A Young Marine Speaks
Out
By Philip Martin
12/08/06 "Lew
Rockwell" --- I'm sick
and tired of this patriotic, nationalistic
and fascist crap. I stood through a
memorial service today for a young
Marine that was killed in Iraq back in
April. During this memorial a number of
people spoke about the guy and about his
sacrifice for the country. How do you
justify 'sacrificing' your life for a war
which is not only illegal, but is being
prosecuted to the extent where the only
thing keeping us there is one man's power,
and his ego. A recent Marine Corps
intelligence report that was leaked said
that the war in the al-Anbar province is
unwinnable. It said that there was nothing
we could do to win the hearts and minds, or
the military operations in that area. So I
wonder, why are we still there? Democracy is
not forced upon people at gunpoint. It's the
result of forward thinking individuals who
take the initiative and risks to give their
fellow countrymen a better way of life.
When I joined I took an oath. In that oath I
swore to protect the Constitution of the
United States. I didn't swear to build
democracies in countries on the other side
of the world under the
guise of "national security." I
didn't join the military to be part of an
Orwellian ("1984") war machine that
is in an obligatory war against whoever the
state deems the enemy to be so that the
populace can be controlled and riled up in a
pro-nationalistic frenzy to support any new
and oppressive law that will be the key to
destroying the enemy. Example given – the
Patriot Act. So aptly named, and totally
against all that the constitution stands for.
President Bush used the reactionary nature of
our society to bring our country together and
to infuse into the national psyche a need to
give up their little-used rights in the hope
to make our nation a little safer. The same
scare tactics he used to win elections. He
drones on and on about how America and the
world would be a less safe place if we weren't
killing Iraqis, and that we'd have to fight
the terrorists at home if we weren't abroad.
In our modern day emotive society this
strategy (or strategery?) works, or had
worked, up until last month's elections.
My point in this; to show that America was never
nationalistic. If anything they were Statalistic
(giving their allegiance to the state of their
residence). This is shown in the fact that the
founders created states with fully capable and
independent governments and not provinces that
were just a division of the federal government.
These men believed that America was a place
where imperialistic values would be
non-existent. Where the people trying to make
their lives better by working hard, thinking,
inventing and using the free market would tie up
so much of normal life that imperialistic
colonization and the fighting of wars thousands
of miles away for interests that are not our own
would be avoided. They believed this expansion
of power could be left to the European nations,
the England, France and Spain of their time.
However this recent, and current influx of
nationalistic feeling has created an environment
where giving
up your rights, going to a foreign country to
fight a people who did not ask for us to be there,
nor did their leader do anything to warrant us
being there, and dying would be considered
honorable and heroic. I don't believe it anymore.
I don't believe it's right for any American to go
along with it anymore. Yes I know that we in the
military are bound by the UCMJ and somehow don't
fall under the Constitution (the very thing we're
suppose to be defending) but sooner or later there
is a decision that every American soldier, marine,
airmen and seamen makes to allow themselves to be
sent to a war that is against every fiber this
country was founded on. I know that when April
rolls around I will be thinking long and hard on
that decision. Even though we in the military are
just doing as we're told we still have the moral
and ethical obligation to choose to do as we're
told, or to say, "No, that isn't right."
I believe that if more troopers like me and the
professional
military, the officers and commanders, start
standing up and saying that they won't let
themselves or their troops go to this illegal war
people will start standing up and realizing what
the heck is going on over there.
The sad fact of the matter is that we are not
fighting terrorists in Iraq. We are fighting the
Iraqi people who feel like a conquered and
occupied people. Personally I have a hard time
believing that if I was an Iraqi that I wouldn't
be doing everything in my power to kill and maim
as many Americans as possible. I know that the
vast majority of Americans would not be happy with
the Canadian government, or any other foreign
government, liberating us from the clutches of
George W. Bush, even though a large number of us
would like that, and forcing us to accept their
system of government. Would not millions of
Americans rise up and fight back? Would you not
rise up to protect and defend your house and your
neighborhood if someone invaded your country?
But we send thousands of troops to a foreign
country to do just that. How is it moral to fight
a people who are just trying to defend their homes
and families? I think next time I go to Iraq
perhaps I should wear a bright red coat and carry
a Brown Bess instead of my digitalized utilities
and M16.
Notice I never once used the word homeland in any
of this. I have a secondary point I want to bring
up now. Never once was the term homeland ever used
to describe the country of America until Mr. Bush
began the department of homeland security after
the 9/11 attacks. Taking a 20th century history
class will teach us that the most notable
countries in the last century that referred to
their country in this way were Nazi Germany and
Soviet Russia. Hitler used the term fatherland to
drum up support, nationalistic support, for his
growing war machine. He used the nationalism he
created in the minds of the Germans to justify the
sacrifice of their livelihood to build the war
machine to get back their power from the
oppressive restrictions the English and French had
put on them at Versailles. This is the same
feeling that has been virulently infecting the
American psyche in the last hundred years. This is
the same feeling that consoles a mother after her
son is killed in an attempt to prosecute an
aggressor's war 10,000 miles away. It's also known
as Patriotism these days, but I say, "No
more." No more nationalistic inanity, no more
passing it off as patriotism. Patriotism is
learning, and educating oneself to understand what
their country really stands for.
I heard a lot during the memorial service about
how the dead Marine did so much good for others
and how his helping others was like a little
microcosm of America helping because we have the
power to do so. Well if we have the power to help
people why aren't we helping in Darfur where
hundreds of thousands of people have died in the
last 10 years. Saddam was convicted and sentenced
to
death for killing 143 Shiites who conspired to
assassinate him. (I know all you
"patriotic" Americans would be calling
for the heads of anyone who conspired to
assassinate supreme leader Bush). And yet we spend
upwards of 1 trillion dollars and nearing 3,000
lives to help these Iraqis when they don't even
want us there. Not to mention we don't have the
legal justification to be there. I guess we should
wait around for the omnipotent W Bush to decide
who we should use our superpowerdom to help next.
It's about time to throw him and the rest of the
fascists out. Moreover it's about time to start
educating Americans about their past and history,
and letting them know that imperialistic leaders
are not what the founders of this great country
wanted.
Philip Martin <grimmythedog@netscape.net>
has been a Marine for 2 years. He is in the
infantry (a "grunt"), and spent 7
months in the al-Anbar province of Iraq. He went
on more
than 180 combat patrols in and outside of the
city of Fallujah, where he was hit with 2 IEDs
(luckily never injured) and was involved in a
number of firefights. He is currently stationed
in Twentynine Palms, CA, and due to return to
Iraq for a second deployment in April 2007. He
is 21-years-old.
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