A reader asked if we would post online reader feedback on my article “An Open Letter to the Troops: You’re Not Defending Our Freedoms.” Here it is:
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Thank you for your great article on the troops aren’t fighting for freedom. I couldn’t have said it any better. I don’t know what it is with Americans that use this mantra of support the troops,freedom is not free,thank you for keeping us free etc etc.
My question to so many is how does killing innocent people in another country create freedom?Yet they are also screaming about the loss of freedom here these days so I will ask them how many more should we kill in Iraq or Afghanistan to change this? The indoctrination in America beyond anything that goes on an any other country.
I will send out your article to all those arm chair war supporters.
Thank you once again.
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This is exactly my feelings. However I feel that all tho Vietnam was an unjust war we as regular people didn’t have the chance to say NO because of the draft an if you didn’t serve you faced a lot of trouble. Only the rich kids were able to avoid it. It was the start of my generations distaste for our Military orders since some didn’t have to go. Many of my friends had to go and die for nothing or come home terribly messed up health wise an mentally. It wasn’t like the past world wars where Americans all wanted to help an do what ever it took. I am not a good letter writer but I wanted you to know how I felt. When my son was in High School an the recruiters said how they wanted to help him turn into a man my response was leave him alone his father already served 2 tours an it didn’t make him any more a man an it left him with a lot of trauma that he couldn’t talk about.
Thank you for your article.
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I found your open letter to the troops very intriguing. As a recently discharged veteran, one would think I would argue tooth and nail. However, it may surprise many Americans that most soldiers (that I know of anyway) do not think we are defending freedom or making the world safe for democracy. In fact, when we talk amongst ourselves about why we joined, there are generally two answers: for the college money or for a steady, well-paying job in order to take care of a young family.
To that extent, addressing a letter to a current soldier and repeatedly saying “your invasion” is woefully shortsighted. Most military members had not even reached puberty by the time either of the current wars started. It is as much “their invasion” as Desert Storm is theirs. You also referred to several military actions spanning several decades and political administrations, yet did not seem to lay any fault to them. Instead, your letter seemed to say the military, particularly the lower-echelon troops, holds sole responsibility in the decision to go to war. Thankfully for our Republic, that is surely not the case. I, for one, believe that in a democratic republic, we are each responsible for our government. If the government, and by extension the military, does something that goes against the collective morals of our country, we are all to blame.
I certainly won’t argue, nor would any of my comrades, that service members are ALL good people or “patriots”. Like any profession or social group, there are the morally corrupt service members. Just like there are corrupt cops, politicians, and (as I’m sure you’re familiar with) lawyers, there are also morally corrupt service members. And while there are times when I and others have to do regrettable things, I hope that you do not think us all morally corrupt. Likewise, I am aware that attorneys do things which go against their judgement, but do not think that all attorneys are morally bankrupt.
After all this I cannot find the purpose for your letter. If you are trying to persuade military members from re-enlisting or some such act, why choose such an accusatory and aggresive tone? If your goal was to instead influence the public, why address the letter to the troops, whom are in generally high regard with the public? In the end, you offered no solutions, ways forward, or even friendly advice for troops. So what exactly are you trying to accomplish?
As a former Libertarian, I believe I understand the origins of the letter. Especially with all the aggrandizing that occurs around Memorial Day, it is understandable that making your “uncompromising moral case” becomes frustrating. While I would never ask you or anyone else to change their beliefs, I do believe that the attitude with which you make your case is your and your party’s defeat. Instead of making your case in a rational and even tone, your diatribe instead alienates the reader from you and your purpose.
As an advocate for personal freedom, I hope that in the future you are more capable of using persuasive argument to state your case instead of verbally attacking young Americans just trying to survive.
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gutsy, and right on point. thanks
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just finished reading your article “An Open Letter to the Troops: You’re Not Defending Our Freedoms”, and I want to thank you for this accurate and well written article. I agree completely with your observations and reasoning. Sadly, the American public – particularly the Conservative faction has been completely brainwashed regarding the Warrior Nation we have become. It seems that no one bothers to think these actions through to identify the real costs associated with this endless regime change mindset. Costs like death, destruction, loss of respect and a whole lot of money. Unfortunately, when I discuss this issue with my friends they are unable to see the obvious negative aspects of this mindset. As a veteran, I have seen war (Vietnam) and the negative consequences that result. I consider myself a patriotic American and a conservative, but our current path is certainly not value added to anyone or any nation. However, it greatly benefits the military industrial complex and those that supply it. Which is why it continues Personally, I believe in a strong defense, and a mind your own business approach in our dealings overseas. I feel that our nation would be far better off if we focused on restoring freedom in this country instead of destroying it in others.
