Don't Be A Buffalo Soldier
by
Carl Dix
This article originally appeared in Revolution.
"Don't sign up for America's wars under the leadership of
‘commander in chief' Barack Obama."
Barack Obama is going to the White House-the first Black
president-and he's calling for a new spirit of service to America. Well I
got a question, especially for Black youth-are you going to sign up to fight
America's wars now? When Bush was talking about staying the course in Iraq
till victory is achieved, most of you all weren't buying it. But now your
chests swell with pride when you think of Obama becoming the commander-in-chief
of the free world. Some of you all are thinking maybe you would fight for
an America that has Obama in charge.
Don't do it. The nature of these wars hasn't changed.
They still come down to raining death and destruction on people who haven't
done a damn thing to deserve that kind of brutality. Is having a Black
commander-in-chief enough to get you to enlist in America's wars for empire, to
kill people, and maybe die yourself, trying to keep America's stranglehold on
the world in effect? Or are you going to stand with people around the
world in opposition to these wars? Are you going to buy the poison Obama is
selling and think, and act, like an American? Or are you going to start
thinking about what humanity needs?
You all aren't the first generation to face this question.
Back in the 1960s, the U.S. sent hundreds of thousands of young men to
Vietnam-to kill people and maybe get killed yourself to serve the US empire in
trying to drown the Vietnamese people's liberation struggle in blood.
They tried to send me over there, but thanks to the powerful movement of
resistance to that war, and what I learned from GIs who had gone to
Vietnam, I refused to go and kill people in another land. I had
more in common with them than with the people who ran this country. And
with all the hell Black people were catching in the U.S., I felt my fight was
here. I got sent to Leavenworth Military Penitentiary for this
"crime." Other GIs refused to go out and fight the
"enemy" or resisted in other ways. And many who did go came
back to the U.S. and got involved in resistance against the crimes of the
system. Some of them joined the Black Panther Party and promoted
solidarity with the struggle of the Vietnamese people. I became a
revolutionary communist back then, and I've been on that tip ever since.
"Is having a Black commander-in-chief enough to get you to enlist
in America's wars for empire?"
Some things are different today. The U.S. is going against a
different kind of enemy, Islamic fundamentalists, who don't represent anything
good, and there isn't a powerful movement in opposition to these wars at the
moment. But one thing is the same-these are wars for empire.
They're going to send you to murder people at wedding parties in Afghanistan,
terrorize children in their homes in Iraq and run their torture chambers. No
one should join up to fight or give support to these wars!
Bombs dropped on villages in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan by
U.S. war planes won't be any less destructive if Obama is the
commander-in-chief of the pilot dropping them! Israeli cluster bombs
spread in Palestinian villages and refugee camps won't kill any fewer children
if Obama is authorizing the military assistance instead of George Bush!
Threats to attack Iran won't be any less warmongering if they are uttered by
Obama instead of Bush!
So again I ask you-are you going to approach these wars thinking
like an American? Are you gonna follow the example of the Buffalo
Soldiers? They were Black cavalry units formed in 1866, made up of former
slaves who had fought in the Union army in the Civil War. They were sent
off to fight in the murderous and genocidal "Indian wars," driving
the native inhabitants off their lands to make way for the expansion of
America, "from sea to shining sea." And while the Buffalo
Soldiers were fighting the native inhabitants for America, Black people in the
southeastern U.S. were catching hell from the KKK and mob violence.
"They're going to send you to murder people at wedding parties in
Afghanistan, terrorize children in their homes in Iraq and run their torture
chambers."
Some people think the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers is something
to be proud of. Colin Powell kept a Buffalo Soldier statue on his desk
when he was a top official during both of the Bush presidencies. Colin
Powell, who tried to cover up the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war, who
was a major architect of the 1st Gulf war and who went to the UN and lied thru
his teeth to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003, finds the Buffalo Soldiers
inspiring. He called them "the wind beneath my wings" and
especially cited their "loyalty." Later they were sent by the
U.S. to fight Mexican Revolutionaries like Pancho Villa. This is a
shameful legacy, and it's no wonder that a war criminal like Colin Powell is
inspired by it.
If you follow in the footsteps of the Buffalo Soldiers, you will
be called on to do just like they did: commit horrible acts against
people who have done nothing to you, and you will do it in the service of a
system that has carried out terrible crimes, including against the masses
of African-American people, and you may end up giving up the only life you have
in the service of that foul system.
DON'T DO IT! Don't sign up for America's wars under the
leadership of "commander in chief" Barack Obama and carry forward the
legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers. Instead get with a cause that's in the
interest of humanity, and is something worth fighting for-making revolution to
wipe imperialism off the face of the earth!
Carl Dix can be contacted through Revolution: The
Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.
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