An Open Letter to the Troops: You?re Not Defending Our Freedoms
 

An alternative view to all the propaganda you're seeing this weekend:

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An Open Letter to the Troops: You?re Not Defending Our Freedoms
by Jacob G. Hornberger May 31, 2011

Dear Troops:

Yesterday ? Memorial Day ? some people asserted, once again, that you are ?defending our freedoms? overseas.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Those people are just repeating tired old mantras. The reality is that you are not defending our freedoms with your actions overseas. In fact, it is the exact opposite. Your actions overseas are placing our freedoms here at home in ever-greater jeopardy.

Consider your occupation of Iraq, a country that, as you know, never attacked the United States, making it the defender in the war and the United States the aggressor. Think about that: Every single person that the troops have killed, maimed, or tortured in Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

Yet, the countless victims of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq have friends and relatives, many of whom have become filled with anger and rage and who now would stop at nothing to retaliate with terrorist attacks against Americans.

Pray tell: How does that constitute defending our freedoms?

It was no different prior to 9/11. At the end of the Persian Gulf War, the troops intentionally destroyed Iraq?s water and sewage facilities after a Pentagon study showed that this would help spread infectious illnesses among the Iraqi people.

It worked. For 11 years after that, the troops enforced the cruel and brutal sanctions on Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. (See ?America?s Peacetime Crimes against Iraq? by Anthony Gregory.) You?ll recall U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright?s infamous statement that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions were ?worth it.?

By ?it? she meant the attempted ouster of Saddam Hussein from power. You will recall that he was a dictator who was the U.S. government?s ally and partner during the 1980s, when the United States was furnishing him with those infamous WMDs that U.S. officials later used to excite the American people into supporting your invasion of Iraq.

The truth is that 9/11 furnished U.S. officials with the excuse to do what their sanctions (and the deaths of all those Iraqi children) had failed to accomplish: ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein and replacing him with a U.S-approved regime.

That?s what your post-9/11 invasion of Iraq was all about ? to achieve the regime change that the pre-9/11 deadly sanctions that killed all those children had failed to achieve.

No, not mushroom clouds, not freedom, not democracy, and certainly not defending our freedoms here at home. Just plain old regime change.

In the process, all that you ? the troops ? have done with your invasion and occupation of Iraq is produce even more enmity toward the United States by people in the Middle East, especially those Iraqis who have lost loved ones or friends in the process or simply watched their country be destroyed.

In principle, it?s no different with Afghanistan. I?d estimate that 99 percent of the people the troops have killed, maimed, or tortured in that country had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11.

Why did you invade Afghanistan or, more precisely, why did President Bush order you to do so?

No, not because the Taliban participated in the 9/11 attacks and, no, not because the Taliban were even aware that the attacks were going to take place

President Bush ordered the troops to invade Afghanistan ? and, of course, kill Afghan citizens in the process ? because the Afghan government ? the Taliban ? refused to comply with his unconditional extradition demand. You will recall that the Taliban offered to turn bin Laden over to an independent tribunal to stand trial upon the receipt of evidence from the United States indicating his complicity in the 9/11 attacks.

Bush responded to the Taliban?s offer by issuing his order to the troops to invade Afghanistan, kill Afghans, and occupy the country. In the process, U.S. officials installed one of the most crooked, corrupt, and dictatorial rulers it could find to govern the country, one who is so incompetent he cannot even hide the manifest fraud by which he has supposedly been elected to office.

In the process of installing and defending the Karzai regime, the troops have killed brides, grooms, children, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, and countrymen, most of whom never attacked the United States on 9/11 or at any other time. They simply became ?collateral damage? or ?bad guys? for having the audacity to oppose the invasion and occupation of their country by a foreign regime. (It should be noted for the record that U.S. officials considered these types of ?bad guys,? as well as Osama bin Laden and other fundamentalist Muslims, to be ?good guys? when they were trying to oust Soviet troops from Afghanistan.)

Was there another way to bring bin Laden to justice? Yes, the criminal-justice route, which was the route used after the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

That?s right. Same target, different date. In fact, the accused terrorists ? Ramzi Yousef in 1993 and Osama bin Laden in 2001 ? were ultimately located in the same country, Pakistan.

In Yousef?s case, he was arrested some three years after the attack, brought back to the United States, prosecuted, and convicted in federal district court. He?s now serving a life sentence in a federal penitentiary.

No invasions, no bombings, no occupations, no killing of countless innocent people, no torture, no war on terrorism, and no anger and rage that such actions inevitably would have produced among the victims, their families, and friends.

In bin Laden?s case, we instead got a military invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, where the troops have killed, maimed, tortured, and hurt countless people who had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

How in the world have your invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq defended our freedoms here at home? Indeed, how have the assassinations and bombings in Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and who knows where else defended our freedoms?

