The Anti-War Movement and Iraq by Stephen R. Shalom

Likewise, a crucial task for the general anti-war movement is building and supporting an anti-war movement within the U.S. military. This is a complicated undertaking, for we have to express our support for soldiers as individuals, without supporting their mission; we have to make clear that what would support them most is their immediate withdrawal from Iraq. We have to point out how their inadequate armor shows the real concern that the Bush administration has for soldiers lives, but without joining jingoist calls to make the US occupation army a better-armored and more effective occupying force. With an appropriately sensitive approach, we can even explain why someone who takes up arms against an unjust occupation is not necessarily an evil person. But if we refuse to condemn those who attack mosques and marketplaces, our ability to convince soldiers of the justice of some resistance is likely to be small.