The road to Trump & J6 drives through Iraq

War comes home - moral injury and manipulated patriotism

Washington DC 19 MAR 2023

Watch this 17m film for free - click HERE

New York Times

I think people would understand Trump’s America if they see this short 17min film

Bush sent them to an unnecessary war on a fake premise that resulted in horrific human cost. Trump tapped that agony and sent them to a fake, unnecessary, and high cost culture war against their fellow Americans for Trump's personal benefit.

Today is the 20th Anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. It is an appropriate moment to reflect on the war and its consequences. The above film does this spectacularly. It is brutal, and not for the reasons you might expect. There is no gore, explosions or shooting. There is something much more powerful and haunting - hardcore, uncut, unfiltered human reflection. In this film, a few soldiers interviewed in Iraq in 2003 are interviewed again here at home in 2023. No voice over, no narration. Their war, in their words. For just a moment you step into their shoes. That is incredibly powerful for anyone with a shred of empathy.

The power of the film prompted CWII to attempt to explain the political implications of moral injury that results from an unjust war and how that connects to the rise of Trumpism. CWII stresses, this article is not about the politics of the individuals in the film. We do not know their politics. Their party affiliation, if any, is not relevant to the story being told.¹ What does matter is the impact of a government’s manipulation of an entire generation of its citizens for ends other than those disclosed to the people. This film shows the impact of that far better than CWII’s power to convey.

The American public and the US military were manipulated to support a war in Iraq on false justifications that only slowly came to light years later. The impact of discovering the cause was not just and the reasons provided were untruths (and/or extraordinary incompetence), caused the nation and its warriors moral injury. These revelations made the sacrifices of war appear to be all for nothing. The war in Afghanistan against al Qaeda was just and based on sound reasoning². However, its termination, handing the country back to the Taliban almost 20 years to the day from the start of that war, reinforced the senselessness connected to the Iraq war.³ In a way it was worse, because the fall of Kabul was a definitive loss of a just war.

Iraq and Afghanistan lasted for a full generation in the life of the nation. Between 2-3 million women and men served in our armed forces thinking they were protecting America. Many more people spent their adult lives supporting our warriors. Twenty years later, all of us are left wondering “what was it all for”?

A few key moments in the film really hit home.

1. “You want to be able to feel like “defend your country”. But we are not defending our country”.

2. “The Iraqi’s are probably wondering, how in the hell are they supposed to believe in a system that we force-fed them when our system doesn't even work? Going back to George Floyd, two words: Not OK. There is actually a picture of me in Time magazine with my knee on a suspected terrorists chest. All these shootings: Not OK.”

Nothing could better explain the profound lasting consequences for violating Clausewitz’s first law of war:

"The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish . . . the kind of war on which they are embarking."

Iraq was an unnecessary war of choice. The Bush Administration knew Iraq did not have nuclear weapons and that Saddam had nothing to do with 911.⁴ Nevertheless that was how they 'sold' the war to the American public.

The faith of the public in the government at the time is proven by opinion polling. In October 2002 the American people were in favor of the war because an overwhelming majority of the public (79%) thought Saddam Hussein was close to obtaining nuclear weapons or already had them. And two-thirds (66%) believed that he helped the terrorists who attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11. The number of people believing that Saddam was linked to 911 rose to 69% in 2003.⁵

Having been attacked by a terrorist group based in Afghanistan, funded by Saudi money, led and predominantly manned by Saudi nationals, the US decision to attack Iraq was perplexing to many experts. Even President Bush’s top counterterrorism official did not understand what was going on in the White House. ‘Having been attacked by AQ, for us now to go bombing Iraq in response would be like our invading Mexico after the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor’ Richard Clarke lamented to Colin Powell.⁶

If the experts in the White House could not understand what it was really all about, what hope did the general public have?

The soldiers in the film speak to their bewilderment. Per the quotes above, the first spoke for many when he said “You want to be able to feel like “defend your country”. But we are not defending our country”. Its hard to imagine how the second solider quoted feels recognizing the connections between what he was told to do oversees and similar actions taken by officials here at home.

Consider the impact of this not just on the 2-3 million Americans who served in activity duty, but the multiplier effect on their families and communities. All of this is made even worse by our abysmal treatment of veterans. They are suffering astronomical suicide, joblessness, homelessness, and hopelessness rates and woeful under-servicing of all their needs. Their moral injury continues and is exacerbated by all the lies and fake patriotism they experience here at home.

