Military Families Speak Out continues to fight the good fight. "Bring Them Home NOW and Take Care of Them When They Get Here" has been their motto from the beginning. I would urge any military families here to take a look at their site Military Families Speak Out. I also recommend the site and their Talking Points (after the bump) for all who want to end the war and could be convinced that now is the right time. I am proud to be a member. I will apologize in advance for not linking to the talking points on their site, but I couldn't find it there, so I will cut and paste it from the email and hope I am not stepping on toes.
On a slightly different topic, with all the talking about Bush asking about Webb's son, I didn't see anyone who had a son/daughter/spouse deployed asked about how they would have responded. I am with Webb. If someone asked my about my deployed son then told me to shut up about wanting him safe at home, I would probably end up in custody. All three sons are now back home, but every military family knows, they are here by the Grace of God, because too many other people's children did not come back. In this war, surviving is not a matter of smart, well trained or good - it is a matter of luck.
MFSO Talking Points (updated 12/06): Speaking at Events or with the Media
Below are some talking points that may be helpful for Military Families Speak Out members in preparing to speak at events or with the press. The three most important things to focus on are:
· your personal story as a military family,
· your membership in Military Families Speak Out, and
· the message of "Support Our Troops -- Bring Them Home Now and Take Care of Them When They Get Here"
Keep in mind when speaking with the press that most of the time they won’t print or air long responses, comments or explanations – they are usually looking for shorter, sharper "sound bites." Think in advance about what your key "sound bites" are. Although it may feel awkward to say the same thing over and over again (like "and that’s why we have to bring them home now and take care of them when they get here" or "as a member of Military Families Speak Out") – the press will only use a small portion of what you say and repetition will help ensure that they "get it right".
When you are at events, demonstrations, vigils, etc., you may be approached by a reporter and asked questions without much warning. Be prepared and think ahead of time of the key points you want to make. Remember that you can always either decline to answer a particular question or move the conversation back to your key points by saying something like "While that’s an interesting question, the important point I want to make is...." You can say what you want, no matter what the reporters ask. Always remember, you don’t have to comment on everything or answer every question that is put to you.
With that as background, here are MFSO’s updated talking points:
· "As a Military Family" – Be sure to identify yourself as a military family when you speak at an event or to the press and describe you connection to the military.
· "As a Member of Military Families Speak Out" – It is important to identify yourself as a member of Military Families Speak Out. This lets the public know that your voice represents a larger number of military families who are against the war. It also lets military families out there who are not connected with MFSO know that they are not alone. You can start almost any sentence with the phrase, "As a member of Military Families Speak Out......"
Note: Be sure to ask print media and TV reporters to identify you in the piece as a member of Military Families Speak Out. For television interviews, that generally means requesting that the electronic graphic that appears on the screen when you are talking says "Member, Military Families Speak Out," or that when the anchor or reporter introduces the segment, they refer to you as a member of Military Families Speak Out. When doing live interviews, make sure you mention that you are a member of Military Families Speak Out.
· "Bring Them Home NOW and Take Care of Them When They Get Here." This is MFSO’s key message. The most controversial part of this for many people is "Now". The U.S. invasion and now occupation of Iraq was wrong from the beginning and continuing it will not make it right. A continuation of the war will only lead to more deaths among US troops and Iraqi children, women and men. It will make us less safe in the world. It will mean more troops suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and exposure to depleted uranium. [For more information on why staying in Iraq will not make things better for Iraqis, read the piece by General Odom at the end of this document, called "Cut and Run – You Bet."]
· We want immediate action from Congress. In the November, 2006 elections, the people of the United States made it clear that they want the war in Iraq to end. Although the Democrats didn’t run on the war and didn’t make promises to end the war, they won the election based on the dissatisfaction of the people of this country with the war. They won based on the hope or the assumption that a new Congress led by Democrats will bring the war to an end. We expect all those in Congress – Democrats, Republicans and Independents – to act on this mandate, and take action to end the war.
· The key action needed now is for Congress to cut off funding for the war. The power Congress has to end the U.S. military occupation of Iraq is to cut of funding for continuing the war. We want Congress to act immediately to stop funding the war.
