Vets, Women, SOA Watch Take Action: United Stand Against Iraq War Crimes
• Women Soldier Stands Firms in Refusal to Serve
• Resisting Illegal War and Occupation Is Not a Crime
• Code Pink Anti-War Action
• Close the School of the Assassins
• Easily Dispensable: Iraq's Children
Sentenced to Jail Time
Women Soldier Stands Firms in Refusal to Serve
FT. BENNING, GA Army National Guard Specialist Katherine Jashinski received a bad conduct discharge today and was sentenced to 120 days confinement after pleading guilty to the charge of refusal to obey a legal order. She was acquitted of the more serious charge of missing movement by design. With 53 days already served (on Fort Benning), and 20 days off for good behavior, Ms. Jashinski has 47 days of confinement remaining.
On November 17, 2005, Jashinski made a public statement of conscientious objection on the eve of her scheduled deployment to Afghanistan. Eighteen months after filing, the Army denied her application for a discharge. She was then court-martialed for refusing to train with weapons. Jashinski's superiors testified that they believed in the sincerity of her CO claim, and the Judge noted that he was convinced of the same.
Aidan Delgado and Camilo Mejía, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, attended Ms. Jashinski's trial today to support her. They described the atmosphere of the courtroom as initially tense, but said that Jashinski's powerful heartfelt testimony changed the tone of the room.
Iraq Veterans Against the War supports the right of every soldier to follow their conscience, said Delgado. As the first woman GI to publicly take a stand against this war and to declare herself a CO, Katherine's actions are very significant. She is a fine example of a young person standing up for her beliefs.
Ms. Jashinski is feeling triumphant and happy to have resolution. After completing her sentence she will return to school at the University of Texas at Austin and continue her work with the newly founded Austin GI Rights Hotline.
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"I believe in humanity"
Resisting Illegal War and Occupation Is Not a Crime
My name is Katherine Jashinski. I am a SPC in the Texas Army National Guard. I was born in Milwaukee, WI and I am 22 years old. When I graduated high school I moved to Austin, TX to attend college. At age 19 I enlisted in the Guard as a cook because I wanted to experience military life. When I enlisted I believed that killing was immoral, but also that war was an inevitable part of life and therefore, an exception to the rule.
After enlisting I began the slow transformation into adulthood. Like many teenagers who leave their home for the first time, I went through a period of growth and soul searching. I encountered many new people and ideas that broadly expanded my narrow experiences. After reading essays by Bertrand Russel and traveling to the South Pacific and talking to people from all over the world, my beliefs about humanity and its relation to war changed. I began to see a bigger picture of the world and I started to reevaluate everything that I had been taught about war as a child. I developed the belief that taking human life was wrong and war was no exception. I was then able to clarify who I am and what it is that I stand for.
The thing that I revere most in this world is life, and I will never take another person's life.
Just as others have faith in God, I have faith in humanity
I have a deeply held belief that people must solve all conflicts through peaceful diplomacy and without the use of violence. Violence only begets more violence. Because I believe so strongly in non-violence, I cannot perform any role in the military. Any person doing any job in the Army contributes in some way to the planning, preparation or implementation of war.
For eighteen months, while my CO status was pending, I have honored my commitment to the Army and done everything that they asked of me. However, I was ordered to Ft. Benning last Sunday to complete weapons training in preparation to deploy for war.
Now I have come to the point where I am forced to choose between my legal obligation to the Army and my deepest moral values. I want to make it clear that I will not compromise my beliefs for any reason. I have a moral obligation not only to myself but to the world as a whole, and this is more important than any contract.
I have come to my beliefs through personal, intense, reflection and study. They are everything that I am and all that I stand for. After much thought and contemplation about the effect my decision will have on my future, my family, the possibility of prison, and the inevitable scorn and ridicule that I will face, I am completely resolute.
I will exercise my every legal right not pick up a weapon, and to participate in war effort. I am determined to be discharged as a CO, and while undergoing the appeals process, I will continue to follow orders that do not conflict with my conscience until my status has been resolved. I am prepared to accept the consequences of adhering to my beliefs.
What characterizes a conscientious objector is their willingness to face adversity and uphold their values at any cost. We do this not because it is easy or popular, but because we are unable to do otherwise. Thank you.
