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Accidental Theologist v. Gunship Helicopters: 1-0

Posted July 5th, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Oh bliss — no gunship helicopter before the July Fourth fireworks last night (see previous post).   Using suitably magical thinking,  I attribute this entirely to the persuasive power of accidental theology, though under pressure, I might even concede that common sense and rudimentary political awareness may have been involved in the decision to keep the copter grounded.

Thanks Rachel, Nancy and Charlotte for your beautiful, brave, and honest comments to the previous post.  And yes, the fireworks were spanglily gorgeous.

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File under: US politics, war | Tagged: Tags: fireworks, gunship helicopters, July Fourth | 2 Comments
  1. Linda Williams says:
    July 5, 2010 at 10:22 am

    Ah, the power of intention and positive thinking!

    I love that description..”spanglily” gorgeous. Me thinks you’ve just created a wonderful new word!

  2. charlotte gerlings says:
    July 5, 2010 at 12:24 pm

    Well done AT – now for your next trick fix the weather!

The Rockets’ Red Glare

Posted July 3rd, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Ten at night on July Fourth, and the gunship helicopter comes in low over Seattle’s Lake Union, the prelude to the fireworks show.  A giant Stars and Stripes hangs from it as it parades slowly around the lake, an ominous matte-black presence made all the more threatening by the music blaring from the loudspeakers at the north end of the lake.  That music was chosen by someone who was either cinematically ignorant or had zero sense of irony, because until last year, it was Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ — the same music that accompanies the long tracking shot of gunship helicopters flying off to napalm the hell out of a Vietnamese village in perhaps the best war movie ever made:

Even in liberal Seattle, nobody seems to question why an attack helicopter is considered a suitable means of displaying the flag.   National independence is  easily militarized, since it is often — far too often — achieved at the cost of war.   “Blood and treasure” is the current phrase for this cost, and a particularly abhorrent one, not least because it seems to imply that blood is not treasured.   We are now past the 1,000 mark for US dead in Afghanistan, and approaching the 5,000 mark in Iraq (nobody keeps precise tallies of the far greater fatalities of Afghanis and Iraqis, said to be anywhere from “tens of thousands,” as though an extra ten thousand here and there makes no difference, to close to 200,000).   So this year, when the gunship flies around the lake, albeit sans the Valkyries (did irony finally hit? or did someone catch up on their Netflix queue?),  the sight and sound of that massive metal weapon looming and booming over my houseboat will again make me feel not pride in my American citizenship, but anxiety.   And not just because of the association with ‘Apocalypse Now.’

That gunship makes me see the fireworks differently.  I still go ‘Wow,’ but there’s no innocence in it.   Instead, I remember how people watching TV went ‘Wow’ as ordnance arced over the night skies of Baghdad in 2003, or how they tuned in to the cameras in the nose-cones of those peculiarly imprecise ‘precision’ missiles in the Kuwait war, as though the light and sound effects had nothing to do with real lives, real blood, real bones pulverized into the dust.    The fireworks, I realize, are non-lethal versions of that lethal ordnance, the utterly literal illustration of the national anthem:   “The rockets’ red glare/ The bombs bursting in air/ Gave proof through the night/ That our flag was still there.”

But how strange that rockets and bombs are needed to prove independence.   The insecurity behind those lines from the anthem is clear, which may be part of why we’re now mired deeper than ever in Afghanistan.  Two hundred and thirty-four years have passed, yet even in Seattle, we still need to send in the gunships.

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File under: US politics, war | Tagged: Tags: Afghanistan, Apocalyse Now, fireworks, gunships, Independence Day, Iraq, Seattle, Vietnam | 5 Comments
  1. rachel cowan says:
    July 4, 2010 at 3:37 am

    I had similar thoughts – though less eloquently presented even within my own mind – as I watched the fireworks launched last night from West Point as a culmination to the 1812 Overture. I was watching from a terrace above and across the river – in a totally idyllic setting on a warm night with many small children going WOW and what’s next? So pleasant, and yet this huge West Point complex can not produce victory in Afghanistan or Iraq, and invites such delusion of strength. I thought of each dazzling (and totally amazingly wonderful) burst of sparkling lights as a drone bomb missing its “target”, not even able to imagine what that would be like from below.

    so here’s to a fourth with fireworks for peace! for my grandchildren at least!

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      July 4, 2010 at 10:23 am

      Fireworks for peace — what a wonderful light-filled image. Thanks, Rachel.

  2. Nancy McClelland says:
    July 4, 2010 at 12:39 pm

    I’m embarrassed to post this — but felt more shamed about hiding the truth. I watched the display of this military ship with its American flag the past two years (so, yes, even with the Wagner), and was impressed. My husband and I sheepishly admitted to each other afterward that it was impossible not to be charmed out of our anti-military stance and into a pro-nationalist one. I wanted to stand up and cover my heart and sing the national anthem for the first time since seeing a flag hanging off a highway overpass the day after 9/11. What does this mean? Why mention it? Well, if this show of force can be inspiring even to those of us who normally abhor military/imperialist propaganda, then imagine the cumulative effect of all the crap that is fed daily to Americans eager to embrace it. Discounting the results of such efforts by various parties (tea- not excluded) is going to get us into even more trouble. How can we “take back the flag”?

  3. charlotte gerlings says:
    July 4, 2010 at 2:48 pm

    It’s often been said that because they’ve never struggled through years of foreign aggression on their own patch – unlike the Europeans – Americans have a propensity to elevate and eulogise violence and disregard the human cost. But after the get-nowhere of the past decade, now could be the time to protest about that helicopter’s lap of dubious honour above your neighbourhood. There’s nothing redemptive about violence, it can never make one’s own country more secure or other nations more compliant. So what has the willy-waving of weaponry got to do with a celebration of independence? Hope you’re all having a great time – fireworks over water are extra spectacular – enjoy every sparkle!

  4. Accidental Theologist v. Gunship Helicopters: 1-0 « The Accidental Theologist says:
    July 5, 2010 at 10:15 am

    […] The Comets’ Red Glare […]

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