http://musliminsuffer.wordpress.com/
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
War Crime :
A Young Marine Speaks Out
By Philip Martin
12/08/06 "<http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/martin-p1.html>Lew Rockwell"
--- I'm sick and tired of this patriotic, nationalistic and fascist crap. I
stood through a memorial service today for a young Marine that was killed
in Iraq back in April. During this memorial a number of people spoke about
the guy and about his sacrifice for the country. How do you justify
'sacrificing' your life for a war which is not only illegal, but is being
prosecuted to the extent where the only thing keeping us there is one man's
power, and his ego. A recent Marine Corps intelligence report that was
leaked said that the war in the al-Anbar province is unwinnable. It said
that there was nothing we could do to win the hearts and minds, or the
military operations in that area. So I wonder, why are we still there?
Democracy is not forced upon people at gunpoint. It's the result of forward
thinking individuals who take the initiative and risks to give their fellow
countrymen a better way of life.
When I joined I took an oath. In that oath I swore to protect the
Constitution of the United States. I didn't swear to build democracies in
countries on the other side of the world under the guise of "national
security." I didn't join the military to be part of an Orwellian ("1984")
war machine that is in an obligatory war against whoever the state deems
the enemy to be so that the populace can be controlled and riled up in a
pro-nationalistic frenzy to support any new and oppressive law that will be
the key to destroying the enemy. Example given the Patriot Act. So aptly
named, and totally against all that the constitution stands for. President
Bush used the reactionary nature of our society to bring our country
together and to infuse into the national psyche a need to give up their
little-used rights in the hope to make our nation a little safer. The same
scare tactics he used to win elections. He drones on and on about how
America and the world would be a less safe place if we weren't killing
Iraqis, and that we'd have to fight the terrorists at home if we weren't
abroad. In our modern day emotive society this strategy (or strategery?)
works, or had worked, up until last month's elections.
My point in this; to show that America was never nationalistic. If anything
they were Statalistic (giving their allegiance to the state of their
residence). This is shown in the fact that the founders created states with
fully capable and independent governments and not provinces that were just
a division of the federal government. These men believed that America was a
place where imperialistic values would be non-existent. Where the people
trying to make their lives better by working hard, thinking, inventing and
using the free market would tie up so much of normal life that
imperialistic colonization and the fighting of wars thousands of miles away
for interests that are not our own would be avoided. They believed this
expansion of power could be left to the European nations, the England,
France and Spain of their time. However this recent, and current influx of
nationalistic feeling has created an environment where giving up your
rights, going to a foreign country to fight a people who did not ask for us
to be there, nor did their leader do anything to warrant us being there,
and dying would be considered honorable and heroic. I don't believe it
anymore. I don't believe it's right for any American to go along with it
anymore. Yes I know that we in the military are bound by the UCMJ and
somehow don't fall under the Constitution (the very thing we're suppose to
be defending) but sooner or later there is a decision that every American
soldier, marine, airmen and seamen makes to allow themselves to be sent to
a war that is against every fiber this country was founded on. I know that
when April rolls around I will be thinking long and hard on that decision.
Even though we in the military are just doing as we're told we still have
the moral and ethical obligation to choose to do as we're told, or to say,
"No, that isn't right." I believe that if more troopers like me and the
professional military, the officers and commanders, start standing up and
saying that they won't let themselves or their troops go to this illegal
war people will start standing up and realizing what the heck is going on
over there.
The sad fact of the matter is that we are not fighting terrorists in Iraq.
We are fighting the Iraqi people who feel like a conquered and occupied
people. Personally I have a hard time believing that if I was an Iraqi that
I wouldn't be doing everything in my power to kill and maim as many
Americans as possible. I know that the vast majority of Americans would not
be happy with the Canadian government, or any other foreign government,
liberating us from the clutches of George W. Bush, even though a large
number of us would like that, and forcing us to accept their system of
government. Would not millions of Americans rise up and fight back? Would
you not rise up to protect and defend your house and your neighborhood if
someone invaded your country? But we send thousands of troops to a foreign
country to do just that. How is it moral to fight a people who are just
trying to defend their homes and families? I think next time I go to Iraq
perhaps I should wear a bright red coat and carry a Brown Bess instead of
my digitalized utilities and M16.
Notice I never once used the word homeland in any of this. I have a
secondary point I want to bring up now. Never once was the term homeland
ever used to describe the country of America until Mr. Bush began the
department of homeland security after the 9/11 attacks. Taking a 20th
century history class will teach us that the most notable countries in the
last century that referred to their country in this way were Nazi Germany
and Soviet Russia. Hitler used the term fatherland to drum up support,
nationalistic support, for his growing war machine. He used the nationalism
he created in the minds of the Germans to justify the sacrifice of their
livelihood to build the war machine to get back their power from the
oppressive restrictions the English and French had put on them at
Versailles. This is the same feeling that has been virulently infecting the
American psyche in the last hundred years. This is the same feeling that
consoles a mother after her son is killed in an attempt to prosecute an
aggressor's war 10,000 miles away. It's also known as Patriotism these
days, but I say, "No more." No more nationalistic inanity, no more passing
it off as patriotism. Patriotism is learning, and educating oneself to
understand what their country really stands for.
I heard a lot during the memorial service about how the dead Marine did so
much good for others and how his helping others was like a little microcosm
of America helping because we have the power to do so. Well if we have the
power to help people why aren't we helping in Darfur where hundreds of
thousands of people have died in the last 10 years. Saddam was convicted
and sentenced to death for killing 143 Shiites who conspired to assassinate
him. (I know all you "patriotic" Americans would be calling for the heads
of anyone who conspired to assassinate supreme leader Bush). And yet we
spend upwards of 1 trillion dollars and nearing 3,000 lives to help these
Iraqis when they don't even want us there. Not to mention we don't have the
legal justification to be there. I guess we should wait around for the
omnipotent W Bush to decide who we should use our superpowerdom to help
next. It's about time to throw him and the rest of the fascists out.
Moreover it's about time to start educating Americans about their past and
history, and letting them know that imperialistic leaders are not what the
founders of this great country wanted.
Philip Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> has been a Marine for 2 years. He
is in the infantry (a "grunt"), and spent 7 months in the al-Anbar province
of Iraq. He went on more than 180 combat patrols in and outside of the city
of Fallujah, where he was hit with 2 IEDs (luckily never injured) and was
involved in a number of firefights. He is currently stationed in Twentynine
Palms, CA, and due to return to Iraq for a second deployment in April 2007.
He is 21-years-old.
source:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/martin-p1.html
===
-muslim voice-
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