Statement read near Fort Benning gate, November 17, 2005
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On Mother's Day
Code Pink Anti-War Action
On Mother's Day weekend, CODEPINK transformed the park in front of the White House. The lawn became a magical space filled with families reclaiming the historical origin of Mother's Day as a time to work for peace. Cindy Sheehan, Susan Sarandon, Patch Adams, Dick Gregory and Iraqi and Iranian women added their voices and talents to our 24-hour peace vigil.
We literally put our bodies on the line to create a beautiful aerial image spelling "Mom Says NO WAR." We held teach-ins on Iraq, Iran, immigrant rights, Katrina and more. We cried with moms who lost their children; we prayed with Native American healers; we read letters to Laura Bush; we sang and danced and created a powerful and compassionate community. At the close of the 24 hours, we tied roses with names of the dead onto the White House fence, and as we chanted "No More War, No More War", the rain that was predicted for both days suddenly burst forth as if cleansing our nation's soul. A dedicated group of CODEPINK women took inspiration from the weekend and decided to stay in DC for a month, taking action at Congress every day to demand an end to war.
The words of one of the attendees, Ruth Gordon, speak to the power of this weekend:
"I spent Mother's Day weekend with CODEPINK in front of the White House and it changed my life! I had been in a downward spiral of loneliness, separating myself from others in order to avoid pain. I met wonderful men and women that weekend and experienced a connection based on mutual respect, love and compassion. I had forgotten what it felt like to feel joy and purpose. I had forgotten that life lies outside of work, TV, and sleep and instead lies in purposeful direction and focus. I will never forget Spice's ecstatic dancing, Patch's hug, Cindy's impassioned speech, the chants, the songs, the beautiful faces, the children, the beaming pregnant woman with the belly peace sign... Once home, I wrote a letter to the editor (printed!), bought more peace paraphernalia, took my walk singing peace songs instead of listening to FM, and spoke with friends about my experience. I will not stop! The next part of my life has begun..."
While the entire weekend was filled with magical moments, one stood out. Comedian and civil rights leader Dick Gregory -- legendary for fasting against the Vietnam War -- was in Cleveland en route to California when he saw the CODEPINK vigil on CNN, and immediately changed planes to join us in DC. There he met environmentalist/author and CODEPINK cofounder Diane Wilson, who earlier had called all of us to up our commitment and join her in a hunger strike. The two of them joined together and called us to a long-term fast to bring the troops home. Cindy Sheehan, CODEPINK members, military families and Iraqi vets have already agreed to join.
On July 4, we will launch an historic hunger strike called TROOPS HOME FAST. While many Americans will be expressing their patriotism via barbeques and fireworks, we'll be fasting in memory of the dead and wounded, and calling for our nation to be the democracy it was created to be, not an empire. We're inviting people around the world to show their support for this open-ended fast by committing to fast for one day -- July 4 -- plus as many more days as you can handle. Please sign here to join us and encourage your friends to do the same. Together, we can bring our troops home.
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End All Funding Now
Close the School of the Assassins
The School of the Americas watch is calling on U.S. military veterans to join in demanding that the School be closed and Congress immediately stop funding. Veterans have been a driving force from the beginning in the campaign to close the School of the Americas (SOA, renamed in 2001 to Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). Veterans have fasted, organized, marched, hung uniforms and other military items on the fence (at Fort Benning, Ga. Where the SOA is housed) crossed the line, and served jail time. Veterans for Peace has had a representative on the SOA Watch governing body for years.
The Pentagon is now asking veterans and military officials to call Congress to support SOA/WHINSEC. We are organizing to demand that Congress act to close the SOA.
The campaign to close the SOA is gearing up for a vote in Congress (an amendment by Representative Mc Govern [D-MA] to the Foreign Operations bill that would cut funding for the SOA) in early June. The hard work of grassroots activists across the country has resulted in more than 130 co-sponsors for HR1217, the bill to suspend and investigate the SOA. We are currently in the best position to close the SOA since we won a vote in the House in 1999 (which was later overturned by a 7-8 vote in the Conference Committee). Closing the SOA will be a major victory for the progressive movement and it will accelerate all our work towards a culture of justice and peace.
