Feedback, and advice for superpatriots

I was pleasantly surprised at the feedback I got on Sunday from being featured at AOL People Connection.  I had several really good IM (Instant Messaging) exchanges – and I don’t normally IM that much.  I even learned what “asl” means in IM-speak (age, sex, location).  And I got a number of e-mails, almost all of them decent, some expressing support and some opposition for the Iraq post featured on People Connection.

There was only one e-mail that I reported to AOL, and that one expressed a fairly explicit death wish.

Nasty e-mail doesn’t bother me much.  I posted for years on the AOL Germany and Austria message boards, where a few neo-Nazi lunatics liked to spam.  I figured they were some combination of bored teenagers and prisoners with access to AOL.  I learned fairly quickly doing that to treat abusive messages as so much cyber-noise.

They also loved to use multiple screen names to pretend to be different people.  Far-right types seem to love that, for reasons not entirely clear to me.  I mean, it’s one thing to try on alternative identities in a chat room.  But to maintain alternative identities over time with active posting in a message board, you would have to have the skills of a talented novelist to pull that off.  Because you have to stay in character to pull it off.  Most can’t manage it for even a few posts.

Anyway, I’ve encouraged people to post comments here at the Journal so they can be available for wider discussion.

I wanted to share one that I got, though, from someone using the screen name TbsOxl.  It’s was titled, “you suck,” and I normally wouldn’t even read something like that.  But I happened to read this one.  It was not typical of the responses I received.  But it reminded me so much of our friend Chuckie that I thought I would share it.  (E-mail text in italics, my comments in regular type. Except that there's some funky thing going on with the formatting that makes some of my type smaller no matter what I do.)  If something in italics violates AOL Terms of Services, the TOS folks can contact TbsOxl.

It has been my experience, those of you who are so harsh on republicans are often poor, not educated and PETA fags. Perhaps, the war is not perfect. However, those of us who have served in Iraq could do without biased liberal views.

TbsOxl needs to get out more.  But he’s right that poor people are less likely to be fond of Republican candidates.

Much to my dismay, you are still allowed to refer to yourself asan american.

Actually, I usually capitalize “American.”  But I am an American.  Should I call myself Armenian?

As an american, you are allowed the freedom to speak your mind. My point is, those of us returning from Iraq are deeply offended by the manner you choose to exercise your right to free speach. Your feelings towards the war and our president may be well founded in your mind, but as an american you could show a bit more respect to those of us who have spent so much time away from are families in order to give losers like you the right to speak freely.

Here’s a hint for the Oxycontin crowd:  If your e-mail isn’t coming from a .mil address, and when you’re posting anonymously, how can you expect anyone to take personal claims like this seriously?  TbsOxl may be an Iraq veteran.  Or he may just be picking up stock phrases from the rightwing echo chamber and passing them off as personal experiences.  I posted earlier about an example of someone faking military experience in print, an antiwar writer in that case (Micah Ian Wright, author of You Back the Attack! We’ll Bomb Who We Want!)

I could claim that I’m a paraplegic from my war wounds in Afghanistan and that three of my siblings have been killed in action in Iraq.  But I don’t because (1) it’s not true and (2) it’s sleazy to claim stuff like that when it’s not true.

But don’t expect anyone with half sense to put any special credibility in it when its communicated in an anonymous e-mail or IM.

I to, wondered why we were even there, but when my unit arrived in Iraq, I knew. Whatever reason President Bush used to justify sending our country to war was not important.

Going to war, killing people, having our soldiers be killed and wounded based on lies about non-existent “weapons of mass destruction” is wrong.  The fact that TbsOxl considers it unimportant is a sign of his complete lack of judgment, no matter what his veteran status may be.

The first day I was therer an elderly woman ran to me and through her arms around me. With tears in her eyes, she said"Thank you. Thank You." Although, this did not settle my nerves or make my fear of death disappear. I was angry, still. I did not want to be there. I did not care about these people and I did not understand how this war could ever be justified. I was there for over a year and in that time I was approached and told thank you many times a day.