In closing, I enjoy reading your articles as I view you as a voice of freedom. I urge you to continue writing in the hope that someday the citizens of this country will finally see the damage done by the path we are on and take back this country, and restore the freedom the USA was built upon.
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Excellent letter! It will probably never appear in Stars and Stripes, but it certainly should!
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As an “alumni” of the 1st Cavalry Division, the 7th Infantry Division, and the XVIII Airborne Corps and the father of two career military men (both now retired, thank God!), I can tell you that you are absolutely 100% correct. Thank you for writing the truth in the midst of a blizzard of insane lies.
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I know you zeroed in on current affairs but killing Cubans, Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese, Germans or Japanese also did nothing to secure our freedoms. I truly believe that 9/11 was a silent coup carried on by rogue agents within our Warfare State.
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Thank you for your straight forward open letter. Bumper sticker slogans have replaced thinking brains in our society. I am a fiscal and social conservative but 99% of my debates are over war. The people that surround me day after day think I’m a left wing liberal. I don’t subscribe to right left arguments. I try and understand liberty and war is no friend of liberty. My wifes uncle was a marine and he died in Khe Sahn in 1967. Although I think his intentions were noble, the government threw his life away. He died for no reason. How sad.
Thanks for being brave, being a patriot and letting me know I’m not alone.
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Absolutely SUPERBLY written, Jacob ! ! ! Thank You!!! I’ve just forwarded this far and wide, starting with my sheriff, county commissioners and state district reps……and on to many other media outlets, etc.
I can’t thank you enough!!!!!
**** I applaud – and agree with – your open letter to the troops. It seems in today’s political atmosphere it is blasphemous to speak the truth in matters such as these so it takes a good deal of fortitude to publish a letter such as yours.
I was in the military for ten years and experienced not only combat tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but also spent a year in Korea. It was a unique experience to see what an alleged brief war actually turns into. The fact that the U.S. continues to occupy innumerable nations across the globe is eerily reminiscent of the Roman and British empires.
My experiences overseas has proven to me that your letter rings true and I believe anyone who would open their minds would come to the same conclusions. I lost many good friends to these pointless and unjustifiable “wars” and am reminded every day where true freedom comes from.
Keep up the good work.
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As a soldier, separated as of April of this year, who served two tours in Afghanistan, I agree and appreciate your open letter. I am a member of the Oathkeepers, have been since close to their inception. Many of my fellow soldiers are beginning to open their eyes and understand everything you mentioned in this article. If only we had more power to make changes. Just before the memorial weekend, I got the news that the sister unit that replaced our unit in Afghanistan lost six people in an IED. I still don’t know the names of the deceased, but i still have several friends in that unit. Now their families have to live on without them. Children will have to grow up not knowing their fathers.
It was a horrible feeling when I came home and my young daughter didn’t know who I was and hid behind her mother as though I were an evil stranger trying to steal her away. Some days I wish I could regain my innocences of war and the death associated with it.
Thank you again for your open letter. I have already forwarded to every soldier I know as well as my neoconservative father. We’ll open their eyes, even if we have to do it one at a time….
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Are you going to post any of the responses? I think there would be some interesting ones.
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Thank you for so eloquently and briefly summarizing what I believe is the most important political truth of our times: at the root of political evil are the government gunslingers. I have believed for some time that we need to stop blabbing about the politicians and “decision-makers” and face the simple fact that every individual is a decision-maker and those who decide to murder and rule by force in the name of authority are the evil ones. We need to condemn the soldiers and police. We need to address them and their evil directly, as you have done. Politicians are their hand-puppets, their spokespersons, not their rulers. The rulers are those with the guns, not those with the rhetoric. Thanks again for a great article.
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I just read your: An Open Letter to the Troops: You’re Not Defending Our Freedoms. Amen! I couldn’t have said it better.
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article was nothing but eye-opening. Its interesting to see a new take on the whole “War on Terrorism”; in my household the “war” has never been held in high regard but hearing it from that point of view is outstanding. We should have never gone over their and now we are paying for it 10 fold.
This quote has aided in the change; you make people think about what they are putting in their heads.
