Stop-lossed soldier fights back with a camcorder and YouTube account

IVAW also accepts enlisted members, The best insight to the war is from those who have lived it.

Richard Engel , "War Journal - my five years in Iraq " . read it . it should take all of 2 hours . i wouldn't buy it . read it in the store .

Poor bastard isn't happy about going back to kill more innocent people?

Maybe he shouldn't have gone back.

Military prison would suck but being a murderer can't be easy.

For a nation of religious zealots you don't seem to fear the hell you must be destined for.

more power to Mr. Porter for putting these political snakes on blast. More soldiers need to do the same. Maybe that will help the rest of this God forsaken country to wake up!

I think in America we've confused goals with tactics.

It's like trying to combat the rise in street gangs soley by adding more police officers and ignoring all other factors.

There are many, many causes of street gangs and street violence -- paramount among them poverty.

Now if we went into a heavily gang infested neighborhood that is extremely impoverished and kept amping up the police presence to the point where there is literally one police officer per gang member --- yes, that would "solve" the problem of street gang violence for as long as we maintain that "surge" of police officers.

Did that solve the unemployment problem?

No.

Did that solve any of the cultural problems in that neighborhood?

No.

Did absolutely anything permanently change in that crime-ridden area so that when the "surge" of police officers is removed that street gangs (or militas) will disarm, disappear and never return?

No.

Did we do anything to encourage businesses to relocate to that extremely impoverished and high crime area?

No. A police "surge" won't make the area more attractive to businesses.

And yet this is the identical strategy we're employing in Iraq. We have guns pointed at people's heads and, yes, they won't shoot anyone so long as we have a gun pointed at them. But we haven't changed the culture and we haven't changed the poverty. There is no military victory possible in Iraq because Iraq is not suffering from a military problem, it's suffering from a cultural socio-economic one.

Staying another month or another 5 years isn't going to radically change the attractiveness of Iraq as a business location, is it? Nor would another 5 years suddenly erase 1,000's of years of history and culture.

If China invaded California and implemented fedualism and communism and took away women's right to vote -- would we totally abandone OUR culture of equality and democracy in favor of communism in 5 years? 10 years? 15 years?

Never?

Let's say we really could do it in 50 years at present troops levels....well problem number 2 is that level of military action and spending is totally unsustainable for the next 50 years!

The goal in Iraq has become unobtainable.

Since this is Bush family personal war they should be paying for it and not the American people.

I can understand this soldiers anger and frustration. The poor planning. The corporate corruption. The deaths. While all of that is disheartening, the message that I'm getting is that the real frustration is that the "goal" itself is pointless.

The goal is to recreate Iraq into a near-identical version of America with free markets, democracy, equal rights for all ethnic groups and women, total internal security and safety and a 100 percent total peace between all warring tribes forever and ever.

And we refuse to leave until all those goals are met. Is this even remotely realistic???

The defense of the Trillion Dollar Iraq Reconstruction Project has always been:

"We're winning. If we leave, the bad guys will take over and all our actions will be for nothing!"

So what GUARANTEE do we have that 1 year after we "win" and totally rebuild the entire infrastructure of Iraq (at 2 trillion dollars and at the expense of our OWN crumbling infrastructure!) that fundementalist muslims won't be democratically elected into power.....or they won't just take up arms again and start ANOTHER civil war?

The pro-occupation/reconstruction arguement always begins and ends with the assumption (and one helluva assumption) that once we "win" radical fundementalist Islam will never ever EVER resurface in any significant form in Iraq ever again....and that there will never ever be another internal civil war in Iraq between the Sunni and Shia.

Okay. Now how exactly did we come to that conclusion? What gaurantees do we have that the fighting won't start up again once we leave or (worse!) the radical fundementalists won't just honestly win election to power?

That seems to be the question no one is asking.

Because if this shit is just going to happen again anyway after we spend $2 trillion dollars and at the cost of 5,000 dead soliders and 50,000 disabled soliders then what's the point?

