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Prepare to Disengage: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent
During the Vietnam War, GI dissent was both documented and nurtured by a slew of underground GI newspapers. Papers like "Up Against the Bulkhead," "Harass the Brass" and "About Face" were mimeographed and passed from base to base, hand to hand. These bold, clever, ragtag papers gave voice to the soldiers' rage against the injustices of the military and offered advice on everything from filing for conscientious-objector status to organizing anti-war protests.
GI coffee houses, safe havens outside the gates of military bases in the U.S. and abroad, drew soldiers who needed legal counseling about sexual harassment, racism or disciplinary proceedings.
Civilian lawyers pored over volumes of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, quickly learning the convolutions of military law. The National Lawyers Guild launched the Military Law Project, creating a corps of attorneys to provide legal counseling to soldiers. The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors produced the useful "Military Counseling Manual." Its pages were copied and recopied, smuggled into barracks and aircraft carriers and even handed to GIs on R&R in Hong Kong discos and discount stores.
In "Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent," Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd distill all this information into one useful, practical and thought-provoking volume. Cohn, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego and president of the National Lawyers Guild (and a regular Daily Journal columnist), and Gilberd, who has been involved in military counseling since 1971, bring decades of experience in counseling soldiers, including work on high-profile legal cases against the military.
Cohn and Gilberd draw important parallels between GI war resistance during Vietnam and that taking place today.
During the 2004 election, candidate John Kerry's war record became headline news because of the "swift boat" attacks. But many anti-war activists were reminded of Kerry's heroic role off the battle field - when as a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War he participated in the Winter Soldier hearings in Detroit in 1971.
Though the mainstream media gave very little coverage at the time to the 150 veterans, honorably discharged and many highly decorated, who gave testimony about atrocities that they and others had committed in Vietnam, the 27-year-old Kerry put the national spotlight on their experiences when he spoke at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee three months later.
"They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do," Kerry told the senators. "They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wired from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam."
In 2008, these stories were echoed when Iraq Veterans Against the War organized a similar event, called "Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan - Eyewitness Account of the Occupation."
"The testimony of soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan reveals that the military has not learned the sobering lessons of the Vietnam War, and that war crimes today are frighteningly similar to those committed 40 years ago," the authors assert.
They conclude that, although resistance in today's military may be under the radar, today's soldiers are "disengaging" from the military in a variety of ways - often at great risk to themselves.
They cite the case of Petty Officer Third Class Pablo Paredes of the Bronx who, because he was convinced the war in Iraq was illegal, refused to board a transport ship carrying 3,000 Marines to Iraq. During his court martial in 2004, he stated that he had come "to an overwhelming conclusion supported by countless examples that any soldier who knowingly participates in an illegal war can find no haven in the fact that they were following orders, in the eyes of international law."
The judge gave Paredes a lenient sentence, with no jail time. When Paredes left the military, he became an organizer in the GI movement, focusing on youth of recruitment age.
A more conventional way for anti-war soldiers to leave the military is to seek conscientious-objector status.
Ever since the Revolutionary War, military law has allowed soldiers to become CO's; that right was expanded by Vietnam-era cases such as U.S. v. Seeger and Welsh v. U.S. that allowed CO status to be granted not only on traditional religious beliefs, but also moral or ethical grounds.
The first publicly known conscientious objector to the Iraq war from inside the military was Staff Sgt. Carlos Mejia. Mejia had served in the Florida National Guard for eight years before being deployed to Iraq in 2003. Mejia recalled how on a search-and-destroy mission, he had seen a small boy standing by the corpse of his father. The sight caused him to deeply question the role of the U.S military in Iraq, and all wars.
After a leave, he decided not to return to Iraq. "Whether we squeeze the trigger, give the order, or simply stand idle in the face of senseless missions that result in the killing of innocent blood, it doesn't make a difference.
"It took the experience of war for me to see things in a broader perspective and realize that I was, deep down, a conscientious objector," Mejia said.
Mejia was charged with desertion. He was represented by attorney Louis Font, a veteran who had faced 25 years in prison for his own opposition to the Vietnam War, before he obtained CO status and was honorably discharged.
