Editor,
Much of the winter soldier eyewitness accounts during March near Washington, D.C. - unreported by the media - confirmed the worst suspicions about U.S. conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Despite the horrific violence committed, it is redeeming to see soldiers publicly confessing to war crimes they witnessed and committed.
Some went so far as to refer to themselves as monsters who murdered upon command. They made sure to point out that their conduct is a reflection of the occupying army.
With their actions of public repentance, the winter soldiers hope to regain their lost humanity. They disowned the American military and the catastrophic policies they helped enforce.
To understand their plight and that of the Iraqi people, visit ivaw.org/wintersoldier. The conclusions are dire but irrefutable: A few bad apples did not kill over a million Iraqis, a few bad apples did not drive many more millions from home and across borders; U.S. policy did.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
America's belligerence is systemic and more endemic than one would like to think. In his condemnation of the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King Jr. concluded that Nazi atrocities were not a thing from the past.
Today, SS soldiers wreak havoc as military contractors and marines in Iraq. The Nisour Square shooting in Baghdad, Haditha and Falluja are just the tip of the bloody iceberg.
Gestapo methods are not a thing of the past. They are the standard code of conduct in Iraq. The myth of the Aryan master race is not a thing of the past. Many Americans believe in themselves as God's chosen people. It justifies President Bush's imperial policies.
No comparison is an equation but points of comparison with the Nazi regime abound. The U.S. had as many good reasons to invade Iraq as Nazi Germany for its invasion of Poland.
Like Nazi Germany, the U.S. went into Iraq to expand its empire. The Germans justified their actions back then with the creation of more Lebensraum. For the American empire, new Lebensraum translates into control of oil fields, the plunder of goods and resources and the creation of new markets for its corporate economy.
Defenseless Poland had as many weapons of mass destruction as Iraq did. With his self-righteous display of military power labeled "Shock and Awe" - the Germans called it Blitzkrieg - Bush managed to kill more Iraqis in five years than Saddam Hussein in 30 years with U.S. assistance.
The diagnosis is devastating. The last remnants of Bush supporters are stubborn. Since they refuse to disown Bush, they have only two options left: Either celebrate with pride the fact that they managed to kill over a million Iraqis or downplay the number and assert that they killed only 150,000 to liberate the country.
Both positions are monstrous in their own ways. But the latter is a latent admission of guilt. The damage cannot be undone, but it could be contained and eventually forgiven if the presidential candidates carried at least one person of courage and independence to call for the total withdrawal of troops with the promise of reparations and a public apology in the name of peace and justice for this nation and the rest of the world.
Instead, Americans are forced to choose between imperial politicians of various stripes who do not differ in substance.
Joachim L. Oberst
UNM instructor
