How America kills (and how America does not mention death)
On Sunday, Orhan and I went to the USS Midway, an aircraft-carrier-turned-museum.
A floating airport built in 1943, it was awe inspiring in its technical complexity. It was also a concrete example of how to celebrate the machinery of death without ever talking about the dead; as I recall, the only person whose demise was even mentioned was the sole non-flight crew member to be killed during the ship's half century in use. No mention of any other dead soldiers, from any side. No mention of civilians in the many countries on which the Midway's planes rained death. Even the few bombs shown were labeled not by their killing capacity but by their type: general purpose bomb, cluster bomb.
I took a lot more pictures -- the huge hangar, the planes and helicopters inside and on the flight deck -- but I think I won't post them, because really, these are the raison d'etre, the ultimate cause that all the rest is built to serve.
A floating airport built in 1943, it was awe inspiring in its technical complexity. It was also a concrete example of how to celebrate the machinery of death without ever talking about the dead; as I recall, the only person whose demise was even mentioned was the sole non-flight crew member to be killed during the ship's half century in use. No mention of any other dead soldiers, from any side. No mention of civilians in the many countries on which the Midway's planes rained death. Even the few bombs shown were labeled not by their killing capacity but by their type: general purpose bomb, cluster bomb.
I took a lot more pictures -- the huge hangar, the planes and helicopters inside and on the flight deck -- but I think I won't post them, because really, these are the raison d'etre, the ultimate cause that all the rest is built to serve.
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