An Open Letter to US Troops in Afghanistan and Iraq (on loyalty)

[paula777]

I thought this was a very powerful letter / article. It's a military guy pleaded with others in the military to question 'loyalty'. Scroll down a bit to see the article ...

http://www.counterpunch.com/goff06152005.html

I was a soldier for most of the time between 1970 and 1996. I signed out on my retirement from 3rd Special Forces in Ft. Bragg. I had also served in 7th Special Forces, on three Ranger assignments, with Delta for almost four years, as a Cavalry Scout for a while, and in the 82nd Airborne Division as an infantryman. I started my career in Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

snip ...

But that brain-dead piece of shit in the White House who is legally your boss, and all his handlers, starting with Vice President Dick "Halliburton" Cheney they sent you to do this thing anyway.

They talked themselves into believing this would be ­ and these are their words ­ a cakewalk. They surrounded themselves exclusively with others who echoed what was already in their minds; and they punished and villified and isolated anyone who told them what they didn't want to hear. Because they made up their minds to conduct these invasions years ago, and with the attacks of September 11 ­ in which Iraq's role was exactly nothing­ they figured now was their chance to conduct the re-disposition of the old Cold War military into their new plan to build permanent bases in Southwest Asia.

snip ...

If I had my way, we would issue the whole shriveled, manicured lot of them their assault rifles, put them aboard an Air Force transport, tighten the leg straps on their static line parachutes, and boot their sorry asses out from 800 feet right over the middle of Ramadi ­ where they could drop their harnesses in the street and explain democracy to the locals.

snip ...

But then again, there wasa memorandum that came down that suggested the Geneva Conventions were void in Iraq. It didn't come from the Brigade level, though; it came from fucking George W. Bush's office. And it's a lie. That's why they sat there in front of Congress before they made the author of that memo into the Attorney General of the United States ­ get your head around that­ and denied that they meant it.

snip ...

Do everything you can to stop the war.

Question every order, and base those questions on the Geneva Conventions and the Law of Land Warfare. Let them see you keeping a detailed journal of your experience. Send your stories home in letters. Open up discussions about the legitimacy of the war when you are in your billets, even if it does spark controversy. Spread around information you get about the war from sources other than those loud-mouthed news-mannequins on FOX. And email or mail your anonymous membership in to Iraq Veterans Against the War. The link is at the end of this letter.

[unhappycamper]

1. Excellent advice to our soldiers. n/t

on edit: duh

[Hubert Flottz]

2. Bush drew a target on the backs of every American soldier...

when he and his clandestine conspirators around the pentagon chose to ignore the "Quaint" Geneva Conventions. If people loot, plunder and pillage like the EVIL Nazis once did, then those people shouldn't bitch when anyone with a grain of common sense, makes that sensible connection! "That Low Life BASTARD Saddam, mistreated, tortured, robbed, raped and even killed people in his evil prisons!!!" Does that sound like anyone else you can think of?

As a former GI, I'm sickened to the core by these spineless, unpatriotic, yes men in charge of our military today! The top brass are too yellow to stand up to a heartless, ruthless, cowardly, dictator, in their own country! The brass are, "being all that they can be" and their performance of their SWORN DUTY to uphold and defend the Constitution of their Country, is pathetic and cowardly! Or as we said it in the old Army, "Their Shit Is WEAK!

"Just following orders!" Sound like anyone else you can think of?