mustang
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Harsh Reality of War
The photo at the bottom of this page tells a complicated story. The child's parents have just been shot. The solider to her side will help take the child to the hospital. The parents were shot by mistake, the result of a confusing and complicated situation common in war.
Soldiers are put into terrible situations because the government sometimes deems war to be needed. In the ideal, the need for war will be very limited and used only when there are no other options. But there are people in power who use war to get even more power for the few. When this happens the wars are called "wars of choice" or "wars of aggression." When this happens, soldiers are put into terrible situations needlessly.
War is serious. Killing is serious. The government cannot force you to kill others if you don't believe it's the right thing to do. Only you can make the serious choice to kill another person. This is true, because you do have the option to exercise your freedom from the draft and other forms of forced military participation. While the cost may be high for many Americans (highest for those with the fewest economic opportunities), you still have the choice to pay the price of exercising your freedom or of killing another human being for an illegal war. No one but you can come to this choice, and you alone must live with your choice.
What American soldiers have experienced:
* 94% have been shot at
* 86% know someone who was seriously injured or killed
* 77% have shot at or directed fire at the enemy
* 68% have seen dead or seriously injured Americans
* 51% have handled or uncovered human remains
* 48% say that they were responsible for the death of an enemy combatant
* 28% say that they were responsible for the death of a noncombatant (civilian)
source: Mother Jones Mar/Apr 2007
War deadly and dangerous. No matter how kind a person you are, being a soldier in war requires you to be part of a great destructive force. Guns, cannons, missiles and tanks are used to exert physical force against others, and often result in the killing and wounding of innocents caught in the crossfire. In Iraq, there are good estimates that as many as 600,000 innocents have died from being caught in this crossfire. source of estimated civilian deaths
"Stop that car!" someone shouted out, seemingly simultaneously with someone firing what sounded like warning shots -- a staccato, measured burst. The car continued coming. And then, perhaps less than a second later, a cacophony of fire, shots rattling off in a chaotic, overlapping din. The car entered the intersection on its momentum and still shots were penetrating it and slicing it. Finally, the shooting stopped, the car drifted listlessly, clearly no longer being steered, and came to a rest on a curb. Soldiers began to approach it warily.
The sound of children crying came from the car. I walked up to the car and a teenaged girl with her head covered emerged from the back, wailing and gesturing wildly. After her came a boy, tumbling onto the ground from the seat, already leaving a pool of blood.
"Civilians!" someone shouted, and soldiers ran up. More children -- it ended up being six all told -- started emerging, crying, their faces mottled with blood in long streaks. The troops carried them all off to a nearby sidewalk.
It was by now almost completely dark. There, working only by lights mounted on ends of their rifles, an Army medic began assessing the children's injuries, running his hands up and down their bodies, looking for wounds. Incredibly, the only injuries were a girl with a cut hand and a boy with a superficial gash in the small of his back that was bleeding heavily but wasn't life-threatening. The medic immediately began to bind it, while the boy crouched against a wall.
From the sidewalk I could see into the bullet-mottled windshield more clearly. The driver of the car, a man, was penetrated by so many bullets that his skull had collapsed, leaving his body grotesquely disfigured. A woman also lay dead in the front, still covered in her Muslim clothing and harder to see.
Meanwhile, the children continued to wail and scream, huddled against a wall, sandwiched between soldiers either binding their wounds or trying to comfort them. The Army's translator later told me that this was a Turkoman family and that the teenaged girl kept shouting, "Why did they shoot us? We have no weapons! We were just going home!"
The war in Iraq has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, perhaps hundreds of thousands. The lowest estimates of dead Iraqis count over 60,000 dead, mostly civilian. But other estimates, generated by impartial scientists and public health officials, have counted over 600,000 dead Iraqis. This number is hard to imagine. It basically means that every person in Iraq has lost a loved one or close friend. The pain of this is huge. And American soldiers, without wanting to cause such pain, are part of what has caused this to happen. Choosing to be part of a war makes you responsible for part of what happens from the war.
Each day in Iraq:
* Almost 100 civilians are killed or wounded by the war
* Just under 25 Iraqi soldiers are killed or wounded
* Over 10 American soldiers die or are wounded
Since the war started:
* Over 3,000 American soldiers have died
* At least 60,000 Iraqis have died, with some reliable estimates of over 600,000 dead
* Over 23,000 American soldiers have been wounded
o 4,600 have suffered sever head or brain injury
o 1,300 have lost a limb
* Almost 700,000 soldiers are expected to file for disability benefits
source: Mother Jones Mar/Apr 2007
We have learned that most of the reasons for going to war were lies, made up to convince good people to fight for the wrong reasons. In the minds of most Americans, the only good reasons to go to war are either to defend the United States from attack or to aid those in desperate need. Clearly, Iraq could not and was not about to attack the United States, despite the lies told to the American people by the government in the months leading up to the war. Just as clearly, things are now much worse for Iraqis than they were before the war, resulting in no aid or assistance. In the minds of many throughout the world, the United States war with Iraq is best viewed as a war of aggression, or as an invasion to get power over a part of the world using war as a tool.
