Are U.S. Soldiers Sheep or Robots?
By Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)

People are trying to support the U.S. troops, while saying they are against the Iraq war. That can only be done by saying the soldiers themselves are mindless sheep who will do anything they are told, even if it is illegal, or they are robots, who obey and do not think. Either of those two characterizations seem insulting, if not disrespectful, to the soldiers. Yet without that disclaimer of the soldiers themselves either being duped (they’re stupid) or the soldiers are merely following orders (robotic followers with no independent thought which is a situation we take as alarming when it happens elsewhere), there really is no way to let the troops, the fighters on the ground, off the hook completely for this war, as many pacifists would like.

If you use the mentality that our soldiers are merely following orders, thus they escape all culpability for their illegal actions in Iraq right now, then that same luxury *must* be applied across the board. If Americans can justify anything their troops do in war, even in an illegal war, then the same “understanding” of circumstances must be applied to every freedom fighter, every person of Iraqi dissent and heritage who is now fighting an illegal American occupation on their home land. If we apply the American soldier accountability standard to Iraqi citizens, then we not only have a justified military against U.S. soldiers there, but they also have the added validation that they are protecting *their* country, on *their* soil, in absolute destitute poverty, from illegal foreign invaders. America cannot even claim there was any immediate threat to Americans’ security and safety as the Iraqis are facing with Americans in their space now. So if we apply the same soldier accountability that America wants to use, to Iraqi fighters against the U.S., American soldiers’ justifications for their actions are minimal, as they are not protecting their homeland, their country’s people, etc.

Additionally, there comes a point when hiding behind orders won’t work. Nazi officials publicly announced their Nazi positions with pride, using their full legal names. When those Nazi “doctors” were doing social experimentation on Jews for things such as seeing how much pain they can endure, those doctors were literally bragging in public, as if they were untouchable. Yet after the war ended, those people became internationally hunted war criminals and Germany did not lead the way towards their capture and prosecution, either. Let’s apply some of that thought to the current Iraq War. Even if the American powers that be are now gloating about their war and its righteousness cloaked in some strange rhetoric about “freedom,” it does not mean that those people will be exempt from being hunted down like the war criminals they are later. And it does not mean America will be leading those manhunts for American war criminals, either. Other countries outside America could force America into an international court to defend itself and personally, I hope to see that this lifetime.

I am very disturbed that a large bulk of the forces on the ground in Iraq right now went there to kick some “Arab” butt, *any* “Arab” butt, as revenge for 9/11. The fact is that was over a dozen Saudi Arabians who crashed into the WTC, but Americans not only are horrid at geography, but they also have zero attention span for the particulars of the news. “Arabs” hit the WTC, now Americans are gonna go get ‘em, is the mentality. A large bulk of Americans are apparently not seeing any difference between the Middle East nations. So since Saudis slammed into the WTC, we are now bombing Iraq and apparently a large bulk of American soldiers used that as their platform to become soldiers.

Whose fault is it that ignorant American kids are taught racism, that is later fanned and fueled by the American government to turn them into genocidal soldiers, who ask no questions? Whose fault is it that we are bombing Iraq for something Saudi Arabians did? And should we be rewarding kids who jumped on the military bandwagon out of blatant racism? Are we not rewarding their racism if we protect them from accountability for choices they made based primarily on racism, not economic need? I would guess over 50% of those who joined the U.S. military to go into the Iraq war after 9/11 did so due to racism and political ignorance. For instance, Cindy Sheehan’s son came right out of a middle class white home with two married parents. I doubt he was ever homeless, I doubt he ever experienced genuine hunger. He was not drafted, he was not poor. So how does a kid like that, straight out of privileged American suburbs, justify his destruction and murder in Iraq, as somehow personally relating to him, again? And why would his safety trump that of a hungry, homeless Iraqi who was made hungry and homeless by the illegal American invasion? To be blunt, if one of those two had to die in the struggle, which is more justified? I think the answer is obvious.

