Winter Soldier
Page 20
General Petraeus, among many other generals and colonels, has been nearly impervious to scrutiny for his failures in Iraq. On the contrary, many of them have been promoted again and again.
Perhaps the greatest lesson this country did not learn from Vietnam was that accountability is essential lest we allow history to repeat itself. Sadly, no generals or administration officials were held accountable then. Ultimately, I believe this is how members of this administration, diplomats, and high-level military leaders got us into the Iraq (and now Middle Eastern) disaster and continue to proctor it with arrogant obstinateness and incredible incompetence.
The “surge” in Iraq was an effort contrived to gain some measure of stability in Iraq while political reconciliation and governing capacity were enhanced. Over one year since the “surge” strategy was proposed, Iraq is no better off than it was. General Petraeus and his “brain trust” of officers and diplomats have made every effort to convince the American and Iraqi people that progress has been made, but the reality is that their metrics are wrought with fallacious assumptions and they offer skewed propaganda.
The government of Iraq is riddled with corruption due to years of American mismanagement and horrible oversight. This is best evidenced in House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform testimony given on October 4, 2007, by former Iraqi commissioner of public integrity, Judge Radhi al-Radhi, who is now in asylum in this country. In his testimony, Judge Radhi spoke about the rampant corruption among U.S. allies, including the Maliki government, and the theft of billions of dollars. He explained that reconstruction had almost stopped, that the lost money was propping up a terrorist movement that was ripping his country apart, and that the current Iraqi government could not be trusted.
In keeping with the spirit and dedication to our nation, for the past year and a half I have authored and co-authored numerous articles with fellow Iraq veterans that have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle, among other media outlets. The topics have ranged from corruption to complacency and from dereliction of duty to the woeful state of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
I dedicate my testimony today to the life and death of Colonel Ted Westhusing, the U.S. Army’s top ethicist and a professor at West Point who volunteered for a deployment to Iraq in 2004. On June 5, 2005, you were found dead from a bullet to the head. Investigations conducted by the army deemed your death a suicide but the circumstances are highly controversial.
In the note, addressed to Generals Petraeus and Fil, found by your body, that the army says is your “suicide note,” you stated:
You are only interested in your career(s) and provide no support to your staff—no [mission] support and you don’t care. I cannot support a mission that leads to corruption, human rights abuses and liars. I am sullied—no more. I didn’t volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves.
Duty, Honor, Country…Colonel Ted Westhusing…
Luis Carlos Montalván
Former Captain, U.S. Army
The Future of GI Resistance
Introduction
After more than five years of war, most American soldiers know the same things about Iraq that the American people do: that the invasion of Iraq was based on lies, that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks, and that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Those facts—coupled with the grim, daily reality of life in the war zone—have turned a majority of American soldiers against the occupation.
In February 2006 pollster John Zogby conducted a survey of U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq. Seventy-two percent said that U.S. troops should be pulled out within one year. Of those, 29 percent said they should be withdrawn “immediately.”1 In other words, if the Bush administration had listened to its own troops instead of implementing the surge, the occupation would already be over.
Servicemembers are coping with this in a variety of ways. Tens of thousands of soldiers and marines have found ways, both legal and illegal, to avoid personally participating in the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The Defense Department reports that 5,361 active-duty servicemembers deserted the U.S. Armed Forces in 2006; nearly thirty-seven thousand defected in the first five years after 9/11. Thousands more have quietly gone AWOL after returning from their first deployment. Three hundred and twenty-five army soldiers have applied to be recognized as conscientious objectors, soldiers who no longer believe in war.2 Over two hundred have fled the country and are seeking asylum in Canada.
Soldiers who remain inside the military are also fighting back. More than two thousand active-duty servicemembers have signed an Appeal for Redress to Congress demanding an end to the occupation. “As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq,” the petition reads. “Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.”3 The efforts have been endorsed by numerous members of Congress, including civil rights icon John Lewis (D-GA), who released a statement conveying his “deep respect for these men and women and uniform who have taken this courageous and patriotic step…. They have exercised their constitutional right to free speech, and they have questioned an unjust war.”4
Military blogs have also flourished, both in the United States and in Iraq. Over time, many have developed large followings. Indeed, they have been so successful that in April 2007 the Pentagon was forced to clamp down, requiring all servicemembers to consult a superior “prior to publishing” anything—from “web log (blog) postings” to comments on internet message boards. Failure to do so, the regulations add, could result in a court-martial or “administrative, disciplinary, contractual, or criminal action.”5 As the veterans’ testimony at Winter Soldier shows, however, these rules have been impossible to enforce. With limited exceptions, members of the U.S. Armed Forces do not give up their rights to free speech and free expression just because they put on a uniform.
