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Atrios Wanks
Joel Stein had this commentary in yesterday Los Angeles Times.
He speaks of "Warriors and wusses" and why he does not support the troops:
But I’m not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they’re wussy by definition. It’s as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn’t to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.
Liberal blogger Steve Gilliard doesn´t agree and wants to throw a parade. Atrios gives Stein his "Wanker of the Day" award.
Bring on the parades. If our military rank and file have been betrayed by their civilian leadership they deserve our respect doubly.
Both are wrong and Stein is right.
The U.S. military is hardly a defense force. Neither is it a peacekeeping or rebuilding institution. As is obvious from history, Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force are instruments to force U.S. special interests on others.
This is also a voluntary military. People who join it sign a contract they don´t have to sign. There is nobody threatening to kill them if they refrain. There is no reason to applaud anyone who joins a company that is known for crimes in the first place.
Even less so, when they go into an illegal war. If soldiers get betrayed by being ordered to do so, it is their human duty to decline to fulfill that order. They do not only have a right to do this, but an obligation. Illegal orders are not to follow.
The judgment of the Nuremberg trials says:
The Charter specifically provides in Article 8:
"The fact that the Defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mitigation of punishment."
The provisions of this article are in conformity with the law of all nations. That a soldier was ordered to kill or torture in violation of the international law of war has never been recognized as a defense to such acts of brutality, though, as the Charter here provides, the order may be urged in mitigation of the punishment. The true test, which is found in varying degrees in the criminal law of most nations, is not the existence of the order, but whether moral choice was in fact possible.
This does not mean that I condemn each soldier for not resisting and not going to jail. There is a lot of pressure and manipulation once you are in and it is at least difficult to fight this.
But to support the troops in this war and to ask for parades is simply enabling the next imperial adventure and the brutal death of more men, women and children.
The only support one should give them is to get them out.
I remember walking through the streets of Dublin, Ireland, about 25 years ago after a rare snow storm. All the soldiers were out cleaning the streets. Everyone was goin’ up and having a bit of a chat with the lads. I recall how sad I felt that, as an American who refused to kill others, I was deprived of that sense of national service.
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It should be pointed out that well over 5000 soldiers have left, often without harsh repercussions, because the gov’t does not want to give COs any publicity. It is possible to leave.
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Ensley, your story is heart rending, and perhaps, all too common. Yet anyone who enlists in the NG from now on will not have that excuse. Caveat Emptor: Your government views you as a killing widget. It is not a health club. If you want a part time job, be a greeter at Walmart. That is all a nation that shops at Walmart deserves. You can no longer help out your buddy who owns the local **** store, because it done closed down when Walmart opened. If you want benefits, you’ll have to organize for them, because those in power took ’em all away. If you want to help out in emergencies, become an activist for universal healthcare, because that will help more emergencies than anything one person can do.
Americans will do anything, but organize for redress. They have been brainwashed to believe that only commies cry to their government. Well, its past time that the average American grew up and realized how his government is screwing him and his community to pad the pockets of the rich with reverse welfare. Sure he’s a good American, but he’s an ignorant American; and in these days when “you are either with Bush or against him”, ignorance is very dangerous.
Most of our soldiers, marines and NG over in Iraq are country people; country people descended from frontier stock. Good hearty people who prized independence, self-sufficiency, and ingenuity. The flip side is that they often distrusted government. Yet the same people who don’t believe that government can help with healthcare, or safe and gainful employment, suddenly believe that some good is going to come from whoring for said government in a pretty boy uniform! Go figure.
These are not dumb people. Most of them can break down a car into nuts, bolts, and washers, and reassemble it with their eyes closed, while puffing a Winston and munching a Moon Pie. Most of them can build a house from scratch, including plumbing and electric. Things very few city boys can do. But they are ignorant.
