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Words from the front-lines"I just think it's a lost cause. This has become harder than we thought. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein, that's one thing. Getting Iraqis to do what we want is another. It's like we want to give them McDonald's and they might not want McDonald's. They have to want it or we can't give it to them." - Spc. Will Bromley, Company A, Task Force 1-36, 1st Armored Division, Karbala, Iraq. "Some of us need to make life plans. We're obviously short of forces in Iraq. Suppose the country just wants to split apart? Can we live with that? Or another dictator comes? Are we going to fix that? There are plenty of troublemakers and Iraqis who tolerate them. You could have units here forever." - Capt. Andrew Lomax, Company A, Task Force 1-36, 1st Armored Division, Karbala, Iraq. "Nobody wants to compare this to Vietnam. But it's starting to feel that way on the ground. Everybody just wants to finish their year, get the hell out and forget they were ever here." - Anonymous officer in an email to a Congressman, who quoted the email when questioning Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.  "I don't begrudge them. We'd do the same thing if
some foreign dudes rolled into San Diego and set up
shop." - Marine officer on the Fallujah resistance.
"Man, I think some of those guys were kids. Or they were midgets." - Anonymous Lance Corporal after a firefight with the Iraqi resistance. "I questioned some of the things that I saw ... such things as leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes or in females' underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their cell. I questioned this and the answer I got was, 'This is how military intelligence (MI) wants it done.' MI didn't want any of the inmates talking to each other. ... I am feeling so bad at how the army has come down on me. They always said that shit rolls downhill and guess who is at the bottom? I have asked for help and warned of this and nobody would listen. I told the battalion commander that I didn't like the way it was going and his reply was, 'don't worry about it.'" - Ivan "Chip" Frederick, one of the GIs being court-martialed in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. "Basically this guy was dying as he couldn't take any more. An officer came down. It was 'Get rid of him - I haven't seen him.' The paperwork gets ripped. So they threw him out, still with a bag on his head. The lads said they took him back to the dock and threw him off the back of a moving vehicle. They'd have freed his hands, but he'd still be hooded. He'd done nothing, really. I felt sorry for him. I'm not emotional about it, but I knew it was wrong. ... I can't believe it has taken the Iraqis so long to fight back. If it had been me or my family, I'd have retaliated straightaway. They've just got fucked around so much. You can't go in now, and say 'Right, let's forget about what has happened and start again.' We're struggling now. There are too many people against us." - British soldier on their torture of their prisoners. "We are not helping ourselves out there. We are never going to get them on our side. We are fighting a losing war." - British GI reacts to the Abu Ghraib photos. "A lot of Marines may get killed because of these idiots." - 1st Lt. Justin Engelhardt, commenting on the torture of Iraqi prisoners by military intelligence and MPs "I hate it here. I want to come home. I want to be a civilian again. We actually shot two prisoners today. One got shot in the chest for swinging a pole against our people on the feed team. One got shot in the arm. We don't know if the one we shot in the chest is dead yet." - Anonymous MP stationed at Abu Ghraib prison. "I think sometimes we're perceived as warmongers in the armed forces, but we just take an oath to protect the country. Nobody here really wanted to go to Iraq. I think a lot of people on base agree with me, but we just can't say it." - Anonymous Captain at an anti-war demonstration near Kirtland Air Force Base, Arizona. "Go to every radio and TV station and newspaper, and you tell them this war is wrong. They don't want us here." - Army Spc. Peter G. Enos in his last phone call to his mother, before being killed in his patrol vehicle by an RPG in Bayji, Iraq. Sources: Daniel Williams, "For Many, Prolonged Stay and New Threat Have Eroded Early Optimism," Washington Post, May 25th, 2004 http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=4972 http://www.nydailynews.com/05-13-2004/news/story/192899p-166670c.h tml Jeffrey Gettleman, "Into the Heart of Falluja," New York Times May 2, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-abuse-video.html The Guardian, April 30 & May 1, 2004 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14199634&method=fu ll&siteid=50143&headline=shame-of-abuse-by-brit-troops-name_page.h tml Michael Phillips, Wall St. Journal May 10, 2004 Sue Vorenberg, "Veterans speak out against Iraq war, Albuquerque Tribune, May 4, 2004 http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news04/050404_news_protest.shtml Sean D. Hamill and Shia Kapos, Chicago Tribune, June 8, 2004 |
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