If we cannot reasonably gaurantee that there will never be another large scale civil war or we cannot personally gaurantee that radical Islamic clerics won't be democratically elected in Iraq, then I personally fail to see how this is worth it.

The death count does not matter. You can say it's high until you're blue in the face and it is high. But when you are talking to a generation of zombie lovers and people that love to see action and death on the movie screen...death tolls have ZERO effect.

Also when a war like WWII produced millions of deaths that outweigh the Iraq war in every single count, it's kind of hard to take a death toll like a meager 4,000 (and counting) as a lot.

Yes this is not a world war, but that doesn't matter. You're trying to reach the apathetic and getting through to them with the hear they do not have...well...that's not going to happen with numbers. You have to make it personal....you have to hit them where it hurts them the most and make them feel the pains of loss that will cause them to move and decide that what they need to do is beg for the end of what many have already been begging the end for.

I believe that every single death is one too many. But I understand that the mentality of the generation of today and the one prior is that it doesn't matter....because it's over there and we are over here and what we have in our proximity of now is what matters. Selfishness.

Break that barrier and you can have untold thousands on your side.

I have always thought that these guys in the streets; thugs, dealer, and others that are wasting their lives' should be drafted in to service. The men that willing go, should be fast racked into higher rank and these guys that are drafted should go first into war.

THIS MAY SOUND MEAN BUT THINK OF THIS..

These guy are killing each other like there is no tomorrow. For reasons like he looked at me wrong, he try to talk to my girl, or he making more money than me. They don't care for life and that what war is about. You can get these guys off the street, making it safer for people to live. And It could help give these guys a reason to live a better life.

I know if my son or daughter wasn't doing right, I would welcome them going in the service; it's better than jail anyday.

We have to get out of Iraq. We have to change the image that the world has of our country. We are not the world police, and we are not capable of fixing everyone's problems.

wow!

Funny they created a movie by the same title (Stop-loss) and the war still was going on---and they used the Iraq war.

anyways I agree with the one statement...why are they there if they are not providing anything of substance to the region or America?

The use of quotes are powerful and should be used responsibly. And I hope none were taken out of context....I almost think it would have been better to use quotes from the people who are dead and famous than those that are alive and stupid---as if anyone needs more proof of that (since many already think it) and used more statements from interviews about how they have no idea why they are there or what good they are accomplishing.

As a vet and someone who has served in Iraq, I can respect these men for being out there putting their life on the line. I just hope this soldier isn't putting others at risk by being pre-occupied by making films. I'm not so sure that's what his commander in chief asked him to do.

As for the film, I think it fails to do what is intended. It's a collection of qoutes from irrevelent people from five years ago, mixed with the oldy but goody children holding teddy bears shots.

Barbara Bush quotes? Bill O'reily quotes? Irrevelent. This screams of an "I told you so" approach towards conservative America if anything.

He should be interviewing all the soldiers around him who agree with him so that we can really get the message. But from my own experience over there I think he can't get those interviews because most soldiers don't share his viewpoint. There is immense progress being made, reconstruction, education. In two years I never met an iraqi who didn't thank me for liberating their country. And the honest truth is most Iraqi's are terrified of what will happen to the country when the US is no longer there to police. Of course there are those who do want us to leave and those people are the one's on the streets for the media to see. The media doesn't show the the vast majority of common Iraqis who are at home and not on the street burning American flags.

We will leave Iraq, we already are, but it will take time. It's a complex situation.

I wish these soldiers the best. They may not agree with their job, but they are out there doing it. God speed.

how do we help them after exposing 9/11 and not paying taxes, what is the next step?

Vanguard journalism, FTW!

democracynow has a handle on this, he'll be ok. he wont be silenced.

I applaud his efforts but his YouTube account will be banned. I may post on his YouTube to upload the video to several sites to prevent censorship.

They sure have, but just how many MILLIONS of people worldwide have they messed with and done wrong?