<<
viewpoint archive | latest
items >>
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
We Support the Troops Who Oppose the War
Iraq Veterans Against the War will assemble history's largest gathering of US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Iraqi and Afghan survivors. They will provide first hand accounts of their experiences and reveal the reality of occupation. Truth, honesty and integrity are essential components to a functioning democracy. Concerned veterans are taking it upon themselves to make their available to everyone who cares about the direction of our country.
Soldiers and Marines are not to blame for the suffering of the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, these veterans stories will indicate that responsibility belongs to those in the seat of power and the problem goes much deeper than the atrocities of Abu Graib and Haditha.
This public investigation will be called the Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan. Winter Soldiers, according to founding father Thomas Paine, are the people who stand up for the soul of their country, even in its darkest hours. The lives of millions of people depend on American's having informed opinions and acting in accordance to their principles. The lives of thousand service members and civilians depend on you being a Winter Soldier.
Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) has called for Iraq & Afghanistan Winter Soldier hearings. Click here to learn more and sign the IVAW petition.
posted 01 december 2007
A Death in the Family
We received word early on the morning of September 15th that Dave Cline had passed away at his home in Jersey City, New Jersey the night before. We are saddened beyond words to lose this extraordinary hero, warrior for peace, and friend.
We first met Dave before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, in January, 2003, when the drumbeats for war were getting deafening. Dave was the president of Veterans For Peace, and he invited Military Families Speak Out to march with the Veterans For Peace contingent in a national demonstration in Washington, D.C. opposing a U.S. invasion of Iraq.
MFSO had formed just two months before, in November, 2002. We were at that time a small group of military families with loved ones already on their way to the Persian Gulf, or being prepared in various ways for deployment. The Veterans For Peace contingent included Vietnam Veterans and Veterans from other conflicts. They had signs calling out President Bush and Vice President Cheney as chicken-hawks who had never served in combat but were all too happy to send our children, our loved ones and another generation into a war on false pretences.
As we marched, Dave led us in cadence that spoke to us in a very special way:
HEY, HEY UNCLE SAM
WE REMEMBER VIET NAM
WE DON’T WANT YOUR IRAQ WAR
PEACE IS WHAT WE’RE MARCHIN’ FOR
IF THEY TELL YOU TO GO
THERE IS SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW
THEY WAVE THE FLAG WHEN YOU ATTACK
WHEN YOU COME HOME THEY TURN THEIR BACK
BUSH AND CHENEY TALK THAT TALK
BUT WE KNOW THEY’RE CHICKEN HAWKS
IF THEY THINK THEY’RE SO DAMN RIGHT
LET BUSH AND CHENEY GO TO FIGHT
Military Families Speak Out and Veterans For Peace became a family that January, and we have never been apart since. For this, we have Dave Cline to thank.
Dave brought Military Families Speak Out into the planning for a Veterans For Peace event in Washington, DC called "Operation Dire Distress", to take place at the end of March, 2003. As it turned out, Operation Dire Distress took place about a week and a half after the bombs began dropping on Baghdad. Operation Dire Distress ended up being the first national event protesting the U.S. invasion of Iraq. While many other groups seemed to suffer a set-back in organizing once hostilities began, Operation Dire Distress helped Veterans For Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Military Families Speak Out move forward strategically and together, without missing a beat, to build our voices as Veterans and Military Families speaking out to separate "support for our troops" from "support for the war," and to urge an end to a war we had hoped would never have started.
Dave Cline's phone number was entered in our 'speed dials;' and his counsel, advice, vision and strategic sense helped MFSO grow during those first months of hostilities and beyond. On July 2, 2003, when George Bush uttered his infamous "Bring 'em on!" in response to a reporter's question about the presence of an armed Iraqi resistance, we were on the phone with Dave Cline in a heartbeat. With Dave and others we formulated a response, a campaign to challenge Bush's statement and the U.S. military occupation of Iraq. As George Bush was saying "Bring 'em on," we said, "Bring 'em home!" Out of these conversations grew the Bring Them Home NOW! campaign in August, 2003. This campaign planted a pole for the peace/anti-war movement and the country as a whole; as the months and years went by, more and more have moved to this position.
