In a sign of the erosion, more than 1,000 soldiers will urge their congressmen in a written appeal this week to “support the prompt withdrawal” of all American forces from Iraq. “Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price,” the statement says. Anti-war appeals are common these days but this one is different: all the signatories are active duty soldiers and some have served in Iraq.
One of the appeal’s organizers is Liam Madden, a 22-year-old Marine Corp. Sergeant now based Quantico, VA. He spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Dan Ephron. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: How did [the appeal] start?
Liam Madden: I was visiting a friend last summer stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, who found a flyer for a talk on being active duty and opposing the war. David Cortright, the author of “Soldiers in Revolt”, about [G.I.] dissent during the Vietnam era, gave the talk. I think people there all had one thing in common: We all thought that if you feel strongly about something, you can’t just rest on your laurels and hope things get better. You have to do something. We started coordinating with each other on how to affect change in Iraq.
What’s wrong with the [Iraq] war?
It’s a war we never should have launched in the first place. It’s been incompetently executed and it’s brought no benefit to anyone involved, including the American people and the Iraqis. It’s just people dying for no benefit.
You enlisted in 2003, when the war was imminent. If this was your view, why did you sign up?
I enlisted because I needed some direction. I didn’t think I was going to deal with college well, I wasn’t mature enough and would have wasted my opportunity there. I enlisted for personal direction and for the opportunities the Marine Corps offered. I don’t think I knew for sure we were going to invade based on the evidence that was presented.
How did you react when you were told you would be going to Iraq?
I felt it was my job and it’s something I would do to the best of my ability. I wasn’t going to allow myself to make a big deal about it. It was part of my contract. It was important for me to complete four years in the Marine Corps to the best of my ability. So the issue [of whether] to go wasn’t even a question.
Tell me about the moment you found out you’d be deployed there.
We were in Japan. Our scheduled deployment was going to be to the Philippines and we were in the middle of a big exercise preparing for that. One day, they told us not to bother because we’d be in a ship on the way to Iraq within a week. It just stunned us all.
This was around September, 2004. How fully formed were your opinions on the war by then?
I had the same opinions but to a lesser degree. At that point, I think it was still salvageable in my eyes. I didn’t think it was going to be mismanaged as badly as it has been or that we were necessarily committed to the five to 10 year ordeal that it now seems we are. I thought it was, get in, do the job and get out.
What did you see in your seven months there?
The main mission of my unit was to patrol long stretches of road. I didn’t get to interact with people all that often. My primary job was ensuring communications went well…. But we cleared the city in Haditha and facilitated elections. To my discouragement, neither of those things really helped stabilize Iraq. I oppose the war in Iraq for reasons anyone who’s paying attention might oppose the war. It’s not that I came back traumatized. It’s an illegal war. It’s against U.N. Security Council resolutions we helped write. It’s costing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and billion dollars. It’s unconscionable to me.
What will you do if your unit redeploys to Iraq?
My contract ends soon but there’s a good chance I would be called up in the inactive reserves. They’re in need for them. Technically, I would have to go if I’m called up but what I would do depends on where I was in my life and what I had to lose. It would force me to make a very serious life judgment.
What risks are active duty soldiers taking by signing the appeal?
We’re not asking anyone to do anything illegal. We’re asking soldiers and service members to call on their Congressmen to end the war. Congress has the power of the purse. They don’t have to continue to fund the war. The people who are signing the appeal are active duty, active reservists and active guardsmen. These are people who don’t hate the military but they oppose this policy.
But aren’t you barred from signing political petitions while on active duty?
We can’t distribute petitions if they’re about war. But this is not a petition. It’s an appeal to our Congressmen, which is protected under the military whistleblowers act.
What’s been the reaction in your unit?
I’ve had a lot of positive feedback, even among people who don’t agree. They respect my right to have my opinion. That’s the general tone. There was one negative response. After my first press conference, a really media savvy high-ranking officer in the Marine Corps found my name and number and told me how much he disapproved of what I was doing, saying I was a coward and I was aiding the enemy. But I ended up having a dialogue with this guy. It evolved into something pretty positive in emails for a couple of weeks.
How do you respond to those charges—that you’re aiding the enemy and demoralizing troops?
How does what I’m doing embolden the enemy? I think you embolden the enemy by deploying hundreds of thousands of troops to the Middle East and validating the view that we’re imperialists. We’re asking for a reasonable end to this conflict.