With his CO application still pending, Mejia served nine months in prison. Cited by Amnesty International as a "prisoner of conscience," he currently is chair of Iraqi Veterans Against the War.
Unfortunately, for many soldiers the road to disengagement from the military is even more difficult than the arduous task of applying for CO status or facing a court martial for resistance. The authors relate numerous stories of GIs who could not live with the physical wounds or mental anguish that came from being sent back into the war zone for numerous deployments. An Army psychiatrist estimates that 30 percent of soldiers on their third deployment have serious mental health problems. "Are we trying to bandage up what is essentially an insufficient fighting force?" asks a psychiatrist from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. The authors also document the high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide among veterans.
Though the main focus of the book is on dissent and disengagement, the authors describe other problems soldiers face. There are chapters devoted to challenging race discrimination, sexual assault and sexual harassment, and lack of adequate medical and mental health treatment.
Cohn and Gilberd advise the reader that this book is meant not as an abstract analysis but as a practical guide. They outline procedures for applying for discharge or noncombatant status as a CO and explain sections of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that can assist soldiers and their families seeking their rights. They also include a useful directory of organizations and resources for soldiers, veterans and lawyers, including the GI Rights toll-free hotline, which helped 40,000 soldiers in 2007 alone. Noting that because of multiple deployments, families of service members bear a greater burden than in previous wars, they also provide contact information for groups like Gold Star Families Speak Out and Guerrero Azteca Peace Project.
Many of the stories related in this book are chilling. But in a war where the administration forbade the publication of photographs of flag-draped caskets of the military dead, it should not be surprising that those who fight that war harbor many unrevealed and disturbing truths.
"Rules of Disengagement" is an important contribution to understanding what men and women in the military are enduring - and a useful volume to help them assert their rights.
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25 Comments so far
Show All"An Army psychiatrist estimates that 30 percent of soldiers on their third deployment have serious mental health problems. "Are we trying to bandage up what is essentially an insufficient fighting force?"
That is certainly what it appears to be. It would also seem that if the U.S. "Global War on Terror" was so important to our national security, Congress would bring back the military draft instead of re-deploying troops who are suffering with mental health problems; and instead of employing private mercenaries to fill the shortage of military volunteers.
Perhaps the force "Insufficient to the task" because the TASK wrong in the first place?
Perhaps it time to put away the wars and the guns. We can not on one hand claim life sacred, and our fellow human beings to be respected, then the next day be given a gun and told "Go kill some islamofascists".
That would screw anyone up IF they have a conscience and I would much rather live in a world with people who HAVE a conscience rather then a future where such actions are no bother at all.
THAT future is the mercenaries you speak to. People more then willing to KILL because they are PAID to do so.
Gail, the congressmen and women dont have the ability to think that far. Besides the draft might put one of their family in the Military. Wow, that would be awful. They might get hurt. Unless they pull a Bush or Cheney deal. You know like I am a coward.
"Gail, the congressmen and women dont have the ability to think that far."
I'm not sure that Gail literally meant that members of Congress can think that far, being under the impression that some readers are reading her post a little too literally.
Gail wrote:
"... It would also seem that if the U.S. "Global War on Terror" was so important to our national security, Congress would bring baering ...; and instead of employing private mercenaries to fill theck the military draft instead of re-deploying troops who are suff shortage ...."
I don't read that as if Gail literally meant to say or infer that she thinks the Congress is honest about the purpose of the war. After all, most or at least many people [know] that there is no significant amount of honesty on the part of the U.S. government in or behind the GWoT wars, both of them, albeit a third one has been added by Obama, the war in northern Pakistan, which, less obviously, is a war against Pakistan, for it's certainly not approved of by the population of that country even if their government political leadership is roguely making secret agreements with the U.S. leadership, political. Since most people realise that the two principal GWoT wars are criminal, certainly unjustifiable in terms of continuing them, but while many of us realise that both wars were criminal from the start; well, I therefore consider that Gail may also be aware of this and consequently understand her post ... other than in purely literal terms.
