Peaceful Warrior

By Chris Strohm and Ingrid Drake, TomPaine.com. Posted July 21, 2003.

As the U.S. occupation of Iraq extends with no end in sight, and the death toll for both U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians continues to mount, more voices of dissent from military personnel and families are audible every day.

One of the most poignant so far comes from a young Marine who gave an interview with Pacifica Radio's Peacewatch program the night before he was deployed to Iraq. He discussed his strong commitment to peace, and said the Bush administration was violating constitutional principles and misleading the country into an unjust war.

He was killed in late June, fighting a war he didn't believe in.

Because the interview was given under the condition of anonymity, and out of respect for the current wishes of his family, the Marine will be identified in this story only as John (not his real name). John's friends describe him as a passionate, intense person with an insatiable appetite for knowledge and a commitment to peace. He studied philosophy and peace with an emphasis on Middle Eastern affairs, particularly Iraq and Israel.

His friends say he went into the military under the Clinton administration to gain credibility, so that perhaps someday his beliefs on how to build a lasting peace in the Middle East would be taken seriously. In the months before his deployment, he helped organize anti-war campaigns, mainly working behind the scenes.

In his interview with Pacifica, John expressed outrage that a legitimate public debate on the war had not occurred. Many alternatives to combat were available, he explained, such as using money being spent for war to finance a grassroots Iraqi democracy movement that would rival the Baath regime, or promoting democracy throughout the Middle East to show people alternative forms of government.

"It is almost unimaginable to expect that this war is going to create a better peace for anybody with the exception of a very small percentage of people," he said.

He accused the administration of not talking honestly with the American public about potential consequences of a U.S. war on Iraq, such as the potential for urban combat, the psyche of the Iraqi people, the impact on the United Nations and the fate of the Middle East.

"This could have repercussions in terms of the war on terrorism," he said. "It could have repercussions on international diplomacy. It could have repercussions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It could have repercussions in terms of our ability to get anything else done in the United Nations. And even if... everything goes the way it's supposed to go, what does that mean for the world order? It says that we basically can do whatever we want to do whenever we want to do it because we are the world's sole superpower."

But even as he expressed doubts about the Bush administration's decision, he spoke eloquently about his patriotism, and looked to the highest ideals of the country for inspiration:

"I believe in the United States. I believe in the Constitution. I think it's perhaps one of the greatest documents ever written. I believe in the idea that we the people are sovereign and we determine our own destiny. We have a democracy and the Bill of Rights and freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and due process. Until the world is such a place that we can really live without the military, individual Americans have to step up and they have to serve."

The Bush administration, he claimed, had not made a credible case for war with Iraq, and was violating constitutional principles by sending troops into combat. He spoke of the Declaration of Independence, and how its writers vowed to be free of England, where their lives were ruled and determined by one man. "The constant rhetoric of the administration is that there's going to be one person who decides when we go to war," he said, "and that is such a blatant violation of every constitutional principle that our founding fathers came up with."

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