Dying for Nothing

Seventeen military personnel have died in President Trump’s war on Iran. Compared to the 58,200 military personnel who were killed in the Vietnam War, that’s not a large number … well, unless one happens to be among those 17 or among their friends or family members. In that case, 17 becomes an extremely large number.

But there is one thing in common between those 58,200 military personnel who died in the Vietnam War and those 17 military personnel who have died in Trump’s war on Iran: They all died for nothing.

No, they didn’t died for their country. No, they didn’t die defending our freedom. No, they didn’t die to make the world safe for democracy. They died for nothing.

If we are ever to get America back on the right track — toward the restoration of a limited-government republic (and the dismantling of the national-security state) and the restoration of a non-interventionist foreign policy (i.e., no more foreign wars, coups, sanctions, embargoes, assassinations, torture, indefinite detention, etc.), it is imperative that the American people accept that reality: The soldiers in the Vietnam War died for nothing, and the soldiers dying in Trump’s war on Iran are dying for nothing. For that matter, those U.S. troops who died in the U.S. government’s wars on Afghanistan and Iraq also died for nothing.

The most recent ones who died were killed at U.S. imperial bases in Jordan and Iraq. So, I suppose U.S. officials would argue that they died for empire. But dying for empire is the same thing as dying for nothing.

In the Vietnam War, many of those 58,200 dead men and women were forced to serve in the military, where they were then ordered to go to Vietnam. That’s what the draft (i.e., conscription) was all about. According to U.S. officials, U.S. troops were being forced to serve so that they could be sent to Vietnam, where they could kill or die in the defense of our freedom here at home.

Many of the rich white boys were permitted to escape that plight. That’s what the Reserves and  the National Guard were for. The people who got to serve in Reserve units or Guard units weren’t sent to Vietnam. Their job was to stay here at home and defend freedom from the Reds, who were supposedly coming to get us. That was what the old Cold War racket was ask about — scaring the American people to death in order to expand the national-security establishment and its ever-growing army of “defense” contractors. Also, those going to college or law school, who ordinarily were well-to-do white kids, were given a deferment that enabled them to delay military service. There were also the affluent white kids whose doctors found physical conditions that would exempt them from military service.

Thus, many of those who were conscripted and sent to Vietnam to supposedly fight for our freedom were poor Blacks — that is, young men who lacked the political influence to get those coveted slots in the Reserves or National Guard and who couldn’t afford to go to college. Of course, many of them must have been a bit befuddled over being told that they were dying for freedom given that here at home they were living under a system of racial segregation.

Needless to say, most, if not all, Blacks could see through this crooked and corrupt racket. Mohammad Ali put it best when he declared, “Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me n****r…. Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”

It’s no different with the troops who are dying in Trump’s war on Iran. They weren’t forced to serve. They joined the military voluntarily. They can’t say they didn’t know that the U.S. government starts wars of aggression and maintains a huge empire of military bases in foreign countries. Nonetheless, even if they haven’t been forced to serve through the draft, they still have died for nothing.

Of course, that’s not what U.S. officials will tell the loved ones of the troops who are dying in Trump’s war on Iran. They will tell them the same thing they told the family members of those 58,200 dead troops in the Vietnam War. They will tell them that they died defending our freedom here at home. Since it is difficult to acknowledge that one’s son or daughter has died for nothing, it is a virtual certainty that the family and friends of those dead soldiers will convince themselves that their loved one died for our freedom rather than for nothing.

But reality is reality. The reality is that every single one of the soldiers who died in the Vietnam War died for nothing, the same thing that every single soldier who dies in Trump’s war on Iran is dying for. The sooner Americans come to accept that reality, the better the chance of getting America back on the right track — toward freedom, peace, prosperity, and harmony with the people of the world.

Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.

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