U.S. Soldiers Stage Mutiny, Refuse Orders in Iraq Fearing They Would Commit Massacre

This article is crazy.

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/21/us_soldiers_stage_mutiny_refuse_orders

Does anyone get the "Army Times"? Can you confirm and/or offer more insight?

Apparently it is based around a 4 part series, found here

http://www.militarytimes.com/projects/flash/bloodbrothers/


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That is an extraordinarily powerful story. Extraordinary on so many levels.

I'm amazed it hasn't gotten lots of publicity. The Army Times is very accessable to others in bigger broader press.

Some years ago I went through a period of 4 deaths of people with whom I was very close within 3 months and some other bad stuff during that period. While recovering my equilibrium I met someone who had suffered much more than me. That helped me.

Their story makes her story seem like nothing!

These guys should be applauded for controlling themselves while under extraordinary pressure and it appears the officers above them acted appropriately.

They should get lots of support.

It is also a crystal clear example of the concerns of senior Army brass and others when they make claims about the army and marines being "broke" or "near broke" or approaching being broke.

These guys had tours that are historically longer than the US military has ever submitted soldiers to (certainly since and including WWII). They had lots of combat and threat pressure on a continuous basis for a long time.


It is one of the aspects of the war on which the Bush administration hasn't been straight and given the US public the truth. The soldiers on the ground and the US public aren't being given a straight story.

Taking that story on face value I salute the soldiers and the officers directly involved.

 

DemocracyNow interviewed the author behind it. She's a former member of the armed forces. There should be an MP3 link on the article page.

It's like an echo chamber in here. lol We don't get the news, we get what we are told. Two very different things.

Btw, I heard the guys on RP Revolution Radio talking about this, and apparently CBS has some report out, that 105 members of the military who return from Iraq are committing suicide each month. Can someone source that and post it to this thread please?

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2873622.ece

 

The reason they refused is because they were so angry and thought they could not behave professionally. If you read the article, they refused because they wanted to go massacre some iraqi people. A terrorist planted a bomb right next to an Iraqi police station that killed 5 of their men. They feel like their is no way the iraqi police did not see that bomb planted.

 

All I know is, the sooner we bring our boys and girls home, the better. The cost to save face or avert what may be an inevitable disaster in Iraq is an unfair burden to place on people who are there for political reasons, clearly not reasons of national defense. These brave people sign up to defend our country, not to work as evangelical warriors for democracy and capitalism.

 

This is not politically correct and I'll probably get flamed for this, BUT...

Rebecca's rule of war:
1. bomb and destroy a country
OR
2. help a country rebuild

Don't ever do both at the same time

 

That's really scary stuff dear. Do you have any idea how many people die when a country is bombed and destroyed? Innocent people.

When the ends justifies the means, we lose our humanity.

 

I agree with your statement in regards to the bombing and rebuilding of Iraq.

 

I don't agree with the war in Iraq. Out of curiosity, are you a pacifist? Do you believe any war is ever worth fighting?

 

If you want to kill or attack someone, declare war, and blow up bases, troop formations, navy etc. But attacking civilian areas is morally wrong. Those legendary precision bombs from Shock and Awe killed a lot of innocent people.

When the death of innocent people becomes acceptable, we've lost the high ground. We're no better than the people we are fighting.

 

I don't like war, can't think of one in the last 50 years we should have been in. But I agree with Rebecca on this one, at least in regards to the current way we are fighting wars. If you are going to attack a country and dismantle it, do not stick around to rebuild it. If you are going to rebuild a country, don't be the one who dismantled it. I think the only time we actually did that with any success was Japan and Germany in WW2 and it was till a hellish process from what I can tell, and they did most of it themselves.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/03/20/MN12444.DTL
There is a comparison between what happened then and what is going on now in Iraq.

 

No.

In self defense. Declared war. Yeah. If we had good intel that the Chinese or Russians were going to launch a strike, I would be ok with attacking their force to prevent it. But it's not ok to bomb China because they are going to be the world's next economic and military power, 20 years in advance. That's evil.

Dropping two bombs on Japan, killing so many civilians was wrong. Japanese forces could have been targeted. It's not acceptable to attack civilians, particularly today, when so many people do not agree with their government's actions.

Re: Terrorism, terrorists do not have a state. They operate in caves and shadows. This requires a police response, not a ground invasion and occupation. The administration did such a good job talking about a new kind of war, and then they fought an old kind of war.

 

most wars are unjustified IMO. a real just war would be one with common average people fighting the global elites that are sending them off to war.

all this war and talk of war is just a smokescreen for the elitists to further their agenda. and by now, it's no uphill battle for them. they're already a part of our lives.

not every battle should be fought with a sword, but a clear conscience of who the enemy is.

 

Shock and awe is such a stupid name for killing people isn't it? As far as I see, we did not have a good reason to attack Iraq. It was wrong. I guess all I am trying to say is, the mission in Iraq is so confused. Some Iraqis are trying to kill our soldiers, some are not. No uniforms, you can't tell who is trying to kill you. Iraqi snipers and bombs. Soldiers go in and they are required to kill. Then they have to make friends and hand out teddy bears. They are trying to make friends and killing people at the same time. It would just be simpler, if they had one goal:
1. destroy
or
2. make friends

That's all I'm trying to say.

 

I really think right now the best thing we can hand Iraq is a copy of our constitution. If we feel the need to rebuild a country lets start with our own.

 

IMO, Afghanistan was handled incorrectly as well. A smarter approach would have been to cut off escape routes into neighboring countries, and then a massive show of force to apprehend any Al Queda.

Instead, we fought the Taliban (which are not necessarily Al Queda), then we set up a new government, and tried to shut down the drug trade.

Nation building and Bin Laden got away.

The one candidate running that is accused of being soft, is the only one that has committed to hunting Bin Laden as part of his platform. Weird hunh?

 

We get DemocracyNow's radio show here, and I listen occasionally. I trust them less than I trust our newspapers. And I don't trust our newspapers at all. I'd triple or quadruple source anything coming from DemocracyNow.

105 a month? Uh-huh, sure they are.