Military Dissent






	*No Distractions - No Deception - No Diversions - No Delusions*
	Read the stories that TV news networks forget to report!

Retired Diplomats, Military Commanders Fault Bush's Leadership - The Bush administration does not understand the world it faces and is unable to handle "in either style or substance" the responsibilities of global leadership, an eminent group of 27 retired diplomats and military commanders charged today. - "Never in the two and a quarter centuries of our history has the United States been so isolated among the nations, so broadly feared and distrusted." - The statement fit onto a single page, but the sharp public criticism of President Bush was striking, coming from a bipartisan group of respected former officials united in anger about U.S. policy. - The new group, which calls itself Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, believes Bush must be replaced for the United States to regain credibility and strengthen valuable foreign alliances.

All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic - Therefore, I stand today opposed to my President, and the anti-American, un-Constitutional, unpatriotic Administration for which he serves as figurehead. I will do my part to voice my opposition, educate the populace, diligently support my political causes, and work with others to restore American freedoms to their former glory.
1st American Marine to Dissent - “Immoral because of the deception involved by our leaders”
3 British Soldiers Sent Home - Protest Civilian Deaths
2 Dolphins Even Dissent
Hundreds of Soldiers Emerge as Conscientious Objectors
Chaplain Quits Battlefield - Can’t deal with the horrors of war.
Mental Trauma of our Troops
Servicemembers speaking out: - A look at the policies, consequences
Reservist who criticized war fights court martial - Marines say Seattle man's after-the-fact opposition to attack on Iraq is irrelevant
Family of soldier displaying outrage toward president - The Vogels accuse President George Bush of using fabricated information about former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's ties with Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and Hussein's potential use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States as the basis for declaring war on Iraq. - "It's a very frustrating thing for a military family to realize they're paying the price for a war that, at least for military families, is really hard to get all patriotic about," Vogel said. "It seems to be unwinable and unending, and those are the worst words anyone in a military family could hear." - TVNL Comment: The Vogels are 100% correct.
White House is ambushed by criticism from America's military community - From Vietnam veterans to fresh young recruits, from seasoned officers to anxious mothers worried about their sons' safety on the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah, the military community is growing ever more vocal in its opposition to the White House. - "I once believed that I served for a cause: 'To uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States'. Now I no longer believe that," Tim Predmore, a member of the 101st Airborne Division serving near Mosul, wrote in a blistering opinion piece this week for his home newspaper, the Peoria Journal Star in Illinois. "I can no longer justify my service for what I believe to be half-truths and bold lies."
'You lied, they died,' US parents tell Bush - The father of a soldier killed in Iraq accused President George Bush yesterday of being responsible for his son's death. - Fernando Suarez, whose 20-year-old son, Jesus, was one of the first fatalities, said: "My son died because Bush lied."
Military families grow angry with state of Iraq war - Around the country other military families are increasingly voicing concerns over the war, some through organizations such as Military Families Speak Out, a Massachusetts group that claims support from about 1,000 families nationwide. Some marched in protests against the war in Washington, D.C., last weekend. - While many of these families are adamantly anti-war, others embrace the administration's rationale for going to war in Iraq, while criticizing its conduct in the post-war period.
How an American war hero is taking his battle over Iraq to Washington - "We are probably turning many Iraqi against us and I am afraid instead of climbing out of the hole, we are digging ourselves in deeper."
Some troops not happy with historic visit - One soldier wrote to Stars and Stripes voicing displeasure that those under his command were told that during the president’s visit at the Baghdad International Airport for a quick meal and meet-and-greet, they weren’t allowed in.
Dead soldier's father advises Latinos not to join US Army - "Our children must come home, and not keep dying in this absurd military occupation," says Mexican Fernando Suarez, whose son, a US citizen, was killed in Iraq in the first days of the war.
US sergeant branded a coward mounts furious fightback - Like Private Lynch, who became an international celebrity largely through the manipulation of the Pentagon's propaganda machine rather than anything she did or did not do on the battlefield, Staff Sergeant Pogany, hired as a translator and interrogator with US Special Forces, did nothing to seek out his poster-child status and almost certainly does not deserve the notoriety that has come his way. - His story, on the surface, seems unremarkable. Last September, after just two days on active duty in Iraq, he caught sight of the mangled body of a dead Iraqi soldier inside a white body bag. The body was ripped almost in two, with a large hole and strips of ripped flesh where the man's chest should have been. - But a few hours later, the image returned and began to haunt him. He started shaking and vomiting and could not sleep. By the next morning, he thought he might be having a nervous breakdown. - In short order, Sgt Pogany found himself stripped of his weapons and sent home to face a formal charge of cowardice before a court martial - a serious, and rarely prosecuted offence punishable by death.
