Why I Oppose the US War on Terror: an ex-Marine Sergeant Speaks Out by CHRIS WHITE The more I juxtapose logical world opinion with the Bush administration's actions in the war on terror, I realize one overwhelming theme: hypocrisy. No one in any of the branches of government runs a physical risk to themselves by entering a war with Iraq, and we can bet that none of their family members are at risk, either. That is, until the next "terrorist" attack. I put "terrorist" in quotes because its definition is subjective, and I myself used to be in the Marine Corps, part of the most powerful "terrorist" organization on the planet: the U.S. government. Of course, we never call our operations "terrorism" because every operation is considered legitimate to us. When found guilty by the World Court for violence in Nicaragua, we ignore the decision. Too bad the nations we hurt can't just ignore what we do to them. When the planet condemns us for killing between 2,500-4,000 people in Panama, we're too busy planning the next invasion of a country that can't fight back. I oppose this war as a U.S. citizen, a veteran, and a doctoral student in history. While my military experience is what first made me skeptical about our government's motives in the developing world, it wasn't until I went to college and began reading hundreds of books and thousands of articles that I was able to truly grasp the profundity of our leadership's contempt for the freedoms they claim to protect. As a rule, we have worked hard to prevent the rise of democracy in the developing world, all the while claiming legitimacy as "the world's police force" because of our so-called "democratic" values. The hypocrisy is astounding. When one investigates our complicity in death squads, torture, massacres, rape, and mass destruction, one realizes that freedom often threatens the current power structure in this country. I used to consider those incidents as anomalistic in comparison to the "protection" we offered the planet at seemingly no charge. But then I joined the Marines, and I realized why I had believed in the government: they were experts in manipulation. Barely out of high school, the Corps broke us down and built us up in order to shape us into machines, willing to defend the ideals of the power elites in Washington and corporate America. Just look at the companies, which are funding political campaigns, and benefiting from war: weapons producers, technologies, food, clothing, munitions, oil, pharmaceuticals, etc U.S. interventions since WWII have not been done in the name of the world's people (although that is always the claim), but for the preservation of concentrated power. The fact that they have been carried out against the tenets of international law (i.e. the rights of non-intervention and self-determination), in itself deflates their validity. If the U.S. government were held to the FBI's official definition of terrorism ("the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives"), their list of victims since WWII alone would include: Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, Mexico, Chile, Granada, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, Zaire, Namibia, Lebanon, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Bangladesh, Iran, South Africa, the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Iraq, Cambodia, Libya, Israel, Palestine, China, Afghanistan, Sudan, Indonesia, East Timor, Turkey, Angola, and Somalia. In boot camp, deceit and manipulation accompany the necessity to motivate troops to murder on command. You can't take civilians from the street, give them machine guns, and expect them to kill without question in a democratic society; therefore people must be indoctrinated to do so. This fact alone should sound off alarms in our collective American brain. If the cause of war is justified, then why do we have to be put through boot camp? If you answer that we have to be trained in killing skills, well, then why is most of boot camp not focused on combat training? Why are privates shown videos of U.S. military massacres while playing Metallica in the background, thus causing us to scream with the joy of the killer instinct as brown bodies are obliterated? Why do privates answer every command with an enthusiastic, "kill!!" instead of, "yes, sir!!" like it is in the movies? Why do we sing cadences like these?: "Throw some candy in the school yard, watch the children gather round. Load a belt in your M-60, mow them little bastards down!!" and "We're gonna rape, kill, pillage and burn, gonna rape, kill, pillage and burn!!" These chants are meant to motivate the troops; they enjoy it, salivate from it, and get off on it. If one repeats these hundreds of times, one eventually begins to accept them as paradigmatically valid. The demonization of the enemy is crucial to wartime planners, and the above examples of motivation techniques are relevant to the present. Before carrying out a security exercise in Qatar, my unit went through Muslim "indoctrination" classes. The level of racism was unbelievable. Muslims were referred to as "Ahmed," "towlheads," "ragheads," and "terrorists." We were told that most Muslim males were homosexual, and that their hygiene was so primitive that we shouldn't even shake their hands. The object was demonization through feminization and dehumanization, so as to make it easier for us to pull the trigger when ordered to. But Qatar is our ally, so imagine the language being used today in these indoctrination courses about Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iraqi population has suffered countless U.S. supported atrocities over the past eleven years. Not only were between 100 and 200 thousand people killed in 1991, but the bombing has continued ever since then, and sanctions have led to the deaths of possibly 1 million people, in a nation of 17 million. Former UNSCOM execs assert that they destroyed 95-98 percent of Saddam's weapons by 1998, and that a nuclear weapons capability