OMNI, SUPPORT THE TROOPS?
NEWSLETTER #1, October 15, 2013.
Compiled by Dick Bennett for Culture of Peace and Justice.
My blog:
War Department/Peace Department
War Department/Peace Department
Newsletters
See OMNI’s
several newsletters on Us Imperialism and related subjects.
Index:
See: Imperialism, Militarism,
Nationalism, Patriotism, Recruiting, US Wars
Contents
York and Barringer:
Christian Pacifism Against Killing
Herman: Support the Troops, Support the Wars
Michael Moore: Stop These Senseless Wars
Salaita: No Thanks
Dick: Service, the
Services
Dick: Finding Rest
A Faith Not Worth Fighting For
Addressing Commonly
Asked Questions about
Christian Nonviolence
Asked Questions about
Christian Nonviolence
Edited by Tripp York and Justin Bronson
Barringer
Cascade Books
A Faith
Not Worth Fighting For: Addressing Commonly Asked Questions about Christian
Nonviolence, edited by Tripp York and Justin
Bronson Barringer. Rev. The Christian Century, Aug 10, 2012.
[Clearer title: A Faith Not Worth Killing For. –Dick]
The editors and contributors to this
volume believe that the practice of nonviolence is at the center of what it
means to follow Jesus [exemplar of pacifism—Dick]. They do not present an
argument for Christian nonviolence so much as answer questions and objections
which have long been put to Christian pacifists, such as: Isn’t pacifism
passive? What about the protection of third-party innocents? What would you do
if someone were attacking a loved one? What about Hitler? Must Christian
pacifists reject police force? What about war and violence in the Old
Testament? The contributors to the book come from Methodist, Wesleyan,
nondenominational, Church of Christ, Catholic and Episcopal traditions as
well as the peace churches. The authors stand upon the shoulders of John Howard
Yoder, Walter Wink and Stanley Hauerwas.
Chapter Six , “What about Those Men and
Women Who Gave Up Their Lives so that You and I Could Be Free? On Killing for Freedom” by Justin
Barringer. Examines and rejects the
“freedom” gained through violence and supports “true freedom”: Christian freedom that is possible only
through God as epitomized in Jesus and illustrated by Martin Luther King, Jr.,
and that rejects killing. –Dick
EDWARD HERMAN, SUPPORT
TROOPS, SUPPORT WAR
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Support Our
Troops, Our War, and Our War Criminals by Edward S.
Herman / April 1st, 2013
The call to “support our troops,” or “our boys,” is really an
appeal to support the war in which the troops are engaged. Critics of the war
would say that if the war is unjustified, possibly even a criminal enterprise
in violation of international law at several levels, as was so clearly true of
the Iraq
Naturally, this critical view of supporting our troops gets little
play in the propaganda system, and the propaganda design of the formula
“support our troops” is probably effective in the environment of
patriotic fervor that wars engender. But the hypocrisy here runs deep. Many
of the threads of hypocrisy woven into this propaganda fabric stem from
the fact that the political and military establishments care very little about
the welfare of our boys. The really bad thing about their deaths, injuries and
suffering is the resultant negative publicity and possible increased
financial costs of greater attention to their needs that might limit military
budget size and flexibility. There has been a notorious struggle over the
damage our boys have suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan from economies in the
protective equipment provided to them; from the damaging psychological effects
of multiple tours of duty; from the reluctance to recognize the symptoms of
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the seriousness of traumatic brain
injury (TBI); and the scandals reflecting lagged and poor care of personnel
back home and in need of medical care.
In earlier years, also, it was a long struggle to get recognition
of the damage suffered by U.S. troops in Vietnam from the massive
chemical warfare used there, where, of course, the damage to U.S. personnel was
only a small fraction of that suffered by the Vietnamese people, still
unacknowledged and unrectified by the responsible criminal state. The
ironical usage of “MIA” to mean “missing in America,” referring to war veterans
in a sad state of indigence and homelessness at home, also goes back at least
to the Vietnam and post-Vietnam war days. There are many MIAs in the United
States today, and a dramatic figure that did get some publicity was
that more military personnel committed suicide than were killed in combat
in Afghanistan in 2012 (349 versus 295).