Again, she said, "[if] the U.S. "Global War on Terror" was so important to our national security, Congress would ...". Notice the word 'if', which I put in square brackets for emphasis. What does 'if' mean to you? The way these quoted words can be read is that the GWoT evidently is not very "important to our [national security]".
Gail's thereby saying that the GWoT isn't really about US national security. That, in turn, means that the GWoT is not for the reasons that the public was told. And that infers, inherently infers, that the Bush administration LIED about the reasons for the GWoT.
IF, [if], the GWoT had truly been for the reasons the public was told, and the reasons proved to be right, that, f.e., Saddam Hussein had responsibility in the 9-11 attacks, which was a rather easy lie to discern the second it was told to the public; well, then the U.S. Congress might be much less hesitant, if hestitant at all, about reinstating the draft, including without shielding their sons and daughters from also needing to serve if drafted, and honourably doing nothing to prevent them from receiving draft cards.
Etcetera.
Maybe I'm mistaken in my reading of Gail's post, but I wouldn't read it as some of you readers who've posted in response to her post have evidently done; not until she told me that my reading of her post contains mistakes.
"bring back the military draft"
involuntary servitude is still involuntary servitude.
So, what's the point of your post given it's in response to Gail's and there doesn't seem to be a real logical fit between the two? After all, you post, as it is, it's like a criticism of what Gail wrote, and there's nothing that can really be criticised about it. She's right. She's not saying the Congress will reinstate the draft, she's saying that if the Congress was "for real", say, if the war was truly for the reasons the U.S. "elites" have been falsely claiming all along, then the Congress would at least seriously consider reinstituting the draft, but the Congress won't do this, because the war is criminal and too many Americans and an always increasing number of U.S. troops dissent.
That might be exactly what Gail had in mind, but she said or wrote nothing that can really be criticised. And there would definitely be a lot more soldiers serving, if the Congress did reinstitute the draft, which was clearly her or one of her points.
Trying [thinking] a little before posting what superficially comes to your mind, and then try to aovid doing that, the latter, that is.
I'm just wondering, friend - were you ever subject to the draft?
The draft was and would be involuntary servitude, which is prohibited by the 13th Amendment.
This fact is important and one many people might not be aware of.
(disclaimer: [I'm trying thinking here] oh yeah - no criticism of any persons posting intended.)
It's so sick the way Americans sentimentalize "our brave boys overseas" while evading responsibility for the damage their soldiery is doing to them. I remember, nearly half a century ago, being home on leave and my mother's eye tearing up sweetly about how wonderful I looked in my uniform while I was thinking: Don't you realize that my being dressed like this means I can be sent to the killing fields where I'm likely to be wounded or worse?
I am still ashamed that I did not have the courage of my convictions and had the guts to say: "Coward! Hell, yes I'm a coward and proud of it! I ain't goin' to your damn war and if that means I go to jail, let's do it." That, to me, would have been the honorable thing to do, but I joined up and hustled and scammed and gamed the system for 3 years and managed to avoid going over to where the bullets were flying and the bombs bursting in air.
The psychological pressures on you to conform, get with the program, don't be a commie pinko coward queer were intense. The David Harris types who simply said "I ain't marchin any more" and accepted the punishment (usually getting told that this will ruin their entire future lives) were rare. Most of the people I knew who got out used scams of some kind, and more power to 'em. Whatever gets you through the fight, it's all right, it's all right.
I used to seek out the guys who just got back from over there, finished their 12 or 13 month tours. I'd ply them with strong drink and get them talking about their experiences. Wow! My Lai was just one of a number of such incidents. The true horror story of the Vietnam war will never be told unless someone interviews all of the combat survivors and does a really extensive oral history, including psychological studies to look into the long range effects of actions like shooting babies in bassinets because grenades are suspected of being in their with the kid, and after having committed this horrific act of infanticide and learning that you learn you were correct to do so and you probably saved lives of some of your nearby buddies -- what does that do to a person for the rest of his (or her -- yes there were female soldiers who were forciblty atrocitized) life?
