There never was a good war or a bad peace. ~Ben Franklin
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for Oct 2009
Truth in Recruiting - "Don't Believe the Hype!"
lead story:
Picture of dying U.S. marine brings war home to America
--AP releases photo of dying marine in Afghanistan
related opinion piece:
A U.S. marine's photo reminds us of war that will not end
--engagement in Afghanistan is now longer than U.S. commitment in WWI & II combined
--AP photo compared by PBS to other iconic anti-war photos in history
quote:
"Americans are just making trouble for us. They cannot bring peace, not if they stay for 50 years."
~Afghan villager named Ghafoor, speaking to a correspondent for The Economist
Hundreds protest US Army recruitment center that doubles as an arcade
--a dozen arrests as counter-recruiters descend on Franklin Mills, in the Philly Burbs
--Philadelphia chosen as likely hunting grounds for military recruiters preying on the poor, blacks
quote:
"These video games don't show you what it's really like over there. It's dishonest. It's not representative of what it's really like in the army."
~Iraq War veteran Kyle Quigley, who traveled from Harrisburg to take part in the protest. After one tour in Baghdad, Quigley said he opposes the war in Iraq as well as operations in Afghanistan.
An Untitled Protest (antiwar song, Vietnam War era)
by Country Joe MacDonald
includes the line: “Ride a stone Leviathan across a sea of blood”
related groups
Nonmilitary Options for Youth
Begun in 1997, Nonmilitary Options for Youth does direct outreach in the public high schools in Austin, Texas as an alternative to military recruitment in the schools. The group includes students, teachers, activists, veterans and parents. Contact them at 512-462-1486.
http://www.peaceoptions.blogspot.com/
featured op/ed
What Ever Happened to Gary Cooper?
--A 7-step program to return America to a quieter, less muscular, patriotism
What Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at Bush had to say
--Muntadhar al Zaidi, the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at former President Bush last year in an act of protest, gained international notoriety
--rare appearance of the voice of the oppressed, in U.S. domestic press
Daniel Lakemacher was discharged as a conscientious objector from the U.S. Navy on 09/11/09.
--After witnessing excessive force, inhumane conditions, cruel and unusual punishment to the point of driving inmates to insanity, all at Guantanamo, he persuaded the Navy of his sincere objection to serving any further.
quote:
"War is immoral. That's why I quit."
~conscientious objector Daniel Lakemacher, former Navy hospital corpsman
Filipinos want US soldiers out
--presence of U.S. troops in Mindanao declared illegal by Filipino senator
----------------
lead story
Pictures of dying marine bring war home to America
--AP releases picture of dying marine in Afghanistan
It is a graphic image of the harsh realities of war: the fatally wounded young marine lying crumpled in the mud, his vulnerable face turned to the camera. And it is one the US defence secretary would rather you did not see.
Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard, pictured being tended by comrades in southern Afghanistan, died of his injuries soon after. Now the release of this record of the 21-year-old's last moments has divided America, prompting furious debate over the sanitisation of war at a critical time for the military offensive.
The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, condemned the decision by the news agency Associated Press to publish.
However, AP, whose photographer Julie Jacobson took the shot after being caught in the middle of an ambush while accompanying marines on patrol, said it had acted only after a "period of reflection" and argued that the picture illustrated the sacrifice and the bravery of those fighting in Afghanistan. "We feel it is our journalistic duty to show the reality of the war there, however unpleasant and brutal that sometimes is," said Santiago Lyon, the director of photography for AP.
The row reflects rising tensions over the impact of the death toll on an already wavering American public, with support for the war in Afghanistan dwindling.
In extracts from her journal published by the US website huffingtonpost.com, Jacobson described the moment when she watched the marine lose his life. "He was hit with the RPG which blew off one of his legs and badly mangled the other... I hadn't seen it happen, just heard the explosion." She described how she heard Bernard calling out that he could not breathe, and his friends telling him he was going to make it.
About 20 American newspapers and some websites used the image.
He was airlifted to the US base at Camp Leatherneck but died there of his wounds, the 19th American to lose his life in Helmand that month at the height of the fighting.
Joshua Bernard has now come to symbolise the suffering inflicted on America's sons and daughters in uniform, and the unease of fellow citizens forced to confront the grim truth about their deaths.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/06/dying-marine-fury-ameri...
related opinion piece/editorial:
Marine's Photo Reminds Us of War that Will Not End
by Michael Winship
September 12, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
At Bill Moyers Journal, our production team wrestled with the dilemma over whether to show the photo on this week's PBS broadcast. We finally decided to do so, but carefully placed it within the context of other pictures AP's Jacobson took earlier that day of Lance Corporal Bernard and his fellow Marines on patrol.
However your own conscience comes down on this issue, there can be no denying the story the photo tells. It forces us to confront through a young man's violent death the ugly, bloody reality of a war that America has been fighting longer than we fought in the First and Second World Wars combined.
August was the deadliest month for our troops in Afghanistan since we first invaded the country shortly after 9/11. It has been a gruesome summer -- 51 Americans died in August, 2009; 45 in July, 2009.
And to what end? The Taliban is resurgent. Almost two-thirds of the country is deemed too dangerous for aid agencies to deliver much needed help. Civilian casualties this year have reached more than a thousand, including the victims of suicide bombings and so-called collateral damage from American air strikes. The credibility of recent so-called "free" elections has been shattered with charges of widespread fraud and corruption.
As The Economist magazine noted last month, resentment against the Karzai government, NATO forces and Westerners in general is growing. "It seems clear," the magazine reported, "that the international effort to bring stability to Afghanistan, in which a strong somewhat liberal and democratic state can take root, is failing."
On Monday, the McClatchy news service reported that some top Pentagon officials worry that without a clear definition of our mission there, further escalation may be useless.
According to the article, "Some even fear that deploying more U.S. troops, especially in the wake of a U.S. airstrike last week that killed and wounded scores of Afghan civilians, would convince more Afghans that the Americans are occupiers rather than allies and relieve the pressure on the Afghan government to improve its own security forces."
One of that story's reporters, McClatchy's chief Pentagon correspondent Nancy Youssef, recently returned from Afghanistan and was interviewed by my colleague Bill Moyers for this week's Journal. Youssef said, "I can't tell you how many Afghans said to me, 'I don't want the Americans. I don't want the Taliban. I just want to be left alone.'"
In addition to the theories of generals and diplomats, the President and Congress may wish to pay careful attention to the words of an Afghan villager named Ghafoor. He told a correspondent for The Economist, "We need security. But the Americans are just making trouble for us. They cannot bring peace, not if they stay for 50 years."
Not a pretty picture.
When it was first published in 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, Robert Capa's photo was captioned "Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death." Better known today as "The Falling Soldier," the picture purportedly captures the gunning down of a Republican anarchist named Federico Borrell Garcia who was fighting against the forces of General Francisco Franco. Dressed in what look like civilian clothes, wearing a cartridge belt, he is thrown backwards in an almost balletic swoon, his rifle falling from his right hand.
