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There Are No Heroes in Illegal and Immoral Wars
When the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division rolled out of Iraq last week, the colonel commanding the brigade told a reporter that his soldiers were "leaving as heroes."
While we can understand the pride of professional soldiers and the emotion behind that statement, it's time for Americans -- military and civilian -- to face a difficult reality: In seven years of the deceptively named "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and nine years of "Operation Enduring Freedom" in Afghanistan, no member of the U.S. has been a hero.
This is not an attack on soldiers, sailors, and Marines. Military personnel may act heroically in specific situations, showing courage and compassion, but for them to be heroes in the truest sense they must be engaged in a legal and morally justifiable conflict. That is not the case with the U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq or Afghanistan, and the social pressure on us to use the language of heroism -- or risk being labeled callous or traitors -- undermines our ability to evaluate the politics and ethics of wars in a historical framework.
The legal case is straightforward: Neither invasion had the necessary approval of the United Nations Security Council, and neither was a response to an imminent attack. In both cases, U.S. officials pretended to engage in diplomacy but demanded war. Under international law and the U.S. Constitution (Article 6 is clear that "all Treaties made," such as the UN Charter, are "the supreme Law of the Land"), both invasions were illegal.
The moral case is also clear: U.S. officials' claims that the invasions were necessary to protect us from terrorism or locate weapons of mass destruction were never plausible and have been exposed as lies. The world is a more dangerous place today than it was in 2001, when sensible changes in U.S. foreign policy and vigorous law enforcement in collaboration with other nations could have made us safer.
The people who bear the greatest legal and moral responsibility for these crimes are the politicians who send the military to war and the generals who plan the actions, and it may seem unfair to deny the front-line service personnel the label of "hero" when they did their duty as they understood it. But this talk of heroism is part of the way we avoid politics and deny the unpleasant fact that these are imperial wars. U.S. military forces are in the Middle East and Central Asia not to bring freedom but to extend and deepen U.S. power in a region home to the world's most important energy resources. The nation exercising control there increases its influence over the global economy, and despite all the U.S. propaganda, the world realizes we have tens of thousands of troops on the ground because of those oil and gas reserves.
Individuals can act with courage and compassion serving in imperial armies. There no doubt were soldiers among the British forces in colonial India who acted heroically, and Soviet soldiers stationed in Eastern Europe were capable of bravery. But they were serving in imperial armies engaged in indefensible attempts to dominate and control. They were fighting not for freedom but to advance the interests of elites in their home countries.
I recognize the complexity of the choices the men and women serving in our military face. I am aware that economic realities and the false promises of recruiters lure many of them into service. I am not judging or condemning them. Judgments and condemnations should be aimed at the powerful, who typically avoid their responsibility. For example, a journalist recently asked Ryan Crocker, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, to reflect on U.S. culpability for the current state of Iraqi politics. Crocker was reluctant to go there, and then refused even to consider the United States' moral responsibility: "You can ask the question, was the whole bloody thing a mistake?" he said. "I don't spend a lot of time on that."
It's not surprising U.S. policymakers don't want to reflect on the invasions, but the public must. Until we can tell the truth about U.S. foreign policy, and how the military is used to advance that policy in illegal and immoral ways, we will remain easy marks for the politicians and their propagandists.
Part of that propaganda campaign is suggesting that critics of the war don't support the troops, don't recognize their sacrifices, don't appreciate their heroism. We escape the propaganda by not playing that game, by telling the truth even when it is painful.
- Posted in
164 Comments so far
Show AllGöring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hermann_Göring
"it works the same in any country". Especially if you have as many uniformed or should I be blunt and say STUPID people as ours does.?
Did you mean to say uninformed vs. uniformed. Either way makes total sense to me.
How TRUE.
German proverb: "A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves."
Closer to home: "Everyone's a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals." Colman McCarthy
One for the chicks: "Men were made for war. Without it they wandered greyly about, getting under the feet of the women, who were trying to organize the really important things of life." Alice Thomas Ellis,
And one more for the ladies: "Men like war: they do not hold much sway over birth, so they make up for it with death. Unlike women, men menstruate by shedding other people's blood." Lucy Ellman
For pilots:
"The bomb that fell on Hiroshima fell on America too. It fell on no city, no munition plants, no docks. It erased no church, vaporized no public buildings, reduced no man to his atomic elements. But it fell, it fell." Hermann Hagedorn, "The Bomb That Fell on America".
