Veterans Group Calls on Soldiers to Refuse Orders to Deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq

[babsbunny]

Veterans Group Calls on Soldiers to Refuse Orders to Deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq

http://www.truthout.org/1214091

Monday 14 December 2009

by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Report

photo
(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: US Army Africa, The U.S. Army)

In response to President Barack Obama's announcement on December 1 to deploy 30,000 additional troops to the occupation of Afghanistan, the organization March Forward!, with comprising both veterans and active-duty members of the US military, has called on all soldiers to refuse their orders to deploy.

[FLyellowdog]

1. Because they would rather it had be Bush who gave the order? nt

[Cleobulus]

10. Read the fucking article before you spout off. n/t

[FLyellowdog]

14. How many times did they call for this when Bush was in office?

Suddenly the war wrong? It's always been wrong...that more than 50,000 have gone AWOL probably supports this, wouldn't you think? I'm sorry, but in a volunteer military, you get what you sign up for. It's not like we haven't been over there for years. If you don't support the war, don't enlist. If you enlist, you should follow orders. They aren't going into this with their eyes closed...if they are, they're stupid.

[Echo In Light]

2. K&R

[jonnyblitz]

3. k & r. nt

[Arctic Dave]

4. I've been calling for this for years.

I haven't changed my mind just because there is a democrat in office like some people.

Some people are flip floppy like that.

[fishnfla]

5. calling Orly Taitz! eom

[Liberation Angel]

6. Veterans are the only ones I trust for an objective perspective on these wars K&R

I camped and marched with IVAW in Denver in 2008 at the dem covention. We were forced into a hot polluted "freedom cage" to protests and camp under klieg lights, dozens of fully armed, masked, kevlared troops with no clean water avilable and nasty pub;ic toilets blocks away. Out of sight of the convention hall. IVAW and Obama actually prevented a very nasty comflict between the nonviolent protesters and the Bush gestapo (although the Denver police were prety cool overall - it was a very scry scene with heavily armed swat team type surveillance and control of the march with rage against the machine and the Flobots)

I would trust no opinion more, as with the Vietnam Veterans, than IVAW and soldiers who have actually been in the war zones to tell us the truth about what is happening there and in our military.

I know nothing about this new organization but I certainly respect what they are saying here --- and of course Dar Jamail is the best journalist on these subjects of war imo.

K&R strongly!

[MisterP]

7. sounds like Archbishop Romero's call not to conduct atrocities or obey illegal orders nt

[Ian David]

8. I don't see why they all don't just declare themselves to be gay. n/t

[MidwestRick]

9. I hope this group

will aid their families when these idividuals are sitting in Leavenworth. Easy for the group to make this call. It's no skin off their back.

[leftstreet]

11. From the article: 50,000+ soldiers have gone AWOL

According to Pentagon figures, since October 2001, more than 50,000 soldiers from all branches of the military have gone AWOL.

oops

[hayu_lol]

12. The article could just as well have been written by...

David Swanson, a paid organizer who believes that the troops cannot be harmed for life by these actions.

If a troop decides to call an order illegal, they better have all their facts in line and attorneys on call to help. That an order is believed 'illegal,' is very difficult to prove...and prison for many years is a real penalty.

[leftstreet]

13. Did you mean to respond to me?

I was just citing a statistic in the article

:shrug: