Sunday Times (UK): 40,000 US Troops Have Deserted Since 2000

[stopbush]

The Sunday Times August 27, 2006

You wouldn’t catch me dead in Iraq
Scores of American troops are deserting — even from the front line in Iraq. But where have they gone? And why isn’t the US Army after them? Peter Laufer tracked down four of the deserters

They are the US troops in Iraq to whom the American administration prefers not to draw attention. They are the deserters – those who have gone Awol from their units and not returned, risking imprisonment and opprobrium.
When First Lieutenant Ehren Watada of the US Army, who faced a court martial in August, refused to go to Iraq on moral grounds, the newspapers in his home state of Hawaii were full of letters accusing him of “treason”. He said he had concluded that the war is both morally wrong and a horrible breach of American law. His participation, he stated, would make him party to “war crimes”. Watada is just one conscientious objector to a war that has polarised America, arguably more so than even the Vietnam war.

It is impossible to put a precise figure on the number of American troops who have left the army as a result of the US involvement in Iraq. The Pentagon says that a total of 40,000 troops have deserted their posts (not simply those serving in Iraq) since the year 2000. This includes many who went Awol for family reasons. The Pentagon’s spokesmen say that the overall number of deserters has actually gone down since operations began in Afghanistan and Iraq, but there is no doubt that a steady trickle of deserters who object to the Iraq war have made it over the border and are now living in Canada. There they seek asylum, often with the help of Canadian anti-war groups. One Toronto lawyer, Jeffry House, has represented at least 20 deserters from Iraq in the Canadian courts; he is himself a conscientious objector, having refused to fight in the Vietnam war – along with 50,000 others, at the peak of the conflict. He estimates that 200 troops have already gone underground in Canada since the war in Iraq began.

http://rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.timesonline.co.uk%2Farticle%2F0%2C%2C2099-2318643%2C00.html

[lutefisk]

1. Maybe they just want to attend Harvard Business School?

Just like our war hero President?:patriot:

[reichstag911]

4. Nah,...

...they're in Alabama, workin' hard on a friend of Poppy's congressional campaign -- and snortin' whiskey and drinkin' cocaine!

[rfranklin]

2. Support the troops!

I can get behind this.

[phillinweird247]

3. Me Too!!!

True Heros

[Benhurst]

5. More victims of The Leader's insane neo-con policies. NT

[lonestarnot]

6. You mean approximately 40k have awakened to the fact that they are

fighting a for a bushitler in a bushitler war and don't want to do so anymore? Welp, I just don't know what to make of this. Could it be they didn't like being lied to when they were asked to put their lives on the line? Lives on the line for a bushitler idear? Which clearly was manipulated by war profiteers? Geeze louise for those of you who can't get behind this idea, I suggest you reexamine what and what you can't get behind. A shitting elephant is not good thing to get behind.

[lonestarnot]

7. kick

[KansDem]

8. I'm sure the prospect of being sent to Iraq has a lot to do with this...

The Pentagon says that a total of 40,000 troops have deserted their posts (not simply those serving in Iraq) since the year 2000.

There will always be deserters, for one reason or another.

I would like to have known how many deserters there would have been if the Iraq invasion and consequent quagmire had not happened. I would think the numbers would have been a lot lower...