Session 2: The Fog of War
3rd Global Conference
Saturday 10th September – Monday 12th September 2011
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom
War and Punishment
David J. Garren
United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, USA
What role, if any, should punishment play in war between and among sovereign nation-states? For example, most would agree (excepting pacifists) that it is permissible for one nation-state to wage war against another for the purposes of self-defense, i.e., to repel wrongful aggression? What is less clear, however, is whether the defending state, if successful in repelling the aggression, should then be permitted to punish the aggressor state, and if so, how and what on basis? Should it be permitted to punish the political leaders of the state, the individual war-fighters, or would imposing some sort of collective responsibility upon the citizenry as a whole be permissible? Additionally, should the punishment, whether individual or collective, be permitted for purposes of deterrence, for purposes of vengeance, or some combination of both? And, finally, what of war undertaken solely for the purposes of punishment, for example, where defense of a sovereign nation-state is not at issue, as in the case of humanitarian intervention, or where defense is entirely absent, as in the case of a nation-state having committed an act or multiple acts of prior aggression but with no expectation of its committing any future aggression? What then? Should such wars be permissible? Unlike contemporary just war theorists, I suspect, along with the classical theorists, that punishment should play a significant role in war between and among nation-states, both for purposes of avenging wrongs, like Qaddafi’s killing of his own people, as well as restoring and maintaining peace, but in the remainder of this paper will determine whether and in what way this is so.
Behind the Hurt Locker: Target Acquired?
Sonja Pasuantonio
United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, USA
The true definition of a “hurt locker” is (A) a figurative place representing a tortured state of mind; or (B) an actual place where damaging things are concealed. Perhaps screenwriter Mark Boal and producer Kathryn Bigelow choose their title to evaluate an injustice; that of a misrepresented and vilified people that we know nothing about. Just as the title screen foreshadows the ending, audiences are reminded that the war clock still ticks in Iraq. And what remains are Hollywood productions featuring over 900 films stereotyping the Arab community.
Aptly, The Hurt Locker steadfastly refuses to identify the bomb-makers; they are shadowy legions who possess no single, remarkable countenance. Boal is resolute in ensuring no causal thread connects his characters to terrorism or insurgents while Bigelow makes no attempt to attribute the long series of bombs to an agent or entity.
Bigelow’s visual rendering forces the audience to believe the insurgents are infinite and that despite our best military efforts will keep coming. And that, too, reveals Bigelow’s intent, which is to ensure the fragmenting Iraq experiences stays with viewers long after they’ve left the theatres. So perhaps it’s not that Iraq is without image, but that she comprises too many images.
The same way Bigelow splinters scenes to show the fragmented and disordered existence is also how she defends that war shatters the person. And that is the message. Iraqi people die as a by-product of war. But they die as broken images, fragments of the proud civilization they once were. Instead of fostering cultural awareness by illustrating how a misunderstood people live, Americans collectively indict the Iraqis as villains—uncivilized religious fanatics bent on terrorizing westerners. The Hurt Locker isn’t about war; it’s about complications resulting from war, obstacles that arise from being a chance victim mired in barbwire.
Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)
Messala: Roman Villain via Boss Tweed and Billy the Kid
Jon Solomon
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Messala was the villain of the best-selling novel Ben-Hur, today known equally from iconic cinematic portrayals. Although he is the novel’s only villain, he is singularly responsible for destroying the princely family of the protagonist Judah, condemning him to death in the galleys, imprisoning his mother and sister, torturing his steward, and confiscating his property. He does this without a twinge of guilt and hides his crimes behind the cloak of Roman imperial rule, the worst aspects of which he demonstrably represents. Disabled in the famous chariot race, Messala carries on his torment of the Hurs, immediately hiring a gladiator to assassinate Judah, and, now plagued with leprosy, the mother and sister are released into their isolated misery. Messala’s villainy ceases only after his Egyptian temptress murders him, but even then it takes the power of Christ to restore the Hur family at the end of the novel.
This paper will examine the powerful societal forces that helped shape this unredeemable villain in the 1870s when the novel was being written. At the time, villainy was embodied in the United States by Boss Tweed, the prototype of modern political, financial, and corporate greed and corruption. Author Lew Wallace knew such villainy first hand as a lawyer and Republican politician. As a general during the Civil War, he knew well the dark side of institutionalized cruelty. As a judge investigating the Andersonville prison abuses, he knew the devastating effects of plague. And as the governor in the real “Wild West” of the New Mexico Territory, he daily confronted men bent on vengeance to the death in the Lincoln Land Wars and negotiated with the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid. Wallace concentrated the evils of nineteenth-century America into this single, symbolic Roman counterpart to Christ, without rendering him as Satan.
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