· Cutting off funds for the war does not mean cutting off funding for the troops. There are enough funds from the $70 billion appropriation approved by Congress in the fall of 2006 to ensure that the troops will have all that they need (armor, protective equipment, weapons, ammunition, food, water, clothes, supplies, vehicles, etc.) to come home quickly and safely. The most supportive thing that Congress can do for our troops is to get them home from a war that they should never have been sent off to fight.
· Congress should not appropriate any new funds to continue the war in Iraq. Military Families Speak Out supports the immediate cutting off of all funding for the war in Iraq, save those funds needed to bring our troops home quickly and safely. We understand that later this winter or spring, 2007, the administration will be asking Congress for a new supplemental appropriation for the war in Iraq. We call on Congress to reject any new appropriations to continue the war. The mandate from the people of this country is to end the war – Congress must do just that by ending the funding that allows the war in Iraq to continue.
Below are some possible questions that the press could ask, and ideas for responses.
· How long will you give the new Congress to change course? We don’t expect the new Congress will act on their own to end this war. It has never been a politician who ended a war – it has always been a social movement. Military Families Speak Out is part of a growing movement, representing a majority of the people of this country, who want this war to end. We view the November elections as the creation of an opportunity. Now is the time for people across this country – including military families and Veterans - to keep the pressure on, and not let the momentum slip. We say to Congress: we cannot afford a honeymoon -- our loved ones are in harm’s way in a war based on lies. We cannot afford to wait as politicians look around for a way out of Iraq that satisfies their own political careers.
· Some people and organizations are asking the new Congress to focus on impeachment. Should impeachment hearings be the focus of the new Congress?
Military Families Speak Out is focused on ending the war in Iraq. The main order of business is to stop the killing. Then, hearings and trials should be held to hold accountable those who were responsible for sending our loved ones off to fight and die, and for condemning hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to death, in a war that was unjust and unjustifiable.
· Won’t cutting off funding for the war also cut off funding for the troops?
The administration and other supporters of the war have, from the beginning, tried to use "support for the troops" as a cover for continuing the war. We continue to say that the most supportive thing that can be done for our troops is to end the war, bring them home now and take care of them when they get here. We call on Congress to support the troops and de-fund the war.
There are enough funds from the $70 billion appropriation approved by Congress in fall, 2006 to ensure that the troops will have all that they need (armor, protective equipment, weapons, ammunition, food, water, clothes, supplies, vehicles, etc.) to come home quickly and safely.
It is the Bush administration that is not supporting or funding the troops. Right now, the Bush administration is taking money that was appropriated for the troops and spending it on a war that is, simply put, wrong. They are spending it on continuing the Back Door Draft – on stop loss, on extensions, on multiple deployments, on sending the National Guard, on calling up the Individual Ready Reserve and on putting pressure on the troops to re-enlist. They are spending it on occupying Iraq, even though the people of Iraq, the people of the United States and the troops themselves are saying in their majority that we should be out of Iraq.
· This administration has not been allocating the funds needed to provide the medical and psychological support for our troops when they get home.
· This administration has not been allocating the funds needed for our troops’ transition back to civilian life – including adequately funding education and jobs programs.
· If the U.S. military occupation of Iraq ends, won’t there be chaos and civil war in Iraq?
There is chaos and civil war now. The U.S. military occupation of Iraq has not prevented chaos and civil war. In fact, the U.S. occupation of Iraq is the problem, not the solution. We are gasoline on the fire that is raging in Iraq. Not only are the Iraqi people suffering from injuries, loss of their homes and the death of loved ones, but those who cooperate with the U.S. military are being targeted as "collaborators" with a foreign occupation. While no one knows exactly what things will look like when we leave, we do know exactly what they will look like if we stay. On average, two U.S. troops and countless Iraqis die each and every day the military occupation of Iraq continues.
· A growing number of those serving in Congress are talking about various ‘exit strategies’ in Iraq – do you support the concept of an ‘exit strategy’?
Getting the troops out of Iraq is about logistics and about military strategy. Our elected officials need to make the decision to end this war. Then the military can do what they have been trained to do – implement a re-deployment strategy that gets our troops out of Iraq swiftly and safely, and brings them home. The only real military exit strategy we need is one that gets our troops safely onto planes, trucks and ships.
Our elected officials who talk about exit strategies are only delaying taking a stand, and they are condemning approximately two U.S. troops and countless Iraqis to death, as these politicians sit in their safe locations and discuss strategy.
For the most part, statements about exit strategies are about politics in the U.S., not about the situation in Iraq. Politicians are looking for ways to extricate themselves from the political mess of Iraq without doing themselves any political damage – while our loved ones remain in harm’s way for no good reason. The real exit strategy is Bring Them Home Now.
The United States does have a responsibility to the people and to the rebuilding of Iraq. But this is not in the form of a military occupation, nor of tax-payer funding for U.S. contractors like Halliburton and the Carlyle Group.
· Some elected officials and study group reports are advocating that U.S. troops come home at the end of 2007 or 2008 – isn’t that approach more realistic than ‘Bring Them Home Now?’ In the year 2007, at least 700 more U.S. troops and perhaps 180,000 Iraqis will be killed. If the U.S. military occupation of Iraq continues through 2008, we can expect another 700 U.S. troops and another 180,000 Iraqis to die. Not one more U.S. service man or woman, and not one more Iraqi child, woman or man should die in a war that should never have happened.
· Doesn’t a ‘phased withdrawal’ make more sense than calling for all the troops to be brought home now? Partial withdrawal of troops that is not part of a concerted effort to safely and quickly remove all of the troops from Iraq will only leave those who remain in Iraq at greater risk. If the U.S. cannot control the security situation in Iraq (we can’t even control the security situation in Baghdad, the capital city) with 130,000+ troops, how are we going to do it with 30,000, 60,000 or 100,000 fewer troops? The safest thing for our troops, the best thing for our nation, and the best thing for the people of Iraq is to get the troops out of Iraq as quickly as possible and bring them home now.
· Won’t leaving Iraq now be ‘cutting and running’?
It is not being a quitter to do what is right. It is not being a quitter to acknowledge your errors and fix them. It is not cutting and running to remove troops from harm’s way when they have been sent to fight in a war based on lies.
· Wouldn’t leaving Iraq now dishonor those who have lost their lives to this war?
The president would like us to believe that leaving now would be disgracing those who have already died, those who have already been wounded, those who have sacrificed so much. But more deaths, more wounded, more troops suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; more families suffering both here and in Iraq will not honor the sacrifices that have been made. In fact, those who have already died will best be honored by a nation with the courage to admit that it was wrong and show the courage to stop the carnage and end the war.
When you talk to the press, you may very well get an opening question like:
Why are you out here? Why are you speaking out against the war?
Here are some possible ideas for a response:
As someone with a loved one who serves (or served) in the military, I am here protesting against this war, hoping that our country is going to reverse the disastrous course in Iraq that has done so much damage to our troops, to the Iraqi people and to our nation. As a member of Military Families Speak Out, representing over 3,000 military families who are opposed to the war in Iraq, I am here to say: Support Our Troops, Bring Them Home Now and Take Care of Them When They Get Here.
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Cut and Run? You Bet.
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By Lt. Gen. William E. Odom
Why America must get out of Iraq now
Withdraw immediately or stay the present course? That is the key question about the war in Iraq today. American public opinion is now decidedly against the war. From liberal New England, where citizens pass town-hall resolutions calling for withdrawal, to the conservative South and West, where more than half of "red state" citizens oppose the war, Americans want out. That sentiment is understandable.
The prewar dream of a liberal Iraqi democracy friendly to the United States is no longer credible. No Iraqi leader with enough power and legitimacy to control the country will be pro-American. Still, U.S. President George W. Bush says the United States must stay the course. Why? Let's consider his administration's most popular arguments for not leaving Iraq.
If we leave, there will be a civil war. In reality, a civil war in Iraq began just weeks after U.S. forces toppled Saddam. Any close observer could see that then; today, only the blind deny it. Even President Bush, who is normally impervious to uncomfortable facts, recently admitted that Iraq has peered into the abyss of civil war. He ought to look a little closer. Iraqis are fighting Iraqis. Insurgents have killed far more Iraqis than Americans. That's civil war.
