{"id":25541,"date":"2017-09-12T18:56:57","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T23:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=25541"},"modified":"2017-09-12T18:56:57","modified_gmt":"2017-09-12T23:56:57","slug":"why-one-us-marine-renounced-war-after-911-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=25541","title":{"rendered":"Why one US Marine renounced war after 9\/11 [OPINION]"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Why one US Marine renounced war after 9\/11<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
\"Why<\/div>\n
\n

The fires which began with the 9\/11 attacks were never extinguished. They continue to burn fiercely from Afghanistan<\/a> to Iraq<\/a> to Syria<\/a> to Yemen<\/a> to North Africa<\/a>, as the region and its regimes came unglued in the wake of George W. Bush\u2019s \u2018war on terror\u2019.<\/p>\n

The 15th anniversary of 9\/11 was marked in America with the usual sombre memorials and directives to \u2018never forget<\/a>\u2018.<\/p>\n

But this definitive 9\/11 slogan always takes me back to the overwhelming tide of pro-war fervour that swept the US and stifled any deeper reflection or debate in the years after 11 September 2001. Sadly, I was part of that fervour \u2013 and this too I will never forget.<\/p>\n

The militarism of my youth
\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I joined the US Marine Corps as an idealistic 18-year-old in 2000, with a firm resolve \u2013 as I enthusiastically told my military recruiter shortly before leaving for boot camp \u2013 to \u201cfight evil in the world\u201d. This resolve was rooted more deeply in my veins after the 9\/11 attacks. As a relatively new marine, I had temporarily worked at the Pentagon while attached to a headquarters computer programming unit in the two months just prior to that tragic day, and was fortunate not to be there when it was attacked.<\/p>\n

After the smoke cleared in New York, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon, I and many others wanted \u2018justice\u2019 at all costs against an enemy we were told was present in multiple Middle Eastern countries. Slogans such as \u2018let\u2019s roll<\/a>!\u2019 echoed in my ears, and my fervour for \u2018the mission\u2019 influenced others to follow my path of military service.<\/p>\n

While stationed in Quantico<\/a>, outside of Washington DC, I became close friends with a local civilian nearing his high school graduation, and I encouraged him to join the Marine Corps. This occurred just as the Bush administration was making the case for war in Iraq.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why one US Marine renounced war after 9\/11 The fires which began with the 9\/11 attacks were never extinguished. They continue to burn fiercely from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria to Yemen to North Africa, as the region and its regimes came unglued in the wake of George W. Bush\u2019s \u2018war on terror\u2019. The 15th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[10,15402,524,827,862],"class_list":["post-25541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-10","tag-brad-hoff","tag-militarism","tag-united-states","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25542,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25541\/revisions\/25542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}