Why We Shouldn't "Support the Troops"
The American tendency to march lockstep behind pro-military sloganeering is facile and incongruous with all but the most sinister and fascist ideologies.
Given that most Americans now believe that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were mistakes, one would think that public opinion would simultaneously turn away from those who fought the wars of their own free will. Yet despite the fact that confidence in the military has fallen sharply in recent years, it remains the most revered institution in the United States. In America, any criticism of the military itself is met with rote excuses, belligerence, or incredulity, with judgment being restricted to its various missions but never its conduct in willingly carrying out those missions—just over one third of Americans believe the disastrous, protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were worth fighting, but even the politicians who masterminded the invasions remain unpunished. Real world justice for the millions killed, maimed, or displaced over the last two decades will likely never be attained, but we do have some popular influence: we can collectively resist efforts to whitewash the legacy of Bush and rehabilitate the public image of his handlers, for example.
But what of the actual warfighters? They may or may not have been enthusiastic volunteers, but they willingly and freely enlisted in the military and then fought in wars that were at best (even at the time) questionably necessary. Now that Americans seem comfortable taking Russian soldiers to task for their invasion of Ukraine, the question becomes: why was the drive to worship our own troops so pervasive if their wars were similarly unjustified? Why are all criticisms of the troops met with such kneejerk opprobrium even among those who always opposed the wars?
It is worth examining common rhetorical defenses of soldiers in light of this clear inconsistency.
“They are only following orders.”
This defense died at Nuremberg. In his opening statement, chief prosecutor Robert H. Jackson said, “The idea that a state, any more than a corporation, commits crimes, is a fiction. Crimes are always committed by persons…It is quite intolerable to let such a legalism become the basis of personal immunity. The charter recognizes that one who has committed criminal acts may not take refuge in superior orders nor in the doctrine that his crimes were acts of state. These twin principles working together have heretofore resulted in immunity for practically everyone concerned in the really great crimes against peace and mankind.” It is simple: if the Nazi soldiers should not have obeyed the order to invade neighboring countries, then US soldiers should not have obeyed the order to invade Iraq and remain as indefinite occupiers whose presence has been deliberately extended in order to increase profits for contractors (who provided both the occupying forces and the countries they occupied with dangerously shoddy services and infrastructure, as in the case of the Baghdad Police College) and facilitate the reelection of opportunistic politicians.
If we can suspend morality merely because an order has been issued, whether it is part of a nominally legal process or not, there is no end to the atrocity one can justify. Would we give the same excuses to a gangster in the mafia, who is similarly only following the orders of a capo when he carries out an assassination? What about a Russian soldier brutalizing civilians to subjugate Ukraine?
“They are defending your freedom.”
No aspect of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reinforce Americans’ freedom in any way. The people killed and occupied by the US military were never a threat to our way of life, and many took up arms to defend their homeland in the same way many millions of Americans would be happy to do in the event of an invasion on our soil.
Simply stating “I am doing this on your behalf” is no justification, particularly if there is no proof of the assertion. This is in fact a counterfeit obligation meant to disguise the plain truth that the military is endangering our freedom by creating millions of righteously angry victims abroad.
Does spying on antiwar groups and Planned Parenthood sound like the behavior of an organization which is intent upon securing our freedom? Does the torture of detainees who were overwhelmingly delivered into US custody by bounty hunters? Does the deliberate murder of civilians? Does the use of prison (slave) labor among military contractors? Does the lack of investigation into startlingly common extremism and white supremacy in the ranks? The military does not exist to defend our freedom.
“They believe that they are defending your freedom.”
They are incorrect, and it is important that we tell them so in an emphatic and well-reasoned way. US forces will never understand that they are acting against any moral code if they are to be excused merely for being in error, and brash, violent ignorance of this stripe is no better than outright malice. Even if we generously assume that they enlisted by mistake (out of ignorance or patriotic fervor), at some point during their service they will inevitably realize the error of their ways. From this moment on, every second they fail to desert or sabotage the war effort in some other way is a moral failing.
At some point, ignorance and evil bleed into one another. That point is where one is used to excuse the other.
