The Hindu : Body bags

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 24, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Body bags

By Timeri N. Murari

Unlike the rest of the world, the Americans do not expect their soldiers to die.

SOLDIERS ARE meant to die. It is a given in that profession. The uniform, the braid and the gold stars are impressive to look at but the bottom line is dying. The soldier (including air force and navy) is ordered into combat, often on the whim of a politician way back from the front line. At other times, mad Generals send their men out to die. Six hundred men of the Light Brigade charged canons, six hundred died. A Frenchman, naturally, pronounced their epitaph. "It's not war but it is magnificent."

Unlike the rest of the world, the Americans do not expect their soldiers to die. It is one of the reasons they invented very long-range combat. Missiles from distant cruisers and battleships, bunker-busters from high-flying B-52s are meant to win their wars. While on the ground, helicopter gunships give the finishing touches to whatever enemy still stands. The recent American `war' in Iraq was not really a war in the sense of the word in which pitched battles were fought. It was a drive-by shooting. America won the war even before it had started. However, since the day President George Bush declared "the war is over", more American soldiers have been killed than during the invasion. As the body bags are shipped home, each death is scything down Mr. Bush's popularity ratings. If it continues the downward plummet, the predictions are that, like his father, he will become a one-term President. Whether the rest of the world, including millions of Americans, wants to see him as two-term President is very doubtful.

So he has to find a way out of this political quagmire pretty quick. The easiest solution is quite simple: replace American body bags with someone else's body bags. He must have discussed this solution with his war partner, Prime Minister Tony Blair. And he must have been quite envious that the British body bag count is quite negligible compared to the American one. However, I doubt that the British will panic if it does start to mount. A nation that proudly lost 600 men in one charge and many, many thousands in the World Wars is not going to flinch at what can happen in Iraq. They have been there before and know what it is going to cost in body bags.

However, old Empire Builders need to instruct new Empire Builders on how to conquer and colonise a nation. Mr. Blair would have certainly drawn on Britain's historical experiences in Iraq. He would have told Mr. Bush that back then in the 1920s when Britain was colonising that part of the Arab world, they used foreign troops as canon fodder. The foreign troops were Indian. According to a BBC programme, around 700,000 Indian soldiers died in that old Iraq war. The panellist quoted a more accurate figure - 725,000 or 730,000 — but I remember the impressive figure. He seemed to know what he was talking about as it silenced the others in the studio.

As a people, we have a very short memory for history, although a better one for mythology. We barely remember what happened last year, let alone nearly 90 years ago. I am surprised that no one has remarked at this massive loss of men now that Mr. Bush is certainly again going to ask Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for us to send troops to Iraq. I doubt whether the Iraqis will stop shooting and hurling grenades just because the nationality and colour of the occupying force has changed. They fought bitterly and bloodily against the British occupation back in the 1920s and I expect this war of attrition will continue on and on. Apart from the Iraqis themselves, the country has become a magnet for every terrorist organisation that exists east of Suez. We are already on Osama bin Laden's hit list, number two after America I believe, and every other hit list as we know too well in Kashmir, Mumbai and New Delhi.

It is possible we do not mind the body bags as much as the Americans do. Everyday, the body bag count coming out of Kashmir continues to mount. We do not know the names or the faces of the soldiers who are dying. Is it because the Americans value their lives more than we do? After all there are one billion of us and 250 million of them. We can afford our losses while the Americans grow angry with their President for their losses.

Or maybe, as a people who have suffered more than the Americans ever have, we accept the inevitability of death. We console ourselves with karma and maya, and though we mourn our dead with as much pain as any American family, we know that a soldier's profession is to die. He chose it as his way of life and considers himself lucky to die of old age.

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