This month from the AJnet Archives: A removed article about US troops and the 2003 war in Iraq!
It’s time to take another trip to Cringe City.
Back in October, I shared an old article where I trashed various racial and ethnic groups. I followed that up in November by sharing an old article where I expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and the Columbine shooters.
As I said before, I’m not terribly proud of the articles or the stuff I said in them. My primary goal was to be as offensive as possible. If I thought a group of people would get offended by my writing, they got an article targeting them. Nobody was safe.
And I mean, nobody.
This time around, it wasn’t some ethnic group that was the target of my razor-sharp edgelord word sword. In this article, I went big by challenging the greatest power on Earth.
“Fighting in Iraq for our freedom, and other myths about US troops” was a verbal attack on the United States military. Go big or go home, right?
If you’re 35 or older, you’ll probably remember the 2003 war in Iraq and how polarized it made Americans. The divide was tame when compared to what we’re seeing now, but at the time it was a pretty serious split. Half the country supported the invasion of Iraq for various reasons, while the other half felt it was completely unnecessary.
The one thing both sides agreed upon though was to “support our troops”. This slogan was championed by both supporters and critics of the war, its message carried by yellow ribbons:
These things were everywhere, usually in the form of car magnets or actual ribbons tied to telephone poles.
I think the overwhelming support for military personnel stemmed from the surge in enlistment that happened after the 9/11 attacks. Almost everybody had at least one family member that enlisted or was already in the service. The left and the right fought relentlessly over the invasion of Iraq, but both sides unanimously agreed that we should support our troops no matter what. The left believed that we should support them by bringing them home from Iraq, while the right believed that support should come by cheering them on to complete their mission.
Being the edgy jerk that I was, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to piss off both sides of the debate. I myself was against the Iraq war, but riling people up was always fun no matter which side they took.
So, in an effort to maximize the amount of anger from all applicable parties, I took a shot at the one thing that both sides had in common: Their support of the troops. I didn’t actually have anything against the military (though I was getting tired of seeing the yellow ribbons everywhere), I just wanted to piss everyone off. The troops were considered off-limits. By telling me that a group was off-limits, you were essentially giving me a limit to break and a line to cross. It wasn’t always morally right to cross that line, but it was my right.
At least, that’s how I saw it through the eyes of an angry young man fucked up on vodka, weed, and whatever else I could get my hands on.
This is “Fighting in Iraq for our freedom, and other myths about US troops, originally published to the site sometime in 2007.
NOTE: This article was written back in 2007, when I was young(er) and stupid(er). As such, I no longer agree with some parts, so don’t get your panties in a bunch and fire off angry death threats. Actually, please do. My readers and I need a good laugh.
It’s that time of the year again. The time when you hear the sob stories from U.S. troops, and their mentally-challenged supporters. I do get tired of bashing on these people, but no one seems to get it:
THE UNITED STATES MILITARY IS NOT INFALLABLE.
Seriously people. Stop treating the soldiers like they’re fucking gods. I hate how people just pull shit out of their ass to glorify these guys. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate the troops, or wish them all dead or any of that bullshit. I just think that they’re human beings, and as such deserve to be treated no different than any other person. A little boy was raped, burned, and mutilated, and we don’t hear about it on the news. But five soldiers get blown up by a suicide bomber (something that happens every fucking day now) and it’s the highlight of the day on CNN, right after the custody battle for Anna Nicole Smith’s kid. Speaking of that, here’s a simple solution: Give the kid to Michael Jackson. It would be the biggest “fuck you” to the two idiots for wasting the courts’ time by bickering over it, and the media would have a field day with the story.
I decided to make a list of all the bullshit excuses I hear for why the troops should be treated like gods.
1. “They’re over in Iraq fighting for our freedom.”