While still, nearly 45 years later, I feel guilty about not having had the courage to proclaim my cowardice publicly, I am not the least ashamed of the scams and trickery I used to keep off the lists of guys going over. Basic Training during a rapidly escalating shooting war was quite enough to give me a lifelong case of PTSD. It terrifies me to think of the state of mind of the current veterans after "stop loss" tours. Our biggest fear, then, was that we would be "extended for the duration" and wouldn't be allowed to leave on our RFAD (Release from active duty) date. I was but in those days you had to be in the reserves for three more years before you got hour home free "honorable" discharge, any time during which they had the legal right to call you back in if they felt they needed you. Thankfully it didn't happen to me. But it is happening to the Iraq and Afghanistan fighting forces. How much can someone take? What will they be like when they return to society? Will they be as dangerously mentally ill as some of the Vietvets turned out to be? To these questions we will learn the answers and I'm not looking forward to the outcomes.
An impassioned post. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Perhaps you can find a speaking opportunity at a local high school or college, or be interviewed by a nearby community radio station. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War, VVAW, transformed the 1960s antiwar movement in so many ways with their clear opposition to the war and their vivid, sad, and horrifying personal testimonies. When VVAW went to Washington, DC and individuals gave impassioned statements filled with rage, anger, tears and sadness as they threw their medals toward the Capitol, it marked a unique event in US history.
The excellent film Sir, No Sir brings to life some of the energy of the GI anti-war movement with archival film footage and interviews today with some of the surviving GI antiwar activists. Showing it in your church, union hall, schools, colleges, is a great way to help young and old learn and remember those important events---events the ruling elites and the corporate media lapdogs would just as soon were forgotten. Part of our work is to make sure that doesn't happen.
Yep, those bar stories would sure be the truth.
Combat veterans wouldn't be regaling people in bars wth stories like that even if they were true. Its always...well, I wasn't there, but I was told or I heard.....
I'd suggest that you heard a bunch of rear eschelon warriors telling you what you wanted to hear. Shooting kids in bassinets......The Hun is balancing babies on bayonets! Same type of crap. Take my word for this, you don't even want to think about it, let alone talk about it.
I would like to speak to your self accusation of being a coward. You are no coward my friend. Any of us, if we had a choice or most of us if we could have avoided going would have been on the bar stool next to you. Only a fool would want to go get shot at. The guys that went to Canada weren't cowards, nor braver because they refused to go.
I have seen physical cowards, I have seen mental cowards, believe me, your actions don't qualify you as a coward.
Being excited or anxious to go to a two way rifle range would make you nuts.
Sioux Rose
Alas, Thomas-Henry, the Manchurean Soldier in our midst... how do you know they didn't put a chip in your brain that causes you to regurgitate the same response every time the issue of militarism comes up? Pavlov's dogs were hardly trained better.
I can't prove that the stories I heard were true, true. I did hear stories that seemed to me to be guys bragging, making up exciting things, and I tended to disregard those. But others I heard, this particular story being one of them, were when told were told with shaking and eyes edging toward tears, and a sense of suppressed shame. Maybe that was the booze, or just superlative bullshitting, but what can I say, I believed what I heard that night. After that mini-binge, he was never willing to speak to me again except when necessary in the line of duty, seemed hostile and slightly embarrassed. I knew because I saw the transfer paperwork that he had indeed been stationed in the unit he cited as having been his unit. That wasn't the worst believable story I heard, not by a long shot. If I had the kind of memory that could call them up in vivid detail, and the research capacity to check out the locations mentioned, I might be able to write a book that could show Vietnam for the black humor horror mess it was. Other Vietvets I've had occasion to speak to scoff at Apocalypse Now, Platoon, etc., with a kind of "That don't tell the half of it" attitude. I haven't tried to draw out memories of it from anyone since, wouldn't want to exacerbate anyone's already intense PTSD. I'm now kind of sorry I asked the guys who did talk to me to do so, forcing them to relive experiences that, for some, would haunt them and mess up the rest of their lives.
Anyone interested in a defense of heroic cowardice should see the movie "The Americanization of Emily" starring James Garner, Julie Andrews (yes, Mary Poppins herself), directed by Arthur Hiller from a blazing Paddy Chayefsky script, one of his strongest. It was out of circulation for a long time, but it obtainable on Netflix and anyone who has antiwar sympathies and wants to hear someone make the case for "say it loud, I'm cowardly and proud" made brilliantly should see it.
