Monday, October 8, 2007

Iraq Veterans Against the War

On January 13, 1946, 500 GIs in Paris adopted a set of demands called "The Enlisted Man's Magna Charta", calling for radical reforms of the master-slave relationship between officers and enlisted men; also demanding the removal of Secretary of War Robert Patterson. In the Philippines, soldier sentiment against the reduced demobilization crystalized in a meeting of GIs that voted unanimously to ask Secretary Patterson and certain Senators: "What is the Army's position in the Philippines, especially in relation to the reestablishment of the Eighty-sixth Infantry Division on a combat basis?"
By the summer of 1946 there had been a huge demobilization of the armed forces, although there's no way of knowing with any exactness how much of that was due to the GIs' protests.
If this is how American soldiers could be inspired and organized in the wake of "The Good War", imagine what can be done today in the midst of "The God-awful War".
Iraq Veterans Against the War could use your help. Go to: http://www.ivaw.org/

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