As a member of Veterans for Peace I have to admit I'm getting tired of hearing about how we should support the troops. We should be supporting the people in Iraq who are being killed by our troops or are being killed because our troops invaded a country that was no threat to us.

I was part of the American army that invaded another country that was no threat to us and helped with the killing of two and a half million innocent Vietnamese. I am ashamed of my part in that war crime.

I am also ashamed that the U.S. government has caused the death of several million Iraqis between the first Gulf War, the genocidal sanctions against the Iraqi people and the recent invasion and occupation of Iraq. I am ashamed that the Bush crime gang has done this in my name as an American.

A new study from the Iraqi Health Ministry has found that close to seventy percent of Iraqi school children are showing symptoms of trauma-related stress. Many children in Baghdad cannot walk in the streets without seeing dead bodies. All Americans should be shamed that we have caused such a tragedy for these innocents.

According to recent Red Cross studies, Iraqis have suffered the worst increase in infant mortality in the world since we first invaded their country in 1990 and then imposed the sanctions. The Iraqi infant mortality is worse than that of sub-Saharan Africa. We have caused this.

Vice President Cheney recently stated that we can still win in Iraq. What does he mean by win? We can win by killing every person living in Iraq. Does he mean that? We could have won in Vietnam by dropping nuclear weapons and killing tens of millions of the Vietnamese.

The will of the victims of our illegal and immoral aggression in Iraq is known. U.S. -run polls show that among the Iraqi people there is overwhelming support for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops. Eighty percent of Iraqis think that the presence of the U.S. troops increase the level of violence. Over sixty percent of Iraqis think that the occupation U.S. troops are legitimate targets.

As the illegal aggressor nation the United States has no rights to make any decisions in Iraq. This invasion and occupation is a clear case of an international crime for which the United States, which means all of us, has only responsibilities. We are responsible to remove our illegal occupation immediately. We are responsible pay reparations for all the illegal damage we have done to the Iraqi people over the past seventeen years. Some say we should pay reparations to the Iraqis for our support of Saddam Hussein during the 1980s.

I believe that most Americans are decent and honorable people who would be ashamed of what our country has done if they know the truth. The truth is that the best way to support our troops is to bring them home now and alive.

Larry Kerschner