Hooaah! Pre-battle ritual makes me wanna barf...

I'd embed the video here but I wouldn't want to tempt the BBC to come break my knees, so you'll have to visit the link if you're interested:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/markurban/2010/01/the_dangers_of.html

The link is to a good article on what motivates a war journalist, but sandwiched in between the story text you'll find a video that gives an in-depth look into a recent US marines operation in Now Zad, a small ghost-village in Helmand Province. Don't worry there's no graphic violence, but I will give it a PG-13 rating for strong language (adjusted for inflation of course).

Inflation, as it were—more specifically inflation of language—happens to be a chief theme of this post. In the video, at about 4.22, Captian Michael Taylor (acting war chaplain) blesses the impending mission with a battle-prayer that drips with toxic dogma, and showcases the mind-bending malleability of faith-speak.

Now, to be fair (ugh! there's always a "to be fair." and a plurality of ways in which "to be fair"). None the less, to be fair it makes sense to acknowledge the malleability of language in general. That is, all things, not just faith, can be appropriated, mis-used, mis-represented, misunderstood, skewed and so forth.

But why are the faithful reminding God of anything? They credit him with being all-powerful, all-mighty, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-benevolent. Why then should he be reminded? And why then are good Christians allowed to fall at the hands of "a merciless [evil] enemy?" These are the questions that would keep a logician up at night, if he didn't have more practical things to think about.

The point (maybe) is that language continues to be the ladle stirring the contents of faith's crock-pot into an ever soupier amalgam, so that now you stare into it and you think—what the fuck's for dinner?

Not that I'm dinning at that table. It's just I've taken a special interest in these contradictions.

Moving on, however, to army culture at large (or, at least as depicted in this documentary footage)—what a horrific display. Get hyped to go blow some people away, sounds great. I see that there are clearly survival mechanics at work, but Jesus H. Christ, these are the types of individuals who get all puffed-up and unruly on the sidewalk outside of nightclubs and cause me to smack my head and ask "is there any decency?" I mean, I know we're at war and people gotta get killed or be killed, but could we at least do it with a some class? The answer, apparently, is no. Or the reality is no.

Another way to look at it is, these poor kids are out there doing battle so that I can sit here and spout off about it. At least that's what we're told. We're told by our government, by everyone it seems, to support our troops. Contradictorily, in no other arena is this sort of behavior esteemed. It's pretty clear that these personality types—some pre-existing, many born of war—are merely instrumental in our current global predicament.

Regardless, I can't support what I've just witnessed, it makes me want to hurl. My support can easily extend to those friends that have enmeshed themselves with war. But the machine that drives it makes me want to get sick. So do the forces of "God's Army," (no, the other God's army), twice over.

So there's a predicament.

"Brothers"
Courtesy of Hoofing It