US:
Fewer and Fewer Latinos Willing to Die in Iraq
Diego Cevallos MEXICO CITY,
May 31 (IPS) -
A total of 215 Latino soldiers serving in the U.S. army have already died in Iraq, but according to anti-war activists, this bad news comes with a silver lining: an ever smaller number of young people of Latin American descent are enlisting in the armed forces.
I'm glad that the army is no longer able to recruit as many soldiers, and that more people are raising their voices against this criminal invasion,” said Camilo Mejía, a Nicaraguan-born former staff sergeant in the U.S. army who refused to return to his unit in Iraq after spending five months stationed there in 2003.
While Mejía declared himself a conscientious objector, the United States deemed him a deserter, and sentenced him to nine months in prison.
Last year, 9,477 foreign-born residents of the United States signed up for the U.S. armed forces - 2,352 fewer than in 2003, according to official statistics from the George W. Bush administration.
”There are so many people dying in this senseless, criminal war that going to jail to oppose it or refusing to join the army are not very big sacrifices when you compare them to all the innocent people killed in the war,” Mejía told IPS. ”
I didn't want to die in a war that isn't mine, a war that is unjust and immoral. That's why I turned myself in to my superiors,” declared the soldier-turned-activist, the son of Nicaraguan singer-songwriter Carlos Mejía Godoy, whose music served as the ”soundtrack” to the 1979 leftist Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua.
Since the beginning of the occupation of Iraq in March 2003, a total of 1,653 soldiers from the United States have died there. Almost 15 percent of these casualties were of Latin American birth or descent, according to figures gathered by the Guerrero Azteca (Aztec Warrior) Project, a U.S.-based group that is demanding the return of the soldiers sent to the Middle East.
The proportion of Latino soldiers who have died in Iraq, most of whom were privates, is higher than the proportion of Latinos in the U.S. armed forces as a whole, which stands at 9.2 percent.
>>>continued
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=28887
Fewer and Fewer Latinos Willing to Die in Iraq
Diego Cevallos MEXICO CITY,
May 31 (IPS) -
A total of 215 Latino soldiers serving in the U.S. army have already died in Iraq, but according to anti-war activists, this bad news comes with a silver lining: an ever smaller number of young people of Latin American descent are enlisting in the armed forces.
I'm glad that the army is no longer able to recruit as many soldiers, and that more people are raising their voices against this criminal invasion,” said Camilo Mejía, a Nicaraguan-born former staff sergeant in the U.S. army who refused to return to his unit in Iraq after spending five months stationed there in 2003.
While Mejía declared himself a conscientious objector, the United States deemed him a deserter, and sentenced him to nine months in prison.
Last year, 9,477 foreign-born residents of the United States signed up for the U.S. armed forces - 2,352 fewer than in 2003, according to official statistics from the George W. Bush administration.
”There are so many people dying in this senseless, criminal war that going to jail to oppose it or refusing to join the army are not very big sacrifices when you compare them to all the innocent people killed in the war,” Mejía told IPS. ”
I didn't want to die in a war that isn't mine, a war that is unjust and immoral. That's why I turned myself in to my superiors,” declared the soldier-turned-activist, the son of Nicaraguan singer-songwriter Carlos Mejía Godoy, whose music served as the ”soundtrack” to the 1979 leftist Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua.
Since the beginning of the occupation of Iraq in March 2003, a total of 1,653 soldiers from the United States have died there. Almost 15 percent of these casualties were of Latin American birth or descent, according to figures gathered by the Guerrero Azteca (Aztec Warrior) Project, a U.S.-based group that is demanding the return of the soldiers sent to the Middle East.
The proportion of Latino soldiers who have died in Iraq, most of whom were privates, is higher than the proportion of Latinos in the U.S. armed forces as a whole, which stands at 9.2 percent.
>>>continued
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=28887
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 9:39 PM
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