Bigotry and America’s Enemies Theme Analysis

Most of the events in Lone Survivor take place in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan. Here, Marcus Luttrell is involved in one of the worst disasters in the history of the Navy SEALs: the failed Operation Redwing, during which Luttrell and his three fellow SEALs are attacked by over a hundred Taliban soldiers. (It’s worth noting, however, that Marcus later claimed there were far fewer Taliban soldiers than he’d suggested in his memoir, and some intelligence reports suggest there were as few as a dozen. Even more oddly, Marcus gets the name of the operation slightly wrong—it was actually called “Operation Red Wings.”)

For Luttrell, Afghanistan is the jumping-off point for a discussion of America’s enemies more broadly. He sees Afghanistan as a hostile place, full of people who despise America and reject basic moral values, such as mercy and compassion. Luttrell also associates these qualities with the people of other Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq, where he also serves. In short, Luttrell often seems to suggest that America’s enemies are all the same, united in a common set of corrupt values.

Throughout Lone Survivor, Luttrell paints America’s enemies during the War on Terror with an outrageously broad brush. At various points, he claims that the “bad guys” in the Middle East are working together. These “bad guys” include al Qaeda, the non-state terrorist organization headed by Osama bin Laden; the Taliban, the terrorist organization originally led by Mullah Mohammad Omar; and the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. Luttrell suggests that all three entities cooperated at various times to plot the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. This suggestion have been disputed in recent years—in particular, the idea that the secular government of Saddam Hussein was cooperating with al Qaeda, a religious extremist, non-state organization. Luttrell also suggests that the terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Middle Eastern countries subscribe to the same set of un-American values. He claims that America’s enemies are united in their belief in an unjust, immoral interpretation of the religion of Islam. He further contrasts extremist Islamic values with the Christian values he was taught as a child, emphasizing the importance of love and mercy. As evidence of the evil of America’s enemies, Luttrell brings up the cowardice of Iraqi suicide bombers and the murderousness of Taliban soldiers. He makes little to no effort to distinguish between these different groups’ religions or political motivations—they hate America, and that’s all Luttrell needs to know about them.

Throughout Lone Survivor, Luttrell suggests that Muslims are all alike, and that they’ve attacked America because their misbegotten religious ideology puts them in conflict with American values—or, as was often said during the War on Terror, “They hate us for our freedoms.” In making this argument, Marcus arguably misses the role that the U.S.'s foreign policies and military operations played in the War on Terror, instead suggesting that Muslims in the Middle East who attacked American soldiers were motivated by ideology.

But at other points in the book, Luttrell shows signs of a grudging respect for certain people in Afghanistan. During the aftermath of Operation Redwing, Luttrell is severely wounded. The only reason he survives is because of the generosity of a village of Pashtuns—an ethnic group that lives primarily in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sarawa, a Pashtun doctor, and Mohammad Gulab, a Pashtun police officer, risk their lives to protect Luttrell from the Taliban, and Luttrell is undeniably grateful to them. However, when explaining why Sarawa and Gulab help him, Luttrell argues that they do so because of the Pashtun custom of lokhar. According to lokhar, Pashtuns must risk their lives to defend people in need. Lokhar is a counterpart to the Pashtuns’ strong emphasis on violence and honor—values which, Luttrell claims, make them natural Taliban recruits. Even when he’s praising the Pashtuns for saving his life, then, Luttrell stresses that the Pashtuns are acting because of an obscure tradition, rather than because of basic human decency, or because of universal moral values. Furthermore, he emphasizes that this tradition is symptomatic, paradoxically, of the Pashtuns’ hostility, viciousness, and primitivism. (In a bitter irony, one could just as easily say the same of Marcus: he’s been raised in an aggressive, militaristic culture that prepares him for service in the brutal, violent American military.)

In all, Luttrell depicts the people of Afghanistan and the Middle East only through very broad stereotypes, suggesting that all the people of these parts of the world are violent, untrustworthy, and immoral. And even when Luttrell is forced to admit that some Afghans aren’t so bad—they’ve saved his life, after all—he depicts them as strange and fundamentally different from the good, honest, Christian Americans he knows and loves.