Light It Up: the Marine Eye for Battle in the War for Iraq
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LIGHT IT UP This page intentionally left blank LIGHT IT UP The Marine Eye for Battle in the War for Iraq JOHN PETTEGREW Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore © 2015 Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2015 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pettegrew, John, 1959– Light it up : the Marine eye for battle in the war for Iraq / John Pettegrew. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4214-1785-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4214-1786-8 (electronic) — ISBN 1-4214-1785-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-4214-1786-3 (electronic) 1. Iraq War, 2003–2011. 2. Iraq War, 2003–2011—Psychological aspects. 3. Combat—Psychological aspects. 4. United States. Marine Corps.—Iraq. 5. Video games—Social aspects. 6. Computer war games—Social aspects. 7. Marines—United States—Psychology. 8. Optics—Social aspects—History—21st century. 9. Visual communications—United States—Social aspects—History—21st century. 10. Military art and science—United States—Computer simulation methods—Social aspects. 11. Iraq War, 2003–2011— Moral and ethical aspects. 12. Strategic culture—United States. I. Title. II. Title: the Marine eye for battle in the war for Iraq. DS79.76.P482 2015 956.7044′34—dc23 2014049510 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information, please contact Special Sales at 410-516-6936 or [email protected]. Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post-consumer waste, whenever possible. For Tamara This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction. Force Projection and the Marine Eye for Battle 1 1 Shock and Awe and Air Power 12 Network-Centric Warfare, Sensors, and Total Situational Awareness 13 Achieving Rapid Dominance in Iraq 17 Kill Boxes, LITENING Pods, and the Third Marine Aircraft Wing 20 “Keep Your Eyes Out,” Fair Fighting, and Memories of Killing 26 2 Of War Porn and Pleasure in Killing 37 Pornography Is the Theory, and Killing the Practice 41 Classic Hollywood Combat Films 45 Marine Moto on YouTube 49 The Iraq War on Television 57 3 Fallujah, First to Fight, and Ludology 65 Ender’s Game and the Rise of Simulation in Military Training, 1995–2005 69 From Combat Films to Video Games 78 The Value Added to Military Training 82 Fighting in the Digitized Streets of Beirut 86 4 Counterinsurgency and “Turning Off the Killing Switch” 96 Empathy, General Mattis, and the Profound Paradox of Marine Humanitarianism 100 Haditha, Acute Stress, and the Excesses of Occupying Force 104 USMC Literary Culture and Warrior Ethos 112 “Which Way Would You Run?” 118 viii Contents 5 Posthuman Warfighting 127 Marines in Science Fiction and in Space 131 The Postmasculinist Marines and New Optics of Combat 136 The Gladiator Robot and the Critique of Remote Warfare 142 6 Synthetic Visions of War: Conclusion and Epilogue 149 Biopolitics and the Costs of War 151 Digital Culture and the Computational Marine 155 Subjectivity Lives and Dies 167 Notes 177 Essay on Primary Sources 201 Index 203 Preface During the past twelve years of studying the United States Marine Corp (USMC) in the Iraq War, personal encounters with three individual marines have deep- ened my understanding of what would become this book’s primary focus, the USMC’s institutionally, technologically, and culturally derived view toward combat—the Marine eye for battle. My earlier book on post–Civil War gender and violence has the USMC as the Teddy Roosevelt of the American armed forces: imbued with “fighting spirit” to the point of caricature, the Corps seems to require little historical explanation, especially when it comes to how Marine celebration of its fighting and killing prowess helped establish a hypermascu- linist warrior class in the late nineteenth- and twentieth-century United States. Marine Corps culture, in all its functional richness, involves a self- conscious revelry in warfighting as patriotic blood sport. Yet its institutional memory and culture also bear an independent streak of skepticism toward the heavy military lifting involved in extending and maintaining U.S. empire. This com- bination of “marines praying for war” and a doubtful sober-mindedness over war’s great costs came through in each of my three marine meetings during the conflict in Iraq. The first encounter was with General Anthony Zinni (ret.) when he came to speak at Lehigh University in early March 2003, just days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Confidently understated in his person, dressed in khaki pants, an open-collar shirt, and blue blazer, Zinni struck me as another middle-aged academic during the prelecture reception and dinner. At the university’s audi- torium, though, with more than two thousand people in attendance, Zinni commanded authority over the evening’s topic, the coming Iraq War, like no international relations or political science professor ever could. Standing still on an empty stage, with his hands clasped behind his back, Zinni spoke without notes for well over an hour, detailing how the United States was about to make a stupendous strategic mistake, one that would harm national security, tear Iraq into pieces, and bring dangerous instability to the x Preface whole Gulf region. Zinni’s credibility couldn’t have been greater. Chief of the U.S. Central Command (responsible for theater-level operations in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia) from 1997 to 2000, Zinni had retained his top-secret clearances while consulting with the CIA about Iraq and terrorism after September 11, 2001. He had seen the intelligence reports, and nothing suggested weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq. He knew nothing was there. “There may be a petri-dish somewhere in Iraq with the beginnings of a biological weapon,” I recall him saying, “but I doubt even that. And I can as- sure you that WMDs are simply not to be found in Iraq.” On top of that, he continued, the Pentagon has planned the invasion with a woefully undersized military force. Most importantly, in deciding to invade, the Bush administra- tion doesn’t know what it’s getting into. Sectarian strife will require U.S. mili- tary occupation of a post–Saddam Iraq for years to come, a costly operation in blood and treasure that the American people have no real interest in. It was the most remarkable political moment I’ve experienced. “I’ve bled four times for my country,” Zinni said in referring to his service in the Vietnam War. “I’m a patriot,” he implored. Leaving the auditorium that evening, I remember thinking Zinni made that last statement to explain why he opposed the Iraq War so fervently. The second encounter came just a few months later in 2003, after the suc- cessful Iraq invasion and the toppling of Saddam’s regime. It was late August, the beginning of a new school year, when I met Sergeant Colin Keefe (ret.) after the opening lecture in my post-1939 U.S. history survey. He approached me at the lectern, introduced himself, and stated that during the semester he would be respectfully disagreeing with my criticism of the Global War on Ter- ror. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, at first glance Keefe looked at home among the Lehigh undergrads. But then he proceeded to tell me that he had just been discharged from the U.S. Marines. Over the past spring and early summer he had been a machine gunner in the invasion of Iraq and the battle over Bagh- dad. We looked at each other intently, both thinking how strange it was for him to be on campus, in this classroom, so shortly after he had fought in Op- eration Iraqi Freedom. I got to know Keefe fairly well over the next few years. He became a history major and spoke with me and to my students about Iraq and the early twenty- first-century U.S. military. With my interest in this book project growing, Keefe agreed to sit down for two lengthy audiotaped interviews. It was only then that I learned of his postwar troubles stemming from the continuing incon- Preface xi gruity between civilian life as a college student and the Iraq War in his head. He convinced me that he had gotten through the worst of it. In looking back at his service in the Marines, he insisted that it had been a constructive step for a young upper-middle-class kid who almost flunked out of Lehigh before joining up in 1999. His father, now an investment banker in New York City, had gone through a very similar experience with Brown University, the Army, and the Vietnam War. The Marines had taught Colin focus, discipline, and commitment. The Iraq War wasn’t going well, and he still had nightmares from it, but on balance he knew he had gained direction from his service in the Marines. The third marine meeting happened several years later, in summer 2012, as part of my ongoing oral history project on U.S. military veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. A Lehigh graduate student, Robert O’Neil, suggested that I speak with his cousin Sergeant Thomas Lowry (ret.), who had done several tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Robert cautioned me. His cousin was having a very difficult time.