Bull-fucking-shit. How exactly are they fighting for our freedom by fighting an insurgency (which they caused) and toppling another country’s oppressive regime? Was there some sort of secret plot formulated by Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda to invade America and conquer us? If so, I think the people deserve to know, don’t you? Other than that, I can’t possibly see how they’re fighting for our freedom by invading some country on the other side of the world. If you have a valid explanation to this, feel free to email me.
2. “They put their lives on the line every day so you have the right to trash talk them.”
I’m too lazy to write another response to this, so see my response for number one. It’s basically the same.
3. “They’re only doing what they’re told to do. They have no say in the matter.”
This is probably the only excuse I hear that comes close to being a valid reason to respect them (but not worship them like gods). True, they really don’t have a choice where they’re sent. But the matter of it is, if maybe even 50% of the military told the Pentagon “Fuck you, we aren’t fighting this bullshit war,” the government really couldn’t do much. The military contains more than a million people, possibly even two million. We’ll go with the lowest number of soldiers, and say there are one million. If even 50% of the soldiers chose not to go, that would be 500,000 people that would have to be court-martialled, and jailed. There’s no way the government would risk depleting its’ army by that many people. Then pussy ass countries like Mexico could walk all over us (although they do that already by having our government prevent the border guards from shooting their asses when they’re sneaking across the border). The sad fact of it is, most military members are brainwashed to a point where they give up all their free will, rendering them to be nothing more than tools. And even if the government was dumb enough to jail half of it’s military, the military has the weapons. If they really wanted to, they could level Washington and take over, which I guess would suck pretty hard for the average Joe. On second thought, the military is probably better off being a bunch of tools.
4. “They’re fighting guys who torture their own people.”
Yes, because the U.S. Army would never even dream of torturing people:
Oops, my bad. You weren’t supposed to see those.
5. “They leave behind their wife and kids, and don’t get to spend holidays with their family.”
First, let’s start off with the wife and kids.
You join the Army, full-well knowing that you risk dying in a war (although sometimes the recruiter is a fucking dickwad and outright lies to you by saying you won’t get shipped off). Why in fuck’s name would you decide to make an emotional commitment to a woman, let alone have a fucking kid, when you won’t see them for months or years on end, and have a high risk of dying? What kind of sick motherfucker would get his wife pregnant knowing that he runs the risk of being sent to Assramistan or some other third-world shithole in the middle of the desert, and being blown up by Aladdin and the jihadi jackasses in al-Gayda?
I guess it really doesn’t matter in the long run. After all, growing up fatherless doesn’t really hurt a child, right? And hell, the mother can always find a new lover, say, me. I mean, have you SEEN some of these army wives? Fucking smoking. I guess it’s true that hot women like dumb guys.
And as for not being home for the holidays, here’s a simple solution: DON’T JOIN THE ARMY. You made the choice to go die for your government. Which leads me to my next one.
6. “The soldiers are fighting for our country.“
And how exactly are they fighting for our country? Did Joe Schmoe give the order for them to go over to the Middle East and chase down some asshole (whom WE trained, mind you) that blew up some buildings, something our government probably brought on by funding those oppressive governments, not to mention giving them weapons of mass destruction (we sold Saddam Hussein the chemical weapons he used on the Kurds, the same thing he was executed for, go figure), and funding and supporting Israel (probably the only country they hate more than America). My point is that WE did not give the orders to go over there. The government did. The majority of Americans want the troops out of Iraq. The people make up the country, right? So in actuality, the troops are fighting for our GOVERNMENT, not our country.
7. “I support the troops, but not the war.”
For those of you with IQs higher than 70, the reason this doesn’t make sense should be obvious. But in case you’re slow, I’ll explain.
The whole idea of the army is to fight wars in other countries, and defend our country from foreign invasion. We’re not defending our country from foreign invasion by being somewhere else, so we’re obviously fighting a war in another country. Therefore, by fighting in Iraq, their job is to fight a war.
