Not my rights.
Originally Posted on September 12th, 2007:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hLMqYRK4wj2OXnWEJEgcEaxmURZA
Some things tend to press the “Irk” key on my mental keyboard. This is one of them. The article played out how I expected it to. My problem was with the following statement from General Petraeus:
“Needless to say, to state the obvious, I disagree with the message of those who are exercising the First Amendment right (to free speech) that generations of soldiers have sought to preserve for Americans.”
Really. A weaker man would be permanently brainwashed for how many times I’ve heard this statement repeated, as many seem to be. This is a classic defense of staunch military supporters–namely Republicans–for their belligerent acts of aggression upon the world. “We’re fighting for your right to disagree with us.”
What? Against whom? Are the Iraqis trying to take away my freedom of speech? Are terrorists? I thought we were fighting to find WMDs! Then, I thought we were fighting to stop the spread of global terrorism. After that, we were told that the whole reason we were over there was to liberate the Iraqi people from the clutches of Saddam Hussein. After we got rid of him, I was told we were staying there to ensure that Iraq stayed liberated. Now, nobody really seems to know why we’re there, but they sure as hell haven’t mentioned anything about fighting to save my First Amendment rights!
This is the same excuse I’ve heard for every unpopular military operation we’ve been involved in. Vietnam had nothing to do with our freedom of speech, neither did Panama, the Gulf War, the Korean War, Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan or Iraq. In fact, I can’t seem to remember a single military conflict that involved even a remote threat to U.S. citizens’ freedom of speech since World War II and, arguably, the Cold War.
Why is this response consistently given as justification for any and all military action–provoked or not–against other countries? The answer to this is simple: it is a mechanism by which one party attempts to silence the opposition by invoking a false sense of pride-based patriotism and guilt for the purposes of curbing all constructive and intelligent discussion on the topic. It is an intellectually lazy distraction used by those without reasonable references or arguments to use in defense of their opinion or the people/issues they support.
Until I see the military fulfilling the other half of their duty to protect us from all enemies foreign and domestic by raiding Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court and corporate boardrooms to sift through and detain the real enemies of our liberty, I’ll continue to denounce that phrase as being little more than a jingoist tool of control.
That being said, let’s take a look at what our troops are fighting for: The price of oil, unsurprisingly, took 3 1/2 years to double in price, and has since remained at those levels. The defense industry has made billions and billions of dollars on this war. Companies such as Haliburton have been awarded exclusive, no-bid contracts for the war. Last I heard, we’re either building or trying to build a permanent military base in Iraq, thereby giving us a permanent military presence in the region. We have expanded the powers of the president to near dictatorial status. We’ve added a whole new department just full of goons while completely desecrating privacy rights in the name of “national security”.
Hm. Can’t say I’m surprised that “preserving the rights of Americans” doesn’t make the list. No sir, seems to me like the only people whose investments are protected and whose interests are served are government and corporate elites. If a single person can show me how we’d lose our freedom of speech by choosing not to partake in any of the aforementioned wars, I will humbly stand corrected.
It’s times like these that I wish I were a gambler. I’d put all my money on “not gonna happen.”