Friday, May 28, 2004

 
Final Thoughts on Bayonets
Or: Achieving a State of Nineveh and Kicking the Tyres

Having faced nothing like the prospect of making a bayonet charge during the First Sikh War or at Gallipoli, I feel like something of an ass writing anything about the subject, but one does what one can, I guess. I finally got around to renting a DVD of "Gallipoli" and ordering one(my VHS copy is so scratched as to be almost unwatchable)of "Breaker Morant." My earlier recollection about the charge at Gallipoli was confirmed by fast-forwarding ahead to the scene wherein a officer gives the order: "C'mon lads, unload your rifles - nothing up the spout. We're going in with the bayonets - no bullets."
Wave after wave of Australians went over the top, probably knowing full well that the previous wave or waves got only about five yards. (Assuming reasonable accuracy in the film, the cliche', "Lions led by donkeys" may have been applicable to that particular engagement.-and not that I suspect that the world would have likely been better off if the Kaiser & his allies had won)
But -God - what courage.(regardless of what outcomes in India or Turkey one wishes to cite) And God forbid that either of my sons(at least two of my daughters are probably too slight of build to pass even those standards set for women in the armed services)should have to face such a test.
One hopes that our nation's "capital" of young mens' courage is not greatly depleted by the war in Iraq. I can't imagine that the decisions not to flatten Falujah or the shrines used by Mahdi Sadr have been good for morale. I wish that our air force had at least dropped leaflets for the benefit of the better-educated of Sadr's rabble having just two words: "Monte Cassino."
Saddam's Iraq probably supported terrorism against the West and would have likely given increased support had he been allowed to continue to rule in the face of crumbling sanctions. It's also hard to imagine that any representative or for that matter, not-so-representative government of Iraq not soon giving open, in-your-face support to terrorism in the future. I fear that hopes for a "peace with honor" with the "nutso" people of Iraq will be as illusory as those once held for some sort of agreement with the (much tougher in many ways than Arabs)North Vietnamese. The best we may hope for in the way of salvaging something of "face" or honor(and probably won't get under Bush or (shudder)Kerry)is doing something massively nasty and "punitive" on our way out- finally taking to heart Orwell's assertion that "When someone has dropped a bomb on your mother, there is nothing for it but to go and drop two bombs on his mother." -And speaking of "We Have Hays," cited lately, I think, only by Ramesh, the column was so damn good(my only quibble with it is that it may have been better titled "Ve haff vays") that its author should provide a link to it for readers, not just for its disavowal of torture, but for its at least implicit call for such other measures that the American people(although, as JD has argued elsewhere, not its elites)would still likely support.
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btw., in spite of the impression one might get from the exchange of casualities in the movie Zulu, I recall reading(probalby from the jumble of papers in the basement)that the British fared far better with bayonet than did the Zulu with assagai at Rourke's Drift.


JS