2000th U.S. Death in Iraq Sparks 'Bring Them Home' Protests
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<<...Oct 26 (OneWorld) - A day after the two-thousandth U.S. soldier died in the Iraq war, much of the American public seems to have decided that disgruntled answers to surveys won't end the bloodshed.
Polls show that some 60 percent of Americans now want the troops brought home, but for many, the death of Staff Sgt. George T. Alexander, Jr., 34, of Killeen, Texas yesterday, signaled a time for action.
Today, people in some 400 communities and 49 states will mobilize to remember the dead and call for the swift return of the living.
Many will hold candlelight vigils, as was done following the 500, 1,000, and 1,500 death markers, but others will turn to the blunt, albeit proven weapons of protest and civil disobedience.
In front of Philadelphia's city hall, at the federal building in Chicago, in the town square of Carbondale Illinois, outside congressional offices in Pensacola Florida, across Memorial Bridge near the Pentagon, and at sites all over the U.S., protesters are expected to gather.
Outside the White House, families of service-members who have died in Iraq, as well as other civilians led by Cindy Sheehan, mother of Army Specialist Casey Sheehan who was killed in Baghdad last year, will lay down on the pavement every evening this week to protest what they call an illegal war.
Sheehan has called on some 2,000 people, representing the number dead, to join her over the course of the week, her sister, Dede Miller, told OneWorld Tuesday.
The myriad events are being coordinated under the "Not One More Death, Not One More Dollar" campaign sponsored by groups such as United for Peace and Justice, American Friends Service Committee, Military Families Speak Out, and Gold Star Families for Peace, a network of families who have lost relatives in war.
The campaign's goal is to push Congress to cut funding for the war in Iraq war and ensure the speedy exit of U.S. service-members.
Information about local events has been posted on the Web site of the American Friends Service Committee, a Philadelphia-based group that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in the 1940s for its efforts during and after two World Wars.
"We feel it's time to end the destruction and deliver our dollars to our own communities," Janice Shields, Director of Media and Public Relations for American Friends Service Committee, told OneWorld.
Shields laments the $5 billion-per-month, $200 billion total that the Iraq war has cost, saying that this money could have provided 8.5 million U.S. children with health insurance for the next 18 years.
"There is no military solution to the war. Continued occupation will only bring further death and animosity," she said.
Dozens of cities and towns, including Chicago and Philadelphia, have passed resolutions calling for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq as part of the Cities for Peace program.
"The U.S. occupation of Iraq is the cause, not the solution, to violence in Iraq. It's time to bring the troops home now," said Karen Dolan, director of the Cities for Peace program at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.
"We want our young people back, protecting us from hurricanes, wildfires, and a flagging economy," Dolan said in a statement.
Delegates in Boston, Pittsburgh, and New York City are working on introducing similar resolutions.
Official estimates put the number of casualties--or troops wounded directly by the bullets and bombs of insurgents--at about 15,000, some 7,000 of whom returned to duty within 72 hours.
But these figures do not include soldiers who were injured from other causes, or those who fell ill, and may underestimate the true figures by tens of thousands, according to UPI journalist, Mark Benjamin.
In July, the Army's surgeon-general also said that 30 percent of U.S. troops coming home from the Iraq war experience stress-related mental health problems like anxiety, nightmares, depression, anger, and an inability to concentrate.
In response to rising death tolls, President Bush recently told military families at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. that troops had died for American's freedom.
"We've lost some of our nation's finest men and women in the war on terror," Bush said. "Each of these patriots left a legacy that allowed generations of their fellow Americans to enjoy the blessings of liberty."
But for many relatives of soldiers in Iraq, bringing the troops home alive counts as the greatest honor.
The increasing number of military families joining in protests also seems to undermine detractors' Vietnam-era critiques that the anti-war movement is anti-troop.
"2,000 deaths highlight the cost of this war, but people really need to understand the urgency with which we need to bring [the troops] home," said Anne Roesler, whose son, a Staff Sergeant in Iraq, is on his third tour of duty with the 82nd airborne.
"When he came home the last time he said, 'Mom, if I come home alive this time it's going to take years to get over this.'" Her son has spent about 550 days in Iraq since the invasion started and is not due home for another year.
Roesler said her son is "angry" about what he says are the false pretenses of the war, which he initially believed.
"He repeatedly says we've opened up a hornets nest and there's no putting them back," she said, noting that her son has little choice but to fulfill his contract with the military.
"Any of us in civilian work can quit without dire consequences, but if my son were to say, 'I'm handing in my pink slip today,' they would say, 'here's your court marshal," Roesler told OneWorld.
Roesler's case provides an interesting example of why some soldiers actually support the anti-war protests.
A professor at San Jose State University and member of the group Military Families Speak Out, Roesler is pushing to meet with California Representative and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi this week, because, as she puts it, "the war is not going to end until they stop funding it," referring to legislators in Congress.
"There needs to be a policy change in this country. We need to put pressure on the House and Senate members and people need to get up in arms and say 'enough's enough,'" she said.
Iraqi civilian deaths are another sticking point for many who are rallying to bring troops home, although estimates vary drastically.
Iraq Body Count, a group that tallies the dead using media reports, estimates that between 26,000 and 30,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the war so far. A team of public health researchers from Johns Hopkins University, however, estimated that figure to be as high as 100,000 last year after comparing death rates among Iraqi families before and since the fighting began.
Staff Sgt. George T. Alexander, who was the 2,000th U.S. soldier reported killed in Iraq, died at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas of injuries sustained when a roadside bomb detonated near his Bradley fighting vehicle in Samarra, Iraq, a week ago Monday.
198 non-U.S. Coalition troops have also died since the invasion began, according to CNN's tally...>> |
