Philanthropic Soldiers, Practical Orientalism, and the Occupation of Iraq

Abstract

This article discusses the ways in which white, male, United States soldiers make sense of both themselves and Iraqi others. Drawing from qualitative interviews with twenty-four said soldiers from southern Indiana, most of whom having deployed to Iraq, it is shown how these soldiers perform gendered and racialized Orientalist discourses to rationalize United States empire and in particular the military occupation of Iraq. Specifically, imperialist discourses that imagine a superior “us” and an inferior “them” and understand United States state violence as ultimately a Western humanitarian “rescue” are shown to be powerful cultural logics in the sense-making practices of the interviewed soldiers. This article then is concerned with what others have called “practical Orientalism”—or the ways in which formal and official Orientalist discourses are adopted by everyday actors.

Keywords:

• practical Orientalism
• Iraq
• United States empire
• humanitarian war

Acknowledgments

I thank Torin Monahan, Cecilia Menjivar, Monica Varsanyi, Deb Cowen, Merje Kuus, and Francine Banner for offering constructive comments on previous versions of this article. In addition, I thank the anonymous reviewers as well as editors of Identities for their constructive comments throughout the review process. Of course, all shortcomings are my sole responsibility. Last but not least, I thank those soldiers who were so willing to take time out of their busy lives to talk with me about their experiences in Iraq.

Notes

1. The specific ethnographic data discussed here is part of a larger ethnography on the militarization of everyday life in a rural southern Indiana county. In this two-year ethnographic project, qualitative interviews were conducted with not only the citizen-soldiers but also with non-military citizens, such as local public school teachers and administrators, local defense industry elites, public officials, and military family members.

2. This rural/military link was also operative in the Vietnam conflict (Appy 1993; Gibson 1986). Lesley Gill (1997)has also found connections between rural regions and military service in Bolivia. Woodward (1998)and Woodward (2000)are also good sources for insights into the rural/military nexus.

3. In this specific question I brought up the ideas discussed by psychologist and Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman (1996) in his On Killing, also highlighted in Joanne Bourke's (1999) An Intimate History of Killing, about a major fear of war zone soldiers is not necessarily dying in war but killing.