Would you still be anti-war or "support the troops"

[bloom]

if the soldiers were all hired from other countries? If American troops were not involved?

How easy it would be to ignore the war if these were not our sons and daughters, nephews and nieces, friends and neighbors.

While I appreciated the Gold Star mother's "standing" in a legal sense - the fact that our country is killing people in other countries is sufficient reason to oppose it.

To have the focus be on "our" loss - seems to miss the point. The tragedy is the loss for Iraqis.


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ROBERT JENSEN speaks to this and more in:

America's Good Germans?

A Mercenary Society

The failed war in Iraq -- and its effect on the U.S. military -- has the potential to spark the U.S. public to fundamentally rethink the role of force in U.S. foreign policy, and one of the central questions for the future of the United States is whether this questioning can mature and deepen.

Can we in the so-called "lone superpower" face that we are now a nation of mercenaries?

As the bad news from Iraq continues to worsen by the day, it looks as if the Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard all will miss their annual recruitment goals. A 2004 study commissioned by the Army found that recruiting has been undermined by casualties, objections to the war, and media coverage of such events as the Abu Ghraib scandal.

These statistics signal an important shift, especially when combined with anecdotal evidence suggesting that it is not just an aversion to physical risk that is curtailing enlistment but an understanding that this war isn't worth the risks. At the same time, however, public opinion polls reveal confusion and contradictory trends as well. Recent polls show that more than half the public believes the United States can't win the war and can't establish a stable democracy in Iraq, but surveys also indicate that many continue to believe that sending the troops was the right thing to do.

This suggests that a majority of the public can recognize that the United States has failed in the stated mission but cannot yet see that the stated mission was a lie. This was never a war about weapons of mass destruction or stopping terrorism (indeed, the war has created terrorism, on both sides), nor is it at heart about establishing democracy in Iraq. The U.S. invasion of Iraq is -- as all U.S. interventions in Middle East have been -- about extending and deepening U.S. dominance in the region with the world's most crucial energy resources.

Part of the barrier to a clear understanding of this is the belief that the United States, by definition, always acts benevolently in the world. But also standing in the way of an honest analysis is the reality that the brutal imperialist U.S. policies, while devised by elites, are being carried out by ordinary Americans. Can we in the United States come to terms with the fact that we are the "good Germans" of our era, routinely allowing pseudo-patriotic loyalties to override moral decision-making? Can we look at ourselves honestly in the mirror when so many of us are implicated in the imperialist system? <more>"

http://www.counterpunch.org/jensen08172005.html

[atommom]

1. Great article, and it makes some important points.

Right now there is incredible tension in U.S. culture. Many continue to hold on tightly to the idea that the service personnel are being killed and maimed in Iraq for a noble cause, which is hardly surprising; acknowledging that a loved one was killed in the pursuit not of liberty and justice, but instead for elite domination, can intensify the already deep pain of the loss. Others are abandoning illusions and recognizing the motivations of the powerful. Obituaries of dead soldiers talk of their "great pride in serving their country, while a collective sense that the Iraq War is nothing to be proud of deepens every day. No one wants to demonize the front-line troops -- those with the least power to change policy -- but the reality of why the U.S. military fights, along with the brutal way in which the wars are fought, become increasingly hard to ignore.

[melody]

2. I think that's a faulty slant on the "not our kids" perspective

It's not because it's "our people" (aka US and UK) dying, it's because those troops are something over which we have influence. They are our families, in other words. We can speak for them. It should go without saying that the anti-war perspective defends all lives that are endangered.

It's a cultural distinction that is sometimes misunderstood, imo.

[bloom]

3. It seems like the emphasis

is not so much to stop the soldiers from doing what they are doing (some people don't want any criticism of what the soldiers are doing) and to stop our government from sending soldiers of any kind or nationality to fight as it is to appeal to the selfish nature of Americans and convince them that we should protect Americans.

It might be that the anti-war displays work better when it is the American boots that people focus on and the crosses of American soldiers. (I like the boot display btw).

I don't think it's just who we influence. I think it is who people are prepared to care about. (It also seems like it is part of the patriotic hoopla attitude.)

Esp. when you figure there are such higher numbers of Iraqis to consider - so many more Iraqi shoes could be displayed and crescents? to signify the dead.


