[Peace-discuss] Spat on?

[Morton K. Brussel]

Thanks for your reflections, Karen. I respect them. The conversation  
could continue…  In any case, I'm not advocating any aggressive  
action against the returning troops. I'm saying that they don't  
deserve a pedestal, and cheering. How much "welcome" they deserve and  
is in all of our best interests is more complicated. Their families  
and friends certainly will welcome them, and no one will begrudge  
that, but all this hoopla is intended to glorify what they, agents of  
our government, did. I don't buy into that.

Mort

On Apr 14, 2006, at 9:56 AM, Karen Medina wrote:

> Dear Mort,
>
> You bring up good points. I'll try to address them as
> follows: guilt by volunteering to do wrong; the guilty not
> being victims; no nobility in being part of aggression;
> should the Germans have cheered the SS; and Hiroshima haunts
> us.
>
> I think a lot of my answers will center around my philosophy
> of human nature, so I'll start with explaining it just a bit.
> I believe that very few human beings are truly evil. I think
> we make a lot of mistakes in trying to figure out what is
> good and what is bad. Some mistakes are worse than others.
> When we make a mistake, recovering from that mistake and
> going on to never make it again is really hard -- painful. It
> requires a lot of reflection, analysis, and most that we
> admit to ourselves that we were wrong. We become more evil
> every time we lie to ourselves.
>
> Guilt by volunteering to do wrong:
> Yes. Many of the people who go in to the military do not
> realize that they are being lied to. And admittedly, some
> enjoy the opportunity to be cruel and violent. Most don't.
> Are they all guilty? Is ignorance a legitimate excuse? Of
> course it is not. But if they are ever to recognize their
> guilt and then to recover from it, they are going to need
> opportunities to do so. If your child ever made a mistake,
> you would still be glad when they returned alive.
>
> The guilty not being victims:
> One can be guilty and still a victim.
>
> No nobility in being part of aggression:
> We all make mistakes in assuming that the use of force or
> power is more efficient in accomplishing our goals.
> Recovering from those mistakes is what is important.
>
> Should the Germans have cheered the SS:
> Not cheered. Welcoming them and cheering them are two
> different things.
>
> Hiroshima haunts us.
> Iraq and Afghanistan will eventually haunt all of us. Right
> now it haunts at least 60% of us.
>
> At the township meeting the other night, there were people
> who think we should have stayed in Vietnam. They bought in to
> a way of thinking. And in order to live with themselves, they
> continue to buy in to it. I think, if they had felt less
> defensive about all of it, they would be more likely to open
> up to the possibility that they were wrong all along.
>
> To summarize, I think at least one member of the returning
> troops will be ready to recover. But an aggressive presence
> on our part will not force them to it any faster.
>
> -karen medina
>
> ---- Original message ----
>> Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 22:19:31 -0500
>> From: "Morton K. Brussel" <brussel4 at insightbb.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Spat on?
>> To: Bob Illyes <illyes at uiuc.edu>
>> Cc: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>
>> Pardon my intemperance, but to say that the soldiers are
> victims  ignores what they do, and what they have done, not
> only in Iraq but  in Afghanistan, and in their bases
> threatening war wherever the U.S.  president decides. They
> are in effect pawns, but willing pawns ab  initio, of U.S.
> policy. They are agents of aggression. They have  defended
> nothing except their status. Many have been barbaric in
>> their actions. Why welcome anyone back who kills and wounds
> or who  has wreaked havoc for no good reason? It is perverse
> to say that they  are victims, save if they were forced to so
> act. They had no rightful  business there. In effect,
> whatever these soldiers signed up for,  many unwittingly no
> doubt, they are simply put hired killers (of  course in
> defense of democracy and our national interests). In
>> peacetime, their duty may be relatively benign, but in the
> wars we  create, it's another story. It seems to me that
> there is a lot  fawning nonsense going around about our noble
> troops. They are not  more noble than anyone else, and I see
> no special reason to cheer  them as they return, except as a
> political--tactical-- gesture.
>> Ignorance has no nobility. Should the Germans in WWII have
> cheered  the SS when they returned from the front, or from
> Auchwitz? On a  moral plane it doesn't make sense.
>>
>> One has to consider these guys case by case, and I do not
> know  anything about their cases.
>>
>> I am definitely opposed to putting the military on a
> pedestal. That  is part of the sickness of society. Too many
> military heroes!
>>
>> Of course, they are not all the same. There are good eggs
> and bad  eggs. There are those that learned something about
> the horrors of  war, and those that disregard them or
> perpetuate them. The latter  populate much of our Amercan
> Legions or VFW's. There are no doubt  some heros, like the
> guy who stopped some of the massacre at Mai Lai  in Vietnam.
> But there are also those that partook in the blood letting.
>>
>> These guy were volunteers. That they volunteered for quality
> of life  or economic reasons is beside the point. If they can
> now admit that  what they were doing was wrong, great, we
> should welcome them in that  sense to our fold, but we should
> not welcome them for simply having  returned home.
>>
>> If this note is a little bitter, so be it. Our soldiers are
> no  different than any other army's soldiers. It's a tragedy
> to someone  that that they die or are wounded, and it's a
> tragedy that their  participation continues the tragedy.
>>
>> Our wars since 1945 have not been good ones from a
> humanitarian point  of view. Hiroshima, of the good war,
> still haunts (some of) us.
>>
>> --mkb
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