[wvns] Scott Ritter: The Good American
U.S. soldiers detain a protester as Iraqis rally against the U.S.
military presence in the Kamaliyah neighborhood of Baghdad on May 2.
Hundreds attended the rally, some throwing stones at a passing
American convoy. [AP Photo / Adil al-Khazali]
The Good American
By Scott Ritter
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070510_the_good_american/
I joined the American Legion a few years back. As a veteran of the
Persian Gulf War in 1991, I was eligible to do so for some time but
always hesitated, perhaps out of a sense of trying to deny that my
days as an active-duty combatant were long past. Every year, on
Memorial Day, my fellow firefighters and I would gather in the
basement of the local American Legion hall before we paraded before
the town we protect. I would look around at the uniforms and faded
patches and ribbons worn by the veterans who joined us in the hall and
realize that they, too, were deserving of a great deal more support
than simply being wheeled out once a year to participate in a parade.
So I sent in my application and was accepted.
One of the fringe benefits of membership in the American Legion is a
subscription to its monthly journal, The American Legion, billed as
"the magazine for a strong America." It quickly became apparent that
The American Legion magazine was a sounding board for many holding
quite militaristic and jingoistic opinions based on their rather
limited personal experiences, many dating back to World War II. The
war in Iraq, together with the overarching "global war on terror,"
seems to be viewed by many in the American Legion as an extension of
their own past service, and much effort is made to connect World War
II and the Iraq conflict as part and parcel of the same ongoing
American "liberation" of the world's oppressed.
It's a shame for these Legionnaires that the Iraqis couldn't have
turned out to be blond, blue-eyed Germans who looked like us, and
whose women could be wooed with chocolate and nylon stockings by the
noble American liberator and occupier. Or, short of that, passive
Japanese, who freely submitted their women to the massage parlors and
barracks of their American conquering heroes while their men rebuilt a
shattered society. The simplistic approach of many of the American
Legion's most hawkish advocates for the ongoing disaster in Iraq seems
to be drawn from a selective memory which seeks to impose a carefully
crafted past experience dating back to the last "good war" (i.e.,
World War II), expunged of all warts and blemishes, onto the current
situation in Iraq in a manner which strips away all reality.
It turns out that the Iraqis aren't like German or Japanese people at
all, but rather a fiercely independent (if overly complex) nation
deeply resentful of a so-called liberation which has brought them
nothing but pain and agony, primarily at the hands of those who have,
unbidden, "freed" them from their past. The fact that the Iraqis
resent the ongoing American occupation, and choose to express this
resentment through violent resistance instead of submissive passivity,
is in turn resented by many of the Legion's membership. "War has been
declared on the United States by those who are envious of our freedom,
and they won't stop until we are under their heel," writes one
Legionnaire in a letter published in the May 2007 issue of "the
magazine for a strong America." The juxtaposition of Iraq with those
who perpetrated the events of Sept. 11, 2001, implied in this
statement is reflective of a level of ignorance that boggles the mind.
Iraq never declared war on the United States, the salesmanship
exhibited in our promotion of "freedom" in Iraq leaves nothing to
envy, and the Iraqis will stop resisting when we leave their country.
Don't try telling that to the blustery former Marine who authored the
letter in question, however. He, like the majority of the Legion, is
tired of hearing about "Bush's war."
"Death, Not in Vain" is the title of the feature article of the May
2007 issue. The story revolves around how the parents of one Marine
who died in Iraq seek to define their son's sacrifice. "People may
not agree with the reason we went to war," the mother of the fallen
Marine is quoted as saying, "but while our troops are over there, we
can't be telling the world what they are doing is wrong. If we say we
support them, we have to support what they are doing." Of course, the
nature of the "disagreement" surrounding the Iraq war is never fully
articulated in the article. There is no mention made of the
discredited claims by President Bush and other war advocates about
weapons of mass destruction or connections between Saddam Hussein's
government and al-Qaida. Instead, the reader is told repeatedly about
how fallen American service members gave their lives for America and a
"free Iraq." Quoting their fallen sons, the families of Marines killed
in Iraq speak proudly of bold statements such as "We need to be there,
but it's going to be hard, and it is going to be a long time." Yet
they never explore the actual "need" cited.
"We've got to support the troops and the mission," the article quotes
one family member as saying. "The two are dependent on each other."