Of course if our soldiers stop killing people - people will be saved. But that is not the focus.

Even Katrina seemed to bring more Americans to the cause because the detriment of the war to Americans was more obvious.

So it makes me wonder - if the soldiers were all from Guam and Puerto Rico and Mexico - could 100's of thousands be mobilized against the war. I happen to doubt it.



(I am happy for everyone who protests - regardless of their focus).

[melody]

4. I think it would be just as focused against - even more so

In fact, I think it would be an overwhelming anti-war response.

Sociologists have studied that for years - we're as likely to send our money to poor children in Chile as we are children in our own inner cities (a 20 year Red Cross/March of Dimes survey shows this clearly). It's a fallacy that Americans care more about their "own people" - we don't even see ourselves as being a "people".

[bloom]

5. The war is sold

as concern for self/family/community/country.

People who buy into the concept have bought into the notion that the war is keeping America "safe". They have accepted the idea that "our" people will kill and torture "their" people - because that is what happens in war.

I think there are a few of us that are against all wars or nearly all wars and certainly all preemptive wars.

It seems to me that "mainstream" Americans are of the mind to "support the troops" no matter what (it's even in the DU rules).


I don't think Americans in general have a clue how much "our" policies help "our" corporations at the expense of people in other countries. It seemed apparent to me with LIVE 8 - that people in the UK were receiving much better news and information about the issues involved. People in the US might be happy to give money to people in other countries - but if they don't know what the issues are and how our government is complicit in creating the poverty - they wouldn't know how to begin to fight it.

Just like "our" news doesn't show dead Iraqis - while news from other countries shows a lot more of the negative effects of what the US military is doing.

I think the news in the US is very near-sighted. And that is not even counting FOX and their disinformation.

And then, of course, there are all of those dang "ribbons" on cars to show some kind of solidarity or something. I think there is a lot of hyper-patriotism, hyper-nationalism. I don't think most people think of themselves as citizens of the world.

[melody]

6. I think you are broadly generalizing and that always leads to error

We'd need a twenty-thousand page report on the reasons, but I do NOT agree that US people "support wars no matter what" - what we are told to *say* (read that: genuflect to citizenship) and what we feel in our hearts being too entirely different things. Right now, the vast majority of Americans are against this war.

I DO support our troops because there are many good and decent folk who go into the military to make a difference - generally during peacetimes. Some of our finest statesmen have been career military officers. I also know that the military is the last hope to survive for many, many poor people in this country. If we'd understand someone looting to feed his family (and I think anybody would understand that), they should certainly understand someone joining the military.

At least these people are putting their necks on the line, versus the 101st Keyboard Brigade (don't know who came up with that term, but I love it) that support the war without spilling a drop of their own blood.

[bloom]

9. "Looting to feed ones family" & killing (people) to feed ones family are 2

entirely different things.


I don't support the killing to feed plan of action. Whether it is by an individual or a group of individuals like BushCo.


Some people might figure that nature involves killing to eat if that is what is required (like lions killing each other). I think people can find something else to do.

[melody]

10. You don't know what you'd do if you were in that situation

You genuinely don't.

It's very easy to make broad, lofty pronouncements about others' lives. I've never been in the military, and I don't believe in war, but if you're a dirt poor kid in West Virginia where the choices are McDonalds $5000 a year to live in a place where your parents can barely afford to feed themselves? Sorry, I'm not going to judge *anyone's* choices at that point.

[bloom]

11. By the same logic

you could justify any crime.

Why say something is OK when it is not?

Halliburton profits from their no-bid contracts (the CEOs are feeding their families and then some). Should we assume that if anyone were put in the same position they would do the same thing with the opportunity - so it is ok?


From Juan Cole (mostly another explanation of why the war is not in our best interests):

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Why we Have to get the Troops Out of Iraq

"...That US soldiers are dying in Iraq, with the number approaching 2,000, is a tragedy. But it is not in and of itself a reason to get the troops out of Iraq. We lost some 1700 at Guam alone in World War II. The question is whether a war is worth fighting, not its human toll, since a much worse human toll may result from giving up the fight (if the US could have launched D-Day in 1940, the Holocaust might never have happened).

So that is not a reason to get the ground troops out now.

