Vladislav Davidzonthe art of doing the impossible – thoughts on the great turning

“Well, here in the US it’s the holiday known as Thanksgiving. It got started when the governor of Massachusetts wanted to celebrate the massacre of 700 Pequot women, children and old men by English and Dutch religious zealots, racists, mercenaries and other assorted scum. The governor wanted to give thanks for this massacre. And now, without ever having recognized the origins of this holiday as a society, with our schools still teaching about the “meeting of two cultures,” the televisions, radios and newspapers are full of stories about how thankful we Americans are about one thing or the other.

No one on CNN or NPR will be speaking about the elephant in the living room. No one will be uttering the words, thank you, Native America, for your stolen land. Thank you for this great commons which we have privatized and sold. Thanks for your forests which we are decimating. Thanks for these mountains which we are mining. Thanks for these prairies which we are drowning in pesticides. Thanks for these coastlines and deserts and river valleys which we are covering with highways, malls and nuclear reactors. Thanks for these blue skies which we have turned gray. So yes, happy Thanksgiving, all. Happy Iraq War. Happy climate change.” – David Rovics (www.davidrovics.com)

During the Nazi Nuremberg trials, the defense of “simply following orders” was clearly proven invalid. Given the blatantly illegal nature of the Iraq war, what possible grounds are there for supporting the people who are today, just like the Nazis, “simply following orders” ?

It is time to end the charade. Let us be blunt in accepting a very basic fact — the American troops carrying out illegal orders in Iraq today could (and ought) be tried for war crimes by the international legal system. To simply call someone with a gun a ‘victim of ignorance’ is to spit in the face of international law and basic notions of justice. It isn’t just the leaders that are criminal, but also the people who willingly choose to carry out those orders — whether out of agreement or ignorance. Claiming to simply follow orders is NOT an excuse for committing genocide.

If you want to support a soldier this veteran’s day, how about supporting the true American patriots, the soldiers who are engaged in active refusal of orders. And perhaps the Palestinians, the Afghanis, the Iraqis who are actively engaged in fighting for their freedom against the American onslaught also deserve support more so than those who are engaged in blatant terror against them. After all, who is the terrorist – the guy fighting to protect his home and his country, or the one who aiming to destroy it?

Veterans day, as celebrated in the United States, is one of the most macabre Orwellian holidays that could ever have been invented. Maybe it is worth stopping to think what we’re celebrating and honoring — mass genocides, mass murder, and all the tremendous suffering our armed terrorist forces have inflicted on so many nations in so many places?

Regardless history will, no doubt, judge harshly those who supported these criminal wars. Claiming to simply “be following orders” will not be accepted any more a legitimate defense for the American soldiers than it was for the German ones.

The time has come for some real truth telling. Enough is enough.