Brown University Costs of War Project

In 2021, Brown University’s Costs of War Project found 30,177 active duty personnel and veterans who served in the military after 9/11 have died by suicide - compared to the 7,052 service members killed in combat in those same 20 years. That is, four times higher than war related deaths. That is moral injury in extremis. There are many factors here, not just moral injury. But all other factors, like PTSD, are made worse when you think you lost your best friend, or your limb, or your spouse and kids to divorce, all based on a lie.

During and after Vietnam, many Americas picked on returning service women and men, taking out their anger on the troops instead of the politicians who drafted them and sent them to war. Having learned that lesson after years of agony, the pendulum swung too far the other way, with well-intentioned comments like the famous “thank you for your service” becoming rote and appearing glib. American airports are places where the worst of this takes place.

As this remarkable account of an aid worker who served in the forever wars along side her siblings and father has written

The anger this generates is such that when anyone says “Thank you for your service” to anyone who served in the suck, resisting the urge to throat punch them is difficult. At best, it sounds like they are saying, “Thank you for a bit of lucky success [survivors guilt reference], thank you for volunteering to be trapped in a nasty ideological-political experiment.” Thank you for surviving a 20-year bipartisan shitshow so they could stay home and train with a government-hating militia or play with the newest smartphone and eat avocado toast. The worst is a “thank you” with indifference from the politicians we voted for, who can’t bear to face mangled bodies, the twitch of trauma, or the poverty of a veteran.

None of this is new. It has happened here and overseas after every single war. Revolutions, the end of mighty Empires, the rise of Communism and fascism, all have a significant roots in angry and frustrated patriots who were promised much and delivered nothing when they came home from war. There is a clear historical pattern.⁷

The bonus army is one of the better known examples in the United States. Their “bonus” payment for fighting in WWI was delayed due to the depression - when they needed the money the most. So they marched on Washington with the families to petition the government for immediate release of the funds. In a remarkable twist of fate, they were brutally put down by MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton. When the payments were finally made, it transpired the boost to the economy was greater than the new deal! It was a win-win all round.

Veterans today have been treated no better. You even see evidence of this in the film above. One gentleman in particular is interviewed outside his home that looks like it was filmed in a Ken Burns documentary it’s so run down. At least he has a home - many veterans do not.

The seduction

Trump mainlined the disaffection of so many veterans, their families and communities. He slammed the Bush and Clintons for being part of an establishment that lied to, and manipulated, the public. This was new and refreshing. He was seen as a disruptor, an anti-politician who showed how there was no real difference between the two parties - they were all owned by Wall St and did not give a shit about real Americans. After a generation of lies, of fighting and dying for something they could not define, millions latched on to Trump as someone who was willing to ‘tell the truth’. They felt that he was ’speaking for them’. He became their voice. He now wants to become their retribution for all the wrongs they have suffered.

Their President and their “news” media has told them for years that the very same establishment he criticized and fought to make great again, was now coming after him, to destroy him for telling the truth. That the same ‘deep state’ that sent them to Iraq and Afghanistan was now trying to eliminate Trump at all costs. A tidal wave of investigations all failed to prove he did anything wrong. He ‘won’ his impeachment trials.

Finally, when nothing else worked, these same deep state dems and RINO traitors, simply took the election he won fair and square off him. He appealed to their patriotism and sense of service. He called on them to defend the Republic against an evil enemy here at home. Finally, after a generation of losing the Bush and Clinton wars in aliens lands where they were not greeted as liberators but attacked as oppressive occupiers - something no one signed up for - they could be on the right side of history. Following in the footsteps of the Founding fathers and revolutionary war heroes, they were charged with stamping out an insidious tyranny that had killed their friends and destroyed their lives all for nothing.

The tragedy

Bush sent them to an unnecessary war on a fake premise that resulted in horrific human cost. Trump tapped that agony and sent them to a fake, unnecessary, and high cost culture war against their fellow Americans for Trump's personal benefit.

The lies that sent them to war, pale in comparison to the lies they have been told by their President and his media support system. With no alternative source of information, they do not see that the media that sold the fake war in Iraq is the same media that is selling them a fake stolen election. They trusted their President and his “lawyers” when they insisted the election was stolen.

They genuinely believed America had fallen to a 1776 moment and it was up to them - the women and men who gave blood, tears, toil and sweat - to go to Washington and stop a fake President from being seated by the electors.