“Consider also what the U.S. government does to our freedoms here at home as a direct consequence of the terrorist threat that you, the troops, are producing over there. It uses that threat of terrorism to infringe upon our freedoms here at home! You know what I mean — the fondling at the airports, the 10-year-old Patriot Act, the illegal spying on Americans, the indefinite detention, the torture, the kangaroo tribunals, Gitmo, and the entire war on terrorism — all necessary, they tell us, to keep us safe from the terrorists — that is, the people you all are producing with your actions over there.”
Well done,
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Great article, but alas even if everyone in the military read it, only a minuscule number would ever be positively affected by it.
Your line, “the troops intentionally destroyed Iraq’s water and sewage facilities after a Pentagon study showed that this would help spread infectious illnesses among the Iraqi people.”
Do you have any ready references for that? I have no doubt of of the fact, but proving it to others is sometimes difficult. This was truly evil. But people in the States don’t care. It was far away place they can’t locate on a map and affected some number of faceless brown people.
Minor rabbit chase: Sort of similar to the “logic” of the fire bombing of Japan during WWII. I have read, somewhere, that Hiroshima and Nagaski were spared this fate so that they could be a “pure” sampling of the effects of the a-bombs. (BTW, if you have heard of this, references?)
Here’s a few more Desert Storm bombing facts. During the last of the bombing, B-52 crews were allowed to bomb targets of opportunity. Target changes were so frequent and confusing that they were given license to bomb pretty much whatever they wanted. Worst of all, these opportunity targets were mostly selected by correlating likely targets from a chart (aerial map) with radar returns. A radar return! If you have ever seen the radar display in a B-52, it’s quite primitive. That shiny blimp might be a power substation or it might not. Too bad, here comes 51 five hundred pound bombs. All of this from an altitude of 30000+ feet. We’re so brave. And to add insult to injury, we ran low on “slicks”, that is low drag bombs designed to be released at high altitude. The solution? Why tie the high drag fins of snake eye bombs back and let ‘er rip. No idea if these things hit what they were supposed to (probably not even close). No idea if they armed and exploded properly or merely hit the ground as a dud.
Afghanistan… I have spent literally hundreds of hours flying over Afghanistan. We’re chasing ghosts. And for what? So some some fat cat megalomaniacs can maybe make a few bucks selling someone else’s oil? How about so we can sell a few hundred billion dollars worth of poppy products while we’re at it.
Sorry if I blather on.
I’ve witnessed the destruction of a truck load of men. They were driving along a dirt road and had stopped on a side of hill near a building to smoke. They all were holding firearms and were instantly labeled as enemies. A B-1 dropped a bomb on them.
Also, listened on a radio as a helicopter chased some poor kid on a motor cycle at night. He was riding by himself down a dark road. It seemed kind of obvious to me that he was just out trying to enjoy a ride and perhaps thought riding at night would draw less attention from the American deliverers of freedom. This helicopter crew was chasing him using NVGs and kept asking permission to kill him. The poor kid even stopped and stared in the direction of this machine. He knew it was out there and chasing him! Never did find out what happened. I always hope he got away.
The “subjects” of Amerika (or perhaps Babylon?) fail to realize that if a regime is willing to senselessly kill and maim others it will gleefully do the same to its own.
I wish all military members would stop squandering their youth and resign or refuse to participate in the lies.
They’re not defending the country. They’re merely the mercenaries for some bankers and Wall Streeters .
God help us. We are an evil country.
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I had a couple of tours in Vietnam. Couldn’t agree more with your article.
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Thank you Mr. Hornberger for your courage in writing the piece.
I appreciate your insight and wish more of my friends and neighbors understood the serious trouble we are in as a nation.
Keep up the good work.
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That’s disgusting our troops don’t follow orders they SERVE the United States Of America you know the country you hate so much. By the way if you dislike OUR country so much you don’t have to live here no one is forcing you, you ungrateful brat. You treat them like criminals while they sleep having night mares about they’re buddies, comrades, and civilians being mutilated, tortured, and killed. They live with that guilt and you don’t help you enforce it. Yet through all the crap you give them they treat you with respect. I don’t know how they don’t kill disgusting rats like you. You are vermin who spread disease of hate of our protecters and defenders. You go to Iraq, Afghanistan, And Pakistan and see what its like. You disgust me and I’m 12! And don’t say it’s because of fox news, I’m like this cause I have common sense,and you being a idiot is the communist news network or, CNN fault. Do this country a favor and LEAVE! God bless the US of A. And god bless the United Staes Armed Forces!!! And god bless even ungrateful rats like you!
