Multiple tour combat veteran (DS/DS - OIF) and Army Retiree here. Served as an Infantry Officer and Ranger for over twenty years.
I am truly ashamed of my “service” to the corporations and embarrassed that I didn’t fully grasp the death and destruction we did, until after I retired. I am sickened by the greed that we enabled. I am sickened by the death, destruction, and pain we caused the Iraqi people!
I lived in a world of illusion and rationalization for years. I put my mouth on the fire hydrant of propaganda for far too long and drank hard. I am now a “Veteran for Peace” and do volunteer work on the Pine Ridge Reservation to try to truly serve humanity. I ask for forgiveness every day and know in my heart, I don’t deserve it!
I have 2x hip replacements, a cervical disc replacement, spinal cord stimulator implant and deal with TBIs, PTS and chronic pain. I deserve every bit of it! The Iraqi people suffered much greater calamities than I ever will. God bless every one of them. I grew up working on a sheep/goat ranch through high school and Kollidge and feel a greater affinity to the Iraqi people than the posh politicians that sent us off to fight for the corporations to get rich beyond description.
For anyone reading this, please look up www.defendourprotectors.com and the “Stop G-RAP Injustice” on Facebook. Tens of thousands of us had the Govt turn on us and many noble and good people are in jail or in hell for a corrupt and misguided recruiting program that saved the country from a draft during the heights of the “Global War on Terror.” Ashamedly, it is what it took for me to see the evilness of our Govt and Corporations. They turned on the very soldiers that fought and suffered, and recruited people for more of the same.
I have a war bag full of regrets and heartache (again, nothing compared to the suffering of the Iraqi people). I should have become a wildlife biologist when I was at the crossroads of my life in college and not gone into the military.
I just pray that I can do some good in this world for however long I have left. I pray for my combat brothers and sisters that are suffering in physical, mental, spiritual and emotional pain. Again, I pray for the beautiful Iraqi people. May we all find peace. Peace.
I am married to a Vietnam Vet. I will never criticize our veterans for the crimes of our society, for we all are to blame. However, neither will I thank vets for their service, because in my heart I truly believe we should apologize to them and beg their forgiveness for how we as a culture exploited and harmed them.
But having said that, I am going to do something I swore I would never do, and I will do it only this once.
Thank you for your service. Not as a soldier, but as a compassionate human being who is truly making a positive difference for our country. You don't need to be forgiven. We need you to forgive us.
Your kind words blow me away. I am deeply appreciative to you for them. I hope you and your husband are doing well and have peace.
My father did three tours in Vietnam (61, 67 and 69). He passed away at the young age of 54 from a brain tumor that he and five of his comrades all had within six years of one another. The politicians and corporations could care less about him, his comrades, your husband, me or millions of others that have sacrificed over the many years our country stays at war.
I won’t tell our children what to do, but I highly discourage the military to them. I pray that they won’t be colonizers and destroyers like I was.
Again - you kind words are like balm on my wounded soul. A deserved wounded soul at that. May we all find a way to work hard for peace and collaboration, instead of lining the pockets of the MICC. <SALUTE> to you and your husband.
As you can see in my other comment I have a pretty harsh opinion about soldiers. That said I’m honestly in tears for your pain. Speaking truth and being so honest about your own part in all of it must be unbelievable painful. I have harmed people and have my fair share of sins but I think that it is not comparable to what you are going through. Believe me when I’ll promise that I’ll pray for you and wish you good souls and spirits at your side when you have to fight your demons!! I thank you so much for what you are doing and wish you from all my heart that you can find joy and peace in your life!!! If we all just got what we deserve “who should 'scape whipping?” But I believe that God will grace us with all he got and we are allowed to hope for forgiveness! Let’s fight for what is good and keep spreading the word of peace!! Have a good life!! I’ll raise my glass to you!!
Your kindness and grace is light in the darkness! Again - none do I deserve.
I deserve any harsh comments that are given. I pray that one day I can go back to Iraq and tell the people how sorry I am for all that has happened to them. For our brutal attempt at more colonization.
With my asking for forgiveness, I believe acts to back that up are crucial. That is why I work with and try to give to our indigenous population - to help in an area of desperate need. The Pine Ridge Reservation (as Chris Hedges discusses) - is a “sacrifice zone” of America and is tragically poor. The poorest county in the US. Which to me is unforgivable as well.