Henry8 will never let the FACTS get in the way of his own truths. Were it not for the FACT that the My lai massacre was reported by Seymour hersh, he would be denying it ever happened and making the same claims of soldiers "swapping lies".
The FACT on MY lai is this. One Colin Powell was in charge of covering such incidents up and did a bang up job up until My Lai , the incidents of which were leaked .
The FACT is by the US Armies own records some 300 PLUS like investigations of massacres and executions occurred with enough evidence to warrant charging the soldiers involved in such and all were SQUASHED by a very competent team of coverup specialists.
So there a very good chance those tales you heard in the bar were the truth.
Excellent article by Ms. Elinson. It was a pleasant surprise to discover at the end of her essay that she had participated in the FTA which, unlike the propaganda handed out by Bob Hope during his USO tours in Vietnam and the performance done more recently by the much lauded Stephen Colbert in Afghanistan which is analogous to what Hope had done in Vietnam, who had said that it was his intention to emulate Bob Hope, sympathized with the soldiers because they recognized that they were fighting in an illegal and immoral war. The FTA [which was a play on the Army slogan back then-Fun, Travel and Adventure-but was also interpreted by the soldiers as standing for Fuck the Army], which featured such entertainers such as Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland, would irreverently satirize the military and the U.S. government, something which Colbert, while willing to do so on his television program, is most loath to do in front of a military audience. The FTA was enormously popular in the early 1970s. Despite being banned from performing in Vietnam itself, they played in front of more than 60,000 soldiers in places like Japan, Okinawa and the Philippines.
Two books which do a great job of speaking to this very important issue that Ms. Elinson has written about are Desertion and The American Soldier: 1776-2006 by Robert Fantina. This is a book which recounts the tales of such soldiers of integrity such as Dan Felushko who deserted from his unit because, as he wisely noted, he did not want the words "Died, Deluded in Iraq" written on his gravestone.
Another book written along the same lines is Mission Rejected:U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq by Peter Laufer. The hope is that there will some day be a book written in the near future with a similar title about soldiers who have said NO to Afghanistan also.
I wished that my husband would have stood up and joined the soldiers who had protested the Vietnam War for the fraud that it really was. Instead, he went with the conformed ones and lost his limbs and put me through years of lifetime sorrow trying to pull him out of his wanting to commit suicide mentality. I'm just glad he didn't turn out to be like some other soldiers who'd engage in domestic violence or the likes. The military has undergone privatization since Vietnam and since the Iraq war of 2003, that has been more evident. Real courage in soldiers comes when they not only find out that they've been duped but are ready to turn around and fight the elites who played them for fools and help put an end to the ongoing war before anyone else gets hurt.
Thank you for sharing a little on your experience JWVerez, and the following corresponds, to some serious degree, with how you end your post.
The following video recording of July 14th and around 22 minutes in length for the words of a captured U.S. soldier in Afghanistan is certainly fitting for reflection regarding the above words quoted from Malalai Joya's article, as well as for the whole of it.
The soldier is or was a U.S. air infantryman, 23 years of age, and is evidently well treated by his captors, who you can easily guess the identity(ies) of.
The following article, posted July 23rd, provides three embedded video clips for the full recording, and a few paragraphs of text.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=56295
The direct links for the three clips are the following, for parts 1, 2 and 3, respectively.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THmerXtKiqA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSrSJUTEWCs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Att-tlZPcZs
It definitely seems authentic, as well as honest on the part of both parties involved in the recording. The soldier provides enough information we evidently should hear or learn about from US soldiers possessing first hand knowledge of what's really going on there, in this war (of aggression).
He'll be better treated in his captive situation than he would be once released to the hands of the power "elites" behind these wars of [aggression], I believe.
It is awkward that he's speaking from a captured Taliban place but he is telling the truth. Unfortunately, our brainwashed public will look at this as a reason to keep pouring in more soldiers to Afghanistan. It's ironic that the Taliban would welcome him telling the truth while the American media would kill him for even trying.
