Solidarity with soldiers who said 'No'
By John Catalinotto
New York
Anti-war activists came to the Times Square military
recruiting station here Oct. 23 to show their solidarity with
the soldiers of the 343rd Quartermaster Company who refused
orders to go on what they called a "suicide mission" across 200
miles of insurgent Iraq.
The group action of at least 17 soldiers, most of them from
Jackson, Miss., and other areas of the Deep South, had received
worldwide publicity after some of the troops managed to contact
their relatives inside the United States. They told them they
had been arrested by military authorities after refusing to go
out in "inadequate vehicles" and without an armored convoy.
Dustin Langley, an organizer from the GI support group
Support Network for an Armed Forces Union--SNAFU--told Workers
World that attorneys have been attempting to reach the arrested
troops, following the instructions of relatives. As of Oct. 23
there had been no direct contact with the troops.
Langley, who spoke at the rally ending the picketing Oct.
23, said his group put high priority on the need to develop
solidarity between the civilian anti-war movement and any GIs
who refuse illegal orders to report to Iraq or to refuse such
orders in Iraq.
"We are asking them to refuse to go along with war crimes,"
he said, "but we have to let them know we are watching their
backs. We have to help them and protect them whatever they want
to do to express their resistance."
Julie Fry of the youth organization, FIST--Fight
Imperialism, Stand Together--expressed her solidarity with the
343rd Quartermaster Company. Her group is already organizing to
fight against reinstatement of the military draft.
Kim Rosario, whose 18-year-old son is now in Iraq, read the
statement from the International Action Center that called for
the protest: "These soldiers have been placed in danger by the
policies of the U.S. government that have created a climate of
hatred throughout the Arab and Muslim world. Pentagon officials
and the officer corps view front-line troops, drawn largely
from poor and oppressed communities, as expendable, in the same
way they view the Iraqi people as less than human.
"The war in Iraq is illegal. ... Resistance and refusal is
not only justified, it is an obligation. We support the
decision by these soldiers to refuse orders and we call upon
others to also take action to stop the war."
The Army said Oct. 22 that more than 800 former soldiers, or
over one-third of those called, have failed to comply with Army
orders to get back in uniform and report for duty in Iraq or
Afghanistan. This demonstrates how the soldiers' own
attitudes--and actions--are key to ending the occupation of
Iraq.
These are troops in the Individual Ready Reserve. They have
completed their active duty and active reserve. Most consider
themselves to be civilians. But the Army insists it still has
the right to call them up.
It is becoming more and more apparent that reserve troops
don't want to go to Iraq--and that the troops already there
want nothing better than to come home.
Reprinted from the Nov. 4, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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