Dave Cline continued to be a large part of the heart and soul of the movement to end the war in Iraq. He supported Military Families Speak Out in more ways than we can ever express. On the painful first anniversary of this unjust and unjustifiable war, VFP, MFSO and others went to Fayetteville, North Carolina to hold a "Support Our Troops – Bring Them Home NOW" rally. Dave's new set of cadences included a special one for Military Families Speak Out:
MILITARY FAMILIES SPEAK OUT
WE KNOW WHAT WE’RE TALKING BOUT
SONS AND DAUGHTERS, HUSBANDS, WIVES
BRING OUR LOVED ONES HOME ALIVE
With all due respect to those who have led cadence during demonstrations over the years and across the country, no one could do it quite like Dave. His voice would echo in our ears; now and for all time it will echo in our hearts.
In July, 2004 at the Veterans For Peace Conference in Boston, Massachusetts we stood proudly with Dave Cline and other members of Veterans For Peace and Military Families Speak Out as the eight founding members of a new organization – Iraq Veterans Against the War – held their first press conference. Dave was there at the beginning of that organization as well, and shared advice, counsel, vision and strategic planning with IVAW as it grew into the powerful organization it is today.
There is so much that Dave Cline helped to accomplish, building the movement for peace and justice over the years, across the country and around the world. We are so thankful that Dave Cline came into our lives when he did. His wit and wisdom helped guide the formation of Military Families Speak Out and our growth from 2 military families in November, 2002 to almost 3,700 today. We thank Dave for the inspiration, guidance and love that he gave to us, and to so many others.
Rest in Peace, Dave Cline!
With Gratitude and Love - In Peace and Solidarity,
Nancy Lessin and Charley Richardson
Nancy Lessin and Charley Richardson are Co-Founders of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO)
posted 19 september 2007
Bring 'em on?!
Fourth anniversary of Dubya's arm-chair machismo:
by Stan Goff
In 1970, when I arrived at my unit, Company A, 4th Battalion/503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade, in what was then the Republic of Vietnam, I was charged up for a fight. I believed that if we didn't stop the communists in Vietnam, we'd eventually be fighting this global conspiracy in the streets of Hot Springs, Arkansas. I'd been toughened by Basic Training, Infantry Training and Parachute Training, taught how to use my weapons and equipment, and I was confident in my ability to vanquish the skinny unter-menschen. So I was dismayed when one of my new colleagues--a veteran who'd been there ten months--told me, "We are losing this war."
Not only that, he said, if I wanted to survive for my one year there, I had to understand one very basic thing. All Vietnamese were the enemy, and for us, the grunts on the ground, this was a race war. Within one month, it was apparent that everything he told me was true, and that every reason that was being given to the American public for the war was not true.
We had a battalion commander whom I never saw. He would fly over in a Loach helicopter and give cavalier instructions to do things like "take your unit 13 kilometers to the north." In the Central Highlands, 13 kilometers is something we had to hack out with machetes, in 98-degree heat, carrying sometimes 90 pounds over our body weights, over steep, slippery terrain. The battalion commander never picked up a machete as far as we knew, and after these directives he'd fly back to an air-conditioned headquarters in LZ English near Bong-son. We often fantasized together about shooting his helicopter down as a way of relieving our deep resentment against this faceless, starched and spit-shined despot.
Yesterday, when I read that US Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, in a moment of blustering arm-chair machismo, sent a message to the 'non-existent' Iraqi guerrillas to "bring 'em on," the first image in my mind was a 20-year-old soldier in an ever-more-fragile marriage, who'd been away from home for 8 months. He participated in the initial invasion, and was told he'd be home for the 4th of July. He has a newfound familiarity with corpses, and everything he thought he knew last year is now under revision. He is sent out into the streets of Fallujah (or some other city), where he has already been shot at once or twice with automatic weapons or an RPG, and his nerves are raw. He is wearing Kevlar and ceramic body armor, a Kevlar helmet, a load carrying harness with ammunition, grenades, flex-cuffs, first-aid gear, water, and assorted other paraphernalia. His weapon weighs seven pounds, ten with a double magazine. His boots are bloused, and his long-sleeve shirt is buttoned at the wrist. It is between 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit at midday. He's been eating MRE's three times a day, when he has an appetite in this heat, and even his urine is beginning to smell like preservatives. Mosquitoes and sand flies plague him in the evenings, and he probably pulls a guard shift every night, never sleeping straight through. He and his comrades are beginning to get on each others' nerves. The rumors of 'going-home, not-going-home' are keeping him on an emotional roller coaster. Directives from on high are contradictory, confusing, and often stupid. The whole population seems hostile to him and he is developing a deep animosity for Iraq and all its people--as well as for official narratives.