All these things have accomplished is keeping foreigners angry at us, thereby subjecting us to the constant and ever-growing threat of terrorist retaliation here at home. As I have pointed out before, the U.S. military ? that is, you, the troops ? have become the biggest terrorist-producing machine in history. Every time you kill some Iraqi or Afghan citizen, even when accidental, ten more offer to take his place out of anger and rage.

That?s the same thing that was happening prior to 9/11. In fact, there were some, including those of us here at The Future of Freedom Foundation, who were warning prior to 9/11 that unless the U.S. Empire stopped what it was doing to people in the Middle East (including the deadly sanctions on Iraq, the support of Middle East dictators, the stationing of U.S. troops near Islamic holy lands, and the unconditional money and armaments to the Israeli regime), Americans would be increasingly subject to terrorist attacks. On 9/11, we were proven right, unfortunately. (See Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire by Chalmers Johnson.)

How does the constant threat of terrorist retaliation arising from your actions in Iraq and Afghanistan make us freer here at home, especially when you ? the troops ? are responsible for engendering the anger and rage that culminates in such threats, owing to what you are doing to people over there?

Consider also what the U.S. government does to our freedoms here at home as a direct consequence of the terrorist threat that you, the troops, are producing over there. It uses that threat of terrorism to infringe upon our freedoms here at home! You know what I mean ? the fondling at the airports, the 10-year-old Patriot Act, the illegal spying on Americans, the indefinite detention, the torture, the kangaroo tribunals, Gitmo, and the entire war on terrorism ? all necessary, they tell us, to keep us safe from the terrorists ? that is, the people you all are producing with your actions over there.

In other words, if you all weren?t producing an endless stream of terrorists with your invasions, occupations, torture, assassinations, bombings, and Gitmo, the U.S. government ? the entity you are working for ? would no longer have that excuse for taking away our freedoms.

This past Sunday, the Washington Post carried an article about American wives who were recently greeting their husbands on their return from Afghanistan. Newlywed Anne Krolicki, 24, commented to her husband on the death of one of her friends? husband: ?It?s a pointless war,? she said.

That lady has her head on straight. She?s has a grip on reality, doesn?t deal in tired old mantras, and speaks the truth. Every U.S. soldier who dies in Iraq and Afghanistan dies for nothing, which was the same thing that some 58,000 men of my generation died for in Vietnam.

Please don?t write me to tell me that you all are good people or that you?re ?patriots? for simply following whatever orders you are given. All that is irrelevant. What matters is what you are doing over there. And what you are doing is not defending our freedoms, you are jeopardizing them

Sincerely,

Jacob G. Hornberger
President
The Future of Freedom Foundation
www.fff.org

Bumping this!

nevermind

Nazi Germany never attacked the United States either.

Iraq attacked Kuwait, a US ally, threatened to destabilize the entire Middle East, and the US decided to intervene. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

We invaded Afghanistan because the United States was attacked by a group of terrorists located in Afghanistan. The government of Afghanistan - The Taliban - supported this terrorist group, gave them a base to operate out of, and refused to arrest them. Thus, we invaded. A terrorist attack that kills thousands of Americans and does billions in damage results in military response by the US.

I sleep fine at night.

Saddam killed [guesstimating] 100 000 people = war criminal
Bush killed [guesstimating] 150 000 people = ??????

Memorial Day isn't to commemorate active duty military; try to get your holidays right.

None of which have anything to do with the freedom of American citizens, which was the OP's point.

They are fighting alright, and perhaps a couple of the battles can be justified in some sick, perverse way, but fighting (and dying) for "American freedom" they are not. But it sounds heroic to say they are and it is a great battle cry, so I understand why they say it.

:thumbsup

thank you WWII veterans for defending our freedom!

since the thread is getting bumped,

exactly.

that letter writer is confused, memorial day isn't about the future, it's about remembering those that died.

and it certainly isn't for jumping on your soap box to guilt-trip the current soldiers. that's actually pretty stupid too. what's he think he doing, pied pipering the troops to fly home from afghanistan? riiiiiiiiiight.

Letter writer makes several valid points, but in using this day as his 'launch' day, a day to commemorate those who did fight, and die, to defend American freedoms, he basically renders himself a troll, and a huge one at that.

Any surviving WW II vets and their fallen bretheren deserve better than this, on this day.

Bump! :thumbsup

Who cares what this piece of shit is posting on Memorial day
Who gives a rats ass about the OP that put it here on GFY

GoFuckYourself

Memorial day is for fallen soldiers that gave their lives, dating back to the civil war

If the OP or the guy that wrote the post has a problem with them, he can say it straight to some vets standing outside a VA hospital. After he wakes from the beating he gets and realizes that troops have no power over what country they go to, fuck you for placing the blame on them.

