Advanced Essay #3- Honorable or Evil?

You salute to the American flag, train your life away, wear the uniform proudly and travel thousands of miles to do exactly the opposite of what you think you were going to do. You believe the purpose was to fight off terrorism and bring justice back to America, but instead, you end up finding your self killing off innocent people that are only trying to protect their land and families. You find yourself stripping victims front their human rights and you grasp the idea that these humans don’t deserve not one bit of what's being done to them, because at the end of the day they are humans just like yourself. The war in Iraq failed to accomplish the purpose of the war and instead it dehumanized Iraqis. The essential question that we citizens interrogate ourselves with when it comes to the U.S soldiers is can we honor people for their sacrifice and also recognize the evil they did? Even the soldiers themselves don’t know how to grapple with this question. American soldiers have Self regret because the war has turned them evil. In addition, we have to recognize and analyze the evil that has been done, which was the torture of innocent Iraqi civilians. The final blame being the government’s misuse of power.

Iraq veterans are reminded every day for their heroic acts and shown gratitude for their bravery, however not many accept those compliments. These Veterans believe that they do not deserve to be honored for the terrible acts they were forced to perform in Iraq. These soldiers were put in situations where they had to perform actions that they knew were wrong. They were forced to come back to America to live their regulars lifestyle once again, but this time with a guilt twist in their stomachs and an aching heart for the thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians that were murdered for simply protecting themselves. The war, in fact, turned them evil. Philip Zimbardo during his ted talk presents many different experiments that all tie together to represent this larger idea that good people can turn evil with some simple alterations in their lifestyles. He mentions that, “evil is the exercise of power.”(TED, 2008) He justifies his point by giving an example from the Iraq War. He presents a series of pictures from a prison in Iraq that holds Iraqi prisoners and are run by American guards. These guards began to abuse their power, by dehumanizing the prisoners. so that they can weaken them mentally. This tactic was used to retrieve as much information from them as possible.  In fact, these Iraq veterans felt so awful for what was done that they made a union that accumulated over 12 thousand participants. They have performed non-violence protests and have done anything they can do to stop the continuation of the Iraq war.

Iraqi civilians are being labeled the terrorist in our perspective, but in their perspective, the US, in fact, is the terrorists. The US military is invading innocent homes, lighting fire at any sudden reason they believe is threatening. They’re tearing homes apart, and separating each other from their loved ones leaving them stranded or dead. Many of the Iraq veterans that speak today about their traumatizing stories tell the awful destruction that has been done to the Iraqi homes. One veteran, that goes by Grant Collin, tells a story about a call he had to make during the war and how it caused him to break out crying in the scene during the attack he ordered. He ordered missiles to set off this apartment building that contained many Iraqi families. Once he saw the damage that has been done to the families, he couldn’t perform any more tasks. He instead laid up against a wall and cried; the Iraqi woman, who lost her family to the attack, accompanied him. She placed her hand on his face and said “inshallah”, this means “in God's will”, he stated. The veteran continues by stating that “no, it wasn’t God's will, it was my f***ing order! I gave the order to fire those rockets into that building and I killed her family. I thought I had to do that to keep myself and my Marines alive.”(Youtube, Pure Gold, 2010) During this speech the veteran used very short sentences that emphasized the sorrow he felt for what he and his Marines have done to the families. His repetition and stutter before claiming that it was his fault also gave away his anguish for his actions. This story was one of the many stories from the veterans that emphasized that the U.S. didn’t see them as other human beings that deserved to live as his marines did but more of a threat, and he came to realize that all along he was wrong: there was no threat.

The U.S. government has misused its authority and power over the military. The U.S, the government continued to send and risk the lives of thousands of U.S. military soldiers to perform these dehumanizing tasks. The war stretched over 7 years after the reason for the war had been accomplished. On December 4th, 2003, Saddam Hussein, the once and powerful leader of Iraq, had been captured and arrested by the American Soldiers. President Bush announces to the public, "In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over.”(NYT, 2003) However, it wasn't until many years later that the war was finally shut down by Barack Obama in 2010. This shows that even after they have accomplished their mission, the government used their power and risked the thousands of the lives not only speaking on the American troops but the thousands of Iraqi civilians only due to one reason: they felt threatened.

In conclusion, the dehumanizing acts from the U.S. military soldiers towards the Iraqis were uncalled for and should have not been the purpose of the war. These dehumanizing acts have left Iraq veterans with self regret and empathic for the thousands of lives that were terminated for no good reason. The excessive power turning the American Soldiers evil. The touring acts of the innocent victims that were performed from the U.S. military demonstrate the dehumanizing acts that were being done to the legitimate civilians of Iraq. last but not least, the government’s misuse of power over the military and their reasonings. As for the American Citizens, now looking at the different perspectives of how the American Soldiers took upon the war it is possible to recognize them for their sacrifice and the evil they have done.

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