Only One Genuine Way to Support the Troops

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from Jacob G. Hornberger at MWC: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/34040/26/


A few days ago, New York Times columnists Bob Herbert and David Brooks engaged in an online conversation in which they lamented that the American people are not doing enough to support the troops who are occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. They said that Americans just aren’t taking these “wars” seriously and should be engaging in much more shared sacrifice for the sake of the troops.

It would be difficult to find greater imperialistic nonsense than that . . .

Herbert writes: “The members of the military have behaved heroically and conducted themselves with great dignity. Their sacrifices (and those of their families) have been enormous. I haven’t even talked about the thousands who have given their lives and the tens of thousands who have suffered terrible physical injuries.”

Unfortunately, neither Herbert nor Brooks raises a critically important question: What difference does it make if the troops are conducting themselves “heroically and with great dignity” if they are engaged in an illegal and immoral war of aggression? Are the American people supposed to be enthusiastically supporting the troops when the troops are doing something that is fundamentally wrong and that violates people’s consciences?

Where is the constitutionally required declaration of war for Iraq? It doesn’t exist. Where is it for Afghanistan? It doesn’t exist. That makes the wars on these two countries — and the resulting occupations — illegal under our form of government.

Where is the morality of using the troops to kill, torture, and maim people in order to achieve a foreign policy of regime change? Who cares whether they are performing “heroically and with great dignity” when they’re serving as the instruments of violence to achieve an immoral political aim?

Moreover, we must also keep in mind that no matter how heroically the troops are behaving, their killings, assassinations, maiming, and torture of people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, continue to engender massive anger and rage among foreigners, which produces the ever-growing threat of more terrorist retaliation against the United States. By continuing to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan, the fact is that the troops are making Americans less safe . . .

read more: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/34040/26/

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