Friday 13 March 2009

Protests against British soldiers are wrong?

It is true that the decision to invade Iraq was made by the British government. And, if you read the text a few stories ago, their silence about the decision to invade is an admission of culpability.
So, the soldiers were sent there to do their bosses' bidding. They are not to blame.
Right?
If you saw my previous text (How to make people kill for us again) soldiers are just supposed to be these unthinking machines which (not 'who') are devoid of personal morals, just doing what they're told. Robo-soldier, the real-life video game.
In fact, what we have seen is that many soldiers from the UK and US armies have morals and do not wish to kill innocent people. They have deserted their armies. They even protest against the war/invasion.
Even the saving of Iraq from terrorists is a stupid argument, since the foreigners' war brought the terrorists. Terrorists are all bad, unless a foreign aggressor's terrorism caused them to seek to defend the defenseless; the people of Iraq. In that way, the Coalition has given terrorists a good name.
So, if the soldiers had morals, they would choose not to fight. They chose to fight and they are being judged for their lack of morals. Nobody on tonight's Question Time could get their heads around this idea. "Support the boys" is just a cover for militarism. All a government has to do is call a war in secret and anything a soldier does is blessed. It then becomes impossible to bring moral weight to bear on the soldiers.
Everybody already knows government politicians have no morals, so what's the use protesting in front of them. So, what polite society is saying to protesters is "chase your own tail" or "Fl**k your own self".
If UK soldiers kill innocent people, there must be a MORAL price to pay, at least.
It doesn't matter that the protesters were not from Iraq themselves. They still have the right to voice their opinions in defense of the defenseless.
Or else the next call will be to "support the torturers".
The fact that the protesters were called 'Muslim' was a cheap ploy to set up another 'us and them' dichotomy in society. Divide and conquer is what it's called.
Will and strength must be used to defend people and defend peace, in the way it was once used to foment hatred, and propagate and fight wars.