Are we going to see more of this?
a US soldier is in custody after shooting dead two sergeants at a base near Baghdad. The Pentagon has refused to release his name and rank.
Independent journalist, Dahr Jamail was heard on Air America recently claiming that as many as 80,000 GIs have gone AWOL. This figure includes absences from one day to permanently. For anyone who doubts how much GI resistance had to do with the ending of the Vietnam war, please read ‘Soldiers in Revolt‘, by David Courtright.
There is no way of knowing if the murder of these two sergeants is similar to what went on in Vietnam. The troops would assess the competence of a newly ‘in country’ officer and if it was determined that he would get them all killed, soldiers drew straws to decide who should ‘take him out’.
Whole companies refused orders in Vietnam. Pilots refused to fly bombing runs and even the intelligence people began refusing to pass intelligence other than to protect US troop positions. It was when the most highly trained members of the military began resisting that Nixon had to exit Vietnam. All the feedback I get from active duty military is that the same things are happening in Iraq, as it should.
