Wisconsin Communities Set to Vote on Withdrawing Troops (Bring The Troops Home Now!)

KEWAUNEE, WI (AP) -- Peace activist Jill Bussiere wants the United States to bring its troops home from Iraq immediately, so she went door-to-door in this community in the hopes of getting others to join her cause.

Bussiere helped organize a petition drive that resulted in a referendum on Iraq being put on the ballot during Kewaunee's upcoming spring election. It asks whether the city's leaders should urge the U.S. to begin an immediate withdrawal of its troops, beginning with the National Guard and Reserves.

"Is it ever practical to try and stop a war?" asked Bussiere, a 51-year-old mother of three. "But isn't it the right thing to do? Isn't it our duty?"

Kewaunee, a city of 3,000 on the shores of Lake Michigan, is one of 22 cities, villages and towns in Wisconsin that have an Iraq referendum on their April 4 ballots - elections usually dominated by local races for mayors, city councils and school boards. Fifty troops from Wisconsin have died in Iraq since the invasion nearly three years ago.

The effort in Wisconsin - in tiny villages like Frederic and Ephraim and the larger cities of Madison and La Crosse - is designed to influence later races for Congress, said coordinator Steve Burns at the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice in Madison.

Organizers, mostly associated with Wisconsin's Green Party, gathered enough signatures on petitions to put the issue before voters. Supporters do not expect to get the attention of President Bush, who has rejected calls for a troop withdrawl date.

"The plan is to win these referendums in diverse areas of the state so they are not just coming from liberal Madison," said Burns, a Green Party activist. "We all remember the 2004 presidential election when they spent more time talking about the Vietnam War than they did talking about the Iraq war. We don't want that to happen again."

City councils in other communities around the nation have approved measures opposing the war or calling for troops to come home.

Harlem Township in northern Illinois authorized a Nov. 1 troop withdrawal question for the March 21 ballot. In Burlington, Vt., anti-war activists gathered enough signatures on petitions to ask voters to urge the city to work to prevent overseas deployments of the Vermont Air National Guard. Last March, at dozens of annual town meetings in Vermont, communities voted on the war, mostly backing resolutions critical of it.

Seven of the Wisconsin votes are scheduled in the northeastern part of the state, in Kewaunee and Door counties. Bush won both in his 2004 re-election.

In La Crosse, a divided city council forwarded the issue to the ballot, but also voted 13 to 3 to oppose immediate withdrawl from Iraq. Alderman Tom Sweeney said the referendum was misguided.

"We don't win our wars when we don't let the generals run them," said Sweeney, a businessman who served 25 years in the Navy or the Navy Reserves. "This is going to have about as much weight as that pebble I am looking at in my driveway. No matter which way it goes, it is going to be irrelevant."

In Watertown, troops who served in Iraq told City Council they opposed putting the issue on the ballot and spoke passionately about how their work was important. The council ultimately decided the issue wasn't proper, but a judge later ordered it to put the measure on the ballot or adopt it. The referendum will appear on the April 4 ballot.

"I don't know how it is going to turn out," said Hiroshi Kanno, clerk of Newport, which has about 250 eligible voters near the tourist mecca of Wisconsin Dells. "We are a relatively conservative area. Maybe it will gin up the election a bit."

"The soldiers do not take it lightly, when they are used as pawns in their political games."

No, they don't. And how do I know? Because I used to be one. :) WI soldiers know of this foolishness, but they clearly know a "moonbat" when they see one, and military members vote. In large numbers.

We've lost 50 servicemembers from WI in the past two years; we lose that many (and more!) a year to car accidents in our state.

These Greenies are useless. They've wasted valueable time and resources at the city and county levels for nothing more than some press time. They are shameless.

I loathe socialists of all stripes, even if they call themselves "Green" or "Progressive" or anything with "Peace" in their made-up, self-important "titles."

Great post. Thank you for your service to our Country.

I would take these so called "progressive, liberal, socialist, peaceniks, democrats, communist, greenies, or what ever they are calling themselves today if they were only consistent in there assaults against what they claim to be insults to their ideology.

I.E. Where were these do goodie's when the government murdered every man women and child in WACO? Not one peep out of their mouths!

Where were they when a government sniper took aim, and murdered Randy Weavers unarmed wife, by, blowing her head off as she held her baby in her arms through a closed door in her own house?

These and many more were conducted while a liberal socialist progressive, communist, democrat was in the white house getting BJ's from an intern, and lying under oath in a Court proceeding.

Now these same peaceniks want us all to believe that GW is conducting an illegal war in Iraq, murdering innocent terrorist, and should bring the military home immediately! All of this AFTER we lost over 3000 fellow Americans in an unprovoked "attack" on US soil!

Credibility? No, I don't think so, not from me, and, I suspect, not from many, many other Americans either! WI. may have a real surprise on their hands in the up coming elections, because, families of the soldiers they want to use as pawns in their latest game, are fed up with this kind of grand standing too.

the door/kewaunee coast of Wisconsin is just like Cape Cod in MA. In the tourist towns, the liberals hang out. In the rural areas, it is SOLIDLY conservative. Sturgeon Bay is mostly republican, but does have a small amount of Hippies.

Instead of a referendum that reflects only one side of the issue ("C'mon! Let it be known that we hate George W. Bush and vote NOW to bring the troops home!"), why can't they grow themselves a pair and put in a question that people on both sides of the issue can answer ("Do you want to finish the job, or cut and run?").
</sykes>

Why can't that faction grow a pair? Oh, yeah. We'd have to have stem cell research and cloning, etc., and the evil Bush says "NO MONEY FOR YOU!" </soupnazi>

First, "You're Welcome!" I had a great military career and I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat. A little military time for everyone wouldn't be a bad thing, IMNSHO.

"WI may have a real surprise on their hands in the up coming elections, because, families of the soldiers they want to use as pawns in their latest game, are fed up with this kind of grand standing too."

We're counting on it. We have a VERY good chance of unseating our Dimowit Governor. A VERY good chance. Unfortunately, we're stuck with Feingold, Kohl and Baldwin for life it seems, and we'll have a very hard time getting anyone other than a female Dem as our next AG. I'll vote for neither, but if I have to be stuck with one, I'm hoping we'll get Falk versus Peg (The Keg) Lautenschlager.

Wisconsin also has a referendum on the ballot to add a WI Constitutional amendment further blocking gay marriage. It's already illegal here, but we don't want to take chances with activist judges. Normally I'm not for messing with a Constitution, but I'll make an exception in this case. That issue alone will bring out more conservative voters, I'm sure.

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