MAY I HAVE A WORD? STEVE CLEMENS
Why I Don’t “Support the Troops” When conscientious people opposing the current war put up signs that say “Support the Troops—Bring Them Home,” they send a mixed message. How does one “support” those who, for a variety of reasons, have chosen to be trained to kill others? During the Vietnam era, provocative posters asked: “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” Indeed, if no one enlisted in our “volunteer army,” our politicians would be unable to go to war on false and manufactured evidence. Instead, our government is virtually guaranteed new conscripts. As long as minimum wage is set significantly below a living wage and college costs continue to skyrocket while student grants disappear, there will always be some driven by economic necessity to “volunteer.” Another subset of young people are motivated by the narrow view of patriotism that suggests one of the best ways to serve one’s country is to “protect” it with a gun. A third subset consists of those misguided young men who see the uniform/gun as an extension of their “manhood.”Yet others join the military as a way of seeking discipline in their lives or of avoiding incarceration for a crime. I believe that some in the military genuinely view their commitment as “service,” but that word just doesn’t correspond to the ways our military is used around the world—for protection of our corporate greed and domination rather than the professed task of national “defense.” Basic training for the various military branches is designed to break down humans’ innate resistance to killing, a process of dehumanization that
passes for molding “a few good men.” Apparently this training is necessary— studies show that something in the human spirit must be reprogrammed before we are able to kill on command. Former President Jimmy Carter is reputed to have said in 1980 that our nation needed to reach young men before age 22 in order to influence them to join the military.Today scientific research shows that our brains —including our reasoning and decision-making skills— continue to develop into our early 20s. It’s no wonder that military recruiters target high schools; they know that teens are more impulsive and subject to manipulation than older folks. Let me be clear: I don’t “blame” the troops. One has only to look at the posttraumatic stress disorder, suicide rates, broken marriages, substance abuse, and the number of vets who end up on the streets to see that they are victims as well as perpetrators. There is something about killing that scars the psyche of even the most macho among us. Chris Hedges, former New York Times war correspondent and author of War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning (Public Affairs, 2002), describes the “addiction” that war often engenders in its participants and that continues to grip them long after they’re home. Clearly the primary responsibility for the war must lie with those who planned it, ordered it, and voted to pay for it with our tax dollars (or, more accurately, with debt to be placed on future generations). Soldiers are merely functionaries.We can’t expect them to do in-depth political and social analysis of American geopolitical strategy before deciding to enlist. But when those troops are ordered by Washington bureaucrats to conduct “enhanced interrogations” that may or may not breach the strictures of the Geneva Conventions, can we still “support” those troops? The lessons of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals after World War II make it clear that “followPRISM 2008
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ing orders” is no excuse. What about the troops who drop cluster bombs and fire rounds and shells comprised of depleted uranium? Is the typical soldier supposed to study the laws of war to discern the legitimacy of using such controversial weapons? Yet if the typical soldier refuses, especially in the theater of battle, there is often a terrible price to pay. I think the American public in general feels somewhat embarrassed about its unwillingness to directly fight and sacrifice for this war. People sense that those burdens are placed disproportionately on the poor, the less educated, and those with fewer options. It is out of that guilt that we profess special “honor” and “respect” for those who are “willing to die for our country.” Are those who serve as pawns in the hegemonic games of the political and military strategists, the corporate robber barons, and the economic and academic elitists to be held responsible for following orders whose ends they don’t really comprehend? Whose responsibility is it to educate our young people on those realities before they enlist? Might the church step up and serve that role? To do so, we must begin by asking ourselves some hard questions about how we benefit from the same system that sends young people off to war. Our churches, synagogues, mosques, and other faith communities must withdraw their chaplains who bless and excuse war. We must actively “counter-recruit,” creating life-affirming alternative opportunities for those presently targeted by military conscription offices. n Steve Clemens is a peace and justice activist living in Minnesota, where he serves on the boards of the local Pax Christi chapter and the Iraqi/American Reconciliation Project. In December 2002 he went to Baghdad as part of the Iraq Peace Team (vitw.org/ipt/). “May I Have a Word?” is an opinion column that appears three times a year.