Should We Support Troops Fighting An Unjust War?
Harold Hark
2 April 2003

"The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy," said U.S. Marine Corps Corporal Ryan Dupre. "I am starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No, I won't get hold of one. I'll just kill him."

Here in Oz, the opposition Labor Party, the equivalent of the Democrats in the U.S., have remained firmly against the war in Iraq without the second UN Security Council resolution. However, they have simultaneously stressed that since we did go to war that our troops should be supported unconditionally. "They are just doing their job," is the reasoning. For the most part, politicians from the minor parties have gone along. But what does the unconditional support of troops sent to fight in an unjust war mean?

The above quote is chilling, but in the context of battle, not unusual. If young Dupre lives, he may grow up to regret, not only his momentary hatred of Iraqis (seen as separate and inferior to himself, and further, as inferior to the American human race), but even to regret his participation in the war. For the moment, he is a man who volunteered to be a soldier. And soldiers exist to fight wars and kill the enemy.

A reader of The Age, Jeremy Clark, recently wrote to the editor, wondering what kind of person would volunteer for such a career. "What sort of person joins the army, navy or air force, learns how to kill people and agrees to do whatever they are ordered to do by the government of the day?" A good question and one that no one has dared to ask in these patriotic times.

One of my neighbours has a son who was thinking of joining a few years ago. Thankfully he didn't follow through, but I wondered how a boy in his late teens could entertain such an old-fashioned idea. Did he live in a conservative vacuum? True, his parents support John Howard, but children usually rebel against their parents. Of course, this is the suburbs, a milieu so often caught in a time warp. (An example: As the rest of the world begins to question the folly of this war, suburbanites are getting behind Howard's submissive war effort more and more.) As it turned out, the boy is indeed one of those anachronistic young people of today known as "young fogeys". He has become a budding entrepreneur in the lawn mowing trade and is staunchly pro-war.

For decades, perhaps since the Vietnam War, joining the armed services has been reserved for those who, to use the vernacular, are simply "out of it". Despite regular invitations on commercial TV, young people tend to treat the idea of removing themselves from the contemporary world in which they thrive for the cloistered world of the military with about as much enthusiasm as joining a nunnery or the priesthood.

So who does join?

People without a will of their own? People so removed from the present that life in a barracks seems exciting? Masochists who like to be humiliated and Sadists who like to humiliate? Genetic males and homosexuals with a violent streak? (I'm not being facetious here. More than half of the men and women who re-enlist in America do so for same-sex thrills. Makes sense if you're a Marine who yearns to be a Mariane.)

In America, as in all third world countries (and except for the well off, America is a third world country), there is more to it. Young men and women with little or no education join the armed services to avoid a life on the streets caused by the crushing poverty forced on them by the lack of decent wages and social benefits in the Dickensian jobs available. Like their brethren who join fundamentalist religious sects, these lost souls are in need of just what the military and religion offer: authority and freedom from individual responsibility.

Enter Ryan Dupre and his buddies.

I cannot support them in this war, because they are not fighting a just war, as their "job description" meant them to do. Repelling an invasion would have elevated them to heroes. But they are the invaders and the evil they are forced to embrace as a conquering army will lead them further into hatred and murder.

They are killing the defenceless and are being made to rationalise their atrocities. It is impossible to believe that the car carrying the slaughtered women and children would not have stopped if they had been clearly made aware of the consequences if they did not. Frightened, jittery soldiers did not follow protocol, warning shots were not fired in time, and the car kept coming. These were not suicide bombers. Their lives were brutally snuffed out because their country has been invaded by well-armed children without minds of their own who should not be there.

Despite this, and like all soldiers from the beginning of time, they should not be held directly responsible for their actions (except before their God, if they have one). For they are indeed just following orders. Moving up the chain, their commanders are also not directly responsible. You have to go to the top, as always, to the very top. To Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, George W. Bush, Tony Blair, John W. Howard (and his foreign minister, Alexander Downer, who has expressed sympathy for the soldiers who killed the families, but none for the families themselves). These are the culpable men, the abusers of power, who should be tried for the war crimes committed by their underlings. These are the men who sent the troops into this sandstorm-ridden hell on earth that may or may not result in a pyrrhic victory over the equally evil Saddam Hussein.

The nooses are waiting for them. Not their soldiers.

For a devastating account of these atrocities, see Mick Lambe's posting of a Times of London article by Mark Franchetti:US Marines turn fire on civilians at the bridge of death

If support for our troops means support for our Government's inexcusable agreement to commit them to an "unjust" war, then my answer is a resounding NO!

I want our troops to be returned to Australia safe and sound NOW! I do not want them committed to this war or any other war at the behest of the United States.

I believe our troops, unlike the US military, have a head on their shoulders and can think for themselves, and I am sure that they would rather be back home than fighting in a dirty conflict desperately wanted by the US. I'm also sure that they are under no illusion that war is NOT a giant video game.

I fear that they will be the scapegoats of what happens on the field of battle. After all, "following orders" is no longer a credible defence under international law.

Saddam is a butcher and a criminal of the worst kind. Our leaders should have had the sense not to fall to his level. They cannot claim the high moral ground any more. They are as guilty as Saddam for the "killing fields" of Iraq.

Mick Lambe's posting and responses: On supporting OUR troops - I don't

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