The delayed entry program -HS students signing an illegitimate contract - often have second thoughts. I trained in NY with CCCo and the Quaker community to walk these guys through the meeting with officer to decline the contract. It was not pretty but am profoundly greatful for the experience.
The short circuit between the desire to be all that you can be and the desire to get education benefits and see the world after boot camp brainwash and behind the busness end of a gun never fails to baffle me.
If only those who are so quick to enlist in the armed forces today for their less than noble cause would heed the words of Albert Einstein who once wisely noted that:
"The Pioneers of a Warless World are the Youth who refuse military service."
Or Helen Keller - "Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought."
Sure, but the youth of today don't need to look to people of past history, for they can look to the words of the dissenting U.S. troops of today; like those of IVAW, VFP, and so on. They can also carefully consider the words of the U.S. soldier captured by the Taliban and with whom they recorded the soldier's words in a Q&A sort of session on July 14th. He's evidently still in their captivity, while apparently quite well treated, and I provided the links for this video recording in an earlier post of my in this page, in the reply to the post by JWVerez. Just look for JWVerez's post, which is only a few above this one; or search on the word "captured" using CTRL+F, f.e.
What Einstein and other historical people said about war and war making often provides good material or thoughts to reflect upon. They remain relevant today, sort of like I repeated numerous times over a couple of years several years ago about the fact that humans have not really changed. We have developed tech. that did not exist long ago, but we, as a species, haven't really changed. Perhaps we've evolved, but the question would be how. The answer? Well, we're worse, more destructive, more murderous, ... than ever before. Not quite what I think of when using the word "evolution", but we certainly could use it, sarcastically, in this way. We haven't changed for the better would be more accurate than saying that we haven't changed; but I often simply said we hadn't changed and I guess we haven't. If our ancestors of long ago had had the powerful tech. means possessed today, then they'd likely have been as bad; but they were fortunate to not have these means. Hence, we remain much worse than they were.
Anyway, the youth should carefully pay attention to IVAW and other veterans groups against the wars, for justice and peace; including IVAW's Winter Soldiers testimonies, which surely are still available at www.ivaw.org.
But the captured soldier in Afghanistan provides a sort of special sort of testimony. The testimonies and public dissent of IVAW and other veterans groups occur in the USA, not while in captivity by the so-called enemy.
Enemy? Who's the real enemy? Based on the video recording with the captured US soldier, the enemy does not appear to be the Taliban. That's for sure. They're apparently treating him better than veterans dissenting in the US have been treated by their and our own government. Who's the real enemy? The Taliban and Iraqi Resistance certainly don't go around waging wars on others; but our government and its real ruling "elites" regularly do. They never tire of doing it.
The Taliban are oppressive towards Afghan women's rights. Everyone knows this, and it's not good, not acceptable. But it's not a reason to war on them. It's a reason to [talk] with them, respectfully, while we can certainly recall that our own ancestors, perhaps especially in Christian churches, the RCC anyway, were oppressive towards women's rights; being able to keep such history in mind, to keep us more humble. To talk to and with the Taliban about women's rights requires shedding ego, pride, delusions about ourselves, our so-called grandeur, etcetera; and to shed all hypocrisy. It requires speaking in truly human, respectable terms. Never war!
Of course the U.S. is never employed to war for human rights. It's rather never really employed to provide real aid for humanitarian purposes; the only time the U.S. claims to be acting for humanitarian purposes is to cover up some true reason(s) that's definitely of the dark, evil order. So the war on Afghanistan certainly isn't an exception; it had nothing to do with humanitarian causes or problems, and 9-11 was only a launchpad excuse.
This certainly seems like a good review of the book, and the following are a couple of other reviews on or of it, for anyone interested in more. I haven't read these, myself, yet, but they're surely good, even if the one by David Swanson is short.
"Reading the Rules of Disengagement",
by David Swanson, afterdowningstreet.org, July 9, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14281
""Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent"
Reviewing Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd's book",
by Stephen Lendman, July 7, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14258
"I haven't read these, myself, yet, but they're surely good"
I'll take your word for it.
[You've obviously thought about it.]
If you can't do the crime, don't sign up for the time.