Flyer at site
Posted on 02/22/2007 12:40:59 PM PST by OCCASparky
Edited on 02/22/2007 3:22:44 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
ACTIVE-DUTY U.S. MILITARY MEMBERS SPEAK OUT AGAINST WAR ON '60 MINUTES'
Thu Feb 22 2007 15:21:11 ET
They say they are not disloyal. They say they are not shirking their duty and that they do not oppose war. But over 1,000 active-duty and reserve members of the U.S. military are against the war in Iraq and have said so in an unusually public way -- by petitioning Congress last month. Several of them appear to explain their actions in a Lara Logan report to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday Feb. 25 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
"I'm not anti-war. I'm not a pacifist. I'm not opposed to protecting our country and defending our principles," says Navy Petty Officer Jonathan Hutto, an Iraq war veteran who, along with another veteran, initiated the petition. A 1995 law called the Military Whistleblower act enables military personnel to express their own opinions about Iraq in protected communication directly to Congress. Hutto and others spoke with 60 MINUTES while off duty, off base and out of uniform as conscientious citizens. "But at the same time, as citizens, it's our obligation to have a questioning attitude... about policy," Hutto tells Logan.
Marine Sgt. Liam Madden, who helped Hutto to found the organization they call Appeal for Redress that has attracted 1,000 other military members, is more blunt. "Just because we volunteered for the military doesn't mean we volunteered to put our lives in unnecessary harm and to carry out missions that are illogical and immoral."
These GIs and others Logan spoke with expressed frustration with their efforts in Iraq and believe there is no end in sight to the war. Other Iraqi war veterans still on duty there believe Appeal for Redress misses a larger point. "As an American soldier, I feel like we took an oath to obey the orders of our commander-in-chief and officers appointed over us," says Army Spec. James Smauldon. Said another serviceman in Iraq, Army Capt. Lawrence Nunn, "I know what IÕm here fighting for, to give the Iraqi people some democracy and hope, so I am 100 percent behind this mission. You don't sign up to pick which war you go to."
Another Appeal for Redress member counters, "Our leadership gets to choose the mission. Congress gets to choose the mission," Staff Sgt. Matt Nuckolls says. He's loyally committed to whatever Congress wants him to do but savors the right to question it. "My Congressman is Lacy Clay. I would like to tell him as a constituent of his, 'Is the mission in Iraq really what you want us to be doing?' And then [if] he responds yes, okay, well, we go back to Iraq and keep doing what we're doing."
Developing...
Indeed. I got my subway token and 'greetings' letter in 1968. I did what I had to do, no big deal. What a wuss!
Right! I am sure when he is on 60 Minutes they will pretend he is the next best thing to Bull Halsey. Hutto was a complete agitator and should have been run out of the Navy asap.
Like the old saying " You take the Kings Shilling, you do the Kings bidding"
These people sound kind of dense...I joined the Military, but I didnt know I was going have to fight...
I personally knew Marines. This is no Marine. This is a bedwetting pillow biter. Give him a dishonorable and be done with his kind.
Less than 1% of the 150,000 service members serving in Iraq currently.
RUCK~IT~UP~N~SUCK~IT~UP !!!
Flyer at site
I have to agree with you 100%. My guess is the Navy is being very careful about catching him at something.
Cowards,,they really do need a Yellow Streak down their backs...
Not when I was in..
Very good investigative work by the milbloggers on this Hutto character. I must have missed all their reporting on the guy, because I did not recognize his name or his activism in the DC radical community.
I wonder if Lois Lane, or whatever her name is, with 60 minutes will do as thorough a job investigating this radical's motives for joining the Navy in the first place.
It appears that he joined the Navy specifically to continue his "antiwar" (anti-America) crusade as "someone who has served."
What a miserable POS.
The (Brian and Richard) Beckers, Ramsey Clarks, Medea Benjamins and Gael Murphys of the commmunist bloc in America have no doubt placed many more of their fellow travelers in the military, to try and legitimize their homefront war against us.
Sgt. Liam Madden said people often asked him what turned him against the war in Iraq.
"It wasn't really anything," the 22-year-old U.S. Marine from Bellows Falls said. "I went to war opposing the war and came back opposing the war. It was because of information any citizen could be aware of. It wasn't traumatic events. It was the weapons of mass destruction that were not there, the links to al-Qaeda that were never established."
Madden, who is stationed in Quantico, Va., was addressing a crowd of 70 at the Unitarian Universalist Church. A veteran of the war in Iraq, Madden helped organize a petition of service members calling for the war's end.
(#&*(&
How does one explain Murtha, then? ::sigh::
If my memory serves me right there isn't a J Company in the Army,,as in alpha,bravo,charlie companies,,,because of cowardice..,again these are Cowards..
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