Voice of Revolution

Winter Soldier, March 13-16, Washington, DC

Iraq Veterans
Target Crime of Occupation

Spencer Ackerman, Washington Independent, indymedia.org

[Iraq Veterans Against the War is organizing to fully expose the nature of military occupation, with war crimes and crimes against humanity a necessary and systemic feature. They are saluting the resistance among the soldiers, resistance to committing such crimes, while also providing information and testimony to the crime that is occupation. These efforts contribute to the struggle of the large majority of Americans to end the war. Winter Soldier takes place from March 13-16 in Washington, DC. It will be followed by mass actions of civil disobedience on March 19. The demands of all remain firm: All U.S. Troops Home Now! End the War Now! - Voice of Revolution]

On three frigid days in early 1971, more than 100 Vietnam veterans gathered at a Detroit hotel to indict the Viet Nam war. In measured tones, occasionally quivering with emotion, they described what the war had done to them as much as what the war had done to the country. The veterans talked about abuses made routine, like throwing prisoners out of helicopters, torturing Vietnamese detainees or mutilating enemy corpses. Many had never told their stories before. Sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, they called their investigation the Winter Soldier project. [The name comes from a line from Thomas Paine’s call to arms at the time of the revolution against British colonialism. Paine denounces “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot [who] will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country. ” He continues, “but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”]

Now, with another war proving to be another defining moment in U.S. history, some veterans of the Iraq war are taking up the Winter Soldier banner. From March 13-16, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), an organization inspired by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, will convene a second Winter Soldier at the National Labor College near Washington, DC.

“What’s happening now is no different than over the past five years,” said Geoff Millard, 27, the president of the group’s Washington chapter. “It’s the result of systematic problems necessary to fight an occupation. It’s not simply that we’re going to outline these huge atrocities. It’s mainly to show how the systematic nature of occupation is oppression.” This time around, Winter Soldier will have what its predecessor did not: digital video to back up the charges.

The critique that the Winter Soldier investigation presents is both subtle and incendiary. Throughout the course of the war, the public has become agonizingly familiar with the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the deliberate killing of civilians at Haditha. Winter Soldier, according to the veterans’ group, will not expose the next big Iraq scandal. What it will do instead is argue, through testimony from soldiers and Marines who fought the war, that Abu Ghraib and Haditha are standard military behavior in Iraq, [that they characterize the aggression, and are not "excesses."]

“I do believe that the profession of soldiering is fundamentally an honorable one,” said Perry O’Brien, 25, an Afghanistan veteran and key leader of Winter Soldier. “But the disconnect between the [soldiers’] code and what soldiers are asked to do in the war is the source of a tremendous amount of guilt that many of us carry around. Kids grow up wanting to be GI Joe and save lives. But military policy is dictating that people do terrible things, things that violate their conscience, and then have the psychological burden of carrying that around, because the military says you can’t talk about it. Soldiers live with it and die with it.”

Organizers estimate that perhaps 45 to 55 Iraq veterans, and some from Afghanistan, [will testify to the crimes being committed against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.] Liam Madden, 23, a Marine veteran of Iraq who is now a student at Northeastern University, said, “The people I’ve talked to who are testifying are going to talk about their experiences in Iraq, how they’re put in positions to harm the people of Iraq and harm the image of America because of the position they’re put in, and the complete injustice involved in that,” Madden said. “Other people will talk about how a run-of-the-mill day in Iraq is. It adds up to a checkpoint here, a house raid here, a house raid there, another house raid there, to a population of Iraqis who cannot tolerate you any longer.”

The project’s interview and verification committees are just getting started. But glimpses of the expected testimony are beginning to emerge. One of the early interviewees, a medic, told IVAW about treating a two-year old shot in the thigh by U.S. soldiers, and witnessing “the mutilation of the dead,” according to Jose Vasquez, 33, a former Army sergeant who heads Winter Soldier’s verification team. The public should expect to hear about “unnecessary killing of noncombatants on the battlefield,” said Vasquez, an anthropology graduate student at the City University of New York. (Vasquez himself filed as a conscientious objector after finding himself unable to participate in the Iraq war.) Indeed, a frequent theme among group members in interviews has been the intensity of manning checkpoints, where Iraqi civilians can die for simply not approaching a checkpoint slowly enough.

