A 7-Day Tower Guard Vigil on the National Mall

[babylonsister]

A 7-Day Tower Guard Vigil on the National Mall
Submitted by davidswanson on Thu, 2007-08-09 16:57. Activism

7-day Tower Guard Vigil, Washington, DC
In Protest of the Immoral and Unethical Policies Perpetrated Against US Soldiers and My Friends
By Evan Michael Knappenberger, 1st BDE, 4th Infantry Division, http://www.towerguard.org

I am spending one entire week on a scaffold on the National Mall in the District of Columbia in protest of the US military's STOP-LOSS and INACTIVE RESERVE (READY RESERVE) policies, which are being used as a substitute for conscription in a political war -under the pretense of
a non-existent national emergency- and destroying our military readiness, as well as the lives of our young men and women.

I joined the Army in 2003 at the age of seventeen. I believed at the time that the war in Iraq was necessary, if not morally justified. (Since then, I have learned the hard way that the ends never justify the means.) I served nearly four years as an intelligence analyst in a combat unit, including Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF '05-'07). I spent 97 nights on tower guard–time contemplating the nature of our destructive zeitgeist, which is inspiring the better part of this protest and my other protests this year.

The truth of the matter is that our armed forces are being destroyed
by a collective neurosis; something obvious even to President Bush and
his staff. The mishandling of post-war Iraq is only one minor symptom
of the illness; but what is the cause of this neurosis? I believe that
fundamentally conflicting values are being forced onto the institution
by a fundamentally conflicted administration. The lack of moral
integrity at the head of our government is monadistically infecting
all levels of government, military, and culture. Notwithstanding a
treatise on the ethics of something political in nature, I argue that,
if nothing else, the current administration policy of STOP-LOSS 1 (as
well as their call up of the IRR)2is immoral, destructive, and often
overlooked. Not only does it devalue the fragile constitutional
legality of the process; it devalues all legality, reason, and sound
judgment in general.

STOP-LOSS is being used as a circumvention of the contractual
agreements between the federal government and soldiers. The irony of
volunteerism-exploitation-politics is not lost on soldiers who signed
up fully trusting in the ability of our elected officials to hold
accountable the chief executive. If nothing else, those soldiers who
have difficulty thinking in terms of moral integrity do understand
injustice: they too are victims of egregious moral fraud! Ask any one
of them that has been extended to 2030 or beyond.

As actions typically resound louder than words, it is all but obvious
that we can add "volunteer conscript" to the oxymoronic vocabulary
that has resulted from our conflicted status as liberator-occupiers
and freedom-crusaders. It is not, therefore, surprising that
soldiers who are treated like slaves (and their 'contractor' mercenary
counterparts) are able and willing to commit terrible acts of violence
on harmless civilians in places like Abu Ghraib prison. These are
the acts of humans who have been robbed of their moral judgment by a
malicious and harmful few who happen to occupy the seat of power in
the federal government.

more...

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/25585

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. K & R

compelling reading!

[jtrockville]

2. Is a new vigil to be held, or does this refer to the one in June?

I scoured the article, but couldn't find anything regarding the date. The towerguard.org only has information about the June vigil.