The picture quickly came to symbolize the merciless and random snuffing out of life in wartime -- that murder committed in the name of God or country can strike unexpectedly, from a distance, like lightning from a cloudless sky.
byline: Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program "Bill Moyers Journal," which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/12-3
Hundreds protest US Army arcade used as recruitment tool
By James McGinnis
Bucks County Courier Times
Sept 13 2009, PhillyBurbs.com
There were about a dozen arrests as protesters, counter protesters and cops descended on Franklin Mills.
As many as 300 protesters marched into Franklin Mills on Saturday to demand the shutdown of an Army recruitment center that doubles as an arcade with games that simulate warfare.
Hundreds of counter protesters - many of them Vietnam veterans - and about 90 Philadelphia Police officers also filled the courtyard outside the Army Experience Center, a pilot program launched in Philadelphia by the military.
There were about a dozen arrests Saturday afternoon as police forced protesters to leave the mall. The names of those arrested were not immediately released by the city.
At times, the rally seemed likely to escalate into a brawl as the protesters and counter protesters shouted and pointed at each other.
"War is not a game" the protesters hollered. In turn, supporters of the center waved flags and chanted "USA!"
All that stood between them was a line of police.
The army center itself was not open - at least to the public or press - on Saturday.
The arcade area, visible through a series of glass windows, appeared less like a game room and more like a military command center. Posh computer workstations were aligned to face a wall of flat screen televisions, each tuned to either a military recruitment video or a live feed from Fox News.
Recruiters traded in army fatigues for khakis and polo shirts. Staff refused to let reporters into the recruitment center, although counter protesters were gathering inside the arcade as early as 10 a.m.
Vietnam veteran Bill Perry of Middletown wants the center shut down.
"I just don't think 13 year olds and 17 year olds can really handle something like this and understand that war is not a game," Perry said.
"War is not sanitary as it seems in there," Perry added. "It's not going to be like an arcade when you're in Iraq or Afghanistan."
Bill Deckhart helped organize the protest as coordinator for the BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action. Deckhart, of Falls, said he doesn't want his tax money used to expose teens to violence.
"I understand that kids can play these games at home. But that's up to the parents to watch their children," Deckhart said. "This is my government spending my money to expose children to violent games."
Iraq War veteran Kyle Quigley traveled from Harrisburg to take part in the protest. After one tour in Baghdad, Quigley said he opposes the war in Iraq as well as operations in Afghanistan.
"These video games don't show you what it's really like over there," Quigley said. "It's dishonest. It's not representative of what it's really like in the army."
The 14,500-square-foot Army Experience Center is a pilot program and the only one in the country, according to Capt. Jared Auchey, who is commander at the Franklin Mills site.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/the_intelligencer/the_intelli...
An Untitled Protest
(antiwar song, Vietnam War era)
by Country Joe MacDonald
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV7mDnI16h8&feature=related
Red and swollen tears tumble from her eyes
While cold silver birds who came to cruise the skies
Send death down to bend and twist her tiny hands
And then proceed to target "B" in keeping with their plans
Khaki priests of Christendom interpreters of love
Ride a stone Leviathan across a sea of blood
And pound their feet into the sand of shores they've never seen
Delegates from the western land to join the death machine
And we send cards and letters.
The oxen lie beside the road their bodies baked in mud
And fat flies chew out their eyes then bathe themselves in blood
And super heroes fill the skies, tally sheets in hand
Yes, keeping score in times of war takes a superman
The junk crawls past hidden death its cargo shakes inside
And soldier children hold their breath and kill them as they hide
And those who took so long to learn the subtle ways of death
Lie and bleed in paddy mud with questions on their breath
And we send prayers and praises.
Recorded at Sierra Sound Laboratories, Berkeley, November 1967
and Vanguard Studios, 71 West 23rd Street, New York City, 1968
copyright © 1968 renewed 1996 by Joyful Wisdom, BMI
http://www.countryjoe.com/together.htm#protest
featured op/ed
Whatever Happened to Gary Cooper?
A Seven-Step Program to Return America to a Quieter, Less Muscular, Patriotism
By William Astore
I have a few confessions to make: After almost eight years of off-and-on war in Afghanistan and after more than six years of mayhem and death since "Mission Accomplished" was declared in Operation Iraqi Freedom, I’m tired of seeing simpleminded magnetic ribbons on vehicles telling me, a 20-year military veteran, to support or pray for our troops. As a Christian, I find it presumptuous to see ribbons shaped like fish, with an American flag as a tail, informing me that God blesses our troops. I’m underwhelmed by gigantic American flags — up to 100 feet by 300 feet — repeatedly being unfurled in our sports arenas, as if our love of country is greater when our flags are bigger. I’m disturbed by nuclear-strike bombers soaring over stadiums filled with children, as one did in July just as the National Anthem ended during this year’s Major League Baseball All Star game. Instead of oohing and aahing at our destructive might, I was quietly horrified at its looming presence during a family event.
We’ve recently come through the steroid era in baseball with all those muscled up players and jacked up stats. Now that players are tested randomly, home runs are down and muscles don’t stretch uniforms quite as tightly. Yet while ending the steroid era in baseball proved reasonably straightforward once the will to act was present, we as a country have yet to face, no less curtail, our ongoing steroidal celebrations of pumped-up patriotism.
It’s high time we ended the post-Vietnam obsession with Rambo’s rippling pecs as well as the jaw-dropping technological firepower of the recent cinematic version of G.I. Joe and return to the resolute, undemonstrative strength that Gary Cooper showed in movies like High Noon.
Whatever happened, in other words, to quiet, unemotive Americans who went about their business without fanfare, without swagger, but with firmness and no lack of controlled anger at the right time?
Why did we allow lanky American citizen-soldiers and true heroes like World War I Sergeant Alvin York (played, at York’s insistence, by Gary Cooper) and World War II Sergeant (later, first lieutenant) Audie Murphy (played in the film To Hell and Back, famously, by himself) to be replaced by all those post-Vietnam pumped up Hollywood "warriors," with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger-style abs and egos to match?
And far more important than how we got here, how can we end our enduring fascination with a puffed up, comic-book-style militarism that seems to have stepped directly out of screen fantasy and into our all-too-real lives?
A Seven-Step Recovery Program
As a society, we’ve become so addicted to militarism that we don’t even notice the way it surrounds us or the spasms of societal ‘roid rage that go with it. The fact is, we need a detox program. At the risk of incurring some of that ‘roid rage myself, let me suggest a seven-step program that could help return us to the saner days of Gary Cooper:
1. Baseball players on steroids swing for the fences. So does a steroidal country. When you have an immense military establishment, your answer to trouble is likely to be overwhelming force, including sending troops into harm’s way. To rein in our steroidal version of militarism, we should stop bulking up our military ranks, as is now happening, and shrink them instead. Our military needs not more muscle supplements (or the budgetary version of the same), but far fewer.
2. It’s time to stop deferring to our generals, and even to their commander-in-chief. They’re ours, after all; we’re not theirs. When President Obama says Afghanistan is not a war of choice but of necessity, we shouldn’t hesitate to point out that the emperor has no clothes. Yet when it comes to tough questioning of the president’s generals, Congress now seems eternally supine. Senators and representatives are invariably too busy falling all over themselves praising our troops and their commanders, too worried that "tough" questioning will appear unpatriotic to the folks back home, or too connected to military contractors in their districts, or some combination of the three.
