. Now you are listening to President George W. Bush promise he wants to bring democracy to the Middle East. You are hearing him address the Iranian people in his State of the Union address, telling them that if they stand for their own liberty, American will stand with them. Do you believe him?
It is nearly impossible to reliably estimate the war's toll, on both the two countries' populations and their economies. Both sides sustained about $500 billion in lost oil revenue, military expenditure, and destroyed infrastructure. Both sides minimized their own troop casualties and exaggerated the enemy losses; the only generally accepted figure is that, combined, more than one million Iranians and Iraqis were killed or wounded. More than one hundred thousand soldiers were taken as prisoners of war, and the fighting produced about 2.5 million refugees.
Just things to think about, on this Remembrance Day.
My Medieval Britain professor (Hudson) introduced class today by talking about Armistice Day, and apologized for leaving his poppy badge on his desk. But still, he spent about five minutes telling us about the history of today, and of the Great War, before launching into his lecture on Edward I, and it was really cool.
A few months ago I re-read W. H. Auden's "The Shield of Achilles." Here it is, for anyone else wanting to do the same. To say it's a powerful poem is an understatement, but it's also true.
This past weekend I began Shirin Ebadi's memoir, Iran Awakening, about her experiences as an Iranian citizen, working first as a judge, then a clerk, and finally a lawyer, in the Islamic Republic. It's pretty harrowing, to be honest. Of course I recommend it. But there was one passage I read on Sunday that had me thinking of today, and how - despite our Veteran's Day being a commemoration of the "good guys", i.e., us - it was appropriate.
This passage concludes her chapter on the Iran-Iraq war, which lasted from 1980-1988. I have not received permission to post it here, but so long as no one protests, I'll leave it be.
What was the legacy of this war? The borders were unchanged. The world soon forgot. Every time I go to [the cemetery] Behesht-e Zahra and gaze at the graves of the war dead, those who will be remembered as a footnote, a numerical estimate, I wonder to myself, Who was the real winner? Not Iran, with its economy in ruins, two-thirds of its provinces devastated, its soldier victims of Saddam's chemical weapons lying in special hospitals, their blistered bodies continually burning. Not Iraq, its population also scarred by war, its Kurds similarly brutalized by nerve gas. Who were the winners then? The arms dealers. The European companies that sold Saddam his chemical weapons, the American firms that sold both sides arms. They amassed fortunes, their bank accounts swollen, their families, in Bonn and Virginia, untouched.
I must linger on the war just a bit longer, because its impact is largely what has shaped current Iranian attitudes about our future and our place in the war. First, the skepticism and mistrust it reinforced in us about America's motives in the region. Imagine if you were an Iranian and watched the boys in your neighborhood board the bus for the front, never to return. Imagine staring in mute horror at the television screen as Saddam rained chemical weapons down on your boys, his death planes guided by U.S. satellite photos. Fast-forward about fifteen years. Now you are watching faded video footage of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam Hussein's hand, smiling at the butcher who made our capital's cemetery a city. Now you are listening to President George W. Bush promise he wants to bring democracy to the Middle East. You are hearing him address the Iranian people in his State of the Union address, telling them that if they stand for their own liberty, American will stand with them. Do you believe him?
It is nearly impossible to reliably estimate the war's toll, on both the two countries' populations and their economies. Both sides sustained about $500 billion in lost oil revenue, military expenditure, and destroyed infrastructure. Both sides minimized their own troop casualties and exaggerated the enemy losses; the only generally accepted figure is that, combined, more than one million Iranians and Iraqis were killed or wounded. More than one hundred thousand soldiers were taken as prisoners of war, and the fighting produced about 2.5 million refugees.
Just things to think about, on this Remembrance Day.