Battle for Haditha

Not sure I really want to post this, but here it is anyway.

In 2005 a small unit of American soldiers patrolling the town of Haditha north of Baghdad were attacked via a roadside bomb blown up by a 'terrorist' who detonated it with a cell phone. One soldier was killed and two seriously injured. The resulting reaction from the soldiers led to the massacre of 24 people, including many women and children.

In his retelling of this true story, British director Nick Broomfield, well known for his documentary approach, used both current and former American servicemen to create a devastatingly realistic piece of cinema. I shan't review it, as many have already. But I do want to say that this is one of the most morally complex movies I have seen. Broomfield takes us into the lives of the soldiers, the families who get massacred, the Iraq men who plant to bomb (and are paid $1000 by Al Qaeda), into the complexities where violence is the inescapable logical outcome. There is no simple black and white truth here. There rarely is in life.

The moral complexity does not overshadow the fact that this was an illegal and brutal act by the soldier. (Some of the soldiers were eventually prosecuted). But the strength of this film is that it humanises the people involved. Even the older terrorist, after planting and setting off the bomb, safely escapes back to his family. When he holds his young daughter, he shakes with regret as he wonders what he has unleashed. He is a pawn in a political game.

But then, they all are. There is no simple pathway through this environment of fear, distrust and violence. I felt angry at the soldiers, but then you see the retching behind the Humvee, the violence surrounding them, their desire to simply survive the next patrol, the latent fear that haunts them at night. Forgive the brutality, never. Understand how they acted like this, most certainly.

We yearn for a simple world where the boundaries are clear. Broomfield allows us to see behind these simplistic categories, to understand. That itself is an achievement.       
 

Political dysfunction

One problem with contemporary politics is that it is very difficult to run a government on the basis of sound or evidence-led policy. Underlying this is, actually, an issue that goes to the heart of, er, the brain! If you will forgive the mixed metaphor, I am referring to what philosophers call limited human reason.

It goes like this. We human learn about our environment through trial and error (we do this collectively over time). Because our cognitive capacity is limited, we rely on others to help test our ideas. We never get it right all the time, and often get it wrong. Accurate understanding of the world around us is a collective endeavour.

The bottom line in all of this is that there is always a possibility that we are wrong. Apart from a few simplified bits of knowledge such as basic 'facts' about our world, most of what we 'know' is actually an interpretation from our personal or cultural lens. We can't really talk about such things as right or wrong in a simplistic binary sense. Anyone who has had exposure to quite different cultures will understand this. This means we will always need to be open to change, to modify our ideas. This is as true for individual as for societies.

A health mental attitude is open to new information, ideas, and perspectives that will enrich our understanding of an issue.  This is especially true of complex issues.

The trouble in politics is that politicians are not given that freedom. If they 'change their minds' over an issue, they are castigated for flip-flop policy. We want consistency. We want them to stand for their values and policy position come hell or high water. But this locks them into the position of not being able to revise their position as the situation changes or as new information comes to light. And that is irrational, and at times dangerous. President Bush saw the world in simple terms: them and us, the good and the bad. (See the movie 'The Battle for Haditha' and tell me the world is not morally complex).


A black and white world is a simpler world and that is what many many people want.Yet, it is dysfunctional because we get stuck in our far-too-simple- versions of life, and we are only left with power.

I am not suggesting that politicians abandon broad policy positions at all, but rather we should celebrate a politician or party that, in light of new information and understanding, modifies their position. That is how healthy individuals function, and also how a healthy polity functions.

 

The trend to a warmer world is now incontrovertible

Well, despite what some still persist in believing, just published data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),shows that June 2010 was the hottest in recorded history (since records began in 1880). Not only that, but there is a consistent warming trend in-line with modelling what happens as greenhouse gases increase in the atmosphere.

But pay attention to the statement that a warmer world is now incontrovertible. This does not mean there are not some places which have colder than average temperatures (Victoria, Australia did; I was here and it was cold), but that on average, the earth was warmer.

This is not a good thing, by the way.

For the Guardian article go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/16/june-2010-warmest-recorded