We are all ignorant for that matter. And our education system works hard to keep us that way. I remember having to memorize the dates that every explorer first came to America and where he landed and what he was famous for. I was crying with boredom. I’ve mentioned it before, but the Buddhists have a prayer in which they say “We must think deeply about the ways and means by which this has come to us,” before using or consuming something. And frontier people knew that lesson well. But in just two or more generations, we now live in a world where everything is a “product” from somewhere else. Like children, we can’t wait long enough to rip the shiny wrapper off. We are no longer makers and builders; we are consumers. Why should we not be taught where every one of our vital metals, minerals, agricultural products and foodstocks comes from; how it is produced, the labor conditions and the environmental effects; what coercive conditions are necesary for its production at that price, what our rate of consumption is , and how much we have left. That would be an education and it might turn us from consumers to appreciaters. People might learn how interconnected and fragile our world is. People might learn how much we depend upon others; others who we do not even respect as human now.
Of course the more pathological of us would only use this as knowledge to oppress others even more. But that’s OK. At least it would be honest and cognizant of the consequences.
But no, this could never happen. They’ve got us believing that this is too complicated for us “simple folk” to grasp. They’ve got us so dumbed down that we can barely wait for the stores to open in the morning so we can shop some more.
And because we don’t know the basics that I have outlined above–a simple one-semester course in high school, it would be–they can continue to confuse us and obsfuscate us, like a bull in a ring. What are foreign affairs, but bargaining over the rules of trade of the above mentioned resources? But they have us believing that we can’t understand foreign affairs; that it is too complicated for anyone without extensive education. Shit. I had a girlfriend last year who had a graduate degree (her second) from the Fletcher School of Foreign Affairs (for me it was a domestic affair) at Tufts University, one of the top three elite institutions dedicated to training our diplomats, and she didn’t know jack. Wasn’t taught to be critical of the media. Didn’t know her history, didn’t know 1/10 of what the average alchie in this gin joint knows, but she could go on and on about how she actually participated in War Games and how exciting it was. I asked her what good came from gaming over how we could invade Iraq, and she grew silent; she hadn’t been taught that.
Alright, enough of the rant. What I’m leading up to is this: The single greatest propaganda acheivement of our state–single, absolute, sine qua non–is being able to get people to kill other people without knowing why they are doing it. And we’re not talking some tin foil hat secret mind control program here, no Manchurian Candidate, no, not at all. We’re talking the power of a spiffy uniform, and some basic indoctrination, and the hieratic power of the military in this society, all cheered on by some dumb fucks, who are your friends and relatives supporting the troops, while also not having a clue why you are killing other people.
Its all true. There have been many published studies and interviews with soldiers in Iraq, and most of them don’t have a clue what is going on in Iraq, much less the world. But because our President says so, or some general says so, or their commanding officer says so, they are prepared to go out there and shoot the living daylights out of any human soul they see.
Think of this. Take the military, and your feelings for your country out of this, and what do you think it would take you, how much training would you have to undergo to willfully kill other human beings that you don’t even know. Really. Take a minute and think about this. And think of the fear and alienation and doubt and guilt involved, which would then haunt you for the rest of your life.
This is a major propaganda achievement, a singular achievement. Indeed, it is the single achievment necessary for the perpetuation of empire. It is not unique to humans. I’ve been to cock fights. But most species are smarter than this.
And it comes so easily. We can’t effect what some grunt’s CO says. We can’t, with any alacrity at least, affect who our president is, and what he says. But the third part of the equation we can affect. And that is supporting our troops. The sooner we take away what a psychologist might call “peer approval and support”, the sooner we can cut one leg off this stool of murder, and slow down the killing machine. We are all, in some small way, complicit in this madness, and we can, all, do our part to slow it down.
Yes, returning vets deserve medical care, and they deserve counseling, and help reintegrating with society. And they even deserve our love. But they don’t, in any shape or form, deserve our approbation for their actions. We must cut that cord and the sooner the better. Do not support the troops. Never support troops. If they are going to do what they are going to do, then they must do it because they believe wholeheartedly in it, not because of our approval. And if we can, instead of dumbly supporting them, plant a seed of doubt in their minds, so that when they are alone with nothing but their conscience and their finger upon the trigger, and another human being in their sights; if this still small voice of doubt is allowed to arise, then we can save a life. What more can we do?
Posted by: Malooga | Jan 26 2006 2:41 utc | 30
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