You can’t handle the truth by Petrus4!
We live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom! You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don’t want the truth, because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall! You need me on that wall! We use words like “honor”, “code”, “loyalty”. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline! I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said “Thank you,” and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to!
I have noticed, on a fairly consistent basis, that in the exchanges between civilians and soldiers on this forum, soldiers routinely resort to (usually abridged) variants of the above speech, in an attempt to win arguments.
The name of the argument between civilians and the military on these forums can take several forms; but the central issue, is usually:-
A} That the civilian population both of America and other countries, do not feel that any legitimate defense of anyone’s freedom has been accomplished by the invasions of Afghanistan or Iraq.
B} That both of these conflicts were begun, entirely unprovoked, by Presidents who were the product of the corporatocracy, and that they were commenced purely for the acquisition of resources and corporate profit.
C} That in said conflicts, the American military has essentially served as corporate mercenaries.
D} That most importantly, the central motivation behind these wars has been imperial, rather than defensive, in any sense of the word whatsoever.
As a result, I have, over a period of several years, reached the conclusion that, unlike Nicholson’s quote above, it isn’t actually civilians who can’t handle the truth, but the soldiers.
You cannot psychologically tolerate the idea that your friends and yourselves have been maimed, psychologically shattered, and killed within conflicts that have been started and fought for no legitimately defensible moral purpose.
That you cannot tolerate this truth, is entirely understandable. I suspect that the realisation of said truth, has had a lot to do with the reason why the topic of military suicides has recently become a lot more prevalent. You struggle with it, and the resulting sense of betrayal by your government, that you have experienced, for us as civilians probably is genuinely unfathomable; but the inescapable reality is that you are not doing good things in Afghanistan or Iraq. You are not making your country safer, and you are not contributing to America maintaining or improving its’ image or reputation in the world. In fact, you are doing the opposite.
This message is not intended as an attack upon you. The reason why I am pointing this out, and begging you to begin to accept the unacceptable, is because for you to do so, is the only way that we can have any hope, of beginning to make this stop.
The current threat to your country is not foreign. It is domestic. The threat has been permitted to become dire. The hour is genuinely late at this point, and your government has almost reached the final stage of the pathocratic lifecycle which, if it is permitted to run to completion, will literally take the United States of America back to Auschwitz; but not as the cavalry.
Janet Napolitano has recently spoken of her perception of the threat of “domestic terrorism.” She is clearly aware of the possibility of many American soldiers realising the truth described above, and she is understandably gravely concerned by the implications.
Your country’s government has been invaded and overrun by psychopaths. You can find links to scientific information about psychopaths in some of these forums. These psychopaths are not individuals who are capable of feeling love, empathy, or remorse. They will quite happily drain all of the blood from the veins of every human being on this planet, in order to achieve their own aggrandizement.
It is these psychopaths who ordered you to go and risk your lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. They exploited your loyalty, your sense of honour, and your commitment to the oath that you have taken, and they did so purely for the sake of their own profit.
Again, for you to feel uncontrollable rage in response to this, is only human. All I ask, however, is that said rage is directed at those who have truly earned it; the psychopathic, mass-murdering criminals who have subverted the government of the country that was intended to be the light of the world.
The civilians of America, and the rest of the planet, urgently require your defense from these psychopaths. This, and not the pointless, senseless commission of attrocities against civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, is the truly critical, and genuinely honourable battle that exists before you.