Support our troops? Not!

The farmers you kill are your own brothers and sisters… When you hear words of a man telling you to kill, remember instead the words of God, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ God’s law must prevail. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God.
Archbishop Oscar Romero to the troops.

This morning I was accosted by a mob trying to convince me to put on a ribbon on my car. The ribbon read: “Support our troops.”

I declined.

Then, I as I was driving home, some smarmy politico was saying on the radio: “There is not one person in this country that does not support our troops”. Sadly, these lies can be heard on both sides of the border, in the US and in Canada, and I suspect in every country around the World (save for that one which disbanded its military). So, I asked my neighbors, in the dog park and in the coffee shop. Out of 14, not one supported what our troops are up to. Since I do not know a single person who does support our troops for building more thug regimes that will sooner or later cost the lives of our children this leads me to the conclusion: Anyone who spreads these lies is a war criminal justifying his hunger for mass murder.

I told the mob outside my supermarket: I do not support the troops.

Every generation in my family had at least one family member in the military. Some gave their lives, the last ones were: my grandfather and great-grandfather who died during WWII; my father is on disability from wounds received while in the service. I am of the first generation that does not wear a uniform. My grandfathers fought and died for the old slogans: defending their homeland from aggressors and occupiers. They never questions the rhetoric. I grew up in the tradition of respect for the uniform as representative of the highest principles of honor and patriotism. In our family when one became disillusioned with the politicians one found the strength necessary to believe in the State through the unwavering principles of the military, the men and women who stand on guard for their, our homeland.

Boy, was I duped!

The military’s following of criminal lies that cost over million Iraqi lives has leveled the military with the administration of mass murderers and sick thugs. The military lost credibility and respect.

Every war is waged on lies. When soldiers enlist to kill and to die, they kill and die for lies, not for their family, not for their friends, neighbors or country. They die for every lying occupant of the White House, the Sussex Drive, the White Hall, for every war profiteering corporation, and so on. NIMN – Not in my name. Not in my family’s name. Soldiers die for lies. They are sacrificed to support the politics of the deranged trigger happy politicians. The enemy our soldiers are fighting are not the poor peasants of this or that “failed state”. The “enemy” our soldiers aim their weapons at are… you and me. Wars waged against outside enemies are only means to rally and to subjugate own citizens.

Still, I don’t blame the individual soldiers, they comprise the most indoctrinated segment of the population (propaganda designed to give the soldiers the notion that they participate in the military action out of own decision and choice spurred by conscience – see the individual soldiers’ accounts of how happy they are to “build better lives” for the occupied peoples). Soldiers follow orders, and they should, but up to a point. Let us not forget the line of defense used during the Nuremberg trials: “I was following orders”. The military command is to blame along with the politicians. The military command is engaged in the perpetuation of lies that spews out from every lying administration. All governments lie, it is the basis for re-election and the continuous grip on power. Soldiers die because they lie. The command fully participates in the propaganda of corrupted psychopaths who call themselves our leaders; the command sacrifices its service members to push forward the old, but waning slogans of the need for sacrifices to “protect our families”, “to defend our country”, or “our way of life” (mind the latter, as it shows that propaganda no longer aims at territorial patriotism, but turns decidedly ideological); they perpetuate the lie that is firmly based on the hatred of our personal or national (but imaginary, or nurtured) enemy… the enemy that does not exist, that never existed, because the only enemy, the real enemy was always he who profits from perpetuation of tension and the sense of danger. To support the troops is to appease the deranged psychopaths who benefit from the reign of terror.

The time has come for the military to prove what the uniform really represents, before it is forgotten, before soldiers are told to level their death tools at their family, friends and neighbors.

“If any question why we died
Tell them, because our fathers lied.”
Rudyard Kipling

Here are forget-me-nots for those who died for lies (on all sides):