because I tell you the truth,.....
"Am I therefore
become your enemy
because I tell you the truth?"
by Sgt. Kevin Benderman - Conscientious Objector to War
It is an interesting question, and a thought-provoking one, from the Bible. It is one that, I believe, is the essence of why I am in jail. The truth I told grew from my experiences in the war in Iraq. I went there with the desire to avenge the people who died on September 11, 2001, and to keep the soldiers that I served with safe in the process. I went as a soldier in the service of my country, never once thinking that my government would mislead me or lie to me not in order to advance the good of the country, but to fulfill a seemingly personal agenda of a few individuals. The truth that I had to tell came from meeting the people that I had been told were blood-thirsty religious fanatics who were intent on destroying my country and our way of life, and discovering that aside from a few zealots, the assertion was just not the truth. Zealotry is a very prominent, driving force in the world, and all countries, peoples and religions have them. Yes, there are zealots even within our highly esteemed Christianity, as evidenced by Pat Robertson calling for our government to assassinate the elected president of Venezuela. My pointing out fanaticism from within our own government, and the lies told in order to start the slaughter of a nation that had nothing to do with the September 11 attack on our country, is why I was taken before a Kangaroo court and imprisoned as a result. The garrison commander told the prosecutors that I was to do 18 months in prison before the investigation phase of the court martial even started. The company commander was trying to come up with everything he could think of to smear me before they concentrated their efforts to put me in jail.
I do not want to mislead anyone into thinking that I am a saint, because I have done many things in my life that are wrong and I am ashamed of doing them. But, I decided that I was not going to add to that list by taking any further part in this war against a people that have done absolutely nothing to us.
Tacitus, a Roman historian, said, "When monarchs through their bloodthirsty commanders lay waste a country, they dignify their atrocity by calling it 'making peace,'" or in this case, by calling it "spreading democracy."
We are being told that we are to continue the war in Iraq because their country needs us, and all the while our people suffer. We continue to look outward, but isn't the truth within us? We look to satisfy our egos by believing that we are so great that we can save others from themselves. Isn't the truth that it is not up to us to save others, that to save them, we must leave them and face what must be saved within ourselves?
