here is another moving...patriotic...CRY from another Vietnam era conscientous objecter who has been to Iraq.
this answer from Goff is very revealing of trouble felt by Constitution defenders:
Can you give me an idea of the level of opposition to Bush's war drive within the US armed forces?
That's difficult to do for at least two reasons — first, because there is just no way of getting some kind of representative sample for a number of demographic and technical reasons, and second, because there are so many different dimensions of “opposition”.
What we can see are tendencies. In the military organising that I have been involved with, we are seeing the institutional breakdown of the military via the increasing numbers of dissenters, deserters and refusers. We are connected with various outreach and counselling efforts, so this is something we can measure. And the numbers are climbing, fast.
The longer this goes on, the worse it will be, and that's why there are cracks developing inside the Pentagon. There are generals who are both opposed to this war and devoted to the military.*****
Mike Ferner: 'Serving, refusing, impeaching'Posted on Monday, March 21 @ 09:55:44 EST
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Commemorating the Second Anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq — Remarks given at rallies in Columbus March 19 and Cleveland March 20, 2005
By Mike Ferner
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=20382&mode=nested&order=0(with comments from Stan Goff)
~~~ I'm talking about thousands MORE soldiers who will return from Iraq with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the injury that leaves minds riddled with flashbacks, anxiety, unpredictable outbursts of anger, depression, addictions and suicide.
~~~Shay stresses that PTSD "...incapacitates its victims from participating in the domestic, economic, and political life of the nation. The painful paradox is that fighting for one's country can render one unfit to be its citizen." His book led me to inescapable conclusions: sending people to war profoundly changes every one of them, not usually for the better; and if we truly want to support our troops, we should never turn them into troops in the first place.
~~~One former soldier who has told his story many times is Stan Goff, a retired Special Forces Master Sgt. He spent two decades, starting in Vietnam, learning the most highly developed killing skills the U.S. government had to offer. Stan is now a Veteran for Peace. He says:
"We know that some vets cling to denial, some are broken in body and spirit, some rage, and some turn their anger in on themselves and crawl into a needle or a bottle or the chamber of a pistol. But there's a way out of that wilderness, and it's the path of the witness. Witnessing will heal you...Who better to out the thieves and mass murderers posing as statesmen than those of us closest to their criminal hearts in their time of need. Because we were there, we know what these people have sent our children to do; what they have sent our children to become."
Sgt. Goff tells our soldiers in Iraq: "...If you want a target for your rage, there they are: The Suits - the same ones who are the enemies of peace, and the enemies of your families, especially if they are Black families, or immigrant or poor families...They'll skin and grin while they are getting what they want from you, and throw you away like a used condom when they are done. Ask the vets who are having their benefits slashed now. Bush and his cronies are parasites...They get the money. You get the prosthetics, the nightmares, and the mysterious illnesses..."
~~~It is our responsibility to impeach this criminal leadership. As citizens, every one of us is complicit with its crimes. By virtue of that complicity, we are compelled not only by the law but by human morality and by history to do whatever we can to stop this war of aggression; stop these crimes against humanity. The Nuremberg Tribunals following WWII did not favorably judge the first nation the world determined had waged a war of aggression, nor its "good citizens" who obeyed their government. ~~~If we are well organized; if we are there for young soldiers who leave the military; if we refuse to be silenced and frightened by an immoral law; if we refuse to be "Good Americans;" if we do what history demands in this critical hour we can grind this war machine to a halt. We can put an end to the suffering and the war crimes. We can absolve our complicity. Will we do this together?
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=20382&mode=nested&order=0*****
I think people will do more than governments to promote peace, and one of these days better Get Out of The Way..and let them have it.
-many days ago by Dwight D. Eisenhower
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