Legitimate v. Illegitimate Violence

Sorry to be a bummer on this first Saturday of the New Year, but there are two recent stories, one in the Los Angeles Times and one in the New York Times, that are must-reads if you are interested in criminal violence. They are so sad because they show how completely the US is failing its veterans and the cancerous nature of current US violence abroad.

Both stories focus on Iraq vets who were stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado. The LA Times story discusses the case of Kenneth Eastridge, who, two days after his discharge, was involved in the shooting death of an army private. Eastridge, who's many tattoos include one resmebling an Nazi SS badge, had a criminal record prior to entering the armed forces. As reported by the LA Times, officers at Fort Carson blame Eastridge's criminal violence on his individual failings. The officers regected the notion that Eastridge's involvement in particularly violent fighting could have had anything to do with his later acts of violence. This conclusion is very hard to swollow.

The New York Times article portrays senior officers at Fort Carson, including the commanding officer Major General Mark Graham, as having much more nuanced appreciations of the link between combat violence and criminal violence. The NY Times article discusses several acts of violent homicide committed by former soilders, but focuses on the case of John Needham. After recieving a medical discharge from the Army Mr. Needham beat his girlfriend to death. The NY Times article paints a more hopeful picture, as many of the officers and armed forces personel interviewed understand the link between combat and criminal violence. At the same time, the article reveals a macho army culture in which mental health treatment is frowned upon on distressed soilders are told to "suck it up."

What these two stories reveal to me is the deep link between "illegitimate" criminal violence and "legitimate" state violence. The United States is an incredibly violent country. We are constantly at war, we aggresivley police minority communities, we torture "enemy combatants", we love violent action on TV and in movies, and we execute individuals who break certain laws. In the midst of all this violence the armed forces works to legitimate the violence it commits while other parts of the US government delegitimizes other forms of violence.

It isn't just that the state wants a monopoly on violence. It does, but it also wants state violence to be righteous while all other forms of violence are corrupt. Anti-US violence is terrorism and is grotesque. Criminal violence is the result of personal or moral weakness. Lt. Col. Brian Pearl's quote from the LA Times story is particularly revealing. Pearl told the times:

"If those guys were not in 2-12 infantry, they would have done the same thing....People will say, 'In the U.S. Army, they're trained to kill people.' But we're trained to make ethical decisions."

For Pearl it would be ethical to kill an enemy at war, but not a civilian at home. This makes it clear that ethics is defined by what is politically expedient.

The fact is, military violence bleeds over into the rest of life. It is good to know that many of the officers interviewed for the NY Times piece recognize this. All the same, I doubt that those officers would call anti-US or criminal violence legitimate.

This leaves an open question as to whether or not anti-US or criminal violence can be legitimate. I don't want to get into that here, but I will in a future post. For now it is just worth noting the connection between US state-sponsored violence and criminal violence here at home. We aren't dealing with two completely different species. They are variants of the same species, and they work together to make the US a violent culture.