Ronnie's Blog

Today I came across a post on Twitter (X), written by a US combat veteran who speaks about the time he realised the Iraq invasion was a complete lie. It is an honest down-to-earth account that I found very interesting, and I wanted to share it.

Somehow, I do not think many people will read it all. Partly because this is not the type of blog content that a lot people want, and also because too many people shy away from the truth. The truth is not palatable, but this year the reality of the murderous cruelty in the Middle East has been exposed. Very often by war criminals, I refrain from using the word soldiers, filming their own crimes.

The US and UK governments dance to the terrorist tune of Israel, who will happily keep playing until the end of time.

 

 

 

 

 

Noctis Draven
@DravenNoctis
Combat veteran, writer, historical researcher, anti-war advocate and host of The Grey. Nothing is black & white; the truth is usually in The Grey.

I can remember the exact moment I realized the Iraq invasion was a complete lie.

For months leading up to my deployment and even before I enlisted, I remember the rhetoric and propaganda. Most Americans didn’t know much about Muslims or Islam. Sure a few mosques were scattered throughout big cities and such but for the most part, no one truly thought about them.

After 9-11 2001 news, media, movies, TV shows etc rolled out non-stop that introduced Americans to Islam and Muslims. It was not an accurate portrayal looking back, it was a sensationalized and extreme version of them. Every cartoon, movie, show or news clip we were given displayed the Muslim/Islamic extremists.

Beards, Osama Bin Laden like terrorists strapped full of explosives trying to kill Americans. This was America’s true introduction to Islam. Looking back now, I understand why. Our leaders and the small land in the Middle East whom own them needed us to become angry, hateful of Muslims. The goal was to rally people in support of the invasion that myself and many others were a part of.

I was ready, ready to do anything to protect America, after all we were ready for revenge of 9-11 and to remove WMDs.

Landing in Kuwait at the time and then taking a convoy into Iraq we began our job. As an Engineer, I found myself doing many things. In the very beginning it was building. We moved into unsecured areas, secured them and built bases and F.O.Bs.

I used front loaders and excavators to fill hundreds and hundreds of HESCO baskets. Moved hundreds of Jersey Barriers etc. After that phase we evolved mainly into convoy escort and I.E.D response because at that time E.O.D was severely under staffed.

As an engineer I had knowledge of basic explosives but nowhere near the tech expertise of E.O.D. mostly when we found an I.E.D we would cordon off the area or road and simply shoot it to explode it. Sometimes we didn’t see them and were hit.

The moment I realized this was all fake, all a lie is captured in a video below. When we captured two men, we were told they were seen planting I.E.D for Coalition forces, however none of us can confirm. Officers took the men away, vanished with an American hired Iraqi translator and I never saw the men again, I also never saw them leave our F.O.B.

I can’t speculate what happened to them, so I won’t, all I’m saying is we never saw them leave and I honestly have no idea if they were guilty or not.

The next day we did more of our jobs, building, escorting, etc. It hit me, after such a time there I was constantly only seeing poverty, poor men and women, certainly no threat to America and absolutely zero WMDs.

Sure, there were skirmishes, sure there was small arms fire, sure there were firefights with other Coalition forces. But these were resistance fighters and looking back now, America would do the same if invaded. If forces invaded America there would be bands of patriots that would fight back same as these people.

We invaded their home, we were killing them, of course they fought back. The truth began to set in. Each time I went into town, whatever town we were near, Baghdad, large F.O.Bs, etc. We’d enter a bazaar or market and the looks on the faces of the people. They were afraid, so they did the only thing they could with a super power invading their lands.

They worked for us some, others fed us, fed us their foods. I came back home and was called a hero. Men bought me my meals, I was respected. Deep down, I knew, this was no war, no fight for freedom, no fight against a threat to my people. This was an invasion; I was a professional thug that wore the flag of a nation on my sleeve to justify it all.

Now, the stage is set again, to invade and destroy the “evil” in the Middle East once more. All on behalf of Israel and greedy politicians. There is no threat to America, no threat to Trump, there is only an objective of Israel, elites and oligarchs. Please don’t let this happen again.