- The Defense Department's "Defend America" Web
site reads, "Dear member of the U.S. military: Thank you for defending
our freedom." Fill in your name and hometown and click to join the
more than 2 million who have sent the message.
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- The sentiment seems hard to argue with. No matter what
one thinks of the coming war against Iraq, can't we all send such a message
to those who serve?
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- Not if we want to be honest about U.S. war plans, for
those troops won't be defending our freedom but defending America's control
over the strategically crucial energy resources of the Middle East. They
will be in the service of the empire, fighting a war for the power and
profits of the few, not freedom for the many.
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- To some, that statement may seem disrespectful. But resistance
to the coming war against Iraq doesn't signal a lack of respect for those
who do the fighting. I never have served in the military, but my family
and friends have, and I have empathy for people on the front lines who
face the risks.
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- If I truly am to respect them--as human beings and as
fellow citizens--I should be willing to state clearly my objections to
this war.
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- That requires distinguishing between the rhetoric and
the reality of U.S. foreign and military policy. Every great power claims
noble motives for its wars, but such claims usually cover an uglier reality,
and we are no different.
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- For most of the post-World War II era, the United States'
use of force against weaker nations was justified as necessary to stop
Soviet plans for world conquest. The Soviet regime was authoritarian, brutal
and interventionist in its own sphere, and it eventually acquired the capacity
to destroy us with nuclear weapons.
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- But the claim that the Soviets were a global military
threat to our existence also was a political weapon to frighten Americans
into endorsing wars to suppress independent development in the Third World
and accepting a permanent wartime economy.
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- With the Soviet Union gone, American planners needed
a new justification for the military machine. International terrorism may
prove more durable a rationale, for organizations such as al-Qaeda are
a real threat, and we have a right to expect our government to take measures
to protect us.
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- But the question is: Which measures are most effective?
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- U.S. intelligence officials have acknowledged that the
U.S. attack on Afghanistan did little to reduce the threat and may have
complicated counterterrorism efforts. But the war was effective at justifying
a continuing U.S. military presence in Central Asia. A war against Iraq,
being marketed as part of the war on terrorism, is even more obviously
about U.S. control of the region's oil.
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- So, we have to separate what may motivate people in the
armed forces from the real role of the U.S. military.
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- I have no doubt that many of the people who serve believe
they are fighting for freedom, an honorable goal we should respect. But
they are doing that for a government with a different objective--to shore
up U.S. power and guarantee the profits of an elite--that we shouldn't
support.
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- There is no disrespect in urging fellow citizens who
have joined the military to ask, "What am I really fighting for?"
and, "Who really benefits from the risks I take?"
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- If we civilians truly care about the troops--as well
as the innocent people of Iraq who will die in a war--we should make it
clear to Washington that we won't support wars for power and instead demand
a sane foreign policy that seeks real freedom and justice, not dominance
and control.
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- My message to the troops would be: "Thank you for
being willing to defend freedom, but please join the resistance to this
unjust war."
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- That is a message of support for the troops and a plea
for solidarity among ordinary people who want to build a better world,
not serve the empire.
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- It is a reminder that, as John McCutcheon put it so eloquently
in song: "The ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and
lame/And on each end of the rifle we're the same."
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- Robert Jensen is the author of Writing Dissent: Taking
Radical Ideas From the Margins to the Mainstream and a journalism professor
at the University of Texas at Austin.
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- http://www.counterpunch.org/jensen01022003.html
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