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Heroes? Not a one
by Jim Davidson
[email protected]

Special to The Libertarian Enterprise

This weekend I've been having some unpleasant discussions on the nature of the "heroism" of the troops. I've concatenated my thoughts from several of these, below. On this Memorial Day weekend, here is what I think of your "heroes" in uniform.

Soldiers are heroic
Soldiers are not always heroes. The soldiers who fought for Nazi Germany were not heroes. They may have been "following orders" but quite a few of them were hanged at Nuremberg, in spite of that "defence."

Soldiers who do wrong are held to account
Who was actually called to account for faking the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964? The NSA released full documentation in 2005 proving that there was no such event. No one has been held to account. Who was called to account for the secret bombing of Cambodia? Everyone knows it happened, that unarmed civilians, women, children were slaughtered, but no one is held to account.

Who was held to account for killing 500,000 Iraqi children with sanctions between 1991 and 2003? Madeleine Albright admits it happened and says it was "worth it." She is not held to account, nor is Warren Christopher, nor is George Bush. Who is held to account for lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? No one.

Who is held to account for the lies told by George Tenet to the 9/11 Commission? No one. Who is held to account for the FAA lying to the 9/11 Commission? No one. Who ordered the stand down?

Who is held to account for the USA military presence at the Branch Davidian Church on 28 February and again on 19 April 1993? No one.

What do you mean by "held to account" with regard to the My Lai massacre?

Who has been held to account for the events shown in the collateral murder video? Children were shot at by your "heroic" troops. Unarmed civilians were slaughtered by your "heroic" troops. And your president says the guy who might have released the video is guilty "he broke the law" so there isn't any point to a trial.

Your president has authorised the execution of American citizens without trial. Your military and your CIA has tortured people to death, at least four dozen that we are sure of, about 200 that we suspect. Your military "heroes" continue to hold innocent people in detention camps without trials, without any rights of the accused.

Your military is a shameful, violent, Stalinist organisation which is engaged in the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, which has slaughtered Native American Indians, Southern Confederates, Filipinos, and many others. If your American flag were on fire, RJ, I would not urinate on it to put it out.

Manning disillusioned
One of the interesting points that is raised in the recent PBS online chat discussion of the Frontline smear piece on Bradley Manning is the fact that Manning became disillusioned with the military when Manning was asked to help with the arrest and torture of professors who were publishing a "Where did the money go?" critique of the Iraqi government. Not that any of you uber-Stalinists care about foreigners being tortured to death by your "heroic" soldiers.

Slaves not to blame
It isn't a conscript army. It is an army of volunteers.

I'm not one of your fellow citizens, Rj. I'm not a slave. I don't agree with your militarism, your slaughtering of civilians in foreign countries, the work you do to support the "war effort." It is not easy to strike out at persons wearing military uniforms. Many of them are ugly, bigoted, and armed. You would know quite a bit about cowardice, perhaps, but I am not a coward. I have been against militarism all my life, and I have fought actively against it. And I have the broken bones to prove it. What did your country have to do in Vietnam? The National Security Agency of the United States released, in 2005, the documents proving that there was no Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Rj. They did that because the NSA doesn't like the lies the CIA told to get the US into the war in Iraq.

I have nothing but contempt for you, for Vietnam veterans, and for veterans of foreign wars generally. The military and the police are the whip hand of the overseers.

You demand accountability only of civilian leadership. But the president is the commander in chief of the military—to whom would you hold him accountable?

Every man has a conscience. God designed it that way. That means that every man who commits unconstitutional acts does so FULLY responsible for each act. Every man has a conscience. The code of military justice, which you never read, says that you are fully responsible, as an individual soldier, for ever atrocity, every murder, every violation of the laws of war. War crimes tribunals put to death Nazis and Japanese. And I promise you, Rj, on my father's grave, there will be war crimes tribunals for every American soldier. You don't get a free pass, you Stalinist jerk.

Support the troops
I support the troops being brought back to the USA. I support the troops being relieved of duty and sent back to their civilian lives.

If you are one of the troops that wants to stay overseas slaughtering children and civilians, I won't support you. I won't support your efforts to maim and kill for your flag. I will gladly and happily help WikiLeaks and OpenLeaks expose your crimes. And, frankly, if that means you end up dead, good riddance.

Keep in mind that I have been against militarism all my life. When I first met Barack Obama in New York City in 1983, he was investigating (some suggest, on behalf of the CIA) the group "Students Against Militarism" of which I had been a member since 1981. If CARD had been active on campus, I assume he would have reported on it in his Sundial magazine article—and on me. I was a member of the committee against registration and the draft (CARD) from 1978.

Uniformity by coercion is tyranny.

Jim Davidson is an author, entrepreneur, and anti-war activist. His 1990 venture to offer a sweepstakes trip into space was destroyed by government action as was his free port and prospective space port in Somalia in 2001. His 2002-2007 venture in free market money and private stock exchange was destroyed by government action in 2007. He's going to Mars if he has to walk. His second book, Being Sovereign is now availble from Lulu and Amazon. He is currently working on a book about travel to Mars with John Wayne Smith, a book with international fugitive Chad Z. Hower on his story, a book on sovereign self-defence, and a book compiling his letters and essays in The Libertarian Enterprise from 1995 to 2010. Contact him at indomitus.net or indsovu.com. Come visit IndSovU teams at gatherings in June 2011 in New Hampshire, September 2011 in Montana, December 2011 in Florida, and March 2012 in Austin, Texas.

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