The Civilian Military Divide Is Not Simply Descriptive

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The US does not fight its wars on its own soil. It is not done so for well over a century or more, right? And so there's a whole imaginary of war in this country in which it is soldiers who experience and know war because they go way far away to fight them. So what does that mean? There's so much public conversation and scholarship that has been concerned with the stereotype of the soldier. But it really struck me that this figure of the civilian is a deeply stereotyped figure as well.

Featuring Nadia Abu El-Haj on Combat Trauma: Imaginaries of War and Citizenship in Post-9/11 America. How the civil-military divide makes troops into super citizens and what it means that agents of state violence are turning to the grammar of identity politics—and more. The second in a two-part interview. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Subscribe to New Left Review newleftreview.org/subscriptions/new Buy My Country is the World: Staughton Lynd’s Writings, Speeches, and Statements Against the Vietnam War haymarketbooks.org/books/1956-my-country-is-the-world