A blunt point about America’s Military
Posted by Dale Husband on June 8, 2009
I just read this blog entry by my friend Henric Jensen:
http://dovaryeh.net/2008/05/25/the-memorial-day-lie/
None of the Human Rights that are in the Constitutional Laws of either the US or any other country has been paid for by soldiers.
That is the First Lie of misguided Patriotism. It is especially not true about a country like the US, which has not had foreign troops in-side its borders since 1776. (No, the attack on Pearl Harbor didn’t land any foreign troops in the US…) Any American Troops being immortalized during Memorial Day this year was in-side other countries when they died – more often than not as the invaders and the attackers, violators and criminals against International Laws. They weren’t protecting the US – they were attacking someone else.
Never has the US taken military action out-side the US without there being a monetary, political or ideological self-interest involved – not even in the two Great Wars (WWI and WWII). The US joined both only after US interests had been attacked.
Today, US Troops litter the globe like hungry locusts, eating, burning, violating and bragging their way through area after area, claiming they are defending American freedoms. That might be, but they are doing so at the expense of the people and countries they violate and demean with their presence.
Yes, each soldier has a mother/father, a wife/husband a daughter/son – and they grieve when that soldier dies away from home playing at war and chauvinism in foreign lands – I acknowledge that. However I also ask those parents, spouses and children to dare to hold the Government, who sent them out to pillage the world in their name, responsible for those crimes against humanity, and use this Memorial Day to protest and to refuse to celebrate US violations of other peoples rights in the name of the American Constitution.
Then I read the comments, including this one by a former Marine:
Alex said
Having an honest understanding of why we send “The Troops” to far away places may be one way to pay respect to veterans.
The US Armed Forces operate as an instrument of US foreign policy. Foreign Policy goals & objectives may, or may not have anything to do with the individual rights and freedoms of American citizens.
In some cases, the US Armed Forces protect our physical security. Freedom may be a different thing.
Alex USMC ‘79-’99
Port Hadlock, WA
And then Henric replied:
Henric C. Jensen said
Sir,
The US Armed Forces operate as an instrument of US foreign policy. Foreign Policy goals & objectives may, or may not have anything to do with the individual rights and freedoms of American citizens.
Which is even more insane.The US Armed Forces go and kill, rape and pillage in foreign countries, not to protect American lives, but to conduct foreign policies!
Normal, sane countries, countries that actually care about international laws and the lives of others than their own citizens, conduct their foreign policies through diplomacy, trade and unarmed negotiations. As the only nation in the world, the US choose to consider the world it’s private military exercise field, and violate international laws, kill, murder, rape and pillage and then go home and celebrate the criminals who committed these crimes on non-American soil.
And then you expect us to respect you.
Sir, I despise and deplore you and think that you, as an ex-marine, should be put on trial for crimes against humanity – for being so stupid and insane that you once joined the US Armed Forces, and for most likely having trained others to kill, rape, maim and murder in the name of the United States of America as part of US foreign policies. I don’t care if that was the only way you could get an education or pay for your family’s food – millions of people do without that every day or find other ways to finance their studies and families. They don’t join a war machine to do it.
Personally, I tend to agree that about 90% of our troop deployments outside the United States were and are both unnecessary and unjust. We have been in a “War on Terrorism” because of the attacks of 9-11, but why were the attacks of 9-11 done in the first place? Because we insisted on sticking our noses into the Middle East over and over. Why? Because we have our collective wires crossed over our greed for Arab oil and our obsession with the “Holy Land” where the state of Israel happens to be. What a mess!
I’m not proud to be an American, nor am I proud of America’s troops. It’s time for the phony patriotism to be done away with, period!
