[KFCF Friends] Winter Soldier Broadcast

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Broadcast Times: 
To be broadcast on KFCF, 88.1 MHz Fresno
Friday March 14:  6am-4pm Pacific
Saturday March 15:  6am to 4pm Pacific
Sunday March 16: 7am-1pm Pacific 
Winter Soldier Hearings
by Aaron Glantz 
Get ready for the horrible, honest reality of the American occupations of
Iraq and Afghanistan like you haven't heard it before. For four days, from
March 13 through March 16, hundreds of U.S. veterans of the two wars will
descend on Washington and testify in the "Winter Soldier
<http://www.warcomeshome.org> " hearings about what they really did while
they were serving their country in Iraq. And their experiences aren't
pretty.
The event is inspired by the Winter Solider tribunal held in 1971 by Vietnam
War vets, including John Kerry. The name comes from a quote from Thomas
Paine, the revolutionary who rallied George Washington's troops at Valley
Forge, saying: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier
and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his
country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and
woman."
Paine was trying to keep Washington's army from deserting in the face of a
bitter winter and mounting defeats at the hands of the British. Members of
Iraq Veterans Against the War say the same type of courage is needed to
confront the evils unleashed by the U.S. occupations of Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Lawless Atmosphere
"The problem that we face in Iraq is that policymakers in leadership have
set a precedent of lawlessness where we don't abide by the rule of law, we
don't respect international treaties, argued former U.S. Army Sergeant Logan
Laituri, who served a tour in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 before being discharged
as a conscientious objector. "So when that atmosphere exists it lends itself
to criminal activity."
Laituri explained that precedent of lawlessness makes itself felt in the
rules of engagement handed down by commanders to soldiers on the front
lines. When he was stationed in Samarra, for example, he said one of his
fellow soldiers shot an unarmed man while he walked down the street.
"The problem is that that soldier was not committing a crime as you might
call it because the rules of engagement were very clear that no one was
supposed to be walking down the street," Laituri said. "But I have a problem
with that. You can't tell a family to leave everything they know so you can
bomb the shit out of their house or their city. So while he definitely has
protection under the law, I don't think that legitimates that type of
violence."
Not Just Numbers
Aaron Hughes, a former member of the Illinois National Guard who spent a
year running convoys in Iraq, is getting involved too. "We're trying to
create a space for veterans to speak out and change the rhetoric around the
war," he said. "There are human beings on both sides. There are not just
numbers. That's what missing in our culture."
Hughes grew up in a basement apartment in Chicago and joined the National
Guard when he saw how successfully it provided relief during heavy flooding
on the Mississippi River.
But after being sent to Iraq, he came to see the military in a different
way. An art student at the University of Illinois at the time he was called
up, Hughes went back over the photos he took while deployed in Iraq and
altered them in an "attempt to interpret the posture assumed as a
soldier/tourist in the surreal space of Iraq." Hughes' work was been shown
at the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum in Chicago.
"I think it's wrong, looking back at it," he said. "How can you not perceive
it as a step away from your humanity? They automatically start isolating
you. They tell you your girlfriend or your husband is not going to be there.
They tell you not to trust anyone but the military and they really start
fostering that as your sole relationship in life."
Equally Criminal Wars
The veterans also want to stress the similarities between the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
"The exact same units that are getting the exact same training and the exact
same orders are getting sent to both Iraq and Afghanistan," explained Perry
O'Brien, a former U.S. Army Medic who became a conscientious objector after
his tour in Afghanistan. "What we're seeing is a lot of similarities between
practices in both countries and both are equally criminal."
O'Brien even witnessed the abuse of dead bodies during his tour. "When a
patient would die, we would hear over the PA system an announcement through
the clinic saying 'Who wants to learn how to do a chest tube?' or 'Who wants
to know what a human heart looks like?,'" he said. "Rather than giving the
proper treatment of the dead, the body would become a cadaver for medical
practice with no consent from the victim."
First Winter Soldier
When the first Winter Soldier hearings were held 37 years ago in 1971, the
United States had reached a point in the war that was very similar to what's
going on today. Public opinion had moved decidedly against the war.
