I was going to write about the massive joint military exercises the U.S. is conducting with Israel and how it relates to growing tensions with Iran regarding their nuclear ambitions, but I've since discovered that the military is denying the relationship between the two. Not that I believe it; as you may recall, I posted about U.S. plans to "do something" about tensions with China, and judging from the fact that we've recently had no problem fighting wars on multiple fronts, it wouldn't surprise me if both China and Iran are in the works for future conflicts. This is worth exploring more when I have more time. Check out this article concerning the Austere Challenge 12 exercises, and this one which connects the exercises with Iran's own war games in a strategic oil route.
Some of you may know that I write poetry, which you can read at my other blog, This Side of Life. I've been thinking about anti-war poetry a lot recently and wondering how I can contribute to the topic in my own work, even though I have yet to be deployed into combat. While I explore this, I'll be checking out more anti-war poetry. Here's a link to some pretty good ones I enjoyed reading, including a haunting critique entitled "Clean War" by Patricia Wellingham-Jones:
They are calling this the cleanest war in all of military history.
Apologies for the long hiatus - I've been without internet at home and am just now making it back to the public library.
A quick post: towards the end of the first week of October, a friend of mine posted an article on Facebook from The Reporter out of Vacaville, CA titled "U.S. military shifts gears during 10-year Afghan War." I wanted to link it here, but they've since taken it down from the website.
The article interviewed military officials on future strategy, one of which includes possible confrontation with China:
"Having focused so narrowly -- and spent so heavily -- on fighting insurgents and terrorists rather than traditional armies, navies and air forces, U.S. military leaders are eager to turn to a wider range of threats, including potential conflict with China... Looking ahead, strategists see a different set of threats, particularly from a Chinese military that is modernizing air and naval forces and posing a potential menace to U.S.dominance in space."
So, this country's military is "eager" to enter into conflict with a nation that's home to a billion people and which has considerable influence on our economy and foreign trade.
Do I even need to point out the mass madness this entails?
If you think this country will eventually end its current military operations worldwide and finally return to peacetime, think again. The anti-war demonstrators of the early 2000s were right - this country is planning on endless war. This government continues to search out resources abroad that are dwindling at home and because of that it needs to make excuses for why it picks fights.
And their excuses aren't even that great by their own standards; conflict with China because they are modernizing their military and posing a threat to U.S. dominance in space? They couldn't have made it more plain: "We can't allow any other nation in the world to compete with us militarily. We are the bully on this here block and it's gonna stay that way, ya hear?"
The U.S. empire machine no longer needs good arguments to do what it does - it just goes and does them. It's up to the people who see it for what is really is to step up resistance and begin getting serious about stopping this death machine. Even if we never see conflict with China, it's obvious the military is consistently looking for work. We need to do everything we possibly can to put an end to the maniacal practices of this country and its military, once and for all.
In my first post I stated that I have a guilty conscience, and I find it hard to forgive myself for many past misdeeds. Throughout my life, I've tried to use this as motivation to always choose to do the right thing so I don't regret it in the future, because guilt and regret are heavy burdens to carry and it takes too high an emotional toll on me. Of course, this hasn't prevented me from making mistakes I still regret to this day, because I'm human and will make mistakes. But as I have gotten older, I have learned more and more methods to lead my mind and body in the right direction - the direction of truth, love, and passion, and to not abandon my morals and values for anything else in the world.
I did, of course, abandon my morals and values when I joined the military and became an infantryman. And even without having seen actual combat, I regret it. And I will probably continue to do so until I am discharged one way or another.
The soldier in the video above states it so clearly and succinctly. His passion is palpable and his story is likely similar to many troops who were lead to believe they were fighting for a worthy cause, and that their service would be rewarded with truth and responsibility on the part of their superiors, and instead what they saw was cruelty, racism and bloodshed.
I'm able to take many lessons from my past mistakes, but the one that sticks with me the most is to always listen to my conscience. There are so many different messages out there that can persuade someone to do something, but the one that matters most is the one inside. What does your heart say? What does your better judgment say? Can you think of any reasons why you should or shouldn't do that particular action? Who will be affected? Will this action stick with you long after it is done? Who stands to benefit and who stands to lose from this action? What exactly is gained and lost?
Society heaps all kinds of benefits on us for our service. We get to march in parades, get all kinds of free stuff, discounts, and more pats on the back then you can tolerate. But the aspects of life that matter most - our physical, psychological and emotional health - suffer the most from this profession, not to mention the same for the countless others affected by war and genocide. No matter how you look at it - no matter how you can make it seem just or necessary or unavoidable - war is an atrocity, a crime against humanity, done in the name of profit and to secure resources abroad that are dwindling at home. Our entire culture necessitates war in order to secure a way of life that would soon collapse if we didn't take resources from other land bases. (More on that aspect of war in later posts)
Listen to your conscience. Don't let family, friends or recruiters fool you into thinking they have your best interest in mind when they encourage you to throw your life away in war. Whether or not you receive a combat job in the military, you will still be supporting this death machine. Is it worth it? Is it worth the destruction of human and animal life? Is it worth the destruction of your own mind and body? Is it worth the destruction of the planet itself?
So I've been thinking about posting some sort of explanation for why I feel we should oppose war and militarization. I want the post to be poignant, to be something readers will take with them for a long time, that will plant a seed that hopefully germinates sooner rather than later. I've been thinking about it for the last few days, struggling to find the right words without just coming right out and screaming at the top of my lungs "BECAUSE IT'S JUST FUCKING WRONG!"