3. It’s time to redefine what "support our troops" really means. We console ourselves with the belief that all our troops are volunteers, who freely signed on for repeated tours of duty in forever wars. But are our troops truly volunteers? Didn’t we recruit them using multi-million dollar ad campaigns and lures of every sort? Are we not, in effect, running a poverty and recession draft? Isolated in middle- or upper-class comfort, detached from our wars and their burdens, have we not, in a sense, recruited a "foreign legion" to do our bidding?
If you’re looking for a clear sign of a militarized society — which few Americans are — a good place to start is with troop veneration. The cult of the soldier often covers up a variety of sins. It helps, among other things, hide the true costs of, and often the futility of, the wars being fought. At an extreme, as the war began to turn dramatically against Nazi Germany in 1943, Germans who attempted to protest Hitler’s failed strategy and the catastrophic costs of his war were accused of (and usually executed for) betraying the troops at the front.
The United States is not a totalitarian state, so surely we can hazard criticisms of our wars and even occasionally of the behavior of some of our troops, without facing charges of stabbing our troops in the back and aiding the enemy. Or can we?
4. Let’s see the military for what it is: a blunt instrument of force. It’s neither surgical nor precise nor predictable. What Shakespeare wrote 400 years ago remains true: when wars start, havoc is unleashed, and the dogs of war run wild — in our case, not just the professional but the "mercenary" dogs of war, those private contractors to the Pentagon that thrive on the rich spoils of modern warfare in distant lands. It’s time to recognize that we rely ever more massively to prosecute our wars on companies that profit ever more handsomely the longer they last.
5. Let’s not blindly venerate the serving soldier, while forgetting our veterans when they doff their spiffy uniforms for the last time. It’s easy to celebrate our clean-cut men and women in uniform when they’re thousands of miles from home, far tougher to lend a hand to scruffier, embittered veterans suffering from the physical and emotional trauma of the battle zones to which they were consigned, usually for multiple tours of duty.
6. I like air shows, but how about — as a first tiny step toward demilitarizing civilian life — banning all flyovers of sporting events by modern combat aircraft? War is not a sport, and it shouldn’t be a thrill.
7. I love our flag. I keep my father’s casket flag in a special display case next to the very desk on which I’m writing this piece. It reminds me of his decades of service as a soldier and firefighter. But I don’t need humongous stadium flags or, for that matter, tiny flag lapel pins to prove my patriotism — and neither should you. In fact, doesn’t the endless post-9/11 public proliferation of flags in every size imaginable suggest a certain fanaticism bordering on desperation? If we saw such displays in other countries, our descriptions wouldn’t be kindly.
Of course, none of this is likely to be easy as long as this country garrisons the planet and fights open-ended wars on its global frontiers. The largest step, the eighth one, would be to begin seriously downsizing that mission. In the meantime, we shouldn’t need reminding that this country was originally founded as a civilian society, not a militarized one. Indeed, the revolt of the 13 colonies against the King of England was sparked, in part, by the perceived tyranny of forced quartering of British troops in colonial homes, the heavy hand of an "occupation" army, and taxation that we were told went for our own defense, whether we wanted to be defended or not.
It’s increasingly clear that our outward swagger conceals an inner desperation. If we’re so strong, one might ask, why do we need so much steroidal piety, so many in-your-face patriotic props, and so much parade-ground conformity?
Forget Rambo and action-picture G.I. Joes: Give me the steady hand, the undemonstrative strength, and the quiet humility of Alvin York, Audie Murphy — and Gary Cooper.
byline: William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), is a TomDispatch regular. He teaches History at the Pennsylvania College of Technology.
Copyright 2009 William J. Astore
http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2009/09/03/whatever-happened...
What Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at Bush had to say
Posted on Tuesday, September 15, 2009
McClatchy Newspapers
BAGHDAD — Muntadhar al Zaidi, the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at former President Bush last year in an act of protest that gained international notoriety, was freed from an Iraqi prison Tuesday after nine months behind bars and gave a passionate defense of his actions.
Here are his remarks, translated by McClatchy special correspondent Sahar Issa.
In the name of God, the most gracious and most merciful.
Here I am, free. But my country is still a prisoner of war.
Firstly, I give my thanks and my regards to everyone who stood beside me, whether inside my country, in the Islamic world, in the free world. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: What compelled me to confront is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.
And how it wanted to crush the skulls of (the homeland's) sons under its boots, whether sheikhs, women, children or men. And during the past few years, more than a million martyrs fell by the bullets of the occupation and the country is now filled with more than 5 million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. And many millions of homeless because of displacement inside and outside the country.
We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shiite would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ, may peace be upon him. And despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than 10 years, for more than a decade.
Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. Until we were invaded by the illusion of liberation that some had. (The occupation) divided one brother from another, one neighbor from another, and the son from his uncle. It turned our homes into neverending funeral tents. And our graveyards spread into parks and roadsides. It is a plague. It is the occupation that is killing us, that is violating the houses of worship and the sanctity of our homes and that is throwing thousands daily into makeshift prisons.
I am not a hero, and I admit that. But I have a point of view and I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated. And to see my Baghdad burned. And my people being killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, and this weighs on me every day and pushes me toward the righteous path, the path of confrontation, the path of rejecting injustice, deceit and duplicity. It deprived me of a good night's sleep.
Dozens, no, hundreds, of images of massacres that would turn the hair of a newborn white used to bring tears to my eyes and wound me. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Fallujah, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. In the past years, I traveled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and hear with my own ears the screams of the bereaved and the orphans. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.
And as soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies of the Iraqis, and while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the traces of the blood of victims that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.
The opportunity came, and I took it.
I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.
I say to those who reproach me: Do you know how many broken homes that shoe that I threw had entered because of the occupation? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? And how many times it had entered homes in which free Iraqi women and their sanctity had been violated? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.
When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.
After six years of humiliation, of indignity, of killing and violations of sanctity, and desecration of houses of worship, the killer comes, boasting, bragging about victory and democracy. He came to say goodbye to his victims and wanted flowers in response.
Put simply, that was my flower to the occupier, and to all who are in league with him, whether by spreading lies or taking action, before the occupation or after.
I wanted to defend the honor of my profession and suppressed patriotism on the day the country was violated and its high honor lost. Some say: Why didn't he ask Bush an embarrassing question at the press conference, to shame him? And now I will answer you, journalists. How can I ask Bush when we were ordered to ask no questions before the press conference began, but only to cover the event. It was prohibited for any person to question Bush.
In the morning, I was left in the cold of winter, tied up after they soaked me in water at dawn. And I apologize for Mr. Maliki for keeping the truth from the people. I will speak later, giving names of the people who were involved in torturing me, and some of them were high-ranking officials inthe government and in the army.
I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country, and that is a legitimate cause confirmed by international laws and divine rights. I wanted to defend a country, an ancient civilization that has been desecrated, and I am sure that history -- especially in America -- will state how the American occupation was able to subjugate Iraq and Iraqis, until its submission.
They will boast about the deceit and the means they used in order to gain their objective. It is not strange, not much different from what happened to the Native Americans at the hands of colonialists. Here I say to them (the occupiers) and to all who follow their steps, and all those who support them and spoke up for their cause: Never.
Because we are a people who would rather die than face humiliation.
