Veterans and families fight a war at home

U.S. groups mount grass-roots battle over Iraq

Tomas Young was 22 years old and working as a waiter for a Kansas City-area eatery in 2001 when attacks on the World Trade Center spurred him to a patriotic act.

"I wanted to go to Afghanistan to exact some retribution on the people who attacked us," said Young, who joined the Army days after the September 11 attacks.

Today, the 27-year-old is paralyzed from the chest down because of a bullet he took in Iraq, not Afghanistan. He spends his days trying to convince others not to enlist -- part of a growing movement of Iraq war veterans, military family members and others determined to stop a war they see as ill-advised and possibly illegal.

But...

Rebecca Davis of Brewer, Maine, is also a military mom, with three sons who have served in Iraq. She has formed "Military Families Voice of Victory" with a counter view. "Everybody in the world worries that their son or daughter needs to be safe. ... But you don't try to pull them out because their job is too hard," she said. "We want to see them succeed."

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More than 1,700 active duty, reserve, and guard service members have signed a petition to Congress called "An Appeal for Redress," started last year to urge a "prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq."

On the flip side, at least 1,500 soldiers are supporting an "Appeal for Courage" asking Congress to "fully support our mission in Iraq and halt any calls for retreat."

The boots and dog tags of U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Alexander S. Arredondo, who was killed on August 25, 2004 in Najaf, Iraq, sit on a casket as people read the names of killed soldiers, during an anti-war demonstration in Times Square in New York City March 11, 2007.

Sponsored by the group "Granny Peace Brigade NYC" and other anti-war groups, the six-day long demonstration will invite people to read out loud the names of those killed in the war in Iraq as the five-year-anniversary of the U.S. lead invasion of Iraq approaches.

Meanwhile, low-life militants descend to new lows: In New Tactic, Militants Burn Houses in Iraq.

BAGHDAD, March 11 — Sunni militants burned homes in a mixed city northeast of Baghdad on Saturday and Sunday, forcing dozens of families to flee and raising the specter of a new intimidation tactic in Iraq’s evolving civil war, Iraqi officials and witnesses said.

These attacks by terrorists come, ironically, as al-Qaeda is Looking for a new home in Iraq:

KARACHI - Having solidified its leadership and opened up financial lifelines, al-Qaeda is preparing for its next major step - establishing a new base in the heart of the Middle East, Iraq. This will position al-Qaeda to step up attacks on Europe in an effort to force Western countries to cut their strategic alliances with Washington, and to serve as a nerve center to bring new al-Qaeda groups into action in the Arab world.

According to people familiar with al-Qaeda's thinking who spoke to Asia Times Online, Osama bin Laden's deputy and the group's ideologue, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, sees potential for the group to capitalize on a possible US war over Iran. Relocating the al-Qaeda leadership from the Afghan-Pakistani border areas would put it closer to this new "epicenter".

The al-Qaeda leadership is biding its time, banking on sufficient chaos in Iran and Iraq for it to move to the Middle East, according to Asia Times Online interactions with various sources.

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If U.S. and coalition forces can manage to keep al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups bogged in Afghanistan this spring, they can prevent more deadly insurgents from moving into Iraq.