Lara Logan: GIs Petition Congress To End Iraq War

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0226-01.htm

GIs Petition Congress To End Iraq War
Americans in the military have been asked to make extraordinary sacrifices in recent years, particularly in Iraq, where the casualties are mounting, the tours are being extended, and some of them have had enough.
by Lara Logan

Correspondent Lara Logan heard dissension in the ranks from a large group of service members who are fed up and have decided to go public. They’re not going AWOL, they're not disobeying orders or even refusing to fight in Iraq. But they are doing something unthinkable to many in uniform: bypassing the chain of command to denounce a war they’re in the middle of fighting.

"As a patriotic citizen who served two combat tours in Iraq, I just feel like this war, it's simply just not working out anymore, and soldiers are dying there everyday," says Specialist Kevin Torres.

Torres didn’t always feel that way—he enlisted in the Army right out of high school, after 9/11. He has twice served in Iraq, patrolling the mainly Kurdish north of the country, and carrying out combat patrols and goodwill missions.

"I joined because I just wanted to make a difference. I wanted to be a part of our generation's war," Torres says.

"You've been on two deployments and you didn't always feel this way. Was there a point at which, you know, something you experienced that made you think," Logan asks.

"Yeah. In January, we were doing routine presence patrol through the city of Hawija, and one of our trucks was hit by a roadside bomb, an IED, and it killed four of the soldiers out of the five that were in the truck. And during the recovery of the fallen soldiers all the debris outside of the truck. And we just had the truck was loaded with school supplies and soccer balls and crayons and notebooks and coloring books. We just wanna help. And it was just a really eye-opening and frustrating experience. Because we're still getting killed out there," he says.

It’s a sentiment echoed by all of the service members who are part of this protest.

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[BOSSHOG]

1. And these fine veterans

will be the target of every vicious hateful invective that limbaugh and hannity can fire at them from behind the safety of their microphones. I saw these kids on 60 minutes last night. Unlike their commander in chief, they have their heads screwed on correctly and understand what is occuring more then bush and his top one hundred advisors.