We have now entered the seventh year of the occupation of Iraq. Many people feel the war is over and nothing is to be done. This is far from the truth of the situation surrounding us today.
About six years ago, I was being interviewed for a Quality Assurance Supervisor certification by my boat's (USS Santa Fe – SSN-763) Captain. The backdrop to our interview was a picture from the San Francisco demonstrations where a sign was made saying We Support Our Troops Who Shoot Their Officers and the officers in the wardroom joking about not giving me a gun. As someone who was silently opposed to the invasion of Iraq during my military service and was slowly becoming a pacifist, I felt this comment was inappropriate since I could never commit such an act. Just as we began the interview, the clip from Michael Moore's acceptance speech aired where he talks about living in fictitious times with a war based on lies and deception aired. Today these words which were not widely accepted ring true as we the U.S. is currently engaged in occupying two nations, Iraq and Afghanistan, with no plan for empowering the peoples of these countries with self-determination and control of their future beyond the continuing occupation.
Many may feel that talking about the past is not necessary at this point in history, after all we have the first minority president, the occupation of Iraq is ending (maybe), enlistment numbers are increasing due to the faltering economy, and there are many other issues facing this nation. However, we must reflect on the past and ask how we got to where we are today.
Past promises have been made and broken so we must step up and make the current promises come to fruition. A few months before leaving the military, I was told that the mission was accomplished in Iraq and that major combat operations were over. After the war began, I was frantically researching how to avoid supporting an occupation that I felt was unjust. I learned of a Marine who refused to deploy during the first Gulf War in 1991 from a base that was just a couple miles from where I lived in Hawaii at the time. Luckily because the war was declared over, I didn't have to make the same sacrifice that Jeff Paterson did and refuse to deploy with my submarine since our deployment was pushed back later into 2003. I was able to complete my enlistment and leave the military behind with no worry of being recalled like the over 58,000 who have been subjected to stop-loss and been sent to war after their enlistment ended. Now we hear that after over seven years, this program will be phased out, by the end of 2011 just as with the troop withdrawal there is plenty of time for this plan to change unless we demand that it end. We were told that Obama would end the occupation of Iraq and bring our troops home; since he has taken office he has instead shirked off this plan and instead is saying that up to 50,000 U.S. military members will be occupying Iraq until some unknown date . He has also escalated the occupation of Afghanistan with an additional 17,000 U.S. troops with no known plan for their use at a time when NATO countries are being asked to commit 4,000 more troops but few countries stepping forward to continue this occupation .
If we continue to sit back and allow military intervention be the plan for foreign policy and the refusal of self-determination for occupied countries we will continue to live as a country at war. We must take action to end the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. We must also take action to prevent U.S. aid from causing unnecessary death and suffering as we have seen with the aggressive behavior of Israel over the past years, including the use of banned munitions during the recent siege of Gaza
There are many ways to get involved. This weekend the ANSWER coalition is holding marches in DC, Los Angeles, and San Francisco on March 21st and there are other demonstrations around the country to mark the somber day called the anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. There will be an event at Civic Square/Clas Park in Milwaukee on Saturday. On April, 4th to mark the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech at the Riverside Church, United For Peace and Justice is holding a march in New York City, with local demonstrations planned in many communities like Madison.
It is clear as Obama as said himself that,
"I have always said that I don't think that the LGBT community should take its cues from me or some political leader in terms of what they think is right for them. Real change comes from the bottom up, not the top down."
We must build a movement to demand an end to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and take heed from past warnings about militarism from Eisenhower's Farewell Address,
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist…. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
and Dr. King at Riverside Church,
"War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations…. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate."
Today we can substitute terrorism for communism and military aggression and occupation for atomic weapons. We must work to end militarism in all its forms in addition to ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
March 19th can be a day of reflection on the past but it must also be a day that we take action to move our demands forward to create the world we wish to see.
Todd Dennis is a U.S. Submarine Service veteran, a board member of the Clarence Kailin Chapter of Veterans For Peace and the President of the Madison Chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War. He has B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, will be receiving a B.S. in Physics in May and is awaiting word on his application for graduate school in peace studies.
