“Fire and Forget” –   misguided missiles?

Northern Friends Peace Board  Challenging Militarism Project Signpost leaflet - November 2003 (click here for PDF version, 34KB)

Around remembrance time in the UK and other parts of the world, families and friends rightly grieve for those who have died in war. But the fact that the term ‘fire and forget’ is even used is disturbing: how can there be any morality in war when such concepts are the currency of military vocabulary? 

There are troubling contradictions.  The military establishment takes great pains to join with the public in acts of remembrance a few days in the year, at the same time as creating euphemisms to separate us from the human reality of modern warfare.  
  
Another bit of jargon related to ‘guided missiles’ is ‘Man in the loop’, or MITL for short.  This is, apparently, a guidance feature that allows human intervention (corrections, etc) as the weapon closes in on the target.  Perhaps all missiles should be labelled ‘MWCITL’ – men, women and children in the loop.  All people are potential recipients of such guidance.  The military strikes by the US and UK against Iraq between 1998 and 2003 found many such people.  

Some more terminology to ponder: 

Bombs for peace?

Others who seek peace talk about ‘peace building’ rather than enforcement.  These are not naïve idealists, but people with real, ‘on the ground’ experience of working alongside others to support the frameworks of processes of building peaceful relationships within and between communities. Such work takes longer, is slower and less glamorous than hi-tech bombardment. It is unlikely that video games about conflict resolution will be flying off the shelves of toy-shops at Christmas.   And the ‘fireworks’ that TV reporters witnessed over the skies of Baghdad in 1991 and 2003 will have to be sacrificed for far less spectacular reportage. 

But we owe it to future generations to support processes and skills for genuine peace-building. This is not easy.  One Quaker peace poster had the following (source unknown): ‘Let us take the risks of peace upon ourselves, not impose the risks of war upon others’.  Can we, as a society, put more energy into preparing to take such risks rather than preparing for war?  

Remembering for the future

“War continues to be seen as an aberration in the normal flow of ‘ordinary life’.  Like a multiple crash on a motorway, something undesirable – but that’s the price we have to pay for freedom.  But compared to the motor car the vested interests in war are astronomical and touch everyone’s life in a very visible way.  The scale of carnage in war thus needs exceptional efforts to explain and justify it.”  

The use of ‘die’-ins’ and fake blood at protests at arms fairs and the like is one way in which people try to remind participants of that which they might prefer to forget.  Are there other ways in which the act of remembering can be a tool for transforming our country’s involvement in promoting weapons sales around the world? 

We must find honest and compassionate ways of describing and understanding the true nature of war as experienced by ‘allies’ and citizens of ‘rogue states’ alike. We cannot each carry the pain of every victim of every war, but we should be ready to extend our acts of remembrance to include those so often ignored by news media.  
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Other leaflets in this series have looked at cluster bombs, at missile ‘defense’ plans and at nuclear weapons.  At the heart of these, as with so much modern warfare, is thinking that is able to justify acts that have massive human and financial costs.  The process of war involves destruction – of property and of life.  It is irreversible.  There can be no forgetting.  What would we like to remember in the future?   Answering that question can help us plan and act for positive change today.
 

 

Northern Friends Peace Board Victoria Hall, Knowsley Street, Bolton BL1 2AS Ph: 01204 382330  E: nfpb@gn.apc.org  W:  www.nfpb.gn.apc.org