Lord Noel Remembers

What ho! Pepys...

After our recent Remembrance Day I was surprised today when I heard an American Soldier saying things like this to an audience who seemed willing to listen! Can't something be done to stop this kind of thing?
It's featured here and starts 9min 15secs into the video in a piece entitled  'A System of violence':

"And I tried hard to be proud of my service but all I could feel was shame. And Racism could no longer mask the reality of the occupation - that these were human beings.
I've since been plagued by guilt. Every time I see an elderly man, like the one who couldn't walk, who we rolled onto a stretcher and told the Iraqi Police to take him away. I feel guilt every time I see a mother with her children, like the one who cried out hysterically and shouted that we were worse then Saddam as we forced her from her home. I feel guilt every time I see a young girl, like the one I grabbed by the arm and forced into the street.
We were told we were fighting Terrorists, but the real Terrorist was me and the real Terrorism is this occupation.
Racism within the Military has long been an important tool to justify the destruction and occupation of another country. It has long been used to justify the suffering, subjugation and torture of another people.
Racism is a vital weapon employed by this Government. It is a more important weapon then a rifle, a tank, a bomber or a battleship. It's a more destructive than an artillery shell, or a bunker buster Tomahawk missile. All those weapons are owned by the Government and are harmless without people to use it. Those who send us to war do not have to pull a trigger or lob a mortar round. They do not have to fight the war, they merely have to sell us the war. 
They need a public who is willing to send their Soldiers into harms way. They need soldiers who are willing to kill and be killed without question. They can spend millions on a single bomb but that only becomes a weapon when the ranks in the military are willing to follow orders to use it. They can send every last soldier anywhere on earth but they will only be a war if soldiers are willing to fight. And the ruling class, the billionaires who profit from human suffering, they care only about expanding their wealth, and controlling the world economy.
Understand that their power lies only in their ability to convince us that war, oppression and exploitation is in our interests. They understand that their wealth is dependant on their ability to convince the working class to die, to control the market of another country.
And convincing us to kill and die is based on their ability to make us think that we are somehow superior.
Soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines have nothing to gain from this occupation The vast majority of the people living within the US have nothing to gain from this occupation.
In fact, not only do we have nothing to gain, but we suffer more because of it. We lose limbs, endure trauma and give our lives. 
Our families have to watch flag draped coffins lowered into the earth. Millions of people in this country without jobs, access to health care and education must watch the Government in this country squander over $450million a day on this occupation.
Poor and working people in this country are sent to kill poor and working people in another country to make the rich richer. And without racism, soldiers would realise that they have more in common with the Iraqi people than they do with the billionaires who sent them to war.
I threw families onto the street in Iraq, only to come home and find families thrown onto the street in this country in this tragic and unnecessary 'foreclosure crisis'.
We need to wake up and realise that our REAl enemies are not in some distant land, they're not people whose name we do not know and cultures we don't understand. The enemy is people we know very well, and people we can identify, the enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable. The enemy is the CEO's who lay us off from our jobs when it's profitable. It's the Insurance who deny us Healthcare when it's profitable. It's the bank who take away our homes when it's profitable.
Our enemy is not 5000 miles away, they are right here at home. If we're organised, we can fight with our sisters and brothers, and we can stop this war, stop this Government and we can create a better world."


Tallyho!
Best Wishes - Lord Noel