One for the dreamers:
"Draft beer, not men" Bob Dylan.
Also keep in mind:
If they had a war and nobody showed up, it wouldn't be much of a war would it ?
-Raydelcamino
1969
1991
2001
2003
2010
Thank you. As a chick and a lady I appreciate it when the guys and gentlemen are considerate enough to tell special little stories just for us.
:kisses:
hee....
I was in the Marine Corps, and it is sad for me to say this, but Robert Jensen has written a fine article.
Every Marine, Sailor, Soldier, or Airman wants, even needs to think what they are doing is heroic. Otherwise, all the death and blood is a crime, and nobody wants to believe they are participants in a criminal activity.
Sometimes a service member realizes what they are doing is wrong while they are doing it, and the brave ones become conscientious objectors and leave the service. Others don't understand what they are doing, and do not come to realize their crime until after discharge. For some it takes decades for the guilt to sink in.
Still others never learn the error of their service or refuse to let thoughts of guilt slip in. They are always heroes in their own minds. Criminal wars make criminals out of those at the top and those at the bottem.
If you are the driver in a bank robbery and somebody is shot, you are charged along with the trigger-man. In America's military, we are all adults, and crimes by the President and Congress are also crimes by the Generals and the Privates.
The German Soldiers after WW II tried to use the "Just Following Orders" defense at their War Crimes trials, and if we didn't buy it then. How can we buy it now?
That had to be difficult for you to write. But, in my opinion, having written it, you are a true hero. Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
...so there are heros in illegal and immoral wars...fwhew!...for a second there I didn't know how I was going to keep dissenting.
I also 'served' as one of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children and agree that this is a fine article.
Hoa binh
Jimmy...
This country had a truly great Marine once...Smedley Butler...winner of 2 Congressional Medals of Honor. He thwarted a home-grown fascist coup in 1934 by Prescott Bush et al and the following year wrote and published one of the clearest condemnations ever about the role of the military in a capitalist society.
Seek it out. It's called War is a Racket.
Hi, jimmytwoshoes. You've made some good points that're well taken.
It may take an awful lot of will and an exceptionally strong psyche (which most people don't have), to refuse to obey one's government's orders, but I agree that the people who refuse to serve in a wrongheaded, illegal war and kill innocent civilians that've done nothing to them are the heroes who are to be admired and sympathized with, although I must say that I also reserve a certain amount of sympathy for the soldiers who did serve and were forced into positions of doing awful stuff because they had to serve, for whatever reason.
The older brother of an old, old friend of mine was a conscientious objector during our Viet Nam involvement, and he did scut work in a hospital. I also know at least two or three other guys, around my age, who did likewise.
Catherine Power, was driving the get-away car when she was involved with a bank robbery in the Brighton section of Boston with her Weather Underground friends, which resulted in the gunning down of Boston Patrolman Walter Schroeder, who'd responded to the bank robbery (Schroeder left a wife and 9 kids to grow up without a father). She spent a number of years in prison for associating with this stuff, she knew who these people were, what they were up to and what they were doing. Ms. Powers could've and should've walked away from these people at the beginning, which she didn't. Her mental health was supposedly threatened by all this. Well....tough s**t. No sympathy for her whatsoever.
Back to the subject at hand; The war crimes are committed by the politicians at home who call for unnecessary wars, the top brass in the military, and the people who carry out those horrific policies.
That's exactly right: The soldiers who fought in our illegal, immoral, wrongheaded and unnecessary wars are NOT heroes, and many of them concede to that. It's disgusting that our leaders have wasted so much blood, money and resources by exploiting our own men and women as cannon fodder for our stupid, illegal and wrongheaded wars abroad. The troops are needed here...at home!
