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Al Jazeera (English)
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Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

A Canadian Underground Railroad for "Deserters"
(Geoff Olson, Vancouver Courier, January 26, 2004)
According to an Associated Press wire story from last November, at least 17 U.S. troops have committed suicide in Iraq, and the actual number is almost certainly higher, prompting demands for answers from family members. . . . Rising-Moore suspects the suicides are the result of the pressures of combat, and lack of control of the situation in the embattled country, where U.S. soldiers have been targeted virtually daily in bomb attacks-deaths have already topped 500. . . . "For every death you've got 10 times as many injuries," says Rising-Moore. "I've heard 11,000 have been evacuated from illnesses or injuries due to combat." . . . The French weekly magazine Le Canard Enchaine reports that 1,700 U.S. soldiers have deserted their posts in Iraq, many of them failing to return to military duty after getting permission to go back to the United States. They simply disappear off the radar, and some of them may well be in Canada. . . . Rising-Moore believes the numbers of suicides will rise as U.S. soldiers returning to the States choose to take their own lives rather than face another tour of duty in Iraq. The so-called "stop-loss" orders to U.S. army duty, extending a soldier's tour beyond his or her contractual agreement, are expected to be expanded to greater numbers of troops. . . . The American activist's appearance in Vancouver is part of a cross-country effort to petition Canada for safe refuge for U.S. military deserters across the border. The "Freedom Underground" he's pitching would be an underground railroad, similar to the extensive formal and informal network that helped draft dodgers and deserters in B.C. in the '60s. . . . he regards the cross-border escape hatch as the last option for suicidal soldiers. "I'm telling them to go to their clergy, go to their commanding officers, and to claim conscientious objection while in the military, and to fight it out like that. But if they're considering pulling the trigger on themselves, I'm telling them to desert, just as George Bush Jr. did during the Vietnam War." (A gap in Bush's military service record from May 1972 to October 1973 has some critics accusing him of desertion.) . . . Fleeing to Canada should only be an option for soldiers, Rising-Moore says, "if all else fails, and they don't see any other way out."

posted by LoZo 3:45 PM