I am with you - we need to work for peace...and, we need to work hard at it! We need to give an uplifting hand to our fellow humans, instead of a pushing down.
I must be so hard not to be able to talk to the people you harmed.
But I guess that is why the Christian image of purgatory where we all feel the harm we have done through love (that we in the most needed form call forgiveness) and feel it all … like fire, is so much needed and giving hope even to those who can’t find it anywhere else.
And I hope the US finds a way to talk about soldiers/veterans in a grown up way that takes the human being and it’s decision to do what they did seriously. I think this is such a lack of respect by society towards soldiers/veterans. We can’t fight for peace and dismantle the system without talking about personal responsibilities. We have to really see the pain we inflicted before we can heal our own. And I’m so glad for you sharing this here. It gives me so much hope (especially since I was kinda disappointed by Hedges and the conversation on this one) and I thank you for that and it helps me to look behind the uniforms. Love & peace
It's terrific to hear this intelligent and incisive discussion of US wars by two people who have had first hand experience with the realities that wars involved. The US has shown itself too eager to go to war, and it is always reluctant to reveal both its motivations and its behavior while engaged in it.
An obligatory word in US corporate media when mentioning the relentlessly provoked Russian invasion of Ukraine is to add -- “unprovoked”…
The killing of Azov POW by hi-mars missiles was certainly ordered by US CIA overseers – dead Nazis don’t talk. US government knows exactly who Zelenski’s Ukro-Nazis government is… -- as always US supports extreme right-wing fascist side.
Russia is fighting for ALL of us – US population is in a death grip of uni-party War party where Dem versus GOP are identical but offer a three ring-circus for US population. It is 1% versus 99% -- Stand with Russia !!
I have always respected Chris Hedges and Andrew Bacevich; however, I never have and never will accept the official narrative of 911. It's a fairy tale. Hedges has never to my knowledge discussed 911 in his work or public lectures.
Interesting you should say this. A friend of mine who is an engineer has always questioned the 911 narrative. He introduced me to the Engineers and Årchitects Truth about 911 group. They criticize the "how" from a engineering perspective the towers fell. They do not go into the who or why aspect. Are you familiar with them? Not sure if "commenters" are put in touch with one another. If so my contact: rhana3@verizon.net. Ignore MAILER DAEMON. I do get messages.
Thank you.. I am aware of the Engineers and Architects 911 Truth group. When I looked at their site a number of years ago , it hit me squarely in the gut. I knew right then just how big the official lie was and still is. The information they deliver sent shivers down my spine. The who and why may never be known for certain. Lots of speculation and theories that are of little interest to me. Thanks for taking the time to comment Rhana. May I recommend (if you are not already aware of it) the website "Consortium News" / CN. Their offerings and reader comments are excellent IMO.
Thanks for responding. A funny thing. Life is full of them! I found your reply in my spam folder. I have gotten in the routine of checking it every day. It said, "this may not have been sent by John Ressler he usually uses BillyCox@heraldtribune. Do you know Billy? He is a dear friend of mine. I like to think I'm his surrogate mother. If you know him you know he is no longer with the paper. Do you follow his Life in Jonestown blog? Thanks for the refer. I'm not aware of it.
I did not respond by email, I responded by the reply option on Hedges Substack site. Never heard of Billy Cox. Do not follow the Jonestown blog. I am trying to keep my screen time to an absolute minimum and mostly go to 3-sites, CN being one of them. The other two are - Scheerpost and Counterpunch - that's plenty. Be well.
This is why I worry and am so leery of social media and the internet in general. I avoid it like the plague. However it seems it's ever present and "they" are directing us toward it more and more. How it wound up in my email box is a mystery. At 89 I'm just not ready for the 21st century. Extremely fortunate to be in good health and still functioning. Take care.
This conversation illustrates how very difficult historical perspective is to gain and how even more difficult it is to implement in national policy once gained.
Yes, but it also illustrates the incredible necessity of these types of first-person accounts from high-integrity sources. As Ralph Waldo-Emerson stated near perfectly: “There is properly no history, only biography.”