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Some of my Christian friends are the biggest purveyors of ” the troops are fighting for our freedoms”. And they finish it off with GOD BLESS AMERICA. I have chastised several in the last few days, asking them, How God is going to bless America for unprovoked wars that kill and maim innocent people, who did nothing to deserve it?” Mostly I get silence or ostracism.
This is a thought provoking piece. I am saving it to forward to anyone else who sends me similar blather.
I enjoy everything you write,
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You article is right on the money. To make it short I have been posting and sending out both in emails and letters to the editor the following. It is also on my sign, in an abbreviated manner, that I have carried at various Tea Party rallies.
Military & Law Enforcement
Honor Your Oath
Defend the Constitution & The People
Not The Elite Ruling Criminal Class
Corrupt Politicians & Government
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Thanks for writing such a brave and true letter to the troops!!
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Unfortunately, the 9/11 blowback theory has been proved wrong by many years of terror opportunity but very few actual incidents.
Our national borders remain super porous. Anyone truly determined to enter this country and retaliate against Americans could have done so by now, yet there have been no successful attacks since the anthrax letters in 2001.
The question becomes: why?
If Muslim retaliation really were the major threat you claim it is, then why have they shown such amazing restraint? Why, even with so much opportunity to retaliate, have they apparently chosen to leave us alone?
Some will claim it’s because the Patriot Act is “working” or because torture is “effective” or because we are “fighting them over there rather than over here.”
But these answers ring hollow. There is no way the government could possibly stop all the suicide blowback attacks if Muslims really were intent on getting even. No amount of TSA groping or spying or torture or war could stop them all.
So there must be some other reason why we have not been attacked since 2001.
My hunch is that there is no desire to attack us again, or else it would have happened by now.
Whoever was behind 9/11 evidently got what they wanted/needed from from that event. They have no need for another.
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This was just posted on our web site this AM, www.TheDCPost.com/ It’s coming at the situation you describe in your wonderful article today, about what our soldiers are not accomplishing…but from a slightly different emphasis. You are doing great work.
Looking at Memorial Day with Unflagged Eyes
By Allan Sanford
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Well written article but sure wish that you’d bring the point home about US doing the towers and not some small band of box cutter stooges.
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Jacob: Right, but you didn’t mention the True Reasons we invaded, namely ;
1. Access for a pipeline thru Afghan from Turkmenistan to the Arabian Sea (google ‘unocal, afghan’) and bases,
2. Iraq is about oil, defense of Israel, and bases, and
3. Libya has oil but also China has a big presence there, and Ghadaffi is promoting use of gold for all oil sales in Africa (Arabs too?), all related to dumping the US Dollar, which would speed its failure.
Russia is building a big port in Syria, hence our interest there. The grand plan is to get ALL the greater mideast oil (including the xxstans and N. Africa) and deny it to China, Russia, and India.
It is CRUCIAL to disclose the true reasons to the troops and US people (and the self-serving jerks in Congress). Agreed?? See these links;
1. How governments promote ‘Patriotism’ and take advantage of it for their wars, and other abuses. https://www.activistpost.com/2010/08/how-governments-abuse-our-patriotism.html Aug-2010
2. How all major US wars since the Revolution were started with Lies by Presidents. https://www.activistpost.com/2010/12/13-lies-abbreviated-history-of-us.html#more
3. ‘True Reasons We Invaded’, How 911 was a pre-planned ‘trigger’ to justify the WoT and the invasions of Afghan and Iraq https://www.activistpost.com/2011/01/role-of-9-11-in-middle-eastresource.html
Please comment. Thanks
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Thank you Mr. Hornberger for your lucid and accurate account of US imperial foreign policy and military action.
I attended my first Memorial Day ceremony in over 30 years on Monday. What had once been a solemn affair dedicated solely to the service men and women who died in battle has now morphed into a hyper politicized, saber rattling, antagonistic rally.
I am a former military child of a career Navy NCO who served in Vietnam. The sight of countless maimed men at stateside military hospitals remains prominent in my consciousness 45 years later.
Ultimately, it is a rotting of our national soul that is manifesting itself in our evil actions abroad and our misguided immigration policies that constrict a natural source of renewal that at k e time distinguished the US from the world.
Thank you for bringing awareness to these issues, Mr. Hornberger. Our only hope to escape our demise will be when we recognize the dignity of life at home and abroad.
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I am a combat veteran of the Vietnam war and I applaud you for this article. I was at the Nationals baseball game on Monday and there was a constant parade of veterans being honored followed by standing ovations. It was hard to swallow. War is such an evil enterprise yet average Americans have been brainwashed into thinking there is something noble about it and the soldiers are heroes. Please keep speaking out and if your organization needs volunteers I would be interested.
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Re: An Open Letter to the Troops: You’re Not Defending Our Freedoms
Superb commentary! The U.S. troops and the American sheeple have no idea that the real (evil) mission of these wars is not even close to the stated (propaganized) mission. So sad and pathetic!
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America has absolutely destroyed Iraq for no legitimate reason. Bush still explains his invasion with: Saddam would not let the UN Inspectors back in. This blatant fabrication went unchallenged on ABC News. The media are infiltrated by propaganda spreading liars. The Afghan people have their tribal organizations and are mostly detached from any central government. Why can’t we let these poor people alone? Keep telling it, Jacob!
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Great column, Jacob. My son was with the first wave to get to Baghdad on July 4 ’03. Shortly after he set up his forward hospital it was mortered by the Iraqis. He survived ok, but after all his time in the military he has come to realize how much harm he did. One of his favorite sayings is, “Join the Marines, see the world, meet interesting people, then kill them!”
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Superlative article!
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Thank you for your commentary Re: the idea that “The Troops” are fighting to protect American rights and freedoms in distant lands.
Military people and their family members are in the very best position to know that military operations in distant lands are not connected in any way to American rights and freedoms, yet- along with American politicians, news media, churches, big corporations and veterans groups- military people and their family members can be some of the biggest promoters of this propaganda.
I wrote an essay a while back on this:
https://tinyurl.com/GlorifyingMilitaryService
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Bravo, bravo, bravo, Jacob. Right on, and powerfully written. Now to get it into the hands of the actual troops, not just us, your fans. Betcha the Military Times or whatever else they send to the troops these days won’t publish it, though. How can you get this word out?
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A magnificent article. Thank you for writing this. I think back to an old Grand Funk Railroad song, “People Let’s Stop the War”. How can we do it?
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I’m reading your Open Letter to the Troops now. Have you seen Green Zone starring Matt Damon? I watched it over Memorial weekend and I thought it had a good message about warfare and the bureaucracy and politics behind it.
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Wow, Jacob, possibly your best article yet. I don’t say that enthusiastically, it’s very sobering, but needs to be said.
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I agree withe article and Aaron. WOW. Thank you for writing this. Sometimes the truth is not pretty or popular. Additionally, if they thought they were defending our freedoms, they would have to admit that they are loosing that battle.
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“The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other – instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.” — Edward Abbey
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I just found this jewel relating to war, this really happened:
“The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object.” — Abraham Lincoln, TO WILLIAM H. HERNDON. February 15, 1848
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I wish I had the guts to write something like this. :/
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I have a great deal of respect for other people who voluntarily risk their lives to defend my life, liberty, and property. However, the idea that “freedom isn’t free”, and that the price of liberty is continual sacrifice on foreign battlefields, isn’t true. The true price of liberty is eternal vigilance, not just against enemies like the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but also against our own government and any imperialistic ambitions on their part. I should add that the reason I consider the Taliban enemies is not that they want to defend their country (Afghanistan) against outside invaders, but because they believe in a sexist and authoritarian God.
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I am a veteran and I think U.S. foreign policy is more about fascism and corporatism than defending freedom.
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In all seriousness, you sound like somebody from Westboro Baptist Church.
**** Jacob, though I generally agree with what you are saying in this article, the tone of the article seems to be the troops are are at fault. When it is the leadership of this country that is really at fault. But it is also good for the troops to see that what they are fighting for is not what they say.
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That sounds like a Nuremberg defense. Why wouldn’t the troops be accountable and responsible as well?
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Unfortunately the troops are not allowed to object to their orders or they face punishment. Even though we believe them to be unlawful, nearly the whole of the government does not. They are lied to about what they are doing overseas and about what the true missions of our armed forces are. Look at the Navy’s latest ads.. “A global force for good”. WTF!!
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Not an excuse at all, Sorry. You don’t sign up to join the mob and then get out of your atrocities by claiming they “forced” you to obey them. Sure they did, but you signed up for it. The moral thing to do would be ( if one joined the mob not fulluy knowing what the mob DID) to OPPOSE that organization and LEAVE as quickly as possible. I am amazed at the gut reaction leveled against those who oppose State terrorism/terrorists. Nationalism truly is the worst infectious disease.
