"We have to share this pain" Dahr Jamail - Winter Soldiers in Portland

[Voice for Peace]

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44359

US/IRAQ: "We Have to Share This Pain"
By Dahr Jamail

Even Knappenberger, Iraq war veteran:
"We are murderers of over one million Iraqis."


PORTLAND, Oregon, Oct 20 (IPS) - Veterans from the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, along with Iraqis, Afghanis, Vietnam veterans, and family members of U.S. military personnel converged in this west coast city over the weekend to share stories of atrocities being committed daily in Iraq, in a continuation of the "Winter Soldier" hearings held in Silver Spring, Maryland in March.

At the Unitarian Church downtown, some 300 people gathered to hear the testimonies, which left many in tears. The five-hour event was comprised of three panels; Voices of Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, The Human Costs of War, and Building Resistance to War.

The goal of the event is to give veterans a platform by which to disseminate information about their experiences abroad to the general public.

"War changes people. You do not come out of a combat zone the same," Iraq war veteran Chanan Suarez Diaz told the audience while moderating the veteran's panel. "War is very numbing...it comes to a point that you see so much destruction you become numb. This bullshit about bringing democracy or liberation is nonsense -- we've killed over one million Iraqis."

Jan Critchfield, an Army National guard specialist, discussed his job working in Iraq as an army "journalist", that in his words, "I was a propagandist, pure and simple."

A somber Critchfield said, "I'm not proud of any of what I did over there -- it was inhumane and it changed me as a person. I didn't do anything but yell at people, push people around, and aim my gun at people."

Other vets spoke as photos taken by soldiers were shown on a large screen above the stage.

Josh Simpson explained his work as an army counterintelligence agent in Iraq. "We would go to houses without any evidence, arrest people, and pay our source hundreds of dollars. This was common, it was a crazy cycle."

"We were raiding houses every night in Mosul," he continued. "You ransack their stuff, then ask our officer who he wanted to detain."

The number of people detained was a measure of success for a unit, Simpson explained. "People's mothers would be grabbing me, asking me why I was taking their child away, and I never had an answer. It's terrible to push an elderly Iraqi woman away so you can take her child and load her into your Stryker vehicle, when you don't even believe they belong there."
(more at link http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44359 )

[LynnTheDem]

1. Dear Winter Soldiers;

Of course you have the deepest need to speak out at what you saw, what you did. Of course you do.

Thing is, the rightwing does not and will not offer you any support what so ever. They will call you "traitors". They will mock your Purple Hearts and Bronze Stars and every other award you earned.

They will spit on you and swift-boat you for the rest of their miserable lives.

See, rightwingers only "support" you when you're doing their dirty work, when they don't have to hear you or see you or see and hear the results of the dirty work. As rightwing Rummy said, you are "fungible". Anonymous. Killers hired to kill; after all "that's why you enlisted".

So your mind-searing pain? They don't care and they don't want to hear about it.

Your twisted bodies? They don't care and they don't want to see it.

They don't want to give you one single dime for anything when you're back; not for housing, not for medical treatment, not for counselling.

They want you to go out and kill and die, and shout how Glorious The Rightwing America, and your Beautiful Mission From God, your Crusade of the RIGHTeous is.

After that, they just want you to shut the fuck up, die, go away and rot.


Troops in another war knew and felt your pain, They too badly desired two things; to speak out their pain of what they'd done and seen, to reconcile, to attempt to heal...and to prevent other men from having to go through the Hell they did. They too were called the Winter Soldiers.

They asked another soldier to represent them in their reconcilliation hearings. That young man agreed to do so. It cost him and us all almost everything years later.

That man -John Kerry- read out what the Winter Soldiers had asked him to read out on their behalf.

And the rightwingers to this day accuse John Kerry of accusing those soldiers of the things they'd done.

You need to speak out; you need to try to heal as far as possible by speaking out if that's what it takes to start healing; you need to speak out to try to prevent other young men and women from suffering the toerment you will suffer the rest of your lives.

But you also need to thoroughly understand that the rightwingers of America will do whatever they can to torment you as much as they can, to "punish" you as much as they can, for daring to speak truth of which they do not want to hear.

"Purple Heart bandaid! Purple Heart bandaid!" Did any true American patriot ever believe such a mocking chant would happen, and not just in public, but at a government convention on national television?

I am so sorry, dear soldiers, that you have been so betrayed by your government, by your own people, into an illegal unprovoked war -a war of choice- that you had no choice in.

Rightwingers can continue to chant "you volunteered!1!" as often as they wish; the fact remains: you never volunteered to be betrayed.