![]() ![]() Didn't destroy any villages, though, either.Cet article examine la manière délibérément ambiguë dont Generation Kill représente la guerre, dans une mise en abyme qui oscille entre mise en scène de l’ennui et spectacle de la guerre, entre « surcharge sensorielle » de nature orgasmique et distanciation radicale. ''Eleven thousand pounds of ordnance dropped,'' muses an officer the next day, "and we didn't hit any armor. One night, the lights of a village shimmering with the heat is mistaken for an approaching column of Iraqi armor, resulting in an air strike - again botched by bad map coordinates. A man spotted through binoculars, 300 yards off - is that a rifle in his hand, or a walking stick? Is that vehicle speeding toward the roadblock driven by a suicide bomber intent on mayhem or a desperate refugee fleeing Saddam? (It later turns out the men belonged to Saddam Hussein's death squads, hunting Iraqi army deserters.) Within a day or two, the rules have been relaxed enough that young boys tending camels are approved targets.Įven when headquarters stays out of it, the Marines learn, the war is a collection of painful uncertainties calling for split-second, life-or-death decisions. ''Our ROE states uniformed soldiers only, and they should be firing at us,'' explains a headquarters officer on what it would take to authorize shooting. In the opening hours of the invasion, the rules are so tight that when a convoy of armed Iraqis blocks the highway ahead, Bravo Platoon can only wave. That's never more apparent than when they're dealing with the rules of engagement, or ROE, the ever-shifting regulations about when and at whom the Marines can fire their guns. It's written and produced by David Simon and Ed Burns, the team behind The Wire, HBO's morbid dissection of the criminal justice system's war on drugs, and they've retained The Wire's recurring theme of good people trapped in a bad system. Generation Kill never condescends to its characters. The winning entry in an essay contest titled Why I Fight read, in its entirety: "Because I was drafted.'' As American troops fought another desert war 65 years ago, against the Nazis in North Africa, their commanders were horrified by an Army survey that showed the overwhelming majority had no idea what the war was about. It's not fashionable to say so, but so was the Greatest Generation. If the Marines in Generation Kill sometimes seem callow, why shouldn't they? Most of them are barely out of their teens. ''We returned fire and shot a donkey's head off,'' he says desolately. After one battle, Bravo Platoon encounters a Marine wandering through a field, mourning a friend whose stomach has been blown to pieces. The real war, when it arrives, is confusing, bloody and maddeningly oblique. "I wonder what it would look like if it hit a person?'' ''That was cool,'' says one Marine after machine-gunning a truck during an exercise. It's a realization that comes slowly to the men of Bravo Platoon, who as they train for the invasion seem to think they're at the controls of a video game. Generation Kill's title is mordant wordplay on the Greatest Generation label bestowed on the men and women who fought World War II, a reminder that no matter how great their cause, soldiers achieve it by killing people and blowing things up. In reality, they divide the world, regardless of race, religion or even nationality, into two camps: The men in the foxholes around them, who've got their backs, and the loathsome POGs, Persons Other than Grunts - that is, everybody else. They posture as racists, loony-left conspiracy theorists (favorite: the mainstream media have suppressed news of the death of J.Lo to avoid a collapse in military morale), right-wing nuts and raving homophobes - especially once the unit is joined by a reporter they enjoy twitting - but it's all bluff. Rough-and-tumble fratboy humor, in fact, is their defense against almost everything: lousy food, dysentery, malfunctioning radios, errant fire from units of idiot reservists, Dear John letters from home. They deploy it to stinging effect, greeting every new cascade of contradictory orders with a deadpan twist of the Marine motto: ''Semper Gumby'' - always flexible. Against officers who can mislay a truck containing the unit's entire supply of food and explosives, then bawl out a corporal who lost his helmet during an attack, the men have no weapon but irony.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |