On Thursday, Sergeant Ricky Clousing, a born-again Christian who had gone AWOL after serving in Iraq and seeing how the Iraqi people were treated, was sentenced to 11 months confinement in a courts-martial hearing in Fort Bragg, NC. An article in the New York Times described what made Clousing decide it was completely immoral to keep fighting in Iraq:
He said he saw American soldiers shoot and kill an unarmed Iraqi
teenager, and rode in an Army Humvee that sideswiped Iraqi cars and
shot an old man’s sheep for fun – both incidents Sergeant Clousing
reported to superiors. He said his work as an interrogator led him to
conclude that the occupation was creating a cycle of anti-American
resentment and violence. After months of soul-searching on his return
to Fort Bragg, Sergeant Clousing, 24, failed to report for duty one day…Arriving in Iraq in November 2004, he said he was stunned at the number
of Iraqis he was assigned to interrogate who were either innocent or
disgruntled citizens resentful about the American occupation. He said
he told his commander: “Your soldiers and the way they”re behaving are
creating the insurgency you”re trying to fight. It’s a cycle. You don’t
see it, but I’m talking to the people you”re bringing to me.”(A Soldier Hoped to Do Good, but Was Changed by War, NY Times, 10/13/06)
The military (yes the same military that ignored and covered up the war crimes Clousing reported) made certain that Clousing didn’t get away with refusing to fight in an immoral war, as this could send a message to other soldiers who are questioning what they are being ordered to do.
Clousing’s actions are exactly what is needed right now by many more GI’s and the only correct moral stance to take in the face of a war that, according to a new study, has killed 655,000 Iraqis.