Is This War My War??

Question

First off, 9/11 was an INSIDE JOB! I'm sick and tired of this patriotic, nationalistic and fascist crap. I stood through a memorial service today for a young Marine that was killed in Iraq back in April. During this memorial a number of people spoke about the guy and about his sacrifice for the country. How do you justify 'sacrificing' your life for a war which is not only illegal, but is being prosecuted to the extent where the only thing keeping us there is one man's power, and his ego. A recent Marine Corps intelligence report that was leaked said that the war in the al-Anbar province is unwinnable. It said that there was nothing we could do to win the hearts and minds, or the military operations in that area. So I wonder, why are we still there? Democracy is not forced upon people at gunpoint. It's the result of forward thinking individuals who take the initiative and risks to give their fellow countrymen a better way of life.

When I joined I took an oath. In that oath I swore to protect the Constitution of the United States. I didn't swear to build democracies in countries on the other side of the world under the guise of "national security." I didn't join the military to be part of an Orwellian ("1984") war machine that is in an obligatory war against whoever the state deems the enemy to be so that the populace can be controlled and riled up in a pro-nationalistic frenzy to support any new and oppressive law that will be the key to destroying the enemy. Example given – the Patriot Act. So aptly named, and totally against all that the constitution stands for. President Bush used the reactionary nature of our society to bring our country together and to infuse into the national psyche a need to give up their little-used rights in the hope to make our nation a little safer. The same scare tactics he used to win elections. He drones on and on about how America and the world would be a less safe place if we weren't killing Iraqis, and that we'd have to fight the terrorists at home if we weren't abroad. In our modern day emotive society this strategy (or strategery?) works, or had worked, up until last month's elections.

My point in this; to show that America was never nationalistic. If anything they were Statalistic (giving their allegiance to the state of their residence). This is shown in the fact that the founders created states with fully capable and independent governments and not provinces that were just a division of the federal government. These men believed that America was a place where imperialistic values would be non-existent. Where the people trying to make their lives better by working hard, thinking, inventing and using the free market would tie up so much of normal life that imperialistic colonization and the fighting of wars thousands of miles away for interests that are not our own would be avoided. They believed this expansion of power could be left to the European nations, the England, France and Spain of their time. However this recent, and current influx of nationalistic feeling has created an environment where giving up your rights, going to a foreign country to fight a people who did not ask for us to be there, nor did their leader do anything to warrant us being there, and dying would be considered honorable and heroic. I don't believe it anymore. I don't believe it's right for any American to go along with it anymore. Yes I know that we in the military are bound by the UCMJ and somehow don't fall under the Constitution (the very thing we're suppose to be defending) but sooner or later there is a decision that every American soldier, marine, airmen and seamen makes to allow themselves to be sent to a war that is against every fiber this country was founded on. I know that when April rolls around I will be thinking long and hard on that decision. Even though we in the military are just doing as we're told we still have the moral and ethical obligation to choose to do as we're told, or to say, "No, that isn't right." I believe that if more troopers like me and the professional military, the officers and commanders, start standing up and saying that they won't let themselves or their troops go to this illegal war people will start standing up and realizing what the heck is going on over there.

The sad fact of the matter is that we are not fighting terrorists in Iraq. We are fighting the Iraqi people who feel like a conquered and occupied people. Personally I have a hard time believing that if I was an Iraqi that I wouldn't be doing everything in my power to kill and maim as many Americans as possible. I know that the vast majority of Americans would not be happy with the Canadian government, or any other foreign government, liberating us from the clutches of George W. Bush, even though a large number of us would like that, and forcing us to accept their system of government. Would not millions of Americans rise up and fight back? Would you not rise up to protect and defend your house and your neighborhood if someone invaded your country? But we send thousands of troops to a foreign country to do just that. How is it moral to fight a people who are just trying to defend their homes and families? I think next time I go to Iraq perhaps I should wear a bright red coat and carry a Brown Bess instead of my digitalized utilities and M16.

