They Finally Admit It

I suppose the article below shouldn’t be all that surprising given that it was published in the highly esteemed “Berkeley Daily Planet.”

Why I Don’t Support the Troops By Kenneth Thiesen

If you “support the troops” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the other more than 100 countries in which they are located, you also objectively support U.S. hegemony in the world. I believe that the vast majority of people who say they support the troops do not wish to support U.S. imperialism, but that is what they are really doing by putting forth the slogan of “support the troops.”

And if you use the words “hegemony” and “imperialism,” that relieves you of making an intelligent argument. We’re just expected to fall to the ground in fits of orgasm because some hippie-bitch used two SAT words.

“See? I must know what I’m talking about because I just used the word “hegemony.”

Thiesen continues:

We need to support resisters within the military who have realized what they are doing and now choose to resist the role of the U.S. military. This includes people such as Lt. Ehren Watada who refused to deploy to Iraq. Watada stated, “Never did I imagine my president would lie to go to war, condone torture, spy on Americans…” He was the first officer to refuse to go to Iraq and he was court-martialed. Another resister is Camilo Mejia. In 2004 Sergeant Mejia was sentenced to one year in prison when he was court-martialed for refusing to assist the military in Iraq. Mejia said, “I am only a regular person that got tired of being afraid to follow his own conscience. For far too long I allowed others to direct my actions even when I knew that they were wrong….”

Nevermind the fact that the President did NOT in fact lie about anything, that sometimes torture is moral and necessary when it saves lives, and that Americans aren’t being “spied” on.

Nevermind the fact that for every Watada and Mejia that exists, there are tens of thousands who bravely risk their lives and their sanity to do an often dangerous and dirty job. We should be extending our thanks to those tens of thousands and ignoring the Watadas and Mejias of the world.

We need to expose that those in the U.S. military are trained to be part of a “killing machine.” While not every member of the military is an individual murderer, they are all part of a system that commits war crimes, including aggressive wars, massacres, rape, and other crimes against humanity, all in the service of U.S. imperialism. The bottom line is that even if these people are relatives or friends, you can not support the troops without also supporting the objective role that these troops play in the imperialist system.

Why place quotes around “killing machine”? Is it or is it not a killing machine?

If any of these accusations had any credibility to them, Thiesen could name one these “murderers.” He could name a “war crime” or a single “rape,” but Thiesen fails. I guess it’s easy to smear a large group of “imperialists” when you know that they would never hold you to account for your shit article in a shit newspaper.

United States troops are acting as destructive and murderous forces of invasion and occupation. The people of Iraq and Afghanistan see this on a daily basis.

Oh? Is that why Iraqis, including their politicians, are terrified of us leaving? Does any of this include the millions who risked their lives to VOTE?

It’s hard to blame Thiesen for having such hideous views when the American media refuses to publish anything positive about Iraq or the War on Terror. (The New York Times, however, sees it fitting to publish national security secrets.)

Hundreds of thousands have died as a direct result of the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

This was debunked long ago. Moving on…

Millions are either internal or external refugees.

Because it’s still a war zone, you half-wit.

Tens of thousands have been detained in prisons, with thousands of these tortured and scores murdered. Haditha, Iraq where 24 Iraqis were massacred is just the best known of the massacres. Women and children are routinely described as “collateral damage” by military spokespersons when they are murdered in military operations.

Naturally, don’t expect a single explanation as to WHY thousands are imprisoned. Nor does the author present any proof or evidence that any of them were tortured or “scores” murdered. Who are these people, Mr. Thiesen?

“Support for the troops” has become political cover to support the wars. In Congress, many of those who claim they oppose the wars, use “support of the troops” to vote for hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the wars. These politicians are political opportunists, but there are also people who genuinely oppose the war, but who also say “I support the troops.”

And all this time, liberals have been telling us that one can oppose the mission while supporting the military. Whoa, thanks for clearing that up.

But to decide whether U.S. troops deserve support you must analyze what they actually do in countries occupied by the U.S. The wars these troops are engaged in have the goal of maintaining and extending U.S. hegemony throughout the world. They are unjust, illegal, and immoral wars. Can you support the troops in these wars?

If the point of all this was “extending U.S. hegemony,” then why are we permitting people to vote? Or (worse) draft a constitution? Aren’t those the last things we’d do? Wouldn’t it be easier to dispense with Iraq’s political parties and legislators and simply institute U.S. Constitutional law?

If the U.S. is supposed to be a “hegemony,” it’s doing a very lousy job.

Why is this any different from a German in World War II saying, “I oppose the wars launched by Hitler, but I support the troops of the German army which are making these wars possible.”

Wow, what a great comparison!

Germany invaded countries with the malicious intent of stealing land, stealing resources and wealth, and dominating other nations. How and when has the U.S. done this? If anything, we’ve lost billions of dollars on the War on Terror, to say nothing for the much-bemoaning lack of respect the world supposedly now has for us.

And never mind the fact that Nazi Germany violated basic human rights as a matter of policy. Or is the genocide of 6-12 million people the equivalent of “torturing” prisoners with panties upon their craniums?

If you can’t see the difference between what the U.S. is doing now and with what Nazi Germany did, then it’s little wonder you submit poorly reasoned articles to the “Berkeley Daily Planet.”

Dumb ass.

When the Marines in Haditha massacred Iraqis, including women and children, would it have been correct to say I supported the Marines who killed those people, but not the massacre? This would be ridiculous, but no more so than supporting the troops engaged in the war that made the Haditha massacre possible in the first place.

Ah, of course. The U.S. military caused the Haditha conflict! And whatever you do, don’t blame the terrorists who murdered our own soldiers in Haditha, or murdered innocent Iraqis in Haditha. No, only focus on what the U.S. military did IN RESPONSE to terror.

When all else fails, blame America, but don’t blame terrorists.

Ideology can be blinding at times; Thiesen needs a seeing eye dog. The U.S. military has been a force for good, has defended free people and democracy, and has devoted billions of dollars to keeping peace around the world (ask South Korea if you doubt me). The military which Thiesen so leisurely smears is the same force protecting his right to speech and which would never prevent him publishing his viewpoints in any newspaper.

Would the Baath party ever do the same? Certainly not.

Would his rights be recognized in North Korea? In Cuba? Does this man publish articles condemning the true oppression and torture which citizens of those countries endure? Or condemning what Iraqis suffered under Saddam?

The grocery list of lies and evils wrought by the U.S. military might have a drop of credibility if Thiesen bothered to list a single achievement under the U.S. military, or to at least consider the challenges and circumstances under which the U.S. military works daily.

If blame should be cast for the bloodshed in Iraq and Afghanistan, place it where it belongs: at the doorstep of [Baath party members] and their murderous al-Qaeda collaborators.

English economist and philospher John Stuart Mill sums it up for Thiesen and the misguided ingrates from the Left Coast who sleep under the blanket of freedom which others live and die in order to protect:

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.