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TechnoratiThe Iraq War As We See It
Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is surreal.
Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched.
As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the "battle space" remains the same, with changes only at the margins.
It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at U.S. taxpayers' expense.
A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: Had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.
As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.
Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.
However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.
In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: One of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, a U.S. Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a "time-sensitive target acquisition mission" on August 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse - namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.
Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.
Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in flux.
The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the British and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.
Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington's insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made - de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government - places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.
Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party - as we do now - will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.
The most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. "Lucky" Iraqis live in communities barricaded with concrete walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal. In an environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act.
Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, "We need security, not free food."
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are - an army of occupation - and force our withdrawal.
Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.
We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.
Buddhika Jayamaha is a U.S. Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.
Copyright © 2007 the International Herald Tribune
80 Comments so far
Show AllI would like to thank the authors of the article, "The Iraq War As We See It," for the clarity with which they depicted the impossible contradictions of U. S. policy as it effects the life and death of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. I am disappointed that our Representatives in the House, and our Senators on the Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee did not specifically cite this important essay during the presentations made by Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker: a costly omission, in keeping with the pattern of this fiasco.
To the authors, I now extend my deepest condolences for the deaths of Yance T. Gray and Omar Mora, two of the writers who were killed today in Iraq. I rejoice in their courage, and mourn their loss.
Hue
Kudos, ol wobbly and kendpotter. Comments like citizen 1's sound like what a-holes like Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly say when they paint a distorted picture of the "loony Left."
Citizen 1, shut up already, you're giving progressives a bad name, and providing grist for the mills of the loony right. But maybe I'm on to something here. Can you really be so clueless as to call those who serve our nation in the armed services "war criminals", or are you a right-wing agent provocatuer? I hope you're just ignorant, because at least that would mean your not willfully pernicious.
In a constitutional democracy where the military is under the control of elected civilian leadership (unlike in a banana republic), it is the responsibility of the military to follow orders; and it is the responsibility of the civilian leadership to make policy. If they lie, manipulate intelligence, and commit other high crimes and misdemeanors in misleading the nation to war, then it is they, not the military, that are to blame, and should be held to account through impeachment proceedings.
HR 333, Articles to Impeach Dick Cheney has over 20 cosponsors. If your representative has not yet signed on, it is the least of YOUR responsibilities as a citizen to call or write him/her once a week (at least) until they do so.
Citizen 1 - You want to call people names like, "war criminal"? Did you ever consider the possibility that you are a jerk? That's a good name, always liked that one.
Believe it or not, the military is a pretty good cross-section of society. If 30% of them think that torture is okay, better look at your circle of friends. There are undoubtedly some potential Eichmanns (maybe you) there. After all it is extremists, and you have definitely stamped yourself as one, of all ilk, that become the monsters of human society. God knows the left has bred them just as well as the right. In fact the top three genocidal maniacs of all time were leftists - 1) Pol Pot (on a per-capita basis) 2) Mao (gross overall @ 50-60 million) 3) Stalin (2nd gross @ 20 million), with Hitler a distant 4th (6 million). These soldiers are not doing this because they are monsters.
The enlisted ranks are filled with all kinds and many of them just as intellectually powerful as you. General Petraeus and his staff officers are very likely a hell of a lot smarter than you (what's your PHD in?). These soldiers are not doing this because they are stupid.
The military and its leadership are wedded to the concept of civilian control. It sort of prevents "banana republics". Please note that I did not capitalize - I wouldn't want you thinking clothing store. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Shenseki did stand up to Bush, explaining to that military neophyte, that while yes, technically he could overcome the Iraqi military with 150,000 troops, 500 to 600 thousand were necessary for an effective occupation. Generalissimo El Busho (I think Ted Rall is a genius) promptly named Shenseki's successor 18 months early, effectively firing him without firing him. In the fine tradition of the emperor cutting of the heads of messengers bearing bad news, eventually Bush acquired a cadre of generals willing to shut up. At the lower ranks the peer pressure is to just shut up and do your job - all bitching does is piss people (the guys you share a foxhole with) off. These soldiers are not doing this because they are robots or brainwashed.
So, Citizen 1, why don't you just shut-the-hell-up about soldiers since you are so obviously and thoroughly ignorant about them?
frankly I think people who make such negative and idiotic comments towards the U.S. Troops regardless are weak and confused. Bush equals stupid, everyone knows this and its not the U.S. military's fault. They obey their orders meaning they are reliable, and courageous. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, ok. Well do you think tons of old sarin gas could be a mass killing chemical? Who knows but chemists which I am not yet Iraq had a great amount, which i've seen with my own eyes. Iraq needed to be liberated and yes we went about it wrong but its a little late so stfu and lets fix the mess together because that is honorable. Throw out positive suggestions not negative ones.
Good information from the ranks and I'm sorry those guys are in a war as war has always been a ludicrous way to solve problems. It's not quite reasonable to nail these seven men as America has always tried to solve problems by killing perceived enemies and the brainwashing goes deep. Until the day arrived that Americans and in particular American 'leaders' renounce killing and being the world's cop then these disasters will continue. Buffy said it well in the 'Universal Soldier'.
He's five foot two,
and he's six feet four,
he fights with missiles and with spears,
he is all of thirty-one,
and he's only seventeen,
he's been a soldier for a thousand years.
He's a Catholic, a Hindu,
an atheist, a Chein,
A Buddhist, and a Baptist and a Jew,
and he knows, he shouldn't kill,
and he knows, he always will,
kill em for me, my friend, and me for you.
And he's fighting for Canada,
He's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA.
and he's fighting for the Russians,
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way.
And he's fighting for democracy,
He's fighting for the Reds,
he says It's for the peace of us all,
he's the one who must decide,
who's to live and who's to die,
and he never sees the writing on the wall.
But without him, how would Hitler
have condemned in Meslabar,
without him Caesar would have stood alone,
he's the one, who gives his body
as a weapon of the war,
and without him all this killin' can't go on.
He's the universal soldier,
and he really is to blame,
his orders come from far away, no more,
they come from here and there,
and you and me, and brother,
can't you see,
this is not, the way, we put, the end, to war.
Highly relevant to this article:
http://www.juancole.com/#2897901478382380805
To the 7 soldiers:
Thanks guys, we appreciate your courage in speaking out.
I wish more voices like yours could be heard on the MSM. NPR, on All Things Considered tonight, only presented 2 pro-surge articles. NPR should have aired your letter as well.
I imagine the White House spin will continue in September and our "representatives" will become obediant to Bush, again.
For DuraMaster,
Your compilation of Sassoon and Owen says it all. Will politicians never learn?
Sassoon also wrote in a personal letter (can't find date, 1915, maybe?) 'I am making this statement as a wilful defiance of military authorities, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it'. How history repeats.
Sassoon, of course, ironically, was from a family of wealthy Jewish merchants in Basra.
A few months ago, on this website, Lee Iacocca wrote an article about how ignorant this President is and how horrendous this war. The article was met with a barrage of insults along the lines of "You should have spoken up sooner, you corporate pig."
Why criticize the people who are firmly on your side? Self-righteous rants like these are self-defeating--long on ideology and short on strategy.
The nation's desire to support the troops is deeply entrenched. The military probably has very few members who signed up becasue they want to kill people. I'm sure most of them are naive, patriotic, or felt they had few other opportunities. The idea of a military is not inherently wrong; all of the blame for this war rests on politicians, not troops.
Even if one despises everyone who volunteers for military service, it is a very bad strategy to insult the troops. You provide fodder for the "support the troops" rationale for prolonging the war.
I do not have the courage to stop paying my income taxes, even though I feel the money is being used for an evil war. I don't want to go to jail. Why would you expect the troops to risk the military's brand of justice by disobeying orders.
ol wobbly wrote:
What a lot of sanctimonious prigs most of you are. I've read through as many of these "comments" as I could stomach and find it irrational and simplistic to blame grunts because they don't/won't turn their weapons on their bosses and, thus, in this simple kind of thinking, end the war.
**********************
I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. All they had to do, all ANY of them had to do, was just not go. Just say no. Period. Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not pick up your commission.
If enough soldiers, especially of the higher ranks, refused to participate, we could not have an illegal war. I know many fell prey to the lies that convinced them it was ethical. For those that were able to see the war for what it is, they should not have gone. Those that knew better sold out the rest that did not.
If, in the end, it is proven that the war is criminal, those that refused might have their day in court. Or they might not. They know this. Those who commited the war crimes will have no defense. No matter who gave the orders.