“Soldiers sacrifice much for their cause.”
True, soldiers sacrifice time, energy, and sometimes their lives for a cause. But so do mafia soldiers, extreme sports athletes, and Russian soldiers in 2022. Mere sacrifice is not sufficient to justify the cause for which sacrifice is being made.
As an honest veteran of the Iraq War named Brett McFann said, echoing the earlier mea culpa of Marine Corps General Smedley Butler,
When people thank me for my military service I ask if they are the CEO of a huge corporation.
The answer is always, so far anyway, No.
I then say, Well then don’t thank me because I didn’t do a thing for average Americans.
I did whatever I did for benefit big business like especially the defense and oil companies and companies that rape the world for cheap resources, cheap labor and markets.
This the real mission of the US military: to keep the rich among us living unrealistically opulent lives. We would not excuse a gangster who periodically shares his or her ill gotten wealth with us, nor would we consider them our protectors—their cause is indefensible, regardless of their periodic sacrifices for it.
“Soldiers enlist only to go to college or escape a dire financial situation.”
Is it moral for a poor individual to attempt to escape poverty by killing and exploiting individuals who are by and large even poorer? The Iraqis and Afghans had nothing to do with American poverty. If the military was attacking Wall Street in order to stop its exploitative tendencies, only then would this excuse hold water.
Forcing poor individuals to enlist and kill civilians in order to live, rather than providing a robust social safety net to foster equality of opportunity, ensures that the system will never be fixed and only serves to kick the can down the road. We will never emerge from this vicious cycle if this generation of soldiers, police, and other enforcers of capitalist rot are not willing to break it.
Additionally, this excuse is not a defense of the soldier’s character. The willingness to participate in atrocities for money is a hallmark of the mercenary, not the blameless and holy US soldier. If they enlist for the paycheck alone, what will happen when a new entity (perhaps an outright malicious one) comes along and offers them a more generous package? Either the enlistees are moral, and thus should not have taken part in War on Terror, or they are not, and will be led astray at the first opportunity.
“I know someone in the military, and they wouldn’t do anything wrong.”
This is an indignant and immediately spurious reaction to criticism of the military, yet an undeniably effective one, given that most have some connection to the military or its contractors, and it can make honest criticism difficult. Yet it also presumes that one’s relations are incapable of performing evil, an assumption which only need be answered by asking if the same forgiveness would be offered to a friend or relation who was convicted of rape.
“Soldiers are in a difficult situation and can thus be excused for their trigger-happy and paranoid behavior.”
This defense was offered (successfully) in the case of the Haditha massacre by investigating officer Lt. Col. Paul Ware: “By the time [Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum, the accused] could recognize that he was shooting at children, his body had already acted.”
In order to be consistent, though, we would have to apply this same benefit of the doubt to any Iraqi, who is certainly aware that there is a non-zero chance that any passing soldier might decide to murder him or her without cause. If it is permissible for soldiers to kill civilians and otherwise non-threatening individuals, why is it not also permissible for Iraqis (or any other individual who claims to feel threatened by the military) to do the same? This is the real danger of excusing murder: we dehumanize both the soldier and his or her victim and grant any nearby Iraqi or Afghan moral justification to fire upon them preemptively.
“You cannot know what is happening in the war without fighting it.”
This is an ad hominem, and a meaningless one, given the wealth of trustworthy information and analysis available from a variety of sources.
I do not need to join the mafia in order to criticize it, and doing so would, by an incongruous yet often simultaneously-offered argument (the following example concerning taxation to fund the wars) render me likewise guilty and thus unable to comment due to hypocrisy. The moment a critic of the military were to join it, they’d be accused of inconsistency.
“You can't know someone until you’ve killed women and children with their rifle” is a more accurate but less palatable translation of this sentiment. Would this excuse be acceptable if applied to any other criminal? That we would happily apply it to soldiers is actually evidence of a profound lack of respect for them.