This is the lad who will hear from someone that George W. Bush, dressed in a suit with a belly full of rich food, just hurled a manly taunt from a 72-degree studio at the 'non-existent' Iraqi resistance.
This de facto president is finally seeing his poll numbers fall. Even chauvinist paranoia has a half-life, it seems. His legitimacy is being eroded as even the mainstream press has discovered now that the pretext for the war was a lie. It may have been control over the oil, after all. Anti-war forces are regrouping as an anti-occupation movement. Now, exercising his one true talent--blundering--George W. Bush has begun the improbable process of alienating the very troops upon whom he depends to carry out the neo-con ambition of restructuring the world by arms.
Somewhere in Balad, or Fallujah, or Baghdad, there is a soldier telling a new replacement, "We are losing this war."
Stan Goff retired in 1996 from the US Army, from 3rd Special Forces. He lives in Raleigh, NC.
posted 03 july 2007
Soldier writes:
U.S. needs to withdraw from Iraq
by Phillip Aliff
On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush declared the end of hostilities in Iraq and claimed a victory in the war on terror. Since then, we have seen the assaults on Fallujah, Ramadi, Tal Afar, Najaf, Baghdad, and significant other combat operations around the country. We have seen the pictures and heard the stories of the atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib Prison, and in Haditha. We have seen attempts to separate neighborhoods with concrete walls that stand between families and workplaces. We have seen the total destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure to include its water supply and electricity. We have seen, in some reports, upwards of 500,000 Iraqi citizens who have died.
Yet being faced with the truth that the war is going terribly, there are still people who believe that the U.S. should stay the course. So what does this harmful strategy mean in terms of the effect on service members? Since Bush's announcement in 2003, 3,328 service members have died in Iraq as of this writing. The military is in a state of crisis because morale and discipline have been eroding since the war began. The military reported 22 "self-inflicted" deaths during 2006 in Iraq. There were 3,196 reported desertions during 2006 with the number rising significantly each year. There is also the issue of troops coming home with significant injuries such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury and being turned away by the Department Of Defense and the VA. This has meant that troops who are suffering from significant mental health problems are being given a rifle and being sent back into combat for second, third, or even fourth deployments. The Army is also having such a hard time with the rate of deployments that they have implemented a back-door draft called "stop-loss" that holds soldiers against their will for extended periods of time after their contract expires.
Service members are not taking lightly the war spiraling out of control. According to a 2006 Zogby International poll, only one out of five troops want to stay "as long as needed." Forty-two percent say that the role of the U.S. is "hazy." Seventy-two percent of troops polled in Iraq said that the U.S. should exit the country within one year. So the overwhelming majority of troops are feeling disillusioned about the war in Iraq. This is significant because of the pervasive mentality that the morale is high and troops are ready to finish the mission. In actuality, troops don't even know what the mission is. Before the invasion, the military was told that it was going to disarm Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction that threatened not only the U.S., but the world.
The number of countries that felt threatened was evident when the U.S. went ahead with the invasion without the approval of the United Nations Security Council because of a lack of popular support. It was also evident that the weapons of mass destruction that threatened so many lives were in fact non-existent when troops went barreling through the desert into Baghdad. After the realization that there were no WMD's, the military was told that its mission had been to liberate the Iraqi people so that they could prosper in the mirror image of American democracy. It was proved the first night of the invasion how much the U.S. government cared about the Iraqi people during the "shock and awe" air campaign which decimated the country. The backwards logic that is fueling this war is the reason why so many U.S. service members are feeling the fog of war, and so many troops are being put in situations that put their lives, and the lives of the Iraqi people at risk and they don't even understand what they are fighting for.
