Press Action ::: Why I Don't Support the Troops

Friday, November 19, 2004

Why I Don't Support the Troops

By Jordy Cummings

Everyone remembers the scene in Apocalypse Now in which Robert Duvall leads the grunts to their riverboats, wildly shooting everything in sight from the helicopter, while playing Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” What many don’t know is this is taken from a true story. Tom Wolfe, who is now a bad novelist but was once a great journalist, accompanied bombardiers on their helicopter runs, and found them exhilarated, playing Wagner and other opera while they ceaselessly destroyed Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Now we have had repeated examples of American cruelty and war crimes, both structural and individual. What I mean is that no matter how high the level of policy goes, whether it be Abu Ghraib or killing civilians, soldiers are war criminals, individually, for following these orders. I completely sympathize with the notion that these kids, younger than me, have had their brains washed, are in a shitty situation and are paranoid and probably doped up on who knows what. That is no excuse for shooting civilians from airplanes, and no moral excuse for enjoying such, as recent footage has shown.

I like the slogan, “support the troops, bring them home.” But in all honesty, if I were asked if I sympathized with American soldiers right now—to the extent that they are in harm’s way of IEDs and horrifyingly effective resistance—I sympathize with them, but not when they commit crimes, which is all to often. Christian Parenti’s book The Freedom is comparable with Wolfe’s work on Vietnam, in that while antiwar (Parenti is the son of famed lefty Michael Parenti), it is descriptive, dividing time between the resistance and soldiers and average Iraqis, top-notch reporting from any position and worth reading regardless of one’s politics.

Parenti’s book shows the soldiers to be a contradictory bunch, well aware that they are there for the wrong reasons. Nonetheless, there are times in which they are criminal. There are soldiers who will spend the rest of their lives knowing they shot a little kid, as one sympathetic character has done. There are others, though, who in hatred both of the war that they are fighting, the Iraqis who don’t welcome them and the officers who are in air-conditioned offices, go ape-shit and kill tons of Iraqis. This may be understandable, but it is criminal.

On the other hand, the resistance forces are wild, scary, deep-seated and broad-based, incredibly misogynist and often murderous, but they come off more deserving of sympathy, in many interviews, than even the most anti-war American soldier. When the day is done, it is the wrong war. Part of what expedited American troops being sent home from Vietnam and Gerry Ford announcing the end of the “long national nightmare” was a real resistance, from fragging to refusing to follow criminal orders to whole platoons sharing intel with the NLF (Vietcong) to other activities.

So perhaps, one could say, support the troops, support the resistance! In all honesty, regardless of how murderous they are—and they are murderous—the only real problem I saw with the resistance, in Parenti’s book, was their sexism. Often communal meals were ate among families, with the old Arab custom of the men eating first and the woman eating what the men don’t finish. Also, they kidnap people and kill them. A tried and true tactic of resistance, including the American Revolution. Disgusting. But understandable and far less criminal in the context of warfare than American actions.

Many on the left offer either unqualified support for the resistance, or do whatever they can to distance themselves from them. Both positions are morally bankrupt and unhelpful. The first position is understandable, and somewhat commendable, and I share it to the extent that I would like to see the Americans defeated in Iraq. However, as the Iraqi resistance is the only force truly exerting damage on the force (the U.S. government) that is harming the planet so much, I find that it is within my rights, morally, and as a political position, to state that I fear for women, leftists and secularists, who would live under these folks. Balancing that, however, with my fear for Iraq in general if America keeps getting its way, the second position—to claim opposition to war while refusing to even acknowledge the justice being on the side of the resistance—is a syllogism.

I support the resistance, inasmuch as they are beating Uncle Sam something fierce. But I sure as hell don’t support patriarchal assholes who won’t let their wives eat with them, kidnappers and other assorted gangsters cashing in on the situation, many the new George W. Hussein, among the crowd. They aren’t “maquis” or Paris Communards. They are, in the surprisingly radical words of Michael Moore, like the “Minutemen” who were slave-owners and capitalists, but justice was on their side compared with the yoke of England.

Bob Dylan’s great song “Chimes of Freedom” contains the line “for each and every under-dog soldier in the night.” In a sense, every soldier, be they a resistance fighter or an imperial gendarme, deserves sympathy or some such secular prayer. Every soldier is an underdog, fighting a rich man’s war. But until they mutiny, even the most conscious soldiers are in some senses, the equivalent of Germans who did what they could not to get stationed at the Death Camps, cursed Hitler, but still fought in his wars. Tough situation, pal, but you’re on the wrong side.

I don’t support the troops, who when prosecuted for Abu Ghraib, claim it was policy. I don’t support others who say they were following orders. They should be forced to reveal who ordered what. But you’ve got to be a criminal in the first place to do what American soldiers have been doing.

Jordy Cummings, editor of Pure Polemics, lives in Toronto and can be reached at yorgos33ca@yahoo.ca.

More from Jordy Cummings