And, lastly, I say that I am independent. I am not a member of any political party, something that was said during torture -- one time that I'm far-right, another that I'm a leftist. I am independent of any political party, and my future efforts will be in civil service to my people and to any who need it, without waging any political wars, as some said that I would.
And to my beloved country I say: If the night of injustice is prolonged, it will not stop the rising of a sun and it will be the sun of freedom.
One last word. I say to the government: It is a trust that I carry from my fellow detainees. They said, 'Muntadhar, if you get out, tell of our plight to the omnipotent powers' -- I know that only God is omnipotent and I pray to Him -- 'remind them that there are dozens, hundreds, of victims rotting in prisons because of an informant's word.'
They have been there for years, they have not been charged or tried. They've only been snatched up from the streets and put into these prisons. And now, in front of you, and in the presence of God, I hope they can hear me or see me. I have now made good on my promise of reminding the government and the officials and the politicians to look into what's happening inside the prisons. The injustice that's caused by the delay in the judicial system.
Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/75438.html
Daniel Lakemacher discharged as a conscientious objector from the U.S. Navy
"War is immoral. That's why I quit," he says.
18 Sep 2009:
In his interview with antiwar.com, Lakemacher explains how he argued successfully that he had undergone a dramatic shift in belief and daily living, after witnessing excessive force, inhumane conditions, cruel and unusual punishment to the point of driving inmates to insanity, all at Guantanamo. Although not religious, he persuaded the Navy of his sincere objection to serving any further. His CO application is available online for other G.I.'s to consider; even available as a podcast. He is the founder of the website WarIsImmoral.com
rush transcript provided by TPF (excerpt only):
Scott Horton: "What is your message to people still in the military today?"
Daniel Lakemacher: "My message is definitely to think through these issues yourself. The biggest problem that I see with the military is that it's completely an obedience-based morality. They try and define for you that right and wrong is whether you are being obedient to them or being disobedient to them. We all know that that's not actually true. Another person doesn't decide for you what's right and wrong in any given situation. So think through whatever situation you're in, whether you're driving a truck, or whether you're pulling a trigger, whether you're loading munitions someplace, think for yourself, think through whatever you're involved in, 'Is it right or is it wrong?' What is the larger context of what you are doing."
Scott Horton: "I hope that there are some punk-rock 16-year-olds listening to ChaosRadio today who will be inoculated against all the military propaganda."
Daniel Lakemacher: "One simple questions that I'd encourage you to ask --if you're thinking about joining up-- is to ask them: 'Do recruiters lie?' Because you go to their recruiting office and you hear all this good stuff. Find somebody who's not a recruiter and simply ask them: 'Do recruiters lie?' Or, 'Should I believe what they say, should I take what they say at face value, and accept it?' You can ask almost anybody in the military and get the same answer. ... I worked at the Navy bootcamp and I saw it day-in and day-out, people who'd be coming in 18, 19, 20 years old --17 years old too-- and they'd been lied to through and through by recruiters. Those recruiters are just working on the fact that they get credit when somebody shows up at bootcamp."
http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/09/16/daniel-lakemacher/
PADUCAH, KY., Sept. 4, 2009
U.S. Soldier Gets 5 Consecutive Life Sentences for Murdering Iraqi Civilians
Former Army Soldier Convicted of Raping Civilian, Multiple Counts of Murder
(AP) A former U.S. soldier received five consecutive life sentences Friday for his role in the rape and murder of an Iraqi teenager and the slaying of three of her family members.
"What the defendant did was horrifying and inexcusable," U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell said in sentencing Steven Dale Green, 24. "The court believes any lesser sentence would be insufficient."
A civilian jury convicted Green in May of raping Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, conspiracy and multiple counts of murder.
Green shot and killed the teen's mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape her before shooting her in the face. Her body was set on fire March 12, 2006, at their rural home outside Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.
Green was the first person charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, a law passed in 2000 that allows U.S. authorities to prosecute former military personnel, contractors and others for crimes committed overseas.
The panel couldn't reach an unanimous decision about whether Green should get a death sentence, automatically making Green's sentence life in prison.
Green told the judge he merely followed orders from other soldiers involved in the attack.
"You can act like I'm a sociopath. You can act like I'm a sex offender or whatever," Green said. "If I had not joined the Army, if I had not gone to Iraq, I would not have got caught up in anything."
During Green's trial, defense attorneys never contested Green's role in the attacks. Instead, they focused on saving his life by putting on witnesses that testified that the military failed Green on multiple fronts - by allowing a troubled teen into the service, not recognizing and helping a soldier struggling emotionally and providing inadequate leadership.
Green and four other soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, were investigated after the killings. Three who went to the family's home, along with Green, received lengthy sentences up to 110 years but will become eligible for parole in seven years. Another who had a lesser role was released from military prison after serving 27 months.
All except Green were charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and faced a military trial, known as a court martial. Two of the soldiers who were at the home when Green shot the family pleaded guilty and a military jury convicted a third.
By the time the Army pressed charges in June 2006, Green had been honorably discharged with a personality disorder and returned to the United States. Because Green had been discharged, prosecutors filed an indictment against him as a civilian.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/04/national/main5289281.shtm...
Filipinos want US soldiers out
by Alex Newman
2 September 2009
Calls to renegotiate a treaty that allows U.S. troops to operate in the Philippines — or to expel the forces altogether — are growing as criticism and allegations of U.S. involvement in combat operations continue to mount.
About 600 elite American soldiers are currently stationed in the country under the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) that has been in force since 1999. The treaty allows U.S. troops to train and advise the Filipino military in its counterinsurgency operations in the south, but forbids them from participating in combat roles except for self-defense.
Despite vehement denials from most U.S. officials, reports of alleged American involvement in the fighting have been surfacing since 2002. And following an alleged admission of fighting and its purported legality by Col. David Maxwell, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force of the Philippines, along with a declaration by U.S. defense officials that they will seek to keep the contingent there indefinitely, a Filipino senator is leading the movement to find a solution.
"If the U.S. wants to use Philippine territory in its alleged war on terror, they will have to negotiate a treaty with the Philippines," said Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, the head of the nation’s Senate panel on foreign relations and the co-chair of the VFA’s legislative oversight committee. "In the meantime, in my humble view, the presence of U.S. troops in Mindanao, and even worse, their participation in combat operations, are illegal."
Santiago said the current treaty and U.S. operations violate the constitution and that American forces have overstayed their welcome.
Another representative, Walden Bello, blasted the alleged construction of new U.S. bases that were supposed to have been outlawed in 1991. “Let’s call a spade a spade, let’s not pretend anymore that there is no U.S. basing in the country. The U.S. bases are definitely back.” Others went further, with a resolution (1335) filed in the House claiming that the continued U.S. presence “has resulted [in] the proliferation of prostitution and violence against women and children.”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/asia-main...
who we are:
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship is the activist wing of the peace movement in Eastern Oklahoma. TPF offers citizens and community groups tools and resources to participate personally in our democracy, to help shape federal budget and policy priorities, and to promote peace, social and economic justice, and human rights. TPF is a registered non-profit organization and a non-partisan group, loosely affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration, north side of Tulsa.
"Waging Peace One Person at a Time".
