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Stop the Next My Lai
The New York Times saw fit to mark the fifth anniversary of the US invasion by inviting nine "experts" including not one soldier to reflect on the conduct of the war and occupation of Iraq. The Times chose to listen to Richard Perle and Robert Bremer III but not one soldier. The Times has no time for troops like Camilo Mejia or Kelly Dougherty. But the public must take the time.
Mejia and Dougherty were among the hundreds of young servicemen and women who shared wrenching, infuriating, riveting eyewitness testimony over the last three days at Winter Soldier hearings in Silver Spring, Md. While the Times's "experts," include men and women who personally played a disastrous role in urging on and then conducting this war, the Winter Soldier hearings, organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, brought the public the occupation as seen by the very young men and women at the bottom of the chain of command whose lives have forever been transformed by what we and the US government asked them to do in our name.
It is testimony you have a responsibility to watch or listen to. Some addressed broad policy issues having to do with the rules of engagement, occupation, the treatment of civilians and detainees and the treatment of troops on their return. Some related to specific violations, including rape, indiscriminate killing, torture, desecration of the dead and the apparently common practice of dropping weapons on dead civilians to make them look like combatants. More than one soldier described being told to carry "drop weapons," in their vehicles.
The IVAW say they have corroborated these stories. Reporters urgently need to follow up. As one witness, Joshua Castell put it, "Moral slippery slopes go from top to bottom." Those at the bottom cannot be the only ones to take responsibility.
After Winter Soldier 1971, the proceedings were read into the congressional record and the Senate Foreign Relations committee held hearings that gave vets an opportunity to testify. Will this Democratic-controlled Congress give these men and women the same opportunity? These soldiers are willing to take oaths. On Sunday, Former US Army Captain Luis Montalvan, who served two tour of Iraq, said he'd be grateful to have the chance. His colleagues, agreed, "on a stack of bibles."
Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan wrapped up March 16, forty years to the day after the My Lai Massacre which started the Whole Winter soldier phenomenon. As Garrett Reppenhagen, the first active duty soldier to join IVAW put it Sunday, "It's time to stop this occupation before the next Tet Offensive." As IVAW are showing loud and clear, this occupation is not winnnable, it is destroying Iraq, tearing apart this country and breaking down our military. It has to stop now. And not just the troops need to feel the pain.
12 Comments so far
Show AllThe troops in the field have to "just say no," to stop the next My Lai.
The invasion and occupation was illegal, unconstitutional and violated those "quaint" International Laws the US chooses not to comply with.
I've been watching and listening to 'Winter Soldier' testimonies the past four days and admire and respect these young men who have seen the Light and have the courage to speak out.
Peaceful non-compliance within the ranks is a necessity for stopping further atrocities against people who did us no harm.
The New York Times is another cheerleader for the fascist/imperialist agenda.
Read 'FAIR' (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) if you want the lowdown on the news media.
Laura Flanders, I'm one of your admirers. I know the uncles are proud of you.
Garret Reppenhagen cautions we must end the occupation of Iraq "before the next Tet offensive".
As a US Army veteran from the Vietnam era (a draftee, with very limited exposure to combat conditions), and as a current member of Veterans for Peace, I certainly agree. We should bring the troops home sooner - on our timetable, structured to minimize the sectarian violence that American forces' departure will inevitably invite - rather than later.
Conventional historical wisdom in hindsight credits the Tet offensive as a watershed moment that turned majoritarian public opinion against the Vietnam war. A major concern of mine is that another Tet offensive, this time in Iraq, will have the opposite effect in our current mass media climate, and instead galvanize domestic clamor for yet more mindless militarism abroad and divisive partisan repression here at home.
