[Peace-discuss] Letter of nonsupport for troops

[Kimberlie Kranich]

 Dear Editor:
 To quash dissent is profoundly anti-American.  If we are still citizens and not yet subjects of our government, then we must speak up.  I cannot display a yard sign that says “Thank You U.S. Service Men and Women” because I disagree that U.S. troops protected America’s freedom by invading Iraq.

 The President is misusing our troops. By invading Iraq, our President, the troops who received his marching orders and the American citizens that supported the invasion damaged the worldwide reputation of the United States, increased the risks for American civilians traveling abroad, and killed or displaced thousands of Iraqi civilians. They forced open huge profit opportunities for U.S oil and water conglomerates.  Meanwhile, few noticed that Congress is slashing the budget for services for veterans. 

 The more civilized way of removing Saddam Hussein would have been continued U.N. weapons inspections and the addition of human rights inspectors followed by trials in the World Court at the Hague for all violators of human rights.  South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation model of justice would have allowed for healing for Iraqi citizen subjects of Saddam’s brutality instead of death, displacement and occupation by the U.S.

 Anthony Swofford, an ex-Marine who fought in combat in the Gulf War warns in his best selling book, Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles, about the glorification of war.  “Some of the men who spread good news have never fought -- so what could they have to say about the purity of war and warriors?” Swofford writes.  “These men are liars and cheats and they gamble with your freedom and your life and the lives of your sons and daughters."

 Kimberlie Kranich

 

 

 

 

 

 



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