BOOKS-IRAQ: “We Blew Her to Pieces”
Inter Press Service
By Dahr Jamail

MARFA, Texas, Sep 16 (IPS) – Aside from the Iraqi people, nobody knows what the U.S. military is doing in Iraq better than the soldiers themselves. A new book gives readers vivid and detailed accounts of the devastation the U.S. occupation has brought to Iraq, in the soldiers’ own words.

“Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupation,” published by Haymarket Books Tuesday, is a gut-wrenching, historic chronicle of what the U.S. military has done to Iraq, as well as its own soldiers.

Authored by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and journalist Aaron Glantz, the book is a reader for hearings that took place inSilver Spring, Maryland between Mar. 13-16, 2008 at the National Labour College.

“I remember one woman walking by,” said Jason Washburn, a corporal in the U.S. Marines who served three tours in Iraq. “She was carrying a huge bag, and she looked like she was heading toward us, so we lit her up with the Mark 19, which is an automatic grenade launcher, and when the dust settled, we realised that the bag was full of groceries. She had been trying to bring us food and we blew her to pieces.”

Washburn testified on a panel that discussed the rules of engagement in Iraq, and how lax they were, even to the point of being virtually non-existent.

“During the course of my three tours, the rules of engagement changed a lot,” Washburn’s testimony continues. “The higher the threat the more viciously we were permitted and expected to respond.”

His emotionally charged testimony, like all of those in the book that covered panels addressing dehumanisation, civilian testimony, sexism in the military, veterans’ health care, and the breakdown of the military, raised issues that were repeated again and again by other veterans.

“Something else we were encouraged to do, almost with a wink and nudge, was to carry ‘drop weapons’, or by my third tour, ‘drop shovels’. We would carry these weapons or shovels with us because if we accidentally shot a civilian, we could just toss the weapon on the body, and make them look like an insurgent,” Washburn said.

Four days of searing testimony, witnessed by this writer, is consolidated into the book, which makes for a difficult read. One page after another is filled with devastating stories from the soldiers about what is being done in Iraq.

Everything from the taking of “trophy” photos of the dead, to torture and slaughtering of civilians is included.

“We’re trying to build a historical record of what continues to happen in this war and what the war is really about,” Glantz told IPS.

Hart Viges, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division of the Army who served one year in Iraq, tells of taking orders over the radio.

“One time they said to fire on all taxicabs because the enemy was using them for transportation…One of the snipers replied back, ‘Excuse me? Did I hear that right? Fire on all taxicabs?’ The lieutenant colonel responded, ‘You heard me, trooper, fire on all taxicabs.’ After that, the town lit up, with all the units firing on cars. This was my first experience with war, and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the deployment.”

Vincent Emanuele, a Marine rifleman who spent a year in the al-Qaim area of Iraq near the Syrian border, told of emptying magazines of bullets into the city without identifying targets, running over corpses with Humvees and stopping to take “trophy” photos of bodies. “An act that took place quite often in Iraq was taking pot shots at cars that drove by,” he said. “This was not an isolated incident, and it took place for most of our eight-month deployment.”

Kelly Dougherty, the executive director of IVAW, blames the behaviour of soldiers in Iraq on the policies of the U.S. government. “The abuses committed in the occupations, far from being the result of a ‘few bad apples’ misbehaving, are the result of our government’sMiddle East policy, which is crafted in the highest spheres of U.S. power,” she said.

Knowing this, however, does little to soften the emotional and moral devastation of the accounts.

“You see an individual with a white flag and he does anything but approach you slowly and obey commands, assume it’s a trick and kill him,” Michael Leduc, a corporal in the Marines who was part of the U.S. attack of Fallujah in November 2004, said were the orders from his battalion JAG officer he received before entering the city.

This is an important book for the public of the United States, in particular, because the Winter Soldier testimonies were not covered by any of the larger media outlets, aside from the Washington Post, which ran a single piece on the event that was buried in the Metro section.

The New York Times, CNN, and network news channels ABC, NBC and CBS ignored it completely.

This is particularly important in light of the fact that, as former Marine Jon Turner stated, “Anytime we did have embedded reporters with us, our actions changed drastically. We never acted the same. We were always on key with everything, did everything by the book.”

“To me it’s about giving a picture of what war is like,” Glantz added, “Because here in the U.S. we have this very sanitised version of what war is. But war is when we have a large group of armed people killing large numbers of other people. And that is the picture that people will get from reading veterans testimony…the true face of war.”

Dehumanisation of the soldiers themselves is covered in the book, as it includes testimony of sexism, racism, and the plight of veterans upon their return home as they struggle to obtain care from the Veterans Administration.

There is much testimony on the dehumanisation of the Iraqi people as well. Brian Casler, a corporal in the Marines, spoke to some of this that he witnessed during the invasion of Iraq.

“But on these convoys, I saw marines defecate into MRE bags or urinate in bottles and throw them at children on the side of the road,” he stated.

Numerous accounts from soldiers include the prevalence of degrading terms for Iraqis, such as “hajis,” “towel-heads” and “sand-niggers”.

Scott Ewing, who served in Iraq from 2005-2006, admitted on one panel that units intentionally gave candy to Iraqi children for reasons other than “winning hearts and minds”.

“There was also another motive,” Ewing said, “If the kids were around our vehicles, the bad guys wouldn’t attack. We used the kids ashuman shields.”

Glantz admits that it would be difficult for the average U.S. citizen to read the book, and believes it is important to keep in mind while doing so what it took for the veterans to give this historic testimony.

