The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America's Wars Hardcover – 28 Jul 2011

John Tirman has written one of the most important books of the decade, a must read for anyone who cares about the justice or injustice of our wars. Christians, Muslims, Jews and others who claim to take the Just War Tradition seriously all profess to believe that no war is just unless non-combatants are kept immune from attack. Unlike most Europeans and Asians, most Americans are gleefully oblivious to the millions of innocent civilians killed as the United States pursues its "national interests" abroad. Tirman documents those millions of deaths and raises disturbing but necessary questions about why we Americans just don't seem to give a damn about the destruction of so many innocents. Tirman helps us understand why our churches, synagogues and mosques routinely pray for the well being of "our troops" but never the for the millions of innocent victims they kill. What does this tell us about our nation and ourselves?

In a way, John Tirman's excellent book is a journey into the American psyche,or, to be more precise, into the minds of those who hold the power and have the ability to destroy the lives of others without giving a thought about the horrendous possible outcome of their decisions.
In Tirman's view, it all started when the conquest of the wilderness and the subjugation of the Native Americans has resulted in mass genocide and the extemination of the others, thus creating and forging the American values, most of them based on violence. This was the famous American frontier myth, which became a seminal topic discussed by yet another historian, Richard Slotkin. The Americans regarded themselves as the Messiahs coming to rescue the other, uncivilized parts of America, and all the other wars were an extension of this raison d'etre. American history is based on violence and upon the premise that the others, such as the Orientals were and still are inferior compared to the White Man. In the name of civilizing those who are "gooks" or those who embody the "yellow peril", many atrocities were committed, causing the unnnecessary loss of the lives of tens of millions. This manifested itself during the wars of the twentieth century, in particular the Korean War,in WW2, during Vietnam and the Iraqi adventures. True, there was no other choice but to join the other allies in fighting for the interests of the American people. However, the Americans gave very little thought to the death of so many innocent civilians and this makes all the difference.
All the means were employed in order to terrorize and frighten the enemy and its civilians, including the atomic bombs in Japan, the use of napalm and the Orange Agent in Vietnam and other weapons of mass destruction, which were meant to destroy the morale of whole nations and their civilians. This manifested itself in particular in Vietnam, which became a war of statistics and where the obsession with body counts did not differentiate between soldiers and civilians. One study published by the US government in the late 1970 found that one in eleven US soldiers committed "an act of abusive violence, such as torturing prisoners, raping civilians, or mutilating a corpse", and one-third of all soldiers said they witnessed such crimes.
Afghanistan, Nicaragua and Angola showed up next and were the result of the Reagan Doctrine. The US culpability varied greatly from case to case.
Tirman is right when he states that atrocities are committed by everyone in each war. No one is a saint. Still, the difference is that other nations question themselves, while the American people remain indifferent to the fate of millions of civilian casulaties. Therefore, another part of the book, the last one, analyzes in detail the possible reasons for this indifference. In Mr. Tirman's view, there are three factors which can explain it. They are :racism, the frontier myth and psychological aversion. Racism was and is a prime molder of American perspectives on domestic and global affairs, and this is not only pertaining the the USA .There were many other empires which employed this view of discrimination and regarding the others as inferior. However, Americans regarded the other nations which became their enemy as those who cannot govern themselves, leading to the conclusion and calculation that only strong American leaders could tame the savagery of the others.
Concerrning the second motive, that of the frontier myth, it started with the Puritan experience which held the view that the Americans were blessed with the Manifest Destiny, hence the justification of imperialism and vlolence, no matter what. To use again a term by Richard Slotkin, the regeneration of the Americans was to be through violence, or in other words: the wars of the global era were and are depicted as defensive violence. It is precisely this kind of violence which nourishes the American political thinkers, who are concerned with the peril of the other savages throughout the world.
The third factor, which is about "Psyche and Thanatos", explains the social psychology behind the indifference displayed by the Americans, and, according to some research published by specialists, the sufferings of the other civilians was regarded as necessary, since they are the enemy. The indifference toward the fate of the civilians in US war zones provides an implicit license to war planners and field officers to do whatever they must to win. This is the central thesis of the book.
In other words, the author calls this phenomenon "the collective autism" of the Americans. John Tirman has written a very disturbing book, with many intriguing chapters about case studies and the various wars, with a superb analysis. His opus must be on the reading menu of every intelligent person, including bureaucrats and army men. It is a warning that those who perpetrate crimes in the name of "civilization" lay the ground for self-destruction, for ignorance and for illusions, leading to the death of many more soldiers whose name might be inscribed on the war monuments in Washington and elsewhere.

I completely agree with the author that the bombing campaign against the German city centers and civil population was immoral and indefensible. Air Marshal Harris of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command was a monster.

This thoughtful and engaging analysis of the American psyche at war ponders the painful question of why Americans have been so indifferent to civilian casualties of armed conflict. Tirman's highly readable account focuses on the four post-World War II wars we have fought - in Korea, in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq -- and in each case shows that the American public has at best been only fitfully concerned about the deaths of innocent civilians, even when an announced justification for war was to "save" those people from "oppression." Tirman does not single out anyone or any institution for special blame, (though readers will find themselves appalled by the news media's consistent neglect of this important topic). Instead, he probes America's history for a psycho-cultural explanation, and he finds it in our oldest myth: that we are a frontier nation fighting for freedom against uncivilized enemies. This myth portrays our acts of violence as being both justifiable (since we serve the sacred cause of liberty) and redemptive (through violence we purge ourselves of sin and re-dedicate ourselves to our national mission). The deaths of others don't really disturb to us, Tirman argues, because the violence we wreak is not really about them: "The native populations, whether friend or foe, are bit players in this drama and scarcely of concern: the applied violence is not about them, in the American view, but about us... and our own sense of self-worth." Sidestepping the predictable Left/Right categories of political analysis, this trenchant book should be required reading for thoughtful Americans all across the political spectrum.

Tirman is an intelligent writer, and this book is the result of some hard, deep thinking. First, it is a reminder of the terrible cost in human lives of America's recent wars (still going on). Second, and perhaps more importantly, it hints at a deeper study of the workings of the American psyche that occur when war is waged. The cooperation of several forces - unbridled patriotism, the conviction that America is uniquely qualified to straighten out the world, and a short-lived enthusiasm for the war itself - go far to account for the indifference to human suffering that is the flip side of American generosity. Pride, denial, and eventual boredom also play their parts, aided, of course, by the machinations of the popular media. Tirman's book understandably stops short of a definitive analysis of America's indifference to suffering, an analysis that is not part of his purpose. But it points the way toward a more profound psychological study of popular mechanisms at work when America wages war. It is hoped that someone of Tirman's brilliance, if not Tirman himself, will pick up the thread and give us that study.