When I enlisted over 20 years ago, I took that oath. I asked, because I was curious, what happens when and if the superior officer issues an illegal order? What if he wigs out, what if he goes nuts? What if they ask us to do something wrong, something we might get in trouble for later? (yes, I really was that mouthy, and they put up with me, kudos to the military that was) I was told that, in that case, it is our duty and our obligation to refuse. But, I asked, what happens then?
Then, you face charges. And probably will be punished. What?? Maybe, later, your innocence can be shown, if it's shown the officer was, in fact, wrong. But, either way, it is our DUTY and our OBLIGATION to follow lawful orders only. And a serious act it would be, one not to be undertaken lightly. Not something you'd do just because you didn't like the orders. There would be consequences. But if the orders are illegal, it is OUR duty and OUR obligation to face charges. Just like facing live fire. Have to be brave enough to face a real challenge, or, what business do you have being in the military in the first place?
It is the trust and faith in our command and our superiors that we rely upon to make this system work. As they rely upon our following orders, we trust them not to steer us wrong. We agree to possibly face charges and go to prison if, for some reason we feel the need to refuse orders. They, in turn, know their orders will be obeyed, or we will be replaced by the next troop in line.
If the next troop would happen to refuse, and every one after that, it will be plain to see the problem is the officer. If each and every troop independently finds a need to refuse, war atrocities WILL not happen. That is the idea. Either way, the chain remains unbroken. Either way, order is maintained. We put the faith in our superiors to not give us unlawful orders. We peacefully walk to jail if we refuse an order.
We know it will be our necks on the line if we refuse, and WE agree to take THAT responsiblity when we join. Simple as that. Lower ranks agree to shoulder the burden of paying the price of not acting on illegal orders. The higher ranks have the burden of not GIVING unlawful orders. That's how it's supposed to work. That's how I was taught.
And when I was in, what we used to say was, "We keep the peace". We used to be proud of that. It probably wasn't as true as I believe at the time, but it must be a hell of a lot better than whatever they're saying about themselves now. We kept the peace. I might have been just a lowly enlisted troop, but even I know these simple facts. It's not that complicated. Obey lawful orders only. Period.
Our soldiers are complicit in war crimes, and they are doing it voluntarily.
You say they don't have choice? Ask. Lt. Watada.
You think these soldiers are brave? See what Lt. Watada did. THAT was bravery.
Wake up and use your brain….
Our soldiers are complicit in war crimes, and they are doing it voluntarily.
You day they don't have choice? Ask. Lt. Watada.
You think these soldiers are brave? See wat Lt. Watada did. THAT was brave.
Wake up and use your brain....
I too feel that sometimes it is nice to vent and rage at the atrocities being committed here in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are days, most, when I wish that there was a simple answer, a quick solution to ship us all home. But there isn't.
Yelling and screaming and telling us to turn our weapons in or turn them on our superiors aren't going to work. Minds are made up; choices were made by soldiers, officers, civilian leaders and civilian voters long ago. These wars have so much momentum that it would take tens of thousands of my fellow NCOs to write letters and reject missions and refuse to deploy before any impact is felt.
My leaders know that I abjectly refuse to fire my weapon, even in self defense. They know that I refuse to kill. I openly advocate for fellow soldiers to follow my lead. I have written letters to newspapers and to my Congress members. However, my voice and impact is insignificant. I get moved to positions where I have minimal contact with other soldiers, where I can do my leaders the least damage to their careers. I get form letters back from Washington promising empathy and support. What else can I do?
I take a longer view of our problems. It is easy to pick on the soldiers and call them war criminals. Some are. Many others are more naive than I ever thought possible. They just don't know the realities of the world and the role their decisions to enlist and reenlist have on its politics. The average soldier is not as sophisticated, or experienced as the average reader of this forum. But neither is the average voter. Neither is the average consumer.
To all pacifists reading this: do you honestly believe that there is not a need for a military, or a police force? I am speaking of the world in which we have found ourselves during our lifetimes. Not some ideal scenario to be thought up. Because if there is any agreement that one is needed then how can you blame soldiers for the decisions of the civilian leadership. There are atrocities committed during wars and soldiers do sometimes act outside the laws of warfare but there are systems in place or which can be put in place to check these actions. The Geneva Conventions are spelled out in detail to each and every soldier repeatedly. The larger issues however are the decisions to go to war in the first place, or to elect the leaders of the military, or to affect the need for wars, or to build weapon systems or to budget for them. These decisions are made years and decades before wars are fought and are much more effective in preventing or mitigating the impacts of conflicts.
An apple a day keeps the war pigs away.
Well said ol wobbly! It's obvious some of these folks have
no idea how the military operates. If we just have to blame
someone, let's lay the blame where it belongs, on the
a*&holes who got us in Iraq and the people who voted for
the man who couldn't find oil in Texas.
"as responsible men who have taken an oath ... to support and defend the Constitution."
But, ol wobbly, these soldiers fighting in Iraq are not supporting and defending the constitution! This war is illegal, sir. Please refer to Lt Watada if you need help understanding what "supporting the constitution" means for today's soldiers. As far as brainwashing, yes our society has been brainwashed to romanticize militarism. Until we are able to speak honestly of the fallacy in our thinking, we can never overcome it.
ol wobbly, well said Sir, well said.
What a lot of sanctimonious prigs most of you are. I've read through as many of these "comments" as I could stomach and find it irrational and simplistic to blame grunts because they don't/won't turn their weapons on their bosses and, thus, in this simple kind of thinking, end the war. So they're volunteers. So what? Volunteers keep most of your sorry asses at home, carping and critisizing because as responsible men who have taken an oath (as mistaken as that might have been, many of us have taken the same oath) to support and defend the Constitution. Sure, they've been brain-washed. So have we all. I never voted for Bush, never could, never would, but many of you right here in these comments helped get that abortion into office. And here you go, blaming the victims, the old American pastime, blame those voluteer soldiers because they won't do their duty (according to your lights) but instead do what they swore they'd do. And remain proud that they will do just that. I admire them and I'm an old radical, even fought in the Second World War, but I've never seen such a bunch of pulillanimous, labor-faking scissorbills as our "Great American Culture" has turned out until I began reading these pages. With the exception of the lover of Wilfred Owens poems, most of you don't have enough sense to pour piss out of a boot with the directions on the heel. That is, in my humble opinion.
Oriental war wisdom says:
"If you wait by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by."
And like the Vietnamese, the Iraqis are prepared to wait and wait and wait.
As one American to any Iraqis visiting this site I offer you my deepest apologies and regrets and pray that your nation will recover and prosper.
provoice August 20th, 2007 12:27 pm
"There is little doubt that these brave soldiers...."
You do not need to be BRAVE to invade a third world country that has already been destroyed with a decade long bombing. You don't need to be brave when you have overwhelming military superiority. You don't need to be BRAVE when you have unlimited air power at your disposal while the enemy doesn't even have an airplane.
I understand these "brave" soldiers are our soldiers. But let's not talk brainwashed, just like all these soldiers are too.
Want a brave soldier? Look for Lt. Watada. These 7 war criminals aren't.
Wow!
As an ordinary middle class Midwestern guy who got himself drafted at the height of the Vietnam war, then was stationed in South Korea rather than South Vietnam, and took part in clandestine antiwar activities through the American Servicemens Union while on active duty (and in Vets for Peace today), I am really surprized at the level of invective focused at these seven sergeants by some folks' comments.
The recurrent theme is that because the US now has an all-volunteer "mercenary imperial" army, these guys are tainted war criminals, and thus are not to be trusted (even when they speak truth to power). Particularly damning to some is how their narrative ends by declaring, "As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through", raising the spectre that they perhaps could similarly compartmentalize out obeying a future set of marching orders, say, to go put down unrest in the streets of Peoria at curfew time, as if it were Falluja.
Personally, I'll cut these seven NCO's a lot of ideological slack.
Bush and Patraeus are about to hit us with a major September propaganda push extolling the successes of the surge so some sort of "partial strategic redeployment" of US occupation forces can supposedly commence. Two illusory steps forward, for one illusory step back, so the clock can keep running.
The sargeants' op-ed blows a timely, helpful - dare I say preemptive? - hole in that upcoming Pentagon PR smoke screen, in my opinion.
Also, message to Earthian: I don't read that 85% response result in the 2006 Zogby poll as evidence of brain washing the way you do.
It's absolutely true that "a major reason" - a major STATED reason - for invading Iraq was "to retaliate for Saddam's role" - for Saddam's SUPPOSED role - in the 911 attacks. Sure, there is a delusional fringe of the American public, both in and out of uniform, that actually still believes Saddam and Osama were in cahoots. But that's not exactly what Zogby was asking.
