To the editor:

If one were to read a story about a civilization described as the most militarized society in history, with a defense budget exceeding over half of their federal spending, the reader would likely not expect the accompanying description, “and the people lived in freedom as a result of that militarism.” And yet, for some reason, the people of the U.S.A. do believe this applies.

But why is that necessarily the case? How do we know that militarism equals freedom? Sure, there have been wars like the Revolution and World War II where the use of force helped to improve our freedoms, but how did the other thousand cases help us out, when we invaded small, poor countries, or carried out coups, and supported dictatorships over democracies?

How has our military assistance for Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Honduran, Cuban, Dominican, Philippine, Indonesian, Colombian, Argentine, Brazilian and Nicaraguan death squads helped American democracy? How did our actions in Angola, Zaire and Iran provide you with more security? Many other cases like these would challenge the assertion that U.S. militarism necessarily provides us with freedom and yet, we blindly honor the battles our vets have been in.

Honor your vets, America, but not for the reasons your government tells you to. As if Bush honored our troops by not getting all the facts to them about WMD in Iraq, sending over 1,600 of them to their deaths. Honor us vets precisely because we were willing to sacrifice ourselves for the cause of national defense, despite our government’s history of deception.

Chris White,

Lawrence