Here’s one of her latest posts referring to women in the Israeli army (emphasis mine):
Well said!
I wouldn't mess with these women.
I found these pictures beautiful, heroic and touching. Unfortunately, the photographer projects her own feelings of vulnerability, depression and meaninglessness onto her subjects (from her statement):I decided to portray female soldiers in Israel during their mandatory military service as a way for me to revisit my own experience. I served as a photographer in the Israeli Air Force between 1988-1990. It was a period marked by continuous depression and extreme loneliness, and at the time I was too young to understand these emotions. Through a series of images showing female soldiers in army bases and outside, individually or in groups, I attempt to reveal a facet of this experience that is generally overlooked by the global community.Yes, best to downplay any type of heroism and instead, decide that these women must be vulnerable, depressed and wasting their time serving.
Rather than portraying the soldier as heroic, confident, or proud, my images disclose a complexity of emotions. The soldier is often caught in a transient moment of self-reflection, uncertainty, a break from her daily reality, as if questioning her own identity and state of contradiction. She is a soldier in uniform but at the same time she is a teenage girl who is trying to negotiate between these two extreme dimensions. She is in an army base surrounded by hundreds like her, but underneath the uniform there is an individual that wishes to be noticed.
I realized that although I was in a vulnerable emotional state during my service and thought of ways out of it, there was a certain level of acceptance involved. The girls I encountered were so immersed in this lifestyle, in their new reality, and completely divorced from the outside world. How could I explain to them that what they are doing means nothing in the outside world, yet will affect them for the rest of their lives? They have given up who they are for now; they have put their dreams on hold; their lives for the next two years have become a wistful compromise.
May we salute all the brave men and women working in the Armed Forces in the US and in Israel. They all make sacrifices to keep our respective nations safe from external threats and to protect our freedoms.
Israel is particularly exceptional in this. They are a small nation, surrounded by many enemies who seek their utter extermination. These young women are performing a heroic service and sacrifice in protection of their nation and their people.
While I may not always agree with our government and its use of our military, I have profound respect and gratitude for our troops who put themselves in harms way to defend us against our enemies. If that is not an act of heroism, I don't know what is?
P.S. -- Here is an example of what these young women in Israel are defending their country against.
6 comments:
Brian, I have great respect for anyone who defends their country. Be they from India or Pakistan, the US or Russia, or from Israel or Palestine. Defense is fine. However, let's not forget that all of these countries without exception, have been guilty of attacking non-agressors also.
Great point, Ali! I cannot disagree with this and do not support those actions. I beleive every nation has a legitimate right to defend itself, but clearly all nations have used their military for more than this.
I would distinguish the soldiers from the politicians and military leaders. I have great respect and gratitude to the soldiers who defend their countries. I do not always respect the politicians or those in charge of the military or the decisions they make.
One of the sticky points in international relations is dealing with how to analyze and react to preceived threats. Clearly, a nation can't always wait until an attack is launched against them to protect themselves. However, there should be a reasonable burden of proof required before launching a military offensive. Theologians and philosophers have long-debated the requirements of a "just-war".
I think you could analyze a lot of the historical military abuses through a public choice persective. Many times, tragic decisions are made that lead to terrible outcomes. Sometimes these decisions are made due to wrongful intentions, but sometimes they occur because of combinations of knowledge problems, perverse political incentives, and/or due to faulty, limited institutions.
I think one benefit representative government has in a pluralistic society is that it sometimes helps mitigate these abuses from occuring, but certainly doesn't eliminate them altogether. (Assuming that the elected government is given control over the military.) If a decision-maker faces loss of power for making wrong decisions, it should make him more cautious with his decision-making. Of course, it also can serve to prolong agressive wars if they are backed by popular opinion.
Another check against these kinds of abuses is having a volunteer army like the US currently has. If too many people oppose a certain use of the military, people can stop enrolling, limiting the supply of labor available to military use in the long-run. Again, this doesn't eliminate short-term abuses, but it does help subdue them and could potentially reduce long-term military abuses, at least if they prove to be against public opinion.
Questions: Any thoughts on how to further reduce the potential for military misuse without reducing the protective aspects of military power? What standards should be met before a nation has legitimate right to use its military against another nation? Any thoughts on what level of threat should be required before a military draft would be neccessary for a nation as opposed to a volunteer army? Is there ever justification for external military use to stop internal conflict within another nation? (Think about the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 for a good example of a time when this would have been beneficial.) What has to exist within an institutional structure to limit military abuses?
I would have bought the representative government story before Iraq. The reasons given for going to war kept changing like the weather, right before the War started, and no solid proof was given. Infact, just about all the evidence that came out undermined the case that had been made. Would such a scenario have been even more likely in an authoritarian regime isn't entirely clear to me.
As for the volunteer army, I suppose that argument would work for a very large-scale conflict, but Economics is all about marginalism, and too me, it seems entirely plausible that you will always have enough apolitical people lining up at the margin to join the army.
I don't quite agree with the doctrine of preemptive strikes, simply because I think it tends to get abused.
As for when you can intervene on humanitarian grounds, that's a really tough one. I have no clue to be honest.
First, let me say thanks to both of you guys for sharing your thoughts. I enjoy these dialogues because they also help me to clarify my own thoughts and learn and get challenged by others.