I agree with you that biography is extremely important to history. It may even be the bedrock of it. But the analysis of that bedrock information ranges through a number of different levels of analysis -- the biographical particular, and then moving up into more general regions of the socio-economic, international diplomatic, and so forth.
Like you, I deeply value the stories that individuals provide, giving folks like me, outside their immediate experience, a moral gut-feel of how these larger policies are actually working on the ground, where the horrible work is done.
Too many of our leaders have absolutely no deep understanding of what they are unleashing when they take us to these wars. Macnamara's reflections on the Vietnam War and its management by himself and Pres. Johnson, filled me with a kind of deep horror, realizing that once the dogs of war are unleashed, it is near impossible for leaders to re-evaluate their war decision and to pull out before they have created an ungodly amount of death and destruction and waste.
But we must continue the dialogue, doing our best to ameliorate and limit the dis-value of war.
John, I couldn’t agree more. Thanks for the serious dose of truth. I wish we were all on this level of consciousness about war and our collective humanity.
And I wish we were all able to discuss seriously with one another, showing some compassion for one another about how deeply complex, important, and terrifying the moral issues are -- instead of senselessly and sadistically pummeling one another with accusatory argumentation.
Powerful and thought provoking dialogue. The comments by listeners were also valuable and worth pondering. If military veterans are only 7 % of the U.S. population, it forebodes the impact that additional testimonies will have in the future. Fewer future veterans would be great for Peace and the end of the Empire, but fewer veteran narratives exposing the compromise and capture of the Congress by the corporations will result in dilution of veteran pragmatism to the general public and the historical record.
Vilnius was the center of the Enlightenment. It was a liberal Democracy in the center of Europe and the Capital of the Age of Reason and Enlightenment. In 1794 Europe chose Reason and abandoned Enlightenment. In 1854 Tennyson excused the madness of the suicide of Britain's best and brightest in Crimea thusly.
Ours is not to reason why,
Ours but to do and die.
Russia wouldn't have been the Crimea in 1853 if the Empires had stood up for Vilnius.
My history tells me we didn't see liberal democracy until Paris in 1871 and liberal democracy lasted ten whole days.
Meanwhile Cotton Mather's Old School is still hunting witches. This witch is hot enough.
There were no revolutions in America and France; they went from Empire to Empire.
As a non US-American I’d say as long as the US society (including huge parts of the left) still (only) portrays veterans as victims and honorable people, the MIC can do whatever it wants and already does.
I get that some men and women didn’t have a lot of options in life other than the military to get out of bad life situations.
I get that the powers to be in Empire use poor and working class people for their own interests.
I get that we all (even those outside the US at least in “the West”) profit in some ways from Empire and capitalism and play a role and have our responsibilities for the dark sides of Empire.
I get that a lot of veterans really are suffering and in pain and deserve to see these things attended to.
But as long as we excuse the lives choices of grown up individuals to earn their living by killing black and brown people around the globe for reasons not to be justified by even the most giving just-war-theory we don’t respect those soldiers and their decisions. The US hasn’t had a war that was in any way justifiable since (at least) WW II. So everybody could/should have known what they signed up for.
I get that veterans need help. But I really have to take a lot of compassion to accept caring for the trauma of soldiers that they got from killing innocent people, destroying homes and peoples while nobody cares about their victims or discusses the responsibility of the single soldier.
I think it is something when veterans speak out against the military and political leadership.
But Bacevich still trying to justify Afghanistan with 9/11 while not talking about Saudi Arabia shows how he still believes and defends the system.
His formulations and vocabulary are still putting distance between himself and the horrors of war. Talking about “americas misguided wars” is at least dumb and unreflected but in the end really just cynical. The US (not “American”) wars are violating international law, every decent moral standard and human rights. By choice and design.
I am with Tucholsky: Soldiers are murderers. Everything else is a farce.
I concur with your assessment. You are spot on in many regards. War machines depend on the ignorance of youth. They are easy prey - to include me in my young years. Not an excuse - but, some background to what occurs. Then the propaganda cult effect kicks once indoctrinated and off to the races we go with willing participants. I was one that fell for the bovine scat that they pushed on me and millions of others. Not an excuse again - we should have done more research and critical thinking. We didn’t and many people have paid with their lives for that horrific and tragic mistake. Bless you for your awareness and perspective.