The first reason to get the ground troops out now is that they are being fatally brutalized by their own treatment of Iraqi prisoners. Abu Ghraib was horrific, and we who are not in Congress or the Department of Defense have still only seen a fraction of the photographs of it that exist. Sy Hersh learned of rapes, some of them documented. Human Rights Watch has documented further prisoner abuse by US troops in Iraq. Sometimes the troops just go in and break arms or legs out of frustration. It has long been obvious that the Abu Ghraib scandal was only the tip of the iceberg, and that the abusive practices were allowed and encouraged by Rumsfeld and high officers, and weren't some aberration among a few corporals. (Even Senator Frist may be involved in a cover-up of the torture.) There is also no reason to think that the abuses have ceased. The denials of the US military, based on its own internal investigations (which apparently involve looking at official reports filed and talking to officers in charge) are pretty pitiful. The brutalization of the US military and of its prisoners is a brutalization of the entire American public. It is an undermining of the foundational values of the Republic. We cannot remain Americans and continue to behave this way routinely. The some 15,000 Iraqis in American custody are all by now undying enemies of the United States. Some proportion of them started out that way but perhaps could have been won over. Some of the detainees were probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time. After a time in US prison camps, they will hate us forever. And they know where thousands of tons of hidden munitions are.

The second reason is that the ground troops are not accomplishing the mission given them, and are making things worse rather than better.

When Saddam Hussein first fell, the Sunni Arab elites were mostly quiet, and were waiting to see what their relations with the US would be like. Fallujah was less troublesome than Shiite Najaf in the first weeks of April. But the US insisted on garrisoning troops in a local school, which alarmed parents that their children might be endangered. They mounted a demonstration, and green US troops panicked and shot 17 civilian demonstrators. That began a feud between the clans to which the dead belonged and the US army, which, in the way of feuds, grew over time. By March of 2004, anti-American feeling was so virulent that crowds attacked, killed and mutilated four private security guards, one of them a South African. George W. Bush took the attack personally, and ordered an assault on Fallujah. (Norman Mailer thinks the Iraq War is about white guys making it clear that brown guys are not going to be allowed to lay a glove on them.) The spring attack on Fallujah, however, was extremely unpopular among Iraqis, and members of the US-appointed Interim Governing Council began resigning or threatening to resign. Even the Shiites in Kufa sent aid...."

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I think the reason to get out of Iraq - is the same as the reason people do not murder their neighbors (even if it were profitable, even if they could get away with it, even if someone gave them a medal for it). It is wrong. And it creates havoc in society and the world. People do not want others killing them, etc. People would rather live in a world where there is respect, etc. I don't see that it is any different on a global scale.

There is no justification in pitting one weak person against another to carry out the bidding of evil, corrupt groups of people. (Whether that weak individual is me, or someone from West Virginia, or someone from Mexico, or Pakistan, or where-ever.)

Just because the person carrying out the evil thing might have good intentions (feeding one's family/patriotic falsehoods) is no reason to support the evil thing that the person is doing. And it is no reason to falsely say something that is evil is ok.

If the person was defending his home, defending his family from aggressors - that would be an argument. Of course - that is how the war was sold to some Americans - but since that is a lie - there is no defense. Ignorance might be a defense - but instead of patting people on the hand and saying it is ok to be over there killing people because you didn't know better - isn't it better to just say that it is a lie, it is wrong - the Americans are the aggressors and we have no business killing anyone or having anyone do the killing for us.


I don't buy the idea that it is someones *only* choice - to join the military. That arguement just supports the military and their current evil mission. And it assumes that people are not responsible for their choices or their actions.

[melody]

12. there are gradations

You're reaching for Aristotelian absolutes...I'm pointing out it's not all black and white. End of comments on this.

[Qibing Zero]

7. Call me un-American,

but I can NEVER remember caring more about an American's death than I did about someone from another country. Every time some reporter emphasized how many Americans died over the vast number of others, it sickened me.

Every single Iraqi and Afghani that has died that didn't have to is as important as every American that has died. Hell, most of the Iraqis and Afghanis have been civilians, while the Americans (and others) were a lot more protected.

Every life is important, is it not?

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. But since it is our soldiers

people here in the US will be interested in the issue.