Clean Snows of Petawawa - Assignment Example

Military Encounters Restrepois an exhilarating film documentary from Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger in their quest to tell a story about a platoon of US soldiers who were deployed in Korengal Valley, one of the most dangerous valleys in Afghanistan. The documentary shows different ways in which solder confront their challenge despite the differences in culture of the local Afghan communities. In one incident highlighting these difficulties, a captain tells a tribal leader and villager whose innocent village members were killed by the coalition forces to move on from the atrocities committed and not to dwell on them. Captain Kearney, the unit’s C.O., dismissively ignores the atrocities committed by the forces under his command and only asks the community to move on, which is lack of empathy as a normal human being could have only offered an apology and duly compensate the villagers for the loss. In his discussion with the tribal leaders, the captain reflects the American Grand Narrative in which American policy focused on a commitment to global leadership whereby a policy of interventionism is the order of the day with any errors and misjudgmentscommitted being carried out in good faith (Ashbrook, 2010). For this reason, the attitude shown by the captain, when talking with the tribal leaders, shows that he considered the errors committed by the platoon under his command as done in good faith. In this case, the soldiers accidentally killed innocentvillagers although the overall the overall objective of helping the community live in peace after years of atrocities committed by the rebels that the coalition forces were fighting justified the killings. In the article, titled from the "clean snows of petawawa": The violence of Canadian Peacekeepers in Somalia, the author engages in a discussion by tracing the story in which Canadian peacekeepers engaged in violence against Somalis with the atrocities committed by the Canadians disappearing from Canada’s legal and national cognizance. To Razack (2000) the Canadian grand national narrative of ‘clean snows’ and peacekeepers who are supposed to be innocent contributed to the disappearance of the atrocities committed since the Canadian forces could not commit such atrocious acts to other human beings based on the country’s grand narrative. To recap, the story involves Canadian forces from the base in Petawawa who were sent as peacekeepers to perform their duties in Somalia. As peacekeepers, they were expectedmaintain peace, in the Somali War of 1992, and it was the expectation of the world and Canadians to have their soldiers act according to their defined roles of peacekeepers, which is the reason they were christened as the clean snows of Petawawa. Nonetheless, they did not live up to their expectations as their return six months later was marked with a situation in which peacekeepers were returning with blood on their hands. Apparently, they had committed atrocities ranging from raping prisoners, and murder while numerous videos showing soldiers “engaging in a number of degrading, violent, and racist acts during various initiation rites” (Razack, 2000, p. 127). Despite the evidence showing enough proof of these atrocities, it is important to point out that nothing was borne out of the inquiries set to find justice for the Somalis. In this case, the Canadian grand narrative characterized by the neocolonial narrative that, “Whites must now contend with the disorder and chaos wrought by natives left to their own devices after decolonization” (Razack, 2000, p. 129) being responsible for the silence witnessed over the issue. Although Canadians view themselves as individuals who are not racist, non-imperialists, and a people uninvolved in conquest, the grand narrative of Canada points to something different. In fact, the foundation of the country is built on a narrative whereby White settlers stole the Aborigines’ land with the rationale being that of civilizing the natives, which was followed by instances of enslavement and exploitation along racial lines (Razack, 2000). This narrative, therefore, is evident in the way the peacekeepers atrociously behaved in Somalia with the investigation failing to bore any fruits as the country’s narrative of a peaceful nation that is not racist led to the termination of any investigation. There are various inherent cultural difficulties in military-indigenous interactions in Afghanistan and Iraq. First, there are difficulties related to the lack of trust between the coalition forces and the indigenous communities with the lack of trust contributing to the differences in the way that the two parties interact. On the other hand, there are challenges posed by the way that different military personnel interact with the indigenous people with the personnel at times sending mixed signals on the way they interact with the people. For example, Packer (2008) tells of an incident in which one man had two different encounters with American soldiers. Under the first encounter, the soldiers were ruthless and mean to the man while the second experience was one that was characterized by compassion. There is evidence to suggest that the media portrays the conflict differently based on their support or lack of support for the war. For example, right-wing media, who support the war, lay the blame on the indigenous communities in case of incidents of conflict that arise from the cultural differences. On the other hand, movie makers portray the cultural difficulties based on the selling point that they would want their movie to project (Packer, 2008). Consequently, this contributes to a situation whereby the average reader and observer remain largely uninformed of the situation ongoing in either of the two countries. References Ashbrook, T. (August 10, 2010). Excerpt from "Washington Rules," by Andrew Bacevich. npr. Retrieved from http://onpoint.wbur.org/2010/08/10/excerpt-from-washington-rules-by-andrew-bacevich Junger, S., & Hetherington, T. (2010).Restrepo [Motion Picture]. United States: Virgil Films & Entertainment. Packer, G. (2008).Over Here: Iraq the Place vs. Iraq the Abstraction.Winter Affairs. Retrieved fromhttp://worldaffairsjournal.org/article/over-here-iraq-place-vs-iraq-abstraction Razack, S. (2000). From the "clean snows of petawawa": The violence of Canadian peacekeepers in Somalia. Cultural Anthropology, 15(1), 127-163. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/213148601?accountid=142908 Read More