Image courtesy of The U.S. Army under CC BY 2.0.
The obnoxious odor floating over the ground at Fort Hood, Texas, makes one almost gag. Fort Hood houses some 42,000 troops– the most at any military base-which will almost certainly be heading soon for the Gulf region and a war with Iraq.
If anyone had stopped long enough to find out where the bad odor was coming from they would have seen and heard President George W. Bull firing up the soldiers and getting them ready for combat with rah rah lines like, “This generation is ready. We accept the burden of leadership. We act in the cause of peace and freedom, and in that cause we will prevail”.
Bull dung. To say this generation of Americans is ready for war–especially with the recent downsizing of forces and a possible war on two fronts– is nonsense, and the troops know it.
Moreover, no generation is “ready” for war because wars kill people, and nobody wants to die. It’s as if Bush had said, every generation needs a good war, so cheer up guys, now it’s your turn.
To tell combat troops that “we accept the burden of leadership” is to sell a concept that “one world” politicians have invented, then asked the troops to lay down their lives for. Not their own lives, mind you, but the soldiers’ lives.
We may be the strongest nation in the world, but we are not necessarily the smartest. Or even the most honest. One glance at our emasculated foreign policy will tell even the village idiot that our self-proclaimed role as the world “leader” is just a bit overstated, and more than a bit arrogant.
When President Bull told the troops that “we act in the cause of peace and freedom, and in that cause we will prevail.” it must have come off as unmitigated horse manure. The troops know, without being told, that we will prevail. But don’t be too sure all our soldiers buy into that peace-and-freedom routine. After all, most of them have heard it all before, from their fathers and their grandfathers. You know, the old “making the world safe for democracy” trick -which is a fallacy anyway since the real America is a republic, not a democracy.
Furthermore, these soldiers shouldn’t have to fight for peace and freedom because they already have it–or had it, until President Bull decided to be an imperialistic king of the hill, and bring the whole world into line with America’s way of living and thinking.
Funny thing about all this revving-up-the-troops business. President Bull may look over the crowd and see a bunch of grinning faces and hear shouts of “We’re ready, sir!”, but get these guys away from the cameras, and out of earshot, and their gung-hoism begins to fade.
As one soldier, who has an 18-month-old daughter and a fiancé, said, “Anybody who says he is not nervous or scared is lying to himself.”
Or this off-the-record comment by another soldier, “I’ve always wanted to go to war, but now that it’s here, the thought of getting killed makes me not want to go.” A reasonable thought.
“Privately,” reports Scot Lindlaw of The Associated Press, who was on the scene, “they showed more anxiety about the prospect of being sent to fight Iraq.”
And why not? President Bull still hasn’t given our soldiers (or us) even a hint as to how Iraq is a threat to America’s peace and freedom. Or shown us any irrefutable proof that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Or why we are preparing to attack a country which had nothing to do with the 9/ll tragedy. Or which of the other “evil axis” countries we will be preparing to fight next. Or if this particular war has anything to do with our oil supply or our subservient relationship with Israel.
But, of course, we can’t expect many honest answers from President Bull. He has “others” to answer to. (You didn’t think he was running this country, did you?) And so we go, from crisis to crisis, from anxiety to anxiety, and from war to war.
But war may not be the worst of it.
From a purely “America First” viewpoint, why are we kept in the dark about the reasons for war; why are we not privy to at least some of the alleged “secrets” that will drastically affect our lives; why are we constantly being conned and fed half-truths and often outright lies?
And why, for God sake, we are willing to accept these dangerous encroachments on the very peace and freedom that these soldiers will fight, and maybe die for? It is a terrible disservice to them, and an indictment for the rests of us.
Yes, Mr. President, they will fight your war for you because you have impressed young minds with the glory of combat for “peace and freedom”.
All they ask in return are honest and legitimate reasons to kill, and maybe get killed, from President Bush.
Not from President Bull.
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”