Greetings from a friend of FLVeterans for Çommon Sense. Colonel Bacevich is a favorite of ours. This interview was engrossing. It stopped too soon. I've recently participated in a course and ZOOM by World Beyond War. They argue no wars are justified. There data and argument makes sense except they leave out humans have to implement them. Are you familiar with Robert Gagnon and his take on the Ukrainian war? Very different from what we hear. Chris, thank you so much. A long time admirer.
Very interesting Chris. Let me start by saying that I disagree with Mr. Bacevich about Afghanistan. The Taliban did not enable Al-Qaeda. The United States created Al-Qaeda as part of Charlie Parker's war which really should be called Zbigniew Brzezinski's war. While the Taliban were sympathetic to Al-Qaeda in the sense that they were both fundamentalist Muslims (and frankly, not all that different from evangelical Christians) they were fundamentally different organizations. Please note that all the planning and execution of OBL's plan happened in Germany and Somalia. As A-Q was successively chased out of both those countries. They got to Afghanistan only a couple of months before the deed of 9/11 was done. At that point the Taliban didn't control all the country with our Norther Alliance controlling about 20% and the Taliban the other 80%. Could the Taliban controlled A-Q? Prolly not.
So why didn't we just cooperate with the Taliban government and, using Taliban help, round up the A-Q in Afghanistan? Because Shrub (he's just a little bush - Molly Ivans) knew that he had fucked up, big time. In a typical distortion, he had to blame the uninvolved, look tough, strut around like a cock crow. A whole lotta people, mostly totally innocent Iraqis, died for his ego.
I have to wonder how many people realize that all of our wars have been based on false or fabricated or essentially non-existent bases.
Multiple tour combat veteran (DS/DS - OIF) and Army Retiree here. Served as an Infantry Officer and Ranger for over twenty years.
I am truly ashamed of my “service” to the corporations and embarrassed that I didn’t fully grasp the death and destruction we did, until after I retired. I am sickened by the greed that we enabled. I am sickened by the death, destruction, and pain we caused the Iraqi people!
I lived in a world of illusion and rationalization for years. I put my mouth on the fire hydrant of propaganda for far too long and drank hard. I am now a “Veteran for Peace” and do volunteer work on the Pine Ridge Reservation to try to truly serve humanity. I ask for forgiveness every day and know in my heart, I don’t deserve it!
I have 2x hip replacements, a cervical disc replacement, spinal cord stimulator implant and deal with TBIs, PTS and chronic pain. I deserve every bit of it! The Iraqi people suffered much greater calamities than I ever will. God bless every one of them. I grew up working on a sheep/goat ranch through high school and Kollidge and feel a greater affinity to the Iraqi people than the posh politicians that sent us off to fight for the corporations to get rich beyond description.
For anyone reading this, please look up www.defendourprotectors.com and the “Stop G-RAP Injustice” on Facebook. Tens of thousands of us had the Govt turn on us and many noble and good people are in jail or in hell for a corrupt and misguided recruiting program that saved the country from a draft during the heights of the “Global War on Terror.” Ashamedly, it is what it took for me to see the evilness of our Govt and Corporations. They turned on the very soldiers that fought and suffered, and recruited people for more of the same.
I have a war bag full of regrets and heartache (again, nothing compared to the suffering of the Iraqi people). I should have become a wildlife biologist when I was at the crossroads of my life in college and not gone into the military.
I just pray that I can do some good in this world for however long I have left. I pray for my combat brothers and sisters that are suffering in physical, mental, spiritual and emotional pain. Again, I pray for the beautiful Iraqi people. May we all find peace. Peace.
I am married to a Vietnam Vet. I will never criticize our veterans for the crimes of our society, for we all are to blame. However, neither will I thank vets for their service, because in my heart I truly believe we should apologize to them and beg their forgiveness for how we as a culture exploited and harmed them.
But having said that, I am going to do something I swore I would never do, and I will do it only this once.
Thank you for your service. Not as a soldier, but as a compassionate human being who is truly making a positive difference for our country. You don't need to be forgiven. We need you to forgive us.
Reid,
Your kind words blow me away. I am deeply appreciative to you for them. I hope you and your husband are doing well and have peace.
My father did three tours in Vietnam (61, 67 and 69). He passed away at the young age of 54 from a brain tumor that he and five of his comrades all had within six years of one another. The politicians and corporations could care less about him, his comrades, your husband, me or millions of others that have sacrificed over the many years our country stays at war.
I won’t tell our children what to do, but I highly discourage the military to them. I pray that they won’t be colonizers and destroyers like I was.
Again - you kind words are like balm on my wounded soul. A deserved wounded soul at that. May we all find a way to work hard for peace and collaboration, instead of lining the pockets of the MICC. <SALUTE> to you and your husband.
As you can see in my other comment I have a pretty harsh opinion about soldiers. That said I’m honestly in tears for your pain. Speaking truth and being so honest about your own part in all of it must be unbelievable painful. I have harmed people and have my fair share of sins but I think that it is not comparable to what you are going through. Believe me when I’ll promise that I’ll pray for you and wish you good souls and spirits at your side when you have to fight your demons!! I thank you so much for what you are doing and wish you from all my heart that you can find joy and peace in your life!!! If we all just got what we deserve “who should 'scape whipping?” But I believe that God will grace us with all he got and we are allowed to hope for forgiveness! Let’s fight for what is good and keep spreading the word of peace!! Have a good life!! I’ll raise my glass to you!!
Andre,
Your kindness and grace is light in the darkness! Again - none do I deserve.
I deserve any harsh comments that are given. I pray that one day I can go back to Iraq and tell the people how sorry I am for all that has happened to them. For our brutal attempt at more colonization.
With my asking for forgiveness, I believe acts to back that up are crucial. That is why I work with and try to give to our indigenous population - to help in an area of desperate need. The Pine Ridge Reservation (as Chris Hedges discusses) - is a “sacrifice zone” of America and is tragically poor. The poorest county in the US. Which to me is unforgivable as well.
I am with you - we need to work for peace...and, we need to work hard at it! We need to give an uplifting hand to our fellow humans, instead of a pushing down.
Bless you again for your kind soul.
I must be so hard not to be able to talk to the people you harmed.
But I guess that is why the Christian image of purgatory where we all feel the harm we have done through love (that we in the most needed form call forgiveness) and feel it all … like fire, is so much needed and giving hope even to those who can’t find it anywhere else.
And I hope the US finds a way to talk about soldiers/veterans in a grown up way that takes the human being and it’s decision to do what they did seriously. I think this is such a lack of respect by society towards soldiers/veterans. We can’t fight for peace and dismantle the system without talking about personal responsibilities. We have to really see the pain we inflicted before we can heal our own. And I’m so glad for you sharing this here. It gives me so much hope (especially since I was kinda disappointed by Hedges and the conversation on this one) and I thank you for that and it helps me to look behind the uniforms. Love & peace
It's terrific to hear this intelligent and incisive discussion of US wars by two people who have had first hand experience with the realities that wars involved. The US has shown itself too eager to go to war, and it is always reluctant to reveal both its motivations and its behavior while engaged in it.
Thank you !!!
An obligatory word in US corporate media when mentioning the relentlessly provoked Russian invasion of Ukraine is to add -- “unprovoked”…
The killing of Azov POW by hi-mars missiles was certainly ordered by US CIA overseers – dead Nazis don’t talk. US government knows exactly who Zelenski’s Ukro-Nazis government is… -- as always US supports extreme right-wing fascist side.
Russia is fighting for ALL of us – US population is in a death grip of uni-party War party where Dem versus GOP are identical but offer a three ring-circus for US population. It is 1% versus 99% -- Stand with Russia !!
I have always respected Chris Hedges and Andrew Bacevich; however, I never have and never will accept the official narrative of 911. It's a fairy tale. Hedges has never to my knowledge discussed 911 in his work or public lectures.
Interesting you should say this. A friend of mine who is an engineer has always questioned the 911 narrative. He introduced me to the Engineers and Årchitects Truth about 911 group. They criticize the "how" from a engineering perspective the towers fell. They do not go into the who or why aspect. Are you familiar with them? Not sure if "commenters" are put in touch with one another. If so my contact: rhana3@verizon.net. Ignore MAILER DAEMON. I do get messages.