"It's disgusting that our leaders have wasted so much blood, money and resources by exploiting our own men and women as cannon fodder ... "
And, they will continue to do so until the country is flat broke with zero balances in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and any other "entitlement" programs. They will allow the infrastructure at home to crumble. They will borrow from other countries all they can until the credit is cut off. Then they will print money until it is so inflated it costs more to print a dollar than it is worth. They will sell off whatever is left of "the commons" in order to continue their imperialist wars. Finally the U.S. will be just one more horrid third world cesspool of corruption and poverty, and we will be living under martial law. This is all by design.
Solders who have witnessed and suffered the consequences of war are the experts but politicians most of whom are far from the battlefield almost never are. Tim Murphy of 14th PA congressional district, officiating at a Viet Nam veterans parade in South Park this weekend stated "All service is honorable service and all veterans who fulfilled their duty should be personally thanked by everyone of us. We should say to every veteran we meet, "Thank you for your service." In the landscape of personal reflection there is ample ground to consider the morality or immorality of war. But in the public square there is no such space. Every war is good and all who participated deserve our Thanks. It's how you get reelected.
On WWII German soldiers belt buckle was inscribed 'Gott Mit Uns' (God Is With Us), on a crest that included the German eagle and Nazi swastika.
The same slogan was on the belt buckle of the First World War German soldier too. Although in the first war they didn't have the swastika...
The allied soldiers in that war accused them of being quite cheeky, as everyone knew god was on our side.
Ian McCarthy:
The benevolence of America’s “troops” is sacrosanct. Questioning their rectitude simply isn’t done. It’s the forbidden zone. We may rail against this tragic war, but our soldiers are lauded by all as saints. Why? They volunteered to partake in this savage idiocy, and for this they deserve our utmost respect? I think not.
The nearly two-thirds of us who know this war is bullshit need to stop sucking off the troops. They get enough action raping female soldiers and sodomizing Iraqi detainees. The political left is intent on “supporting” the troops by bringing them home, which is a good thing. But after rightly denouncing the administration’s lies and condemning this awful war, relatively sensible pundits—like Keith Olbermann—turn around and lovingly praise the soldiers’ brave service to the country. Why?
What service are they providing? I don’t remember ordering 300,000 dead Iraqis—although I was doing a lot of heavy narcotics back in ‘03. Our soldiers are not providing a service to the country, they’re providing a service to a criminal administration and their oil company cronies. When a mafia don orders a hit, is the assassin absolved of personal responsibility when it’s carried out? Of course not. What if the hit man was fooled into service? We’d all say, “Tough shit, you dumb Guido,” then lock him up and throw away As a society, we need to discard our blind deference to military service. There’s nothing admirable about volunteering to murder people. There’s nothing admirable about being rooked by obvious propaganda. There’s nothing admirable about doing what you’re told if what you’re told to do is terrible.
I agree completely, and have adopted the habit of saying "WHAT service to our country?"
Good article, and great posts. I especially liked G156 and onemantribe's. As for jimmytwoshoes, you were lied to, and you'll always have to live with your past, but you don't need to live in it. You can help end the insanity by speaking out, and thank you for doing so. I have high hopes for the veterans.
My, we learned so much from WWII.
Paragraph two: "no member of the U.S. has been a hero."
Paragraph three: This is not an attack on soldiers, sailors, and marines. (And to be a hero they must be involved in a legal and moral conflict). For many that is the sticking point. Many do not know about article 6 of our Constitution and our peace movement has not emphasized that enough. What is ironic is that our service people all sign their oath to our Constitution but don't really know what's in it. They join the service and just about every protection our Constitution gives them is taken away. That's why these two wars have had the record number of suicides. And also a record number of "stop loss" practice where service people were denied leaving the service even after their contract date was up and also sent back into combat before their wounds were healed and many will face lack of adequate health care for their needs as they return and also lack of employment as our recession deepens.
Buffy Saint-Marie's song "The Universal Soldier" always comes to mind when thinking on the issue raised in this article. The last 4 lines ring especially true - yet what can "you and me" do about the situation, more than protest? Millions have done so in the past, all to no avail.
He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years
He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you
And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way
And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls
But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on
He's the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.