SOA Watch is calling on all concerned to join a national Veterans Call-In day to close the SOA on Tuesday, June 6. When veterans speak out against a military training school that has brought death and suffering to our brothers and sisters throughout Latin America, they cannot be ignored.
The Pentagon is very aware of the movement to close the SOA and they have increased their efforts [against SOA Watch] as well. The Army contracted "a senior analyst to analyze the perceptions, activities, and events surrounding the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation and assist in developing public affairs plans for other Army personnel issues." The work appears to be part of the "Strategic Communications Campaign Plan" drawn up in 2002 for the SOA/WHINSEC. The WHINSEC PR plan budgeted $246,000 for a contractor, a webmaster, media monitoring software, transport and printing.
Besides trailing SOA Watch founder and Vietnam veteran Roy Bourgeois on his speaking tour and placing letters in Newspapers around the country, we know that WHINSEC is having veterans and military officials in districts contact their member of Congress to urge them to support the SOA. They are trying to frame opposition to the SOA as a vote against the military. We are organizing to counter this with the June 5 Call-In day and the support from groups of veterans and families of the military as well as all those opposed to the SOA.
Join the Call-in Day and our on going organizing against the School of the Assassins. Close the SOA! See: www.SOAW.org
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Easily Dispensable: Iraq's Children
Cherishing children is the mark of a civilized society. - Joan Ganz Cooney
If, as I would like to believe, the above quote suggests all children and not merely those born in Western democracies, I am no longer certain that we live in a civilized society.
That women and children suffer the most during times of war is not a new phenomenon. It is a reality as old as war itself. What Rumsfeld, Rice and other war criminals of the Cheney administration prefer to call "collateral damage" translates in English as the inexcusable murder of and other irreparable harm done to women, children and the elderly during any military offensive.
US foreign policy in the Middle East manifests itself most starkly in its impact on the children of Iraq. It is they who continue to pay with their lives and futures for the brutal follies of our administration. Starvation under sanctions, and death and suffering during war and occupation are their lot. Since the beginning of the occupation, Iraqi children have been affected worst by the violence generated by the occupying forces and the freedom fighters.
While I had witnessed several instances of this from the time of my first trip to Iraq in November 2003, I was shaken by a close encounter with it, a year later, in November 2004.
In a major Baghdad hospital, 12-year-old Fatima Harouz lay in her bed, dazed, amidst a crowded hospital room. She limply waved her bruised arm at the flies that buzzed over the bed. Her shins, shattered by bullets when American soldiers fired through the front door of her house, were both covered in casts. Small plastic drainage bags filled with red fluid sat upon her abdomen, where she had taken shrapnel from another bullet.
She was from Latifiya, a city just south of Baghdad. Three days before I saw her, soldiers had attacked her home. Her mother, standing with us in the hospital, said, "They attacked our home and there weren't even any resistance fighters in our area." Her brother had been shot and killed, his wife wounded, and their home ransacked by soldiers. "Before they left, they killed all of our chickens," added Fatima's mother, her eyes a mixture of fear, shock and rage. A doctor who was with us as Fatima's mother narrated the story looked at me and sternly asked, "This is the freedom in their Disney Land are there kids just like this?"
The doctors' anger was mild if we consider the magnitude of suffering that has been inflicted upon the children of Iraq as a direct result of first the US-backed sanctions and then the failed US occupation.
In a report released by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on May 2nd of this year, one out of three Iraqi children is malnourished and underweight.
The report states that 25% of Iraqi children between the ages of six months and five years old suffer from either acute or chronic malnutrition. In addition, the Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) press release on the matter added, "A 2004 Living Conditions Survey indicated a decrease in mortality rates among children under five years old since 1999. However, the results of a September 2005 Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis - commissioned by Iraq's Central Organization for Statistics and Information Technology, the World Food Program and UNICEF - showed worsening conditions since the April 2003 US-led invasion of the country."
Also this month, on May 15th , a news story about the same UN-backed government survey highlighted that "people are struggling to cope three years after US-forces overthrew Saddam Hussein." The report added that "Children are ... major victims of food insecurity," and described the situation as "alarming." The story continued, "A total of four million Iraqis, roughly 15 percent of the population, were in dire need of humanitarian aid including food, up from 11 percent in a 2003 report, the survey of more than 20,000 Iraqi households found. Decades of conflict and economic sanctions have had serious effects on Iraqis. Their consequences have been rising unemployment, illiteracy and, for some families, the loss of wage earners."