I think a lot of those 85% positive responders were accurately agreeing that, in the fall of 2002 and the spring of 2003, retaliating for 911 was (in fact) a major reason that was pushed to whip up popular support for invading Iraq. And that component part of the lie campaign worked.
Just because all rational beings now know it was jingoist bullshit doesn't mean that jingoist bullshit isn't still a major reason that we remain stuck in Iraq today.
Bill from Saginaw
While this story distorts some of the crimes and the results of the crimes committed by the US government in Iraq, I respect these soldiers for speaking out.
I look at the context from which they are coming: US soldiers in a military that brainwashes away a connection to reality and strips them from their own consciences--and does so with brutal coercion, at the direction of the elected, civilian authorities. Here are some facts:
The Army's own report documented recently that near majorities and more had little regard for the dignity of the civilians in Iraq or their property, and would not report war crimes committed by their fellow troops. A third believed in torturing Iraqis.
Here is a summary of the report:
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/52292/
Here is the full report:
http://www.armymedicine.army.mil/news/mhat/mhat_iv/MHAT_IV_Report_17NOV06.pdf
That sorry state of the military in Iraq by *some* of the soldiers there is the result of both brainwashing and atrocity producing conditions in a brutal, illegal, immoral occupation.
In a Zogby poll report released in early 2006, 85 percent of the troops believed a major reason they were sent into war was "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the Sept. 11 attacks." These beliefs are obviously false, admitted so as false openly (when pressed) by our own highest officials. Such beliefs are delusional. That 85 percent held them is a tribute to the success of brainwashing by the military, *under the direction of the civilian authorities*.
Here is a link to that story:
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=34538&archive=true
These facts show that *some* of the troops are thinking and acting in lawless and immoral ways--committing horrible crimes--and that large numbers of them are subject to the propaganda of the reasons for invading and occupying Iraq having been seriously brainwashed.
And of course some of the soldiers, enlisted and officers, have great integrity regarding their oath to the Constitution, and to the idea that "treaties made" are the "supreme law of the land" as defined in Art. 6 (2). Lt. Watada and some others have distinguished themselves with great honor and integrity like Hugh Thompson and others in Vietnam before them.
Where do we assign blame for the sad state and criminal behavior of some of our soldiers? To me it goes to civilian authorities primarily and high up miltiary leaders secondarily. The precedent for these judgments is Nuremberg (and Tokyo too). Low level soldiers were not prosecuted at Nuremberg.
The US military training has produced too little critical thinking and ethical conduct. But there is some critical thinking and ethical conduct with Watada at the top of the list, and for that I am proud. For these authors as soldiers to take Watada's position that the entire invasion and occupation was and is illegal and immoral (which I believe) and therefore not serve would end them up where Watada is right now--jail and awaiting trial. I cannot, from my comfortable seat with no such consequences for me, say that these soldiers who wrote this article should do that. They have taken a courageous step. They are part of the solution to creating a progressive foreign policy based on the global rule of law.
Issuing forth blanket criticism or blanket support for our troops is less than completely thoughtful or accurate. We need to look at facts and precedents and judge accordingly. Who is culpable for the crime against peace of the invasion and the crimes that followed? Civilian authorities in the Bush administration, in the Congress, in the Supreme Court, and the top military leaders such as the Joint Chiefs are most culpable for the range of crimes against Iraq, in that order.
These soldiers writing with their names on a critique of the situation of the occupation are courageous. I hope they aspire to the depths of integrity as we witness in Lt. Watada and others like him. And I completely admire them for the step they have taken in this article.
While this story distorts some of the crimes and the results of the crimes committed by the US government in Iraq, I respect these soldiers for speaking out.
I look at the context from which they are coming: US soldiers in a military that brainwashes away a connection to reality and strips them from their own consciences--and does so with brutal coercion, at the direction of the elected, civilian authorities. Here are some facts:
The Army's own report documented recently that near majorities and more had little regard for the dignity of the civilians in Iraq or their property, and would not report war crimes committed by their fellow troops. A third believed in torturing Iraqis.
Here is a summary of the report:
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/52292/
Here is the full report:
http://www.armymedicine.army.mil/news/mhat/mhat_iv/MHAT_IV_Report_17NOV06.pdf
That sorry state of the military in Iraq by *some* of the soldiers there is the result of both brainwashing and atrocity producing conditions in a brutal, illegal, immoral occupation.
In a Zogby poll report released in early 2006, 85 percent of the troops believed a major reason they were sent into war was "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the Sept. 11 attacks." These beliefs are obviously false, admitted so as false openly (when pressed) by our own highest officials. Such beliefs are delusional. That 85 percent held them is a tribute to the success of brainwashing by the military, *under the direction of the civilian authorities*.
Here is a link to that story:
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=34538&archive=true
These facts show that *some* of the troops are thinking and acting in lawless and immoral ways--committing horrible crimes--and that large numbers of them are subject to the propaganda of the reasons for invading and occupying Iraq having been seriously brainwashed.
And of course some of the soldiers, enlisted and officers, have great integrity regarding their oath to the Constitution, and to the idea that "treaties made" are the "supreme law of the land" as defined in Art. 6 (2). Lt. Watada and some others have distinguished themselves with great honor and integrity like Hugh Thompson and others in Vietnam before them.
Where do we assign blame for the sad state and criminal behavior of some of our soldiers? To me it goes to civilian authorities primarily and high up miltiary leaders secondarily. The precedent for these judgments is Nuremberg (and Tokyo too). Low level soldiers were not prosecuted at Nuremberg.
The US military training has produced too little critical thinking and ethical conduct. But there is some critical thinking and ethical conduct with Watada at the top of the list, and for that I am proud. For these authors as soldiers to take Watada's position that the entire invasion and occupation was and is illegal and immoral (which I believe) and therefore not serve would end them up where Watada is right now--jail and awaiting trial. I cannot, from my comfortable seat with no such consequences for me, say that these soldiers who wrote this article should do that. They have taken a courageous step. They are part of the solution to creating a progressive foreign policy based on the global rule of law.
Issuing forth blanket criticism or blanket support for our troops is less than completely thoughtful or accurate. We need to look at facts and precedents and judge accordingly. Who is culpable for the crime against peace of the invasion and the crimes that followed? Civilian authorities in the Bush administration, in the Congress, in the Supreme Court, and the top military leaders such as the Joint Chiefs are most culpable for the range of crimes against Iraq, in that order.
These soldiers writing with their names on a critique of the situation of the occupation are not as culpable for the crimes in Iraq as the civilian authorities. They are courageous. I hope they aspire to the depths of integrity as we witness in Lt. Watada and others like him. And I completely admire them for the step they have taken in this article.
There is little doubt that these brave soldiers are more accurate in their assessment of the street level situation in Iraq than the idealogues running the show over there.
The Bush propaganda machine would have us believe all kinds of fairy tales... about the state of the war, our economy, the environment, employment in America, the benefits of NAFTA and CAFTA, and how well they have done in "winning the war on terror".
The fact is that we can no longer believe ANYTHING that comes out of the White House and damned little that comes out of Washington D.C. from EITHER party.
We need to tell the Middle Eastern countries that we expect THEM to police a settlement in Iraq, bring our troops home, seal our ports and borders from unwanted invaders, prosecute and fine those who hire illegal invaders, provide tax incentives for corporations to hire American workers, outlaw lobbyists, regulate medical and insurance profits like we do public utilities and liquor, protect our educational institutions from frivilous lawsuits by parents in denial about the behavior of their children, and stop doing business with countries that are a threat to us or are unfriendly to us in any way.
Why should we do business with those who would use OUR money to overthrow us?
jffryjnsn- Never talk to pacifists like that again. What is wrong with you. These people have trained themselves to do the most noble job. Look militarism in the face and do the humane thing. To what means these people have been misunderstood and criminalized is the responsibility of YOU the U.S. citizen. Citizenship is a privilege wrought in our bravery and persistence. Shame on you. The peace movement taught us to do a job for you that you yourself cant or wont endure.
Let these people do their job yet don't try to confuse them with your militaristic mumbo-jumbo , and believe it or not it is THEY who will bring you peace.
I agree with Dana Visalli. These men are very brave and courageous to speak out, but they are also a bit tragic characters in that they ended up in the military in the first place and allow themselves to be abused like that. Why don't they stand up against the real tyrants, the ones in Washington ? Haven't you seen movies like "Apocalypse Now", "Born on the 4th of July" and many others. This theme is ages old.
The basic message is: Soldiers are not automatically heroes. They CAN be. Ehren Watada is a hero and apparently there could be others. But in most cases, soldiers end up as broken people. Brainwashed, abused, raped and rejected by society. Why do you choose this life and why should we celebrate militarism ?
There are several "bottom lines" here.
