by: Stephen DeVoy

If no one else is going to say, I will say it.  I would like to extend my thanks and praise to those Oregon anarchists that burned the flag and a soldier in effigy.  If anything, this act exposes the moral shallowness of Americans coast to coast who find no limit to the mud they can cast on this handful of brave voices while remaining silent about the American bloodbath of Iraqi and Afghani blood.  Americans will denounce those who do nothing more than burn cloth while pretended not to notice their own troops murdering the innocent thousands of miles away.  Even guttersnipe and liar O'Reilly showed your protest on his quasi-governmental news show today.  If only his shock would have brought him to cardiac arrest!

To those of you that denounce this brave act by anarchists claiming that we should honor these soldiers, I have this to ask.  What freedom did these soldiers fighting in Iraq today preserved for us?  Did Iraqis invade the United States and threaten to subjugate us to Saddam's rule?  Did these soldiers lift a finger to defend our freedoms as the American Government stole them away, passing one unconstitutional law after another, and denying detainees their rights?  Did these soldiers live up to their oath to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic?"  The answer to these questions is a resounding "No!"

Were these soldiers serving today in Iraq conscripted into service against their will?  Do they have no choice when they aim their guns, pull the trigger, and kill their fellow man and woman?  Are they compelled by some external force to rape detainees, humiliate them, and pose for pictures over their corpses after murdering them?  Are they compelled by others to rape young women in Iraq and then murder their families?  No, they are not, but they do so none the less.

These soldiers volunteer to be part of the military service.  Yes, some do this because they are economically oppressed, but even these do make a choice.  They agree, when they join, to murder other human beings upon orders for nothing more than an economic break, a chance to "move up" in the capitalist shitocracy.  Even if they believe that they will never be called to murder, they still join knowing that they may be wrong.  So long as they commit crimes against humanity, so long as they choose to wage an illegal war rather than be imprisoned for disobeying, so long as they butcher and humiliate their fellow men and women, why should we support them?

Finally, under this regime, the US Military has been spying on Americans for no reason other than their peaceful exercise of the right to dissent.  American soldiers have been waging COINTELPRO like operations against Americans on their own soil.  In doing this, they show themselves as enemies of the American people.  Why we should be surprised?  After all, is it not the National Guard that is called into cities to put down civil unrest when the conditions of American life reach a boiling point and signs of rebellion emerge?  Is it not the American soldier who will oppose the next American revolution should one come?  If Americans took to arms to reclaim their rights, wouldn't these soldiers shoot us down in the streets?

So long as the above is true, I see nothing wrong with what our anarchist brothers in Portland have done.