Through its counter-recruitment task force, TPF is a member of the National Network in Opposition to the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY) representing some 188 counter-recruitment groups in
lead story:
Picture of dying U.S. marine brings war home to America
--AP releases photo of dying marine in Afghanistan
related opinion piece:
A U.S. marine's photo reminds us of war that will not end
--engagement in Afghanistan is now longer than U.S. commitment in WWI & II combined
--AP photo compared by PBS to other iconic anti-war photos in history
quote:
"Americans are just making trouble for us. They cannot bring peace, not if they stay for 50 years."
~Afghan villager named Ghafoor, speaking to a correspondent for The Economist
Hundreds protest US Army recruitment center that doubles as an arcade
--a dozen arrests as counter-recruiters descend on Franklin Mills, in the Philly Burbs
--Philadelphia chosen as likely hunting grounds for military recruiters preying on the poor, blacks
quote:
"These video games don't show you what it's really like over there. It's dishonest. It's not representative of what it's really like in the army."
~Iraq War veteran Kyle Quigley, who traveled from Harrisburg to take part in the protest. After one tour in Baghdad, Quigley said he opposes the war in Iraq as well as operations in Afghanistan.
An Untitled Protest (antiwar song, Vietnam War era)
by Country Joe MacDonald
includes the line: “Ride a stone Leviathan across a sea of blood”
related groups
Nonmilitary Options for Youth
Begun in 1997, Nonmilitary Options for Youth does direct outreach in the public high schools in Austin, Texas as an alternative to military recruitment in the schools. The group includes students, teachers, activists, veterans and parents. Contact them at 512-462-1486.
http://www.peaceoptions.blogspot.com/
featured op/ed
What Ever Happened to Gary Cooper?
--A 7-step program to return America to a quieter, less muscular, patriotism
What Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at Bush had to say
--Muntadhar al Zaidi, the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at former President Bush last year in an act of protest, gained international notoriety
--rare appearance of the voice of the oppressed, in U.S. domestic press
Daniel Lakemacher was discharged as a conscientious objector from the U.S. Navy on 09/11/09.
--After witnessing excessive force, inhumane conditions, cruel and unusual punishment to the point of driving inmates to insanity, all at Guantanamo, he persuaded the Navy of his sincere objection to serving any further.
quote:
"War is immoral. That's why I quit."
~conscientious objector Daniel Lakemacher, former Navy hospital corpsman
Filipinos want US soldiers out
--presence of U.S. troops in Mindanao declared illegal by Filipino senator
----------------
lead story
Pictures of dying marine bring war home to America
--AP releases picture of dying marine in Afghanistan
It is a graphic image of the harsh realities of war: the fatally wounded young marine lying crumpled in the mud, his vulnerable face turned to the camera. And it is one the US defence secretary would rather you did not see.
Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard, pictured being tended by comrades in southern Afghanistan, died of his injuries soon after. Now the release of this record of the 21-year-old's last moments has divided America, prompting furious debate over the sanitisation of war at a critical time for the military offensive.
The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, condemned the decision by the news agency Associated Press to publish.
However, AP, whose photographer Julie Jacobson took the shot after being caught in the middle of an ambush while accompanying marines on patrol, said it had acted only after a "period of reflection" and argued that the picture illustrated the sacrifice and the bravery of those fighting in Afghanistan. "We feel it is our journalistic duty to show the reality of the war there, however unpleasant and brutal that sometimes is," said Santiago Lyon, the director of photography for AP.
The row reflects rising tensions over the impact of the death toll on an already wavering American public, with support for the war in Afghanistan dwindling.
In extracts from her journal published by the US website huffingtonpost.com, Jacobson described the moment when she watched the marine lose his life. "He was hit with the RPG which blew off one of his legs and badly mangled the other... I hadn't seen it happen, just heard the explosion." She described how she heard Bernard calling out that he could not breathe, and his friends telling him he was going to make it.
About 20 American newspapers and some websites used the image.
He was airlifted to the US base at Camp Leatherneck but died there of his wounds, the 19th American to lose his life in Helmand that month at the height of the fighting.
Joshua Bernard has now come to symbolise the suffering inflicted on America's sons and daughters in uniform, and the unease of fellow citizens forced to confront the grim truth about their deaths.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/06/dying-marine-fury-ameri...
related opinion piece/editorial:
Marine's Photo Reminds Us of War that Will Not End
by Michael Winship
September 12, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
At Bill Moyers Journal, our production team wrestled with the dilemma over whether to show the photo on this week's PBS broadcast. We finally decided to do so, but carefully placed it within the context of other pictures AP's Jacobson took earlier that day of Lance Corporal Bernard and his fellow Marines on patrol.
However your own conscience comes down on this issue, there can be no denying the story the photo tells. It forces us to confront through a young man's violent death the ugly, bloody reality of a war that America has been fighting longer than we fought in the First and Second World Wars combined.
August was the deadliest month for our troops in Afghanistan since we first invaded the country shortly after 9/11. It has been a gruesome summer -- 51 Americans died in August, 2009; 45 in July, 2009.
And to what end? The Taliban is resurgent. Almost two-thirds of the country is deemed too dangerous for aid agencies to deliver much needed help. Civilian casualties this year have reached more than a thousand, including the victims of suicide bombings and so-called collateral damage from American air strikes. The credibility of recent so-called "free" elections has been shattered with charges of widespread fraud and corruption.
As The Economist magazine noted last month, resentment against the Karzai government, NATO forces and Westerners in general is growing. "It seems clear," the magazine reported, "that the international effort to bring stability to Afghanistan, in which a strong somewhat liberal and democratic state can take root, is failing."
On Monday, the McClatchy news service reported that some top Pentagon officials worry that without a clear definition of our mission there, further escalation may be useless.
According to the article, "Some even fear that deploying more U.S. troops, especially in the wake of a U.S. airstrike last week that killed and wounded scores of Afghan civilians, would convince more Afghans that the Americans are occupiers rather than allies and relieve the pressure on the Afghan government to improve its own security forces."
One of that story's reporters, McClatchy's chief Pentagon correspondent Nancy Youssef, recently returned from Afghanistan and was interviewed by my colleague Bill Moyers for this week's Journal. Youssef said, "I can't tell you how many Afghans said to me, 'I don't want the Americans. I don't want the Taliban. I just want to be left alone.'"
In addition to the theories of generals and diplomats, the President and Congress may wish to pay careful attention to the words of an Afghan villager named Ghafoor. He told a correspondent for The Economist, "We need security. But the Americans are just making trouble for us. They cannot bring peace, not if they stay for 50 years."
Not a pretty picture.
When it was first published in 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, Robert Capa's photo was captioned "Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death." Better known today as "The Falling Soldier," the picture purportedly captures the gunning down of a Republican anarchist named Federico Borrell Garcia who was fighting against the forces of General Francisco Franco. Dressed in what look like civilian clothes, wearing a cartridge belt, he is thrown backwards in an almost balletic swoon, his rifle falling from his right hand.
The picture quickly came to symbolize the merciless and random snuffing out of life in wartime -- that murder committed in the name of God or country can strike unexpectedly, from a distance, like lightning from a cloudless sky.
byline: Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program "Bill Moyers Journal," which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/12-3
Hundreds protest US Army arcade used as recruitment tool
By James McGinnis
Bucks County Courier Times
Sept 13 2009, PhillyBurbs.com
There were about a dozen arrests as protesters, counter protesters and cops descended on Franklin Mills.
