http://www.alternet.org/asoldierspeaks/49738/The US media has avoided this story, which has been reported widely in the UK. A question that the Pentagon spokesperson needs to answer: exactly how many soldiers have gone AWOL since the Iraq invasion and how does this compare with past American military engagements?
American and British soldiers are increasingly taking drastic action to avoid deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. As recently reported in the press, the Pentagon has "revised" the number of military desertions in 2006 upward to 3,196 active-duty soldiers -- 853 more than the Pentagon previously announced. And in a article released today, the British Independent newspaper reports that the UK Ministry of Defense "estimates there have been 10,000 AWOL incidents since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and 1,100 servicemen are currently 'on the run' from the Army." The article excerpted below, from the German magazine Der Spiegel, illustrates the difficult alternatives that soldiers who don't want to be deployed are facing....more
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