Thank you.. I am aware of the Engineers and Architects 911 Truth group. When I looked at their site a number of years ago , it hit me squarely in the gut. I knew right then just how big the official lie was and still is. The information they deliver sent shivers down my spine. The who and why may never be known for certain. Lots of speculation and theories that are of little interest to me. Thanks for taking the time to comment Rhana. May I recommend (if you are not already aware of it) the website "Consortium News" / CN. Their offerings and reader comments are excellent IMO.
Thanks for responding. A funny thing. Life is full of them! I found your reply in my spam folder. I have gotten in the routine of checking it every day. It said, "this may not have been sent by John Ressler he usually uses BillyCox@heraldtribune. Do you know Billy? He is a dear friend of mine. I like to think I'm his surrogate mother. If you know him you know he is no longer with the paper. Do you follow his Life in Jonestown blog? Thanks for the refer. I'm not aware of it.
I did not respond by email, I responded by the reply option on Hedges Substack site. Never heard of Billy Cox. Do not follow the Jonestown blog. I am trying to keep my screen time to an absolute minimum and mostly go to 3-sites, CN being one of them. The other two are - Scheerpost and Counterpunch - that's plenty. Be well.
This is why I worry and am so leery of social media and the internet in general. I avoid it like the plague. However it seems it's ever present and "they" are directing us toward it more and more. How it wound up in my email box is a mystery. At 89 I'm just not ready for the 21st century. Extremely fortunate to be in good health and still functioning. Take care.
89 ! Fabulous. You have 21 years on me. Stay curious. You inspire Rhana.
An excellent discussion of the nature of war and how it effects our veterans.
This conversation illustrates how very difficult historical perspective is to gain and how even more difficult it is to implement in national policy once gained.
Deep change is slow.
Yes, but it also illustrates the incredible necessity of these types of first-person accounts from high-integrity sources. As Ralph Waldo-Emerson stated near perfectly: “There is properly no history, only biography.”
I agree with you that biography is extremely important to history. It may even be the bedrock of it. But the analysis of that bedrock information ranges through a number of different levels of analysis -- the biographical particular, and then moving up into more general regions of the socio-economic, international diplomatic, and so forth.
Like you, I deeply value the stories that individuals provide, giving folks like me, outside their immediate experience, a moral gut-feel of how these larger policies are actually working on the ground, where the horrible work is done.
Too many of our leaders have absolutely no deep understanding of what they are unleashing when they take us to these wars. Macnamara's reflections on the Vietnam War and its management by himself and Pres. Johnson, filled me with a kind of deep horror, realizing that once the dogs of war are unleashed, it is near impossible for leaders to re-evaluate their war decision and to pull out before they have created an ungodly amount of death and destruction and waste.
But we must continue the dialogue, doing our best to ameliorate and limit the dis-value of war.
John, I couldn’t agree more. Thanks for the serious dose of truth. I wish we were all on this level of consciousness about war and our collective humanity.
And I wish we were all able to discuss seriously with one another, showing some compassion for one another about how deeply complex, important, and terrifying the moral issues are -- instead of senselessly and sadistically pummeling one another with accusatory argumentation.
Thanks for the reasoned response.
Best.
Powerful and thought provoking dialogue. The comments by listeners were also valuable and worth pondering. If military veterans are only 7 % of the U.S. population, it forebodes the impact that additional testimonies will have in the future. Fewer future veterans would be great for Peace and the end of the Empire, but fewer veteran narratives exposing the compromise and capture of the Congress by the corporations will result in dilution of veteran pragmatism to the general public and the historical record.
They say I am autistic but they can't tell me what that means. I am 74 and couldn't do school and am learning how to write.
I have a different understanding of the universe. In 1794 Vilnius was destroyed by the Empires.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilnius
Vilnius was the center of the Enlightenment. It was a liberal Democracy in the center of Europe and the Capital of the Age of Reason and Enlightenment. In 1794 Europe chose Reason and abandoned Enlightenment. In 1854 Tennyson excused the madness of the suicide of Britain's best and brightest in Crimea thusly.
Ours is not to reason why,
Ours but to do and die.
Russia wouldn't have been the Crimea in 1853 if the Empires had stood up for Vilnius.
