Home > Why the U.S. Must Get Out of Iraq, Pronto

Why the U.S. Must Get Out of Iraq, Pronto

by Open-Publishing - Sunday 6 March 2005
13 comments

Edito Wars and conflicts International USA

by Maj. General Harry Upman

Let me say in no uncertain terms, we must get out of Iraq.

There is nothing to gain and everything to lose in Iraq. We have
lost over four thousand of our military, those who were killed in
Iraq and those who died in intransit from Iraq to our hospitals in
Germany and in Europe. We have had over 10,000 of our troops
wounded. According to a report I heard last night on Frontline on
PBS, 1 in 6 of our people coming home from Iraq need mental help.

What have we gained in Iraq? Absolutely nothing.
What have we lost? Our leadership in the world militarily, morally
and financially.

Frankly, Generals Franks and Abizaid have failed. Donald Rumsfeld
has failed, as have his top aides. As a former military leader, I am
appalled at the Pentagon leadership and the leadership in our
military. These men should be drummed out of the military with their
heads in shame for the needless loss of the lives of our young men
and women.

But that’s not the worst of it. What business did they have calling
up our Reserves and National Guard to attack another country. These
troops are for emergencies and to protect our nation. I know the
law, that these troops can be called up.
On the other hand, they are to be used for short periods of time,
not for long periods of time as they have been abused in Iraq. I
note that the recruiters are having a hard time in the Reserves and
the National Guard. I can’t blame the people for walking away. I
would if I’d been lied to this much.

As a man of three wars, from Korea to Viet Nam to Gulf War I, I am
embarrassed by such men as General Mattis. If he was under my
command, I’d have him disciplined for ignorance and leading his men
astray. No, it is not "fun" to kill people.
Killing is a serious business, not something you brag about to
businessmen or to the media about. We never told our men to kill for
the fun of it. You killed to save yourself and to achieve an
objective, never for the "fun of it."

I fear that we have hit the bottom in our military men and women.
Lower level officers are now afraid to report atrocities for fear
that they will lose their rank, men are afraid to admit they are
shot, women are afraid to report rape, when they report rape they
are told it was their fault!
What has this man’s army come to? Have we totally lost our honor? To
be a military man in this army means to be immoral, a liar, to
accuse the innocent and to not grieve for killing women and children.

This is not the military or the country I served. The men running
our government at this time are either mad or totally immoral and
have not place in this world as leaders. That is why they must turn
out such people as Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, Mattis and Abizaid and
bring in some new leadership who better represents what we are as a
nation.

In the process, they may as well take such fools as Bill O’Reilly
and let him put his body where his mouth is in terms of Iraq. Let
him go to Iraq and see how it feels, let him smell death and let him
dodge bullets the way our troops do in Iraq. I’d like to see how
much of a smart-ass he would be then. The same is true of that
falsely serious Richard Perle; I’d have him take his fat behind out
in the boot camp and work him until he learned to sweat. I’d do the
same with Paul Wolfowitz. Paul has never had the respect of
intelligent men, only men who thought Paul was intelligent. How they
were deceived. I’ve known Paul since he was a bootlicker in his
youth in Washington, DC.

Until we regain our moral stature and moral bearings, we shall
continue to be hated in this world for good reason. We no longer
defend freedom and liberty, we are the new British colonialists, we
are the new plunderers, we are the new imperialists. This makes me
ashamed of our country.

What do I hope for? I hope some of our military men, men of honor,
will stand up and call these immoral and ignorant men what they are.
If our military is to defend its honor, it must stand up now. If
not, then our military men are part of the problem, not part of the
solution. I am not advocating revolution, but I am advocating the
right to resist immoral duty and men who think that "killing is
fun," and men who think that bombing a city into the earth, as was
done in Fallougha, will make us more friends and fewer enemies.

We must get out of Iraq, pronto, before we lose more troops, make
more enemies and show our military vulnerability to the watching
world. We are not the formidable force the world thought we were,
our troops are exhausted and yet have not won a victory, and our
will to victory is fast disappearing. We should get out before we
needlessly kill more Iraqis as well. Killing over a hundred
thousand, 100,000, according to the Lancet in England is enough to
make me more ashamed than when we learned of Mi Lai in Viet Nam. We
killed more in Fallougha than in Mi Lai, and yet no one has
apologized to the dead or the men and women who survived the
devastation, the Dresden like bombing of Fallougha. Where has our
moral leadership that we taught at West Point gone to? What are they
doing in OCS these days? I dread finding out if the officers I’ve
seen in Iraq are a fair sample.

How low we have sunk.

http://www.corvusworld.com/getoutnow.htm

to become a conscientious objector
http://objector.org/

Forum posts

  • Thanks to General Upman for giving an experienced serviceman’s view on the HORRIBLE ILLEGAL WAR by W. and his gang of thugs! The General is right on about our National Guard they should be "here" protecting us! Everytime W. says "Better we fight these terrorists there then here", I think, they would win here because our protection is over there!
    The U.N. should get together and call an end to this illegal attack and now occupation by the U.S.. Nothing else will stop it! This Administration is taking their orders from a HIGHER POWER and do not listen average citizens!
    Bring All the troops home now and send Congress and W., Cheney, Rice, and Rummy’s families over there to fight THEIR mission!

    to average citizens.