Yet the organizers of Winter Soldier will consider the event a failure if it appears to blame individual soldiers for the war and its crimes. “Imagine you’re out on a convoy and you get hit by an IED,” Millard said. “And the SOP [Standard Operating Procedure] is you fire in that direction of where that fire came from. That’s indiscriminate. Civilians get killed in that. It’s not the civilian’s fault. It’s the occupation’s fault.” Millard, a recently discharged Army National Guardsman from Buffalo, New York, served in Iraq as a general’s assistant in Tikrit from October 2004 to October 2005. His job involved briefing senior officers on daily violent incidents and it led Millard to renounce the war as beneath the dignity of his comrades. “The common U.S. soldier is not a bloodthirsty animal,” he said. “The problem is the occupation of Iraq itself.” [Part of the discussion also involves the right of soldiers to refuse to commit such crimes and defense of those who are refusing, with many likely to participate in Winter Soldier.]

Various pro-war veterans attempting to oppose Winter Soldier have said that the crimes of war being elaborated are in fact isolated incidents. As one put it, “I’d ask, ‘Is what you saw U.S. policy, or is it an unfortunate occurrence?’ Let’s be real here. To talk about systematic brutality is essentially indicting the military as being complicit in war crimes.” Indeed, precisely what Winter Soldier hopes to do — target the government and its military generals for war crimes.

The pro-war vet continued, that Winter Soldier is “Making a concerted effort to make claims about atrocities,” he said. “We live in a satellite world, where information is disseminated immediately. We’re connected. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know it would be something that people who don’t like us in Iraq beam around the Muslim world. It could be turned against the troops on the battlefield.”

Winter Soldier is exposing why women and children get killed daily. Their answer is that this is a necessary part of the character of the occupation, which is why it is necessary to bring the occupation to an end. Millard responded to the idea that Winter Soldier will get U.S. troops killed. “You know what endangers our soldiers? Having them in Iraq,” he said. “I’m pretty sure no soldiers are going to die at Winter Soldier. I’m not a fortuneteller, but I’m pretty damn sure we’re not gonna kill any U.S. soldiers. But I’m pretty sure on that date, U.S. soldiers are gonna get killed in Iraq.”

Another critique is that Winter Soldier’s presenters will lie about their service. It is a reprise of a long and bitter controversy surrounding the first Winter Soldier. In a 2004 National Review cover story, Mac Owens, a professor at the Naval War College and a Vietnam veteran, called the investigation “a lie.” More recently, Rush Limbaugh referred to antiwar veterans as “phony soldiers.”

That is where Vasquez’s verification process comes in. First, the group will keep on file in its Philadelphia national office a copy of each testifier’s military service record, known as a DD-214 form. After interviewing the potential testifier, Vasquez’s committee — made up of a team of twelve veterans around the country — will reach out to members of his or her unit for corroboration. A network of journalists currently in Iraq will reach out to Iraqi civilians in the relevant cities and towns for independent eyewitness accounts. Finally, IVAW will file Freedom of Information Act requests with the Pentagon for relevant corroborating or refuting information, assisted by a task force of the National Lawyers Guild to expedite the process. “We’re laying our credibility on the line,” Vasquez acknowledged.

Iraq Veterans Against the War also plans to host live streaming video of the conference on its website, where archived footage of direct testimony will remain. What is more, during the testimony itself, Winter Soldier will have an advantage that its Vietnam-era predecessor did not: digital video. Practically every soldier in Iraq packed a camera or a video recorder or a camera-enabled phone, and several are bringing what they recorded to Winter Soldier. It will be much harder to ignore testimony backed by video — especially if those videos go “viral” on YouTube. “We’re already starting to receive a fair amount of footage and photographs corroborating these stories,” O’Brien said. “It will be very difficult for anyone to say we’re lying. These photographs exist.”