My history tells me we didn't see liberal democracy until Paris in 1871 and liberal democracy lasted ten whole days.
Meanwhile Cotton Mather's Old School is still hunting witches. This witch is hot enough.
There were no revolutions in America and France; they went from Empire to Empire.
As a non US-American I’d say as long as the US society (including huge parts of the left) still (only) portrays veterans as victims and honorable people, the MIC can do whatever it wants and already does.
I get that some men and women didn’t have a lot of options in life other than the military to get out of bad life situations.
I get that the powers to be in Empire use poor and working class people for their own interests.
I get that we all (even those outside the US at least in “the West”) profit in some ways from Empire and capitalism and play a role and have our responsibilities for the dark sides of Empire.
I get that a lot of veterans really are suffering and in pain and deserve to see these things attended to.
But as long as we excuse the lives choices of grown up individuals to earn their living by killing black and brown people around the globe for reasons not to be justified by even the most giving just-war-theory we don’t respect those soldiers and their decisions. The US hasn’t had a war that was in any way justifiable since (at least) WW II. So everybody could/should have known what they signed up for.
I get that veterans need help. But I really have to take a lot of compassion to accept caring for the trauma of soldiers that they got from killing innocent people, destroying homes and peoples while nobody cares about their victims or discusses the responsibility of the single soldier.
I think it is something when veterans speak out against the military and political leadership.
But Bacevich still trying to justify Afghanistan with 9/11 while not talking about Saudi Arabia shows how he still believes and defends the system.
His formulations and vocabulary are still putting distance between himself and the horrors of war. Talking about “americas misguided wars” is at least dumb and unreflected but in the end really just cynical. The US (not “American”) wars are violating international law, every decent moral standard and human rights. By choice and design.
I am with Tucholsky: Soldiers are murderers. Everything else is a farce.
I concur with your assessment. You are spot on in many regards. War machines depend on the ignorance of youth. They are easy prey - to include me in my young years. Not an excuse - but, some background to what occurs. Then the propaganda cult effect kicks once indoctrinated and off to the races we go with willing participants. I was one that fell for the bovine scat that they pushed on me and millions of others. Not an excuse again - we should have done more research and critical thinking. We didn’t and many people have paid with their lives for that horrific and tragic mistake. Bless you for your awareness and perspective.
Again thank you so much for the hope you gave me!! May I ask for your name?
You are welcome to email me at rangerk9@aol.com and we can discuss. Thank you for the hope YOU have given me!
Greetings from a friend of FLVeterans for Çommon Sense. Colonel Bacevich is a favorite of ours. This interview was engrossing. It stopped too soon. I've recently participated in a course and ZOOM by World Beyond War. They argue no wars are justified. There data and argument makes sense except they leave out humans have to implement them. Are you familiar with Robert Gagnon and his take on the Ukrainian war? Very different from what we hear. Chris, thank you so much. A long time admirer.
TRUTH on War, but even more importantly on this "Quiet American" EMPIRE
Very interesting Chris. Let me start by saying that I disagree with Mr. Bacevich about Afghanistan. The Taliban did not enable Al-Qaeda. The United States created Al-Qaeda as part of Charlie Parker's war which really should be called Zbigniew Brzezinski's war. While the Taliban were sympathetic to Al-Qaeda in the sense that they were both fundamentalist Muslims (and frankly, not all that different from evangelical Christians) they were fundamentally different organizations. Please note that all the planning and execution of OBL's plan happened in Germany and Somalia. As A-Q was successively chased out of both those countries. They got to Afghanistan only a couple of months before the deed of 9/11 was done. At that point the Taliban didn't control all the country with our Norther Alliance controlling about 20% and the Taliban the other 80%. Could the Taliban controlled A-Q? Prolly not.
So why didn't we just cooperate with the Taliban government and, using Taliban help, round up the A-Q in Afghanistan? Because Shrub (he's just a little bush - Molly Ivans) knew that he had fucked up, big time. In a typical distortion, he had to blame the uninvolved, look tough, strut around like a cock crow. A whole lotta people, mostly totally innocent Iraqis, died for his ego.
I have to wonder how many people realize that all of our wars have been based on false or fabricated or essentially non-existent bases.
https://youtu.be/1y21rXfou30