Wars of aggression are illegal according treaties signed onto by the United States and most other countries. That's because wars of aggression make the world less safe in general. When one country uses military might to exert power over others, every country must either build up a bigger army (or get nuclear weapons, as with Iran and North Korea) or accept that if they don't do what the country with the biggest army does that they might get invaded. This causes more wars to happen, and can result in major wars like World War I and World War II. Tens of millions of people died in these two wars, which is why the world's leaders decided to prohibit wars of aggression as a way to help prevent this from happening again.
Crimes against the peace are in violation of American law because we have entered legally binding treaties that make certain kinds of warfare illegal. Nazi leaders who were responsible for World War II were charged and convicted with crimes against the peace, based on laws set out in an international treaty advocated for by America. This treaty, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, was adopted by over 60 countries, who all agreed to not use warfare to resolve disputes. The treaty never ceded the power of nations to defend themselves when attacked, but did make it illegal to invade other countries. After World War II, the United States and other countries agreed to limit warfare to national and collective security only.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq is in violation of both American and international law. It violates agreements that the American government has made with other countries. This is a serious matter that threatens the general security of the American people. When one country uses force to resolve disputes, other nations respond by building up their armies. This leads to a less stable world - a world less safe for everyone. The world learned this lesson the hard way in the two World Wars of the last century. Tens of millions of people died because power between nations was out of balance and was based on force alone.
Few would argue that the United States should not defend itself. But since Iraq was not a direct threat to the United States, the occupation of Iraq was an act of aggression and not defense. Additionally, the government lied to Americans about the reasons for the war. No American should be forced to fight, kill and die for an illegal war based on lies.
Make no mistake about it. War is hell on earth. This is a fact of war. When deciding whether or not to be part of war, you must decide if the reasons for the war outweigh the heavy costs, both to your well-being and to those who you will be killing and wounding on behalf of the war. Only you can know the answer to this question.
The photo at the bottom of this page tells a complicated story. The child's parents have just been shot. The solider to her side will help take the child to the hospital. The parents were shot by mistake, the result of a confusing and complicated situation common in war.
Soldiers are put into terrible situations because the government sometimes deems war to be needed. In the ideal, the need for war will be very limited and used only when there are no other options. But there are people in power who use war to get even more power for the few. When this happens the wars are called "wars of choice" or "wars of aggression." When this happens, soldiers are put into terrible situations needlessly.
War is serious. Killing is serious. The government cannot force you to kill others if you don't believe it's the right thing to do. Only you can make the serious choice to kill another person. This is true, because you do have the option to exercise your freedom from the draft and other forms of forced military participation. While the cost may be high for many Americans (highest for those with the fewest economic opportunities), you still have the choice to pay the price of exercising your freedom or of killing another human being for an illegal war. No one but you can come to this choice, and you alone must live with your choice.
What American soldiers have experienced:
* 94% have been shot at
* 86% know someone who was seriously injured or killed
* 77% have shot at or directed fire at the enemy
* 68% have seen dead or seriously injured Americans
* 51% have handled or uncovered human remains
* 48% say that they were responsible for the death of an enemy combatant
* 28% say that they were responsible for the death of a noncombatant (civilian)
source: Mother Jones Mar/Apr 2007
War deadly and dangerous. No matter how kind a person you are, being a soldier in war requires you to be part of a great destructive force. Guns, cannons, missiles and tanks are used to exert physical force against others, and often result in the killing and wounding of innocents caught in the crossfire. In Iraq, there are good estimates that as many as 600,000 innocents have died from being caught in this crossfire. source of estimated civilian deaths
"Stop that car!" someone shouted out, seemingly simultaneously with someone firing what sounded like warning shots -- a staccato, measured burst. The car continued coming. And then, perhaps less than a second later, a cacophony of fire, shots rattling off in a chaotic, overlapping din. The car entered the intersection on its momentum and still shots were penetrating it and slicing it. Finally, the shooting stopped, the car drifted listlessly, clearly no longer being steered, and came to a rest on a curb. Soldiers began to approach it warily.
The sound of children crying came from the car. I walked up to the car and a teenaged girl with her head covered emerged from the back, wailing and gesturing wildly. After her came a boy, tumbling onto the ground from the seat, already leaving a pool of blood.
"Civilians!" someone shouted, and soldiers ran up. More children -- it ended up being six all told -- started emerging, crying, their faces mottled with blood in long streaks. The troops carried them all off to a nearby sidewalk.
It was by now almost completely dark. There, working only by lights mounted on ends of their rifles, an Army medic began assessing the children's injuries, running his hands up and down their bodies, looking for wounds. Incredibly, the only injuries were a girl with a cut hand and a boy with a superficial gash in the small of his back that was bleeding heavily but wasn't life-threatening. The medic immediately began to bind it, while the boy crouched against a wall.
From the sidewalk I could see into the bullet-mottled windshield more clearly. The driver of the car, a man, was penetrated by so many bullets that his skull had collapsed, leaving his body grotesquely disfigured. A woman also lay dead in the front, still covered in her Muslim clothing and harder to see.
Meanwhile, the children continued to wail and scream, huddled against a wall, sandwiched between soldiers either binding their wounds or trying to comfort them. The Army's translator later told me that this was a Turkoman family and that the teenaged girl kept shouting, "Why did they shoot us? We have no weapons! We were just going home!"
The war in Iraq has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, perhaps hundreds of thousands. The lowest estimates of dead Iraqis count over 60,000 dead, mostly civilian. But other estimates, generated by impartial scientists and public health officials, have counted over 600,000 dead Iraqis. This number is hard to imagine. It basically means that every person in Iraq has lost a loved one or close friend. The pain of this is huge. And American soldiers, without wanting to cause such pain, are part of what has caused this to happen. Choosing to be part of a war makes you responsible for part of what happens from the war.
Each day in Iraq:
* Almost 100 civilians are killed or wounded by the war
* Just under 25 Iraqi soldiers are killed or wounded
* Over 10 American soldiers die or are wounded
Since the war started:
* Over 3,000 American soldiers have died
* At least 60,000 Iraqis have died, with some reliable estimates of over 600,000 dead
* Over 23,000 American soldiers have been wounded
o 4,600 have suffered sever head or brain injury
o 1,300 have lost a limb
* Almost 700,000 soldiers are expected to file for disability benefits
source: Mother Jones Mar/Apr 2007
We have learned that most of the reasons for going to war were lies, made up to convince good people to fight for the wrong reasons. In the minds of most Americans, the only good reasons to go to war are either to defend the United States from attack or to aid those in desperate need. Clearly, Iraq could not and was not about to attack the United States, despite the lies told to the American people by the government in the months leading up to the war. Just as clearly, things are now much worse for Iraqis than they were before the war, resulting in no aid or assistance. In the minds of many throughout the world, the United States war with Iraq is best viewed as a war of aggression, or as an invasion to get power over a part of the world using war as a tool.
Wars of aggression are illegal according treaties signed onto by the United States and most other countries. That's because wars of aggression make the world less safe in general. When one country uses military might to exert power over others, every country must either build up a bigger army (or get nuclear weapons, as with Iran and North Korea) or accept that if they don't do what the country with the biggest army does that they might get invaded. This causes more wars to happen, and can result in major wars like World War I and World War II. Tens of millions of people died in these two wars, which is why the world's leaders decided to prohibit wars of aggression as a way to help prevent this from happening again.
Crimes against the peace are in violation of American law because we have entered legally binding treaties that make certain kinds of warfare illegal. Nazi leaders who were responsible for World War II were charged and convicted with crimes against the peace, based on laws set out in an international treaty advocated for by America. This treaty, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, was adopted by over 60 countries, who all agreed to not use warfare to resolve disputes. The treaty never ceded the power of nations to defend themselves when attacked, but did make it illegal to invade other countries. After World War II, the United States and other countries agreed to limit warfare to national and collective security only.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq is in violation of both American and international law. It violates agreements that the American government has made with other countries. This is a serious matter that threatens the general security of the American people. When one country uses force to resolve disputes, other nations respond by building up their armies. This leads to a less stable world - a world less safe for everyone. The world learned this lesson the hard way in the two World Wars of the last century. Tens of millions of people died because power between nations was out of balance and was based on force alone.
Few would argue that the United States should not defend itself. But since Iraq was not a direct threat to the United States, the occupation of Iraq was an act of aggression and not defense. Additionally, the government lied to Americans about the reasons for the war. No American should be forced to fight, kill and die for an illegal war based on lies.
Make no mistake about it. War is hell on earth. This is a fact of war. When deciding whether or not to be part of war, you must decide if the reasons for the war outweigh the heavy costs, both to your well-being and to those who you will be killing and wounding on behalf of the war. Only you can know the answer to this question.