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Action to Block Military Recruiters in Berkeley

CodePink

One of the pillars of the war machine is military recruitment. CodePink and other activists in Berkeley, California are using their energy and love to bring that pillar down!

Last year, much to the shock of anti-war Berkeley, a Marine Recruiting Station opened in the heart of the city. CodePink has been protesting its presence ever since with singing, yoga, breast feeding circles, and other life-affirming vigils. The people of Berkeley have made it clear that they reject President George W. Bush’s failed military policy in Iraq and refuse to participate by allowing military recruitment of their children into an endless occupation.

Recently, the Berkeley City Council voted to send a letter to the Marine Recruiting Station stating they are unwanted intruders in the community. The Council also voted to give CodePink a parking space and sound permit to demonstrate outside the Station.

The following day, CodePink launched the first ever zoning initiative to limit military recruiting stations in the area and the Berkeley City Council is doing what they can to quickly adopt the measure

The Berkeley City Council has gotten some hateful messages from pro-war forces, as well; send in your anti-war stand, as positive letters are crucial to keep the momentum of the campaign going and build the movement further.

Thank the Berkeley City Council for voting to stop the war machine in their community!

This Valentine’s Day, follow the example of CodePink Berkeley activists, and bring the peace-making power of love to a military recruiting center in your own town! CodePink is planning Make Out, Not War actions at recruiting centers around the country.

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Viva Viva Palestina

Continued Resistance Sets Stage for
Negotiations and Further Struggle

On January 25, in the face of widespread international support for the people of Gaza in their resistance to the U.S. backed Zionist occupiers and comments by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that he would not let the people of Gaza starve, the Egyptian government persisted in its attempts to use armed force to re-establish the border wall put in place by the Zionists. A January 25 report from Canada’s Globe and Mail describes the situation that unfolded:

“Clashes started between Egyptian riot police and Palestinians when Egypt began closing its breached border with the Gaza Strip today, using barbed wire and water cannons to keep Palestinians from leaving the Hamas-controlled territory in defiance of an Israeli blockade. The United Nations has estimated that some 750,000 Gazans, or half the territory’s population, has crossed the border since Wednesday, most to shop for basic goods not available at home because of the blockade. One analyst estimated that desperate Palestinians had withdrawn most of their savings and had spent $130-million in Egypt over the last three days to restock their bare shelves.

“But the sense that this was about something more than hunger or the right to shop was given an exclamation point yesterday afternoon when Egyptian baton-wielding riot police, backed by armored personnel carriers, set up a human wall nine rows deep to seal the main crossing point. The order was given that no more Palestinians could cross into Egypt, and those already there would have to return home.

“The scene briefly threatened to turn violent, with some Palestinians hurling rocks at the soldiers and the Egyptians beating the crowd back with their batons and riot shields. Then Hamas took matters into its hands.

“Shortly after the closure order was given, a member of the al-Qassam Brigades, the Islamist movement’s military wing, called The Globe and Mail to say they were going to destroy another section of the border wall to make a point to the Egyptians. Minutes later they carried through, using a yellow bulldozer to smash through a concrete barrier right in front of a line of astonished Egyptian soldiers who did nothing to intervene.

“’The people are happy with us,’ the al-Qassam member explained. ‘They feel we destroyed our Berlin Wall.’

“Shortly afterwards, the Egyptian troops pulled back from the border and hundreds of Palestinians rushed through the new gap...”

A January 26 report in the Australian quotes a senior Hamas official warning that the next breakout from the Gaza Strip could be into Israel, with 500,000 Palestinians attempting to march towards the towns and villages from which they or their parents fled or were expelled 60 years ago by the Zionist occupiers.