Regardless, there are many veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who denounce both the occupation and military leadership. Winter Soldiers have told horrific stories (testifying under oath at great personal risk), several of which are recounted in The Nation:
While on tank patrol through the narrow streets of Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad, Pfc. Clifton Hicks was given an order. Abu Ghraib had become a “free-fire zone,” Hicks was told, and no “friendlies” or civilians remained in the area. “Game on. All weapons free,” his captain said. Upon that command, Hicks’s unit opened a furious fusillade, firing wildly into cars, at people scurrying for cover, at anything that moved. Sent in to survey the damage, Hicks found the area littered with human and animal corpses, including women and children, but he saw no military gear or weapons of any kind near the bodies. In the aftermath of the massacre, Hicks was told that his unit had killed 700-800 “enemy combatants.” But he knew the dead were not terrorists or insurgents; they were innocent Iraqis. “I will agree to swear to that till the day I die,” he said. “I didn’t see one enemy on that operation.”
If combat experience is all that is necessary to claim the status of “expert,” then a single Winter Soldier testimonial can fully invalidate any claims of US troops’ uprightness.
“You are supporting the war through tax contributions so you are not blameless.”
One cannot criticize the system as an outsider and an insider at the same moment. If direct participation in an evil renders me forever unable to criticize it, then I must do so as an outsider, or as an embedded journalist. The closest thing to an actual outsider I can approach is a passive taxpayer, which I and virtually all other war protestors are—leave the country, and I might no longer be burdened by our collective guilt, but I can then no longer act to change the system either.
The distinction between direct participation and passive complicity is simple: taxation is necessary to ensure the perpetuation of a (minimal at present) social safety net, whereas soldiering is not. Were we to stop paying taxes in protest of this war, the first programs to be cut would be the socially beneficial ones, as is always the case (see the current defense budget, which is the largest in history, while social programs and COVID-19 funding are cut). End taxation and end the lives of the downtrodden; end soldiering and end the wasteful, harmful occupations.
“All crimes are being committed by a few bad apples.”
The vast majority of current US military is working to reinforce the immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. They are all, in a very real sense, bad apples.
Beyond this, though, the original aphorism is anything but an excuse. A few bad apples, it seems, are responsible for every misstep, every unnecessary death, every act of torture, every legal defense of torture, and perhaps even for forgetting that the “few bad apples” cliché, in its complete form, tells us that “a few bad apples spoil the barrel.” Indeed, the other apples often act to protect their spoiled brethren, by covering up their crimes (examples abound, but here are several: the Dilawar killing and cover-up, a recent US airstrike in Libya which killed 11 civilians and which, like many other incidents in that war, was insufficiently investigated by US Africa Command, the Abu Ghraib abuse and cover-up, drop weapons, the military justice system failing to prosecute homicides, soldiers answering for one another during the rare court martial, a recent UK law which creates a “presumption against persecution” for soldiers accused of acts such as torture more than five years prior, and the well-known penchant for everyone involved in war crimes to turn a blind eye).
The apple metaphor is inaccurate in another way. It presumes that there is some inherent worth to the apples, which can be tarnished by the presence of bad ones. Current US soldiers, on the other hand, are taking part in a war of occupation which is at best harmful, wasteful, and ineptly administered—there is no preexisting goodness to sully. Therefore a better illustration for the current number of abusive US soldiers might be “a particularly bloodthirsty vampire among the more passive undead.”
“Morality doesn’t matter; the US will do as it pleases irrespective of right and wrong.”
This is Neoconservative moral nihilism, a kind of thinking which, while seemingly consistent on the surface, legitimates terrorism in response by ceding any moral high ground. An explicit admission that our intentions are sinister and self-serving is an invitation for any justice-seeking actor to violently oppose the military and the soldiers who serve in it, whereas keeping our real designs shrouded in a veil of empty idealist rhetoric at least convinces those who are too ignorant or hateful to pierce it.
These common knee-jerk defenses of US soldiers cannot be disentangled from a defense of the wars which are now just as commonly opposed in the US, and it is imperative that we do not hesitate to share the blame between the architects and commanders of the war and those who wage it on the ground.
A better alternative to “Support the Troops” might be “Support the Humans,” but this more all-purpose slogan is all too often incongruous with the first.