Military Families With Loved Ones in Iraq Oppose the War While Supporting U.S. Troops

Interview with Larry Syverson, member of Military Families Speak Out, conducted by Scott Harris

As America observed Veterans Day 2003, many families of military personnel stationed in Iraq were becoming increasingly apprehensive while they watched the U.S. death toll continue to rise. Since the Pentagon concluded major combat operations on May 1, more than 250 U.S. soldiers have been killed, with a total of nearly 400 dead since the launch of the war in March. According to the Department of Defense, some 2,200 troops have been wounded in American military operations in Iraq thus far. An independent report released by the Project on Defense Alternatives in late October estimated that 13,000 Iraqis were killed during the initial combat phase of the war, with between 3,200 and 4,300 of the dead, unarmed civilians.

Larry Syverson of Richmond, Va. has four sons who have served in the U.S. military. Two of them, Bryce and Branden, are now on combat duty in some of the most dangerous areas of Iraq. Syverson, a senior environmental engineer with Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality, has strongly opposed President Bush's war from the start and participates in vigils at Richmond's federal building several times a week to make his views known to all who will listen.

Syverson is a member of the group, Military Families Speak Out, which was formed last year to support those who oppose the war and who have relatives or loved ones in the military. The group, now numbering over 1,000 families, believes it has a unique role to play in speaking out against the war. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Larry Syverson, who discusses his concern for his sons serving in Iraq and the reasons he opposes the Bush administration's war.

Contact Military Families Speak Out through their website at www.mfso.org or email them at mfso@mfso.org

Related links:

Bring Them Home Now at www.bringthemhomenow.org

Veterans for Peace at www.veteransforpeace.org

Citizen Soldier at www.citizen-soldier.org

Veterans Against the Iraq War at www.vaiw.org/vet/index.php

Veterans for Common Sense at www.veteransforcommonsense.org

"Will U.S. Bring Back the Draft?" Defense Web Site Seeks Volunteers; Conscription Abolished in '73, by Tim Harpe, the Toronto Star, Nov. 5, 2003

"The Wages of War: Iraqi Combatant and Noncombatant Fatalities in the 2003 Conflict," by Carl Conetta, PDA Research Monograph #8, Oct. 20, 2003

www.iraqbodycount.net

"How Many Body Bags?" by Robert Scheer, the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 4, 2003

"Deadly Tunnel Vision in Iraq," by Holly Sklar, Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, Oct. 31, 2003

"Helicopter Down: The Weekend Deaths in Iraq-and the Pentagon's Response-Remind One Former CIA Analyst of Vietnam," by Ray McGovern, TomPaine.com, Nov. 3, 2003

"Progress in Iraq? Shot Down, Killed, Wounded, Depressed," by Frida Berrigan, Nov. 4, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

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Coalition forces are getting more aggressive in their efforts to secure Iraq, the Los Angeles Times reports, describing an operation in Mamudiyah, south of Baghdad:

"U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police arrived at the sprawling three-family farmhouse just after 4 p.m. with orders for the 15 or so people still living there: Grab what you can in the next 30 minutes, and then leave. Your house is about to be bombed.

Two hours later on Monday, a pair of F-16 warplanes screamed overhead and dropped 1,000-pound laser-guided armaments on the boxy, concrete structure. The bombs left a deep crater strewn with smashed furniture, broken concrete and other debris. The lawn, shed and date trees around it remained intact.

U.S. military authorities said the bombing of the Najim family house was a prime example of a firm new response to those who plant roadside bombs, hide weapons or carry out ambushes that kill or harm American soldiers, and they want the people in these parts to know about it. . . .

"The message is this: If you shoot at an American or a coalition force member, you are going to be killed or you are going to be captured, and if we trace somebody back to a specific safe house, we are going to destroy that facility," said Maj. Lou Zeisman, a paratroop officer of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division deployed here from Fayetteville, N.C. "We are not going to take these continuous attacks."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-bombing12nov12,1,3404693.story

Hear hear. And let's not hear any more about how Israel is "overreacting" when it does exactly the same thing.

can you feel the love? We sure know how to win the hearts and minds of these grateful people.

Of course, I wouldn't recognize my heart or mind if it came up and bit me on my vaseline lubricated ass.

"We are not going to take these continuous attacks."

Really? Will the response make the attacks go away? It seems that retaliation has been soooo effective in Palestine, I mean...that's why they have peace there now.

What? They DON'T have peace? What the fuck? I guess it won't work in Iraq either...unless the only point is to give schmucks like Futility and his ilk a hard-on.

Some will see what happens when you try and get in the way of the Iraqi people's desire for a democratic society and wise up. Others won't. Hopefully, the others will be killed. There is no place in a free Iraq for those who wish to go back to Saddam's regime.

Yeah, whatever...

....wish in one hand, shit in the other..see which one fills up faster....

.."free Iraq"...where everything is 'free' for the taking!

If it were up to me, those people In Iraq would still be grinding up in the shreadders. I don't have a clue about much at all. I'm a liberal.

Trent Lott (R-Miss): "“If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens."

There's a reason I'm a one eyed man. It's from being skull-fucked by the boys down at Rene's.

I apologize for the above statement I C&P'd. I have no understanding of metaphors. I can barely get up in the morning to cash my welfare check. I am a liberal.

Metaphor?!?!?!?! Yeah, a metaphor for "kill every last one of 'em".

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Yeah, sorta like "If you don't shut your trap, I'm gonna kill you" is a metaphor. Don't believe me? Let's agree to meet on a certain street corner and I'll explain it to ya.

OK...Hollywood and Vine...this Friday...9:00 PM...

BE THERE!

What? No reply once the guantlet was taken up?

C'mon...I picked Hollywood 'cause that's where I figured you spent your Friday nights...thought I'd make it easy for ya to 'splain it to me...

...would somewhere near West Hollywood be more convienient?