is extremely unlikely due to their devastated economy. According to this morning's New York Times, the U.S. reasons that Saddam's gassing of his own people and his hatred of the U.S. are what warrant our harder stance toward Iraq in comparison to North Korea. While we pursue diplomacy with North Korea (which has admitted to having nukes), we prefer to invade Iraq, who we claim is only looking for nukes. Have we forgotten the 1994 Congressional report revealing that we supplied Saddam with biological and chemical weapons during the 1980s? Although U.S. casualties will be lower than that of Iraq, let's not forget the danger we are placing squarely on the shoulders of U.S. troops, who have been indoctrinated as I was. Funny how the people who are least likely to go to war are the ones working the hardest to convince others to fight it for them. Chris White is an ex-Marine and current doctoral student in history at the University of Kansas, Lawrence.
You know what I mean. These guys don't just lean to the left, they lean to the extreme left, with a bunch of theoretical BS (in my opinion).
This "fact" was caused by Saddam's actions. He has done this to his people. Even after the UN's Oil for Food program has supplied Iraq with over 26 billion dollars in aid, his people are still in trouble. There US State Dept Facts on UN Oil for Food Iraq obstructs UN Oil for Food Program UN Oil for Food program - corruption in Iraq This is has been argued before on the bbs.
"If the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under-five in the country as a whole during the eight year period 1991 to 1998" Unicef, 12 August 1999. "We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral." Denis Halliday, after resigning as first UN Assistant Secretary General and Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, The Independent, 15 October 1998 http://www.casi.org.uk/ Want more? John Nichols: U.S. sanctions against Iraq are a crime By John Nichols August 14, 2001 The Progressive magazine's latest issue exposes details of wrongdoing by the United States that raise the very real prospect that high-level military and civilian officials violated the Geneva Convention by using sanctions against Iraq to undermine the quality of that country's water supply after the Gulf War. As writer Thomas J. Nagy notes in his well-documented article, "The Secret Behind the Sanctions: How the U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water Supply," the evidence proves beyond a doubt that "the United States knew the cost that civilian Iraqis, mostly children, would pay, and it went ahead anyway." Nagy, who teaches at the School of Business and Public Management at George Washington University, relies on documents obtained from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency to paint a chilling picture of military planners determined to use sanctions to spread disease and death among civilians. One document, dated Jan. 22, 1991, reads, "Iraq depends on importing specialized equipment and some chemicals to purify its water supply. ... Failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population. This could lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease." Make no mistake, those are the words of U.S. officials hopefully anticipating the prospect of epidemics among civilians. Later, the same planners cite the "most likely diseases during (the) next 60-90 days (include): diarrheal diseases (particularly children); acute respiratory illnesses (colds and influenza); typhoid; hepatitis A (particularly children); measles, diphtheria, and pertussis (particularly children); meningitis, including meningococcal (particularly children); cholera (possible, but less likely)." How horrific to read these words now, when we know that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children have indeed died as a result of diseases and deprivation resulting directly from the U.S.-backed sanctions against that country. But this is not just a matter of detailing past wrongs. The sanctions continue. And they seem to be having precisely the impact imagined in that 1991 document. U.S. Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio, recently warned the State Department about "the profound effects of the increasing deterioration of Iraq's water supply and sanitation systems on its children's health." In his letter of concern, Hall explained that "the prime killer of children under 5 years of age - diarrheal diseases - has reached epidemic proportions, and they now strike four times more often than they did in 1990. ... Holds on contracts for the water and sanitation sector are a prime reason for the increases in sickness and death." The "holds" Hall describes are part of the sanction regimen anticipated in the 1991 Defense Intelligence Agency documents. The Progressive's publication of this information places a new pressure on U.S. officials. No one, from President Bush on down the chain of command, can claim to be unaware that the intent of the sanctions is to cause suffering among Iraq's civilian population. Nor can anyone in that chain of command defend that intent, since it is clearly in violation of the Geneva Convention, a protocol of which states: "It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse party, whatever the motive." "Attacking the Iraqi public drinking water supply flagrantly targets civilians and is a violation of the Geneva Convention and of the fundamental laws of civilized nations," U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., told a House hearing after reviewing the Defense Intelligence Agency documents. McKinney's conclusion is the only one a reasonable reader of The Progressive's article could reach. It is a conclusion that demands investigation of the actions of U.S. officials by Congress, and by appropriate international tribunals. Above all, however, it is a conclusion that demands an immediate lifting of these immoral sanctions. Want some more info? Let me know, I will post it.
