Imagine this, your best friend, the one you’ve known forever, walked up to you and asked, “Do you support the troops in Iraq?” Now, you have two different options, you can say, “Yes, I do.” or, you can say “No, I don’t.” Seems rather simple? So which would you reply?

Lets look again at this question, just for giggles. The phrase “Support our troops” is one that is practically part of our lives now; you can see bumper stickers on cars, or banners in the city, all sporting this simple saying, symbolic of all that we stand for. It’s chanted by nationalists, and held as a marker for your place in society, if you support our troops, you’re definitely a true American. This mantra of all things good stands for pride in one’s country, love of peace and the protection of our sacred democracy, through democracy our rights, and of course through rights, the government that supports us in our daily doings.

Ever notice how it works like that? Agreeing to “support our troops” is like an unspoken oath that puts your motives in line with those of America, and more importantly, it’s government; but what if you don’t agree with all of America’s motives? Can you go out and say, “No, I don’t support our troops”? you might imagine the responses you’d get. Nobody can go out and “disagree” with Nationalism, nobody can go out and say, no to the protection of Democracy, if you were to do that then you must be a communist, or worse yet; one of those folks from Al-Qaeda, a terrorist! There is no way you can “Not support our troops”, even the people against our war on terror aren’t willing to say they don’t support our troops. These nay-sayers, the people who oppose our current president, and the war end up making meager excuses such as this; “Well, I’m against the war, but I guess I do support the troops…” There is no way on earth to not be forced in to this logic, and it’s become about as redundant as, in the words of Noam Chomsky, “…if somebody asks you, Do you support the people in Iowa? Can you say, Yes, I support them, or No, I don’t support them? It’s not even a question. It doesn’t mean anything.” (Noam Chomsky Media Control 25) So what are the motives behind this little phrase of ours? Well, heres where it started.

Operation Desert Storm, or the Gulf war was one of the first wars that the average citizen could experience. With new news networks such as CNN having charismatic news anchors
talk about things like war, and violence, there was a need for your attention to be drawn away from the negative. Many horrible things would be broadcast through your T.V. set, missiles lighting the sky as they streak screaming at their target’s, bullets eating through buildings, and sinking their teeth in to young men, young men ready to give anything for their belief in a better world, and for your protection. These were young people, facing what was now realized by the public as a very very bad thing!

It was this point that the government knew what they had to do. Smart people that they are, they jumped and started using the slogan “Support our troops” to boost morale, and let people focus on something other than the negative; if people care so much about the soldiers, they’ll be fine! Soon nobody wants to be the odd one out, and we get tonnes of folks practically willing to die for this notion of supporting our troops, a successful diversion created by our government.

Now, I don’t want to go all “loose-change” on you, and I appreciate a conspiracy as much as the next person, but really; why would we need a phrase like this? It’s a phrase that embodies a set of ideals, and those are used to keep the masses of the public, us, at home occupied in our mindset that we’re making a difference, while all the big guns on capitol hill make the “real decisions”. If we aren’t looking as to why we’ve just invaded a foreign country, but instead worrying about the people who are doing our dirty work, then the elitists have won, and the propaganda is a success! Everybody is happy, the politicians can go back to their work, and we all feel good about ourselves for worrying.

As a final note, I do support the people on our front lines fighting, it’s brave of them to drop their lives and go place themselves in danger, but what if we can get them out of danger? What if we can throw away the “necessary illusions” that have been pulled in front of our eyes? Then we can finally get to work ending this conflict, and going back to contributing in a meaningful way to society, as opposed to shouting “nationalistic mantras” and not really looking to see whats going on a little farther ahead.