-------------------------------------------------------- From:
"dnordin" <dnordin@vcn.bc.ca> To: rkm@cyberjournal.org> Subject:
Fw: MUST READ-------Shocking Story Of Military Serviceman Who
Served In Iraq Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 11:45:28 -0700 ----------
From: Bea Bernhausen <beabernhausen@yahoo.com> To: beabernhausen@yahoo.com
Subject: MUST READ-------Shocking Story Of Military Serviceman Who
Served In Iraq Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 8:48 AM
US Soldiers to America: "Bring Us Home Now! We're dying for oil and
corporate greed!"
10/12/03
Part 1 in a 5 part series Interviews by Jay Shaft Coalition For
Free Thought In Media
I had the unique opportunity to interview five US military servicemen
who just got back from Iraq, or in the case of two men, corresponded
with their wives so that I could ask questions of these soldiers
by mail. When the two I corresponded with came back just last week,
I was able to complete the interviews I started several months ago
with some new details on how the war is actually going.
I was shocked and angered when I found out how many of the service
men hate being in Iraq and want nothing to do with rebuilding and
policing the devastated nation. From the conversations I had, many
soldiers never wanted to go over to Iraq and fight, and the ones
who had were now convinced of the awful crime that had been committed
against Iraq and our own troops. I was told very few soldiers now
believe in staying in Iraq, or want to stay in the country and serve
any more days.
The following interview was with an enlisted man, but someone very
high up in the enlisted ranks, with over 20 years of military
service. I have promised not to reveal his identity for reasons
that he has a family and has been told not to speak to journalists.
He told me the Army had put a gag order on him while he was home,
and told him they would give him twenty years in prison if he spoke
out in any manner against the US or the government.
I took several weeks to finish this interview because of not being
able to safely be seen with this individual out of his fears of
being caught speaking out.
He asked me to call him USA in all the transcripts of these interviews.
I have followed his wishes and tried to write what he said in the
manner it was said so as not to lose any impact. At times the
interview was very rough and the grammar is not perfect, but I tried
to write this in his voice so that he can tell the world how bad
it is in Iraq. I truly want you to feel what he has experienced in
some way if possible.
CFTM-- "How are you today? Resting I hope?"
USA-- "Can't sleep for sh..t and I have horrible nightmares when I
do sleep. I might be lucky to catch an hour at a time before the
nightmares wake me up. I slept easier in the combat then now that
I'm away from there.
Most awful place I've ever been or served duty and I didn't want
to leave my guys. That was the hardest part was leaving the guys I
had been leading around and trying to keep out of trouble and alive."
CFTM-- "Did you see a lot of your buddies get killed? How did it
affect you?"
USA-"How the hell do you think it affected me? I saw over 30 of the
men I had to keep safe die, and over 100 get wounded and not come
back. I still don't know if some of the wounded men made it or not.
I was never told before I came back home."
CFTM-"So it really was awful and as bad as some returning troops
have claimed?"
USA-"It was like a long trip to hell that you knew you might return
from.
Of course it is as bad as the soldiers say it is. Hell it's even
worse if the truth has to come out. It's a constant fu..ing nightmare
trying to figure out where the guerillas are going to hit, how to
keep the civilians calm, and also getting enough water and food to
eat. That is one thing the media never really told the Americans
about, how bad it was when our convoys weren't getting through. We
had to go to some Iraqi people and trade socks and underwear for
some food and a little water."
CFTM-"You really did get that desperate because I saw it in the
foreign media that the Iraqi civilians had stepped in and fed a
whole bunch of troops that had been days without food."
USA---"Yeah, that ain't no joke about getting help from the civilians
right after the invasion. We had a pretty good laugh about that and
how the army owed them some money for reimbursement. We would not
have starved probably, but when we got the food from the people it
made sure we could still operate as a functioning unit. It was a
near thing that several guys almost died of dehydration because we
ran out of clean water for a few days."
CFTM-"Just keep going, I want to hear more about the hardships the
military and Bush made you go through. I want the American people
to know what a nightmare this war has become and what it's doing
to our service men over there."
