Recent Reports

Recent reports have indicate an additional 1400 US Marines are being sent to Afghanistan in the coming weeks. This escalation is occurring in light of last year's reports that it costs over $1 million annually to put one US GI on the ground over there. I do place a higher level of blame on the policy makers behind the...ir desks who send soldiers off to kill and be killed than I do on the grunts in the field. But neither can the troops escape with their conscience unscathed, much as that may be desirable for them. Jingoistic saber-ratlling doesn't cut any ice with me. Robert McNamara was right when he ironically told us: "The Human Race needs to think more about killing."

One needs to do the unpleasant introspection: "Are these wars JUST?" I believe they are a flagrant violation of the US Constitution's requirement that the President go to Congress to ask for a declaration of war, if one is really needed. I believe that all of our wars since 1945 have been illegal, under international law as well.
I suggest that everyone who reads this examine their conscience as it relates to the matter of making war. The fact that many soldiers are motivated by a strong sense of duty does not give them some automatic, unqualified moral right to support this war or any other. I happen to know that soldiers take an oath to the United States Constitution. So I think it's incumbent upon all the troops, and the entire population, to determine whether the Afghan or Iraq wars are in accordance with the specific terms of that venerated document. Who among you can credibly argue that they are?