    • just to clarify a crucial point - you must get your mind around the fact that most terrorism - including 911 - is caused by governments in order to further their objectives - 911 was mounted to blame the muslims and enable a whole series of war to control the middle east.
      noble efforts by maj gen upton and others are to be applauded - to raise the awareness of the immoral, illegal wars being fought that are killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people and risking the lives of tens of thousands of allied soldiers, not to mention the lifetime of misery bestowed upon hundreds of thousands of soldiers who will submit to mysterious illnesses caused by exposure to radioactive depleted uranium and most who will suffer psychological trauma.

    • The General said "4,000" military died ..... immediate war kills and those who died in transit???

      Did I read that correctly?? This is the first time I’ve heard the death total for Americans is actually "4,000".

    • I think the general is referring to that the lies about only 1500 dead is a misrepresentation.

  • Major General Upman, sir!

    Being a Veteran of the Korean War and Viet Nam, you are of and from an age of honor and discipline that no longer exists! Although your remarks are admirable, there is no way in the world that you can change an entire generation of Americans who lost all moral compass and grasp at the first ’song-and-dance-man’ who tells them what they want to hear - and I’m talking about the putative ’Commander in Chief’!

    We took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We were both lied to and cheated by the politicians prior to our generation and the ones in charge of events when we were actively in uniform; and the young people of today are hearing the same and similar lies from the same and similar highest political places.

    When the President of the United States of America is our domestic enemy, what is the man in uniform to do? When the Commander in Chief is our domestic enemy because he promulgates not only an unconstitutional war, but illegal and immoral crimes against nations, people and nature, what does that mean? Does it mean that every Commander on down the Chain of Command from the President to the soldier’s immediate superior is also the soldier’s domestic enemy? And if so, what is that soldier’s duty as a Citizen and as a Soldier? What is the duty of the NCO? What is the duty of the Squad, the Company, the Regiment,........?

    You state that you are not in favor of a revolution, which is puzzling, because you call upon soldiers to revolt against what you perceive to be unlawful authority! What gives? Revolution is akin to pregnancy: Either you’re pregnant, or you’re not - and either you’re for a revolution, or you’re not - you can’t be something in between. Either you take overt steps to demand the return of all United States Military Personnel from Iraq immediately, and arrest and detain the occupant(s) of the White House in Washington, D.C., and other War Criminals in the Pentagon and Congress.............or SHUT UP and help others who will! At least you still have a choice. Thousands, if not tens of thousands of others, don’t!

    Yankee Blue Veteran

    • Thank you , Major General Upman for reminding us that the military was once upon a time in the west, a moral, lawful organization of dedicated women and men. Given recent events it seems like a memory.

      Dear Yankee Blue------beautiful

  • the general is right.

    • YANKEE BLUE VETERAN is RIGHT! We, the American people, need the military to answer to the wishes of the people and arrest the criminals in the White House and their top associates. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith and the rest of their gang and the media propagandists, Limbaugh, Hannity and the sickening O’Reilly, should all be placed under military arrest for conspiracy, war crimes, treason. when the majority revolts and marches on the Capitol and the White House, will the military fire upon us? I doubt it. WE ARE THE MAJORITY AND WE MUST STAND TOGETHER. The military must support us or they will then be co-conspirators and traitors.

    • If one reads the constitution, it states that we must revolt against a goverment like this. But no one is revolting. This is Bush’s war and not the American peoples. Its all about oil! Look at the price and profits of the oil companies. Concerned citizen.

  • From the Declaration Of Independence:

    When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people
    to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,
    and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal
    station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a
    decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
    declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
    that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
    that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
    — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
    deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
    — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,
    it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute
    new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing
    its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
    Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
    established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and
    accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to
    suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing
    the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and
    usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce
    them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw
    off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
    —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the
    necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
    The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history
    of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
    establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this,
    let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

    We have the responsibility to replace this corrupt government. Our governement is on a path of empire building. They are outsourcing torture. They have commited multiple serious warcrimes.

    We can do this, and it does not have to be violent.

    Stop supporting the Military industrial complex.

    Stop buying their gadgets, toys, oil and cars.

    Stop going to work.

    Bring it down.

    — Admirer of Thomas Paine

  • HE IS THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN MAJOR GENERAL.
    HE HAS INFORMATION VEGETABLE ANIMAL AND MINERAL.
    HE KNOWS THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AND ALL THEIR ACTS HISTORICAL,
    FROM MADISON TO WATERLOO IN ORDER CATIGORICAL.............................................
    if this goofball knows so effing much let him run for president.

    • This VietNam Vet almost up chucked over the stuff I read on this Left Wing Post. I don’t know the General, I respect his rank, but not his Views. Its funny these generals alway speak out after the fact. And after their asked to leave the service. Ala Westley Clark. They all want to sell a book, I’m not buying

  • General,
    I salute you!
    Sincerely,
    Otto Schiff,
    formerly Sgt. Otto Schiff, ordnace Dept. U.S. Army