Members of the U.S. military have also begun organizing for better health care and medical benefits and for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. IVAW now has active chapters on bases across America and all over the world—including a growing number of soldiers and marines stationed in Iraq. These efforts are still in their early stages, but as the first wave of servicemembers speaks out, others realize they are not alone and the movement spreads. Five years into this terrible war, the Pentagon’s very ability to fight it is becoming diminished.
Phil Aliff
Private, United States Army, MOS
Deployments: August 2005–July 2006 Abu Ghraib
Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia
Age at Winter Soldier: 21 years old
Let me begin by saying to my sisters and brothers in Iraq and Afghanistan: You are not alone in your opposition to these illegal occupations. We must struggle together on every military base and in every combat zone and with every veteran to end the occupation. Let me be clear. We have the power to bring the troops home when soldiers throw down their weapons and refuse to fight.
When I joined the military in November 2004, the army and marines were engaged in the second invasion of Fallujah. During my tour in 2006, I was ambushed many times and struck by numerous roadside bombs as my unit fought the insurgency in the farmlands west of Baghdad. This experience radicalized me.
When I returned to Fort Drum in upstate New York I bought a film called The Ground Truth and watched it with Sergeant Matt Hrutkay, with whom I served in Iraq. The film inspired Matt to join Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) when he got out of the army. In March of 2007 Matt, along with Vermont veterans, the local Campus Anti-War Network, and members of the International Socialist Organization, put together an event at the Different Drummer Cafe in Watertown, New York. The Different Drummer is the first off-post coffeehouse for GIs since the Vietnam War. It was started by Tod Ensign of Citizen Soldier.
As a result of our activism, Eugene avoided a court-martial and was discharged without jail time. It was our first victory at Fort Drum and it built our confidence. If we organized the grass roots to support our struggle, then we could win. Eugene’s case also sent a message to the soldiers of Fort Drum that they were not alone.
I met Eli Wright, a combat veteran and medic who had transferred to Fort Drum after serving at Walter Reed and in Iraq. He found the Different Drummer Cafe while walking through Watertown. He had been a member of IVAW for almost two years before coming to Fort Drum. We supported each other in myriad initiatives, all of which were 100 percent legal for active-duty soldiers.
During that time IVAW organized a bus full of veterans to come to Fort Drum. They held barbeques and other social activities and again showed the troops on post that they were not alone. We signed up eight new members and had ninety people from the community come to show their support. This kind of turnout for an event organized by IVAW was a success beyond our wildest imagination.
We began building a model: showing that GI organizing could not be successful without the civilian antiwar movement. In order for soldiers to publicly oppose the occupation, they must have a movement behind them. That is the most important component to the work at Fort Drum. Through our networking with ally organizations we were able to raise money, host events, and make contacts on the base. We worked with every organization that supported our strategy of ending the war.
In the summer of 2007, other IVAW members and I organized a march and rally to publicly introduce our chapter to active-duty soldiers and help the community support war resisters. On September 29, 2007, the march brought over 2,500 people from upstate New York to Fort Drum, and more active-duty GIs became members of IVAW. Within a matter of months, our chapter went from three members to almost thirty.
Because of the high turnover rate within the military, we had to constantly train new leaders in the chapter. As soldiers left the military or changed duty stations, they took their experiences from Fort Drum and helped build other chapters around the country. Building a support network around the base of experienced organizers was the key to the survival of the chapter because outside organizations helped us develop leadership in our new IVAW members.
As I left the military in early 2008, I was confident in the Fort Drum chapter because we had been successful in building a civilian support network, providing outside mental health care for soldiers, and built leadership in the chapter that had a focus on base building and growing connections with outside groups in order to inspire soldiers to fight for the end of the occupation in Iraq. Fort Drum was the first active-duty chapter in IVAW and it can be a positive example for the movement.
The most important lesson I learned was that we didn’t need to water down our beliefs, nor did we need to shock people into action. GIs are ready for politics. Their experiences are moving them to want a better world, and our ability to articulate our principled opposition to the Iraq war is what gives us the power to end it.
Garett Reppenhagen
Specialist, United States Army, Cavalry Scout, 1st Infantry Division, 3rd Brigade
Deployments: February 2004–February 2005, Baqouba
Hometown: Grand Junction, Colorado
Age at Winter Soldier: 32 years old
I served as a cavalry scout in the 1st Infantry Division and I went on to go to the Target Interdiction Course in Stetten, Germany, and became a sniper. I served as a sniper for a year in Iraq between February ’04 and February ’05 around Baquba in the Sunni Triangle.
