There's something happening here: A new protest movement inside the military ...

[ProSense]

There's something happening here

A new protest movement inside the military -- including active-duty soldiers back from Iraq -- is calling on Congress to end the war immediately.

By Mark Benjamin

Nov. 02, 2006 | An extraordinary full-page antiwar ad appeared in the Sunday edition of the New York Times on Nov. 9, 1969. In it, 1,366 active-duty U.S. service members signed a statement calling for an end to the war in Vietnam. The signatures represented a tiny minority of the 3.5 million troops serving on active duty then -- but behind those signatures was a groundswell of dissent inside the military. With the Vietnam adventure sliding into an abyss, that dissent would become more apparent as an Army that included many conscripts faced ugly resistance from within: soldiers disobeying orders, deserting, using drugs, and even "fragging" their own officers with grenades.

Today, there are echoes of the Vietnam experience in the protracted Iraq war -- including a growing protest movement in the military. Its trappings are starkly different this time. Rather than insubordination and violence, it has formed around a form-letter campaign, presumably conducted within the bounds of military regulations that restrict what soldiers are allowed to say. Last week, a group of current troops, with support from a handful of antiwar organizations, announced plans to petition Congress with a collection of "appeals for redress," which call for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. They had 65 signatures from active-duty troops and reservists.

Since then, the effort has quietly swelled to nearly 500 troops, and continues to grow. Organizers, including 22-year-old Marine Sgt. Liam Madden, say they are currently working to validate the identities of several hundred more troops who have signed on, and will send the validated collection of letters to the soldiers' respective congressional representatives in January.

The group already includes 76 officers, four of whom are colonels. And while that number is also quite small in comparison to the 1.4 million troops now on active duty, some participants and observers expect it will continue to grow rapidly, exposing significant and expanding disillusionment with the war in Iraq among the rank and file.

A minority of the troops who have signed on so far are reservists, while more than 75 percent are active-duty service members -- more than 60 percent of whom have served in Iraq. They include people like Madden, who served in Haditha, Iraq, with the 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines in late 2004 and early 2005.

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[Rick Myers]

1. I sense this as well....

Stars and Stripes, The Army, AF, Navy and Marine Times all calling for regime change at home.

BTW: There is a little known 'document' prepared by some AF brass that 'wargames' a military coup and it's aftermath. Set around 2009, it details a military coup d tat, and the fact that it does not function, causing the military to reinstate civilian rule by 2014. I will look for it, I recall it was on an Air Force server!

[enid602]

2. Air Force

Interesting, because Ted Haggard and his New Age Ministry is widely thought to have infiltrated the nearby Air Force Academy. The Air Force might be the only branch of the military loyal to Bush.

[Rick Myers]

7. With all the rumors and trouble at the AF Academy

I'd believe they have some presence there. I'm trying to locate the PDF, it was on a gov't server but I found it from another link. It was very strange. I've read alot of military stuff, and this was like a 'future history' from some RPG game.

[blm]

10. I remember that whole thing - didn't it go to court and they got nailed

because of all the religious pressuring of the students?

[enid602]

3. Air Force

Interesting, because Ted Haggard and his New Age Ministry is widely thought to have infiltrated the nearby Air Force Academy. The Air Force might be the only branch of the military loyal to Bush.

[tblue]

6. What the ??? So the Evangelicals are enlisting?

[blm]

8. Not from the airmen I saw at a reunion in Georgia three weeks ago.

They were an extended family of fliers from WW2 to Vietnam and both Iraq wars, Navy and Air Force men. Not ONE of them had anything good to say about Bush, and one is a war historian. One was home from Iraq and would soon be facing the amputation of a leg that was slowly dying.

[enid602]

9. Air force

Go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arthur-schlesinger-jr/what-in-gods-name-is-goi_b_2993.html


From the article: There is the curious episode of the recent attempt by evangelical Christians to take over the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. The Air Force Academy is a government institution on the model of West Point and Annapolis, sustained by taxpayers’ money and accountable to the Department of Defense. Yet for the last four years evangelicals have created a pervasive atmosphere of intolerable religious harassment and discrimination.


The second in command, a born-again general, propagated his faith through speeches and memoranda. Chaplains joined in. There were 55 complaints over four years. A Jewish cadet was told, for example, that the holocaust was punishment for Jews because Jews had killed Jesus. The Academy superintendent asked the Yale Divinity School to investigate the situation, and the Yale team endorsed the complaints. The chief chaplain asked a woman chaplain to denounce the Yale report. She refused, saying she agreed with the report. She was ordered to Okinawa where she can be assigned to Iraq or Afghanistan.

[bobthedrummer]

14. It is in post 13, from a site that captured it. eom

[Doctor_J]

4. Too bad Russert didn't mention this to Liddy on MTP

when she said "Dems are willing to accept defeat". Well, Ms. Dole, it seems the Armed Forces are too.

[Doctor_J]

5. I never thought I would root for Burt Lancaster in 7 days in May

but if they won't give us fair elections, we're strapped...

[Nite Owl]

11. Is this the same group that

was supposed to be having a press conference last week? * gave a long press conference at the same time that they were to speak and it we never heard from them. KO had one of them on the previous night. It was something about the soldiers being allowed to have some redress by calling on their congressperson.

[ProSense]

12. WaPo reports that dozens of soldiers want to stay in Iraq

The one thing the war is not, however, is finished, dozens of soldiers across the country said in interviews. And leaving Iraq now would have devastating consequences, they said.

[bobthedrummer]

13. From the USAF's INSS think tank archives October 1996

"Melancholy Reunion: A Report From The Future On The Collapse Of Civil-Military Relations In The United States" by Charles J. Dunlap, Jr.
http://www.guerrillacampaign.com/coup.htm

[elehhhhna]

15. I love the smell of MUTINY in the morning.

[cassiepriam]

16. We are seeing a military revolt. Amazing. nt

[ProSense]

17. An Appeal for Redress from the War in Iraq

Hundreds of US soldiers call for Iraq withdrawal in petition

1 hour, 46 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Hundreds of US soldiers have signed a petition calling for a troop withdrawal from Iraq and the document is to be formally presented to Congress in January, organizers said.

"As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq," the petition says.

Snip...

The committee includes Iraq Veterans against the War (IVAW), Veterans for Peace (VFP) and Military Families Speak Out.

"Many active duty, reserve, and guard service members are concerned about the war in Iraq and support the withdrawal of US troops," the website says.

"The Appeal for Redress provides a way in which individual service members can appeal to their congressional representative and US senators to urge an end to the US military occupation," it says.

Snip...

According to a local newspaper, the Virginian-Pilot, the petition's leader is Jonathan Hutto, a sailor on the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. His website was activated in October, the daily said.

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