Deserting

Mark Kress has an article "Getting Out of Iraq: A Letter to the US Peace Movement.? I find this article to be appalling, mainly due to this premise.

If the peace movement organizes and pursues a specific strategy to reduce the recruitment and retention of men and women available for military service, the sustainability of the occupation will reach a tipping point. Of course this will take time, and anger patriotic-minded people. There will be charges of treason and endangering the troops. However, this illegal war and occupation itself is treason, and our troops are already endangered. [Emphasis my own.]

Then there is this article: Deserters Are Heroes. (The author appears to be french. So you'll understand the the attitude.)

And if you aren't totally peeved at reading that crap, look here. I especially like this:

Romriell rejected the perverse right-wing notion that the any act is moral so long as "our side" commits it. He rejected the logic of "my country, right or wrong" ­ as a citizen serving his country, he did what was right, and called out those citizens of his country who were wrong.

Someone has a big honking brush and paints all of the right as fanatical. Of course, from this side I keep thinking "moonbat" and other much less pleasant things.

They do point and shriek about the criminal acts that occur in Iraq, but they seem to miss that criminal acts have always happened in war, and outside of war as well. Romriell did the right thing in testifying about the crimes he saw. If having to switch units after doing so was the price, I'd think he'd be proud to have done the morally correct thing. Not Desert like so many of the others listed in the article. I'd argue desertion is the coward's way out.

If you search about the number of deserters that have occurred lately, you'll hit a jack pot of crackpots. Lots from Canada comparing Iraq to Vietnam. Nice to not have any clue about history. Mack Owens has a nice article clarifying this. VHD did at some point also, but you can find that on your own.

Then there is the MSM reporting of the "conscientious" 5500.

What do these men, who have violated orders and oaths, have to say for themselves? They told Correspondent Scott Pelley that conscience, not cowardice, made them American deserters.

And

Felushko had signed a contract to be with the U.S. Marine Corps. "It's a devil's contract if you look at it that way," he says.

Oh, and this is GOOD.

What does he say to the families of the American troops who have died in Iraq?

"I honor their dead. Maybe they think that my presence dishonors their dead. But they made a choice the same as I made a choice," says Felushko. "My big problem is that, if they made that choice for anything other than they believed in it, then that's wrong. Right? And the government has to be held responsible for those deaths, because they didn’t give them an option."

Um, you VOLUNTEERED! Didn't you have a clue that VOLUNTEERING may mean that you'd have to go and fight somewhere that you might not like? Oh, wait, that would have required thought.

Here's a statement that bothers me:

Hughey volunteered for the Army to get money for college. He graduated from high school in San Angelo, Texas, just two months after the president declared war in Iraq.

Apparently the senate approval wasn't there, the president did it all alone. Blame him, he's evil, he's a red neck cowboy.

Oh oh, this one is a hoot:

When Hughey got orders for Iraq, he searched the Internet and found Vietnam era war resisters willing to show him the way north. In fact, they were willing to drive him there, and a Canadian television news camera went along.

Couldn't find a MAP?

OK OK, I'm done. Can't do this anymore. I can't take these people seriously.

Well, you read and decide. I'm sure I'm just getting lucky in finding all the loonies. Too bad they're so bloody loud.