Support our Troops

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
>>  What would Michael Albert say to and about (A) the US troops and
>>  civilians who wish to and do carry out orders to help Bush & Co. wage
>>  the illegal preventive war on Iraq and take other unlawful actions
>>  elsewhere and (B) regular and irregular combatants (Iraqis,
>>  Filipinos, Colombianos, etc.) who counterattack them?
>>
>>  What if another devastating terrorist attack (or a wave of
>>  small-scale terrorist attacks) happened on the US soil and/or the
>>  anti-war movement got unexpectedly massive and militant?  Enforcement
>>  of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 had already been relaxed before
>>  9.11, and Bush & Co. want to further compromised it: Cf.
>>  <http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/pcomitatus.cfm>.  What if one day US
>>  troops received orders to shoot and kill protesters here?
>>
>>  The rhetoric of "Support Our Troops" can become a petard by which
>>  we'll get hoisted.
>>  --
>>  Yoshie
>
>==================
>
>Let's just engage in pre-emptive [r]evolutionary action and just 
>start shooting everyone not like us.
>
>Free markets in killing!
>
>Ian

Can't we have some serious discussion?  The following news may have 
been already posted here, but I have yet to hear from anyone about 
what to do about it:

*****   US Air Force base authorizes deadly force against anti-war protesters

By Barry Grey
18 March 2003

Officials at Vandenberg Air Force Base in southern California 
announced March 14 they had authorized military police to use deadly 
force against activists who plan to trespass onto the base to protest 
the imminent war against Iraq.

The announcement came on the same day that a member of a group called 
Guadalupe Catholic Worker jumped onto the base's entrance sign and 
sprayed it with four ounces of his own blood in a symbolic antiwar 
gesture. Dennis Apel, 52, later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts 
of trespassing and vandalism. He will be sentenced next month in a 
Santa Barbara federal court and faces a possible jail sentence or 
fine.

Vandenberg officials said if protesters go ahead with plans to 
penetrate the base, military security police may shoot to kill. "This 
is not fun and games anymore," said Major Stacee Bako. "We're living 
in post 9/11. We don't know what's going to happen with the war 
effort in Iraq. These folks have got to realize their 
actions....They're illegal intruders."

<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/mar2003/dead-m18.shtml>   *****

The rhetoric of "Support Our Troops," however well intentioned, is 
likely to only empower those who say that protests, etc. endanger 
troops' safety.  And when it comes down to it, leftists support 
troops only as long as they are not shooting at civilians or 
otherwise executing unlawful orders, so we ought to make clear where 
we really stand.  Otherwise, we are not telling the truth.  US 
soldiers deserve our honesty.
-- 
Yoshie

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