Withdrawal will encourage the terrorists. True, but that is the price we are doomed to pay. Our continued occupation of Iraq also encourages the killers - precisely because our invasion made Iraq safe for them. Our occupation also left the surviving Baathists with one choice: Surrender, or ally with al Qaeda. They chose the latter. Staying the course will not change this fact. Pulling out will most likely result in Sunni groups turning against al Qaeda and its sympathizers, driving them out of Iraq entirely.
Before U.S. forces stand down, Iraqi security forces must stand up. The problem in Iraq is not military competency; it is political consolidation. Iraq has a large officer corps with plenty of combat experience from the Iran-Iraq war. Moktada al-Sadr's Shiite militia fights well today without U.S. advisors, as do Kurdish pesh merga units. The problem is loyalty. To whom can officers and troops afford to give their loyalty? The political camps in Iraq are still shifting. So every Iraqi soldier and officer today risks choosing the wrong side. As a result, most choose to retain as much latitude as possible to switch allegiances. All the U.S. military trainers in the world cannot remove that reality. But political consolidation will. It should by now be clear that political power can only be established via Iraqi guns and civil war, not through elections or U.S. colonialism by ventriloquism.
Setting a withdrawal deadline will damage the morale of U.S. troops. Hiding behind the argument of troop morale shows no willingness to accept the responsibilities of command. The truth is, most wars would stop early if soldiers had the choice of whether or not to continue. This is certainly true in Iraq, where a withdrawal is likely to raise morale among U.S. forces. A recent Zogby poll suggests that most U.S. troops would welcome an early withdrawal deadline. But the strategic question of how to extract the United States from the Iraq disaster is not a matter to be decided by soldiers. Carl von Clausewitz spoke of two kinds of courage: first, bravery in the face of mortal danger; second, the willingness to accept personal responsibility for command decisions. The former is expected of the troops. The latter must be demanded of high-level commanders, including the president.
Withdrawal would undermine U.S. credibility in the world. Were the United States a middling power, this case might hold some water. But for the world's only superpower, it's patently phony. A rapid reversal of our present course in Iraq would improve U.S. credibility around the world. The same argument was made against withdrawal from Vietnam. It was proved wrong then and it would be proved wrong today. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the world's opinion of the United States has plummeted, with the largest short-term drop in American history. The United States now garners as much international esteem as Russia. Withdrawing and admitting our mistake would reverse this trend. Very few countries have that kind of corrective capacity. I served as a military attache in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow during Richard Nixon's Watergate crisis. When Nixon resigned, several Soviet officials who had previously expressed disdain for the United States told me they were astonished. One diplomat said, "Only your country is powerful enough to do this. It would destroy my country."
Two facts, however painful, must be recognized, or we will remain perilously confused in Iraq. First, invading Iraq was not in the interests of the United States. It was in the interests of Iran and al Qaeda. For Iran, it avenged a grudge against Saddam for his invasion of the country in 1980. For al Qaeda, it made it easier to kill Americans. Second, the war has paralyzed the United States in the world diplomatically and strategically. Although relations with Europe show signs of marginal improvement, the trans-Atlantic alliance still may not survive the war. Only with a rapid withdrawal from Iraq will Washington regain diplomatic and military mobility. Tied down like Gulliver in the sands of Mesopotamia, we simply cannot attract the diplomatic and military cooperation necessary to win the real battle against terror. Getting out of Iraq is the precondition for any improvement.
In fact, getting out now may be our only chance to set things right in Iraq. For starters, if we withdraw, European politicians would be more likely to cooperate with us in a strategy for stabilizing the greater Middle East. Following a withdrawal, all the countries bordering Iraq would likely respond favorably to an offer to help stabilize the situation. The most important of these would be Iran. It dislikes al Qaeda as much as we do. It wants regional stability as much as we do. It wants to produce more oil and gas and sell it. If its leaders really want nuclear weapons, we cannot stop them. But we can engage them.
None of these prospects is possible unless we stop moving deeper into the "big sandy" of Iraq. America must withdraw now.
Lt. Gen. William E. Odom (Ret.) is senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and professor at Yale University. He was director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988.