USA-"Okay, well I can bitch about the problems like food being short
and water going bad, but I want to tell people about how bad the
attacks on US and coalition forces have gotten in the last month.
In the last two weeks I was there we were attacked at least 20 times
a day if you count all the shots we heard from random sniper or
opportunity attacks. We were losing at least five men a day to
injuries and there was at least one of our unit killed every twenty
four hours."
CFTM---"So you were getting one a day killed and at least five
injured? Did you know many of the guys killed?"
USA---"That's a real dumb fu..ing question to ask me. You know what
my rank is, of course I knew them, I was the head NCO for years in
our unit. I knew most of the guys who died and I held a lot of hands
as they were dying. You tell me that's not gonna to give you
nightmares!"
"I had one guy tell me all he wanted was to see his little daughter;
she was born three days after the war started. He died in the sand
holding my hand and crying because his daughter would never know
him. Tell me that's fu..ing right. Where was George Bush when this
kid was gasping for air and spitting his blood on foreign soil?"
CFTM---"I talked to you about this the other day. Do you think
George Bush is the wrong man to order troops into battle when he
ducked it himself?"
USA---"That asshole went AWOL and never showed up for duty and then
he has the nerve to take us into two different wars that will be
going on for years. I do not believe he should be president of this
country, he's a complete idiot and he's controlled by madmen with
a drive for only profits and getting oil."
CFTM---"I just have to get this straight for the public, you are
well educated are you not? I mean you have had years of leadership
training and schools right? You sound very well informed and aware
of the current lies and manipulations, which I have not found in
some other soldiers."
USA---"I have a four year degree in the economics field and I am
not a soldier all the time. I am Reservist who just keeps getting
caught on long duty assignments. Believe it or not I read authors
like Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, and Jim Hightower, and went through
three copies of 'Stupid White Men' by Michael Moore while I was
over there. I let people read parts of Mike's book and they were
irate that Bush had screwed us so hard. I had parts of 'Best Democracy
Money Can Buy' mailed to me because I knew if I had the whole book
it would get stolen in a heartbeat."
CFTM---"So you might be quite a bit more aware and well informed
about the real reasons for the war that others did not know. I don't
know of many line soldiers reading Greg Palast or Noam Chomsky."
USA---"I guess you're right and that might be why I am trying to
speak out and let the Americans know that they are sending us to
be slaughtered. If you don't mind I am going to cut through all the
niceties and get down to why I am going against every oath I took
and giving you this interview. I am doing it for the guys still
over there and for the ones who are going.
If I'm not careful I'll end up back there for another six months."
CFTM---"Alright tell me what it was really like and don't skip the
gory details. I want people to be shocked and offended enough to
realize why you spoke out and what it is doing to our military by
sending them over there with blind flag waving and cheers of false
victory"
USA---"Well the first thing I would like to thank Bush, Cheney,
Rumsfeld, and Congress for is that nice huge cut they made to
Veterans Benefits as soon as the war started. I am in the Reserves
after years of active duty and now I cannot get PTSD counseling or
many medical benefits I used to take for granted. I knew I would
have the benefits because I was laying my life down for my country.
Now my benefits are cut by around 2/3 and I have to go to either
group therapy or pay for a private counselor out of my own pocket.
What happens when someone like me has been through enormous battle
stress and combat fatigue and then comes home to no counseling?"
"I'll tell you what is going to happen, he will either kill himself
or take a bunch of people with him. Some of the guys coming back
are going to have gone through the worst time of their lives with
their buddies dying and getting hurt, and then they'll find out
they got screwed out of any counseling. It is the greatest disservice
America is committing against soldiers who fought for this country
and may come back wounded or horribly scarred. Medical services,
school aid to dependents, school aid for the vets, all slashed to
the bare bones; mental health and drug and alcohol counseling are
being eliminated or the waiting lists will be years long for whatever
services manage to survive."
"That is one thing the American people still have not really caught
on to is the fact that while they were screaming out 'Support Our
Troops' the current regime makers were fu..ing the military and
veterans out of almost every social program and non essential service
that would make life easier."
"Bush really fu..ked us while we were gone. We found out about after
being in the middle of heavy fighting for several weeks. It was one
of the first things I read in Stars and Stripes, and I thought it
was a joke because it was just to hard to believe Congress and our
leaders would screw us that bad while we were fighting and dying."
CFTM---"Glad you brought that up about counseling because I wasn't
even aware of it. Are you alright to talk about some of the civilian
casualties you witnessed and some of the horrifying images you told
me about when we first started talking?"
USA---"I want to talk about some of the children I saw killed for
no reason, maybe it will wake someone up who doesn't believe it was
happening, or that it was very bad. I can tell you I will never
forget the screams of the wounded or orphaned kids, or the wailing
of the parents who lost their kids. The Iraqis and most Muslims
have a very vocal way of mourning the dead by lamenting and wailing
for the dead. There is no mistaking a mother or father crying out
in pain for the loss of a child. They don't cry like that unless
there has been a death. Sometimes after a bombing raid or an artillery
attack you could here hundreds of people wiling and weeping."
"I have several grown children with grand kids about the age of
most of the dead children I saw in Iraq. I also have several kids
who are about half grown and I saw a lot of Iraqi children that age
wandering around in charge of three or four little ones because
their parents were dead."
"Let me tell you about the cluster bomb raid we saw wipe out a whole
bunch of little kids. It looked like they had already lost their
parents and were trying to salvage food from a destroyed Iraqi
convoy by the side of the road we were on. The kids were way off
to the side about half a mile away by then when we got the word
that the Iraqi column was going to be hit with cluster bombs and
we had to clear the area. We got on the radio and tried to get the
air strike stopped but we were told it was too late to get it
stopped."
"We could see the body parts flying up into the air after the bombs
hit. It was terrible and we could not do a damn thing but watch it
happen and scream into the radio at the dumb sh.t pilot that was
dropping the bombs.
After the strike was over we went to see if there were any survivors
and all we found was bits and pieces of little kids and here and
there an arm or leg you could still identify."
CFTM---"Pretty rough stuff to have to see. Did that kind of thing
happen a lot?"
USA---"More than you can imagine until you've seen it over and over
again.
Man I don't want to talk about this sh.t anymore. It doesn't help
to talk about it because it just makes me think about it again. I
can't even get any counseling without having to pay for it."
"Let all those people who support our troops in on that nice surprise
that Bush gave us. That's how much we really mean to Bush, the
Department of Defense and all those other stupid assholes who keep
saying how good we're doing over there. Let those patriotic morons
go and fight and die for our country. Let them leave their families
behind for months and maybe come back home in a box. I'll be the
first one to salute them or honor them when they die."
"It's just like Nam was in the beginning. I was twelve when my dad
got back and I'll never forget the pain and agony he lived with the
rest of his life. Its kind of what I feel now, I suppose. I never
thought I would ever serve in some stuff that's so much like Nam
it isn't funny. Now I really see what my pop went through, and if
I could I would go back in the past a few months, I would go AWOL
or turn conscientious objector on them, but it's too late for that
now."
"I damn sure will not go back over there even if they throw me in
Leavenworth. I never could understand how a guy could be a conscientious
objector until what I just went through. I wish more guys would
stand up and tell Bush and the Pentagon they will not fight their
war for oil. We should not have to die for these rich bastards
profits and enrichment."
CFTM---"Thank you for taking the risk and talking to me. I know
there will be other soldiers who can't speak out who will thank you
for having the courage."
USA---"It isn't about courage it's a matter of what's right. This
war is killing the poor or middle class American men and women who
went in the armed forces to have college or some kind of better
future. You don't see the rich kids joining up or any Senator's kid
dying in Iraq. It's us little guys who are dying over there or
getting disabled for life. Where are the leaders that are supposed
to be looking out for the little man? They are elected to look after
out interests not the interests of Cheney and Halliburton, or any
of the rest of the fat cats piling up the profits while the blood
of our soldiers flows over their hands."
CFTM---"Anything else you want to say to America? Any final thoughts
or words?"
USA---"Yeah! Wake up America! Your sons and daughters are dying for
nothing! This war is not about freedom or stopping terrorism. Bring
us home now! We are dying for oil and corporate greed!"
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0310/S00105.htm
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_2254.shtml
"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon
the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those
conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and
refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and
by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for
the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque
self-deception."
- Mark Twain, 1916
-------------------------------------------------------- From:
"dnordin" <dnordin@vcn.bc.ca> To: cj@cyberjournal.org> Subject:
News from Iraq Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 11:51:57 -0700 ----------
From: Ernest Goitein <fego@pacbell.net> To: undisclosed-recipients:
;
Subject: [NN] [Fwd: [vfp-all] News from Iraq] Date: Tuesday, October
14, 2003 8:52 AM -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [vfp-all]
News from Iraq Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 00:09:03 EDT From: jhk789@aol.com
Reply-To: vfp-all-owner@yahoogroups.com To: vfp-all@yahoogroups.com
U.S. SOLDIERS BULLDOZE FARMERS' CROPS By Patrick Cockburn in Dhuluaya,
Iraq The Independent (UK), Oct. 12, 2003
U.S. soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers,
have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and
lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective
punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas
attacking U.S. troops.
The stumps of palm trees, some 70 years old, protrude from the brown
earth scoured by the bulldozers beside the road at Dhuluaya, a small
town 50 miles north of Baghdad. Local women were yesterday busily
bundling together the branches of the uprooted orange and lemon
treesand carrying then back to their homes for firewood.
Nusayef Jassim, one of 32 farmers who saw their fruit trees destroyed,
said: "They told us that the resistance fighters hide in our farms,
but this is not true. They didn't capture anything.
They didn't find any weapons."
Other farmers said that U.S. troops had told them, over a loudspeaker
in Arabic, that the fruit groves were being bulldozed to punish the
farmers for not informing on the resistance which is very active
in this Sunni Muslim district.
"They made a sort of joke against us by playing jazz music while
they were cutting down the trees," said one man. Ambushes of U.S.
troops have taken place around Dhuluaya. But Sheikh Hussein Ali
Saleh al-Jabouri, a member of a delegation that went to the nearby
U.S. base to ask for compensation for the loss of the fruit trees,
said American officers described what had happened as "a punishment
of local people because 'you know who is in the resistance and do
not tell us'." What the Israelis had done by way of collective
punishment of Palestinians was now happening in Iraq, Sheikh Hussein
added.
The destruction of the fruit trees took place in the second half
of last month but, like much which happens in rural Iraq, word of
what occurred has only slowly filtered out. The destruction of crops
took place along a kilometer-long stretch of road just after it
passes over a bridge.
Farmers say that 50 families lost their livelihoods, but a petition
addressed to the coalition forces in Dhuluaya pleading in erratic
English for compensation, lists only 32 people. The petition says:
"Tens of poor families depend completely on earning their life on
these orchards and now they became very poor and have nothing and
waiting for hunger and death."
The children of one woman who owned some fruit trees lay down in
front of a bulldozer but were dragged away, according to eyewitnesses
who did not want to give their names. They said that one American
soldier broke down and cried during the operation.
When a reporter from the newspaper Iraq Today attempted to take a
photograph of the bulldozers at work a soldier grabbed his camera
and tried to smash it. The same paper quotes Lt. Col. Springman, a
U.S. commander in the region, as saying: "We asked the farmers
several times to stop the attacks, or to tell us who was responsible,
but the farmers didn't tell us."
Informing U.S. troops about the identity of their attackers would
be extremely dangerous in Iraqi villages, where most people are
related and everyone knows each other. The farmers who lost their
fruit trees all belong to the Khazraji tribe and are unlikely to
give information about fellow tribesmen if they are, in fact,
attacking U.S. troops.
Asked how much his lost orchard was worth, Nusayef Jassim said in
a distraught voice: "It is as if someone cut off my hands and you
asked me how much my hands were worth."
--
============================================================
"...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the suspension of
the Weimar constitution followed the Reichstag fire."
- Srdja Trifkovic
There is not a problem with the system.
The system is the problem.
Faith in humanity, not gods, ideologies, or programs.
_____________________________
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