US risks soldiers’ lives with Middle East deployment | GUEST COMMENTARY

Many years have passed, but I still vividly remember the bus ride into Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island. Although some were skeptical of my decision to join America’s elite force, I looked forward to the day I would graduate from boot camp and come home with the title U.S. Marine. Joining the Marines was also a way for me to pay gratitude to a nation that once welcomed me in as a young immigrant child.

But just mere months into my service, the September 11 attacks took place.

Like most Marines, I was hurting from this tragedy and wanted to do my part to help. I immediately went to my leaders in the Marines and made them aware of the unique language and culture literacy skills I possessed, which I knew were a rare commodity at the time. In short, I was telling them I was ready to ship off to Afghanistan and put myself in harm’s way to take out the terrorists responsible for killing 3,000 of my fellow Americans.

Going into Afghanistan to kill terrorists was perfectly fine with me, but I didn’t have the slightest hint that America would wage an almost 20-year-long war that would eventually result in tens of thousands of innocents dead in Afghanistan and millions displaced. I had no idea just a short time after entering Afghanistan America would wage another separate war in Iraq, this time under a false narrative sold to the American public that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. That war resulted in hundreds of thousands of innocent dead Iraqis and again millions more displaced with life-long injuries.

In the midst of these wars, more than 7,000 service members — my brothers and sister in arms — died with thousands more devastated by lifelong injuries. All because so many of America’s politicians chose the cowardly option of war over courageous and sincere efforts toward peace and diplomacy.

Fast forward to today, and it looks like America has learned little from its past and history is about to repeat itself.

The soaring death toll of Palestinians killed in Israel’s war on Gaza waged with U.S. weapons — up to 186,000, according to an estimate by the medical journal Lancet — is already a stain on what will surely be part of America’s legacy. The decision to put thousands of U.S. troops in harm’s way by deploying them to the Middle East, supporting a genocidal Israel who for its own selfish ambitions has now nearly started a war with both Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah that it expects American troops will fight, is not only a form of blatant disregard and dereliction of duty by the leaders calling the shots but an abandonment of the special trust granted to them by America’s finest. Are America’s sons and daughters really just “dumb, stupid animals to be used” as pawns for foreign policy, as Henry Kissinger once reportedly said?

More troubling is the fact that even as a majority of Americans oppose sending U.S. troops to defend Israel, America’s leaders and politicians continue to ignore the will and voices of the American people and stand callously ready to make America’s sons and daughters the sacrificial lamb for Israel as if it was America’s 51st state.

Watching all this unfold, particularly as someone who once served this nation as a U.S. Marine and understands more than most what is at stake, is beyond painful. I have personally witnessed the impacts of war on fellow Marines. And yet America’s politicians are ready to put innocent American lives at stake for a foreign nation.

What happened to America’s leaders, to their oaths and sworn allegiance to the Constitution?

Has the influence of lobby organizations — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, for example — that have spent enormous amounts of money to delegitimize the voices of Americans who oppose Israel influenced America’s leaders so deeply that they are unable to fulfill their solemn oaths to America?

While I can’t deny I have lost hope in many of America’s leaders to do what is right and moral for America, I have not in America. I recognize the actions and behaviors of our leadership have never been a true reflection of the American people, and the constant ceasefire protests around America that have included people from all walks of life is living proof. Thousands of my own fellow brothers and sisters from the veteran community have come out demanding the same and an end to the carnage.

The bottom line is this: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted on war crime charges by the International Criminal Court, has made his intentions clear from the outset. He has never wanted a ceasefire deal but rather more war and death — even if it means America’s sons and daughters coming back in coffins.

The American public must stop what is bound to be another catastrophe and prevent the cycle of endless war that has become a hallmark of American history from repeating itself.

Mansoor T. Shams (X: @mansoortshams) is a Muslim-American U.S. Marine veteran, the founder of MuslimMarine.org and an adjunct professor at the University of Baltimore. He also serves as a member on the Council on Foreign Relations.