This is/was not a "war," "just or unjust."
This is/was a monstrous war crime.....
All military is trained to kill....not to "occupy."
To try to make distinctions between invasion and occupation is silly at best.
If the Middle East's main exports were carrots and green onions would we be in Iraq today??????
Would we be "in bed" with Israel's murderous policies today?
Would we be supporting the vicious leaders of Kuwait or Saudi Arabia?
We "occupy" over 130 countries with our military presence.
And, we have literally crushed the Iraqi people since the very, very stupid "First Persian Gulf War."
Where is April Glaspie?
sierra
Perhaps we should take Bush at his word. You made great progress? OK, congratulations -- now we want our troops OUT -- and IMMEDIATELY. But of course, unless we convince the overly-loyal "opposition" to get off its ass and hold Bush to act accordingly, it's all for naught.
I've seen the American public write off firsthand accounts of the soldiers since the war started, arguing with people about the worth of listening to firsthand stories over and over again. It's hopeless.
They believe personal stories are slanted and mostly worthless, and they believe news reports have a liberal bias against the war. Yes, they still believe that. Conservative Bush supporters believe shocking stories of civilian deaths and atrocities are propaganda from the enemy (whoever it may be), lies or isolated incidents unrelated to the war in general. These are the people that can't be reached, there doesn't seem to be a way to get through to them, that real people and real events matter. The still believe liberals caused the Vietnam "failure". They believe criticism hurts the war effort. This is the America the rest of the world hates. Endlessly selfish and stupid.
I guess we all need to face the fact that most of America is a nation of simple-minded people with little real education and no culture that matters. It's what we are. It's true, there is no denying it now. Most don't know what is happening and don't care what is happening as long as it does not happen to them, though they cannot, absolutely will not admit it.
That's what the soldiers are fighting for, our stupidity. Not our freedom. Not our rights. Not our way of life or our culture. American soldiers defend American stupidity and selfishness. Period.
Some soldiers who knew better went to war because the alternative was punishment and maybe prison, and so their oath to the constitution meant nothing. Might as well have crossed their fingers and sworn to worship Bush, but they can't even see that anymore. The oath meant so little they didn't stand against illegal orders when it mattered, when it REALLY mattered. When the future of our nation was at stake and our backs were up against the wall, with protesters attacked and Americans spying on Americans became policy...our soldiers chickened out and did what they were told. Our soldiers blindly followed orders, from the bottom to the very top. Not ONE general should have participated in Iraq. They should have presented a united front against an illegal war. They knew from the beginning. But they did not defend our nation against a corrupt government, though all they had to do was say no. One word. Pathetically easy. Land of the free. Home of the brave. Now shut up and do what you're told. USA USA USA!!!
They didn't want to lose rank. Senior officers, they didn't want to lose retirement. They didn't want their friends and neighbors to talk about them. They didn't want to face the UCMJ. They chose war crimes because it was safer than refusing to go. They did not defend us. They defended the right of the government of the United States to do anything it wanted, legal or not. What cowards. They don't deserve the stars and stripes they wear.
It's always been easy to see the Iraq war was wrong, it just wasn't easy to admit it. Standing up is what our soldiers were supposed to be all about. It's a shame they forgot. I'll always feel sorry for some of them, but never as sorry as for people living in the war zones. They truly didn't have a choice, but EVERY ONE of the military did. Our military chose to go along.
Our military will be remembered as those that helped bring down a nation, but not the nation of Iraq.
#
cosmos August 19th, 2007 8:46 pm
"...We haven't walked in their boots. We don't know who they are or where they come from..." says cosmos August 19th, 2007 8:46 pm
Yes we do, they are volunteer soldiers - they went there to invade and occupy a country in violation of he Geneva conventions. No matter that Iraq had nothing to do 9/11 or Osama Bin Lade, many went nevertheless, just for the fun of popping some rag heads.
So what do you want me to say about these "men and women"? voluntary killers of innocent Iraqis, voluntary destroyers of a sovereign country, voluntary occupiers of a sovereign country .... in my vocabulary "war criminal" fits best.
The process of soldiering aka dying, as viewed by the War Poets of World War One, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.
THE DUG-OUT
Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen cold
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head....
_You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead._
Siegfried Sassoon
SUICIDE IN TRENCHES
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
* * * * *
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
Siegfried Sassoon
BASE DETAILS
If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You'd see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. "Poor young chap,"
I'd say--"I used to know his father well;
Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap."
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I'd toddle safely home and die--in bed.
Siegfried Sassoon
LAMENTATIONS
I found him in a guard-room at the Base.
From the blind darkness I had heard his crying
And blundered in. With puzzled, patient face
A sergeant watched him; it was no good trying
To stop it; for he howled and beat his chest.
And, all because his brother had gone West,
Raved at the bleeding war; his rampant grief
Moaned, shouted, sobbed, and choked, while he was kneeling
Half-naked on the floor. In my belief
Such men have lost all patriotic feeling.
Siegfried Sassoon
THE GENERAL
"Good-morning; good-morning!" the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the Line,
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,
And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
"He's a cheery old card," grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.
* * * * *
But he did for them both by his plan of attack.
Siegfried Sassoon
EDITORIAL IMPRESSION
He seemed so certain "all was going well,"
As he discussed the glorious time he'd had
While visiting the trenches.
"One can tell
You've gathered big impressions!" grinned the lad
Who'd been severely wounded in the back
In some wiped-out impossible Attack.
"Impressions? Yes, most vivid! I am writing
A little book called _Europe on the Rack_,
Based on notes made while witnessing the fighting.
I hope I've caught the feeling of 'the Line,'
And the amazing spirit of the troops.
By Jove, those flying-chaps of ours are fine!
I watched one daring beggar looping loops,
Soaring and diving like some bird of prey.
And through it all I felt that splendour shine
Which makes us win."
The soldier sipped his wine.
"Ah, yes, but it's the Press that leads the way!"
Siegfried Sassoon
FIGHT TO A FINISH
The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying,
And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street
To cheer the soldiers who'd refrained from dying,
And hear the music of returning feet.
"Of all the thrills and ardours War has brought,
This moment is the finest." (So they thought.)
Snapping their bayonets on to charge the mob,
Grim Fusiliers broke ranks with glint of steel.
At last the boys had found a cushy job.
* * * * *
I heard the Yellow-Pressmen grunt and squeal;
And with my trusty bombers turned and went
To clear those Junkers out of Parliament.
Siegfried Sassoon
GLORY OF WOMEN
You love us when we're heroes, home on leave,
Or wounded in a mentionable place.
You worship decorations; you believe
That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace.
You make us shells. You listen with delight,
By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.
You crown our distant ardours while we fight,
And mourn our laurelled memories when we're killed.
You can't believe that British troops "retire"
When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run,
Trampling the terrible corpses--blind with blood.
_O German mother dreaming by the fire,
While you are knitting socks to send your son
His face is trodden deeper in the mud._
Siegfried Sassoon
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14757/14757-8.txt
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8pwar10.txt
Strange Meeting
It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall;
With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
"Strange, friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said the other, "Save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now . . ."
Wilfred Owen
Anthem for Doomed Youth
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, --
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
Wilfred Owen
Dulce et Decorum est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. --
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/wowen11.txt
The point made by these poems is that War is Hell for the soldier. If you add that this is not a "real" war between states, equals for all intents and purposes, but instead is an occupation, you compound the Hell, because the occupiers are also committing a major crime.
But the soldiers are human, and can't be treated as garbage; that puts us on the same level as their masters, the Bush-Cheney co-malignancy.
Just my 0.02c - omigod, isn't inflation fierce these days!
no sympathy for anyone who kills innocents in an illegal war. do the right thing and resign. then try to live with yourself.
"LIBERALS SUPPORT THE TROOPS"
Liberals 'support the troops'. Only radicals believe that the troops need to be liberated from the diseased notion that they have "earned" benefits by being willing instruments in mass murder ordered by profiteers.
The only way to support the troops is by telling them the truth -- they were suckers, and they really need to deal with the reality that they were fooled, bought, snookered. Whatever they learned in the military should be used against those that sent them.
Every time liberals 'support the troops' they plant the seeds for the next maniacal imperial operation.
Any soldier who volunteers needs to know that his government lies, that he'll be screwed over, and that no one is going to 'honor him' for being a fool.
" Citizenship is a privilege wrought in our bravery and our brothers blood. Shame on you. The military taught us to do a job for you that you yourself cant or wont endure."
Oh balls. That's fascism -- the military is the source of rights, so we owe yaddayaddayadda.
Volunteering to be a slave in order to commit legal murder is not bravery. You sold yourself, and expect us to go "Ooh," and "Ahh."