Notice I never once used the word homeland in any of this. I have a secondary point I want to bring up now. Never once was the term homeland ever used to describe the country of America until Mr. Bush began the department of homeland security after the 9/11 attacks. Taking a 20th century history class will teach us that the most notable countries in the last century that referred to their country in this way were Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Hitler used the term fatherland to drum up support, nationalistic support, for his growing war machine. He used the nationalism he created in the minds of the Germans to justify the sacrifice of their livelihood to build the war machine to get back their power from the oppressive restrictions the English and French had put on them at Versailles. This is the same feeling that has been virulently infecting the American psyche in the last hundred years. This is the same feeling that consoles a mother after her son is killed in an attempt to prosecute an aggressor's war 10,000 miles away. It's also known as Patriotism these days, but I say, "No more." No more nationalistic inanity, no more passing it off as patriotism. Patriotism is learning, and educating oneself to understand what their country really stands for.

I heard a lot during the memorial service about how the dead Marine did so much good for others and how his helping others was like a little microcosm of America helping because we have the power to do so. Well if we have the power to help people why aren't we helping in Darfur where hundreds of thousands of people have died in the last 10 years. Saddam was convicted and sentenced to death for killing 143 Shiites who conspired to assassinate him. (I know all you "patriotic" Americans would be calling for the heads of anyone who conspired to assassinate supreme leader Bush). And yet we spend upwards of 1 trillion dollars and nearing 3,000 lives to help these Iraqis when they don't even want us there. Not to mention we don't have the legal justification to be there. I guess we should wait around for the omnipotent W Bush to decide who we should use our superpowerdom to help next. It's about time to throw him and the rest of the fascists out. Moreover it's about time to start educating Americans about their past and history, and letting them know that imperialistic leaders are not what the founders of this great country wanted.

December 8, 2006

Answer 1

What you say does make since, but when you signed that paper you swore to follow your commander in chef. You don't think we didn't have are bitches in NAM? At least when you come state side ,you don't get spit on. You make all vets proud. I love my country but don't trust are government.. U.S.M.C. 66 -70 *

Answer 2

Bidding for all models for the defense force must be mixed and there must be a prohibit of not more than 50% greater than the traditional rate for a civilian in keeping with object placed on them. Welfare must be totally reformed. Since nearly all of moms not ever completed top tuition, colleges must upload a category for the ones on welfare in order that the mummy and the kids could each attend everyday. Part of the mummy's homework everyday could be making definite the youngsters did theirs. This could provide the youngsters the concept that schooling used to be fundamental. If the mother's have completed top tuition, then they must be enrolled in a coaching software for anything greater than a minimal salary task or placed via a neighborhood junior tuition. Although the preliminary expenditure could more often than not be greater than our present ones, I suppose we might practically get rid of welfare inside one iteration simply by those alterations. All colleges under the tuition degree must be nationalized. Their investment must be enough to hold all of them roughly an identical in infrastructure, apparatus like desktops, and fitting a instructor must be made a lot more difficult. We can not have the funds for to have such an asymmetric schooling obtained in unique states. We want ALL our youngsters informed to the identical degree, confidently adequate to get us off the backside of the lists in math and technological know-how. This of direction could rate extra, however in the end could get us our jobs again and set the economic system buzzing once more.

Answer 3

Seal/Navy Seal, one in the same...same old crybaby crap. If you are currently serving, which I doubt, then shut up and do your job.

I suspect you are just another liberal crybaby like 90% of the celebrities in Hollywood that think their opinion matters to the rest of America.

If you want to ask a question, a serious question, then ask it. If you want to get up on a soapbox and cry your little heart out, go on the View and hold hands with Rosie O'Donnell.

Answer 4

I have to say it saddens my heart to hear you speak like this. I am of course going to have to agree with some of things you said but you are going about it wrong. You come off sounding like a cry baby. I don't think there will ever be peace in Iraq because those people have been brainwashed for too long and once you get rid of one psycho dictator another psycho takes his place. I think it is a losing battle. I think voicing your opinion is an amazing freedom but I think you are going beyond voicing your opinon. You sound like you need to seek therapy and I don't mean that in a mean way. You sound to me like a man with some issues that need to get worked out. I am sorry for the loss of your friend. I am sorry for the loss of every single American soldier who was killed in Iraq. Including the friends I have lost over there and the friends who were wounded. My husband is a disabled combat vet who served in Iraq and he would be ashamed of the way you are presenting yourself in that statement. Please go talk to someone and get this all off your chest. You obviously have more that you feel on this matter and you need to discuss it but not in this way and not to people who may not understand what you have been through to get to this point.