Hello, duh, these people lived under an exceptionally brutal dictatorship for decades.  They are unlikely to walk up to armed representatives of whatever government is in power and say, “We hate you, go away.”  Even people who didn’t experience such a nasty dictatorship have better sense than to do that with an occupying army.  Charming anecdotes like this are just that, charming anecdotes.  They don’t really say much about the larger picture.  And without speaking Arabic, which very few American soldiers do, they are not getting any kind of serious first-hand impressions from Iraqis. It’s silly to imagine that they are.

The biased media has lead you to believe every soul in Iraq hates us. That simply is not true.

Another hint for the Oxycontin crowd: the crassly exaggerated claim - every soul in Iraq hates us – doesn’t even go over well in high school debates.

They are very thankful for the gift america has given them. It did not take long for my feelings about the war to change. I knew that whatever reason the president gave to push the war was not important. What mattered was that as americans we pride ourselves in helping those in need and these people will me thankful for years to come.Do not get me wrong. There are some who hate us and go to any length to cause harm to us, but that number is far less then the number of those who thank God america came. the trip back to the states was the first time I had to feel and deeply reflect the past years events. I suddenly was released of the pain and anger I had felt over the war.

This theme, a standard Republican talking point for the last year now, came up several times in IM messages Sunday.  I hope the eventual permanent government in Iraq is a good one, one much better than Saddam’s Hussein’s brutal regime.  As the occupying power, the US actually has an explicit obligation in international law to arrange for such a government.

But the Iraq War is hugely expensive in money, in military resources committed to that country, and in lives.  Al Qaeda is attacking and killing Americans, and other similar jihadist groups are doingthe same.  However brutal Saddam Hussein may have been to his own people, he was not sponsoring anti-American jihadists.  We should have been concentrating resources on fighting them.  And the Iraq War, especially the incompetent way it’s been handled, has generated even more hatred of America and made recuiting for the jihadists easier.

Does that mean that I think that protecting America against the jihadists that are trying to murder Americans should be a higher priority than overthrowing dictatorships that are not such threats to America?  Yes.

And anyone who believes that George Bush and Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld lay awake nights worrying about the human rights of the oppressed Iraqi people, even after seeing the photos from Abu Ghuraib, please contact me.  I have some wonderful investment opportunities for you in assisting the children of former African dictators to claim their fortunes.

You see, thirteen months earlier, my youngest brother was killed while in Iraq. We come from a large family. Everyone of us has served in the army. My youngest brother dreamed of the day he would join the army. He joined when he was only eighteen years old. He died one day before his 19th bithhday. I was released of my pain and anger because for the first tmie I was able to see my baby brother had not died because of a politician's screwed up vendetta against a dictator. He had died because he was an american. As an american, he stood tall andanswered the call from his country. His personal feelings did matter. He proudly served his country and help to free a country suffering abuse he could have never imagined existed. This being said, I am not able to understand where you get off even offering your oppinion. In my opinion , you do not deserve to call yourself an american. Perhaps you should consider moving to France. At the very least, I think you should say thanks to those of us fighting to keep you losers free.

As I said above, any schmuck can makes claims about being a war veteran or that family members have died in war.  When it comes in an anonymous e-mail or message board post, especially one entitled “you suck,” there’s no reason to take it seriously.  I’ve expressed my respect many times already for those who serve in the armed forces, especially those who have lost their lives, and I will continue to do so.  I’m not going to play games with anonymous e-mailers who make vague and completely unverifiable claims to serve as war propaganda.

But this is a good example of the kind of phenomenon noted in the passed I’ve quoted several times already from Chris Hedges’ War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002):

The cause, sanctified by the dead, cannot be questioned without dishonoring those who gave up their lives.  We become enmeshed in the imposed language.  When any contradiction is raised or there is a sense that the cause is not just in an absolute sense, the doubts are attacked as apostasy.  There is a constant act of remembering and honoring the fallen during war.  These ceremonies sanctify the cause.

But the questions remain.  If we don’t have or aren’t willing to raise the military forces necessary to have a successful counterinsurgency war in Iraq, is it right to require more and more soldiers to die there if there is no reasonable prospect for a conclusion that would be beneficial for the US?

A last hint for the Oxycontin crowd: when you’re posturing as a superpatriot, you might want to take the trouble to capitalize the word, “American.” Just saying.