MIM Notes interviews Fort Bragg

See our Iraq web page Fort Bragg, NC--The mood at Fort Bragg seems sullen. Few people wanted to talk, even before they knew MIM Notes is communist. In one case, MIM Notes spoke with one soldier just back from Iraq who just stared straight forward and said "I don't want to talk about that." In an odd way, it was also like talking to some Arab youth in Amerika who also had opinions, but are afraid to say anything right now. We spoke with another soldier who had toured all over the world except Iraq and said he had read MIM Notes before. He chided us "it would be a whole lot better if people would just vote." This same soldier told us that most of his military buddies "don't care at all" about politics yet and he told us this disturbed him greatly. With regard to the vote and freedom we responded that the united $tates does not bring freedom to other countries and in fact has the highest imprisonment rate in the world. "You don't have to tell me that. I know," said our critic. He went on to say there is the freedom to leave the country (and this led to a discussion of u.$. "aid" to other countries and u.$. backing for dictators). We pointed out to this patriot that George Washington stayed, fought and changed America. The critic of MIM went on to say that the soldiers in Iraq should fight harder to get done sooner and come back. (You can hear part of our interview here. Part II) However, his military comrade said, "the main thing is that everyone comes home as soon as possible as safely as possible." We spoke with two people who were not happy at all about the Iraq War. You can hear the interviews here: Black youth says the war should not have happened. Black womyn says she doesn't like the war. Something we heard from these two and another womyn soldier in a family with multiple members in the armed forces was not so much concern for themselves as concern for their families. They did not like the idea that some of their relatives might fight and die in Iraq. Our longest conversation was with an Army soldier who actually had many revolutionary views already. According to him, the united $tates is going to break up into pieces regionally. He said there were too many cynical special interests getting their piece out of the military from outerwear contracts to Iraq contracts. He recounted how "war f*s people up" and went on to tell us about a World War II veteran in the area who still wakes up in the middle of the night. Listen to one Army soldier say he has no opinion for or against the Iraq war but that the united $tates has become the Nazis! Oddly, no one made a point of Abu Ghraib or prisons in Afghanistan, but we found soldiers reading MIM Notes on the subject. In Amerika, we have a heavy duty. Depending on the outlook of recruitable youth of this one country with 5% of the world's population, the transition to a world without imperialism will be more or less bloody. In fact, it may turn out that anti-militarist work could make the difference between species survival and species destruction. Most of the rest of the world can already see it, so we have to bring internationalist perspective to places like Fort Bragg.