Coalition partners like Australia and New Zealand were withdrawing their
troops. The Pentagon Papers had just been released showing a long list of
official deception from Washington. And yet, the war continued with
President Richard Nixon pushing ahead with an expansion of U.S. intervention
in Southeast Asia, which included the invasion of Cambodia.
Vietnam Veterans Against the War were determined to play a role in changing
that. They gathered in Detroit to explain what they had really done when
they were deployed overseas serving their countries. They showed, through
their first-person testimony that atrocities like the My Lai massacre were
not isolated exceptions.
Among those in attendance was 27-year-old Navy Lieutenant John Kerry, who
had served on a Swift Boat in Vietnam. Three months after the hearings,
Kerry took his case to Congress and spoke before a jammed Senate Foreign
Relations Committee hearing. Television cameras lined the walls, and
veterans packed the seats.
Then and Now: Kerry and Mejia
"Many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in
Southeast Asia," Kerry told the committee, describing the events of the
Winter Soldier gathering. "It is impossible to describe to you exactly what
did happen in Detroit - the emotions in the room, and the feelings of the
men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the
absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do."
In one of the most famous antiwar speeches of the era, Kerry concluded:
"Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be - and these are his
words - 'the first president to lose a war'. We are asking Americans to
think about that, because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in
Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War intend to play a similarly historic
role.
"We have given a blanket invitation to Congress," said Camilo Mejia, the
Chair of the Board of Iraq Veterans Against the War. "We hope the Congress
will give these hearings the same attention they did during the Vietnam
era."
But action from politicians is only one possible outcome. Mejia says IVAW
also hopes Winter Soldier will increase the size and strength of GI
Resistance against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"This event is going to empower soldiers to follow their conscience whatever
that means for them," said Mejia, who deserted the military after five
months in Iraq. "The kinds of things we're talking about are non-partisan.
They're non-political. They have to do with human being trapped in this
atrocity producing situation."
Breaking Point
Many observers believe the Army is already close to its breaking point. Last
week, top Army officials told the Senate Armed Services Committee that it's
is under serious strain and must reduce the length of combat tours as soon
as possible. Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of Staff said, "The
cumulative effects of the last six-plus years at war have left our Army out
of balance."
Casey told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that cutting the time
soldiers spend in combat is an integral part of reducing the stress on the
force. Last year, Senate Republicans and President George W. Bush sabotaged
Democratic attempts to ensure troops as much rest time at home as they spent
on their most recent tour overseas. Cycling troops through three or four
tours in Iraq and Afghanistan has been the only way Bush has been able to
maintain a force of over 140,000 US soldiers in Iraq.
For most Americans, "this war has been statistics, it's been rhetoric," said
Hughes, the former member of the Illinois National Guard. "But for the
American soldiers who've served there it is personal, and for the Iraqi
people who live there, it's personal. That's why our testimony is
important."
Streaming Video and Audio
Video and photographic evidence will also be presented, and the Winter
Soldier testimony and panels will be broadcast live on nationally Pacifica
Radio and satellite television station Free Speech TV Channel 9415.
Streaming video on ivaw.org <http://www.ivaw.org> , as well as audio at
KPFA.org <http://www.KPFA.org>  and warcomeshome.org
<http://www.wwarcomeshome.org>  will enable people to tune in across the
world.
The War Comes Home site, which I edit and is associated with the San
Francisco Pacifica radio station KPFA, will also feature bios, photos, and
videos of the speakers. Online audio clips of the testimonials will be
posted as the hearing progresses.
Space at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Maryland, the
Washington, DC suburb where the hearings will occur, is limited. Antiwar
activists are not being encouraged to show up, but are instead being asked
to have listening or viewing parties in their own communities.
Independent journalist Aaron Glantz, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor,
has reported extensively from Iraq throughout the U.S. occupation. He is
author of How America Lost Iraq
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1585424870?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&l
inkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1585424870&adid=1NP8RWJEPSAXCTWGQ75Y&> (Penguin).
He will co-host the Pacifica radio broadcast of the Winter Soldier hearings,
along with veteran Aimee Allison and both of them will blog from the hearing
at warcomeshome.org <http://www.warcomeshome.org> , where listeners will be
able to leave their comments.


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