I was brainwashed, too, as a boy; but there was a draft back then, and we were all being trained, just like you, to be good Lt. Calleys and gun down the Enemies of Freedom -- because, of course, being brave & loyal & self-sacrificing, we could never, ever be guilty of murder, only of Defense Of Freedom.
What puerile inane brutality from punks. Punks who want praise for killing. "We did it for you" my arse. You did it so you could admire yourself as a hero.
"Never talk to soldiers like that again. What is wrong with you."
Excuse me, jffryjnsn, but do you honestly believe that since you chose to join the military you now have the right to hang your own definition of "most noble" over the heads of other people? Since you chose to wear a uniform and were trained in the art of death, you now have the right to tell other people what they can and cannot say to you and those like you? Get off it! I can think of a number of professions I would say go a great deal further to garner and protect the freedoms of our great nation than that of picking up a gun or dropping a bomb on foreign peoples. Teachers, for example. Perhaps if we placed a better emphasis on recognizing the noble work teachers provide, we would be less likely to end up being hood-winked by blatantly false lies that get us into wars in the first place!
A few facts. But mostly crap.
What is wrong with "..the widespread use of lethal and brutal force"? Sounds like a good way to wrap up this conflict.
"believe it or not it is THEY (the military) who will bring you peace."
And if I was a german during WWII, it would be the Nazis to bring us peace. And if I was an Iraqi it would be the Iraqi resistance who would bring us peace. Or does this only work for countries that begin with the letter "A".
If they collectively turn around and say NO, then yes, they would be the ones to bring peace. Of course it would be much more peaceful if they had never gone to start with. Without them, there could not have been war in the first place.
"Those men were trained like myself to do the most noble job. Look death in the face and do the humane thing." Iraq is overwhelmed with gratitude for the humanity that they have received.
"Citizenship is a privilege wrought in our bravery and our brothers blood."
... and lots and lots and lots of the blood of the people who posed no threat to us in the first place. And for yet more peace, let us bomb someone else.
Dana Visalli- Never talk to soldiers like that again. What is wrong with you. Those men were trained like myself to do the most noble job. Look death in the face and do the humane thing. To what means these men and myself have been abused is the responsibility of YOU the U.S. citizen. Citizenship is a privilege wrought in our bravery and our brothers blood. Shame on you. The military taught us to do a job for you that you yourself cant or wont endure.
Let these men do their job yet don't let them be misguided, and believe it or not it is THEY who will bring you peace.
SUPPORT THE TROOPS
DEMAND THE GROUND TRUTH FROM THE IRAQ OCCUPATION
BRING THE TROOPS HOME
PROVIDE THEM THE HEALTH CARE AND BENEFITS THEY'VE EARNED
LIBERALS SUPPORT THE TROOPS.
REPUBLICAN CHICKENHAWKS, NEO CONS AND RIGHT WING FAKE-CHRISTIANS HAVE SOLD YOU OUT. PERIOD.
THE BLOOD OF YOUR DEAD FRIENDS IS ON THEIR HANDS.
MAKE THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY STRONG, ETHICAL, HONEST.
SOCIAL JUSTICE. INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM. HOMELAND SECURITY THROUGH INTELLIGENCE AND ARRESTS, NOT BLIND INVASIONS
Thank you soldiers for your courage to speak the truth of your experience in Iraq.
I hope you will be respected by your fellow soldiers and countrymen for exercising your first amendment rights,
and what I think is your responsibility to your country to speak the truth.
I hope this reaches the desk of every politician in the US. I hope
newspaper editors will print this. I noticed the NYT did.
best to all of you.
To the authors: Great article guys. Articulate and exceptionally crafted report.
And wow, I can't believe the kind of crap people are talking here. Unreal. One person said "as responsible infantryman" was an oxymoron? Are you freakin' kidding me? The soldiers make a great point about how there is a sense that iraqis are acting out after being help up in Sadam's facist torturing police state like a catholic school girl her freshman year in college and one guy starts yelling at them like it's there fault the Civilian commanders made a terrible strategic record. That's incredibly disrespectful to start talking trash instead of discussing what this really means in a mature fashion. You guys are basically no better than O'reilly and Rush, different sides of the same kind of extreme.
They make a fantastic point about the kind of corruption weaved into the Iraqi police and military organizations. That's hard to clean up, if possible at all.
The civil war is too far gone and at no point did we provide a stabilizing sense of security for the population, which welcoming to skeptical iraqis would have tolerated martial law in exchange for madness. The first mistake was the worst mistake, the looting was the begining to the end.
The book Imperial Life in the Emerald City might appeal to these guys. They have to understand how badly their civilian leadership has messed this up for the beginning. Actually, you might want to read about the PNAC cult and understand how the archietecs behind this war are literally stating their goal is to take over the world. This is an imperial war.
He makes a great point about how, essentially, the best strategy to fix the Iraqi government is to literally pick one side and turn the others into "terrorist" and "para-military" groups. This proves you can't just go into anywhere and promote democracy and "freedom" it won't turn it into a beacon of light.
And I find it petty when someone critizes them for not going AWOL. He's saying the soldiers in Iraq are trying their best to keep their heads up and focus on letting a friend die. One of the things I've been impressed with is that everyone has held a degree of respect for the soldiers because they really are making a sacrafice for what they feel is the good of the public but they have no control over the orders they get from their civilian authority, they're democratically leaders.
These guys are just giving a field report about what they see and what they as 7 individual soldiers how they would recommend. How about we discuss the substance instead of criticizing the authors.
This is the voice of "professionalism". Not to ask why, but to do or die.
The writers are providing a job assessment, oblivious to the enormous toll of death and suffering they are directly responsibile for creating.
Do they seriously believe the Iraqi people are better off now than under Saddam's thumb? Have they asked themselves about why they are there and whether their "job" can be justified legally or morally?
*it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit.*
It is clear they speak with the voice of pragmatic imperialism, and it is entirely likely that their assessment will carry the day, and the US military will retreat to its strategic bases from whence it can continue to manipulate the political process and enforce the imperial will to steal the national resources of Iraq.
Be afraid of these guys. If they were assigned the job of pacifying Cleveland, Ohio, or Atlanta, Georgia, they'd go ahead and get the job done.
This is the new US military a mercenary all volunteer force. If the Commander in Chief declares a state of emergency because his friends have engineered a false flag act of terror in the homeland....
....these are the guys who will shoot you dead if you break curfew.
I'm so tired of the same old rhetoric from the Bush & Company. Today on CNN some Republican senator from Missouri was spouting more absurd rhetoric about how we as an American people need to allow the Maliki government to find time to get settled in. He mentioned our own new governmment struggled in our beginning. Talk about comparing apples to oranges. Same old rhetoric We need more time! The surge is beginning to work! Be patient! Democracy takes time to work! It's refreshing to hear the truth even if its bad news! I'll take reality over blowin smoke any time! We know what Bush's agenda is ride this out and pass this plate of rotting flesh to the new president. Then make speech after speech that IF ONLY the Americans will would have been stronger we could have prevailed. IF ONLY the new president would have followed Bush's plan and not pulled so many troops....IF ONLY.....
Ahhh, we are all so righteous! Considering the possible fallout from this article for these soldiers, I would say it took real courage to publish it... to put it out in the world for all to read. Yes, the ultimate courage would be for them to lay down their arms and refuse to fight. From the safety of our homes, sitting in front of our computers, trying to display our outrage in our most brilliant fashion, we can express our scorn. They didn't go far enough.
We haven't walked in their boots. We don't know who they are or where they come from. We only know that they feel strongly enough about what is happening over there, that they must make themselves heard, no matter what the consequences. That is courage in my book, and I am grateful that they were willing to make their concerns and their perceptions public.
Do any of you realize the courage it took for these men to write this? I'll bet most veterans understand. Their WILL be retaliation from their chain of command. In fact, their army careers are probably over. I know, it happened to me. All I wrote was a couple of paragraphs to my hometown newspaper. I'm still paying the price, and I'm retired.
Not all military people are non thinking killers. Granted, some are. The military of today does discourage critical thinking. Todays recruits come to the military with a certain bent. The mouth breathing, knuckle dragging, red neck bent. It is my experience that the best leaders are the ones that think for themselves. Hollywood has brainwashed just about everyone, including new recruits. Most people think a good soldier is one that blindly follows any order. Not true. You can think and still accomplish your mission. Once you get away from the brass you can do it your way. Sometimes thats bad. As when atrocities happen. But that is more a consequence of poor training. Seargents are tacticians. If this tactic fails, try something else. That rarely happens in Iraq. The NCO's are in a bad space because the brass are dumb asses. Been that way since the beginning of time. Most of all, it is the seargents job to bring his boys home in one piece.