We have president that wants to give special medals to the pilots of a fucking drone!http://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-scrap...202254129.html

Yes, they did. They attacked and sank 100s of US supply ships to England and mined New York harbor.

I actually thought I was going to get Rick Rolled when I clicked that. Shocked to see it was a real story.

I had another fun weekend nonetheless..
This thread needs to pic..
http://www.ryulion.com/cali_colombia/11.jpg

And even went as far to send a small group of Germans equipped with $ and explosives with the task of taking out our aluminum plants (Alcoa) so we could no longer build aircraft. Its amazing that people today know so little about WWII.

That ass needs a bite! :thumbsup

I love history - I was totally amazed when bush made a remark of 9/11 being the first attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor - The Japanese bombed and invaded Alaska with over 40,000 ground troops. Pretty big item for a team of handlers and speech writers to miss. It's crazy how little people know about these critical world events.

They invaded with 500 troops and Alaska wasn't a state yet.
Still, it's a cool story. They had none guy they had to hunt down that escaped when they invaded. There were 10 guys , Navy weather team

semantics!

You are pure retard. I've been to Attu and Kiska btw. My father also worked on Adak as well as my grandfather.


One Battle alone on Attu: "This resulted in fierce combat, with a total of 3,929 U.S. casualties; 580 men were killed, 1,148 were wounded, and another 1,200 had severe cold injuries."

"On 15 August 1943, an invasion force of 34,426 Canadian and American troops landed on Kiska. "

Quite a few weathermen. Dipshit.

Says the guy hailing from a country that landed on France on D Day with bicycles.

US Losses in Alaska:
1,481 killed
225 aircraft destroyed
640 missing
3,416 wounded
8 captured

Japanese Losses in Alaska:
4,350 killed
28 captured
7 warships sunk
9 cargo transport ships sunk

Btw... an insane number of Japanese held grenades to their chests in the final battle right in front of US troops who were trying to capture them. Wikipedia doesn't say anything about it, but a substantial number of their losses were in the final day(s) from suicide which is why so few were captured.

do you feel that this is an insult?

if you know anything about ww2, you'd say fuck all about canada.

I can picture you on your bicycle riding off to free the world. Little bell. Tassels on the ends of the grips. Maybe a card flapping in the spokes. Big Canadian flag on your jacket so no one mistakes you for being a threat.

no wonder you think your ex girlfriends are dumb as rocks

Definitely watch "The Secret of the Seven Sisters." It gives a ton of really interesting background info to the unrest in the Middle East and the ties to oil. http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/...231487582.html

Plural? An over generalization and distortion to demonstrate a pattern which doesn't exist. You're not a bright guy Richard. You should quit. Spend some time pretending you matter at the company you work for and try to fix your fucked up, low quality promo clips that are useless to use for promotion and spend less time on the boards embarrassing yourself and your company.

need this, yes?

Saddam killed plenty more. Over a million people died during the Iraq / Iran war over a ten year period.

But there is a staggering difference between gassing your own citizens and going to war with another country. One is a criminal act, the other is an act of war. One is illegal, the other is not.

How do you figure that fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan isn't fighting for our freedom?

In Afghanistan, it's pretty clear - We were attacked and in order to defend our freedom and protect the citizens at home, we had to go war to prevent them from doing it again.

With Iraq.... The freedom of another country was violated, and because the oil of Kuwait and more importantly Saudi Arabia helps to protect and defend our freedoms by selling us their oil - which was threatened.

So year, in both cases, we are fighting for for our freedoms.

You can even argue that in Vietnam we were fighting for our freedoms. Was Vietnam threatening the freedoms we have in the United States? Not at all. But communism was, and Vietnam was where we decided to make a stand. You can argue we lost Vietnam - I believe we did - but you can also argue that if we didn't make a stand in Vietnam, communism would been bold enough to strike out in Europe... So yeah, we were fighting for our freedom in Vietnam in a way.

you could say 'we were fighting for the freedom to do what we want'

smacking down saddam was fine.

attacking him again because the kurds we funded could not overthrow him was bullshit now we have tons of people who had no problems with Americans wanting to kill Americans anyone that thinks that makes us safer well i dont know what to say about them......

and about Afghanistan the taliban offered up osamma a week or so after we started to attack them and our govt told them to go fuck off so yes the first week or so might have been about 9/11 after that nope.

you never watch her asses when you take these pictures ?

I knew i'd get flamed for this provocative post.

Rochard, Nobody in Afghanistan attacked on 9/11.

The hijackers, 15 of them were Saudi's.

They all perished in their heinous attack.

Now there was an allegation that someone there had something to do with it and the Bush administration demanded from the Taliban that he be handed over.