Ameranglo,
Great song....I saw Buffy perform perform several weeks ago...Great concert.Amazing woman.
A question to all the non USAan's out there in cyber space.
I know all countries have National Pride but my question is:
Do other Nations possess the sense of hyper Exceptionalism that the USA does?
Or is it that Politicians in the USA just manipulate the standard National Pride in a greater manner.
I'm an American citizen now, but spent the first 60 years of my life in England.
There's a certain amount of national pride in Britian, more connected to sport than anything else though. There's a quite tiny British Nationalist Party - a rather nasty rightwing association, who ape attitudes of extreme Republicans here.
Britain, especially English cities (one of which I lived in as a very young child during the war) took such a battering that we learned an expensive lesson: war is nothing to be proud of.
well as a brit, (but not having lived there for the past 30 + years) all i can remember of 'national pride' was the fact that everyone stood up when 'god save the queen' was played............
as another poster stated, i believe it's more to do with football and hooliganism now..................
Yes, at least in the case of India.
This article blames the victims.
This article is too anti soldier. Those people are well meaning dopes for the most part. They really believed the propaganda of the ruling elite, the lies.
I would like to see influential people like the author go after Bush, Cheney, and Obama for starting and continuing illegal, criminal wars.
If he believes he will influence people not to join the military, he is wrong. He is really making it harder for the victims to get treatment and respect from this society for their mistaken service.
The word "hero" is over used and misused for propaganda purposes. Hero: a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
This is a hit piece from the ruling elite university system. Thanks for nothing constructive, buddy.
I agree, and this "professor" is not much of a thinker; or, at least, he is quite ineffective at constructing an argument.
"I am not judging or condemning them..." he claims, but they cannot be "heroes in the truest sense."
When one disqualifies in advance someone else as a potential recipient of a character descriptor, it sure reads like judgment to me, brother!
"Judgments and condemnations should be aimed at the powerful, who typically avoid their responsibility."
Why the hell even write about the soldiers, then?
Sloppy, sloppy work for a professor of journalism, at the least. Intentional obfuscation is a definite possibility.
Exactly.
These kids are just out of high school for the most part. Most have no opportunity to go to college. They have been inculcated into obedience and service during their growing years. Therefore, it is natural for most of the recruits to join the service believing that what they are doing is "right."
Again, these kids are inexperienced and naive. It only serves the ruling elite to diminish their service with the nation, therefore, making it easier to deny them benefits of their service.
Most people who go through the service understand that the whole exercise was a lie and that they were used. But, once in the service they can't just quit. They are stuck under the penalty of dishonorable discharge. And you can figure that would follow them all their lives. So what do they do? They commit suicide, take drugs, and get mental problems.
This guy wants to hurt the people who have been hurt. He wants to kick em when they are down.
This author is a piece of shit of the ruling elite.
True enough, don't despise the kids who were fooled into thinking that they were defending their nation. But don't call them heroes either. Those many who figured out they'd been played don't want to hear that anyway. And the ones who have continued to dupe themselves of their hero status don't need the encouragement.
Thanks. If we are to progress, we need to see the reality of the manipulation by the ruling elite.
I'm in the middle of Joe Bageant's "Deer Hunting with Jesus." If you want an in-depth look into the mindset of some of those being duped into war, Bageant's book will roll your socks up and down.
Thanks, I will take a look at it.
I think we can all agree that there are many brave men in our armed services. We can also agree that a good percentage of them come out of the experience warped and mauled emotionally. Most of us can agree that when these men and women come home for good (after being rotated a few times back into the field), they are not given the care and treatment they need. It's disgusting that there are so many suicides, alcoholics, spouse abusers, etc. who have 'done their duty' for those who like to call themselves Our Leaders.
All armies have heros. That they might be fighting for bad people doesn't distract from that. There were heros in the German army under the Nazis, there are even heros in the Israeli army. But there is nothing noble about wars, even 'good' or 'necessary' ones.
"This article is too anti soldier. " –(DCH)
–On the contrary, it is not 'anti soldier' enough, making it hard to take seriously.
It is speciously 'apolitical.'