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The sheeple don’t know it’s wrong or unconstitutional. They weren’t taught right from wrong in school, they weren’t taught the constitution and what the founders intended. They weren’t really explained about what defending the constitution from enemies foreign and domestic means. Until people wake up, they’ll stay programmed. I don’t believe the soldiers themselves are thinking. “Hey, there is a woman and child, I should go kill them.” They are mostly good people and are only carrying out what they believe to be unlawful orders.”
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Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism – how passionately I hate them!” – Albert Einstein
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Having been unwillingly drafted for the Vietnam war, being twice wounded over there, seeing several of my high school buddies blown to bits, and receiving one hell of a home coming reception at that time, I don’t think that that subtly ostracizing and laying guilt on the troops themselves is helpful.
Except for a minority, most did not sign up to actually engage in these two stupid wars. They signed up because of career advancements, funding help for college, lack of civilian employment, and other benefits. Once enlisted, you’re indoctrinated, and eventually have little choice of where you are to be employed, deployed, or having your tour extended.
When in battle, a soldier simply doesn’t care about the politics of the engagement. When he is under fire, his immediate and primary concern, is his own life and safety, and that of his fellow comrades and friends. Anyone that’s been in combat understands this full well. Many who have not been, don’t!
To be sure, I suspect that many that have been deployed do not agree with these wars and feel as many of us not in the military. It certainly isn’t a pleasure fighting and trying to civilize savages, carrying hundreds of pounds of equipment in sweltering heat and seeing your friends being shot, blown up by IUDs, or maimed for life and I suspect most all would like to return to civilian life as soon as possible.
But whther they they like it or not, they are stuck in there present situation regardless and have very few options except to survive in one piece and come home to their loved ones and family.
And for that … we ought to praise them and not condemn them. After all, they are our friends and neighbors.
Though you are absolutely right in your political assessment with your open letter, I think the vast majority that have been deployed likely agree, and I suspect even the senior command does.
But they are stuck, much like the poor souls, that were sent to Gallipoli, Charge of the Light Brigade, and Custer’s troops.
The real solution is to unabashedly condemn those that sent them there, that squander our valuable national resources, and bankrupt our nation and its founding principles in the process.
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The 21st century military person reenlists!! It’s no longer a job or even a profession; it’s a way of life.
They’ve been, they saw, and They reenlist. No excuses.
WWW.CourageToResist.org
www.veteransforpeace.org
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I agree with the bulk of your article, yet when you suggest that bin Laden should have gone through the criminal justice system for his 2001 bombing of the world trade center, what you fail to mention is that the FBI never found enough evidence to list 9/11 among OBL’s crimes in the first place…. https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/usama-bin-laden But yes, a real investigation would have been nice. I think the results of such an investigation would underline the general wisdom of your article more than most of your readers can possibly understand. And that is partly your fault… if you had dared to utter more unvarnished truths (eventhis article is varnished) to date, you wouldn’t be criticized so much now. When will you just come out and speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth Jacob? You are your toughest warden … until you free yourself from your own constraints, you won’t be able to achieve victories of freedom for others.
**** Sure but not all. Why do you think the suicide rate among servicemen is now so high?
No excuses but what I stated is fact. If you’ve never been in the military or have been in battle, or threathened with a court-martial in the field for disobeying orders it easy to condemn.
There is vast difference between the Nazi SS and our troops. There is a vast difference in military doctrine and rules of engagement of the US and other beligerants.
Yes, it is a way of life for some. We used to call them “lifers.” But be grateful we have them and the technology to protect us from potential foreign aggressors, but clearly not for the way they or now deployed in foreign interventionism, pre-emptive war and the unconstitutional spread of regulatory democracy and empire building.
It is certainly moral to protest and resist as a civilian, it is not easily done when you are in the military.
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My step-grandfather was a lifer and retired, so I’m not talking about lifers – I’m talking about killers who don’t want to stop.
And I said NO in 1983 to El Salvador. My enlistment was terminated 11 months early, honoraby. Going to El Salvador to defend a dictator was plain wrong.
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Mr. Hornberger, thank you for writing what everyone is too afraid to say. The troops are not there to fight for our “freedoms”, but rather to perpetuate the military empire and the state itself. I support defense, but not monopolized defense. To those who are offended by Mr. Hornberger’s arguments, stop cheerleading for the state and open your eyes.
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Thanks Jacob! Great read….
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I think that your open letter ought really to be addressed to the parents, wives, and loved ones of our soldiers to be really effective.
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My husband was really thanking you. I also thank you. we have to show the American people that War is not patriotic.
