Iraq Vets speaking out...

Back when this war started over three years ago, I began looking across the ocean for news from the rest of the world. I was losing faith in the American media and started to wonder how news was being reported from outside the box... Not much has changed, except that now I usually get up each day at 3 or 4 AM to listen to the news from the BBC and get other stories from the Web. Here's a few of those recent discoveries that I'm sure will go missing from the US mainstream media:

This appeared in the Guardian in print and on-line.

'If you start looking at them as humans, then how are you gonna kill them?'
They are a publicity nightmare for the US military: an ever-growing number of veterans of the Iraq conflict who are campaigning against the war. To mark the third anniversary of the invasion this month, a group of them marched on Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. Inigo Gilmore and Teresa Smith joined them.

This story is a sizeable video report from the BBC's Newsnight presented by Jeremy Paxman on Wednesday, 29 March, 2006.

When the dust settles: Anger from US soldiers back from Iraq
Latest polls show a clear majority of Americans are now against the campaign in Iraq. Some soldiers who have returned from Iraq are disillusioned by their experience.

Inigo Gilmore reports from the US, "We have a powerful film this evening. We follow a group of former US soldiers who have returned from Iraq deeply affected by the experience. As they march across America to protest against the war they reveal their own experiences of the conflict, make some disturbing allegations about military practices in Iraq and reflect on how it feels to come home."

This is an audio report on a US soldier who went AWOL after serving for 8 months in Iraq.

US deserters flee to Canada
Hundreds of US soldiers have deserted and gone across the border to Canada in order to avoid serving in Iraq.

You have two choices, either get back on that plane for Iraq or go to jail," Josh Key says he was informed by the military. "I won't spend one day in jail unless George W. Bush is with me."

Josh spent the next 14 months on the run with his wife and children here in the US, then they fled to Canada. Josh has now applied for asylum as he does not want to be imprisoned for refusing to fight.