I read some of you saying we are a warrior nation, blah, blah, blah. I agree. But that doesn't make it right. That doesn't mean it has to be that way, that we can't change. That kind of thinking has to be thrown out. This is our country. We let this happen. We thought this would never happen. That the right wasn't that crazy. We made the mistake of assuming right wingers think like liberals. They obviously don't. Let's get that out of the way right now. And forget that progressive crap. Have the guts to be a liberal and be proud. You call yourself progressive because the right has convinced you something is wrong with liberal. Stop listening to them. Drive them back under the rock they came out of.
Gail: Perhaps I expressed myself poorly, but my point is not what OTHER PEOPLE may or may not do (and thus whether this article reaches "most people in the country" is not my concern here). My point is that EACH ONE OF US WAR RESISTERS MUST (in some way within each of our capacities) TAKE ACTION in furtherance of our professed beliefs, as I believe these young soldiers have done. I happen to be old enough to have personally TAKEN ACTION to end racial segregation in the '60's and to end the Vietnam War in the '70's. Words are useful, but in my experience words alone have never effected any significant social change. And urging OTHER PEOPLE TO ACT is seldom efficacious, unless the speaker sets an example through his/her own actions.
Davepepper: Unless you have a specific time-frame in mind, you are wrong in saying that "the US military has never defended the US in earnest." I was 10 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and my older brother fought in the ensuing defensive war in the South Pacific (in which the Japanese maintained their offensive on sea, land and air for two more years before the tide turned). I voluntarily served in the Navy during the Korean War, which began with a massive and effective offensive by the North Koreans (which nearly drove US forces into the sea before the US was able to counterattack and push the North Koreans back across the 38th parallel that divided Russian-occupied North Korea from US-occupied South Korea). This is probably a whole lot more history than you want to know, but it may be helpful for you to understand that there are millions of US military veterans who did indeed serve in truly defensive US wars -- and who are likely to make the same defensive-offensive distinction about "just wars" that you appear to be making (although I must concede that there are some "American right or wrong" veterans who could care less whether a war is "just" or not). Anyway, my point for you is that there are a lot of veterans and active-duty military personnel who are just as offended by the presently prevailing (bipartisan) view of our nation's "leaders" that the US military is available for whatever imperialistic exercise in "force projection" that may come into their febrile (or feeble) minds.
Good work by the seven sergeants.
There are basically two types of soldiers in a war. Those with the rank of major and above and those with the rank of captain and below. The former see the war as symbols on a map or, at closest, from helicopter height. Usually these days, their's is the world of air conditioned comfort, hot meals, and clean, even pressed, clothes. They may get out in the field occasionally, but seldom for long and far too many never listen to those below them, particularly those in the enlisted ranks. They typically remain isolated even when surrounded by underlings.
The ground pounders, the grunts, those at the sharp end, the non-REMFs, see the war up close and personal. They see the puddled blood, perhaps are forced to lie in it at times. They smell the indescribable stench of long dead or burned flesh that never leaves the nostrils. They taste the grit. They freeze. They bake. They hear, or worse, actually feel in their chest, the deep krump concussion of mortars dropping nearby. They understand that unlike the movies, it does not matter how much a super soldier you are if the mortar shell decides to share your foxhole or if the bullet and they share the same airspace. They walk at night unable to see the trip wires even with the starlight scopes and infrared. They see the effect of the war, both to their own friends and the civilians they were there to protect. Even their enemies take on a different cast once they are not a threat.
In any event, the view of war from the perspective of the ordinary soldier is one of almost relentless stress, worry, dirt, thirst, pain and fatigue. The one good thing, or perhaps occasionally a very bad thing, is the close comradery that can develop from the shared, often communal experience among those fighting the war as captains and below.
The two views of the same conflict, the higher highers versus those who actually et killed and wounded, are so dramatically different that it is almost as if they are fighting different wars. Neither can really understand the other, yet both desperately need to communicate because each has critical information the other lacks.
The best commanders seem to be those who have experienced combat from both positions. They understand the limits of technology as well as the limits of human endurance when they are moving the unit symbols around on the map and making demands of their assembled multitudes.
Unfortunately, particularly since Bush was too gutless actually put himself where he could even hear the sound of guns, that means there is no shared experience on Iraq or even war in general, let alone two way communication. No shared sacrifice, no understanding of the costs to one and all.
Perhaps if Bush would ever listen to what the troops actually had to say, as these seven have attempted to convey, we would be a lot stronger or wiser, at least not as many dead and wasted. Of course, that would require that Bush actually care about the troops he so willfully expends.
Written by a former SSG 101st Airborne, 3rd/187th , Vietnam era
[more irreverance at resistence-is-possible.blogspot.com]
in fact, the article deliberately avoids the issue of morality/legality. thus the final sentence, cuz if the war is illegal/immoral, well, you know...can't have the individual soldier deciding these issues, can we?
this is a deeply misleading article. yes, there is some attention to refugees, but none to the 1 million dead. there is no historical context to our involvement in iraq (the iran war, sanctions, etc.) if there were no tactical problems in iraq, this article wouldn't even appear. the strategic issues (ie, the US right to invade other countries and all that crap) are not even touched. again, the problem here is the "practical," not the moral or legal.
i sympathize w/these guys, but part of me, based on that last sentence in the piece, looks at them as "little eichmanns." if they know all this crap, how can they pick up a gun and finish "the mission"?
Sorry people their opinion is only that. If you asked four people about the weather you would get four different opinions.
Okay - I've heard enough.
So the withdraw begins... when was that again? BTW, just before the launch of the illegal invasion (there was no "war," nor is there one now,) the polls were already sliding in the other direction. Given a bit more time - and a few more Blix reports and Joe Wilsons - Cheneybush's long-planned oil-grab would have been thwarted. And stop calling it a "war". If the right path is to be taken, Americans need to fully understand the situation: the Loonitary Decider illegally, aggressively invaded a weak, sovereign nation based on lies, and then proceeded to use our military and tens of thousands of mercenaries to illegally occupy the country in a blatant effort to control oil and water resources. No war, no war powers, no Commander in Chief during wartime.
leftofkarlmarx
Very true. When the war had started 80+% of my countrymen were in support of the war. Now that the war is not turning out to be a cake walk, so many are against it.
It is not enough to be against the war. It is equally important to know why.
The American Army will eventually leave Iraq. The various factions will then fight it out with Russian, American, and Chinese weapons. The country will then either fly apart into 3 or more Iraq's, or a clear winner will emerge that will then suppress the others. Just a prediction.
The longer that us troops remain in illegal occupation of foreign countries like Iraq the more local and world citizens will begin to believe that the only good yankee is a dead one. At risk of being banned or arrested, I'd suggest that the first target of soldiers who are still capable of conscience thought would be their commander-in-chief.
iolaire11 August 19th, 2007 2:27 pm said
"Thank you gentlemen....I wish to honor the path that you are on - you are walking it with integrity."
I disagree. They are neither gentlemen nor honorable. They enable the supreme crime of war crimes. They should not be thanked - rather brought, together with their superiors, including our Commander in Thief, to the war crime tribunal.
"...Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise...."
Huh, on which planet do you live? The only promises that count are:
1) I'll take revenge because he tried to kill my dad
2) Regain control over Iraqi oil
3) Destroy a potential enemy of Israel
Brainwashed soldiers... do you recognize that you are complicit in war crimes?
richard young August 19th, 2007 4:55 pm
"How many of us have acted upon our beliefs as decisively as have these men? Hopefully at least a few more of us will be inspired to act meaningfully against the war, as a result of this article."
Hopefully, but as many have suggested, this information will most likely not be seen by most people in this country.
The US military is not for defense.....It's purpose is to invade sovereign nations in conquest to steal resources and gain new markets. I wish Americans would undestand this. The US military has never defended the US in earnest. If the US were true to its values, it would help the world develop peacefuly so that all could share in the gains, and no military would be needed. But the US is about imperialism and war. Its economy is a war economy. War is the purpose of the USA. The USA is run by war profiteers at the expense of the entire US and world populations. The solution is to end war, make UN Article 51 criminally enforceable by a world criminal court, and disarm all militaries on the planet. War cannot happen if the manufacture of arms is illegal. The US military is everyone's problem. It is a criminal institution that spreads death and destruction under the guise of "defense."