There was no evidence presented and the Taliban said "Fuck you Bush"

Then they invaded in an aggressive act, overthrew the Taliban regime and occupied the country for 13 years costing 6,000 US servicemen and nearly 1 trillion dollars.

All of this was for NOTHING. NOTHING.

The CIA also committed war crimes and mistreated Taliban POWs, didn't hear that on the news did you ?

Google: Convoy of Death or look it up on Youtube.

Some of these POWs were shipped off to Gitmo, tortured repeatedly and have been held without charge for 10+ years.

The latest war crimes are being committed with drones strikes. Many civilians have been incinerated and blown up based on nothing more than allegations in violation of international law and yes the US Constitution and the 5th Amendment.

Every Tuesday the fraud and fake liberal President Obama decides who he's going to kill and orders their death absent any due process and in direct violation of his own oath of office to uphold the Bill of Rights which was hard fought and earned by great men in a war of independence in 1776.

They're not fighting for "freedoms" in Afghanistan. They're an occupying army who are not wanted and are still subject to guerrilla warfare and one could say justified attacks by the guys who were ousted over 10 years ago.

Kind of like Vietnam.

Another worthless, shitty war.

Stop it with the real facts ...
USA is there so they do not need to fight them here ....:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Not on the invasion shit for brains


http://www.kuriositas.com/2012/11/th...-invasion.html

Fucking retard that failed at hooked on phonics, try reading the post before commenting shit for brains

In the early morning of 6 June 1942, 500 Japanese soldiers landed on Kiska, one of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. They took the only inhabitants of the island, a ten man (and six dog) US Navy Weather Detachment by complete surprise and quickly took control of American soil. Today, the island is one of the USA?s National Historic Landmarks: the aftermath of the Japanese invasion can still be seen on the rolling hillsides of Kiska.

no.


you got flamed because you are insensitive and use a day of honor as your own soap box to try and push your agenda onto others. you can't even use your own words to do that.

And you don't think there are those using this "memorial" day to push an agenda of militarism, nationalism and patriotism?

The Middle East has been a cancer for the best part of 2000 years - whether it was the Turks, the Brits or now the Americans sticking their noses in it or not it would still be a vile backwards shithole where people suffer and die endlessly. The US would like to foster democracies where it can, that isn't done overnight, it isn't probably done in a lifetime. It also means you end up supporting some pretty despicable people who have their own agendas who will cooperate with the US. You can't get involved in the Middle East and not come out smelling like shit. Not in the short term anyway.

Without oil the US wouldn't be much interested in any of it other than providing humanitarian relief.

This 'Future of Freedom' organization isn't about freedom, there is little freedom in the Middle East outside Israel. Like many Canadians on this board, guys like Richard and directfiesta, it's fodder for a diatribe against the US. Without US involvement they wouldn't even be aware of what happens in the Middle East, they only worry about suffering when it's caused by the United States.

From my viewpoint the human and economic costs are too high for what might be gained, and the gains that are made the easiest and fastest are made by the military industrial complex Eisenhower warned about which makes it all look rather unseemly.

In other words our 'freedom' means dictating to everywhere else how they should be run. Now it all makes sense when people say they hate us for our 'freedom'.

Seems to me the terrorist group who planned, supported, and funded the nineteen terrorists were in fact in Afghanistan. The Taliban government there also supported this terrorist group. Also seems to me that when the United States said "arrest them or else" they failed to so.

Let me stop right there. If a terrorist group in France of Germany attacks the United States, we call up the other country, explain our case, and ask them to arrest them or at the very least detain them. Any civilized country would have said "okay".

Now, with the Afghan government, the Taliban, they just said "no". Perhaps the Taliban over there failed to understand exactly how serious the stakes were. The United States wasn't going to just walk away from this.

After 9/11 the only people left was Osama there and his Al Qaeda - and they were all in Afghanistan. When the Taliban refused to play ball with us, we invaded.

I have no problems with what we did.

No, not at all. I'm pretty confident that Luxemburg does exactly what it wants and that we do not "dictate our freedoms" to the people of Luxemburg. Or China. Or France, Angola, Belarus, Belize, Cuba, Chile.... The list goes on and on.

There are some countries where we have in fact "dictated" our freedoms. Iraq is one of them. I have no problems with this. Millions died in the ten year war between Iraq and Iran, and when they failed to win that they decided to play footsies with Kuwait. At a certain point in time someone needed to step in.

That 'stepping in' point coincidentally being when they stopped killing the people who overthrew our oil-rich puppet in Iran, and decided to remove our oil-rich puppet in Kuwait.

As for Bin Laden, as I said in a post the other day, the Afghans offered to hand him over if we provided some evidence against him. We didn't.

Whereas before 9/11, when we didn't give a rat's ass about terrorism because it only happened in other countries, we thought nothing of refusing extradition requests, by one of our closest allies, for wanted terrorists in the US.