Fallujah was destroyed (A Marine remembers, Part 6)

[A continuing series from guest author Ross Caputi]

Operation Phantom Fury--bombing Fallujah
Operation Phantom Fury. Image in public domain

I remember an incident  within the first week that we got back from Iraq. We flew commercial from Kuwait City to Cherry Point, North Carolina. Buses picked us up from there and drove us to our barracks.

As we stepped off the buses wives and mothers came running to find their husbands and sons and hug them.

My family could not make the trip to North Carolina, so when our command finally released us on leave I needed to find a ride to Massachusetts. There were several guys in my unit who were also from Massachusetts, and I caught a ride with one of them. His name was Brendan.

Brendan’s parents were very sweet and when we climbed into their minivan to begin the long drive home, Brendan’s mother told us how proud she was of us and that we were heroes.

It was not long before Brendan began to tell his parents about Iraq and the highlight of our deployment, the operation for which we were all so famous—Operation Phantom Fury, the 2nd Siege of Fallujah.

Without a shred of embarrassment he began to describe the combat to his mother. He told her about killing insurgents, about firing his AT4 rocket launcher at them, and about the extent to which Fallujah was destroyed when the operation was finished.

Brendan’s mother, who had been so proud of us, suddenly became very uneasy, and I think for the first time she realized what she was so proud of us for . . . killing people, destroying homes, and forcing civilians to flee into the desert.

An awkward silence took over the van, and none of us said a word about what suddenly made us all feel so awkward. It seemed best not to speak about it, and no one did for the rest of the trip.

What I remember most about that ride is realizing for the first time how willing most people were to praise us, and how unwilling they were to acknowledge the gory details of what they were praising us for.

Ross Caputi, former Marine, founder of the Justice for Fallujah Project, and former president of the Boston University Anti-War Coalition

Who are the real patriots?

How about Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and John Penn, who were among the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence?

Liberty Bell
Liberty Bell. Photo by Serguey, used under CC Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

What did these patriots say about the ethical principles and human rights that underlay the formation of a new nation?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.“

For a true patriot, a true conservative, these words provide a mantra or creed to live by. They are an ethical commitment echoed in the final phrase of the Pledge of Allegiance that all Americans are expected to know and honor: “with liberty and justice for all.”

Our early patriots would be ashamed of the hypocrisy of generations of Americans who call themselves conservatives and/or patriots but who have trampled on the rights of others while promoting their own agendas.

Why do I raise these issues now? Because it is almost July 4, the day we celebrate the endorsement by those early patriots of the Declaration of Independence.

We the people of the United States have a great deal of work to do if we are going to honor the task that our forefathers and foremothers set forth: liberty and justice for all.

Our armed forces fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world were not sent there by our leaders for patriotic reasons.

Killing and maiming men, women, and children may appear to those leaders to strengthen the position of the U.S. government in the Middle East and elsewhere; however, such acts of war are more likely to endanger than to ensure the life, liberty, and happiness not only of victims of American aggression but also of Americans themselves.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Call for an international meeting of the wise people of the world

[Today we welcome guest contributor Dr. Majed Ashy]

United Nations flag
U.N. flag. Image in public domain.

The world is facing serious political, economic, and social upheavals and challenges.

This calls for wisdom that goes beyond the narrow visions of ideologies, politics, parties, interests, pride, specialized knowledge and professions, strategies, and power conflicts.

What we need is wisdom derived from deep integrative knowledge characterized by a sensitive, perceptive and unfragmented view of the world, nature, knowledge and time. Such wisdom will derive from lessons of history, philosophy, and the deep underlying wisdom of religions.

We need wisdom that is devoted to the revelation of a holistic truth and justice–as much as humans can do that–and not to winning.

Thus, I would like to suggest an international meeting to be organized by the United Nations. Participants would include wise people from every nation without exception. These individuals would embody respect, experience, and the ability to put their own needs and narrow interests and visions aside.

Their task would be to:

  • Discuss the current international political and economical situations.
  • Declare to the Security Council and everyone in the world the truth as they see it.
  • Recommend a course of action.

This body in the UN can include wise people from various walks of life such as ex-politicians, economists, scientists, social scientists, ex-military officers, philosophers, religious scholars, and others. In addition, known international figures such as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and Aung San Suu Kyi would be included.

In the day of the Internet and social networks it will not be difficult to identify the people in each nation who are considered wise and are respected for their wisdom.

Majed Ashy, Ph.D., Associate Researcher in Psychiatry, Harvard University/McLean Hospital; Assistant Professor in Psychology, Bay State College

Syria: Even fainter hope

By guest author Mike Corgan

Map of Syria
Image in public domain

The tragic course of violence in Syria, falling mostly as it usually does on women and children, highlights the limitations of the United Nations as a means of peaceful conflict resolution in the world.

Even at its best, the UN can only do in situations like the Syrian civil war what the Security Council allows, and that body is set to stop action rather than take it.

The best analogy of the Security Council is that of a circuit breaker. It shuts down anything that is too big for the system to handle. The idea is that if any of the five permanent members (P5) really don’t want an action, then taking it would likely cause a more widespread and destructive situation.

Right now China and Russia are both balking at anything more than admonitions to Syria for what the Assad regime is doing to its own people. Neither country, each with its own restive and sometime violent Muslim minorities in Central Asia, wants any kind of precedent-setting UN response that promotes intervention in internal state conflict, however bloody and barbaric.

Russia has the additional motivation of not wishing to be seen as weak because it abandons a decades-long client state.

Who else could intervene? NATO is withdrawing forces from both Iraq and Afghanistan as fast as it can. Trying to set the house in order for another Middle Eastern state is not on any member’s agenda.

The ratio of Arab League rhetoric to action is nearly infinite.

Israel can only watch and hope. Geopolitically speaking, a fractious Syria on its border is a positive thing–but one sunk into chaos is not.

And even if some outside power did step in to stop the massacres, the aftermath of regime change now evident in other Arab states like Libya and Egypt is not at all encouraging.

It is the inevitably depressing commentary on humankind that perhaps only exhaustion of one or both of the combatants will end the killing. Inspired leadership by someone, anyone, could also be the answer but, alas, that is an even fainter hope.

Michael T. Corgan, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Department of International Relations, Boston University