You can support the troops all you want,

[JohnyCanuck]

but if I were an American the only ones I'd be supporting are the ones like Joshua Key.

US Army Deserter Fled Iraq for New Life in Canada

Joshua Key grew to hate his army's chaotic brutality. In BC, he seeks legal refuge and a home.

By Rebecca Craigie
Published: August 2, 2005


The Keys are living in a van because of Joshua Key’s opposition to the US-led war in Iraq. While many opponents of the Iraq war base their opposition on media reports, Key’s opinion is based on what he witnessed when he fought for eight months in Iraq’s Sunni Triangle.

Key never thought he’d end up in Iraq in the first place. When he first enlisted, he signed up to be a bridge builder in a non-deployable unit. Despite this the army trained him in explosives and landmines, and sent him to Iraq in April of 2003.

<snip>

According to Key, sympathy for the Iraqi people was one of his downfalls. “You’re told to treat the enemy as though they’re guilty until proven innocent, and to have no remorse and no regret.” During a traffic control point that Key was part of, an American tank blew up a car that passed through without permission. There was a father and his child inside. The father was dead and the boy was badly injured. Key bandaged him up and took him to the closest hospital.

“I wasn’t supposed to do this as it showed sympathy to the enemy.” Key and other U.S soldiers searched the car afterwards and there were no signs of contraband anywhere. “They just didn’t understand what stop meant,” he says sadly. There were signs everywhere that showed the military’s lack of control. At a scene in Ramadi, Key realized that no soldier was going to be held accountable for their actions. “We turned a corner and all I saw were heads and bodies. It shocked us all. There were American troops in the middle saying they had lost it. My squad leader told me to go and see if I could find evidence of a firefight and what went on. As soon as I stepped out of the tank I saw American soldiers kicking a head around like a soccer ball.

http://www.thetyee.ca/News/2005/08/02/IraqDeserter/

[pocket]

1. ditto, except I am an Ammurkin

This is the troop I support, not those guys kicking heads around and raping young boys.

[livinginphotographs]

2. I'm a 'Murikan

And my number one fear is not that guys like Joshua Key are coming home, but that the ones that committed these crimes are.

You don't go from kicking a head down a Baghdad street to a normal, well-adjusted life at home.

If this is how some react when they "lose it," can you imagine what will happen when this guys kids are annoying him and he "loses it?"