The only four-star general I ever met was General (retd) Pervez
Musharraf, well before he served as Pakistan’s military president. The
memory I have of him is of someone who kept many aspects of his life
meticulously compartmentalised, never allowing emotional issues to
intrude into his professional life.
Individuals like General (retd)
Musharraf have the mental need for several layers of reality, never
fully revealing themselves but carefully organising facets of their
personality that they want to reveal to others. The kinds of people who
attain positions of extraordinary power share these characteristics.
There is wisdom behind Douglas Adams’s
comment on politicians, one that is easily applicable to generals:
“anyone who is capable of getting themselves made president should on no
account be allowed to do the job.”
Should General David Petraeus be allowed to do his job?
He was certainly a capable four-star general. He is highly intelligent
and dedicated. For many years, he was the face of American military
might in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is strange why his resignation as head
of the CIA because of an extramarital affair would come as a shock to
Americans. He is not a victim. Distinguished military generals are not
virtuous nor are they eminently good people. Generals like Petraeus have
made a career in waging war. War is ugly and should be considered a
collective wrongdoing reflective of a degenerated sense of patriotism.
American General George S Patton once said, “The object of war is not to
die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”
Instead, it seems, Americans have turned Petraeus into a tragic hero —
a battle-hardened soldier, who is not exempt from the time-tested
temptations of human folly and indiscretion. Petraeus has become someone
whose misfortune has been brought about not by some great wrongdoing
but by an error in judgment. Scandal, it seems in the American press, is
now defined as circulating “flirtatious emails.”
James Bond is no tragic hero. He makes errors but consistently
redeems himself. The original novels, much darker than any of the films,
depict explicit violence and sex. Bond is not complex. He is a
narcissistic, pill-popping misogynist who enjoys pushing himself to the
limit. And yet, Bond has endured for over 50 years, capturing the
imagination of three-generations of readers and moviegoers. There are no
expectations for Bond to be virtuous and as such, this makes him an
honest protagonist. His pillow talk was never considered a security
risk.
The American ritual of guilt and contrition is inevitable. It is
ironic that Petraeus, who battled agents of Islamic radicalism, was
forced to resign when faced with American puritanism. The American
public is always surprised and titillated by the complexity of life’s
temptations — the distinction between public and private blurred if not
merged entirely in the press. Can a general betray his wife without
being suspected of incompetence? Humans are complex. Complex people by
nature are more difficult to explain than simple, statistically probable
individuals.
Bond is successful because he is not a complex character. He runs on
animal instinct — selfish, brutish and sexually promiscuous. Lacking
compassion, there are no moral expectations of Bond, whatsoever. When
asked in
Casino Royale if killing people bothered him, he
replied, “Well I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I did.” In doing so,
he has spawned a billion dollar industry with a quarter of the world’s
population having watched a Bond film.