Civilians

I'm a civilian, too old to be anything else. Most of my friends are civilians. If I need help, I can summon civilian cops and doctors. In my travels around the world, I flew on civilian aircraft, rode in civilian vehicles and civilian trains, encountered thousands of civilians on streets and in hotels and restaurants. I consulted civilian lawyers, signed civilian rental agreements and employment contracts, bought stuff in civilian shops, directed civilian film crews and sat in civilian offices and studios.

Americans, Australians, and most Europeans have civilian governments constrained by public policy and legal processes that reflect civilian opinions and needs. Whether Britain is a civil society is debatable. Like China and Russia, they have a sovereign "civil service" that exists independently of the civilians they rule. Elsewhere, especially in black Africa, government is a tyranny, a bright line of division between power and powerlessness, no civilians as such, only masters and serfs.

I brought up this subject to talk about something else. Whether civilian life is mostly free or frustrated by government, there is an entirely separate community (for lack of a better term) worlds apart from civilians and bureaucrats. Its most benign regiments are military. I like old soldiers, Marines in particular. I understand them. War is hell. Emotional wounds are deep. Vietnam veterans have horrible stories to tell. I listen to them, treat them as equals in life, because I understand.

It would be nice (?) if the uncivil community was limited to military men, but it's not. There is a special subset of warriors who take no prisoners and have no regard for civilians or political life. They operate independently, no different than criminals or beasts of prey. From time to time these ruthless men and women are authorized to kill, deceive, change their identity and disappear, ineligible for military benefits, because they are not military. Whether American, British, Russian, French, Levantine, Arab or Israeli, secret agents are monsters.

I was never comfortable in their company. Human life is unimportant. Murder and deceit is their mission, kill or be killed. Nations do not exist for them. They change sides depending on financial opportunity, a window to crawl through, a deal, a temporary anchor in action. They have lovers, but no friends. Obligation is an alien concept -- something that loyal military men honor proudly. Covert identity is a forged passport, an assumed name, a disguise.

They began life as civilians and most have had military training. At some point they were in secret service authorized by a government agency, but had no support, no legal remit. They were given a task that stripped them of official protection. Entering into the underworld of covert operations is a one way journey, never to return home, no happy retirement. Leaders of U.S. intelligence agencies have been murdered, covert operators routinely captured and tortured and disposed of.

Why do such men (it's mostly men) exist? -- because lawful agents, whether commercial or political or military, are incapable of controlling a cruel, anarchistic world. Secret operators are the heroes and villains who struggle behind the scenes to do what civilians and armies of disciplined military forces cannot do. It is a form of deliberate suicide, temptation to throw oneself into the fires of hell and smirk at conventional authority.

It's an historic role, and it's contagious, seducing whole societies with the imperative of evil operations in private life. All's fair in love and war, right? Tens of thousands of Mexicans are dead, decapitated, burned alive, because warlords and graft were spawned by governments on both sides of the border. A wall would help, perhaps, but there is no wall that cannot be penetrated by special operators, whether criminal or formerly "official" gone rogue.

I like being a civilian, safe and snug in a community of good neighbors, folks who plow fields and harvest crops, milk cows, work in factories, operate heavy equipment, build homes and highways. I like the orderly civilian realm of banks, grocery stores, auto repair, radio stations and hospitals. Great fun to visit a restaurant, order a meal and pay for it, an implicit contract. Civilian life is cooperative and rarely cruel -- a communal gift bequeathed by secret agents and special operators whose lives were sacrificed to do hellish brutality, kill or be killed.