Change.

[unhappycamper]

http://www.ivaw.org/node/1865


Change.
by Justin C. Cliburn | Sun, 10/07/2007 - 9:20pm

My what a difference a couple years, some international travel, a combat deployment, and an open mind makes.

My almost lifelong friend sent me a message this week. It was a message she had saved on August 14, 2005 after I presumably blew her away with a mixture of arrogance and ignorance. This message is as follows:

No offense, but I think activists and ignorant attention whore pussies are about the same thing, at least when it comes to war. I love how "activists" with (apparently) no knowledge of the military tell me about the treatment of prisoners and the Geneva conventions. NEWSFLASH: If you are not wearing the military uniform of a sovereign nation that is a member of the Geneva or Hague Conventions then the Geneva and Hague Conventions, along with the International Law of Land Warfare, DO NOT apply to you; period. We get beheaded; they get humiliated. We get vilified; they get compassion. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you feel we made a mistake by going to war, that's one thing. But if you start bashing the way we are conducting ourselves at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo (aka Club Med), or anywhere else, then you can kiss my ass. Again, no offense, but you have made yourself abundantly clear as to where you stand and I am just reciprocating. We will disagree on this forever, so other than this topic, I will be glad to keep in touch with you.
Justin.

I had no idea how crass and closed-minded I had sounded . . . "we will disagree on this forever"? I was quite sure of things in the world, wasn't I? I now represent an almost 180 degree turn in my positions on just about everything, but how and when did it happen?

My change started slowly at Fort Lewis when we performed detainee operations at a simulated prison. I saw how easily it was for authority figures to take advantage of the imprisoned and how power-hungry even the most even-keeled could become. I heard soldiers say that these men were terrorists and therefore deserved nothing in the form of human rights . . . even as the instructors told us that the men were rounded up en masse and may or may not be guilty.

I saw soldiers sleep or joke their way through Iraqi cultural training (this doesn't exclude me), and I heard more proclamations of how many Iraqis we were going to kill than I'd like to admit.

By the time we had boarded the plane for Kuwait, I was wondering exactly what we were going over there to do and who I was doing it with. Just a few days into country, I was being told of stories or murder, humiliation, and abuse from the previous unit and I pondered what, if anything, they had done to make the situation in their AO any better for the people they were there to protect. I started to see the men who planted bombs to kill me as sovereign soldiers, fighting an occupying force and realized how alike we would be if someone invaded the United States. I wasn't giving anyone a pass, and I would have killed anyone that I caught trying to kill me, but I no longer demonized them as simple terrorists. Suddenly, it didn't seem so crazy that they should be afforded the rights given under the Geneva Conventions, even if they wouldn't do the same for me. Many countries don't follow the International Law of Land Warfare, but we are supposed to be a world leader in human rights.

From that day to The Walk to The Tears in Baghdad to The Radio to the day I left that country, my life was changing and my viewpoint evolving everyday. It wasn't overnight, but in two years I went from the quintessential asshole chickenhawk to who I am today. I am not proud of who I was or what I said, but I take solace in the fact that if I can make the change, so can anyone else. Where there is passion, there is someone who cares, whether it's for the ideal you want them to or not. Positions change; passion doesn't. One thing is for certain: my position may have changed, but my passion has never waned. Neither has the passion of those soldiers that we have to help re-direct their dedication.


http://www.ivaw.org/node/1865