I Do Not Support the Troops

Yesterday (Feb 11), I heard and read about the Berkeley, Calif., city council's principled stand against the presence of a Marine recruiting office in their city. (Here's hoping they don't back down despite pressure from both state and federal governments to do so.) Like neurasthenic women of the Victorian Era, the Republicans have reacted hysterically. U.S. Senator Jim DeMint, R-S.C., is sponsoring legislation that would cut off federal funds for Berkeley (including school lunches) if they don't apologize for their effrontery. Good job, Jim, passing a law that lets kids go hungry because a city council passes a largely symbolic resolution reflecting its disgust and opposition to the Iraq Occupation and the militarization of our country.

Which is as nice as any segue into the topic of this latest post. This is a hard essay to compose because I want to make it clear that I don't hate nor disrespect people who choose to join our military; my brother was a Marine and served in the elder Bush's Gulf foray. I recognize that, unfortunately, some military capacity must be maintained. I even recognize that, on occasion, wars must be fought because there's no alternative (though, to be honest, I'm hard pressed to find any outside of the Civil War and the Second World War that qualify in American history).

That said: I do not support the troops.

Why should I? They persecuted an unjust, unnecessary, immoral and illegal war and are persecuting an equally untenable occupation. Their duty as citizens of a democracy (which they are before they are soldiers) is to refuse to participate in this atrocity, which has (so far) claimed upwards of 1 million Iraqi lives and displaced several million more (the equivalent, in raw numbers, of 50 million Americans forced to flee their homes).

Which troops do I support? The brave handful who refuse to go or refuse to go back.

We have willfully destroyed an entire country (two, if you count Afghanistan, that ugly stepsister or our criminally incompetent "war on terror"). There's nothing that can justify what we have done (and that includes the decade of bombing that preceded the war under Clinton's watch) and damn all we can do to atone for it.

We are become a nation of self-righteous, arrogant bastards so blinded by the "justice" of our cause that we will tear down anyone, anything that dares to oppose us. (A tendency we've been all too prone to since our founding; cf., the "city on the hill," Manifest Destiny, "destroy the village to save it," etc.)

Like Athens in the 5th century BC and Rome in the 1st, the choice of "empire" or "democracy" confronts us. Both Athens and Rome chose "empire" and lost their democracies. Administrations since FDR's day have consistently chosen the burdens of empire and we see its fruits today in the death of democracy: warrantless wiretaps, mercenary armies, loss of habeas corpus, illegal covert ops, the unitary executive, a bloated military, military tribunals, denial of due process, torture, corruption, stifling free speech, preemptive war, signing statements and Executive Orders...and it goes on.

George Bush may just be this republic's Sulla. Before, all the forms of democracy were observed even if the substance advanced the cause of empire. Now, however, the sacred boundaries of the city are breached and troops march on the Capitol. All done, of course, only to restore the republic and protect it from its enemies. If the last century has taught us anything (apparently, alas, it hasn't) it's that the greater enemy to "our way of life" is the oppression of our own government against its own citizens.

I do not support the troops. I oppose any bill that continues to fund the Occupation. I am disgusted at the Congress that supinely bows to the demands of those two sociopaths who stole the election in 2000 (and probably did so again in 2004). I do not "hate America" -- in fact, I kind of like it. At least, I like the America envisioned by the Founders [see Addenda below] and described by Lincoln as the "best hope" to all the nations of the world, which is why I am so troubled and saddened to see us sink so low.

Addenda:

[Yes, I know the Founders had their issues. "Slavery" probably being the worst. But the ideals expressed in the Declaration and their concrete expression in the Constitution are two examples of the best that human beings are capable of.]

[Republicans are vile! No, no -- they aren't. At least not as individuals. I know Republicans, some of them are my best friends, but their party has slipped so far into the Darkside that I find it unfathomable why they cling to it (except, of course, for the fact that we're more or less locked into a permanent two-party system without electoral reform and/or Constitutional amendment -- a problem I face all the time when I try to support the Democrats).

This is the party that, after all, cuts VA funding and demands that soldiers who can't serve out their enlistments because of combat wounds return their signing bonuses. This is the party that, after all, refuses to adequately equip its troops despite having chosen to go to war. This is the party that, after all, cares so little about human life that a prominent member was heard to remark that Hurricane Katrina was actually a "good thing" for the poor and displaced of New Orleans. This is the party, after all, whose Administration drove a man insane (Jose Padilla) with torture and isolation, and continues to do so to I don't know how many others at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and who knows how many other dungeons.

And I'm stuck with a party whose leadership is so spineless that they can't even assert themselves when they're in the majority.]