As an American very concerned about the welfare of our military personnel in Iraq and across the globe, I am writing to ask you to please support our troops.

While I have heard your many public statements espousing this support, I am prompted to write by the gulf between your remarks and your administration's actions.

Our military personnel - all branches and types - made a solemn covenant with the U.S. Government and people when they signed their contracts: that they were willing to serve our country, risk their well being, and if necessary die to protect us. In return, I hope you would agree that the government should be honest with them, prudent in the use of their services and in the risks we ask them to take, careful to train and equip them properly, and forthright in providing them and their families with adequate recognition and assistance while they serve and in the unfortunate case that they are wounded or killed.

The public record shows that your administration is falling short in each of these areas. The U.S. Government is not upholding its side of the covenant with our troops.

First, the public record now clearly shows that there were no WMDs, and no imminent threat to our national security, in Iraq. While Hussein was undoubtedly a brutal and immoral dictator, his crimes do not give us sanction to be brutal and immoral or dishonest in return. Yet your officials promulgated this war and put our troops in harms way on the basis of "evidence" that was illusory and planning that was woefully inadequate. Many soldiers know this, and many reports have documented its deleterious effects on their morale -- it is difficult to endure hardship and risk one's life when you realize you have been misled by your Commander in Chief. Further, your administration has tacitly condoned and even sometimes encouraged the use of torture, collective punishment, rendition, mass bombardment and the destruction of civilian areas in Iraq and Afghanistan. This deeply wounds our U.S. international reputation and, moreover, puts our troops, our "coalition partners" and all humanitarian workers and civilians at profound risk for retaliation by similar methods in this and future armed conflicts. This does not support the troops.

Second, there are myriad examples of the miserably inadequate preparations suffered by our service members trying to do their duty. From personnel ordered to take on complex responsibilities for which they were not trained, to troops ordered to undertake dangerous operations without proper equipment, the U.S. Government is not upholding its side of our agreement with them. Instead, family members are purchasing and sending body armor, troops are scavenging junk yards to improvise vehicle protection, soldiers were not provided with requisite field tourniquets that can save lives, and the Army is short of Humvees while certain war suppliers revel in sweetheart contracts wasting taxpayer money, to name just a few of the shortcomings that have made it into public knowledge. The repeated invoking of "stop loss" erodes troop morale and performance, unfairly endangering our troops and taxing their families and communities. In response, military recruiters face ethical and moral dilemmas as they seek to meet quotas in the face of facts that suggest the military cannot be trusted to honor its moral commitments to troops. These are not the necessary travails of a necessary war. Instead they are evidence of inadequate planning and the apparent unwillingness of your administration to take responsibility for its grave mistakes, in a war that was unnecessary in the face of various less destructive alternative routes to helping Iraq. This is not supporting the troops.

Third, your policies and actions repeatedly neglect to afford our troops the respect they deserve. Your officials persist in minimizing and hiding the tremendous number of service members who have been wounded and killed in this war. Why are there no official ceremonies or recognition honoring the sacrifice of the wounded nor the dead? Why are those, like myself, who raise our voices in concern for their welfare deemed "un-American" and "destructive to morale" by your administration officials? Why are soldiers silenced and sanctioned when they raise similar concerns? Should we all not at least offer our troops the modicum of comfort that can come with real recognition of their execution of their duty and their sacrifice for their country? Should we not be willing to honestly face the costs of war? Your words say we should and do, but your actions are at odds with them - in the form of hiding the wounded and the dead, and in the recent cuts you have recommended and made in veteran benefits and health care and in the public programs that assist military families, among others.

In short, I and many other Americans, many of whom disagree profoundly with the war's instigation and continuation, ask you to at very least support our brothers and sisters you're your decisions have put in harms way!

Further, I am writing to tell you that many of us are so concerned, about this and so many aspects of the Iraq war, that we have been publicly voicing our concerns in time-honored American tradition of participatory democracy.

Recently, in the loving spirit and discipline of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day and others, a coalition of like minded groups and individuals, of which I am a member, have begun calling on Americans of conscience to engage in acts and campaigns of noncooperation and active nonviolent resistance to U.S. Government policies, the military, the corporate partners in war, and institutions feeding the continuing conflict in Iraq.

We call for expressions of peaceful, nonviolent resistance that are many and varied. From the offices of Congresspersons and Senators to military recruiters and military bases; from our payment of federal taxes to the facilities where weapons are made that become the profits and sorrows of empire, we welcome each and every person who is moved to engage in or support noncooperation and nonviolent resistance, at whatever level, to take action. We do so out of sincere and deep concern, and we act in respectful, non-hostile ways everyone we encounter in these actions.

On March 17th 2005 we launched this campaign by gathering in Lafayette Park to publicly sign a declaration of support to service members whose conscience leads them to question the war and their orders stemming from it. Those present did so in full knowledge that their actions could perhaps be construed as a violation of United States Code 18, Section 2387 but were nonetheless necessary to support U.S. Military personnel who have been misled and forsaken by the government they signed up to serve. Our actions at the White House were mirrored by similar events taking part that week all around the country. And, they will continue as necessary.

Mr. President, support our troops and end this war!

Sincerely,

Alicia Lucksted, Baltimore MD

Alicia Lucksted is a research psychologist and member of the Iraq Pledge of Resistance and of Women in Black, in Baltimore MD. She can be reached at aluckste@psych.umaryland.edu

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