It is enlightening also that there is an inverse correlation
between aggressively supporting U.S.
Of course, along with “support our troops” there is an implicit
“support our torturers and higher level war criminals.” This flows from the
overwhelming and increasingly centralized power in the hands of the dominant
elite, including the military-industrial complex (MIC) and leading politicians,
and an associated remarkable level of self-righteousness. Anything we do is
tolerable because we are not only strong and the global policeman, but also
good and always well-intentioned, and are therefore not to be questioned when
we do abroad precisely what we condemn in target states. We can support Saddam
Hussein and even provide him with “weapons of mass destruction”, when he is
doing us a service in attacking Iran, even when he is using chemical
weapons there; and with no seeming sense of shame or guilt we can quickly turn
him into “another Hitler” when he disobeys orders. We can help the Shah of Iran
The really high level war criminals like Bush, Blair, and Obama
can get away with anything, not only because they are at the pinnacle of
power and can set their own rules, but also because they dominate the
external institutions that supposedly make the rule of law international, but
fail to do so. One of the prettiest cases is, of course, the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, an act matching Hitler’s
1939 invasion of Poland
But the sick comedy of “international law” rode on, with the UN,
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and International Criminal Court
(ICC) playing their assigned role by applying it whenever the Big Aggressor
or one of his leading allies felt the application of legal principles to
be useful. The Big A and his Little Aggressor client Israel wanted a
legal input for Darfur, but not for the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
invaded by Rwanda and Uganda, whose leaders were Big Aggressor clients, and so
it was—Sudan’s al-Bashir was indicted by the ICC, Rwandan and Ugandan leaders
were exempt. Big A and allies wanted legal authority for attacking Libya , but not Bahrain ,
so the ICC and United Nations Security Council (UNSC) obliged with indictments
for Gaddafi and sons, silence on Bahrain Libya ,
in collaboration with the ICC, greasing the skids for a NATO military attack on
Libya
The role of the “international community” (in the sense of
the leadership of the Western great powers and their clients, not
the underlying populations) was dramatically exhibited in giving the newly
elected U.S. President Barack Obama the Nobel Peace prize in 2009. He hadn’t
done anything whatsoever for peace at that time, but gave the appearance
of a leader more moderate than Bush and Cheney. A silly award, but once
again a giveaway on the supportive-groveling qualities of Western
political/cultural institutions. (Can you imagine the Nobel Committee giving
the award to Amira Hass, Malalai Joya, Kathy Kelly, or Richard Falk, people
actually making genuine personal sacrifices in the interest of peace?) Honest
analysis and morality would have recognized that Obama was going to be a major
war criminal by structural necessity, embedded as he was in a permanent war
political economy where political survival, let alone success, required the
commission of war crimes. Obama soon found that political success demanded
killing foreigners; that budget enlargement for killing was easy, but spending
for progressive civilian needs was difficult and would anger powerful people.
He quickly adapted to being a warrior president, his seemingly most proud
accomplishment being the killing of bin-Laden.
Obama has played all the war cards. He has lauded the Vietnam War
as a noble enterprise and is pleased to participate in and laud a memorial that
celebrates it. Like Bush he loves to speak to military cadres where he can draw
resounding applause with patriotic and war rhetoric, although increasing
numbers of liberal Democrats have gotten on board his war-oriented ship of
state and also find his warrior image and actions agreeable. He has gone
somewhat beyond Bush in institutionalizing government rights to invade privacy,
closing down information access, and criminalizing whistle-blowing. His drone
war policy and claimed right to assassinate even U.S. U.S.
• Article first appeared in Z Magazine April 2013
5 10 3 67
SUPPORT THE TROOPS?