But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes. - Carson McCullers
Iraq's ministries of Health and Planning carried out the survey with support from the UN World Food Program and UNICEF. A spokesman for UNICEF's Iraq Support Center in Amman, Jordan, David Singh, told Reuters that the number of acutely malnourished children in Iraq had more than doubled, from 4% during the last year of Saddam's rule to at least 9% in 2005. He also said, "Until there is a period of relative stability in Iraq we are going to continue to face these kinds of problems." UNICEF's special representative for Iraq, Roger Wright, commenting on the dire effects of the situation, said, "This can irreversibly hamper the young child's optimal mental/cognitive development, not just their physical development."
This past March, an article titled "Garbage Dump Second Home for Iraqi Children" addressed the appalling situation in the northern, Kurdish-controlled Iraqi city of Sulaimaniyah where young children assist their families in searching the city garbage dumps. It said that children as young as seven often accompany their parents to the dumps before school, in order to look for reusable items such as shoes, clothing and electrical equipment which is then resold in order to augment the family income.
This disturbing news is not really news in Baghdad. Back in December 2004 I saw children living with their families in the main dump of the capital city.
Poverty in Iraq has plummeted acutely during the invasion and occupation. Those who were already surviving on the margins due to years of deprivation have sunk further, and the children of such families have recourse to no nutrition, no health care, no education, no present and no future. Those from less unfortunate backgrounds are now suffering because the family wage earner has been killed, detained, or lost employment. Or the source of the family's income, a shop, factory or farm have been destroyed, or simply because it is impossible to feed a family under the existing economic conditions of high costs and low to nil income in Iraq.
As execrable as the current situation is for Iraqi children, most of the world media, appallingly, does not see it as a story to be covered. Even back in November 2004, surveys conducted by the UN, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government showed that acute malnutrition among young children had nearly doubled since the US-led invasion took place in the spring of 2004.
A Washington Post story, "Children Pay Cost of Iraq's Chaos," read, "After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq's Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program. The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein."
Not only is the US occupation starving Iraq's children, but occupation forces regularly detain them as well. It is common knowledge in Iraq that there have been child prisoners in the most odious prisons, such as Abu Ghraib, since early on in the occupation. While most, if not all, corporate media outlets in the US have been loath to visit the subject, the Sunday Herald in Scotland reported back in August 2004 that "coalition forces are holding more than 100 children in jails such as Abu Ghraib. Witnesses claim that the detainees - some as young as 10 - are also being subjected to rape and torture."
The story read, "It was early last October that Kasim Mehaddi Hilas says he witnessed the rape of a boy prisoner aged about 15 in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. 'The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets,' he said in a statement given to investigators probing prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib. 'Then, when I heard the screaming I climbed the door and I saw [the soldier's name is deleted] who was wearing a military uniform." Hilas, who was himself threatened with being sexually assaulted in Abu Ghraib, then described in horrific detail how the soldier raped 'the little kid.'"
The newspaper's investigation at that time concluded that there were as many as 107 children being held by occupation forces, although their names were not known, nor their location or the length of their detention.
In June 2004 an internal UNICEF report, which was not made public, noted widespread arrest and detention of Iraqi children by US and UK forces. A section of the report titled "Children in Conflict with the Law or with Coalition Forces," stated, "In July and August 2003, several meetings were conducted with CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) and Ministry of Justice to address issues related to juvenile justice and the situation of children detained by the coalition forces UNICEF is working through a variety of channels to try and learn more about conditions for children who are imprisoned or detained, and to ensure that their rights are respected."
Another section of the report added, "Information on the number, age, gender and conditions of incarceration is limited. In Basra and Karbala children arrested for alleged activities targeting the occupying forces are reported to be routinely transferred to an internee facility in Um Qasr. The categorization of these children as 'internees' is worrying since it implies indefinite holding without contact with family, expectation of trial or due process." The report went on to add, "A detention center for children was established in Baghdad, where according to ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) a significant number of children were detained. UNICEF was informed that the coalition forces were planning to transfer all children in adult facilities to this 'specialized' child detention centre. In July 2003, UNICEF requested a visit to the centre but access was denied. Poor security in the area of the detention centre has prevented visits by independent observers like the ICRC since last December [2003]."
