As the US continues to step up war efforts in Afghanistan, the number of US soldiers refusing deployment to war zones is also increasing. On the ground, they find themselves being terrorists, says writer Dahr Jamail.
“More troops are realizing that, given that they join the military swearing to defend and support the constitution of the US, the part of the oath says they have to follow lawful orders. So by definition, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, since it happened without UN Security Council ratification, in fact this is not self-defense. It wasn’t the nation of Afghanistan that attacked the US. So a soldier who follows a direct order to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan is actually violating his own uniform code in military justice that says to follow lawful orders,” says independent journalist Jamail.
Dahr Jamal spent years in Iraq writing about what he calls the U.S. occupation of the country. He is the author of the book “The Will to Resist“, in which he attempts to explain why soldiers destined for the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan are going AWOL.