Is S.O.U.L.S a mercenary support front?

(Published in the Suffolk Journal)

S.O.U.L.S’ recent “troop drive” is an attestation to the quasi-fascism perpetuated in the culture of the U.S. mainstream, and is a disgusting legitimization on our campus of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. It sustains the narrative of U.S. soldiers as the primary sufferers of illegal U.S. aggression and is, ultimately, a waste of time and resources for both Suffolk students and organizers. If action is to be taken for the benefit of a needy people, surely S.O.U.L.S could find a more unfortunate population than the tools of U.S. imperialism (like the Iraqi people) toward which to dedicate their efforts.

The notion of soldiers in the U.S. military as victims in this framework is particularly noxious, as it’s through their efforts, collectively and individually, that the worst atrocities of U.S. violence are realized. The U.S. armed forces have a genocidal legacy and are the only military organization in history to use a nuclear device in any context (and against defenseless civilians nonetheless.) But in today’s politically bifurcated culture, the men and women enlisted in the U.S. armed forces are either lauded as “defenders of freedom” or mourned as martyrs for empire. Even for those who have acknowledged that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was/is done under false pretenses and with dubious justifications, the base component of the U.S. military, the romanticized grunt soldier, remains beyond criticism. What about his or her actions? Is joining the U.S. military justified (or even excusable) given the hideous history of this organization and the extralegal way in which it parades itself today?

Defenses for the conduct of the U.S. military are myriad and amorphous as a result of the disparate contexts for which they attempt to redress. For example, when U.S. Marines slaughtered 24 Iraqi civilians in Hadetha, including “children and the women who were trying to shield them,” pundits from the right argued that such actions were perfectly acceptable given the U.S.’s hyped “threat of terror” and current “state of war.” (Bill O’Reilly, went as far as to defend their actions by comparing—maybe appropriately—military actions in Hadetha to the execution of surrendered U.S. forces by Nazis in France during WWII.) It is claimed that the stress soldiers endure somehow justify their transgressions against innocent civilians. Those who make this claim however don’t apply similar standards to the equally perturbed populations who commit malfeasance against the U.S. For example, no measurements are made of the possible mental stress the 9/11 hijackers may had suffered prior to flying planes into buildings. Exploring the reasoning for some of the hatred against the U.S. (and Western Culture in general) felt by people in the Global South seems unfathomable in mainstream culture. Maybe such a reflection would reveal too much about the U.S.’s perennial involvement in systems of oppression there.

From the left, defense for U.S. soldiers is premised on the hackneyed narrative of these fighting men and women as poor working-class people with limited opportunities aside from military service. Their socio-economic circumstances are used as a form of apology for their actions. It is argued, therefore, that because the majority of the military (an all volunteer force) are from poor, underserved communities with little chance of personal fruition in their humble quests for personal betterment, their actions should be overlooked or mitigated and prosecution should be made only against those in positions of power who had casually sent them into conflict in the first place. But this logic excuses the responsibility we all as human beings have for our actions. The basic U.S. soldier, when he or she enlists into the military is making an ethical/moral decision. They are sacrificing their personal judgment to be an enforcer of aggression in a third-world context. The history of the U.S. armed forces is not absent from them—there exists every opportunity to investigate the record/historical utility of the U.S. military. They either: a) choose not to investigate, b) allow themselves to be deluded through cheap, fairy tale-like advertisements (e.g., “be all that you can be”) or c) justify their service by flaunting their lack of opportunities. Regardless of their reasoning two facts remain unchanged: 1) soldiers in the U.S. military are not forced to join this organization (there is no draft today) and 2) their actions put into direct mortal danger even more abused, underserved communities around the world. Each time a U.S. soldier patrols through Iraqi neighborhoods with loaded, automatic weaponry, the lives of Iraqi men, women and children are endangered. The U.S. soldier deserves as much sympathy for their perilous condition as a police officer who patrols and subsequently abuses residents of urban, racially segregated ghettos.

Therefore, an organization like S.O.U.L.S should not attempt to lift the spirits of criminals through an aggregation of cheap, disposable commodities (and some questionable items like tobacco-based products.) With all the misery in the world (a lot of which is a direct consequence of Western-imperialism) tenacious, young volunteers should dedicate their actions to causes of better caliber than a “troop drive.” They should not serve the function as cheerleaders for mercenaries.