“The US
From Veterans for Peace. Posted by: "david sladky"
spotshere@hotmail.com
Fri Jan 27, 2012 10:59 am (PST)
http://blackagendareport.com/content/us-military-global-force-not-good
Wed, 01/25/2012 - 02:04 — Bruce A. Dixon
A Black Agenda Radio
commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
In official folklore,
the US
The US
Military: A Global Force, But Not For Good
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce
A. Dixon
“On November 19, 2005 a squad of US Marines murdered 24
unarmed Iraqi civilians including 9 children...”
No State of the Union address is complete without multiple
standing-ovation references to the steadfast courage, self-sacrifice and honor
of the men and women serving in the uniform of these United States . But while some or
all of these characteristics can doubtless be found among active duty members
of the US military, they are notably absent among its military and civilian
leaders, and consistently contradicted by the military's own longstanding
traditions.
[Haditha Massacre-D] On November 19, 2005 a squad of US Marines
murdered 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians including 9 children, in cold blood, not
with shrapnel or random crossfire, but mostly with well-aimed rifle shots to
the head and chest indoors and at close range. Three officers received written
reprimands for actions after the incident, and charges were filed, then dropped
against seven of eight marines. On January 24 staff sergeant Frank Wuteridge,
the only remaining marine charged in the case accepted a plea deal that lets
him off with a reduction in rank to private.
At the same time that killers are released with perfunctory
wrist slaps, US army private Bradley
Manning, a genuine hero, endures persecution and solitary confinement for
releasing documentary evidence of numerous diplomatic and military atrocities,
including actual film of a US helicopter gunship mowing down unarmed Iraqi
civilians including two Reuters cameramen and the children of a man who stopped
his family car to help the people he saw bleeding in the street.
“That's what he gets,” oinks a self-righteous American
military voice on the tape, “for bringing his kids...” to a firefight.”
“The navy currently runs an ad campaign branding itself “a
global force for good.” Few claims could be more deceitful”
Lying, justifying and covering up, not honor and
self-sacrifice, seem to be guiding principles of US military and political
leadership, the sure and certain paths to a successful career. When
up-and-coming army Major Colin Powell
was detailed to look into reports of atrocities committed by the Americal
Division, he knew what was expected of him. Powell minimized and dismissed the
reports, overlooking among other things the massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese
civilians at a place called My Lai . Twenty
years later, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the US invasion of
Panama, Powell ordered the bombing from the air of an undefended, largely black
civilian neighborhood of Panama City in which hundreds were killed, in order to
prevent them from coming into the streets to support Panamanian president
Noriega.
Since Wounded Knee, since the slave and Indian-hunting
expeditions of Andrew Jackson, these have been the real traditions of the US
military. The navy currently runs an ad campaign branding itself “a global
force for good.” Few claims could be more deceitful. The military has plenty of
doctors, engineers and even chaplains. But its main jobs aren't building
things, healing people or telling the truth. The core job descriptions of the US
military and their civilian leaders are breaking things, killing people, and
lying about it. They are indeed a global force. But not an honorable one. And
not for good.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Bruce Dixon. Find us on the web
at www.blackagendareport.com .
Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report,
and lives and works in Marietta
GA
Michael Moore is an Academy-Award
winning filmmaker and best-selling author
January 3rd, 2013 11:08 AM
Those
Who Say "I Support the Troops" Should Just Stop, Out of Respect for
the Troops By Michael Moore
I
don't support the troops, America
1.
They get sent off to wars that have NOTHING to do with defending America
2. While the troops we claim to "support"
are serving their country, bankers who say they too "support the
troops,"foreclose on the actual homes of these soldiers and evict their families
while they are overseas! Have I gone and stood in front of the
sheriff's deputy as he is throwing a military family out of their home? No. And
there's your proof that I don't "support the troops," because if I
did, I would organize mass sit-ins to block the doors of these homes. Instead,
I'm having Chilean sea bass tonight.
3. How many of you who say you "support the
troops" have visited a VA hospital to
bring aid and comfort to the sick and wounded? I haven't. How many of you have
any clue what it's like to deal with the VA? I don't. Therefore, you would be safe to
say that I don't "support the troops," and neither do you.
