[R-G] What Does It Mean to 'Support the Troops'?

[Anthony Fenton]

What Does It Mean to 'Support the Troops'?
by Mark T. Harris
	
October 06, 2007

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=13969

NORMAL, IL.—The Illinois town of Normal is the typical American town  
for more than the suggestiveness of its name. Situated in the heart  
of central Illinois, it constitutes together with neighboring  
Bloomington a mid-sized metropolitan area. It is a mostly affluent  
community, thanks to the presence of insurance giant State Farm's  
corporate headquarters. It is also largely conservative, despite the  
presence of two universities.

The area is also home to the National Guard's 33rd Military Police  
Battalion. It was here that several thousand local residents lined  
Normal's Main Street on September 27 to greet the 33rd Battalion as  
it returned from a year's deployment in Iraq. The scene was festive  
as police squad cars and motorcycle contingents draped with large  
American flags led the procession of convertibles carrying members of  
the battalion. The cheering, flag-waving crowd included groups of  
local schoolchildren, State Farm employees and others given time off  
to attend the parade.

“It's our way of honoring our heroes for all they've done for us,”  
one man from a group of motorcycle escorts told the local Pantagraph  
newspaper. Others commented how grateful they were for the troops  
whose sacrifices “protect our freedoms.” Several letter writers and  
posters to the newspaper's online coverage of the event remarked how  
refreshing it was to see the troops honored now, unlike in Vietnam  
days when returning veterans were purportedly treated with widespread  
disdain.

The welcome home parade for the 33rd Battalion was ostensibly “non- 
political.” But this was true only if you happen to believe the U.S.  
occupation of Iraq is just a larger version of a Peace Corps service  
project. Of course, the relief of family, friends, and the community  
that the volunteer guard members returned home safely was  
understandable. But relief at the return of loved ones and neighbors  
is one thing; pretending that their mission was somehow right and  
noble is another.

Ironically, the Bloomington-based 33rd Battalion was stationed at  
Camp Bucca, which is located in southern Iraq and is the U.S.  
military's primary facility for holding “suspected insurgents.” The  
Pentagon reports at least 24,500 Iraqi detainees are now held in  
Iraq, a figure that has increased by roughly 50 percent since the  
“troop surge” launched by the White House earlier this year. The 33rd  
Battalion provided security at the facility during their deployment.

Reportedly the average Iraqi is held at Camp Bucca for a year, the  
majority of whom are Sunni Arabs picked up often on specious grounds  
and never formally charged or issued a court warrant. For many their  
“crime” is simply that they are young Sunni men. It's nice to throw  
an old-fashioned “welcome home” parade. But in light of their  
assignment, it also seems appropriate to ask: What exactly did the  
33rd Battalion's mission at Camp Bucca have to do with “protecting  
freedom?” Not American freedom, and certainly not Iraqi freedom.

When Patriotism Means “Shut Up”

The simplistic propaganda that equates “support for the troops” with  
support for the President's war politics has always been cheap  
demagoguery, designed to shut down (or in the case of talk radio, out  
shout) reasoned political criticism of the war. Right-wing talk radio  
runs wild with such demagoguery, of course. “Patriotism is supporting  
our troops on the battlefield, not undermining the mission and  
morale,” says Rush Limbaugh. Beyond giving us a window into  
Limbaugh's inner totalitarian, what is the man really saying?  Does  
he mean we should endorse bombing raids that rain death and sorrow on  
the Iraqi landscape? Does he mean we should cheer Marine snipers who  
pick off human targets in the dark of a Fallujah night? Or maybe he  
means we should salute those soldiers who under the corrosive  
influence of the occupation culture erode into heartless killing  
machines, delivering death to Iraqis with a shrug of indifference for  
their “raghead” lives?

Or, does supporting the troops mean telling the truth about the war?  
It should. The staggering human costs of the war, measured now in the  
over 1,000,000 Iraqis estimated to have died under its auspices,  
according to the latest estimations by British pollsters Opinion  
Research Business (ORB), represent a historic crime against humanity.  
No wonder 78 percent of Iraqis oppose the presence of U.S. and  
coalition troops in their country, as reported in a recent ABC News- 
USA Today poll. No wonder nearly half of all Iraqis support attacks  
on American troops.

Indeed, the bipartisan beltway bickering of our political leaders  
over the merits of the troop surge plays out like a tragic, corrupt  
farce when set against Iraq's catastrophic reality. “The violence in  
Iraq is overshadowing a humanitarian crisis, with eight million  
Iraqis-nearly one in three-in need of emergency aid,” concludes a  
July report from Oxfam International and a network of aid  
organizations working in Iraq. Currently, 70 percent of Iraqis are  
without adequate water supplies, up 20 percent from 2003. Twenty- 
eight percent of children are malnourished, up from 19 percent before  
the invasion. Fifteen percent of the population regularly cannot buy  
enough food. Fifty percent unemployment continues to stalk many areas  
of the country.

Among U.S. troops the casualties now number over 3,800 dead and  
29,000 wounded. More than 185,000 returning veterans have sought  
medical and disability assistance for post-traumatic stress and other  
injuries. And the Bush Administration's only answer is more of the  
same. No wonder also that like the public at large, many U.S. troops  
increasingly question the war. A Le Moyne College/Zogby Poll taken in  
2006, for example, found 72 percent of U.S. troops serving in Iraq  
supported an exit from the country within a year. Only one in five  
favored the President's “stay the course” rhetoric.



Support the Troops? Then End the War

The Iraq war proves that the world's biggest military budget and  
imperialist hubris alone guarantee nothing, lest of all justice. But  
instead of tempering their course, the White House response now is to  
stoke the rhetorical fires for further lighting up the region with a  
possible military assault on Iran. Not for George Bush is any  
Thoreauean twaddle about the life of quiet desperation. The modus  
operandi of this administration is that it must always be someone  
else who goes to their graves with the song still in them.

“In public life today, paying homage to those in uniform has become  
obligatory and the one unforgivable sin is to be found guilty of  
failing to 'support the troops,'” writes Boston University professor  
Andrew J. Bacevich in his 2005 book, “The New American Militarism.”  
As the military power nonpareil, the United States under its current  
leaders is on a path that “invites endless war and the ever-deepening  
militarization of U.S. policy,” warns the former career military  
officer from Normal, Illinois.

It's a path that for the first time openly embraces the option of  
“preventive war” as policy. With this has come a revival of the  
mystifying nonsense that every troop deployment is driven by the goal  
of “protecting our freedom” as Americans. What better way to justify  
a war that don't deserve justification than to elevate “the troops”  
onto some sanctified stage where critical thinking is sacrificed to a  
cartoon version of patriotism engineered by desperate, violent men.

As usual, it's the rank and file soldiers who are the pawns in this  
deadly game.

***

Mark T. Harris has written cover articles and other features for Utne  
magazine, Chicago's Conscious Choice, and other publications. He is a  
featured contributor to “The Flexible Writer: A Basic Guide,” by  
Susanna L. Rich (Longman, 2002). You can write to him at Mark at Mark-T- 
Harris.com.