Was Soulja Boy Wrong to be Anti-Military?

Soulja Boy got his start with his internet sensation Crank That.  This quickly led to a record contract and the eighteenth spot on the Forbes Hip-Hop cash kings in 2010. Soulja Boy has recently gotten into hot water after debuting a video for his new track Let's Be Real online, which contains the lyrics, "Fuck the FBI and the army troops... fighting for what? Be your own man... I'll be flying through the clouds with green like I'm Peter Pan."

TMZ spoke with Fred A. Flores -- a retired Marine who is now a commissioner for the L.A. County Veteran’s Advisory Commission. Flores tells us, "It's a very offensive statement ... especially with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 coming up."

Flores -- who has two children currently serving in the military -- calls Soulja "Ungrateful" ... adding, "He should apologize to ALL armed forces."

"[The rap] is very irresponsible," Flores stated ... "especially for a person who is an entertainer for the youth of our country." (source)

I think that many people have the vision of the military standing on a wall keeping the invaders out but the truth of the matter is that they exist to further U.S. foreign policy which is more often harmful than it is helpful and that includes to the citizens of the U.S. itself.  9/11 didn't happen in a vacuum and it was a direct result of the U.S. arming and training Osama Bin Laden.  When the Afghans were fighting the Soviets it was to the U.S. advantage to engage in a cold war (i.e. not directly confront the Russians) by aiding Bin Laden.

The military follows the orders of the commander in chief and perhaps it's not best to put all of the blame on them, but not since Vietnam, when the military actively refused to follow orders have they been accountable for their actions.  Right after 9/11 there was a surge of people enlisting and few stopped to think about why the event occurred.  They actively bought into the with us or against us rhetoric that George Bush pushed and signed up to kill Brown people with no defenses. Just following orders is not enough, or at least it is not considered enough for American adversaries.

Soulja boy is a Black man and I can completely understand from the point of view of a man of colour why he would have a problem with FBI and military.  When they have not been used as a weapon against Brown and Black bodies, they have targeted Brown and Black people in enlistment campaigns.  All sectors of the military actively recruit in poor urban areas, telling them that this is their way to see the world and to pay for college.  Socially we often hear about the fact that Blacks are over represented in the penal system, but few take into account that Blacks are also over represented in the military. There is also the history that certain minorities were only granted entry/citizenship if they served in the military. 

We should also consider the U.S. military spending has reached a level of ridiculous. 

 

And if that doesn't grab your attention perhaps the next graph will.

 

The military is often unleashed to serve the purpose of the ruling elite, which is largely comprised of rich White men.  If you doubt that think the shift from (O)operation (I)raqi (L)iberation to Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Did anyone stop to ask whose freedom the military was seeking hunting around for non-existent weapons of mass destruction? Who profited from the defense contracts?  

Rich White men get richer and the poor are sent to risk their lives and die for someone else. Even in uniform, Blacks have history of not being shown any kind of respect. Shoshana Nyree Johnson and Jessica Lynch were both POW's and yet Shoshana was completely ignored. What were Shoshana's sacrifices worth to a public that did not rise up in praise of her?  

If that were not enough, all of the money spent on the exorbitant military budget is occurring in a time when minorities are being purposefully undereducated, attacking each other in urban areas and suffering through a real depression relative to White citizens.  The U.S. can't pay reparations, but it can afford to keep spending money to feed the same military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned of. Soulja boy could have expressed himself differently, but were his sentiments really all that wrong?