4. Who amongst you big enthusiastic "supporters
of the troops" can tell me the approximate number of service women who
have been raped while in the military? Answer: 19,000 (mostly) female troops are raped or sexually assaulted every year by fellow American troops. What have
you or I done to bring these criminals to justice? What's that you say -- out
of sight, out of mind? These women have suffered, and I've done nothing. So
don't ever let me get away with telling you I "support the troops"
because, sadly, I don't. And neither do you.
5. Help a homeless vet today? How 'bout yesterday?
Last week? Last year? Ever? But I thought you "support the troops!"?
The number of homeless veterans is staggering -- on any given night, at least 60,000 veterans are sleeping on the streets of the country that proudly
"supports the troops." This is disgraceful and shameful, isn't it?
And it exposes all those "troop supporters" who always vote against
social programs that would help these veterans. Tonight there are at least
12,700 Iraq/Afghanistan veterans homeless and sleeping on the street. I've
never lent a helping hand to one of the many vets I've seen sleeping on the
street. I can't bear to look, and I walk past them very quickly. That's called not "supporting the troops,"
which, I guess, I don't -- and neither do you.
6. And you know, the beautiful thing about all this
"support" you and I have been giving the troops -- they feel this
love and support so much, a record number of them are killing themselves every
single week. In fact, there are now more soldiers killing themselves than
soldiers being killed in combat (323 suicides
in 2012 through November vs. about 210 combat
deaths). Yes, you are more likely to die by your own hand in the United States U.S.
I
don't "support the troops" or any of those other hollow and
hypocritical platitudes uttered by Republicans and frightened Democrats. Here's
what I do support: I support them coming home. I support them being treated
well. I support peace, and I beg any young person reading this who's thinking
of joining the armed forces to please reconsider. Our war department has done
little to show you they won't recklessly put your young life in harm's way for
a cause that has nothing to do with what you signed up for. They will not help
you once they've used you and spit you back into society. If you're a woman,
they will not protect you from rapists in their ranks. And because you have a
conscience and you know right from wrong, you do not want yourself being used
to kill civilians in other countries who never did anything to hurt us. We are
currently involved in at least a half-dozen military actions around the world.
Don't become the next statistic so that General Electric can post another
record profit -- while paying no taxes -- taxes that otherwise would be paying
for the artificial leg that they've kept you waiting for months to receive.
I
support you, and will try to do more to be there for you. And the best way you
can support me -- and the ideals our country says it believes in -- is to get
out of the military as soon as you can and never look back.
And
please, next time some "supporter of the troops" says to you with
that concerned look on their face, "I thank you for your service,"
you have my permission to punch their lights out (figuratively speaking, of
course).
(There
is something I've done to support the troops -- other than help lead the effort
to stop these senseless wars. At the movie theater I run in Michigan
SUNDAY, AUG 25, 2013 06:00 AM
CDT
No, thanks: Stop saying “support the troops”
Compulsory
patriotism does nothing for soldiers who risk their lives -- but props up those
who profit from war
www.salon.com/2013/08/25/
TOPICS: SUPPORT THE TROOPS, WAR, MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, EDITOR'S PICKS, SOCIAL NEWS, BUSINESS NEWS, LIFE NEWS, NEWS
Enlisted
military and veterans hold the american flag during the national anthem prior
to the Los Angeles Dodgers' baseball game (Credit: AP/Mark J. Terrill)
My
16-month-old son was having a bad day. When he doesn’t sleep in the car, he
usually points and babbles his approval of all the wonderful things babies
notice that completely escape adult attention. On this afternoon, though, he
was teething and hungry, a lethal scenario for an energetic youngster strapped
into a high-tech seating apparatus (approved and installed, of course, by the
state).
