On Aug 29, 2006, at 7:55 AM, Leigh Meyers wrote:
Large numbers of Iraqi
soldiers and police are refusing to deploy to Baghdad. Apparently,
their
recruiters promised that they'd be deployed in their own home
regions of
the country and they are holding the recruiters to their promises by
refusing to serve.
Now, compare that to many of the US soldiers that are promised the
moon
by recruiters and end up as grunt cannon fodder on the front line with
nary a whine. It looks like Iraq democracy has taken hold in Iraq,
most
likely preceding our presence in the region by a few thousand years.
One of the teach-ins I attended at Camp Casey was conducted by a
Veterans for Peace activist who assists American soldiers when they
refuse to go to Iraq and go to Canada instead. According to him there
are presently 311 American soldiers in exile in Canada. (You won't
find it in the media reports.) He said he himself does not counsel
GIs to go to Canada but does assist them when decide to go. Another
activist, a woman from the GI Rights Hotline, does encourage GIs to
go to Canada rather than Iraq.
Other insights from the teach-in included the assertion (true, I
think) that every GI who goes to Iraq suffers from Post Traumatic
Stress Syndrome; and the suicide rate of returning soldiers is
approaching that of Vietnam, in which the cannon fodder (65,000
American deaths) was eclipsed by the 180,000 or so suicides of
Vietnam veterans.
The only ways to support the troops is to 1) bring them home and 2)
give them on-going medical/psychological attention. The government
does neither.
Dan Scanlan