They do not know that they have been played twice by the same assholes for the same reason - money. Hannity and Tucker do not care who has died in Iraq or on the lawns of the Capitol. They know it’s all bullshit. Here are their confessions:

It’s a game to them. Hannity is worth $300m. No one in his family served in Iraq or was on the steps of the Capitol. Veterans risked it all on J6 to save their leader - who was being attached by the establishment that had abandoned them decades ago to bleed and die in the sands of Iraq, and for what? Nothing.

Fox is the real enemy. They get away with it because after a generation of brainwashing, their viewers would not believe the truth even if they told them.

Fox and Trump betrayed Iraq and Afghanistan veterans while smoking cigars and flying about in corporate choppers and jets, blaming the homeless vets for not picking themselves up by the bootstraps and becoming Silicon Valley moguls. They concocted fake outrage when veterans ran into trouble with the law. They used veterans as pawns when it suited them, just as they did with ‘back the blue’ until it became necessary to ‘bash the blue’ to maintain the lies.

Trump and Fox better hope to God veterans do not work out that they lied to them 100 times worse than Bush and Cheney ever did. Not only would that devastate an already severely abused population, those left with any fight in the tank will come after those bloated corporate fat cats with a vengeance born of a thousand nights sweating in a hooch, smelling burning shit, and getting shelled at, all for a lie.

1. This article does not label or imply any of the veterans presented as for, or against, any politician or party - any attempt to paint it as such is completely false.

2. If poorly executed. Had bin Laden been killed in Tora Bora and we immediately withdrew, things would have been very different. That is a story for another day.

3. CWII is mindful of the impact of these wars on the innocent people of all countries involved.

4. Using “WMD” and “nuclear weapons” interchangeably confused and mislead people. Iraq was known to have chemical weapons but the Administration knew it did not have nuclear weapons. Equally, they knew Saddam had nothing to do with 911.

Nuclear Weapons

Rumsfeld said ‘we never – none of us ever believed that they had nuclear weapons. The only real worry was chemical’. [Bob Woodward, State of Denial, New York: Simon and Schuster, (2006), p.102]. Before the war and the mushroom cloud justification for it, in 2002 Bush himself said “We don't know whether or not he has a nuclear weapon.” Tenant noted the National Intelligence Estimate “said that Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon and probably would have been unable to make one until 2007 to 2009."

The ‘Axis of Evil’ State of the Union speech inferred dire consequences from an implied connection Saddam and AQ. “The.. Iraqi regime …could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year.. Hussein would be in a position to pass nuclear technology to terrorists”. Yet possession does not imply intent, much less potential possession.

In a just released story on military.com a veteran explains that he was told be a CENTCOM commander before the war the WMDs were a known lie

Four months prior to the invasion of Iraq, I found out that the George W. Bush administration was selling the war to the American people based on a lie.

I was attending the 1st Marine Division birthday ball in Primm, Nevada, where a former U.S. Central Command commander, recently retired, was our guest of honor. 

Prior to the festivities at a closed door meeting in a large, empty conference room with the division's officers, he shocked many of us when he said, "Marines, there is no ongoing WMD program in Iraq, but you are going to war anyway."

He paused, and with an exasperated look on his face, said gravely, "The administration is cooking the books on the intel about WMD in Iraq." 

Saddam and 911

Equally, they knew Saddam had nothing to do with 911 - in fact AQ was his mortal enemy.

THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q: The attack on the World Trade Center?

THE PRESIDENT: Nothing… nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack…Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.

[President George W Bush, Press Conference by the President, Washington DC: White House, 21 August 2006, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060821.html]

As noted above, chemical weapons were known to be there but they were no threat to the US homeland. In fact, chemical weapons are notoriously problematic in warfare. They are a tactical weapon and a poor one at that. An unexpected change of wind can blow them back on the user. They add friction to ground combat for both aggressor and defender who all have to don hot, cumbersome suits and masks. In other words, they are next to useless. The bio threat was a joke.

For his part, Saddam did not clear up the ambiguity about his WMD stockpiles because he did not take the American threat seriously. He had a much bigger problem - Iran - with whom Iraq shares a border and had endured a brutal war from 1980 to 1988 in which chemical weapons were used. Saddam’s WMD ambiguity was his primary deterrence policy again Iran.

5. Sources: Pew Research Centre Poll, ‘Americans Thinking About Iraq, But Focused on the Economy’, October 10, 2002, http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=645 and Washington Post poll cited in Jeffrey Record, Dark Victory: America’s Second War Against Iraq, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, (2004), p.128

6. Richard A Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, New York: Free Press, (2004), pp.30-31

7. A chapter in CWII is devoted to this phenomena in Europe, the US and Australia.