We can either make excuses for a large bulk of American kids who joined the U.S. military after 9/11 to enforce American racism and imperialism on the world, or we can quit making excuses for them. If it were true that this was a drafted military, I would not be making this argument from this angle. If it were true that it was economics, and need for FOOD, that lead all those youngsters into joining the U.S. military after 9/11, I also, would be singing a different tune. But reality shows that a large majority of those who joined the U.S. military after 9/11 did so for racist reasons, not economic ones. Those who were “poor” were poor before 9/11 too. It was not until 9/11 that these people decided to make a career killing, and thus, I have to say that was based on racism, not economic need.

Americans are living at a higher standard than most people in most countries. For us to impose illegal brutality on other countries just because we want to control their oil, and this done by an oil mogul family president, the same family that gave us dead people galore in the Kuwaiti war his dad threw, to secure oil for America from that region, run by a royal family with no democracy in the 1990’s, is ridiculous. It is clear that the oil-dependent Bush family has one thing on its mind, and that is its own profits for the industry it is controlling. Apparently the Bush family does not care how many thousands of Americans, and countless untold hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, die for their personal greed. The Bush family ran a completely bogus Kuwaiti war for their profits in the 1990’s and almost ten years later his son is still furthering that same agenda. A totally irresponsible family has done so much destruction to the WORLD for its greed, that it is truly astounding the whole Bush family is not being held in prisons to go before an international court for their combined terrorism, from the Iran Contra affair to Bush War I and Bush War II.

The Iraqi war has ZERO to do with freedom and anyone stupid enough to buy that line of crap needs to get an alarm clock and wake up! Look at *when* Condi Rice smiles, while being questioned about this war. It is truly creepy and nearly demonic. We are not bombing Saudi Arabia for 14 Saudis planning and flying into the WTC because they are oil rich and still kissing Bush’s ass. We are not bombing North Korea, which has much less freedom for its people than Iraq, because they have nukes and no oil we want. We are bombing Iraq because they have oil that our criminal president wants full access to.

The Vietnam War was sold to innocent DRAFTED soldiers as a war to save America from Communism and it was not until a decade or so later that America finally understood what rhetoric they had been fed. This same situation is transpiring in Iraq this time, except these soldiers were not drafted. And the fact that economics alone did not bring them to the recruitment centers to enlist, but rather 9/11 brought them to these centers says clearly this was about racism, not class status. At this point, the only way to let the soldiers off the hook, to let them have impunity in this war, is to reduce them to mindless children and stupid sheep who just follow whatever they are told like robots. And that does not seem very noble. But that seems to be the rut we are now in. You either support the soldiers as mindless victims of their leaders, or you hold them accountable for committing illegal racist crimes abroad. And when you look at when and why these soldiers now in Iraq are there, it is not about economics, it is about racism. It is about racist American leaders.

If you listen to the pacifist left, they say the military troops are just mindless *VICTIMS* that are merely following orders. They are mindless sheep who do whatever their master says, no matter how illegal, destructive or inhumane. If we listen to the right, these soldiers are liberating people, and are bringing much desired freedom to the region and the only people fighting the invasion and American take-over of Iraqi government in an IDENTICAL plot to that of Diem in Vietnam, are “terrorists” who are against the Iraqi people. Yet the Iraqi people are making a loud cry, and have been for years now, for America to get the hell out of their country. And American government has done everything conceivable to stop that message from the Iraqi people from getting out – America took over the Iraqi newspaper, the Iraqi radio, the Iraqi TV…why do we need to squelch free speech and media in Iraq to “liberate” it? America has conducted a major propaganda campaign in Iraq to try to make the people there complacent to the Bush war, but that crap is working no better now than it did on the determined people of South Vietnam. I do not believe that most American soldiers in Iraq give one damn about freedom for others. I think this has to do with freedom for Americans and their gluttonies, not about freedom for others. And the proof is in the pudding that we could not have had the Iraq War without 9/11. 9/11 caused the spike in military enlistments, not poverty, and the U.S. government capitalized upon our youth’s racism beautifully in all this. Anyone stupid enough to believe this war is about freedom for anyone but America, does not deserve protection in their naivety.