I'm all for supporting the troops. But blind support for a mission of
such nebulous origin? This is a much different matter, one requiring
more introspective investigation. I don't think it was the magazine's
intent, but a foundation of such an investigation was laid in the very
same issue. In his article "Minimizing the Holocaust," Harvard Law
School professor Alan Dershowitz slams those who seek to dismiss Nazi
Germany's effort to commit genocide against Europe's Jews. It is a
very difficult article to digest, not because of the legitimate
premise that those who seek to deny or minimize the Holocaust are
deserving of condemnation, but rather for the ease with which the
moralistic Dershowitz explains the bombing of Dresden in 1945 as a
"legitimate act of belligerent reprisal for the relentless bombings of
civilians in London and elsewhere," or the dismissive waving-off of
the systematic starvation of 1 million German prisoners of war by the
United States after the surrender of Germany as an inconvenient result
of a "food crisis across Europe, a result of the continent's
decimation," and being a "far cry from the 6 million innocents who
perished at the hands of the Nazis with absolutely no military
justification."
I would be curious to know how Dershowitz would judge how the families
of German soldiers deployed in combat operations should have viewed
the Second World War. What if a mother of a young panzer grenadier
fighting on the Russian front was to say, "The troops are the mission,
and we cannot separate our support for either"? Should blind support
for the fighting men likewise have blinded the families of German
soldiers to the illegitimacy of their cause? Certainly Dershowitz
would favor the "good German," one who would have sought to deny
facilitation of the Holocaust by refusing to support the war which
empowered it. Would he so favor the "good American," one driven by a
sense of moral responsibility to speak out against acts perpetrated in
Iraq and elsewhere by American fighting forces ostensibly in support
of freedom, but in reality an extension of illegitimate policies
reeking of global hegemony and American empire? Or would he choose to
explain away Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, the CIA's secret
gulag of torture as "legitimate acts of bellicose reprisals" for the
events of Sept. 11, 2001? In Dershowitz's tortured legal brain the
events at Haditha and elsewhere, including the Marine massacre of
civilians in Afghanistan, likewise assume legitimacy in this newfound
legal defense of "legitimate bellicose reprisal."
In the end, Dershowitz's opinions are irrelevant. The disturbing
reality, however, is that his mind-set is not limited to the soap box
he enjoys as a teacher of jurisprudence at one of America's finest
institutions of higher learning but rather is increasingly embraced by
American service members deployed in harm's way. A recent U.S. Army
survey shows that some 40 percent of American soldiers and Marines
support the use of torture as a means of gathering intelligence. Some
66 percent would refuse to turn in a fellow soldier or Marine for
abusive actions against civilians, and less than 50 percent believe
that noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect. Ten
percent of those surveyed actually admitted to abusing civilians and
their property for no reason whatsoever. While acknowledging that
this mind-set is at complete odds with official policy concerning the
conduct of military personnel in a combat zone, the Pentagon did its
best to portray the survey results as clear evidence that there was,
in fact, "good leadership" in place, since the desires of the troops
had not manifested themselves in large-scale acts of abuse or torture.
True, but the survey is also clear evidence that when such abuse or
torture does occur, it is not the result of a few "bad apples," so to
speak, but instead indicative of a trend that could easily spiral out
of control on any given day.
The survey results should not come as a surprise to anyone. The
innumerable home movies shot in Iraq and Afghanistan, some
immortalized on YouTube, some in documentary film, some simply shared
with friends and family, all show the same disturbing trend. Whether
it is a Marine singing the lyrics to the self-written "Hadji Girl," or
soldiers speaking disparagingly about "ragheads" or "sand niggers," or
any other dehumanizing remark imaginable, the reality is our troops
aren't in Iraq to liberate the Iraqi people. We're there to kill them
and we do an extraordinarily good job. The British government
recently certified as "sound" the methodologies used by the study
published in the medical journal The Lancet which estimates the number
of deaths (as of 2006) that can be directly attributed to the 2003
invasion of Iraq and its aftermath at 655,000. If anything, this
number has grown by leaps and bounds since the study was conducted.
One can point to sectarian violence as a major contributor to this
total, but as an American I tend to reflect on the American-on-Iraqi
violence, such as the barely mentioned deaths of Iraqi children in a
recent air-delivered bomb attack against suspected Iraqi insurgents.
I'm sure Dershowitz and those American service members desensitized to
their own acts of depravity can explain the deaths of these innocents
as "legitimate acts of bellicose reprisal." I call it murder, even if
these deaths occurred in time of war.
