Why are American Indian soldiers serving in Iraq?

[The Straight Story]

Why are American Indian soldiers serving in Iraq?

Posted: August 04, 2006
by: Michael Yellow Bird

Editor's note: Dr. Yellow Bird's essay will be disagreeable to many and welcomed by many. Please read carefully. Share your views with [e-mail].

An open letter to all indigenous peoples

As the United States celebrates its annual Independence Day, I strongly urge all of our nations to hold critical and independent discussions on why we are committing our young people to serve the U.S. military in its occupation of Iraq.

The recent reporting (including revelations of a cover-up) of the murders, executions and massacres of innocent Iraqi citizens by U.S. troops prompts me to ask, ''Why are indigenous (American Indian) soldiers serving in Iraq?'' I wonder why our tribal communities have not had critical debates on the immorality of this war, on the lies of the present Bush administration that got us into this war and on the spiritual, economic, social and psychological costs that our people and the Iraqi people will pay for this war. It is clear from the history of many of our tribes that our people understood the grave costs of war and so took this act very seriously.

Before engaging in war, many of our tribes initiated peace councils and sent emissaries to negotiate goodwill and friendship with the ''enemy'' in order to avoid war. As sovereign indigenous nations, we did not do this before or during the invasion of Iraq. We instead let the United States make the decision for us as to whether we should or should not enter into this war. I wonder when was the last time that the United States asked our people for our opinion about war and its costs.

Our history tells us that because war was so destructive on many different levels, many of our tribal nations ''before committing to war against another tribe'' consulted our elders, peacemakers, women, youth, philosophers, intellectuals, spiritual leaders, children, warriors and veterans to weigh the costs of war. This is something that many of our nations have not done for some time. Many of us have ''outsourced our thinking'' to the United States with respect to when and why we should or should not go to war.

We are sovereign nations with very intelligent and moral people who do not need to rely on this country to interpret for us the meaning and the costs that war will bring to our communities. Most of us already know the answer to this. And we know that we should decide for ourselves, after careful, deliberate and intelligent discussions, whether we must commit our people and resources to the wars of the United States.

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It also is time for our tribal leaders and communities to impose a moratorium upon any further enlistments of our young men and women into the U.S. military. The United States has abused our trust and has coerced us to fight its illegal, immoral wars long enough.

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096413450

The whole article is awesome, smacks down bush and crew pretty well :)