As many as 300 protesters marched into Franklin Mills on Saturday to demand the shutdown of an Army recruitment center that doubles as an arcade with games that simulate warfare.
Hundreds of counter protesters - many of them Vietnam veterans - and about 90 Philadelphia Police officers also filled the courtyard outside the Army Experience Center, a pilot program launched in Philadelphia by the military.
There were about a dozen arrests Saturday afternoon as police forced protesters to leave the mall. The names of those arrested were not immediately released by the city.
At times, the rally seemed likely to escalate into a brawl as the protesters and counter protesters shouted and pointed at each other.
"War is not a game" the protesters hollered. In turn, supporters of the center waved flags and chanted "USA!"
All that stood between them was a line of police.
The army center itself was not open - at least to the public or press - on Saturday.
The arcade area, visible through a series of glass windows, appeared less like a game room and more like a military command center. Posh computer workstations were aligned to face a wall of flat screen televisions, each tuned to either a military recruitment video or a live feed from Fox News.
Recruiters traded in army fatigues for khakis and polo shirts. Staff refused to let reporters into the recruitment center, although counter protesters were gathering inside the arcade as early as 10 a.m.
Vietnam veteran Bill Perry of Middletown wants the center shut down.
"I just don't think 13 year olds and 17 year olds can really handle something like this and understand that war is not a game," Perry said.
"War is not sanitary as it seems in there," Perry added. "It's not going to be like an arcade when you're in Iraq or Afghanistan."
Bill Deckhart helped organize the protest as coordinator for the BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action. Deckhart, of Falls, said he doesn't want his tax money used to expose teens to violence.
"I understand that kids can play these games at home. But that's up to the parents to watch their children," Deckhart said. "This is my government spending my money to expose children to violent games."
Iraq War veteran Kyle Quigley traveled from Harrisburg to take part in the protest. After one tour in Baghdad, Quigley said he opposes the war in Iraq as well as operations in Afghanistan.
"These video games don't show you what it's really like over there," Quigley said. "It's dishonest. It's not representative of what it's really like in the army."
The 14,500-square-foot Army Experience Center is a pilot program and the only one in the country, according to Capt. Jared Auchey, who is commander at the Franklin Mills site.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/the_intelligencer/the_intelli...
An Untitled Protest
(antiwar song, Vietnam War era)
by Country Joe MacDonald
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV7mDnI16h8&feature=related
Red and swollen tears tumble from her eyes
While cold silver birds who came to cruise the skies
Send death down to bend and twist her tiny hands
And then proceed to target "B" in keeping with their plans
Khaki priests of Christendom interpreters of love
Ride a stone Leviathan across a sea of blood
And pound their feet into the sand of shores they've never seen
Delegates from the western land to join the death machine
And we send cards and letters.
The oxen lie beside the road their bodies baked in mud
And fat flies chew out their eyes then bathe themselves in blood
And super heroes fill the skies, tally sheets in hand
Yes, keeping score in times of war takes a superman
The junk crawls past hidden death its cargo shakes inside
And soldier children hold their breath and kill them as they hide
And those who took so long to learn the subtle ways of death
Lie and bleed in paddy mud with questions on their breath
And we send prayers and praises.
Recorded at Sierra Sound Laboratories, Berkeley, November 1967
and Vanguard Studios, 71 West 23rd Street, New York City, 1968
copyright © 1968 renewed 1996 by Joyful Wisdom, BMI
http://www.countryjoe.com/together.htm#protest
featured op/ed
Whatever Happened to Gary Cooper?
A Seven-Step Program to Return America to a Quieter, Less Muscular, Patriotism
By William Astore
I have a few confessions to make: After almost eight years of off-and-on war in Afghanistan and after more than six years of mayhem and death since "Mission Accomplished" was declared in Operation Iraqi Freedom, I’m tired of seeing simpleminded magnetic ribbons on vehicles telling me, a 20-year military veteran, to support or pray for our troops. As a Christian, I find it presumptuous to see ribbons shaped like fish, with an American flag as a tail, informing me that God blesses our troops. I’m underwhelmed by gigantic American flags — up to 100 feet by 300 feet — repeatedly being unfurled in our sports arenas, as if our love of country is greater when our flags are bigger. I’m disturbed by nuclear-strike bombers soaring over stadiums filled with children, as one did in July just as the National Anthem ended during this year’s Major League Baseball All Star game. Instead of oohing and aahing at our destructive might, I was quietly horrified at its looming presence during a family event.
We’ve recently come through the steroid era in baseball with all those muscled up players and jacked up stats. Now that players are tested randomly, home runs are down and muscles don’t stretch uniforms quite as tightly. Yet while ending the steroid era in baseball proved reasonably straightforward once the will to act was present, we as a country have yet to face, no less curtail, our ongoing steroidal celebrations of pumped-up patriotism.
It’s high time we ended the post-Vietnam obsession with Rambo’s rippling pecs as well as the jaw-dropping technological firepower of the recent cinematic version of G.I. Joe and return to the resolute, undemonstrative strength that Gary Cooper showed in movies like High Noon.
Whatever happened, in other words, to quiet, unemotive Americans who went about their business without fanfare, without swagger, but with firmness and no lack of controlled anger at the right time?
Why did we allow lanky American citizen-soldiers and true heroes like World War I Sergeant Alvin York (played, at York’s insistence, by Gary Cooper) and World War II Sergeant (later, first lieutenant) Audie Murphy (played in the film To Hell and Back, famously, by himself) to be replaced by all those post-Vietnam pumped up Hollywood "warriors," with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger-style abs and egos to match?
And far more important than how we got here, how can we end our enduring fascination with a puffed up, comic-book-style militarism that seems to have stepped directly out of screen fantasy and into our all-too-real lives?
A Seven-Step Recovery Program
As a society, we’ve become so addicted to militarism that we don’t even notice the way it surrounds us or the spasms of societal ‘roid rage that go with it. The fact is, we need a detox program. At the risk of incurring some of that ‘roid rage myself, let me suggest a seven-step program that could help return us to the saner days of Gary Cooper:
1. Baseball players on steroids swing for the fences. So does a steroidal country. When you have an immense military establishment, your answer to trouble is likely to be overwhelming force, including sending troops into harm’s way. To rein in our steroidal version of militarism, we should stop bulking up our military ranks, as is now happening, and shrink them instead. Our military needs not more muscle supplements (or the budgetary version of the same), but far fewer.
2. It’s time to stop deferring to our generals, and even to their commander-in-chief. They’re ours, after all; we’re not theirs. When President Obama says Afghanistan is not a war of choice but of necessity, we shouldn’t hesitate to point out that the emperor has no clothes. Yet when it comes to tough questioning of the president’s generals, Congress now seems eternally supine. Senators and representatives are invariably too busy falling all over themselves praising our troops and their commanders, too worried that "tough" questioning will appear unpatriotic to the folks back home, or too connected to military contractors in their districts, or some combination of the three.