Despite the enormous evidence that the war in Iraq is looked upon very unfavorably by U.S. troops, there are people here at home who are beyond trying to understand the dynamic that the occupation has created for service members. They are the people who buy "support our troops" stickers for their vehicles, but don't care enough to examine why troops were sent into harm's way in the first place. Supporting the troops means that we use complete awareness before even sending them to fight and die. Supporting the troops means demanding that service members get the benefits they deserve when coming home. Supporting the troops means demanding the complete and unconditional withdrawal of the U.S. military from Iraq.
Phillip Aliff is soldier stationed at Fort Drum in Watertown and member of the Iraq Veterans Against War.
posted 15 june 2007
Open Letter to Congress:
If You Fund This War, It's Yours
March 1, 2007
Dear Senate Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi and the Leadership of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives,
Our organizations represent military and Gold Star families; Veterans of the Iraq War; current servicemen and women including Active Duty, National Guard, Reserves and Individual Ready Reserves; Vietnam Veterans and Veterans of other eras. Our members have all been impacted by this war, some of us directly, and some because of what we know from combat in other wars. We all believe that the U.S. military occupation of Iraq must be brought to an immediate end. The people of the United States voted for a change in Congressional leadership last November, due in large part to the desire to see the disaster in Iraq come to an end. Congress now has the opportunity to end this unjust war and bring our troops home. But as we write this letter, it appears that this is an opportunity you are prepared to squander.
In the next several weeks, Congress will vote on President Bush's 2007 Supplemental Appropriations request that will, if passed, provide the funds to continue the war in Iraq. Legislative hearings, increased oversight and funding restrictions will not end the war. The President has defied the voice of the American people as expressed in November's vote, and ordered over 21,000 more combat troops into harm's way. He has made it clear he will not bring our troops home. Congress can and must use its Constitutional "power of the purse" to de-fund the war and bring it to an end.
As leaders in Congress, none of you has advocated for de-funding the Iraq war. As organizations representing thousands of people with family, loved ones and friends in harms way, we need to know why. Why won't you take the most direct path to bringing this war to an end?
Many of you have said, "We can't de-fund the troops," and "We can't abandon the troops." As military and Gold Star families and as Veterans of the Iraq and other wars, we understand the difference between "de-funding the war" and "de-funding the troops". In fact, voting more funds for this war would be abandoning our troops. It would leave them with the possibility of joining the over 3,160 who have died as a result of a war that should never have started, or the tens of thousands who have been wounded physically, psychologically, or both.
There is a tragic parallel here with the Vietnam War. The last 28,000 troops who died in that war were abandoned to political game-playing long after Congress and the President knew that it was time to bring the troops home. This was a tragedy that you must not allow to be repeated.
We need to understand from you, here and now, what you think you have to lose by crafting a Supplemental Appropriations bill that cuts off all funds for continuing the war in Iraq. We know how much is at stake for our loved ones, friends and fellow troops who will be condemned to remain in Iraq, with a vague and unclear mission based on a failed policy, in the middle of a civil war. Are you really more worried about losing a vote in Congress or maintaining the majority and winning the White House in 2008 than you are about losing the lives of our troops? We do not wish to assign motives, but we must ask these questions. For us this war and what you are doing is very personal. Every day that you debate and every day that you allow this to go on, an average of three of our loved ones, friends and fellow troops die in Iraq, along with countless Iraqi children, women and men.
We are asking that, as leaders in Congress, you exercise leadership. Your voice is needed now more than ever. Tell the American people the truth about President Bush's funding request. President Bush is not asking for more funds for the troops. He is asking for more funds to continue a war that should never have happened, a war that is killing so many U.S. service members and leaving even more physically and psychologically damaged on a daily basis. This is a war that has killed untold numbers of Iraqis, is draining our national treasure and cultivating a growing hatred against our nation
Hope, a rare commodity for us these days, is even harder to find within the current morass of non-binding resolutions and rhetorical statements in Congress about preventing "surges" and changing strategies. Hope is hard to find when we see so many in Congress adopting the morally indefensible stand of opposing the escalation of this war, while poised to support its continuation.
It is not too late for you to do the right thing. We ask you to exercise your leadership, stand up and call for the de-funding of the Iraq War. Stand strong when you explain that de-funding the war is not de-funding or abandoning our troops. Let the American people know what we as military families and Veterans know -- that de-funding the war will not leave our troops without equipment or supplies. Stand strong when you explain that there are sufficient funds available to bring our troops home quickly and safely, and that if more funds are ever needed, Congress has the ability to re-program monies from the Department of Defense budget to use for this purpose. Stand strong and fight to bring our troops home.
