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Don't Support The Troops
based on a column by Richard Hugus. October 28, 2005
During the Vietnam War, the antiwar movement had two approaches to the question of how to treat active US soldiers. One side said that allying with soldiers would cause dissension in the ranks and weaken the war machine from within. The other side said that soldiers who went to Vietnam were killers who didn't deserve our respect. Those still in battle saw this and eventually realized that what they were involved in was not supported and not honorable, and this led, properly, to their demoralization.
It is painful to say, but mothers who have lost their sons to the Iraq war should not be put in front of the movement to end the war, as if our people are more important than the people they have been killing. The people we should be supporting are the Iraqis under Uncle Sam's hobnail boot, not the poor fools involved in carrying out his crimes. The number of Iraqis murdered in their own land by the US over the last 14 years numbers almost two million. If that number were only 200 the Iraqis would still deserve our primary attention because it was the US government who attacked them, not the other way around.
The war machine, from recruiters, to people "in the service", to local bases in our communities, deserve our active and vocal disrespect. Conscientious objectors and mourning mothers do not bother the Pentagon. What bothers the Pentagon is when significant numbers of the home population renounce any shred of support for what they do, when we honor the Iraqi dead with candlelight vigils, when we put on our protest stages the mothers of Iraqi martyrs, when we say we support those who are fighting US invaders in Iraq, and when we take action in our own country to undermine the war machine at its source, as it is our responsibility to do.
Why would we want to support people who have volunteered for murder?
You have been reading excerpts from "We Don't Support The Troops" by Richard Hugus. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/a8w4r. Thanks to uruknet.info. We visit often and we hope you will too.
based on a column by Richard Hugus. October 28, 2005
During the Vietnam War, the antiwar movement had two approaches to the question of how to treat active US soldiers. One side said that allying with soldiers would cause dissension in the ranks and weaken the war machine from within. The other side said that soldiers who went to Vietnam were killers who didn't deserve our respect. Those still in battle saw this and eventually realized that what they were involved in was not supported and not honorable, and this led, properly, to their demoralization.
It is painful to say, but mothers who have lost their sons to the Iraq war should not be put in front of the movement to end the war, as if our people are more important than the people they have been killing. The people we should be supporting are the Iraqis under Uncle Sam's hobnail boot, not the poor fools involved in carrying out his crimes. The number of Iraqis murdered in their own land by the US over the last 14 years numbers almost two million. If that number were only 200 the Iraqis would still deserve our primary attention because it was the US government who attacked them, not the other way around.
The war machine, from recruiters, to people "in the service", to local bases in our communities, deserve our active and vocal disrespect. Conscientious objectors and mourning mothers do not bother the Pentagon. What bothers the Pentagon is when significant numbers of the home population renounce any shred of support for what they do, when we honor the Iraqi dead with candlelight vigils, when we put on our protest stages the mothers of Iraqi martyrs, when we say we support those who are fighting US invaders in Iraq, and when we take action in our own country to undermine the war machine at its source, as it is our responsibility to do.
Why would we want to support people who have volunteered for murder?
You have been reading excerpts from "We Don't Support The Troops" by Richard Hugus. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/a8w4r. Thanks to uruknet.info. We visit often and we hope you will too.
