August 17, 2006
The Faceless Enemy Posted by Julie M. Fenster at 12:00 PM EST “I want to fight in a war like World War II, I want to fight an enemy, And this, out here . . . it’ s a faceless enemy.”
That was a quote from an Army sergeant on active duty in Iraq. I read it in Newsweek a day or two after the British foiled the plot to crash nine airplanes in mid-flight.
A day later I heard NBC anchorman Brian Williams giving time to the same yearnings: “Here in London Thursday,” he said on the evening news, “a World War II veteran seemed downright wistful when he told me: At least during World War II he knew whom to shoot at . . . based on the shape of their helmets. This new enemy wears no such thing.”
Maybe this is new—sort of—for Western Front types like British and Americans. World War II did have its clear-cut battle lines, separating Us and Them, but it also had terrorism, according to the current definition. Yugoslavia and Greece, as examples, were dizzied by civilian warfare: terrorism. And the enemy was certainly faceless.
In locales across the lesser-known war zones of WWII, just as today, and with no uniform in sight, trains and buildings suddenly blew up. And it just wasn’t fair then, either.
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