Stop telling us that you don't have the votes, and work with us to secure them. That is what leaders do.
Right now, it seems that you cannot see the political upside of doing what we and the majority of people in this country are calling on you to do. It is important that you understand the political downside of allowing this war to continue. If you provide further funding for the war in Iraq, it will no longer be President Bush's war. You will be co-owners. You will share responsibility for the continued chaos and loss of life in Iraq. You will have lost the opportunity to provide leadership when it is sorely needed. You will have given license to more years of a failed policy and countless deaths.
We ask you now: support our troops, de-fund the war, and bring them home now. We look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Kelly Dougherty, Co-founder and Executive Director, Iraq Veterans Against the War; US Army National Guard, 1996-2004; Veteran, Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Nancy Lessin and Charley Richardson, Co-founders, Military Families Speak Out; parents of a Marine who served in Iraq in spring, 2003
Michael McPhearson, Executive Director, Veterans For Peace; Gulf War Veteran, US Army Captain 1981-1992; member of Military Families Speak Out
Elliot DS Adams, President, Veterans For Peace; Vietnam Veteran, Spec-4, Army, infantry, paratrooper, 1966-69
posted 06 march 2007
"My Small Act of Civil Disobedience"
Yesterday, February 27, I participated in my first open act of civil disobedience as part of the Occupation Project. I along with St. Louis local chapter President Chuc Smith, three other veterans; Jim Allen, Harry Wyman and VFP office manager Cherie Eichholz and Military Families Speak Out Member D. Ridgley Brown visited Representative Russ Carnahan's office to continue our conversation to persuade him to vote down any bills that continue to provide funding for the war in Iraq. Jim Allen and I decided to sit-in to protest Carnahan's refusal to pledge not to continue funding for the war. As a result, Jim and I were arrested.
This was not the first time Rep. Carnahan a Democrat has been approached on this subject. He has been visited several times by many members of his district and others who want him to take a leadership role in Congress to de-fund the war. I have been to his office more than once and on Friday February 23rd, I, along with veterans Woody Powell, Catie Shinn, Cherie, Chuc, National Guard member and Appeal for Redress signer Brian Hill and Iraq Veteran Cloy Richards, sat down with Carnahan and discussed de-funding.
Carnahan's basic rap is that he is against the escalation and believes the war must come to an end. He cannot promise to vote against a bill he has not seen. He thinks that Jack Murtha's plan to restrict the ability of the President to continue the war via oversight and placing high standards on troop readiness before deployment is promising and he does not want to de-fund the troops.
We explained that de-funding the war is not de-funding the troops; legislative restrictions on the President will not end the war. Giving money to the President for the war will only prolong the war and Bush has told us over and over he does not intend to end the war. The American people voted for new congressional leadership to end the war and defunding is the quickest route to make that happen. We also told him that Democrats should put the President on the defensive by defunding the war and make him explain why he continues to wage war when Congress has demanded a change of course based on the mandate from the American people. We emphasized that everyday Congress spends looking for less direct ways to end the war on average three US service members die and many Iraqi children, women and men.
Unfortunately, we reached little agreement beyond the obvious, the war must end. It appears that most Democrats and Veterans For Peace are on a different timetable.
So our entering Rep. Carnahan's office Tuesday is part of weeks of outreach and meetings to change his mind. I decided that this time I was not leaving until I received a satisfactory answer. Thus I was willing to risk arrest. There are many who wonder why risk arrest. They ask, "Do you really think being arrested will make a difference?" Well, my objective is not to be arrested. My objective is to persuade my Representative's or Senators' to vote to defund the war. Yes I am willing to risk arrest and I do not know if my refusal to leave and subsequent arrest will make a difference.
However I do know that inaction will change nothing. Up till now I have done all I can do short of civil disobedience. I have marched. I have given out materials and made countless talks and speeches. I have called and written Congress. There are other creative ideas I hope to develop and I will continue to do all of the things I have done in the past. But yesterday was the time for me to put a little more on the line. I am not rich, so I cannot get their attention with large campaign contributions. I am not famous, so I cannot awe them with my notoriety. All I can do is visit, dialogue and sit-in.
