Underdog Fan Club - a personal story

 

 

I am a life-long member of the Underdog Fan Club. I always support those on the bottom of the pile.

When our Air Force family lived in Leicester, England (Bruntingthorpe air base) in early 1960's I learned all about Robin Hood. Took from the rich and gave to the poor.

Then we moved to Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota. I found out the real cowboys and Indian story. Washington's genocide of the native people touched my soul deeply. Did the Indians have the right to defend themselves against the US Army? Of course they did.

In the mid-1960's we moved to Wiesbaden, Germany and our school class visited former Roman fortifications along the Rhine River. I'll never forget wondering 'What were the Romans doing so far from home?' when we were told by our guide that the stones we were standing on had once been the barracks foundation for Roman soldiers. In that moment I learned that empire is a contradiction over time. They always collapse.

Vietnam war was on full-blast when I joined the Air Force in 1971. It was there I became a peacenik. My first roommate in the barracks was a leader in the Travis AFB, California 'GI Resistance' movement. At first I sat in the corner during their meetings, just listening. I had been a Young Republican for Nixon in '68. But my chair eventually moved into that barracks circle - I couldn't deny that the Vietnamese people had the right to defend themselves against the US.

The Nicaraguans had the right to defend themselves against the US armed-trained-funded-directed Contras (1979-1990). 

Beginning in April 1999 US-NATO (including forces from Britain, Germany, France, Italy and other allied countries) rained bombs down on the tiny country of Serbia, the largest fragment of the former Yugoslavia. Did Serbia have a right to defend themselves? Yes.

Race ahead to 2003 - 'shock and awe' in Iraq - George W. Bush's war. Did the people of Iraq have the right to defend themselves? I believe so.

 

 

Then in 2011 the US-NATO began the bloody war on Syria - demanding regime change in Damascus. They have failed but still the war goes on. Do the Syrian people have the right to defend themselves against the US-NATO war machine? Yes, of course.

Palestine, Afghanistan, Yemen, all throughout the African continent and more.  People in the global south are suffering as the western military hammer tries to enforce the demands of empire. But people are fighting back. I support them. 

In the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine I've been supporting the Russian-ethnic populations as they resist the Washington-London-Brussels mad attempt to create an endless bloody war along Russia's border. I watched as coal miners left their jobs to defend their families from constant attacks by Nazi death squads armed-trained-funded-directed by US-NATO. Moscow kept doing all it could diplomatically for eight years before it finally moved into Ukraine to stop the shelling of the Donbass region. Since the US directed coup d'etat in Kiev in 2014 more than 14,000 have died and more than 35,000 wounded. Still the fighting rages on as US-NATO keeps that war alive by sending weapons to Kiev's lost cause.

So it is indeed possible to be a peacenik and at the same time believe in solidarity. This solidarity means I stand with the people when the US is kicking the holy hell out of them around the world on behalf of corporate interests. To do anything else for me would be a sin. A sin of indifference.

You want to end these wars? Start to pin the blame on the real provocateurs - the US and NATO. 

Bruce