The problem with this post idea is that the reasons for opposing war and militarization have been run through a hundred million times in the social justice movement, and only slightly less in the mainstream public sphere. Everyone who doesn't live under a rock has heard at least a few good arguments for opposing war, especially the United States' current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, what people do with those arguments is another conversation, one I will address in future posts. But I wanted this post to be something different - something personal, emotional, and close-to-home - to distinguish it from the tons of other information out there in the anti-war movement.
Then a friend sent me a link to this TED talk by sociologist Sam Richards entitled "A radical experiment in empathy," and upon viewing it, I knew I had my second post.
This presentation almost brought tears to my eyes, but only after the dozen other emotions subsided. Richards hits the nail square on the head with this one. His speech is about empathy, a concept with which most people are familiar. But he takes it a few steps forward, walking the audience through a sensible, palatable journey of the emotional and psychological evolution of an Iraqi insurgent, laying bare the myriad reasons why they just may have developed the desire to kill Americans.
He attempts to get the audience to see American militarization through the eyes and heart of an Iraqi, comparing their experience with what Americans might go through should we be attacked and have our resources taken (in his example, China is the aggressor). He's critical of American imperialism without labeling it as such. He doesn't go on a tirade about it and he doesn't throw a bunch of numbers at us. Instead, he simply walks us through what an Iraqi may see on a daily basis - what happens right in front of them everyday of their lives and what their reaction may be.
The way I felt after watching this presentation is similar to how I felt over a year ago one night when I was living in Missouri. I had been reading through a couple of WIN magazines - the publication of the War Resisters League - and I settled in for bed full of all kinds of emotions. Then for some reason I just started having a really deep emotional response - my eyes began to tear and I felt a deep sadness. My mind started reeling with all of the horrors of war (though I had never been in a combat zone of any kind, so I guess it was just mental information acquired from other sources). I began wondering how and why we ever got to this point as a species; why are we doing this to ourselves? The questions stayed with me all night and I didn't get much sleep.
I really do feel Americans lack empathy on a deep, profound level. Many of us lack the ability to see situations from another's point of view, and we've become removed from the reality of many situations due to the inoculating effects of television, the media and political/economic rhetoric. We have become so obsessed with maintaining a certain American standard of living that we are willing to allow our leaders to do anything and everything they can to secure that standard, and we turn a blind eye towards the inevitable horrors that follow.
Empathy was the catalyst in my own process of radicalization. I started social justice work as a student advocate against violence against women. Learning about the daily horrors women face in this patriarchal, misogynistic society appalled me, and I knew I had to do something while the tools were there for me to use. I eventually began learning how to relate that aspect of the movement with the other intersecting issues of the larger movement, and the very grim picture of the current systems ridiculousness unfolded pretty quickly.
Some how, some way, we as a species have to learn to empathize with each other and the rest of the life on the planet if we are to have any chance at all of maintaining what little sanity we have left. We have to move away from the rhetoric of the established order and the media who disseminates its message, because these structures will never encourage us to feel the rest of the world's pain, because if we were to do so they wouldn't be able to control us anymore. We have to undergo this process ourselves and help each other through it, and then begin to act on the very natural tendency towards resistance that results.
It's been nine months since I enlisted in the Georgia Army National Guard - more than three months since I graduated infantry training. I knew when I first began talking to my recruiter that I really didn't want to join - all of my morals, my values, my instincts were against it. Why did I do it? Why did I ignore my better judgment? I honestly don't know; I can say it was a felt sense of helplessness, not being able to find steady work, no way to return to school to finish my degree, and pressure from family. But to be honest, those are just excuses. As easily as I signed my life away, I could have backed out at any time.
I guess I just wanted to feel appreciated - by family, by society, etc. I wanted to do something to feel productive. I wanted to be proud of an accomplishment, a feeling I had not felt in quite a while at the time. But, upon graduation, pride was not the predominant emotion present. I mean, sure, I felt that I had completed something pretty hard, and in a way I was happy I didn't quit. I got tons of support from family and friends and society in general. But what I really felt was shame and betrayal. I was ashamed that I went against everything I believe in, that I had betrayed everything inside telling me this is not the way to go in life. I knew that I would be ordered to do things I just couldn't see myself doing. I knew that being in the infantry meant I would deploy into a combat zone and be expected to fire my weapon on the "enemy." And I knew that upon getting deployment orders, I would most likely bail; I knew I could never go through with it. And yet, I still allowed myself to be fully soldiered.
I have a very guilty conscience - past misdeeds from years ago still haunt me. I know it will be much worse if/when I come home from a deployment. I know everything in me will be reeling with the shock of combat, the sounds of hatred and anger and guns and screams. I know I won't be able to look myself in the mirror - I can barely do it now.
So where does this leave me? How do I gather the courage to correct this massive mistake? Where do I find the support I will undoubtedly need to resist war and oppression as a Guard soldier? And how do I protect myself and my family from the inevitable backlash should I decide to resist?
This blog is an attempt to explore those questions and find the answers, however difficult and painful the process may be. I will muse about the ills of war and the military machine; society and how it's built to perpetuate consistent war and oppression; the basic assumptions of industrialized civilization that make war inevitable; and ways to resist this insane culture and hopefully keep at least a tiny piece of my sanity and self-worth.
The journey won't be easy. There are always consequences for resistance and I am willing to endure them should they come. In my opinion, the most dangerous freedom is better than the safest slavery. I owe my self as well as the entire community of living beings on the planet my part in resisting this culture's spiral into oblivion.
I hope you will periodically stop by and partake in this journey with me. Offer your advice, your support, or even your condemnation - I welcome it all. Your feedback will be read, carefully considered and appreciated. Thank you.
