In the recent political battle around the Marine recruiting station in Berkeley. California there has been much confusion around the concept or slogan of “supporting the troops,” but opposing the unjust wars of the Bush regime. Many who oppose the Bush Regime wars also say they “support the troops.” Let me say it straight out -- I do not support the troops and neither should you. It is impossible to support the troops of the imperialist military forces of the U.S. and at the same time oppose the wars in which they fight.
“Support for the troops” has become political cover to support the wars, and undermine the widespread opposition to them. In Congress, many of those who claim they oppose the wars, use “support of the troops” to vote for hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the wars. These politicians are political opportunists, but there are also people who genuinely oppose the war, but who also say “I support the troops.”
A KILLING MACHINE
The U.S. has over 700 military bases or sites located in over 130 foreign countries. The U.S. government spends more on its military than the entire rest of the world combined. The hundreds of thousands of troops stationed overseas are not there to preserve or foster freedom and democracy as the Bush regime would like to claim, but to maintain U.S. imperialist domination of the world. If you “support the troops” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the other more than 100 countries in which they are located, you also support U.S. hegemony in the world. I believe that the vast majority of people who say they support the troops do not wish to support U.S. imperialism, but that is what they are really doing by putting forth the slogan of “support the troops.”
We need to oppose the recruitment of men and women into the military. We need to support resisters within the military who have realized what they are doing and now choose to resist the role of the U.S. military. This includes people such as Lt. Ehren Watada who refused to deploy to Iraq. Watada stated, “Never did I imagine my president would lie to go to war, condone torture, spy on Americans…” He was the first officer to refuse to go to Iraq and he was court-martialed. Another resister is Camilo Mejia. In 2004 Sergeant Mejia was sentenced to one year in prison when he was court-martialed for refusing to assist the military in Iraq. Mejia said, “I am only a regular person that got tired of being afraid to follow his own conscience. For far too long I allowed others to direct my actions even when I knew that they were wrong....”
We need to expose that those in the U.S. military are trained to be part of a “killing machine.” While not every member of the military is an individual murderer, they are all part of a system that commits war crimes, including aggressive wars, massacres, rape, and other crimes against humanity, all in the service of U.S. imperialism. The bottom line is that even if these people are relatives or friends, you can not support the troops without also supporting the objective role that these troops play in the imperialist system.
James Circello, who joined the Army after September 11 2001, and was sent to Iraq in March 2003 described his experience there : “We were told that we were giving these people Democracy. Unfortunately what I saw would best be described as martial law, or what we called "The Old West". Soldiers joked that "anything goes", which was true and still is….I never forgot what I did while in Iraq and what I saw happening: Other kids turning into animals. Some as young as 17, brutalizing, bullying and humiliating individuals sometimes old enough to be their grandparents, and sometimes young enough to be their children. And it wasn't just the men on the receiving end, suffering through illegal and tiresome searches of their homes and vehicles, simply for being brown skinned, but the same methods were applied to women and children as well. No one was innocent.”
James Circello reached a point where he could no longer be part of this killing machine. At an anti war rally in New Orleans, he said “you will never get me to agree with or get me to support genocide against any group of people. Regardless of who they are. An American life is no more valuable than an Arab's life!”
A FORCE OF INVASION AND OCCUPATION
U.S. troops are acting as destructive and murderous forces of invasion and occupation. The people of Iraq and Afghanistan see this on a daily basis. Hundreds of thousands have died as a direct result of the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Millions are either internal or external refugees. Tens of thousands have been detained in prisons, with thousands of these tortured and scores murdered. Haditha, Iraq where 24 Iraqis were massacred is just the best known of the massacres. Women and children are described as “collateral damage” by military spokespersons when they are murdered in military operations.