When
it became clear he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, sleep it out, my wife and I stopped
at a nondescript exit, the kind one finds every six miles in the South, with
two gas stations and three abandoned buildings (if you’re lucky, you also get a
Hampton Inn and Cracker Barrel). While she tended to the baby, I entered a
convenience store — one of those squat, glass and plastic rectangles that looks
like a Sears & Roebuck erector set — praying it would have something other
than beer, cigarettes and beef jerky.
I
settled on two Kraft mozzarella sticks, resisting the urge to purchase for
myself a shiny red can of Four Loko.
“That’ll
be $1.82,” the lady at the counter cheerily informed me. After I handed her two
ones, she asked, “Would you like to donate your change to the troops?” I
noticed a jar with “support our troops” taped to it in handwritten ink.
“No,
thank you,” I answered firmly.
“Well
… OK, then, sir,” she responded in subtle reproach, her smile not quite so
ascendant anymore. “You have a good day now.”
She
had good reason to be disappointed. The vast majority of customers, I imagine,
spare a few dimes and pennies for so important a cause. Her response evinced
more shock than anger. She wasn’t expecting a refusal of 18 cents, even from a
guy who looks very much like those responsible for the danger to our troops.
Besides,
nobody likes to have their altruism invalidated by a recalcitrant or ungrateful
audience.
I
could have asked how the donations would be used, but no matter the answer I
would have kept my 18 cents. I don’t consider patriotism a beneficent force,
for it asks us to exhibit loyalty to nation-states that never fully accommodate
their entire populations. In recent years I’ve grown fatigued of appeals on
behalf of the troops, which intensify in proportion to the belligerence or
potential unpopularity of the imperial adventure du jour.
SERVICE
Dick Bennett
Members of the
military are called “service members.”
What “service” are you in, people are asked—Navy? Army? Air Force?
How did such exclusive use for such an extraordinarily important concept
come about? For the “service” the
“troops” provide is drastically flawed.
First, basic training is
designed to strip traditional religious and community morality from the
soldiers, sailors, and flyers. Their
purpose becomes foremost to kill. Yes,
they are told, to kill to protect their loved ones and freedom back home, but
still to kill. How did the immensely
valuable word “service” become an underpinning of slaughter? Let us stand against this usage, and speak
and work for its proper application.
Why are not
firemen invested in such a concept? They
do truly serve communities: their
purpose is good, and their lives are sometimes at risk. Teachers also serve our society well. They assist our children to gain knowledge
and to grow mentally and emotionally in preparation for the storms ahead for
them. Both firefighters and teachers are
among the vanguard of protectors against the consequences of climate change
rushing toward us. Let us celebrate the
service of firefighters, teachers, public health workers, artists, and all
others whose actions affirm and expand life, not killing.
FINDING REST by Dick
Bennett
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (July 10, 2012) shows a photo of a
flag-draped coffin at Arlington National Cemetery carried by eight members of
an Air force team and accompanied by a flag-bearer. The photo carried the caption: “To Their Rest
at Last.” The coffin contained the
remains of three officers and three sergeants whose plane “went down in Laos in
1965.”
But these
officers and airmen found their rest in death in 1965. That’s not the purpose of this burial. We might expect some mention of the families
of the dead airmen. Sometimes relatives
of killed loved-ones speak of the need for closure, especially under such
circumstances. But none is given. So the report seems entirely national and
patriotic. The photo report seems
intended for the public at large, offering reassurance that our loved ones
killed in wars of somebody else’s choosing did not die for nothing, and the
government honors them.
But there’s another
problem in this report--an omission, perhaps a conscious suppression. The bombing of Laos
during the Vietnam War was illegal: Laos was a neutral country. In the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Trials,
the most heinous crime is the invasion of one country by another as an act of
aggression, as did Hitler against all his conquests. And the bombings of Laos ’ Plain of
Jars were horrendous. Tens of thousands
of innocent people were killed and an estimated 80 million unexploded bombs
still endanger the countryside. Responding
compassionately to these realities is the “rest” we and our government should
desire. Helping the families of those innocent
victims find rest, helping their families find closure, rest at last, for such
injustice, is the closure we should seek.
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