Ali, I do agree with you that Bush gave far too many reasons for going into Iraq. I was critical of him at that time for doing that. At that time, I was also sympathetic in my support of US action, but was frustrated that there was little consistency in the reasons given for why we went in.
Having said this, I would also say that part of the reason so much time was spent by the US to fly around the world was because we wanted to build not only international consensus, but also domestic consensus. That was because the war would not have gone well without public support. That is because the US has a representative government. (Notice I'm not focusing on "democracy". I'm in favor of a limited, decentralized, representative government. The US comparatively has this, but not like it used to.)
I think Bush's "scattershot" approach to coming up with reasons for the war was because he needed popular support. I think under an authoritarian government, the US would have immediately launched a much more massive attack. I think this would have been even worse. Under an authoritarian government, I think there also would have been less concern for avoiding civilian casualties, a possible draft implemented of American citizens, and a potential invasion of Iran. Maybe even the usage of nuclear weapons? As you said, economics is all about marginalism and the representative government has profound limitations on military options when compared against those of an authoritarian government.
There are many perspectives on Iraq, with many good reasons both for and against the war. The international community was also very much divided on this issue. (Remember even Turkey almost voted to lend support to the US and it was a surprise, even to them, when their legislature voted against that action.) There is even disagreement among GMU econ profs (some were against the war and others for it). The American public has also been divided on the issue, with enough of them in support of the Iraqi war that it was able to get launched. I think Americans are currently becoming more skeptical of the merits of our involvement over there, which is a big part of why Bush’s approval ratings have been so low recently.
I also think the diversity of opinion about this signify that it is not an easy, one-sided issue. Many perspectives for many reasons. I have heard many great and terrible rationales on both sides of this debate.
Iraq is also a good example of how voluntary military enlistment can affect a military. The US Army has actually had below average recruiting after the war started because there is enough public opinion against the war. Military personnel have had to spend more time per rotation and serve more rotations in Iraq that originally expected. Remarkably, however, there is also above average reenlistment by the military personnel. The public seems to be more anti-war on the margin than expected and the military personnel are more pro-war on the margin than expected. Very interesting trends. There’s some speculation that this is due to asymmetrical information, with the military being convinced that they are doing something worthwhile over there. The overall retention rates, I believe are negative, giving some pressure to the US government to reduce the length and scope of the conflict over there. Again, changes on the margin.
With all this said, my main point is that I do feel a sense of gratitude for our soldiers who are serving in our military. In my opinion, opposition to the war should be directed against politicians and other decision makers and not against the troops themselves. American soldiers fighting in Viet Nam in the 1960s and 1970s were often unfairly met with scorn and derision upon their return to the US by many in the public. I think that was a shame and not the right way to show political dissent. Even though I have more reservations about US involvement in Iraq now than I used to, this in no way diminishes my appreciation for the brave men and women serving in our Armed Forces over there. It does make me more suspicious of our politicians.
Here is an example of some Americans supporting our troops while others are simultaneously critical of our politicians and decision makers. This represents to me how these military controversies should ideally be handled. Support and appreciate the troops while publicly debating the merits of the war and decisions of the politicians.
Question: Is it appropriate to feel respect and gratitude for people serving in the armed forces? What distinguishes a “good military” from a “bad military”? How does the political structure of military command affect this? Do militaries under control of representative governments tend to be “more good” than those that aren’t? Has there ever been a case of a military under authoritarian control going to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties? Do you agree that it is good to support a country’s troops while engaging in debate and criticism of decision making? Is this possible to do? How is this balance best reached?
Another thought: I don’t have a good answer for humanitarian intervention either. I think Rwanda and the Nazi genocide would certainly qualify for intervention. Not sure where to set the standards, though. It’s easy to criticize lack of action in retrospect, but much harder to develop a forward-looking approach to deal with the next humanitarian crisis. Particularly because information about the crises tends to be know fully only afterwards. Thoughts of intervention make me very uneasy – particularly because this could create incentives for parties not in power to create a crisis to attract foreign intervention. On the other hand, I am also extremely uncomfortable thinking about the world doing nothing while another genocide like what happened in Rwanda takes place. Very difficult questions…
I agree with both of you that there is nothing simple about this problem, but I can't help noticing huge gulfs in our thinking.
In my first year at college, I read two books that made me cynical about "liberation". Have a look here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805075593/sr=8-1/qid=1145909317/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-2018880-8999056?%5Fencoding=UTF8
and here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0896086119/sr=8-8/qid=1145909272/ref=pd_bbs_8/103-2018880-8999056?%5Fencoding=UTF8
I've certainly been exposed to media biased in the opposite direction from the biases of the media here, so I hope I can learn to correct for that from my friends.
However, I've always found it difficult to stomach the idea that countries with nuclear weapons are trying to stop others from getting it. Not only does it seem hypocritical (especially for the US, which is the only country to ever actually push the button), but from a theoretical viewpoint also, deterrence is often greatest when all sides of a confict are roughly equal in their ability to damage others.
As a teenager in Pakistani, I never wanted my country to test until India tested in 1997, but then I wanted Pakistan to test right away. Having read a bit of Schelling, I now think that if Pakistan had tested first, it would be in our longer term interest if India had tested immediately too.
But that's another story...
Can't get the links right for some reason. The books in question are "Blowback" by Chalmers Johnson and the much more famous "Rouge States" by Chowmsky
Post a Comment