Iraq War Veterans Take Their Stand Against U.S. Racist Genocidal War

Are you a veteran who worked under Petraeus? Did Petraeus award you a medal for mistreating detainees and sending them off to be tortured with no trial whatsoever?

Petraeus chose to award Mike Totten a medal for mistreating detainees. Totten found that sickening and tore up the medal publicly to make a statement. Bush and Cheney's plans cannot be executed to the fullest without these generals and everyone else in the military. Our troops are ordered to do these things and in the context of war and the military camp they are forced to accept this as normal, despite every human instinct they have against it, which later surface as mental distress and PTSD.

This isn't just opinion. This is fact according to the veterans who suffer these things. Unless you are one of them, you have no place in questioning what they say. Your comments are not credible.

One thing that displays your gross obtuse ignorance is your docile acceptance of the killing of innocent people, even in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is no justification for the killing and genocide of innocent people. Do we drop bombs on South Central L.A. to fix gang violence?

History is irrelevant. Wars have always been immorally genocidal. Genocide means the mass killing of a group of people, usually of a certain race or nationality (see http://tinyurl.com/nlj4l2). These veterans have testified over and over that the U.S. has racist policies that result in the genocide of innocent civilians.

It's not called genocide or racial by people in the U.S. (except by the veterans who actually committed the crimes), because we don't want to believe that we are a racist genocidal nation. Only other countries can commit genocide, right?

Bullshit.

And if you are a veteran who was in Iraq since 9-11 and you still feel this way, then I feel sorry for you, because you don't have the ability to think for yourself. You are stuck as a pawn in an authoritarian society (not unlike Nazi Germany) and don't have the balls to stand up for what's right, human and moral, like Mike Totten and many others who refuse to be deployed or who testify of their regret.

Shooting someone with a weapon aimed at you is not the same as dropping bombs on babies or putting 200 rounds into a car with a family of four.

Hmm, do not call me a moron, it is not polite... and incredibly inaccurate... that is fact!

The American people are standing up for what is right, they have said repeatedly that we should not be in Iraq, and they are right, we should not, but blaming troops and generals for what they are ordered to do is ignorant... do you even know what the charge and punishments for disobeying a direct order are? Obviously not, it is the same as being a spy, you are charged with treason and you can be shot or hung.

Shooting a car that is speeding toward you when there is a road block... try driving down I-10 in Texas near El Paso and drive full throttle at the check points out there and see what happens (Those are military check points on US highways)... do not be hypocritical just because it happened in another country. If you are pulled over by a cop do you reach for your wallet without letting them know what you are doing first? No, of course not because they will shoot you out of fear you are reaching for a weapon. Use your head before you go on a nonsensical rampage.

This is not rocket science, it is cause and effect, if the American population and these soldiers, these children as you call them should not have been so supportive in the first place, people die in war for no reason other than they are in the wrong place at the wrong time, that "kid" who lit up the car joined after 9-11 else he would not have been 18 and in Iraq, he knew damn well where he was going and what he was going to be doing. You should be happy it was not a bus full of kindergartners else you would have the stupid actions of one person killing more than just 3 others, and believe me it has happened and the guy who did it will never sleep right again in his life, but he still knows why it happened, and he probably did it at least once more before or after during his deployment because survival is paramount... always.

And no I do not have any medals from General Petraeus, wrong service, wrong war.

Sorry for the moron thing. I retract that. It's just an indication of my frustration with people who think like you do. You are out of date. The wars waged by the U.S. after 9-11 are nothing like previous wars, though they too are questionable. These are illegal racist preemptive genocidal wars. We have no business being in Iraq or Afghanistan in the first place. So any harm we do there is compounding our liability and criminal action.

Don't tell me about riding down highways in the U.S. and how you think people here instinctively know how to react. The Iraqis and Afghans are not in the U.S. and their lives are nothing like ours. Their culture is a different world. What you assume everyone here knows you can equally assume no one in Iraq is aware of. It is our responsibility to be sensitive to these things and think before we shoot. Not shoot before we think. That is what is inexcusably moronic.

If our troops lives are endangered by these ground rules as stated by military and international law, then so be it. That is the thing that they signed up for. That is the risk they took the oath to take. They didn't take the oath to kill first and sort out the damage later. Such behavior is cowardly, reprehensible, and dishonorable to the highest degree, and I can see why Totten has a hard time accepting a medal for such behavior.

Our troops are under military and international law to make certain that any target fired upon is indeed a legitimate military target. I think Millard cited this law in his testimony above. There is no excuse. These are war crimes.

You say they'd face a court marshal? No shit. That's exactly what the ones with balls are doing when they refuse to deploy. It is the honorable, wise, humane, and healthy thing to do, to choose a court marshal over killing innocent civilians.

The law is on their side. They may have to pay the price of a lengthy litigation to clear their names. But it is worth the alternative of sleepless nights and PTSD for the rest of their lives. As we see with Mike Totten, he has no use for his medal. He is deeply disturbed by his actions and will be forever. I can bet you that he would gladly trade a court marshal any day for the lives of those he mistreated or for the knowledge that he stood up against the illegality of our military racist policies when he had the chance.

18 year old kids don't know what they are doing. They just think they do. They are enamored buy the false glory and romanticism that the military paints of itself. They are duped, and once they been through it, they are bitterly regretful and disappointed with this poor excuse of a country.

actually 70 some odd percent of the nation is still christian for some unknown reason

OK- the 70% of Christians in the USA pretty much have to practice their faith underground, with all the anti-Christian bigotry going on nowadays- and catholics get targeted the most....)