“This is not an imaginary scenario and many Palestinians would be prepared to sacrifice their lives,” said Ahmed Youssef, political adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya. The report continues:

“Israeli minister Ze’ev Boim said the threat must be taken seriously in light of the successful Hamas breakout into Egyptian territory on Wednesday, adding: ‘We must learn from what has just happened there.’ [...]”

Further on, the report indicates the U.S.-Israeli occupiers’ criminal intent, not to simply deny the people of Gaza the necessities of life as a temporary action, but to make it a permanent state of affairs:

“Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i said yesterday the breakout into Egypt was an opportunity for Israel to rid itself of its responsibility to supply Gaza with electricity and water and to serve as a channel for Gaza’s imports and exports. ‘When Gaza is open to the other side we lose responsibility for it,’ he said. ‘We want to disconnect from it.’”

On January 31, “A delegation headed by Hamas political head Khaled Meshaal began talks in Cairo with Egypt’s powerful intelligence chief General Omar Suleiman on solving the issue of Gaza crossings, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said. Under a 2005 deal, the Rafah crossing was to be supervised by European Union (EU) monitors with cameras to allow Israel to monitor traffic,” writes Agence France Presse.

Hamas also brought out that according to Israel’s own Winograd report, the Israeli war against Lebanon in 2006 was a failure. Hamas said this is an indication of the weakness of the Zionist forces. The Winograd Commission report “reveals the weakness and the fragility of the Zionist entity and its political-military establishment,” said Fawzi Barhum, a Hamas spokesman. “This report should embolden us to pursue our right of resistance in all its forms in the war against our people and our land by the Israeli occupier,” he said in a statement.

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Hamas Talks in Cairo

Hiyam Noir, PalestineFreeVoice, January 31, 2008

After a week of speculations by Israeli officials regarding the power-game they are playing with the Gaza Strip Palestinians, the Israelis have suggested they will now completely cut the electric power and other vital resources provided. The Hamas delegation has been in Cairo since Wednesday and has made a proposal to the Egyptian officials to import more electricity and fuel from Egypt. If the Egyptian government approves the Hamas proposal, a number of Arab states have already expressed they are willing to finance such a plan. This step would “separate the Palestinian economy from the dependence and the grace of its occupant, the Israelis. Such an innovative prospect would also promote a deepened Palestinian relation with Arab and Islamic countries.”

Ahmed Yousef, a former political advisor to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said on Thursday that Hamas is determined to end the Gaza Strip’s economic dependency on the Israelis, by working out a settlement with Arab and Muslim countries, in particular with Gaza’s neighbor Egypt. Yousef has also proposed a resolution to solve the crisis at the Rafah border crossing, saying, “We in Hamas insist on playing a role in the management of the Rafah crossing as well as the vital issue of security, on both the Palestinian and the Egyptian side.”

The Hamas delegation has also proposed the removal of European Union (EU) observers, maintaining that earlier experience with this arrangement has proved that these observers were in no position to stop the Israelis from closing the Rafah border crossing: “We are not dependent on a European domination of the Rafah border crossing.” Hamas Politburo chief Khaled Meshaal, who currently lives in asylum in Damascus, Syria, is expected to meet with Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Abulgheit and Omar Sullieman, head of Egyptian intelligence.

Mahmoud al-Zahhar, Gaza-based senior Hamas leader, said on Thursday that the “historical borders” between the Gaza Strip and Egypt should not be used by the Zionists to impose a siege on the Palestinians — and it is unacceptable that the Israelis should have veto-power over security of the border between a sovereign Egyptian and Gaza Strip territorial borders. These conditions, set on the second day of the Eyptian-Palestinian dialogue in Cairo, opened possibilities of coming actions towards a resolution, of not only the current crisis at the Gaza-Egypt border — it might also prove to be a successful entrance for Egypt’s mediating role between Hamas and Fatah.

Another important condition of Hamas, Al Zahhar explained, is the official Palestinian role in domestic and international politics. This role should be determined and resolved, in agreements between and by Hamas officials and officials of the Palestinian Authority (the PA at present is represented by Fatah only).

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