Dissident Veteran For Peace

The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and unarmed. It is the very essence and reason for his being. When he violates this sacred trust, he not only profanes his entire cult, but threatens the very fabric of international society. The traditions of fighting men are long and honorable. They are based upon the noblest of human traits—sacrifice.

Source: Gen. Douglas MacArthur, 1946, confirming the death sentence imposed by a United States military commission on General Tomoyuki Yamashita, as quoted in the epigraph to Telford Taylor's Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy (New York: Bantam, 1970 [1971]).


A few years ago, just days after the Sandy Hook/Newtown massacre, I was involved in an email conversation with another veteran (whom I'll refer to "T." ). I've lightly edited the conversation as it appears below. T. started things off as follows:

Reportedly, bushmasters and high capacity handguns and magazines are flying off the shelf as the gun people anticipate new legislation.

If you're antiwar you've probably noticed who the war people are, who form the permanent political base in support of the military as an institution, and become hyper-activated to support every war as soon as the bugle blows. [emphasis in original]

By supporting gun control legislation, you can reduce the self-reinforcing group-think at work here.  They will come around, over decades.  They'll accept that guns are no good.

Liberals are notorious for not noticing their true allies, or the fact that we have a common moral and logical framework.

I replied:

Stereotype much, [T.]? I guess you never saw the GI Voice/Coffee Strong documentary, Grounds for Resistance. One of the opening vignettes is a bunch of the Coffee Strong guys firing a wide array of guns in a gravel pit near Olympia; you can see Seth Manzel firing an AK-47 in the trailer. My point is there is no neat relationship between being pro-gun rights and pro-war. Some of the most active, committed anti-war activists I know are "gun people".

I remember, too, that the President who signed the federal assault weapons ban in 1994 is the same guy who presided over US-enforced sanctions that led to the death of +500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five. On national television, his Secretary of State said of the dead Iraqi children: "We think the price is worth it." A year before he signed the federal assault weapons ban, Bill Clinton also presided over a siege in Waco, TX by the federal gun police that led to the death of 76 people, at least eleven of whom were under the age of five. Where was the liberal outpouring of grief and anger over the death of the Iraqi children or the children in Waco? No one was ever held accountable for any of those deaths. This is part and parcel of the strong pro-violent culture in the US, where, for example, Die Hard is seriously regarded as a Christmas movie.

Supporting gun control legislation in response to the Newtown shooting is a perfect example of "self-reinforcing group-think". And if Obama and the US Congress really care about saving children from violent deaths then they can start by ending US drone attacks on Pakistan. What thinking person in their right mind would trust US politicos on gun control or anything else? As Kevin Carson writes in CounterPunch:

"... what strict gun laws will do is take the level of police statism, lawlessness and general social pathology up a notch in the same way Prohibition and the Drug War have done. I'd expect a War on Guns to expand the volume of organized crime, and to empower criminal gangs fighting over control over the black market, in exactly the same way Prohibition did in the 1920s and strict drug laws have done since the 1980s. I'd expect it to lead to further erosion of Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure, further militarization of local police via SWAT teams, and further expansion of the squalid empire of civil forfeiture, perjured jailhouse snitch testimony, entrapment, planted evidence, and plea deal blackmail."

T. responded:

1. this is a struggle over worldviews.  Whether guns, power and force are effective-- the efficacy of violence.

2. yes sadly, I'm aware many of our fellow veterans think guns are ok.  A lot of them think their military tour was honorable. It wasn't.  military veterans are among the most fucked up people in the country.  VFP are the best of the lot but they think they're smarter than simple indigenous people, women, people who didn't join the military.

In my final response, I said:

You're right about worldviews, [T.]. One worldview I don't understand is that of the peace activist who embraces the idea that empowering people with badges and guns to arrest or otherwise penalize other people for making, selling, owning, or lawfully using guns is consistent with an ethic of peace that eschews violence. Peace activists who support "gun control legislation" should at least have the integrity to admit they're not all that different from "our leaders," who think force violence is okay as long as it's used for some cause they or "the people" support. I fail to see how one can support gun control legislation (or any most any other type of legislation) without implicitly, at least, supporting the force or the threat of force used to enforce that legislation and the force or the threat of force used to collect the taxes to pay the folks with guns and badges who enforce the laws.

You've also answered my question about whether you "stereotype much". You clearly do, viz. your remarks on "fucked up" military veterans and VFP members who "think they're smarter than simple indigenous people, women, people who didn't join the military". The "simple indigenous people" in the US serve in the military in disproportionately higher numbers than just about any other demographic group. Swil Kanim, a Lummi US military veteran and violinist, explains the phenomenon this way: "We're not the enemy. We're not. We're on your side. We believe in America. That's why Indians have the highest percentage of service of any ethnic group in America." As for women, Adam Lanza's mother, Nancy, was reportedly a "gun enthusiast," which kind of smashes that stereotype. As for "people who didn't join the military"—that group includes Barack Obama ... and any number of chicken hawks who never served in the military and lots of mothers who proudly send their children off to the military and to war. So, really, your juxtaposition of veterans and VFP members with "simple indigenous people, women, people who didn't join the military" just doesn't hold much water.

Finally, I submit that military service, even in the US military, can be honorable. Gen. Douglas MacArthur perhaps said it best (even if if he did not always live up to the standard he set): "The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and unarmed. It is the very essence and reason for his being. When he violates this sacred trust, he not only profanes his entire cult, but threatens the very fabric of international society. The traditions of fighting men are long and honorable. They are based upon the noblest of human traits—sacrifice." It is noteworthy that Telford Taylor chose this as the epigraph to Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy. Those who do not knowingly and willingly violate this ethos serve honorably even if they later come to realize that they were misled and betrayed by their parents, teachers, clergy, elected officials, NCOs, officers, etc. The dishonor is to those who knew better and for venal reasons violated the "sacred trust" and deceived others. So maybe you think your military service was dishonorable and shameful—your call—but I hope no one else will be convinced by you that military service is inherently dishonorable.

See also:

• "Green Berets: Who's the Coward?""
• "Ulysses S. Grant on 'Moral Courage' "

Labels: Clintons, guns, military, quotations, War