A section of the report which I found very pertinent, as I'd already witnessed this occurring in Iraq, stated, "The perceived unjust detention of Iraqi males, including youths, for suspected activities against the occupying forces has become one of the leading causes for the mounting frustration among Iraqi youth and the potential for radicalization of this population group."
On December 17, 2003, at the al-Shahid Adnan Kherala secondary school in Baghdad, I witnessed US forces detain 16 children who had held a mock, non-violent, pro-Saddam Hussein the previous day. While forces from the First Armored Division sealed the school with two large tanks, helicopters, several Bradley fighting vehicles and at least 10 Humvees, soldiers loaded the children into a covered truck and drove them to their base. Meanwhile, the rest of the students remained locked inside the school until the US military began to exit the area.
Shortly thereafter the doors were unlocked, releasing the frightened students who flocked out the doors. The youngest were 12 years old, and none of the students were older than 18. They ran out, many in tears, while others were enraged as they kicked and shook the front gate. My interpreter and I were surrounded by frenzied students who yelled, "This is the democracy? This is the freedom? You see what the Americans are doing to us here?"
Another student cried out to us, "They took several of my friends! Why are they taking them to prison? For throwing rocks?" A few blocks away we spoke with a smaller group of students who had run from the school (in panic). One student who was crying yelled to me, "Why are they doing this to us? We are only kids!"
The tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles that were guarding the perimeter of the school began to rumble down the street beside us, on their passage out. Several young boys with tears streaming down their faces picked up stones and hurled them at the tanks as they drove by. Imagine my horror when I saw the US soldiers on top of the Bradleys begin firing their M-16's above our heads as we ducked inside a taxi. A soldier on another Bradley, behind the first, passed and fired randomly above our heads as well. Kids and pedestrians ran for cover into the shops and wherever possible.
I remember a little boy, not more than 13 years old, holding a stone and standing at the edge of the street glaring at the Bradleys as they rumbled past. Another soldier riding atop another passing Bradley pulled out his pistol and aimed it at the boy's head and kept him in his sights until the vehicle rolled out of sight.
One of the students hiding behind our taxi screamed to me, "Who are the terrorists here now? You have seen this yourself! We are school kids!"
The very next month, in January 2004, I was in an area on the outskirts of Baghdad that had been pulverized by "Operation Iron Grip." I spoke with a man at his small farm house. His three year old boy, Halaf Ziad Halaf, walked up to me and with a worried look on his face said, "I have seen the Americans here with their tanks. They want to attack us."
His uncle, who had joined us for tea, leaned over to me and said, "The Americans are creating the terrorists here by hurting people and causing their relatives to fight against them. Even this little boy will grow up hating the Americans because of their policy here."
The slaughter, starvation, detention, torture and sexual assault of Iraq's children at the hands of US soldiers or by proxy via US foreign policy, is not a recent phenomenon. It is true that the present US administration has been brazen and blatant in its crimes in Iraq, but those willing to bear witness must not forget that Bill Clinton and his minions played an equally, if not even more devastating role in the assault on the children of Iraq.
On May 12, 1996, Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked by Lesley Stahl on "60 Minutes" about the effects of US sanctions against Iraq, "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"
In a response which has now become notorious, Albright replied, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it."
We are guilty of many errors and many faults but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer "Tomorrow." His name is "Today." - Gabriela Mistral
To all Americans who, despite voluminous evidence to the contrary, continue to believe that they are supporting a war for democracy in Iraq, I would like to say, the way Iraq is headed it will have little use for democracy and freedom. We must find ways to stop the immoral, soulless, repugnant occupation if we want the children of Iraq to see any future at all.
Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who spent over 8 months reporting from occupied Iraq. He presented evidence of US war crimes in Iraq at the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York City in January 2006. He writes regularly for TruthOut, Inter Press Service, Asia Times and TomDispatch, and maintains his own web site, dahrjamailiraq.com.
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