VasharKim
I agree. I always find it amazing that people will condemn [justifiably], on what is supposed to be a liberal/leftist site, the actions of the militant Bush/Cheney and Obama administrations while bending over backwards to exculpate the actions of the soldiers who, for the most part, willingly and meekly carry out the orders that they are given by their commanding officers.
The 500 lb. bombs that are dropped down upon those civilians, the homes that are broken into, do not happen by themselves. They occur because of the soldiers that carry out the commands that they are given by their superiors.
My hope, however dismal it may be, is that instead of simply going along with the program the military personnel of today will finally reach the same epiphany of former Green Beret Donald Duncan who wisely noted in the powerful documentary Sir! No Sir! that:
"I was doing it right but I wasn't doing right."
It is long past the point that the ranks of the IVAW begin to swell while the number of robots in the military diminish as they, hopefully, finally realize that they have been used and lied to by their government because they will have come to the realization that theirs is a less than noble cause. As the former German playwright Bertolt Brecht pointed out in his still very relevant poem General, Your Tank Is a Powerful Vehicle, the last thing that the military wants their soldiers to do is for them to do that which it most fears and that is to think [shades of Pat Tillman].
Good article and something that needs saying again and again. In our town we just had an event for "the fallen." Sound better then "the dead" doesn't it?
peacekeepertwo:All things must be profitable. We hear out media, always defend the NRA. The right to bear Arms keeps us from helping Mexico with their terrorist problem. The Military Industrial Complex is deeply rooted in American Society. Politicians have placed laws in the Books, to stop US arms dealers from selling Arms to our enemy. You build the weapons, and then you must sell them so workers can remain Employed. There is always a way to supply the market. People, who have been employed by this Industry, need to think about the value of creating these Jobs in the weapons Industry. Demand the Democrats must introduce 21st century a WPA Program. Put people to work with using Skills they already have. We owe the next Generation a different future, better than never ending War. Break the cycle of destruction, which only leads to more hatred of America. When you work for a Company that Manufactures weapons, you are partially responsible for the death those Weapons Cause. We must break the cycle of Violence. Everyone must work to feed our Families, but you need to find an alternative to making Weapons. No Job is safe, so forget about employee Loyalty. The Company you work for doesn’t look at you as a person. The Company you work for see’s you as an asset to be managed as they see fit. Americans need jobs they can be proud of. We need Jobs which make the world a better place for every human who lives here. Think about what you do. Finally; Christians need to ask themselves, how they will answer Questions, God will surly ask on judgment day.
PLEASE learn to use paragraphs. As said before, you may have many more readers, as well as improving your intelligence.
there can be hero's in a situation like that, for example schindler was a hero to all the jews whose lives he saved, even though the nazis were as brutal and "immoral" as they come
you are mistaking our soldiers on the ground for the people who profit from the wars
These "heroes" were volunteers. They signed up for this, they wanted to go. No one forced them, they were there because they wanted the action or what ever.. This volunteer status takes the hero status away and makes them willing participants in an illegal war.
Please read my response to FastEddie75, below.
Unfortunately, they learn after it's too late. I can remember when I was young, and nothing much mattered except doing something different and exciting. I was wise enough to get out of the draft by carrying a purse--this was in the early sixties--because I was savvy about Southeast Asia. I'd actually read a few books about the subject including Graham Green's "The Quiet American" and besides wanted to go to San Francisco and explore my homosexuality. But I know the feeling of wanting to 'get away'. Several years later I started seeing some of the guys who got drafted from my graduating class. They were much changed, in fact they were crazy. That's what wars do to soldiers, especially if you are on the wrong side.
The United States is good at brainwashing kids. I remember my school career, and how it was drummed into us that we were always right because we were free and democratic. It's no excuse for these boys (and girls) who join up, but it is a reason. Teaching kids to think for themselves is the last thing on the agenda.
Teaching kids to think AND RESEARCH for themselves SHOULD BE the FIRST thing on the agenda.
I had a long exchange over this kind of simplistic, black-and-white thinking deep in the thread following the "Views" article on Pat Tillman last Tuesday (8/17). I won't repeat myself here. I'll just say, in my opinion, George Markley is correct.
.