Why I Don’t Support the Troops

“Support the Troops” – the signs are ubiquitous, from bumper stickers to store windows to demonstrations both for and against the war. So much lip service is paid to the phrase you’d think America would have run out of Chap Stick by now. Anti-war groups and the politicians that agree with them tried to usurp the sentiment by insisting, “We support the troops” and then tagging on “Bring them home.” I’ve taken the same position in my anti-war activism, and held the signs proclaiming that support meant getting them out of harm’s way as quickly as possible, but I’ve always felt twinges of hypocrisy in doing so.

It became clear to me why the anti-war proclamation of support for the military was an untenable and in my estimation contradictory position after hearing something Utah Phillips said. Phillips, long-time peace activist and workers’ rights advocate through his songs and stories performed over the decades across the country, died recently, and the radio program I heard was a recounting of his life as an activist and performer. He lived his life in the tradition of a Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, or Pete Seeger, using music and the power of performance to impart the true history – a people’s history – of the great social movements for justice and civil rights. They exposed the myths and told the truth about how governments create wars and then lie and manipulate the populace to support and go along with it. They showed us through song and story how this has been going on almost from the inception of our nation to present time, and down through the ages in other lands across the globe. It’s an old story, maybe the oldest in the tales of men and war.

What does “support” mean?
What Utah spoke about and pointed out in that replaying of his words was this: If we who oppose the war, in this case the war in Iraq, say that we “support the troops” (regardless of the tag line) then we’re also taking on responsibility for their actions. If we support the troops then we support the sending of armies to invade other countries that have not attacked us because that’s what these troops have been sent to do. If we make claim to supporting the troops then we are giving our tacit approval and acceptance for the killing of other people in a foreign nation. If we support the troops, we are agreeing with the principle that it’s all right to invade, kill, maim, and imprison other people and destroy their country’s infrastructure, economy and culture because some head of state or government administration has told us that it’s necessary. By pledging our support I believe we inadvertently legitimize the war.

Atrocities during wars are not abnormal, aberrational or occasional acts – they’re part and parcel of the whole bloody enterprise. If we support the troops are we willing to see that we have a responsibility when it comes to what they’ve done? It’s exceedingly difficult for those of us who have been opposed to the war from the start, and have marched, demonstrated and spoken out against it to see that we have any connection to what’s been done. After all we who opposed it, from the weeks of the devastation from the air force bombing to missiles from navy ships to the invasion and its aftermath, decried the indiscriminate murder and mayhem perpetrated by our military forces. Are the military personnel from the various branches of the armed forces, be they air force, navy or ground units not also included as the “troops”? Whether flying planes or launching missiles or engaging in combat on the ground these members of the U.S. military are our troops. Whether our military forces are dropping bombs from 50,000 feet, launching missiles from many miles away or shooting people on the ground the result is the same; people, often innocent ones, are being killed.

About the troops
As everyone knows our military is a volunteer force. Some argue it’s really a poor person’s draft providing wages, job training, education and opportunities to individuals from lower income families who have fewer choices after high school. However there are credible published data that refute that assumption. Were they lied to and duped by the Bush Administration into believing the war in Iraq was necessary, just as was the Congress and millions of Americans? Surely. Even if some of them saw through the lies and deception, as soldiers they had no choice but to go and fight or face imprisonment or self imposed exile. A soldier can always choose conscientious objection and face the very difficult consequences if he or she does not believe in the righteousness of the cause. For a soldier it’s no small matter to choose non-compliance, and pay the penalties such an option will extract. Very few choose that hard path, but the only alternative is to agree to harm others for a cause that’s not just. These are the conditions that have been placed on some in our armed forces that have come to understand the illegality, non-necessity and fundamental immorality of the war and occupation in Iraq.

But this is not the case for many if not most of the soldiers in our volunteer forces in Iraq. Many have gone without questioning the justification of the war, see it as their duty, legally, morally and patriotically, and to obey orders and do what they are told. Soldiers have only one purpose when they go to war, and that’s to kill the “enemy.” Occupying captured territory is a different matter, but invading armies don’t go in to win hearts and minds – they go in to blow people away. Killing the enemy is their job; it’s what they’re trained and paid to do. To see it differently is delusional. Occupying armies keep the lid on volatile situations and a highly agitated and disgruntled populace, by any means necessary, as they deem it. We know all too well what this has meant in the last five years.

We know that to date over four thousand U.S. servicemen and women have been killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tens of thousands have been grievously wounded, and estimates of Iraqi civilians killed range from hundreds of thousands to over a million. Whatever the exact figures are regarding innocent civilians killed or maimed there’s no question that the Bush Administration, many members of Congress, and the U.S. military are responsible, directly and indirectly, for death on a massive scale in Iraq, a country that did not attack us.

I do not oppose all wars. There are times when war is necessary. But it is abundantly clear that the war in Iraq was no such case. And it is our military personnel that have carried out this war, albeit fomented by the President and his administration. I certainly want the troops in all the military branches in Iraq out of harm’s way and brought safely home as quickly and at the same time as responsibly – for the safeguarding of the Iraqi people – as possible. But I can no longer say I support the troops any more than I can say I support the war or those who are responsible for it.