Now, when you say you support the troops, but not the war, you are effectively saying “I support the troops, but not what they do.” So how can you support the troops, yet not support them? Their job is fighting the war, and you don’t support that. So how are you supporting them? You can say you wish they were brought back home (something that will never happen in our lifetimes), or that they aren’t killed. That would make more sense. I’ll admit it. I DON’T support the troops. I don’t wish them dead or anything, or hate their guts. I just don’t support what they’re doing. It would be contradictory to say I support the troops if I don’t support what they are doing.
I’m tired of writing this, seriously. I don’t even have a barbeque to go to. I got invited to one with a coworker, but I turned it down so I could sulk in my room and write bullshit on the internet that nobody cares about.
The Aladdin picture gets me every damn time. It’s not that Photoshopping Aladdin as a suicide bomber was particularly clever or witty, it’s the look of pure confusion on poor Abu’s face. The little guy has no idea what Aladdin is about to do. I’m glad I didn’t crop Abu out of the picture, it makes it so much funnier to me.
I’m not sure when I added in the disclaimer at the top of the article. I want to say it was around 2011, but I’m not 100% certain. This was part of one of my earliest efforts to clean up and “legitimize” the site. You can see how well that worked out.
The article itself provoked quite a reaction when somebody shared it on the MySpace group for the US Military. Needless to say, they weren’t very happy. Once it was brought to my attention that there was an entire MySpace group full of people who were angry with me, I decided to go rub salt in the wound and join the group myself. The article itself may have been excessive, but so were a lot of the responses to it. I received multiple death threats, several people claimed to have reported me to the FBI as a terrorist, and a few parents of dead soldiers were triggered to tears (or so their posts claimed). One guy in particular who was stationed at nearby Fort Dix said he was making a serious effort to find me, and that he was going to drive to Philly, shoot me in the head, and dump me in the river. I told him to watch out for roadside IEDs on his way here. I think I actually referenced the whole thing in another article somewhere on here. Needless to say, Private Dumbass didn’t succeed in finding me, which I made sure to remind him of daily. I did, however, find contact information for one of the base’s commanding officers, and sent them screenshots of his death threats. I have no idea if they actually acted on it, but the guy blocked me after a few weeks and I never heard from him again.
As for the arguments I made, I actually still kind of agree with some of them.
One of the most common things that people parroted was that the war in Iraq, and the War on Terror in general, was a war for our freedom. I never understood this, and I still don’t. There’s absolutely no danger of Iraq, Afghanistan, the Taliban, or al-Qaeda invading and occupying America. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that there’s no danger of any country pulling this off, even China or Russia. Our freedom was never on the line.
I think what those people were really trying to say was that it’s better to fight them over there than on American soil. By attacking them on their home turf, you’re inhibiting their ability to attack us here on American soil. I’d be inclined to agree with this, if it weren’t for the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. In fact, being a member of the Ba’ath Party, Saddam Hussein was against Islamic fundamentalism, and bin Laden didn’t like him. Bush mislead the public into supporting the invasion of Iraq under the false pretense that they were allied with al-Qaeda, and were going to sell them weapons of mass destruction.
If anything, our freedom was under attack from our own government, since the 9/11 attacks served as casus belli for legislation like the Patriot Act and paved the way for many of the government surveillance programs that we have now.
I also don’t believe that “just following orders” is a valid excuse for committing war crimes like the torture that happened at facilities like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Soldiers have an obligation to not follow illegal orders.
Actually, looking back at this article, I think most of the points I made were at least semi-valid.
Still, that doesn’t justify all the nasty stuff I said about the troops. Any valid points that I may have made in the article were diminished by me childishly insulting service members in a pathetic attempt to be an edgelord asshole. They don’t deserve that. If anyone deserves our hate, it’s the pencil neck politicians that are sending them off to fight bullshit wars. The best way to support our troops is to (legally) get rid of the politicians who are making them needlessly risk their lives.
For the next AJnet Archives article, I’ll probably be doing an old article about racial stereotypes, called “AJ’s Myth Smashers – Racial Stereotypes”. It’s full of racist jokes, anecdotes, and jabs at an ex-girlfriend.
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