3. It’s time to redefine what "support our troops" really means. We console ourselves with the belief that all our troops are volunteers, who freely signed on for repeated tours of duty in forever wars. But are our troops truly volunteers? Didn’t we recruit them using multi-million dollar ad campaigns and lures of every sort? Are we not, in effect, running a poverty and recession draft? Isolated in middle- or upper-class comfort, detached from our wars and their burdens, have we not, in a sense, recruited a "foreign legion" to do our bidding?
If you’re looking for a clear sign of a militarized society — which few Americans are — a good place to start is with troop veneration. The cult of the soldier often covers up a variety of sins. It helps, among other things, hide the true costs of, and often the futility of, the wars being fought. At an extreme, as the war began to turn dramatically against Nazi Germany in 1943, Germans who attempted to protest Hitler’s failed strategy and the catastrophic costs of his war were accused of (and usually executed for) betraying the troops at the front.
The United States is not a totalitarian state, so surely we can hazard criticisms of our wars and even occasionally of the behavior of some of our troops, without facing charges of stabbing our troops in the back and aiding the enemy. Or can we?
4. Let’s see the military for what it is: a blunt instrument of force. It’s neither surgical nor precise nor predictable. What Shakespeare wrote 400 years ago remains true: when wars start, havoc is unleashed, and the dogs of war run wild — in our case, not just the professional but the "mercenary" dogs of war, those private contractors to the Pentagon that thrive on the rich spoils of modern warfare in distant lands. It’s time to recognize that we rely ever more massively to prosecute our wars on companies that profit ever more handsomely the longer they last.
5. Let’s not blindly venerate the serving soldier, while forgetting our veterans when they doff their spiffy uniforms for the last time. It’s easy to celebrate our clean-cut men and women in uniform when they’re thousands of miles from home, far tougher to lend a hand to scruffier, embittered veterans suffering from the physical and emotional trauma of the battle zones to which they were consigned, usually for multiple tours of duty.
6. I like air shows, but how about — as a first tiny step toward demilitarizing civilian life — banning all flyovers of sporting events by modern combat aircraft? War is not a sport, and it shouldn’t be a thrill.
7. I love our flag. I keep my father’s casket flag in a special display case next to the very desk on which I’m writing this piece. It reminds me of his decades of service as a soldier and firefighter. But I don’t need humongous stadium flags or, for that matter, tiny flag lapel pins to prove my patriotism — and neither should you. In fact, doesn’t the endless post-9/11 public proliferation of flags in every size imaginable suggest a certain fanaticism bordering on desperation? If we saw such displays in other countries, our descriptions wouldn’t be kindly.
Of course, none of this is likely to be easy as long as this country garrisons the planet and fights open-ended wars on its global frontiers. The largest step, the eighth one, would be to begin seriously downsizing that mission. In the meantime, we shouldn’t need reminding that this country was originally founded as a civilian society, not a militarized one. Indeed, the revolt of the 13 colonies against the King of England was sparked, in part, by the perceived tyranny of forced quartering of British troops in colonial homes, the heavy hand of an "occupation" army, and taxation that we were told went for our own defense, whether we wanted to be defended or not.
It’s increasingly clear that our outward swagger conceals an inner desperation. If we’re so strong, one might ask, why do we need so much steroidal piety, so many in-your-face patriotic props, and so much parade-ground conformity?
Forget Rambo and action-picture G.I. Joes: Give me the steady hand, the undemonstrative strength, and the quiet humility of Alvin York, Audie Murphy — and Gary Cooper.
byline: William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), is a TomDispatch regular. He teaches History at the Pennsylvania College of Technology.
Copyright 2009 William J. Astore
http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2009/09/03/whatever-happened...
What Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at Bush had to say
Posted on Tuesday, September 15, 2009
McClatchy Newspapers
BAGHDAD — Muntadhar al Zaidi, the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at former President Bush last year in an act of protest that gained international notoriety, was freed from an Iraqi prison Tuesday after nine months behind bars and gave a passionate defense of his actions.
Here are his remarks, translated by McClatchy special correspondent Sahar Issa.
In the name of God, the most gracious and most merciful.
Here I am, free. But my country is still a prisoner of war.
Firstly, I give my thanks and my regards to everyone who stood beside me, whether inside my country, in the Islamic world, in the free world. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: What compelled me to confront is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.
And how it wanted to crush the skulls of (the homeland's) sons under its boots, whether sheikhs, women, children or men. And during the past few years, more than a million martyrs fell by the bullets of the occupation and the country is now filled with more than 5 million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. And many millions of homeless because of displacement inside and outside the country.
We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shiite would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ, may peace be upon him. And despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than 10 years, for more than a decade.
Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. Until we were invaded by the illusion of liberation that some had. (The occupation) divided one brother from another, one neighbor from another, and the son from his uncle. It turned our homes into neverending funeral tents. And our graveyards spread into parks and roadsides. It is a plague. It is the occupation that is killing us, that is violating the houses of worship and the sanctity of our homes and that is throwing thousands daily into makeshift prisons.
I am not a hero, and I admit that. But I have a point of view and I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated. And to see my Baghdad burned. And my people being killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, and this weighs on me every day and pushes me toward the righteous path, the path of confrontation, the path of rejecting injustice, deceit and duplicity. It deprived me of a good night's sleep.
Dozens, no, hundreds, of images of massacres that would turn the hair of a newborn white used to bring tears to my eyes and wound me. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Fallujah, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. In the past years, I traveled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and hear with my own ears the screams of the bereaved and the orphans. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.
And as soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies of the Iraqis, and while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the traces of the blood of victims that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.
The opportunity came, and I took it.
I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.
I say to those who reproach me: Do you know how many broken homes that shoe that I threw had entered because of the occupation? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? And how many times it had entered homes in which free Iraqi women and their sanctity had been violated? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.
When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.
After six years of humiliation, of indignity, of killing and violations of sanctity, and desecration of houses of worship, the killer comes, boasting, bragging about victory and democracy. He came to say goodbye to his victims and wanted flowers in response.
Put simply, that was my flower to the occupier, and to all who are in league with him, whether by spreading lies or taking action, before the occupation or after.
I wanted to defend the honor of my profession and suppressed patriotism on the day the country was violated and its high honor lost. Some say: Why didn't he ask Bush an embarrassing question at the press conference, to shame him? And now I will answer you, journalists. How can I ask Bush when we were ordered to ask no questions before the press conference began, but only to cover the event. It was prohibited for any person to question Bush.
In the morning, I was left in the cold of winter, tied up after they soaked me in water at dawn. And I apologize for Mr. Maliki for keeping the truth from the people. I will speak later, giving names of the people who were involved in torturing me, and some of them were high-ranking officials inthe government and in the army.
I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country, and that is a legitimate cause confirmed by international laws and divine rights. I wanted to defend a country, an ancient civilization that has been desecrated, and I am sure that history -- especially in America -- will state how the American occupation was able to subjugate Iraq and Iraqis, until its submission.
They will boast about the deceit and the means they used in order to gain their objective. It is not strange, not much different from what happened to the Native Americans at the hands of colonialists. Here I say to them (the occupiers) and to all who follow their steps, and all those who support them and spoke up for their cause: Never.
Because we are a people who would rather die than face humiliation.