During our deployment, we started one of the first antiwar MilBlogs, Fight to Survive, and we were involved in a variety of GI resistance but it didn’t entail breaking army regulations. That allowed us to receive an honorable discharge. There are ways to resist this war within army regulations.
One of the most important things about our U.S. military is you’re a citizen soldier. You retain your rights as a citizen. You’re able to use those rights and you should since you’re the one sacrificing to protect them. It’ll be a shame if the use of the First Amendment becomes unpatriotic.
I joined Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) when they first started out. Myself and the other soldiers I deployed with were resisting before we knew there was an IVAW, before Sir! No Sir! or GI Revolt came out. When IVAW formed in the summer of 2004, I was contacted by Kelly Dougherty, Camilo Mejía, and some of the other founding members, and as a result, I became the first active-duty member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Today we’re talking about the future of GI resistance, and you can’t help but try to predict the future by looking at the past. I think this Winter Soldier is so incredible. We’re doing this far earlier than the Vietnam vets. Thanks to their mentorship, we put this together five years after our invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Vietnam veterans conducted a Winter Soldier in 1971 and the Vietnam War started in 1959; that’s more than ten years after the engagement started, and three years after the 1968 Tet Offensive. We had over four hundred thousand American troops deployed in Vietnam at the time. Over fourteen thousand soldiers had been killed in action. I feel that we’re ahead of the game. We might be less in numbers and we might have less of a political voice, and America is very different now, but if we can start this resistance early, we can end this war before there is a Tet Offensive in Iraq.
So let’s compare Iraq and Vietnam. The military is very different now. When we look at GI resistance, we also need to look at what our military’s doing. There’s no draft today, so college students are not facing activation. A majority of this war’s veterans are still in the military, so the number of veterans isn’t as large as it was during Vietnam. These men and women are still stuck in the military through stop-loss orders and the Individual Ready Reserve.
There’s a different type of soldier today. They’re career soldiers. They’re professional soldiers. The men and women that I served with—for many of them that was their career, that was their job, and they took honor in that. They didn’t want to give that up. They might not have wanted to go to Iraq or Afghanistan over and over again, but they did take pride in the fact that they were soldiers and they didn’t want to lose that. Many of them have wives or husbands and kids that they’re trying to support. They thought that the military would be a good way to do that. They didn’t ask to be sent to Iraq, to an illegal occupation of another country, and to oppress people who don’t want them there. They believed they would be used in a just way, after all peaceful solutions had been exhausted. That’s when they thought they’d be sent into harm’s way.
Rotations are also different now. Soldiers don’t deploy to Iraq one at a time. We’re moving entire divisions in and entire divisions out. The men that I served with are the same men I served with when I was in Kosovo. They are the same men I trained with in Germany. We are loyal to one another. Many of these men and women feel that the military is their family, and they don’t understand civilian life. They’re comfortable in the military and they don’t want to abandon their friends and family, but that doesn’t mean that they want to serve, repeatedly, in Iraq.
There are many benefits available to these men and women. They’re offered GI bills for college. They’re given health insurance. They’re given a nice safe base to live on where their spouses can shop at the PX or the commissary. Their kids are going to school in a safe, healthy environment,
and that’s hard to give up as well.
So when you ask why don’t soldiers resist, these are all these reasons why they don’t. Many of them are scared as hell to be in the outside world when all they’ve ever been is a machine gunner.
The three reasons soldiers continue are the benefits, the options, and the loyalty to and pride of service. But there are solutions to each. We can start funds to help war resisters replace military benefits. We could hire veterans. We could give them jobs and someplace to land once they decide to turn their back on this war.
They can also join this movement. There’s a lot of pride and loyalty in joining our army and our Corps and in fighting for a cause we believe in, fighting for a cause that will change America and stop these occupations.
So we’re asking. We’re not going to come out and recruit soldiers or veterans. We’re not going try to trick you into joining us and to joining our cause. But we will ask you to. Because there is a fight coming, and it’s a fight to improve America and to improve this military and we’re asking you to join us.
So if you’re out there and you’re dedicated to what we’re talking about here at Winter Soldier and you want to improve your military and your country, this is a good way to do it. Go to http://www.ivaw.org and there’s membership applications online.
We’ll give you information on how you can resist if you want to stay in the military and you don’t want to break army regulations. If you don’t want to get in trouble, there are still ways you can use your First Amendment rights. You can put your application in and join us to end this occupation.
Ronn Cantu
Staff Sergeant, United States Army, Interrogator
Deployments: February 2004–March 2005, Fallujah; December 2006–January 2008, Baghdad
Hometown: Los Angeles, California