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Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

Supporting the Troops: A Critical Analysis
(Rene L. Gonzalez Berrios, 01/21/04)
I’m tired of this war. I’m tired of this Bush administration. I’m tired of the savage attacks against our liberties and elementary principles of international law and democracy. But most of all, I am tired of ingrained social fears that force individuals to take publicly-accepted (albeit erroneous, in my opinion) positions. One of these ingrained fears is the belief that we must support the troops, lest a whole host of other consequences occur. . . . The U.S. public today is comparable to the cowardly Germans of 1945, the only difference is that we will probably never have a General Eisenhower force us into our concentration camps (Guantanamo?) to witness and accept the horror that we unleashed on the world and on ourselves. After the war’s end, Eisenhower forced the civilian population of Germany to visit the concentration camps in which they had exterminated millions of Jews, homosexuals, communists, and other “undesirables”. It was, at the same moment, a horrifying emotional punishment and an emotional catharsis; a new beginning. . . . the American Republic is putting the finishing touches on what could be arguably characterized as the foundation for fascism. The baby steps are there: a catastrophic event and a subsequent government usurpation of liberties (Germany: The Reichstag Fire and the “Enabling Act”, U.S: Sept. 11th terrorist attack and the “Patriot Act”), a national media firmly under control of corporations, spewing out pro-government propaganda completely at odds with journalism virtually everywhere else in the world, a population in fear, a strong military, and a government drunk with its own self-righteous lunacy. All the ingredients for fascism at home and abroad are there. The differences are in degree, not in principles. We have initiated two wars, one arguably illegitimate and illegal (Afghanistan and Iraq). We have rounded up particular sets of citizens, based on racial, religious, and political grounds (Arabs, Sikh Indians, and other political dissidents). We’ve subverted international law in the process, and promoted a national culture of fear and war-hungry patriotism. . . . What remains, really, is for the United States to commit a large-scale holocaust on its own people, through the form of massive detentions of its own citizens and abroad. Other than that, we are pretty close in all the other pre-requisites for emulating Nazi Germany, which is why we here in the United States need to wakeup out of our complacency. . . . One curious hold-out of the “established truths” of the Right continues to evade this shift to the Left and its accompanying tide of reason, rationality, and critical analysis. This hold-out is the belief that we must support the troops. . . . I am aware that the position I take in this article is thoroughly unpopular (here in the United States, not in the world). Even people I admire (such as some of the more visible Leftist activists in the United States, like Michael Moore and others) would not agree to my position, and many have made public pronouncements linking opposition to the war and support of the troops. The very argument of “Supporting the Troops” is too broad to define it to one position. What I will do is to deal with some of the more commonly stated reasons for “Supporting the Troops” and attempt to debunk them. . . . Argument #1: The Troops are not to blame. It’s the politicians who are to blame. . . . I disagree. The troops and the politicians are both human beings with brains, consciences, and individual will to act in favor or against particular policies. Granted, I will not attempt to ignore the power dynamic that relatively shields politicians from the consequences of their actions and the precarious position of a dissenting soldier. To dissent as a soldier and to dissent as a politician are not equal things. But, ultimately, on the moral level, a soldier’s dissent is equal to a politician’s dissent (if it is genuine). . . . To argue that the politicians are solely to blame simply because they are in a position to decide policy is to morally absolve the soldiers from making the crucial decision of supporting or opposing the war. Ultimately, without soldiers’ support, there would be no war. . . . Soldiers may be intellectually absolved from knowing the true motives of U.S. wars (which are usually arguments about democracy, freedom, and humanitarian concerns, most if not historical lies), but they are not morally-absolved from having collaborated with the entire illegal venture. Their lack of knowledge (and in some cases, their conscious decision to be apathetic to the history of their country’s past and current military policies) allows for the kinds of brutal conflicts (like Vietnam and Iraq), in which the U.S. puts itself clearly in an oppressive situation. We in the United States may not like seeing ourselves in this way, but the rest of the world sure sees us that way. . . . I cannot ignore the millions of dead as a result of past and current U.S. military and foreign policies. I, therefore, cannot support the troops. It is they, by their own ignorance and by the supportive ignorance of their relatives back home that allow for the implementation of opportunistic U.S. foreign policies, directed by opportunistic and morally bankrupt U.S. “leaders”. . . . Argument #2: The troops don’t know what they do. They are simple soldiers, who follow orders. . . . They may not know, but they should have. Would we, as easily, dismiss the guilt of the German Gestapo soldiers, many who believed the propaganda of their own system, of the superiority of their national group, of the righteousness of their cause, despite the pleas of their victims and the dissenting opinions of various other Germans? . . . Following orders is not an excuse for participating in illegal wars and their accompanying illegal war crimes and humiliation of the victims. . . . The importance of Nuremberg is that it established for international law the principle that “following orders” did not absolve the accused of his guilt. Therefore, I claim Nuremberg’s principles (and the principles of Robert H. Jackson, the U.S. prosecutor at Nuremberg) to argue that the U.S. soldiers who participated in the slaughters and colonial humiliation of this second Iraqi war should not be absolved of their responsibility for carrying out their illegal and unnecessary war orders. If it was good enough a standard to apply to the Nazi fascists and to the Japanese militarists, it is good enough to apply to our American neoconservative ideologues and their troops on the global chessboard. This charge is particularly strong considering the unprecedented nature and extent of the anti-war movement PRIOR to the war. U.S. troops should have known that their actions were illegal and unnecessary. There was ample public demonstrations and information against the war. . . . I have argued that supporting the troops is tantamount to the willful or accidental support of those troops’ actions. It is impossible to remain consistent and non-hypocritical by attempting to “support the troops” and separate that support from their willful or cowardly/non-active participation in the illegal and unnecessary Iraq War. To attempt to do so, is to argue that, on certain occasions (particularly when it involves OUR troops) it is acceptable to discount the consequences of our troops actions in an illegal war and not judge them to the same standards set forth at Nuremberg against the German Nazis, Italian fascists, and Japanese militarists. This may be comforting for the majority American population, it is not acceptable for the majority of the world (and does much to answer that most important philosophical question, “Why do they hate us?”). They hate us because we are acting like the German Nazis or Japanese imperial expansionists, at least in regards to our foreign policy principles and our treatment of established international law standards. What else can we expect the world to feel? Would we be any different in our strong condemnation of, say China, if it embarked on a similar course of warfare and imperial expansion? Would we not condemn her, justly, of violating the Nuremberg principles, the principles of international law, etc.? . . . But, one thing I refuse to acknowledge or support, is the long hold-out of recalcitrant and hypocritical right-wing thought which is the idea that "responsible" anti-war opponents must tie their opposition to the war to automatic support of the troops. I will take the more intellectually courageous, historically accurate, and world-supported position that war crimes are war crimes, wherever they occur, and that, as set forth in Nuremberg, soldiers cannot be absolved from guilt of crimes because of lacking the power to decide the foreign policy that sends them to war or from the argument that they were just following orders. . . . For the reasons outlined above, I cannot support the U.S war in Iraq and I cannot support the U.S. troops.

posted by Lorenzo 10:46 AM