Say Your Peace

Sure, it's a given that Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, Susan Sarandon and Martin Sheen don't want war. But who else is speaking up? More than 1000 historians, more than 40 American Nobel Laureates, the more than 600,000 members of MoveOn.org, and one cautious Schwarzkopf, plus the author of this gutsy letter to the editor, that ran in--guess where?--the U.S. military's own newspaper, Stars & Stripes:

Soldiers and sailors: Go to the brig, not to Iraq.

If President Bush declares unilateral war, I will not support our troops.

They will be guilty of unprovoked aggression and the unnecessary killing of tens of thousands of Iraqis. These Iraqis will not be defending Saddam, but defending their homeland, motivated by blind patriotism, just like many of our troops.

Our troops will be fighting to replace Saddam with a new American-puppet warlord, or worse, a neo-colonial governor. God bless America, but forget about an American empire. They will be obeying the orders of a corrupt government, not the wishes of most Americans.

When more than 68 percent of Congress voted for unilateral war, only 37 percent of their constituents supported such a war. By obeying these orders, our troops will be supporting this corruption. Corrupt dollar politics has created corrupt dollar diplomacy.

Our troops should refuse to fight. Aside from the moral basis, there may also be a legal basis to refuse. Our troops have sworn to uphold the Constitution. Congress voted, but it cannot delegate to the president its responsibility to declare war, and how can its vote be considered tantamount to a declaration of war when there was not then and is not now a clearly stated “cause for war?”

America now needs moral courage, not physical courage.

Going to the brig is the single most important duty an American servicemember can now perform for their country.

John F Scanlon
San Diego, Calif.