The journey to civil disobedience has been one of reflection and hesitation. Of course I ask will it make a difference. One cannot be sure. But for me it has also been a question of conditioning and survival. I did not come to this decision easily. As a Black male in America who has been trained to be wary of the police, it has not been easy to decide to willingly put myself into their hands. I have spent most of my forty-two years trying not to be arrested.
I have plenty of examples of police misconduct against Black men. In the late 90's the sodomy of Abner Louima and the shooting death of Amadou Diallo in NYC heightened my fear of being pursued and in the custody of police. In 1997 Abner Louima was arrested outside of a Brooklyn nightclub for unclear reasons. He was beaten in the squad car in route to the station, beaten in the station and eventually sodomized in the station restroom with a plunger. Two years later in 1999, Amadou a Guinean emigrant walking home from a meal, unarmed and innocent of any crime was gunned down by four police officers in a barrage of shot at 41. He was struck 19 times. It was a case of mistaken identity. The plain clothes officers attempted to stop him because they thought he fit the description of a since captured serial rapist.
Another terrifying story took place on November 26, 2006. The circumstances of the incident are still under investigation; however it is clear that Sean Bell a young man leaving his bachelor party at a nightclub in Jamaica Queens with two friends died in a firestorm of 50 shots from five undercover police. One of his friends was critically wounded. No gun was founded on Sean or his friends. Sean was scheduled to marry later that day. These three incidents are the extreme and thankfully rare, but real. The names of these three men stay with me and remind me of dangers I face.
In the week before my participation to occupy Russ Carnahan's office I received the January/February edition of The Crisis magazine, a by monthly periodical founded in 1910. It is the official publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP. An article entitled 'A New Day?' examines "whether gains in Black political power will improve the lives of average African Americans." Well, that's me, so I read the article. While there are promising facts in the article describing unprecedented political gains and individual achievements, there were other items that gave me pause as to whether or not I should occupy my rep's office.
Statistics show that Black men were the most incarcerated demographic group in the country, with the highest incarceration rate in the world. According to a recent Justice Department report, 12.6 percent of Black males in their 20s were behind bars. Federal government statistic show that Blacks have an 18.6 percent chance of going to jail at some point in their lives, while less than 4 percent of Whites will spend time locked up."
I asked myself, do I really want to add to these sad numbers.
So what motivates me? Why have I decided to move forward with this tactic? I am motivated by the death of tens of thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands of people in this war. I am most motivated by the life of my only son who is a soldier in the 101st Airborne and has already participated in one tour in Iraq. I am motivated by the death of his second child, my 7-month-old grandson who died on January 3, 2007 of a genetic disease. I am motivated by the fact that when I ask Goddess why my grandson died and when I peer through the pain of his death in search of reasons and people to blame, I can only find the reality and cycle of life. People die from disease. It is natural and for the most part not any one person is to blame. I could look and perhaps find human created environmental factors.
But if these factors do exist they are many steps removed from causing death--unlike the firing of a gun or dropping of a bomb where one can easily observe cause and effect and can witness who fired the gun or dropped the bomb. Having sat and cried with Iraqi and American Gold Star fathers and mothers and feeling a glimpse of their pain, I thought I had an idea of that pain. How foolish of me. I did not know the emptiness one feels. Or I should say there is an empty space I feel that will never be filled because Jeremiah my grandson who once lived there is gone for ever.
Where I must accept the reality of life, Gold Star Parents must face the reality of war, a human activity caused by human actions. Where I can find no one to hold responsible for my anger and pain, an Iraqi can hold my nation, my son and me responsible for their pain. This is the sense of urgency I hope my small act of civil disobedience will help convey to Representative Carnahan and Senator McCaskill.
Lastly I ask myself, if not now when? After nearly four years of protest, over 3,100 dead US service members, ten to hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis who are guilty of nothing but living in Iraq, obvious lies by our leaders that took us to war, possible war with Iran, an election for a change in direction, no change of direction by our President and an indecisive Congress who needs to be pushed in the right direction; when would be a better time to give civil disobedience a try? We are at a critical moment. Congress will soon vote for a $90 billion appropriation that could fund the war until the end of President Bush's term. After this vote, Congress will have little power to end the war.