Jassim: Thanks for the response. I was not making a negative judgment when I expressed the reality of how Americans are seen in Iraq due to the occupation. I was actually trying to explain it to American readers from the other side of the fence. You be amazed at how narrow views can be in this part of the world often due to propaganda from the media and our government. It can also be a delicate tasks to try to introduce the thought that the American soldiers are not heroes but more like the bad guys although many are confused or indoctrinated. I have been to Iran and Afghanistan and Pakistan as a young man have nothing but respect for the high moral values of Islam. If crazy torturers and rapists and killers were in my home town I would fight back in any way that I could and then pray for their demented souls if I killed one of them. The healing may take a very long time but it will come.
This is a valuable account of the situation in Iraq because it comes from American soldiers who are there.
I don't understand then why Dana Visalli, in the first comment in this thread, degrades and belittles these men. As Americans opposed to this war, we need to support all of the soldiers, especially those who recognize that this war is wrong such as the men who had the courage to write this article!
In a perfect world these combat soldiers who oppose what they are being ordered to do in Iraq would put down their weapons and refuse to use them again. In a perfect world we here at home who oppose this senseless and evil war would interrupt our daily routines and dedicate our actions full time to stopping it. In the imperfect world we inhabit, I can only express my profound respect for these young soldiers who have dared to identify themselves to their superior officers and speak out to the American people about the realities of the war and their roles in it. How many of us have acted upon our beliefs as decisively as have these men? Hopefully at least a few more of us will be inspired to act meaningfully against the war, as a result of this article.
september 15----millions needed.....
I don't want to hear any crying coming from the the soldiers.
Whether you like it or not we're a Warrior Nation and always have been. We have more in common with Ancient Rome or Nazi Germany than the illusion benevolent nation we like to think we are. What we're suffering from now is the consequences of this folly and I say piss on this nation for allowing this to happen and having madmen run the show.
We'll deserve everything we get and what's coming won't be pretty.
The plan I am sending you has been approved by many prominent thinkers and
activists in the field. Which includes: Benjamin Ferencz, Chief Prosecutor
at the Nuremburg Trials, Ken Livingstone-Mayor of London,
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, Tom Hayden, Richard Falk, Matthew Rothschild, Anthony Arnove, Danny Schecter, Tony Benn- Former Member of the British parliament ,Reggie Rivers,Frida Berrigan,
Robert Jensen, Andrew Bard Schmookler, Burhan Al-Chalabi and others.
I formulated this plan in September 2004, based on a comprehensive
study of the issues. For my plan to be successful it must be implemented
with all seven points beginning to happen within a very short period of
time.
I have run up against a wall of doubt about my plan due to it's
rational nature ,and due to it's adherence to placing the blame on the
invaders, and then trying to formulate a process of extrication which would
put all entities in this conflict face to face, to begin to finally solve
the dilemmas that exist.
If you read my plan you will see that it is guided by a reasonable
and practical compromise that could end this war and alleviate the
internecine civil violence that is confronting Iraq at this juncture in it's
history.
I am making a plea for my plan to be put into action on a wide-scale.
I need you to circulate it and use all the persuasion you have to bring it
to the attention of those in power.
Just reading my plan and sending off an e-mail to me that you received
it will not be enough.
This war must end-we who oppose it can do this by using my plan.
We must fight the power and end the killing.
If you would like to view some comments and criticism about my plan
I direct you to my blog: sevenpointman
Thank you my dear friend,
Howard Roberts
A Seven-point plan for an Exit Strategy in Iraq
1) A timetable for the complete withdrawal of American and British forces
must be announced.
I envision the following procedure, but suitable fine-tuning can be
applied by all the people involved.
A) A ceasefire should be offered by the Occupying side to
representatives of the Sunni insurgency and the Shiite and Kurdish communities. These
representatives would be guaranteed safe passage, to any meetings. The
individual insurgency groups and communities would designate who would attend.
At this meeting a written document declaring a one-month ceasefire,
witnessed by a United Nations authority, will be fashioned and eventually
signed. This document will be released in full, to all Iraqi newspapers, the
foreign press, and the Internet.
( The inclusion of Kurdish communities in this sub-section was added in early September 2006-
as an attempt to define the goals of parity and fairness and to avoid any sectarian splitting
of Iraq.)
B) US and British command will make public its withdrawal, within
sixth-months of 80 % of their troops.
C) Every month, a team of United Nations observers will verify the
effectiveness of the ceasefire.
All incidences on both sides will be reported.
D) Combined representative armed forces of both the Occupying
nations and the insurgency organizations and major community factions. that agreed to the cease fire will
protect the Iraqi people from actions by terrorist cells.
E) Combined representative armed forces from both the Occupying
nations and the insurgency organizations/community factions will begin creating a new military
and police force. Those who served, without extenuating circumstances, in
the previous Iraqi military or police, will be given the first option to
serve.
F) After the second month of the ceasefire, and thereafter, in
increments of 10-20% ,a total of 80% will be withdrawn, to enclaves in Qatar
and Bahrain. The governments of these countries will work out a temporary
land-lease housing arrangement for these troops. During the time the troops
will be in these countries they will not stand down, and can be re-activated
in the theater, if the chain of the command still in Iraq, the newly
formed Iraqi military, the leaders of the insurgency/community factions, and two international
ombudsman (one from the Arab League, one from the United Nations), as a
majority, deem it necessary.
G) One-half of those troops in enclaves will leave three-months after they
arrive, for the United States or other locations, not including Iraq.
H) The other half of the troops in enclaves will leave after
six-months.
I) The remaining 20 % of the Occupying troops will, during this six
month interval, be used as peace-keepers, and will work with all the
designated organizations, to aid in reconstruction and nation-building.
J) After four months they will be moved to enclaves in the above
mentioned countries.
They will remain, still active, for two month, until their return to
the States, Britain and the other involved nations.
2) At the beginning of this period the United States will file a letter with
the Secretary General of the Security Council of the United Nations, making
null and void all written and proscribed orders by the CPA, under R. Paul
Bremer. This will be announced and duly noted.
3) At the beginning of this period all contracts signed by foreign countries
will be considered in abeyance until a system of fair bidding, by both
Iraqi and foreign countries, will be implemented ,by an interim Productivity
and Investment Board, chosen from pertinent sectors of the Iraqi economy.
Local representatives of the 18 provinces of Iraq will put this board
together, in local elections.
4) At the beginning of this period, the United Nations will declare that
Iraq is a sovereign state again, and will be forming a Union of 18
autonomous regions. Each region will, with the help of international
experts, and local bureaucrats, do a census as a first step toward the
creation of a municipal government for all 18 provinces. After the census, a
voting roll will be completed. Any group that gets a list of 15% of the
names on this census will be able to nominate a slate of representatives.
When all the parties have chosen their slates, a period of one-month will be
allowed for campaigning.
Then in a popular election the group with the most votes will represent that
province.
When the voters choose a slate, they will also be asked to choose five
individual members of any of the slates.
The individuals who have the five highest vote counts will represent a
National government.
This whole process, in every province, will be watched by international
observers as well as the local bureaucrats.
During this process of local elections, a central governing board, made up
of United Nations, election governing experts, insurgency organizations, US
and British peacekeepers, and Arab league representatives, will assume the
temporary duties of administering Baghdad, and the central duties of
governing.
When the ninety representatives are elected they will assume the legislative
duties of Iraq for two years.
Within three months the parties that have at least 15% of the
representatives will nominate candidates for President and Prime Minister.
A national wide election for these offices will be held within three months
from their nomination.
The President and the Vice President and the Prime Minister will choose
their cabinet, after the election.
5) All debts accrued by Iraq will be rescheduled to begin payment, on the
principal after one year, and on the interest after two years. If Iraq is
able to handle another loan during this period she should be given a grace
period of two years, from the taking of the loan, to comply with any
structural adjustments.
6) The United States and the United Kingdom shall pay Iraq reparations for
its invasion in the total of 120 billion dollars over a period of twenty
years for damages to its infrastructure. This money can be defrayed as
investment, if the return does not exceed 6.5 %.
7) During the interim period all those accused of crimes against the Iraqi people,
or against international law will be given access to a fair trial.
The extent of the implications of the international nature of the crime, and the
security standards which exist in Iraq will dictate the place of the trial, and it's subsequent procedures.
All defendants will have the right to present any evidence they want, and to
choose freely their own lawyers.
If they are found guilty they will be given all necessary appeals provided for by the jurisdiction
of their trials, and will be sentenced in Iraq, after all these appeals are exhausted.
If they are found not guilty they will be released and given protection under international law,
with the strict adherence to these laws by the judicial organs of a sovereign Iraq.
