corrente

From our own Knight-Ridder, non-Beltway Inky:

Mildred McHugh had never attended a political protest until a few months ago. Now she's a regular at antiwar demonstrations, carrying a sign that reads, "Bring my son home."

"I feel so outraged about the way we were misled about the war," said McHugh, 44, of Pennington, N.J., whose soldier son, Steve, is stationed in Iraq's Sunni Triangle. "I need to be out here and feel like at least I'm doing something... . If it doesn't save my son, it might save someone else's."

A member of Military Families Speak Out, McHugh is the newest of recruits to an increasingly energized peace movement.

One of the most surprising developments, though, has been the growing number of military members and their families who are joining peace activists to protest the war.

"We military families have a direct stake in this," said Charlie Richardson, cofounder of Military Families Speak Out, which supports an immediate troop pullout. "Our sons and husbands and wives were sent into a war based on lies, and we think speaking out is the most supportive thing we can do for the troops."

The group has grown from two families to more than 1,500 in little more than a year, said Richardson, whose son is with the Marines in Iraq. "Our numbers go up every time troops are extended or redeployed."

Lansdowne's Pat Gunn was inspired to join after her son Jason, who had been severely wounded in Iraq, was redeployed by the Army - against a doctor's orders, she said. "It's not working," Gunn said of the U.S. occupation. "It's time to put something else in place."

[Ex-Marine Michael] Hoffman said those questions persist. He recalled a protest where he spoke in March in Fayetteville, N.C., that attracted soldiers from nearby Fort Bragg.

"They weren't in uniform but I could tell by their haircuts they were military," he said. "They told me, 'We can't get up and make a speech, but you need to keep doing what you're doing.' "
(via Inquirer)

Way to support the troops, Michael!

And now for the balance:

Even these passionate new allies, though, may not be enough to help the peace movement affect events in Iraq, some observers say.

"These movements are enormously important in reflecting the divisions of the nation," said James Jay Carafano, a former Army lieutenant colonel and a scholar of military affairs at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "But I don't think history has proved they are terribly important in influencing popular opinion or shaping public policy."

What a whore... What greater "heritage" is there than the lives of our sons and daughters?