“US military is out there spreading death right now”
Published: 11 October, 2009, 13:52
Edited: 10 January, 2010, 06:12
Vasily Vereshchagin. The Apotheosis of War. 1871. Oil on canvas. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
(48.1Mb) embed videoTAGS: Military, Asia, Interview, Obama, Middle East, Politics, USA
Death, rather than nation building – that is what the US army has brought to Iraq and is bringing to Afghanistan according to former US army sergeant and anti-war activist Matthis Chiroux. He shared his views with RT.
For some, Matthis Chiroux is a hero. Others label him a US traitor. The 25-year-old is an army sergeant-turned-war-resistor, and one of roughly 8,000 US soldiers who have reportedly deserted the army since 2003.
He accuses the US military of having become a corrupt institution built upon spreading death as a response to nations’ problems by means of conducting illegal wars.
“One hundred per cent, Afghanistan war is absolutely an illegal war under the same conventions that Iraq was an illegal war,” Chiroux says.
“They are virtually the same thing,” he continues. “They are both experiments in going in, smashing the country and trying to rebuild it in our own image as a trading partner. They are both about resources. They are both defined as illegal wars of aggression by the UN Charter – that’s something people don’t understand.”
Speaking of President Obama’s decision to deploy even more troops in Afghanistan, the activist has said that “more troops in an illegal war aren’t going to somehow make it inherently right or even winnable.”
The former sergeant views the US army as a “nation-destroying force,” rather than an institution participating in nation-building. In fact, he says, it must only be an enemy-destroying force, and have nothing to do with nation building:
“The idea that you are going to take soldiers trying to kill and send them over there to build a nation – that’s not our job. That’s not what an army is meant for. The actual mission statement of the US army is to engage and destroy enemies of the United States in close combat. Period. End of story.”
To Matthis Chiroux, the American army is a place where US citizens are trained to devalue human life and think of any foreigner as a potential enemy. It is these people who are eventually sent into other countries to cause “countless deaths and immeasurable damage” to small, impoverished nations.
“These aren’t people with a lot to begin with. And we are going in and taking even more from them,” he goes on.
“The US military is out there spreading death right now… We don’t like to think of it in those terms. We like to think of it as nation-building or fighting terror, or, you know, anything but what it is. And it’s spreading death,” the former US army sergeant added.
Solutions, not spreading death, are something the United States must focus on right now, Matthis Chiroux concluded.
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1 comment
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Pauline, I have not an iota of doubt in my mind that Lisa is a proud mother. And she has every right to be. After all, she has two sons serving their country. Or, are they? That is the big question you have answered so masterfully. Lisa, I have great respect and admiration for you. You are a sincere woman and a great mother. My problem is this. Have you ever asked yourself whether your valiant sons are serving the country or a certain class of wealthy gangsters in this class society we call America. What has the average American benefited from all this ongoing killing and devastation in so many theaters of the world. I salute your and your sons' patriotism. However, I firmly believe that your and other people's patriotism is being abused by powers to be for their own selfish interests. More directly, the Americans killing and being killed in faraway places are doing it not for their country, but for the masked enemies of their country. The class of people who send others to die and call the action "patriotism" deserve nothing but contempt and condemnation. Not a single one of their sons has ever been placed in the harms way, let alone sent to Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Somalia-Yemen to die.
Lisa, I appreciate your patriotism which these days is not very popular among the powerful and well to do in our societies. I feel sorry for the Americans who still have blind faith in their government's spread of death and destruction in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan under the pretext of 9-11. The people America is killing and maiming in these countries had nothing to do with the terrorist attack on Sept 11. The 10 of the 11 terrorists were Saudis, and one was Egyptian. These terrorists were trained in American flight schools and they took off from American airports. It was American incompetence that permitted this attack to take place in the first place. Bush and his generals took advantage of the chaotic environment in America to invade Afghanistan and Iraq for strategic purposes that have nothing to do with the 9-11 attack. Any thinking person should be concerned with the death and destruction America is spreading in these three countries, and ask themselves WHY? WHY is America killing and horribly maiming people who resist foreign occupation of their country? Or, do the American people believe that no one has no right to resist a foreign invader if the invader is America?