Sorry, I don't buy that logic Bob. Saddam doesn't play by the rules....which causes the sanctions....which causes those deaths. The relief and aid that does get through doesn't get to the people that need it for one simple reason: Saddam is an evil b*stard. The end. I think its incredibly ignorant to blame America for any deaths or hardships brought about by the sanctions. BTW, those sanctions are United Nations sanctions. "If the cause of war is justified, then why do we have to be put through boot camp?" OMFG, is this guy serious?? "If you answer that we have to be trained in killing skills, well, then why is most of boot camp not focused on combat training?" Jesus this guy is something else. The answer to this guys question is: Because Basic Training/Boot Camp teaches you ALL the basic fundamentals of being a soldier: basic combat skills with a weapon and hand-to-hand, How to shoot a weapon, proper weapon maintenance, intense physical training, military protocal, military history, etc etc etc. There are so many aspects to becoming a soldier that I could literally be here for hours typing them all out. If you can't name a few reasons by yourself why combat training isn't the ONLY thing basic focuses on, then you need to get your head out of your ass. Once you are done learning the fundamentals of becoming a soldier, you go through Advanced Individual Training (or AIT). That's where you get trained in your actual military job: infantry men go to infantry school, artillery men go to whatever branch of artillery school they're signed up for, etc. Yes, your "killing skills" are further honed if you're going into AIT in combat arms, but there are plenty of school that are not in combat arms. Personally, given this guys comments about boot camp, I don't think he was ever a Marine. Either that or he's REALLY forgetful. Or maybe he just thinks that we're stupid.
Why would anyone give any credence to an article from http://www.counterpunch.org , a site full of wackos, is beyond me. The tried and tired lefty tricks, meet the source police.
Well we don't starve, torture, kill our own people do we? We have a constitution with checks and balances, we are not a dictatorship. I would say that we play as fair as possible considering the people that we are playing with.
So it raises a "prospect." Personally, I don't believe we'd do something like that, though that certainly doesn't mean that it couldn't happen. If there were any truth to this, I'd think that a LOT more people would be talking about it. That said, I certainly believe this is left-wing crap before I believe that we'd do something like this. Tell me Bob, were you this opposed to the sanctions when Clinton was president, or do you just hate Bush?
This quote here removes this article's credibility and exposes the author's obvious bias to the situation
Ahhhh...so that's what I'm doing wrong in these military/history/international relations debates...spending years studying the issues behind them in depth...It's all clear now....My apologies...here I always supposed that investigating the subject at hand was a good thing, ignorant as I was of the negative quality of being an academic... And the fact that his academinc background is balanced with 1st hand military experience is also clearly of no relevence...Not when compared to what you can get off CNN from your living room couch...
Straw man. If you were as critical of academia as you are of the US then you would realize its shortcomings.
No, it is not. Now answer the question. Lke I said, given his quotes concerning boot camp, I doubt that he ever served in the USMC.