Bill from Saginaw
It's way too late, just as My Lai happened because previous atrocities were blinked at. They were blinked at because soldiers know that war is an atrocity by its very nature, and it corrupts those it sucks in and turns them into murderous monsters. The law calls on them to exercise their consciences and abstain from such acts - but if they listened to their consciences, and if their consciences were formed by ethics and not by patriotism, then they wouldn't be soldiers in the first place. The only way to stop the My Lais is to abandon not only war but the whole justification for the use of force to settle human conflicts of interest.
While you listen to these stories, keep in mind everything you hear would be horrible enough if these things had happened for a noble cause or a "just war", if such a thing exists. But this war and occupation has been shown over and over again to have been based on "false information and pretexts", a.k.a. lies -- whether deliberate or not, you can reach your own conclusions. Many feel not only was all this unnecessary, but that any hopes we ever held for experiencing peace on earth are much, much dimmer because of what our country has done in our names with our money and with, if not our blessing, our acquiescence.
There is no more time left for silent acceptance. None. We must speak out now, before we go beyond what seems like an insane, worst case scenario and make it even worse by starting yet another war with Iran. Sound crazy? You bet. But farfetched? Hardly. Just last week in a video conference our Commander in Chief said:
"If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed." Bush went on to say, "It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history. And thanks."
I'll go out on a limb and bet he didn't watch any of the testimony from Winter Soldier 2008. But I ask you to listen to their stories, join me in my revulsion, and then act for peace, now. As one veteran said yesterday about My Lai, the only way to stop war atrocities is to stop war. Period.
Several times a day I shake my head in amazement and disgust that the criminals who brought about this unnecessary and catastrophic war are walking free and are still treated in this country as though they were normal officials with hands clean of atrocities. A few voices in the wilderness like that of Congressman Wexler and the eight or nine who signed his legislation have the vision and courage to do the right and proper thing and call for impeachment of Bush/Cheney, yet the majority turn away from their historical call, as though they were petrified with fear of Richard Cheney's sneering mouth and Bush's frat boy punk swagger. Twenty years ago I would never have imagined that the country could reach such a low state.
To Argue With Civility:
"Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed." (UN Geneva Convention on Genocide 1954)
" An eye for an eye makes the world blind." Mahatma Ghandi
" In order for humans to benefit from advances in technology, there must be a parallel moral progress in us." F. Fukiyama
"We cannot live for ourselves alone (our cause). Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions return to us as results (effects)." Herman Melville
War is never a cause…until once it begins.
Then a cause it remains… until the bitter end!
So long as bombs bleed money, man's wars shall never cease...
And if Bombs Inc. buys your newspaper, you'll read how "War Makes Peace!"
"War is written in the stars," both sides share this pretext
But if an idle mind, the devil's workshop makes,
War must be his military-industrial complex!
What can be done?
Lest we remember:
YOU ARE NOT GOD
I AM NOT GOD
ONLY GOD CAN BE GOD.
There are not enough words in earth's 6,000 languages
To shake a stick at the creator of the stick!
From the hormones that wake us each morn'
To the hormones that take us each night.
We want to fake our freewill with all our hormonal might!
If you have your prejudices and, I, mine, brother.
And if you have a personality alike none other…
And if our genetic character flaws upon mixing must sizzle,
Then let he who hath no sins shoot the first missile…
Still, if all the money in America could not engineer a single blade of grass…
What diminished childish power your 100 mega-ton nuclear bomb has?
"To cherish or destroy life?" that is the question!
Thus every living soul must sacrifice in that direction.
For when the civilized bomb the uncivilized, they become uncivilized with 'em
So should all we reciprocate ad infinitum?
Is it a barbarian's mace or a laser-guided missile?
Is it the weapon in our hands or what is in our hearts that makes us civil?
"Gain the world and lose your soul!" the stakes remain the same…
You need merely open your eyes to bite this apple; to play this game.
Some 2,500 years ago Aristotle said, " Air, Fire, Water, and Earth!"
Today we say, " Gravity, Electromagnetism, and Quantum Physics!"
So what?
Gravity schmavity.
Where does time begin and space end?