War on Terror's Scope Criticized in Study - A scathing new report published by the Army War College broadly criticizes the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism, accusing it of taking a detour into an "unnecessary" war in Iraq. - Full report pdf file here.
Over 60 Bulgarian Soldiers Quit Iraq - Bound Unit - A total of 62 Bulgarian soldiers have quit a peacekeeping unit due to replace troops in Iraq after a car bomb killed five of their compatriots last month, Chief of Staff Nikola Kolev said Wednesday.
Soldier for the Truth - Exposing Bush’s talking-points war - As war inevitably approached, and as she neared her 20-year mark in the Air Force, Kwiatkowski concluded the only way she could viably resist what she now terms the “expansionist, imperialist” policies of the neoconservatives who dominated Iraq policy was by retiring and taking up a public fight against them. - They pushed an agenda on Iraq, and they developed pretty sophisticated propaganda lines which were fed throughout government, to the Congress, and even internally to the Pentagon — to try and make this case of immediacy.
Soldiers 'given 5 bullets for Iraq war' - A serving soldier has risked his career by speaking out over equipment shortages in the Gulf conflict. - Just five bullets each were issued to him and his men, who were serving along frontlines in southern Iraq, the unnamed soldier told Channel 4 News.- "The magazine held 30 separate bullets but I was issued with five separate bullets to last the entire hostilities of the war. We came under fire in Um Qasr three or four times. - By raising the latest case, the unnamed solider, who is reportedly based in Germany and served in Um Qasr, Az Zubayr and Basra, risks losing his job and pension.
Military Families vs. the War - Organized Opposition Is Small, but Some See It as Historic - The number of military families that oppose Operation Iraqi Freedom, though never measured, is probably small. But a nascent antiwar movement has begun to find a toehold among parents, spouses and other relatives of active-duty, reserve and National Guard troops.
U.S. families protest war - Those who've lost loved ones in Iraq join in dissent - Timing coincides with White House PR campaign - Protests by families who have lost loved ones will provide the counterpoint to a White House offensive as the war anniversary approaches.
Two American soldiers in Iraq apply for conscientious objector status - Two U.S. Army medics in Iraq have applied for conscientious objector status and want to be honorably discharged from the military because the idea of killing is ''revolting'' to them, their company commander said Tuesday
National Guard Officer Offers Criticism of Bush's Iraq Plans - "The Iraqi people are making progress and the American military is helping them make that progress," he said. "But at what cost to the American military and what cost to the American people? I'm not sure that our country is better off now. I'm pretty sure that our military is not better off now."
Baker family calls war a betrayal - The family of Sgt. Sherwood Baker, a local soldier killed in Iraq, speaks out - "It was a senseless death, just like all those other boys ... and the 10,000 plus Iraqi citizens that got killed in Iraq," Alfred Zappala said Thursday on the independent New York-based news program. "Democracy Now!" dubs itself the "The exception to the rulers."
Atrocities in Iraq: 'I killed innocent people for our government' - For nearly 12 years, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was a hard-core, some say gung-ho, Marine. For three years he trained fellow Marines in one of the most grueling indoctrination rituals in military life - Marine boot camp. - They received pamphlets, propaganda we dropped on them. It said, "Just throw up your hands, lay down weapons." That's what they were doing, but we were still lighting them up. They weren't in uniform. We never found any weapons. - Depleted uranium. I know what it does. It's basically like leaving plutonium rods around. I'm 32 years old. I have 80 percent of my lung capacity. I ache all the time. I don't feel like a healthy 32-year-old. - Q: Were you in the vicinity of of depleted uranium? A: Oh, yeah. It's everywhere. DU is everywhere on the battlefield. If you hit a tank, there's dust.
Continuing the Cover-Up? - Military Takes Action Against Key Witness in Abu Ghraib Abuse Scandal - A witness who told ABCNEWS he believed the military was covering up the extent of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison was today stripped of his security clearance and told he may face prosecution because his comments were "not in the national interest."
U.S. Soldier Found Guilty of Deserting Iraq Unit - A U.S. soldier who said he saw prisoners being abused in Iraq was convicted of desertion on Friday for failing to return to his unit after taking leave to the United States last year.
W.Va. Reserve leader denounces Iraq war - West Virginia’s top Army Reserve spokesman says the Iraq war was a mistake, and President Bush should be voted out of office. - In a long interview with Gazette columnist Sandy Wells, Col. Lew G. Tyree of Charleston publicly revealed his feelings about the Iraq invasion, saying: “I feel we were not told the truth. I do not think we should be there. America is in more danger now because we are using up a tremendous amount of human resources, the soldiers. We tend to ignore that there are well over 1,000 dead and well over 7,000 injured. We use many of the soldiers time and time again. Where are the replacements going to come from? We’re getting re-enlistments, but not recruits. Where is the strength for defending this country in another arena?”
A strident minority: anti-Bush US troops in Iraq - Conventional wisdom holds that the troops are staunchly pro-Bush, and many are. But bitterness over long, dangerous deployments is producing, at a minimum, pockets of support for Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry, in part because he's seen as likely to withdraw American forces from Iraq more quickly.