But to decide whether U.S. troops deserve support you must analyze what they actually do in countries occupied by the U.S. The wars these troops are engaged in have the goal of maintaining and extending U.S. hegemony throughout the world. They are unjust, illegal, and immoral wars. Can you support the troops in these wars? Why is this any different from a German in World War 2 saying, “I oppose the wars launched by Hitler, but I support the troops of the German army which are making these wars possible.” When the Marines in Haditha massacred Iraqis, including women and children, would it have been correct to say I supported the Marines who killed those people, but not the massacre? This would be ridiculous, but no more so than supporting the troops engaged in the war that made the Haditha massacre possible in the first place.
In 1933 Marine Major General Smedley Butler clarified the role of the U.S. military. He stated, “War is just a racket…It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses…I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps…In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism...”
Like Butler, Watada, and Mejia, those in the military today must take responsibility for what the military does. Just like the German soldiers of World War 2 could not hide behind the “I was just following orders” excuse, military personnel today also can not hide behind it. Those of us who oppose the unjust wars of the Bush regime must struggle with those in the military and those that support them to expose what role the troops objectively play. Supporting the troops engaged in making war against other nations and people on behalf of U.S. imperialism is not acceptable.
Kenneth J. Theisen is veteran activist of movements opposing U.S. imperialism, its wars and domination of countries throughout the world. He wrote his first op-ed piece against the Vietnam war when he was only 12 and has been writing on various political and social causes ever since. For many years he has been an advocate against domestic violence in the San Francisco Bay Area.
For many years I subscribed to theory that the US was a positive force for good in the world and by and large worthy to be the 'worlds' policeman'.
Then post Soviet Union, during a visit to Australia of the Clinton era Secretary of Defence he responded to the eager enquiries of my defence colleges that the US was not interested in placing any US troops at the disposal of the United Nations. Since that time the US has set itself apart from the rest of the world, rejecting most if not all international efforts to advance the cause of peace and placing its whims ahead of world needs.
Due to private study I knew as soon as it was suggested that Alqaeda and Saddam were cooperataing that the then coming war was based on lies. Since then we have what in retospect is clearly an illegal war, torture, war crimes, more lies, more torture, and more lies and near total inability of the US to self correct its own abhorent behavior.
US defence members, once you could have claimed ignorance of these facts and rightly pointed to your oath of obedience to justify your actions, today you have no such excuse.
by
kwalsh (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 202 comments)
on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 8:55:10 PM
It is unconscionable to go after recruiters and/or individual soldiers as a proxy to your opposition to these wars. Let the recruiters do their jobs. And if people disagree with you and then join the Armed Forces despite your objections, then that is their choice. Be man enough to realize that you're not going to convince everybody to your line of thinking.
Hey, if I don't like the effect that the local anarchist bookstore has on my community, does that mean I can take a cue from these anti-troop "protestors" and vandalize the bookstore? Huh? Don't worry, I have enough common sense to know that such a tactic is unacceptable under any circumstances.
The attacks against recruiting offices will be exposed and will be condemned.
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Scott (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 480 comments)
on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 9:26:03 PM
to argue with those who would apologize for illegal war, torture, spying on Americans, rendition, and the rejection of the Geneva Conventions, posse comitatus, habeas corpus, and both domestic and international law
these folks are not rational, they are simply unable to take in the enormity of what's been done, and they would insist that Bill Clinton's infidelity was far worse
they are the "Good Germans" of our generation
what the neocons have done will be our natoinal shame for generations and in 10 years it will be impossible to find a person who will admit that they voted for Bush
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Houston Radical (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 82 comments)
on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 10:56:59 PM
unprovoked invasion is illegal, check Article 6, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution, the part about treaties, the UN Charter is a treaty, it incoporates international law (which was written by the US)
torture is illegal - duh
warrantless spying on Americans is illegal
denying due process of any kind of prisoner is illegal
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Houston Radical (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 82 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 9:55:49 AM
Illegalities appear when Congress gets a SPINE TRANSPLANT
The list of Cheney-Bush Illegalities is vast and growing. Start with violation of Geneva Conventions with torture and use of poison gas forming depleted Uranium shells (to which our soldiers on the ground must also be exposed). Killing over 1,000,000 civilian Iraqis as we endlessly chase our tail looking for the insurgents who were NOT THERE when we arrived, but since then have declared themselves insurgents in opposition to our illegal occupation. If you choose to be an ostridge about these, then stick to the merely Impeachable offenses - lying to Congress, outing a CIA agent for political gain, and on and on and on .. the NeoCon pirate ship of state is taking on water and about to capsize.
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Richard Ledford (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 6 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 7:45:25 PM
THANK YOU!! I have been saying as much for most of my life, although much less eloquently. I cannot fathom how people rationalize the massive disconnect between 'supporting troops' and 'opposing war.' It is, in the common vernacular, a no-brainer. Thank you again for this article.
by
needles (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 4:57:27 AM
supports the troops. It is a speculative slogan to calm the one's conscience, a path to sit on two chairs. It was invented to sell ( literally) those ribbons.
Recruitment stations can be removed if the city decides to do so. It would not be at attack, just an exercise of legitimate power. Nobody attacks the recruiters. Now, people can demonstrate against the activity of the recruiters but they must not harm them or insult them in any way. They can surely tell the potential recruits what they were going to face.
Iraq war is illegal, ccriminal and immoral. But in all fairness we must understand very clearly that nearly all wars are that way and in the battle against them the young, confused kids are the easiest targets. It is much tougher to target, say Cheney than some recruiting sergeant. As such we, the people of this country must tell the truth and protect our children not forgetting at the same time that THEY ALL are our children. That's the key.
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Mark Sashine (50 articles, 19 quicklinks, 242 diaries, 3435 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 8:48:15 AM
Twentynine Palms Marine Base. My daughter is married to a Marine - he was recently deployed to Haditha Iraq.
In talking to many of the wives here it is clear a lot of these guys didn't want to go. In fact many were quite suicidal before beng deployed, but were deployed anyway.
When does "forgive them they know not what they do" come in to play? My experience with my son n law since he was n his early high school years, he really doesn't get it. The lies etc.
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Cheri Roberts (16 articles, 15 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 435 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 11:14:11 AM
lol and no that is not a HS pic, it is from a few months ago so thanks, I will take that as a compliment. It is my son-in-law that is a Marine. My oldest however is 20. I have 3 kids. 20, 18, 14.
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Cheri Roberts (16 articles, 15 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 435 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 1:06:43 PM
I have had three relatives sent to Iraq. As persons and relatives I love them, but I can not condone their activity in the war machine even if they did not volunteer to go. I have struggled with them to resist the war by following Watada's example of refusing to deploy but they did not do so.
Ken the author of the article
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Kenneth Theisen (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 12:06:34 PM
Sorry, but that's a convenient excuse and it is not forgivable. Further, if they acted as you proclaim they have, then they are cognitively aware of their actions, which, in the very least, makes them accomplices to murder and war crimes. Human beings have a moral choice of whether or not to fight, murder, kill, maim, or to be ordered against their will to perform macabre, gruesome acts of human degradation and orderly slaughter.
Claiming the Nuremberg Defense is an expedient justification – that soldiers are just following orders – is perfunctory and intolerable.
Lt Ehren Watada refused to fight an illegal war after he learned the scope and breadth of lies that were told by the Bush administration that sent him off to yet another foreign land to commit atrocities in the "name of democracy." And he did what every American soldier should do – refuse to fight and refuse to follow illegal orders.
These men and women – some of them at the time knowingly, others unknowingly – have all, in some form or another, have become part and parcel to a malevolent American hegemony. It doesn't take a brave person to gun down hundreds of innocent civilians, using a multi-million dollar combat helicopter, after an earpiece-order was piped into their helmet like some twisted, perverse game being played on X-box. No, it takes a bravado-ridden coward to execute unarmed civilians on a whim because you were "ordered to do so."
The real heroes are the conscientious objectors who saw through the lies, the ruse of "democracy by force", "imperial nation building", and the limitless flow of propagandized fallacious information uttered by demagogues of the military/industrial complex and the warmongers in and connected to the Bush administration.