Every mother and father of every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine
deployed in Iraq should reflect on this as well. "Little Johnny" may
write home about what he says is a "just war" that "needs to be
fought," but before one embraces the words of someone in harm's way in
desperate need of self-justification for the things he has seen and
done, re-examine the area of operations your loved one is serving in
or, worse, has perished in. Are they "living among the Iraqi people,"
as some would have you believe? Or are they sequestered away in base
camps or fire bases, forced to conduct patrols out among a population
that for the most part hates them and wants them gone from Iraq? Does
"Johnny" himself call the Iraqis ragheads? Does he give a frustrated
kick at the Iraqi male he just apprehended, not because of any crime
or offense committed, but simply because he was there? Does he point
his rifle and scream expletives at the mother or wife or daughter who
cries out for a loved one? Does he break a lamp or table to emphasize
his point? Or does he do worse, allowing his emotions and frustration
to break free as he beats, shoots or rapes those he now hates more
than anything else in the world? Freedom? Get real. The mission of
our military in Iraq is survival, and that is no military mission at all.
The war in Iraq is as immoral a conflict as the United States has ever
been involved in. Past wars were fought in a day and age where
information was not readily available on the totality of issues
surrounding a given conflict. One could excuse citizens if they were
not equipped with the knowledge and information necessary to empower
them to speak out against bad policy. Not so today. For someone
today to proclaim ignorance as an excuse for inactivity is as morally
and intellectually weak an argument as can be imagined. The truth
about those who claim they simply "didn't know" lies in their own lack
of commitment to a strong America, one founded on principles and
values worth fighting for, and one where every American is committed
to the defense of the same. Ignorance is bad citizenship. In this
day and age, bad citizenship carries ramifications beyond the environs
of our local communities. Given America's dominant role in the world,
bad American citizenship has a way of manifesting itself globally.
I'm not calling the parents of those who have fallen in Iraq and who
continue to voice their blind adherence to the Bush administration's
policies in Iraq bad citizens. I understand their need to come to
grips with their loss the best way possible, which is to try and
extract some meaning from the sacrifice their family has had to make.
But I draw the line when these families allow their suffering to
translate into blanket suffering for others. As The American Legion
magazine quoted one such individual who advocated in favor of the Bush
administration: "Are more servicemen and women returning the way my
son did, in a casket, as a result of our words and actions? I believe
the answer is yes. The perception of a weak American military, should
we lose, will make our enemy stronger than we ever imagined. Because
we don't want to be at war any more doesn't mean the war is over."
Thus, in a blind effort to find meaning in her son's death, this
mother is willing to inflict suffering on other American families.
This may sound like a harsh indictment, but she indicts herself. The
same mother concludes the article with the following quote: "I told
President Bush last summer that the biggest insult anyone could hand
me would be to pull the troops out before the job is complete. If
we're going to quit, at that point I'll have to ask, `Why did my son
die?' " The question she should have been asking long before his death
was, of course, "Why might my son die?" That she failed to do so, and
now seeks to send others off to their death in a cause not worthy of a
single American life, is where she and those of her ilk stop receiving
my sympathy and understanding.
The American Legion magazine, in its May 2007 issue, belittles those
who speak out against the war. "While our forefathers gave us the
right and privilege to challenge our leaders," one father of a fallen
Marine writes, "the manner and method that some people have chosen to
use at this time only emboldens the enemy." Reading between the lines,
freedom of speech is treasonous if you question the motives and
actions of those who got us involved in the Iraq war. Alan Dershowitz
can only wish that there had been more "good Germans" speaking out
about the policies of Adolf Hitler before the Holocaust became reality.
I yearn for a time when "good Americans" will be able to stop and
reverse equally evil policies of global hegemony achieved through
pre-emptive war of aggression. I know all too well that in this case
the "enemy" will only be emboldened by our silence, since at the end
of the day the "enemy" is ourselves. I can see the Harvard professor
shaking an accusatory finger at me for the above statement, chiding me
for creating any moral equivalency between the war in Iraq and the
Holocaust. You're right, Mr. Dershowitz. There is no moral
equivalency. In America today, we should have known better, since we
ostensibly stand for so much more. That we have collectively failed
to halt and repudiate the war in Iraq makes us even worse than the
Germans.
Scott Ritter was a Marine Corps intelligence officer from 1984 to 1991
and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He
is the author of numerous books, and his latest is "Waging Peace: The
Art of War for the Antiwar Movement" (Nation Books, April 2007).
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