GWBJR AND FAMILY LEGACY WILL BE THE DEATH OF AMERICA AS NEVER KNOWN BEFORE. IT WILL TAKE ONE HUNDRED YEARS FOR AMERICA TO REGAIN IT'S RESPECT AND POWER 0N THIS PLANET.IT WILL TAKE THE REPUBLICANS AND THEIR CONSERVATIVE TALK SHOW SNAKES SIXTEEN YEARS TO REGAIN ANY CREDITABILITY.
BUSH IS A FOUR LETTER WORD.
Get Loose...The answer to our problen in Iraq is simple...Fire all those lick-spittal Bush suckup Generals and turn the war over to the Sergeants.
As long these factions believe it is their "inherent" right or their "turn" to rule, Iraq will never be without war.
I listened to Washington Journal on C-Span this morning as it's one of the few places where the listener can "get a beat" on various US voices/public opinion. You can HEAR (and recognize) the Rush Limbaugh tune in the clones that call in, as they demand more GOOD NEWS from the war front. Because the entire process is conducted at a distance and if shown at all, from the vantage point of embedded reporters in the Green Zone, the capacity to use smoke and mirrors to let naive listeners think it's some kind of concerted conspiracy on the part of the LEFT to leave out all the good, groovy things happening over there... INSTEAD if viewers had any true sense of the depraved indifference, the war profiteers NOT having met the criteria of their own building contracts, the misery, death and senseless maiming (on both side, but we know who the aggressor is)... there would not BE any double digit approval of Bush and his neo-con enablers. The fact people still THINK something good is occuring is pathetic! There was a conservative guest who made the excellent point that government now is so in bed with large corporations that we cannot expect government scrutiny to alter business as (now) usual in D.C. Yep, the rudiments of a fascist land are already built like covert infrastructure... will there be a false flag event? I rule nothing out with this group, as they have demonstrated a ruthless addiction for absolute power and all of its rabid abuses...
Thank you for your courage re writing this artlcle. Have forwarded it to my Senators and Congresswoman and will send a copy to each as well.
Material from folks like you who are in the midst of this disastrous suffering will be what helps these elected officials move to bring you home and make plans for the recovery of the Iraqi people and their land.
JConrad writes:
'However, a cultural topic relevant to Iraq and rarely discussed is the reality of tribal and Muslim ethics when a family member is killed. Almost every family in Iraq has lost someone to American military actions over the years, even if it was a child dying from bad drinking water after we bombed their purification plants. Every death requires some sort of retaliation in the normal Iraqi code of life. In their eyes we are much more than simply occupiers. We are seen as the absolute enemy and millions of Iraqis would like nothing more than to kill an American, even if they act friendly at certain times. As long as Americans are in Iraq they will be targets.'
Yes you are right. However, surely this is not simply an Islamic and tribal thing. If our countries were bombarded for thirteen years, sanctioned and denied all that normal modern life expects to sustain it, our chuldren died from lack of medicines we had been denied import, would we not behave exactly the same? Then the same countries bombed us back to a dark age, moved in to and squatted our state buildings, walled us in, looted our homes, denied us even the education of our kids - I imagine we would move heaven and earth to kill every last one of them. Look at recent history, invaders are just that and fair game, not often greeted with sweets and flowers.
This is some of the most honest, responsible reporting to come out of this misbegotten war. Share it with your congressional representatives, especially if you're represented by one or more Republicans.
Also, share this with your local newspapers. Suggest they run it as an op-ed piece. That's the best chance it has to make it in the US media, although much of the media is (at long last) starting to cover the war responsibly.
webwalk says: "Naturally, this reasoned account from persons on the ground will NOT APPEAR in the United States."
Actually, this piece ran in the New York Times OP ED page this morning, under the title 'The War as We Saw It'. (The International Herald Tribune is actually owned by and acts as the international version of the New York Times.)
I'm leaving here soon and am praying I won't be sent back.
Lord, didn't anyone see this happening? The thing is - what do we do about it now? I think the only thing that will work is if we take a stand and shut this country down for days. (Someone is calling for a National Sick Of War day on 10/26/07. Sounds good to me!)
They won't impeach. They won't withdraw and if you think there isn't gonna be a 'terrorist' activity before 2008 - you need to have your head examined.
A Christian country? I think not.
Thank you gentlemen. I know that given military guidelines, speaking out can be fraught with blowback.
Succinctly stated. Your viewpoint is necessary and provides a more faceted explanation of what is truly happening.
I wish to honor the path that you are on - you are walking it with integrity. Clearing stating what you see - yet continuing to fulfill the contracts you signed.
Come home.
This appears to be accurate information with a scary sort of objectivity, yet deserves credit for clarity on certain dilemmas and official distortions. But, I preferred the article earlier in the week by the sniper who simply put down his gun. These authors also forgot to mention the "privatization" of Iraqi oil by multinational corporations as a "benchmark". I would not want to die or take another life for ExxonMobil.
However, a cultural topic relevant to Iraq and rarely discussed is the reality of tribal and Muslim ethics when a family member is killed. Almost every family in Iraq has lost someone to American military actions over the years, even if it was a child dying from bad drinking water after we bombed their purification plants. Every death requires some sort of retaliation in the normal Iraqi code of life. In their eyes we are much more than simply occupiers. We are seen as the absolute enemy and millions of Iraqis would like nothing more than to kill an American, even if they act friendly at certain times. As long as Americans are in Iraq they will be targets.
Friend by day and enemy by night was a common scenario with the VC in Nam. They had been doing it for decades with the French. However, there is a long term difference as the Vietnamese are essentially Buddhist and do not have the same eternal ethic of an eye for an eye. They fight to defend themselves and then seek peace if possible. Not so in the tribal Muslim view of life.
Another difference in Nam was that at a certain point, grunts realized they were being forced to kill Vietnamese for no good reason while suffering the effects of war and facing their own death. Some soldiers simply flipped. In time, grunts began to frag officers. Sad, but true.
It is time to bring the troops home.
'Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, "We need security, not free food." '
I admire your courage for writing as you have. However, as an occupying force you cannot even scratch the surface of an understanding of a country where you probably do not speak the language and thus, know nothing of the culture. Your food and water is imported and friends back home send you nuts and shampoo - like Iraq doesn't have the best nuts on earth and doesn't sell shampoo. They have food too, and you can afford to buy it, whilst most can't. Boost the economy, buy local.
You talk of 'Ba'ath tyranny'. When did Saddam kill over a million in little over four years and displace four million? Now THAT is tyranny. US style. Between the dead and displaced that is broadly one in five of the population. Most would call that a holocaust.
You are also implicated in the 'supreme international crime' under the Nuremberg Principles, a war of aggression against a people who posed you no threat.
Those who are the serious rulers in Iraq are anyway Iranians or their supporters. Iraq since 2003 is not even run by Iraqis, courtesy USA.
What a disasterous mess. Best you can do is go home and hope you are not tried for war crimes for simply being there and having committed 'the supreme international crime'.
Hey! . . . Can you see what's happening?
I'm getting really worried by what I'm seeing, and I'm about to dump all my worries on you.
I see Democratic leaders apparently dumbfounded by unanticipated, unperceived, and an extraordinarily predictable series of events which point to tyranny in the making. If you draw a dot under a man, and then follow his footsteps from dot to dot, pretty soon you can tell which directions he is heading. You can do the same thing with a government, and I'm worried about the direction my government is taking.
The Monopoly Media says, "No worries, everything is everything."
But still, I worry.
.
Bush & Co created this shithole and threw you into it. You need to be allowed out, and the USA owes huge reparations, and funding for a real peacekeeping force drawn from nearby nations.
The Bushies and Neocons screwed up, big time. Sometimes the truth hurts.
Naturally, this reasoned account from persons on the ground will NOT APPEAR in the United States. It runs in the International Herald Tribune, instead of being plastered on the front pages of the New York Times. It will not be reported on the network TV news shows.
Reality does not drive the dialog in the United States, and those of us who continue to base our study and our argument in reality find it very difficult to intervene in the corporate media, or even to have a public conversation.
Thank the Earth for places like Common Dreams, but how can we break through the public illusions and expose reality to the millions?
Before, you know, we VERY SOON launch nuclear bombs and plunge the world into the greatest catastrophe in human history?
How can we intervene?
Thanks to the authors for your courage and clarity in writing this piece.
My first thought in reading this line: "As responsible infantrymen...." was, "That's an oxymoron." You can't have responsible infantrymen. We all know that it is illegal to invade other societies and nations. We all know that 90% of casualties in war are civilians. So if you are an infantryman you are irresponsible. Find something else to do with your life.
Also: "As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through." The military teaches you to think you are a machine. You are not a machine. With just a little thought you can easily understand this war on the Iraqi people is a profoundly criminal endeavor. Your real mission is to get your commanders and your commander in chief put behind bars---that's your mission.
And that's an order.