And, lastly, I say that I am independent. I am not a member of any political party, something that was said during torture -- one time that I'm far-right, another that I'm a leftist. I am independent of any political party, and my future efforts will be in civil service to my people and to any who need it, without waging any political wars, as some said that I would.
And to my beloved country I say: If the night of injustice is prolonged, it will not stop the rising of a sun and it will be the sun of freedom.
One last word. I say to the government: It is a trust that I carry from my fellow detainees. They said, 'Muntadhar, if you get out, tell of our plight to the omnipotent powers' -- I know that only God is omnipotent and I pray to Him -- 'remind them that there are dozens, hundreds, of victims rotting in prisons because of an informant's word.'
They have been there for years, they have not been charged or tried. They've only been snatched up from the streets and put into these prisons. And now, in front of you, and in the presence of God, I hope they can hear me or see me. I have now made good on my promise of reminding the government and the officials and the politicians to look into what's happening inside the prisons. The injustice that's caused by the delay in the judicial system.
Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/75438.html
Daniel Lakemacher discharged as a conscientious objector from the U.S. Navy
"War is immoral. That's why I quit," he says.
18 Sep 2009:
In his interview with antiwar.com, Lakemacher explains how he argued successfully that he had undergone a dramatic shift in belief and daily living, after witnessing excessive force, inhumane conditions, cruel and unusual punishment to the point of driving inmates to insanity, all at Guantanamo. Although not religious, he persuaded the Navy of his sincere objection to serving any further. His CO application is available online for other G.I.'s to consider; even available as a podcast. He is the founder of the website WarIsImmoral.com
rush transcript provided by TPF (excerpt only):
Scott Horton: "What is your message to people still in the military today?"
Daniel Lakemacher: "My message is definitely to think through these issues yourself. The biggest problem that I see with the military is that it's completely an obedience-based morality. They try and define for you that right and wrong is whether you are being obedient to them or being disobedient to them. We all know that that's not actually true. Another person doesn't decide for you what's right and wrong in any given situation. So think through whatever situation you're in, whether you're driving a truck, or whether you're pulling a trigger, whether you're loading munitions someplace, think for yourself, think through whatever you're involved in, 'Is it right or is it wrong?' What is the larger context of what you are doing."
Scott Horton: "I hope that there are some punk-rock 16-year-olds listening to ChaosRadio today who will be inoculated against all the military propaganda."
Daniel Lakemacher: "One simple questions that I'd encourage you to ask --if you're thinking about joining up-- is to ask them: 'Do recruiters lie?' Because you go to their recruiting office and you hear all this good stuff. Find somebody who's not a recruiter and simply ask them: 'Do recruiters lie?' Or, 'Should I believe what they say, should I take what they say at face value, and accept it?' You can ask almost anybody in the military and get the same answer. ... I worked at the Navy bootcamp and I saw it day-in and day-out, people who'd be coming in 18, 19, 20 years old --17 years old too-- and they'd been lied to through and through by recruiters. Those recruiters are just working on the fact that they get credit when somebody shows up at bootcamp."
http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/09/16/daniel-lakemacher/
PADUCAH, KY., Sept. 4, 2009
U.S. Soldier Gets 5 Consecutive Life Sentences for Murdering Iraqi Civilians
Former Army Soldier Convicted of Raping Civilian, Multiple Counts of Murder
(AP) A former U.S. soldier received five consecutive life sentences Friday for his role in the rape and murder of an Iraqi teenager and the slaying of three of her family members.
"What the defendant did was horrifying and inexcusable," U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell said in sentencing Steven Dale Green, 24. "The court believes any lesser sentence would be insufficient."
A civilian jury convicted Green in May of raping Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, conspiracy and multiple counts of murder.
Green shot and killed the teen's mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape her before shooting her in the face. Her body was set on fire March 12, 2006, at their rural home outside Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.
Green was the first person charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, a law passed in 2000 that allows U.S. authorities to prosecute former military personnel, contractors and others for crimes committed overseas.
The panel couldn't reach an unanimous decision about whether Green should get a death sentence, automatically making Green's sentence life in prison.
Green told the judge he merely followed orders from other soldiers involved in the attack.
"You can act like I'm a sociopath. You can act like I'm a sex offender or whatever," Green said. "If I had not joined the Army, if I had not gone to Iraq, I would not have got caught up in anything."
During Green's trial, defense attorneys never contested Green's role in the attacks. Instead, they focused on saving his life by putting on witnesses that testified that the military failed Green on multiple fronts - by allowing a troubled teen into the service, not recognizing and helping a soldier struggling emotionally and providing inadequate leadership.
Green and four other soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, were investigated after the killings. Three who went to the family's home, along with Green, received lengthy sentences up to 110 years but will become eligible for parole in seven years. Another who had a lesser role was released from military prison after serving 27 months.
All except Green were charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and faced a military trial, known as a court martial. Two of the soldiers who were at the home when Green shot the family pleaded guilty and a military jury convicted a third.
By the time the Army pressed charges in June 2006, Green had been honorably discharged with a personality disorder and returned to the United States. Because Green had been discharged, prosecutors filed an indictment against him as a civilian.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/04/national/main5289281.shtm...
Filipinos want US soldiers out
by Alex Newman
2 September 2009
Calls to renegotiate a treaty that allows U.S. troops to operate in the Philippines — or to expel the forces altogether — are growing as criticism and allegations of U.S. involvement in combat operations continue to mount.
About 600 elite American soldiers are currently stationed in the country under the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) that has been in force since 1999. The treaty allows U.S. troops to train and advise the Filipino military in its counterinsurgency operations in the south, but forbids them from participating in combat roles except for self-defense.
Despite vehement denials from most U.S. officials, reports of alleged American involvement in the fighting have been surfacing since 2002. And following an alleged admission of fighting and its purported legality by Col. David Maxwell, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force of the Philippines, along with a declaration by U.S. defense officials that they will seek to keep the contingent there indefinitely, a Filipino senator is leading the movement to find a solution.
"If the U.S. wants to use Philippine territory in its alleged war on terror, they will have to negotiate a treaty with the Philippines," said Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, the head of the nation’s Senate panel on foreign relations and the co-chair of the VFA’s legislative oversight committee. "In the meantime, in my humble view, the presence of U.S. troops in Mindanao, and even worse, their participation in combat operations, are illegal."
Santiago said the current treaty and U.S. operations violate the constitution and that American forces have overstayed their welcome.
Another representative, Walden Bello, blasted the alleged construction of new U.S. bases that were supposed to have been outlawed in 1991. “Let’s call a spade a spade, let’s not pretend anymore that there is no U.S. basing in the country. The U.S. bases are definitely back.” Others went further, with a resolution (1335) filed in the House claiming that the continued U.S. presence “has resulted [in] the proliferation of prostitution and violence against women and children.”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/asia-main...
who we are:
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship is the activist wing of the peace movement in Eastern Oklahoma. TPF offers citizens and community groups tools and resources to participate personally in our democracy, to help shape federal budget and policy priorities, and to promote peace, social and economic justice, and human rights. TPF is a registered non-profit organization and a non-partisan group, loosely affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration, north side of Tulsa.
"Waging Peace One Person at a Time".
Through its counter-recruitment task force, TPF is a member of the National Network in Opposition to the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY) representing some 188 counter-recruitment groups in
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