Answer 5

nobody gives a sh!t. navy seal you can go f*ck yourself for all anybody cares. you can't change a thing. keep being an a$$ and whining on the computer because nobody in your real life will listen.

as far as iraq, let them kill eachother for a while, it make the news more interesting.

Answer 6

"I know that the vast majority of Americans would not be happy with the Canadian government, or any other foreign government, liberating us from the clutches of George W. Bush"

Thank you SO MUCH for saying that! Way to make a point!

I don't know what else to say to you except "God, bless you." Its sad that I don't even know if i believe in God yet it still seems like God is the only one who can help us now.

I know a lot of military people will not agree with you at all and I'm almost surprised you feel comfortable voicing these opinions to begin with given that my understanding is you're not supposed to
voice a negative opinion of the Commander in Chief while you serve...

...but you have to do what you believe in and you have to stand up for the people you care about. The least you can be allowed to do is out your two cents and hope they don't fall on deaf ears. Ask people to take a look around and to reevaluate what they see.

We've already seen a MASSIVE change in GWB's approval and support.

In the past we've had less information... people like to argue that we should treat this war as wars were treated in the past. Bad things happened in the wars of the past... the truth is that we just weren't able to have access to so much of the big picture... we ARE learning from the past... At least I like to think so...

What can you do to change things when there is such aura of fear surrounding speaking out? Is this fear real or imaginary? Protesting in America seems to be practically illegal now.

What kind of people would we become if we continue to support something we see as fundamentally and violently wrong? What kind of people would we be to remain silent and watch our loved ones be hurt or worse over a cause we don't truly believe in.

I want everything with this to be puppy dogs and teddy bears but every indicator I can perceive is telling something is just not right. I want to believe all the men who said they loved serving in Iraq, but something just doesn't add up. In fact not much of any of this TRULY when you get right down to it adds up.

Perception is not reality... no matter how I or anyone else chooses to look at this situation.

We have to study, think, and learn. We have to evaluate as many angles and points of view as we can and decide that we are going to stand up for whats right. Its right to want the Iraqi people to be safer - no one should live in fear like they must now... Its also right to help our loved ones to come home, they are after all people too, and not just wind up miracle working soldiers who can die for our government while we remain at home guilt and worry free... the justification "well they signed up" just does not work for me.

After all they are expected to do for us, we have a responsibility to them as well.

We can't simply fight a fight any authority figure tells us to fight simply because he holds a title. Generally when not in the context of "patriotism" behaving in such a fashion is considered STUPID.
Hence the phrase "if so and so jumped off a bridge would you do it too?"

We have to think and act for ourselves. We have to take responsibility for our country's actions and not let it run away from us. We have to protect our military so they can protect us...

Most systems in natural and artificial and superficial environments are inexorably dependent on one another.

Our country should need us just as we need our country.

Bless you! Especially while you go overseas. My husband will be over there soon too. I hope theres a benevolent god that can watch over people everywhere.

Everyone here is rooting for you no matter what happens. I hope we all can accomplish some truly good things over there and here at home as well.

God bless America (please?)!

Answer 7

I think it's very sad that in this day and age there are still wars and people are killing each other for no good reason.

God bless all good people

Answer 8

You said all this crap before and I refrained from saying what
needed to be said. I should not have done that. So here goes.

Just who are you trying to convince, us or you. It sounds to me
as though you need the convincing.

Psychologically speaking, people who try to convince others
that they are the ones who are right, hope to do so in an
effort to convince themselves that they are right..

Have you got a clue now.

MERRY CHRISTMAS and have a nice day.

Thank you very much, while you're up!!!!

Answer 9

Good for you, Navy Seal. Keep talking. Eventually you, and others like you, will help to make the difference.

You have my respect and the respect of many others.

Answer 10

You vowed to work for our present boss...not necessarily the people....just as I did years ago...be safe.