Monday, September 27, 2021
Actual Event from September 2017
This just happened. I could barely wait to get back to my confuser & FB to tell you about it.
I went up the street for something to eat. I ordered at the counter & brought my food outside to a sidewalk table. Just then a big truck came by. It was a garbage truck & it was painted in a strange way, I guess it was camouflage paint and in big letters on the side of this garbage truck was the message "SUPPORT OUR TROOPS". The idea flashed thru my mind that maybe it would have been proper for me to rise & salute this garbage truck but it was past me before I was able to do anything. But it did cause me to think about the message on the side of the garbage truck: SUPPORT OUR TROOPS. Do I SUPPORT OUR TROOPS? Well certainly; I pay taxes & the lion's share of my taxes go to paying for the salaries, equipment, facilities, & operations of our military and I'm not even asking for a tax reduction - the opposite in fact. But do I support the role of our troops & the missions they are committed to? Well, that's more complicated. When they are protecting my person, my rights, my property & those of the men & women of my country from malign & violent forces, I'm gratitude & support personified but if the beneficiaries of their heroism are entities like Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, Northrup-Grumman or Blackwater, not so much! And if the point is to prevent people in other countries from choosing their own governments or how to use their resources then again, not so much. In general, I prefer to show support by recommending that they be kept safe & out of harm's way. Then there's the question of do I support authoritarian, regimented & hierarchical organizations? Honestly, not very much. I wish there were fewer of them, that they had less power in the world & that they commanded the loyalties of fewer people - no more than would be absolutely necessary as a deterrent. Finally, if we must have troops & if people must serve, then I believe that ALL people should serve. I'm uncomfortable with a military composed solely of people who desire to be part of the military.
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Agreed! I might add that the "volunteer" military has become the main anti-poverty program in the US, recruiting the poor and dispossessed. This was the Nixon Administration's solution to the anti-war movement which arose in opposition to Vietnam. The even more insidious aspect of the new warfare has been turning over much of the support and even some of the actual fighting to private mercenary forces employed by large corporations such as Blackwater USA. In fact, more US "contractors" were killed in Afghanistan than US soldiers. Worth checking out is Jeremy Scahill's book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
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