Lest your "ruler" measures infinity…
At least we could be civil.
Stop the next My Lai? Based on what I've been hearing on Winter Soldier, it sounds like it's already happened--over and over again.
Laura, I'm not criticizing you when I say my impression of the testimony is that young volunteer Republicans in Iraq are
My Lai all the time.
That such a large number of them were able to turn their heads around and learn from their experience is close to a miracle.
They are true patriots, speaking out at
great cost to themselves.
The aimlessness of what they describe, rules of engagement changing every hour,
callous superiors starting with "The Commander in Chief" and General Casey on down, with Casey using the term "hodgie,"
(haji?)-- it apalls.
What it means is that the top general uses a word similar to "nigger" to describe anybody in Iraq who isn't an American. This attitude seeps DOWN.
The first great distinction has been made--us and them, same as "gooks" in Vietnam. On most days everyplace is free fire zone. Shoot at anything that moves. The private contractors do it. The regular army does it. We-- Americans--murder innocent people and think nothing of it AND DO IT ALL THE TIME!
Teach Arabic to all the soldiers first next time, Bush. Does everyone in this country understand that Seymour Hersh was being a thousand times brighter than the next member of the punditocracy when he was asked when we should get out and he said, "By midnight tomorrow night"?
No. Of course not. And this is what is wrong with Barack and Hillary and everyone else. No one has the guts to say, "We're leaving AFAP and not one American will stay behind," but that is the person who should receive everyone's vote.
Laura is being too nice in her description of the '9 experts'. When I saw who they all were, I was flabbergasted. Then I read their statements and immediately went to the BR and threw up.
The entire Middle East is currently one massive "Mt Lai"..I have no sympathy for the current crop of "Winter Soldiers" The ones in Vietnam were drafted...today these are all volunteers now shedding cockodile tears..not over the victimes of the massive murdering rampage they have been on, but mostly for themselves and their "damage psyches"
They could have "just said no" and refused to go..and their time in the brig, as many in the vietnam era did.
Iraq is an illegal war, and every soldier has the right to refuse an illegal order.
As usual Flanders is waving her make this world safe from ass holes. Problem is the political assholes she supports are owned by the military industrial establishment.
Canuckchuck
"The entire Middle East is currently one massive "Mt Lai"..I have no sympathy for the current crop of "Winter Soldiers" The ones in Vietnam were drafted…today these are all volunteers now shedding cockodile tears..not over the victimes of the massive murdering rampage they have been on, but mostly for themselves and their "damage psyches""
We gotta be careful with this kind of lack of empathy. What would you be happier with, that they shut up and gloom in private? Arent you, as a (so-called?) anti-war person, glad that they are going public with these stories?
I used to have that same kind of reaction, like "Id rather be in prison than in Iraq" or "Why the hell are these guys joining the army in the first place?". The thing that hits me when i watch these testimonies from these soldiers back from Irak is the transformation they have gone through. Some like the guy with a mohawk, went from wanting to turn the middle east into a giant glass plate to being empathic with irakis, talking about passing "A peoples history of the united states" around to other soldiers, regretting alot of what hes done, asking himself alot of questions and going through what seems like a epiphanic transformation.
I will agree that some of these testimonies try too much to say that individual soldiers arent reponsible, its "war" that makes them do things they wouldnt do otherwise. Thats a cop-out, because theres always the choice of choosing jail instead of combat.
That being said, were not helping the anti-war cause by taking an holier than thou attitude which might antagonize people that could be allies. Its not given to everyone to have parents who educate you about past wars, have access to counter culture (music, books, whatever).
If were really serious about making a world peace movement grow, we should give the IVAW soldiers accolades and support for coming out with their stories, and going through the transformation they have been.
Although like i said, criticism of their views is acceptable and necessary, just saying "fuck em" feels to me like its just something to say to boost your ego and counterproductive to building a solid worldwide peace movement thats gonna make some permanent change to the status quo.