“They could have been heroes, but what they are doing here is even more heroic — which is telling the truth,” Glantz told IPS. “They didn’t have to come forward. They chose to come forward.”

Yours,

Laura

How I spent my summer.

Short answer: I lived at the Peace House with twelve other college students and did a peacebuilding internship through the Indianapolis Peace Institute.

Long answer: On my first day at my internship, I showed up to the office and my boss wasn’t there. He’d gone to a park to do some proofreading for his real job as Senior Research Fellow for some think tank.

Usually that’s not how it was. Well yes, he did tend to forget things like his intern’s first day, but what I really mean is that usually he let the paying job take a backseat to working on his side project, Provocate, for absolutely no money.

Provocate is an organization that does much on a shoestring budget. And by shoestring, I mean nonexistent. It has no nonprofit tax-exempt status, so grant-writing, and therefore funding, is out. However, as my boss (and the founder) John Clark would say, if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly.

So Provocate operates with the philosophy that working for positive change is worth doing poorly. The approach: Provocate covers every event in Indianapolis. It’s not like news coverage, mind. It’s more like an online magazine. Deep, thought-provoking, know-before-you-go coverage. Specific details about unpublicized events. Links to other websites for more information. For every event in Indy.

It’s a job too big for one person, or even three (at last count). A mess. And I wonder, is it really worth doing poorly? Isn’t positive change worth doing well?

Perhaps because Provocate tries to do too much, it has found a niche in the change business. You might say Provocate outsources its change. It gets people inspired about things that our organization just doesn’t have time to work on. If an event gets them to think, care, and act, we have done well.

[ The intent is to “turn all of Indianapolis into a think tank,” according to John. Behind that statement lies the unspoken philosophy that getting people out to events (a) will inspire and/or empower them to begin acting as agents of change (provided the events are good enough); and (b) requires someone doing whatever it takes to grab them by the wrist, point out the location on a map, and tell them everything will be ok. ]

By itself, the fact that people are out there working for change because of Provocate is, in a way, doing it well. Even if we try to do too much and throw things together at the last minute, we make up for it by inspiring other folks to change things for the better. And that goes for all people who work for peace – college students and interns, too.

These days, Provocate is bumping along just fine without my help, doing things poorly until they can do things well. You can find them online at www.provocate.org.

Another amazing speech by Dennis Kucinich.  I hope Obama puts him in his cabinet.

Yeah?
What are you all up to? Updates, anyone?

Just wanted to remind you all to be sure to take your weekly/fortnightly (for Clare)/monthly dose of Jimi Hendrix. I got mine on vinyl yesterday, a live album, and man was it refreshing. Be sure to take with a spoonful of sugar, or applesauce.

In other news, well, I could make a list of the things I am missing but I will just say that drinking one kind of Yogi tea is no comparison to drinking cancer cure tea at Earth House with music and that little crazy kid running around.
I better shmoo to sleep.
Shmoo out.

And on another note, I would like to agree with everything Plumbob just said: and add that I have begun disassembling.

But not disassembling from conflict. And not disassembling in general, either. I’m disassembling from all of you.

It’s said that the universe is all one, and that we are one with the universe. It’s a proven fact thanks to LSD, or so I’m told. But never before (despite all my many forays into the world of psychedelic drugs) have I felt like so much a part of others, nor have I ever felt that others are so much a part of me.
Even with my nuclear family (which is not radioactive), I don’t notice the strength of the bonds that tie me to them – maybe because they have always been there. Not so with all of you. And yet in the span of two months, we have become so inseparable that to separate from you I must disassemble.

And that’s left me a bit in the lurch. Because it’s been an intense summer, and the fact is I might have redefined myself by you. We all redefine ourselves by the people we’re close to, Clare told me, and I agree. So now I have to wrench myself away, and that’s going to be hard.

In other news, members of the household had popo trouble last night.  It is to be seen whether the popo in question will take any action besides just driving around the block a couple times to scare people away.

Incidentally, the word “popo” in Swahili means “bat.”  Batman is the ultimate popo.

I have nothing further to say. My creative juices have been sucked out by the ever drawing pressure of incinfliddable egglubiliadis.

The TED talks are a series of really interesting lectures by really genius people. Some of them are on scientific developments and some are more concerned with social justice (and everything in between), so there’s something for everyone. TED was brought to my attention last spring, when my good friend James Weber showed me the Jill Bolte Taylor one about having a stroke. They’re really expensive to attend, but they’re put online so that the public can see them.

This link is my TED of the day. It’s by Majora Carter, an environmental activist for the economically exploited South Bronx area. Her big issue is environmental racism, which maybe one of our housemates can give some input on, since she’s working on environmental justice in the Rebuilding the Wall community. I would lean more towards calling it environmental classism, because exploitation of poor communities seems to be more based on exploiting the poorer classes’ inability to fight unjust and inappropriate development, not so much based on race. But because of the demographic breakdown of poor urban areas, it might be racism. Then again, it could just as well be corporate imperialism or something along those lines. Feel free to comment.

If you watch the video, there’s plenty of discussion fodder – and plenty of inspiration. Because no matter what you call it, the exploitation of the South Bronx is wrong and needs to be challenged by people like Majora Carter.

Oh by the way, she’s coming to Indianapolis sometime in the fall, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

blooms in the emotive sequences of my mind

the horizon drips with the damp disinterested attention

of a deepening, hearkening life

Outside

the leaves and the flowers melt

into the greyness of dusk

and touch

and touch

cemented in the sultry black haziness of a humid summer night

a family reunion

the softness of darkness

the comfort of night

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry