I just happened to read a couple of weeks ago Charlie Brown's (recently unsuccessful democratic candidate for California's 4th district House seat) blog about his son returning to Iraq for a fourth tour of duty. I added a comment to Mr Brown's blog saying that I thought his son should not go back and "Just say no" to that next tour of duty. I meant it. I despise this war and the people who caused it. I despise the sanctimonious and posturing little bastard Bush. But he's too stupid to have done this. It's the other cryto-nazi motherfuckers like Cheney, Pearle and Wolfowitz who deserve to rot in hell for at least two eternities for what they have done. At the very least they deserve a cell in The Hague for the rest of their miserable lives. I was a bit surprised by the few comments to my post but then most of the time I feel like I am from Mars and that I don't belong on this planet. So I decided I'd write this explaination of my position. I think anyone in the Guard or regular army, marines or air force should refuse to serve any longer in Iraq. Pretty simple. Just say no.
I've had it with this war of aggression. My wife and I have to take periodic time outs from listening to the news. I've had it with the American people falling all over themselves to see who can pretend to support the troops the most by putting silly ribbons on their fucking SUVs. I've had it listening to democratic presidential candidates who voted for this disaster explain how they always knew it was wrong. And I've had it with American's sending their kin over there to kill and be killed. My son and daughter will not be taking part in this imperial war. Let's say it right up front, I support the troops only to the extent that I want them to come home yesterday. Beyond that I do not support them in their occupation of and war of aggression against the people of Iraq. They are not heroes and they are not building democracy in the Middle East. They are fighting for Bechtel and Halliburton and to protect Israel. They should all come home and get back to their families and their jobs today. Sorry folks, but our troops are not over there doing good deeds and helping little old Iraqi ladies across the street. They are an occupying army spreading their own brand of terror and are hated by the Iraqis who overwhelmingly want them out ASAP. For the most part they are proles. Mostly poor southern whites, blacks and Mexicans. They are fighting for a paycheck and job training. They are being held hostage by this administration. I doubt if one of them has ever heard of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg or the protocols that issued from The Palace of Justice. Especially the part about not following a mad-man into war. In reality, only those defeated in war, such as the leaders of Germany and Japan as well as Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia and the leaders of the Rwandan genocide, have ever faced international tribunals – but, if there is a god, BushCo will someday stand before one. Maybe after Bush and Cheney's impeachment and removal from office. The real heroes in this war of aggression are those who refuse to go. It takes real guts to stand alone and say no to the tyranny of the majority and be prepared to suffer the consequences. On June 22, 2006, U.S. Army 1st Lieutenant Ehren K. Watada stepped forward as the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse deployment to the Iraq War and occupation. Watada properly refused an illegal order. We are all moral beings, even in the military, and as such have a legal and moral obligation to refuse to participate in War Crimes. This is what the Nuremburg Conventions demand. Will the American people decide that the law and morality matter? Are our troops any better than those Germans who just followed orders?
According to the Center on Conscience and War in Washington, D.C., there had been an estimated 3,500 conscientious objectors in World War I; 37,000 in World War II; 4,300 in the Korean War; more than 200,000 during the Vietnam War; and 111 during the 1991 Gulf War. Katherine Jashinski and Stephen Funk are military objectors to the illegal war against the people of Iraq. They were tried in military kangaroo courts and did hard time. A little background. I refused induction into the military in 1971 and was sent to a federal prison camp in Safford, AZ in 1972 at the height of the invasion of Cambodia. (Just one of several events that should have gotten Herr Kissenger a life sentence in The Hague). I was a campus radical during Viet Nam. I was also a draft counselor. I worked with an organization called Arizonans for Peace and I did everything possible to end that war. I was appalled at what was being done in my name in SE Asia and couldn't believe that this was what America was really about. I was a supporter of JFK but I was becoming radicalized. I never got over it.
I have never succumbed to a right wing conservative swoon. I am as appalled and disgusted by my country today as I was in 1970. I refused induction into the US military because that was simply the right thing to do. I was a very well educated white 19 year old. There was no way I would have ever seen combat, but that was not the point. I was not going to be a part of what was being done to SE Asia. I was not going to support that war effort. I was released from prison in 1972 and ordered to do community service. My sentencing judge was Walter Craig, an ex-president of the ADA, and he did not want to send me to jail. I gave him no choice under the law. He sentenced me to as little time as possible and then two years court ordered alternative service. As my "community service" I worked for a couple of radical attorney's in Phoenix and did their pro bono draft cases. I was a National Lawyers Guild paralegal at that time. Meanwhile I continued to argue and speak against the war at every opportunity. During those years I and my friends were characterized in the pages of the Arizona Republic as traitors and cowards.
There were some great people who aided me on my journey to clear thinking about Pax Americana. An old fellow named Igal Roodenko of the War Resister's League, Dave Dellinger of the Chicago 8, Tom Hayden of the Indo-China Peace Campaign, Joe Gerson of the American Friend Service Committee and a couple of professors at Arizona State University. As I delved further and further into the imperialist past of the beast I learned that Viet Nam had a predecessor at the turn of the century. The US invaded and fought a disgustingly similar imperialistic war against the people of the Philippines. Hundreds of thousands of the indigenous people of the Philippines were murdered by our brave troops. Most of whom were fresh from some similar slaughter of indigenous peoples' on this continent. The American Anti-Imperialist League was founded in 1899, after the United States occupied Cuba. Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands. We need something similar now because our "leadership" such as it is, liberal or conservative, doesn't seemed to have read a history book recently. Here are some excerpts from the Platform of the American Anti-lmperialist League.
We hold that the policy known as imperialism is hostile to liberty and tends toward militarism, an evil from which it has been our glory to be free. We regret that it has become necessary in the land of Washington and Lincoln to reaffirm that all men, of whatever race or color, are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We maintain that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. We insist that the subjugation of any people is "criminal aggression" and open disloyalty to the distinctive principles of our Government.
We earnestly condemn the policy of the present National Administration in the Philippines. It seeks to extinguish the spirit of 1776 in those islands. We deplore the sacrifice of our soldiers and sailors, whose bravery deserves admiration even in an unjust war. We denounce the slaughter of the Filipinos as a needless horror. We protest against the extension of American sovereignty by Spanish methods...
The United States have always protested against the doctrine of international law which permits the subjugation of the weak by the strong. A self-goveming state cannot accept sovereignty over an unwilling people. The United States cannot act upon the ancient heresy that might makes right.
Imperialists assume that with the destruction of self-government in the Philippines by American hands, all opposition here will cease. This is a grievous error. Much as we abhor the war of "criminal aggression" in the Philippines, greatly as we regret that the blood of the Filipinos is on American hands, we more deeply resent the betrayal of American institutions at home. The real firing line is not in the suburbs of Manila. The foe is of our own household. The attempt of 1861 was to divide the country. That of 1899 is to destroy its fundamental principles and noblest ideals.
Whether the ruthless slaughter of the Filipinos shall end next month or next year is but an incident in a contest that must go on until the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are rescued from the hands of their betrayers. Those who dispute about standards of value while the foundation of the Republic is undermined will be listened to as little as those who would wrangle about the small economies of the household while the house is on fire. The training of a great people for a century, the aspiration for liberty of a vast immigration are forces that will hurl aside those who in the delirium of conquest seek to destroy the character of our institutions.
We deny that the obligation of all citizens to support their Government in times of grave National peril applies to the present situation. If an Administration may with impunity ignore the issues upon which it was chosen, deliberately create a condition of war anywhere on the face of the globe, debauch the civil service for spoils to promote the adventure, organize a truth suppressing censorship and demand of all citizens a suspension of judgment and their unanimous support while it chooses to continue the fighting, representative government itself is imperiled.
We propose to contribute to the defeat of any person or party that stands for the forcible subjugation of any people . We shall oppose for reelection all who in the White House or in Congress betray American liberty in pursuit of un-American ends. We still hope that both of our great political parties will support and defend the Declaration of Independence in the closing campaign of the century.
We hold, with Abraham Lincoln, that "no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. When the white man governs himself, that is self-government, but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government-that is despotism. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it."
We cordially invite the cooperation of all men and women who remain loyal to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
Sound familiar? Just substitute Iraq for Philippines. Andrew Carnegie, William James, Mark Twain, Jane Addams, Ambrose Bierce, Grover Cleveland, John Dewey, Samuel Gompers were all members among many others. WWI brought an unceremonious end to the organization. 100 years go by and the nature of the beast does not change. The liberal best and brightest have their war in Viet Nam and the know-nothing neocons jump right in with their debacle in Iraq. Nobody learns nothin'. And we should send our kids, wives and husbands to fight Cheney's war. You've got to be kidding.
The ruling class in this country for all their easy access to the best universities and therefore the best education that $ can provide haven't learned a fucking thing from the lessons of history. I don't know much but I know that a shit load of civilizations ancient and modern - from the Egyptians and Hittites to the British and the Americans - have had their war machines grind to a screeching halt in the deserts of Mesopotamia. I know that an invading army of occupation will most likely not be greeted as liberators by those they are subjugating. I know a civil war when I read about one. And I most definitely know a lying piece-of-shit president when he and his draft dodging advisors claim that they are invading a sovereign state to promote some bogus idea of democracy. "Mission Accomplished" my ass you posturing little prick! As far as I know none of the relatives of Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld are currently or have "served their country" in Iraq. As far as I know none of the aforementioned served their country in Viet Nam. They had other priorities I guess like saving their lily white coward asses. I fought the law and the law won. I was an easy target. I was not a conscientious objector. I was opposed to the Viet Nam war on political grounds. I wouldn't have served in that war if I was made a general on the day I was inducted. Please end this war now the way you can. Counsel all young men and women that they have better things to do with their young lives than participating in this invasion and occupation of Iraq.
I would encourage everyone who has not seen it to watch the three part BBC documentary series by Adam Curtis entitled "The Power of Nightmares". I don't know if this has been shown in the US but it is a powerful comparison of the jihadists and the neocons battling it out in the sands of Iraq. I also recommend Anne Garrel's book on her many years of reporting from Bagdad for NPR as well as the PBS Charlie Rose interview on January 24, 2007 with NY TImes reporter David Burns for all the reasons why this is a civil war and will not end as BushCo wants it to. Don't serve. Don't go to Iraq. Don't fight. There is no duty, honor, country at stack in an imperialist war.