A Historian's Message to American Military Families

These people are not genuine patriots, right? This is very important, I think, to understand. They behave as if they were great patriots, even like nationalists, like pickaxes, whoa, whoa, whoa, USA, USA, right? But ultimately, they're not, because it doesn't really hurt them when their country is hurt. The true patriot suffers with their country, right? So that would mean if your country loses a war, and especially if you are part of the reason you would suffer, right? You might even, I don't know, punish yourself. But they're not patriots. They walk away. They don't care in the end. They attended the World Cup. Meanwhile, their forces were getting killed in Jordan, and they took beautiful photos. Oh, they don't care for individuals? They don't care. Individuals except they're part of the Klan, right? Yeah, I would be so happy now to play the song of Michael Jackson. They don't care about us, but there will be copyright strike on the channel. I'm singing in my head now. You can sing with me that song. Tarek, you mentioned patriotism. You mentioned that these people do not suffer, and they're not patriotic. I personally, I would assume that many of the families of the soldiers who are stationed outside are probably patriotic. Yeah, they may be thinking that they are serving the nation. What kind of message we should send them if their sons and daughters were called now to go to the Middle East in a possible, let's say, ground invasion or more escalatory measures against Iran? What should we tell the families of these people that we don't want them to die in the Middle East? We don't want any of these people to die. I watched these photos of these servicemen who were killed. If I were in the United States, they might be my neighbor. I would have shared the bread with them, maybe drank a beer with them, et cetera. But they are also in the region carrying out unpatriotic mission, and probably they don't know, because some people say also, yeah, they're also victims of the system. We are victims of the system in the Middle East, but they're also victims of the system which has impoverished them and pushed them to go into the military service, or probably also they were brainwashed into the thinking that they're serving the nation. What should we tell the families of these soldiers? I wouldn't presume that they would necessarily listen to us to be honest, but as a thought experiment, what could one say to, say, the parents, let's assume the parents of a young soldier, male or female. I think the first thing I would say is, if you think that risking the life of your child for your country is a legitimate thing, then I can understand you. This is a very traditional, very old human form of behavior, and I can understand you at the very least, but it should be your country. It shouldn't be Israel. It should be your country. It shouldn't be Israel. And the way the United States now work, I would say to them, means that you will send your child, your son or daughter, to die for Israel, and there's no understanding that. Don't be fooled like that. The other thing I would say is two more things. I would say, look, if I were in your place as a parent, there's two things that I wouldn't like to happen to my child. One is obviously I wouldn't like them to get killed or maimed and so on, or taken prisoner, right? But the other thing, which is equally important, I wouldn't like them to participate in horrible crimes. I also wouldn't like that. It's not that simple. Just because there is an officer and you're wearing a flag patch, and there is a system of command and orders are coming down, you're not relieved of your duty towards morality. You're not. You're never entirely relieved of that. That means you shouldn't agree either to your child being killed for Israel, which is perverse in the first place because you're an American, not an Israeli, but you also shouldn't agree for your child being at risk of participating in the bombing of civilians in Iran. Yes. Why would you think that's a good thing for your child? Do you think a child has a soul? And that's not a good thing to happen to them, right? That's what I would tell them. 100%. I totally agree with you, Tarek, and I'm happy that you shared this message. Of course, we cannot reach to millions of American public, but we can do whatever we can in our capacity. 30% of the viewership on Syrian analysis are from the United States, and some of them have been in the military in the past. Some of them even participated in the Vietnam War, and they said they repented. Like, they write under our posts, under our tweets, and they say this was a waking call for them because their father, for example, participated in Vietnam. I'm not a pacifist, and I served in the military. I've never participated in a war because the military I served in for a little more than a year was all during peacetime, right? But I made a choice to serve because in reality at the time, even in West Germany, you could easily get out of it, and I didn't want to get out of it because I'm not a pacifist. I truly understand the basic idea of wanting to defend your own country. That I understand, but I will also say something else. If somebody else, I'm a German, and if somebody came to me nowadays and said, although I'm too old for this, right, we want you to come back, don a uniform again, and help us fight against Russia, I would not go along because I know that what we are doing right now is an insane policy, that we have abjured diplomacy, that we are on a completely insane and unnecessary trajectory, and although I take obligations seriously, that's already beyond my pay. That's where I would draw the line, say no. If you're telling me, if you're telling me, come and help us defend ourselves against the Ukrainians who have attacked our infrastructure like the Russians never did, I might help. I might join. If you're telling me, come and help us attack the Russians because we feel like it and Ukraine wants us to, I'd say no, absolutely not. I'd rather go to prison. No way. So I'm just trying to explain that I understand people who think there is value in honest military service. I understand that idea. I've done it, but there has to be a limit. You can never just abdicate your own responsibility entirely because if you do that, you end up like the Germans in World War II. I had orders, right? So everything goes, no. So guys, if you are from the United States, if you have a friend, if you have a family member, if you have a neighbor, if you have anyone in your surrounding who is serving in the military, it's a great thing to serve your nation. It's patriotic to do actually, but not when you are serving outside of your country in offensive wars against other nations. I think this would be my only simple message for other countries. Like 11,000 kilometers away from the United States stationed in Jordan. And I would like to share with you one more information. Some of your soldiers in Jordan who were stationed on the borders with Syria, there is an intersection called 10th border crossing. They've been stationed there to block trade between Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. They were stationed there to starve the Syrian people. So they were basically technically stationed there to impoverish and starve millions of people. Maybe they were not told about this, the real reason why they are stationed there. And we're sharing with you, if you have any friends and family and cousins and somebody you know in the surrounding, also encourage them to show certain resistance to the cause of going into offensive wars in other nations and against other people. And rest assured these daughters, these small children who the Americans killed in the school, they are no different from the children inside the United States. If you have a daughter, this is just the same daughter that somebody else has in a different region. And then a country B comes, bombs your country and bombs the school and kills all these small children. I think if you just feel it on your skin, you will resist and you will say, no, this is the immoral thing to do. This is what we would like to share with you during this stream beside what Tarek has already eloquently and brilliantly summarized that how you should guys react to this.