We are veterans of the United States armed forces. We stand with the
majority of humanity, including millions in our own country, in
opposition to the United States' all out war on Iraq. We span many
wars and eras, have many political views and we all agree that this
war is wrong. Many of us believed serving in the military was our
duty, and our job was to defend this country. Our experiences in the
military caused us to question much of what we were taught. Now we
see our REAL duty is to encourage you as members of the U.S. armed
forces to find out what you are being sent to fight and die for and
what the consequences of your actions will be for humanity. We call
upon you, the active duty and reservists, to follow your conscience
and do the right thing. In the last Gulf War, as troops, we were
ordered to murder from a safe distance. We destroyed much of Iraq
from the air, killing hundreds of thousands, including civilians. We
remember the road to Basra -- the Highway of Death -- where we were
ordered to kill fleeing Iraqis. We bulldozed trenches, burying people
alive. The use of depleted uranium weapons left the battlefields
radioactive. Massive use of pesticides, experimental drugs, burning
chemical weapons depots and oil fires combined to create a toxic
cocktail affecting both the Iraqi people and Gulf War veterans today.
One in four Gulf War veterans is disabled.
During the Vietnam War we were ordered to destroy Vietnam from the
air and on the ground. At My Lai we massacred over 500 women,
children and old men. This was not an aberration, it's how we fought
the war. We used Agent Orange on the enemy and then experienced first
hand its effects. We know what Post Traumatic Stress Disorder looks,
feels and tastes like because the ghosts of over two million men,
women and children still haunt our dreams. More of us took our own
lives after returning home than died in battle.
If you choose to participate in the invasion of Iraq you will be part
of an occupying army. Do you know what it is like to look into the
eyes of a people that hate you to your core? You should think about
what your "mission" really is. You are being sent to invade and
occupy a people who, like you and me, are only trying to live their
lives and raise their kids. They pose no threat to the United States
even though they have a brutal dictator as their leader. Who is the
U.S. to tell the Iraqi people how to run their country when many in
the U.S. don't even believe their own President was legally elected?
Saddam is being vilified for gassing his own people and trying to
develop weapons of mass destruction. However, when Saddam committed
his worst crimes the U.S. was supporting him. This support included
providing the means to produce chemical and biological weapons.
Contrast this with the horrendous results of the U.S. led economic
sanctions. More than a million Iraqis, mainly children and infants,
have died because of these sanctions. After having destroyed the
entire infrastructure of their country including hospitals,
electricity generators, and water treatment plants, the U.S. then,
with the sanctions, stopped the import of goods, medicines, parts,
and chemicals necessary to restore even the most basic necessities of
life.
There is no honor in murder. This war is murder by another name.
When, in an unjust war, an errant bomb dropped kills a mother and her
child it is not "collateral damage," it is murder. When, in an unjust
war, a child dies of dysentery because a bomb damaged a sewage
treatment plant, it is not "destroying enemy infrastructure," it is
murder. When, in an unjust war, a father dies of a heart attack
because a bomb disrupted the phone lines so he could not call an
ambulance, it is not "neutralizing command and control facilities,"
it is murder. When, in an unjust war, a thousand poor farmer
conscripts die in a trench defending a town they have lived in their
whole lives, it is not victory, it is murder.
There will be veterans leading protests against this war on Iraq and
your participation in it. During the Vietnam War thousands in Vietnam
and in the U.S. refused to follow orders. Many resisted and rebelled.
Many became conscientious objectors and others went to prison rather
than bear arms against the so-called enemy. During the last Gulf War
many GIs resisted in various ways and for many different reasons.
Many of us came out of these wars and joined with the anti-war
movement.
If the people of the world are ever to be free, there must come a
time when being a citizen of the world takes precedence over being
the soldier of a nation. Now is that time. When orders come to ship
out, your response will profoundly impact the lives of millions of
people in the Middle East and here at home. Your response will help
set the course of our future. You will have choices all along the
way. Your commanders want you to obey. We urge you to think. We urge
you to make your choices based on your conscience. If you choose to
resist, we will support you and stand with you because we have come
to understand that our REAL duty is to the people of the world and to
our common future.
www.calltoconscience.net/