I have no pity, remorse or empathy for any person who knowingly signs their name to become part of America's military. America at the behest of many of the founding fathers was never meant to have a standing army, nor was it ever to be used for anything other than defense as an absolute last resort.
In a strange twist of irony, it was Dick Cheney who perhaps, said it best about the military: "[It] is not just a job...the job of the military is to kill."
There is in no virtue or nobility in war. Justice and democracy are only served when peace is favored over hostility and diplomacy is the true show of strength of a great nation. Violence is the final refuge of the impatient and the incompetent minds of cowardly and narrow-minded men who find belligerence and arrogance as a suitable method of madness.
-Frank R. Senior Editor OEN
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Frank J. Ranelli (66 articles, 143 quicklinks, 29 diaries, 377 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 12:14:37 PM
'I have no pity, remorse or empathy for any person who knowingly signs their name to become part of America's military. America at the behest of many of the founding fathers was never meant to have a standing army, nor was it ever to be used for anything other than defense as an absolute last resort. '
Frank, but do you agree that they all are our children? And if yes, we should share the responsiblity and as such exhibit some empathy and remorse? Oh yes, we must not hide the truth from them and who they had become. But they must not face the despair alone because it is our mutual despair. If we here could not protect them from becoming a cannon fodder and participators in crimes we should not then sit on the moral mountain because that mountain will fairly soon become a heap of shit. They are our doings. We are responsible.
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Mark Sashine (50 articles, 19 quicklinks, 242 diaries, 3435 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 12:52:27 PM
I believe the same as you do however I am here on base as I type and believe me, these men have a glazed over machine like look in their eyes. Brainwashed, period.
My daughter has had company over every day that I have been here and I have had very frank conversations with them. It is amazing how many are 9/11 Truthers. It's an oxy moron at it's base definition to say the least.
One of the Fema camps are here on this base btw....
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Cheri Roberts (16 articles, 15 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 435 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 1:10:02 PM
I would cut the younger kids some slack though... they're brainwashed.
However, I do agree there is a time when innocence is lost. It is this time
when a young man must show what true courage is. It is the type of courage that makes a man drop his gun and say " I can't shoot them anymore". It's the type of courage that says " I won't kill people just because somebody tells me too." It's the type of courage which makes a man a leader instead of a follower.
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Bob Gormley (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 927 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 1:19:20 PM
And I would even go a little further: Unlike earlier times, today's young men and women have the internet; i.e., they literally have the whole world at their fingertips...so they have fewer excuses and more culpability than earlier generations of mercenaries.
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Harold Smith (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 466 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 2:09:14 PM
Harold, Like earlier times the troops are still judged by the UCMJ. Any resistance or desertion are dealt with harshly and will still ruin the rest of your life. We do not need to be taking our frustration with Bush and Congress out on the sailors and soldiers who have bravely accepted the call to defend our country. If we take them down then who will defend us when we really need it? It is the same situation with the VA and it's problems. If our country(right or wrong) asks(or tells) you to defend her we still need you to do so. It is up to the voters of this country to control Congress and the presidency to protect and keep our protective military safe from misuse and abuse. Will you answer the call to protect our troops this November?
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Hayesml47 (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 461 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 2:30:46 PM
Harold, Like earlier times the troops are still judged by the UCMJ. Any resistance or desertion are dealt with harshly and will still ruin the rest of your life.
Well, to the extent that the Empire can actually "ruin your life" if you refuse to participate in its illegal, immoral wars (and I think it can't), would that be any worse than having your life ruined by a guilty conscience and PTSD for example?
If my life is going to be "ruined", I'd rather have it "ruined" as a result of doing the right thing than the wrong thing.
We do not need to be taking our frustration with Bush and Congress out on the sailors and soldiers who have bravely accepted the call to defend our country.
I can see you're really struggling with cognitive dissonance. I don't mean to insult you, but your thinking is incoherent.
Don't you see that by helping Bush attack countries that have not attacked us, our troops are actually making it more likely that we'll be attacked someday? The troops have no
