US Troops Mutiny In Iraq

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Report here:

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/21/us_...y_refuse_orders (http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/21/us_soldiers_stage_mutiny_refuse_orders)

[Dros]

That is amazingly awesome! Thank you.

I wish they'de mutiny more often...

[Red Terror Doctor]

Good find, Rosa! Not the kind of thing you hear about in the mainstream media!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Drosera, could not agree more! :)

Red Terror Doc, it just shows the power of the internet -- remember what Lenin said; well in this case, they will sell us the communication system which will help us strangle them. :D

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Good. What is really depressing though is that there are so many soldiers with working class background fighting the rich man's war and killing other poor people.


remember what Lenin said; well in this case, they will sell us the communication system which will help us strangle them. :D

:lol:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

More details here:

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=13447

[Big Boss]

Amazing article. Definetly shows how things are really turning in front and not what the mainstream media says is happening. Thanks comrade!



remember what Lenin said; well in this case, they will sell us the communication system which will help us strangle them. biggrin.gif

Well put!! :D

[Pirate Utopian]

This is excellent news, is there any news on the reaction of the reactionaries?

[JimFar]

This is welcome news! However, I don't think that this quite measures to what happening towards the end of the Vietnam War, when US troops there were in an almost continual state of mutiny and near-mutiny with entire units refusing orders to go out on patrol and with fraggings (i.e. blowing up) of officers by their men on a regular basis. That was the real reason why the US had to pull out of Vietnam, which was because US armed forces were rapidly disintegrating, and so becoming useless to the ruling class, and even a threat to them.

[spartan]

This really goes in the face of what all the mainstream media has been reporting about Iraq (Less violence and fewer killings etc) :lol:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Corrrect Jim, but the soldiers in Vietnam were largely a conscript army; that's what makes this so threatening for the US military -- these guys 'volunteered'!

It's too early to say whether or not this will spread; let's hope it does!

Anyone interested in the Vietnam story Jim mentioned should check out the film 'Sir, No, Sir!'

http://www.sirnosir.com/index1.html

[Axel1917]

I have heard of some opposition toward the war in the rank-and-file troops, and there are some groups in the US, such as Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). It is interesting that the opposition to the war is getting more militant, and this is some good news to see after the site has been down for some time.

Now if only the anti-war movement would perhaps take more effective measures (I think a united front is needed here.) to get people to take action. It is just a bunch of groups that constantly splinter and hold "their own" demos on the same day or close to other ones. In spite of mass opposition to the war, the anti-war movement, to put things bluntly, has been rather pathetic at militancy.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

We did not make this mistake in the UK; veterans against the war and their families, and those of soldiers who had been killed in Iraq, etc., were central to building the opposition.

[JimFar]

Rosa wrote:


Corrrect Jim, but the soldiers in Vietnam were largely a conscript army; that's what makes this so threatening for the US military -- these guys 'volunteered'!

I agree that is a very important point. Nixon ended the draft not only because it had become extremely unpopular but because from a ruling class perspective, a conscript army was simply no longer worth it. Such an army would necessarily be reflective of the larger society from which it had been recruited, and that larger society had turned strongly against the Vietnam War and indeed against militarism generally and was even beginning to tentatively question imperialism. A "volunteer" army was from a ruling class perspective much more preferable. It would consist of people who "wanted to be there" and who would presumably be much easier to indoctrinate than the often surly draftees of the latter part of the Vietnam War. And since the burden of military service would now be much less widely distributed, the government now felt freer to engage in military interventions that it knew might not prove to be very popular. So, yes I would agree that the appearance of open defiance by "volunteer" soldiers of their commanders in this was is a very significant phenomena.