We need to flood Congress with letters, phone calls, e-mails and faxes demanding they end funding. We must show up at their door in force. If enough of us sit-in they will end the war. If we don't they won't. Maintaining a majority and a gaining the presidency is the priority of the Democrats. Ours is ending the war. You do not have to commit an act of civil disobedience to participate in the Occupation Project. Stand on the corner while others enter the office. Be present when occupiers are taken away or released from custody. Every small act makes a difference. We need more acts to move them forward. Add yours.
Thanks
Michael T. McPhearson
Veterans For Peace
Executive Director
314 725-6005
peace: One step at a time.
posted 04 march 2007
The Rape of Sabrine…
by Riverbend*
It takes a lot to get the energy and resolution to blog lately. I guess it's mainly because just thinking about the state of Iraq leaves me drained and depressed. But I had to write tonight.
As I write this, Oprah is on Channel 4 (one of the MBC channels we get on Nilesat), showing Americans how to get out of debt. Her guest speaker is telling a studio full of American women who seem to have over-shopped that they could probably do with fewer designer products. As they talk about increasing incomes and fortunes, Sabrine Al-Janabi, a young Iraqi woman, is on Al Jazeera telling how Iraqi security forces abducted her from her home and raped her. You can only see her eyes, her voice is hoarse and it keeps breaking as she speaks. In the end she tells the reporter that she can't talk about it anymore and she covers her eyes with shame.
She might just be the bravest Iraqi woman ever. Everyone knows American forces and Iraqi security forces are raping women (and men), but this is possibly the first woman who publicly comes out and tells about it using her actual name. Hearing her tell her story physically makes my heart ache. Some people will call her a liar. Others (including pro-war Iraqis) will call her a prostitute- shame on you in advance.
I wonder what excuse they used when they took her. It's most likely she's one of the thousands of people they round up under the general headline of 'terrorist suspect'. She might have been one of those subtitles you read on CNN or BBC or Arabiya, "13 insurgents captured by Iraqi security forces." The men who raped her are those same security forces Bush and Condi are so proud of- you know- the ones the Americans trained. It's a chapter right out of the book that documents American occupation in Iraq: the chapter that will tell the story of 14-year-old Abeer who was raped, killed and burned with her little sister and parents.
They abducted her from her house in an area in southern Baghdad called Hai Al Amil. No- it wasn't a gang. It was Iraqi peace keeping or security forces- the ones trained by Americans? You know them. She was brutally gang-raped and is now telling the story. Half her face is covered for security reasons or reasons of privacy. I translated what she said below.
"I told him, 'I don't have anything [I did not do anything].' He said, 'You don't have anything?' One of them threw me on the ground and my head hit the tiles. He did what he did- I mean he raped me. The second one came and raped me. The third one also raped me. [Pause- sobbing] I begged them and cried, and one of them covered my mouth. [Unclear, crying] Another one of them came and said, 'Are you finished? We also want our turn.' So they answered, 'No, an American committee came.' They took me to the judge.
Anchorwoman: Sabrine Al Janabi said that one of the security forces videotaped/photographed her and threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the rape. Another officer raped her after she saw the investigative judge.
Sabrine continuing: "One of them, he said… I told him, 'Please- by your father and mother- let me go.' He said, 'No, no- by my mother's soul I'll let you go- but on one condition, you give me one single thing.' I said, 'What?' He said, '[I want] to rape you.' I told him, 'No- I can't.' So he took me to a room with a weapon… It had a weapon, a Klashnikov, a small bed [Unclear], he sat me on it. So [the officer came] and told him, 'Leave her to me.' I swore to him on the Quran, I told him, 'By the light of the Prophet I don't do such things…' He said, 'You don't do such things?' I said, 'Yes'.
[Crying] He picked up a black hose, like a pipe. He hit me on the thigh. [Crying] I told him, 'What do you want from me? Do you want me to tell you rape me? But I can't… I'm not one of those ***** [Prostitutes] I don't do such things.' So he said to me, 'We take what we want and what we don't want we kill. That's that.' [Sobbing] I can't anymore… please, I can't finish."
