Our troops are now oppressors, US military families tell Bush

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Al-Jazeera

http://www.aljazeerah.info/


Our Troops Are Now Oppressors, US Military Families Tell Bush

Agence France Presse, Arab News

WASHINGTON, 16 August 2003 ? The families of more than 600 US troops
in Iraq
have launched a campaign for their return, bitterly criticizing
President
George W. Bush¹s reasons for going to war and what they see as his
belittlement of the risks.

"George Bush said, 'Bring them on,' aid Nancy Lessin, co-founder of
Military Families Speak Out, referring to the president's response to
post-war attacks on US troops occupying post-war Iraq. "Those three
words
galvanized Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace and other
veterans¹ organizations to initiate the campaign we are launching
today,"
she said.

"We say, 'Bring them home now.' Bring them home because our troops
should
not have been in Iraq in the first place. ³Bring them home because
there was
no imminent danger to the United States. Bring them home because there
were
no weapons of mass destruction. Bring them home because there was no
link
between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein," said Lessin.

"We are here today to say it was wrong for the US to invade Iraq, it
is
wrong for the US to be occupying Iraq, and there is no right way to do
a
wrong thing."

Members of her group rallied in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday
at Fort
Bragg, North Carolina, home of the 82nd Airborne Infantry. They
stressed
that most of them were Republicans, had voted for Bush and had
supported the
war based on intelligence presented early this year. "From proud
liberators
in the great American tradition, our troops have become oppressors and
occupiers in a hostile nation," said Susan Shuman, whose son is in the
Massachusetts National Guard serving in Iraq.

³Our troops are stuck in a quagmire of urban desert guerrilla warfare
for
which they are not prepared or equipped,² she said. ³My question to
Mr. Bush
is, ?How many more of our sons do you need to bring our children
home?¹²
said Fernando Suarez de Solar, whose son, Jesus Alberto, was killed in
action in Iraq. ³How many American lives are worth one gallon of
oil?,² he
mused.

Stan Goff of Raleigh, North Carolina, a 26-year career soldier and
retired
Special Forces master Sergeant, was bitter about the war.

³You know, in all the administration¹s fictions of weapons of mass
destruction and nuclear programs and ... the phony Al-Qaeda
connections that
are being exposed as fabrications, this is not the rule of law,² he
said.
³This is the rule of bombs and bullets. These are rich men in very
expensive
suits conducting statecraft like gangsters.

³The US does have a responsibility to Iraq and to the people of Iraq
to
clean up the mess that we have made,² said Charlie Richardson,
co-founder of
Military Families Speak Out. But, he added, ³It can¹t be done with US
troops. In launching the ?Bring Them Home Now¹ campaign, we are
calling on
military families and others in the military and veterans communities
to
speak out against the use of our troops as cannon fodder ... against
the
reckless occupation of Iraq.²