I look at this woman and I can't feel anything but rage. What did we gain? I know that looking at her, foreigners will never be able to relate. They'll feel pity and maybe some anger, but she's one of us. She's not a girl in jeans and a t-shirt so there will only be a vague sort of sympathy. Poor third-world countries- that is what their womenfolk tolerate. Just know that we never had to tolerate this before. There was a time when Iraqis were safe in the streets. That time is long gone. We consoled ourselves after the war with the fact that we at least had a modicum of safety in our homes. Homes are sacred, aren't they? That is gone too.
She's just one of tens, possibly hundreds, of Iraqi women who are violated in their own homes and in Iraqi prisons. She looks like cousins I have. She looks like friends. She looks like a neighbor I sometimes used to pause to gossip with in the street. Every Iraqi who looks at her will see a cousin, a friend, a sister, a mother, an aunt…
Humanitarian organizations are warning that three Iraqi women are to be executed next month. The women are Wassan Talib, Zainab Fadhil and Liqa Omar Muhammad. They are being accused of 'terrorism', i.e. having ties to the Iraqi resistance. It could mean they are relatives of people suspected of being in the resistance. Or it could mean they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of them gave birth in the prison. I wonder what kind of torture they've endured. Let no one say Iraqi women didn't get at least SOME equality under the American occupation- we are now equally as likely to get executed.
And yet, as the situation continues to deteriorate both for Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq, and for Americans inside Iraq, Americans in America are still debating on the state of the war and occupation- are they winning or losing? Is it better or worse.
Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It's worse. It's over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq's first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile.
*"Riverbend" is the pseudonym of a young Iraqi computer programmer who lives with her family in Baghdad. Her 'blog, Baghdad Burning, has contained first-hand accounts of life under siege since the earliest days of the US invasion.
posted 21 february 2007
American Mourning Poem
by Maxwell Corydon Wheat, Jr.
American Service Men and Woman Dead: 3,000*
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments
leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess
and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
George W. Bush
President of the United States
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003
Coming Home
In catacombs of military transports
destined for Dover Air Force Base,
loves, beliefs, ideals, plans:
Hancock Community College,
University of Miami,
New York Police Academy,
weddings, children,
barbecues, baseball, bass fishing-
All lidded down inside caskets
carefully, caringly covered with The American Flag
25-year-old Marine Corps Corporal
St. George, Maine.
Sailor, rock climber, stargazer.
on dance floor, " . . . like a magnet."
Loves lobsters, mussels-
All lidded down inside casket
carefully, caringly covered with The American Flag
30-year-old Army Private First Class
Tuba City, Arizona.
" . . . young, a single mother and capable."
Her boy 4 – her girl 3.
Woman proud of her Hopi heritage-
All lidded down inside casket
carefully, caringly covered with The American Flag
20-year-old Marine Corps Corporal
La Harpe, Illinois.
High school football, basketball player,
lifeguard at health club pool,
lifts weights,
going to be a physical trainer.
Joins Marine Corps Reserve
to pay for studies at Southern Illinois University-
All lidded down inside casket
carefully, caringly covered with The American Flag
21 year-old Marine Corps Corporal
Gallatin, Tennessee.
Nurses dying mother with his humor,
dresses in clown costume for nieces' birthdays.
History buff, reads fat books about generals,
presidents, Revolutionary War-
All lidded down inside casket
carefully, caringly covered with The American Flag
24-year-old Coast Guard Petty Officer
Northport, New York.
Wife, three months pregnant.
Wants to be a policeman like his father.
" . . . the kind of person that you fall in love with
the minute you meet him," a friend says-
All lidded down inside casket
carefully, caringly covered with The American Flag
A father, a mother grieve for their only son, an Army Specialist.
"He wanted to be an engineer," the father remembers.
"He wanted to set up his own business when he got out.
And I says, 'Amigo, I'm waiting for you to get out
so we can put up our own business.'
And all that, well, you know, is history."
The Major General carefully, caringly folds The American Flag,
places the nation's ensign into the mother's hands
*December 31, 2006
Maxwell Corydon Wheat, Jr. ©
Permission given to use this poem with author credit.
E-mail: Maxwell623@aol.com
posted 01 january 2007
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. .
<< viewpoint archive | latest
items >>
|
