The Republican
War
By Am Johal
16 February, 2005
Countercurrents.org
There are many victims in war.
In basic training
in the the US military, new recruits who are broken down to break the
human inhibition to killing take part in training chants like, "What
makes the grass grow? Blood, blood, bright red blood."
War is complicated.
The victims are
everywhere - not just the civilians, but even within the US military
itself. Over 5,500 soldiers have deserted since the US led invasion
of Iraq began. Thousands more are suffering from post traumatic stress
disorder and severe depression beyond the thousands of casualties and
injured. There are well over 100,000 Iraqi dead since the war began.
George W. Bush and
his Republican administration should have to wear the war in Iraq when
it's all over. He has divided the nation and the world in a way that
has not been seen since Vietnam.
The American people,
by giving the Republicans the White House and an overwhelming majority
at the House and Senate have only emboldened an ideogically driven administration
to continue on its unilateralist path outside of the confines of international
law and the consensus of Western nations. Moderates like Colin Powell
have left, while Codolleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and his Pentagon mafia
are still around.
As the unmanned
drones fly over Iran today in preparation for what could become another
military campaign, the information coming out of Iraq should offer some
sobering cause for reflection.
Recently in Vancouver,
former US Marine Sargeant Jimmy Massey addressed a small crowd and clearly
described US human rights violations and direct violations of Geneva
conventions in Iraq. He talked about how the military taught recruits
to hate another culture and did not give them the tools to appreciate
or understand adequately those who they were being sent to kill and
to liberate.
Massey is a former
military recruiter from North Carolina who received an honorable discharge
from the US military after being part of the invasion of Iraq in March
2003. He now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and severe
depression.
On the chalk board
he drew a composite of the checkpoint outside of Rashid Camp on the
outskirts of Baghdad, and talked about the different aspects that went
in to the decision making to open fire in situations. Even though platoon
commanders were trained in the requirements of the Geneva conventions,
classified briefings in the field regularly exaggerated claims of insurgents
and created an environment in the battle field where soldiers were shooting
at unarmed civilians. Operational guidelines on closing roads and setting
up checkpoints were often times ignored or became de facto places where
soldiers were "lighting them up."
Massey clearly said
several times, "We are committing genocide in Iraq."
He himself said
he was ordered to fire on several occasions and in one instance, 30
Iraqi civilians were killed over a 48 hour period. He says that he along
with his fellow soldiers were directly involved in war crimes.
Massey's biggest
critique is for the propaganda that comes with war not only within military
training practises but on the battle field itself. He knows the First
Amendment well and he intends to take it to its limits to describe the
horrors of the Iraqi war in the United States.
On the battle field
and in the homes of Iraqi civilians, there are thousands of narratives
of what is happening on the ground. There is no central experience to
speak of. One experiences what they see.
Here we were, listening
to a trained killer, a violator of international law who had blood on
his hands, and had come back from Iraq as a broken man.
It was complicated
- because he, too, was a victim. He was a front line killer in a military
machine that trained him to dehumanize his victims. Growing up poor
and joining the military for a university education can sometimes be
a roadmap to hell.
I empathize with
him because he's a human being and has important perspectives to offer.
He is brave for speaking out, but he should also be held accountable
for the deaths he participated in and his superiors whose systemic uses
of propaganda in the internal processes of the US military directly
led to violations of international law on the front lines in Iraq.
War is ugly. War
is brutal. People die.
But what good is
international law or the Geneva conventions when the most powerful military
force in the world regularly slaughters civilians and the front line
soldiers do not have the training or the resources to meet the standards
required of them.
It is a fundamental
question.
On the battle field,
it means that innocent civilians die. A State of the Union Address or
Iraqi elections will not change that. Soldiers on the front line should
know how to set up a check point so they aren't firing indiscriminately
at unarmed people.
During the Vietnam
War, 60,000 American crossed the border and were given refugee status.
Under Canada's new refugee determination procedures, fear of prosecution
at home is not considered persecution.
Jeremy Hinzman of the 82nd Airborne in his first appearance at the refugee
board as a principled deserter attempted to make the argument that the
war's illegality under international law should be the basis of a legitimate
claim for refugee status. In an interim ruling prior to the hearing,
the Immigration and Refugee Board acting on an argument put forward
by the Canadian government agreed that the question of the war's legality
was irrelevant to the case.
A ruling on the
refugee status of several American war resisters including Hinzman is
expected in a few weeks. Hinzman originally joined the military as a
way to go to college before deserting with his wife and child to Toronto
weeks before he was due to be sent to Iraq after he was denied conscientous
objector status while serving in non-combat duties in Afghanistan.
Sargeant Jimmy Massey
is concerned that there is a de facto economic draft happening in the
United States today. In a previous interview he has publicly said, ""When
I was on recruiting duty, I really began to question what was going
on. I'm not going to say that the Marine Corps is all flat-out lies,
but it is very misleading the way we enlist recruits. A lot of the kids
joining the military are from the 'barrios' and 'hoods,' or the poor
parts of the Appalachian Mountains, where we're sitting right here.
Appalachia
has some of the poorest counties in the country-so they're sweeping
them up.
"You know,
these kids are just thankful that they've got some health care-for a
lot of them, the first time they even went to the dentist is when they
joined the Marine Corps. Then you pump them full of patriotism and intangible
benefits-self-confidence and what not-and now you're indoctrinating
a young person with an ideology.
"Boot camp
is designed to dehumanize and desensitize a person to violence. I was
a Marine Corps boot camp instructor for two-and-a-half years, and I
know that it is designed to strip you down and rebuild you. The only
purpose of the Marine Corps is to meet the enemy on the battlefield
and destroy them."
Added to this are
further issues on the front line in Iraq which have rarely been addressed.
Even though only 2.6% of the US military is made up of non-US citizens,
the forces in Iraq are composed of close to 30% non-US citizens fighting
under direct American control and are predominately Hispanic and have
been given offers of honorary citizenship as enticements to enlist.
As well, the deaths of non-US citizens are not officially counted as
part of the American dead. Some have estimated that the number of the
American war dead is double the amount currently stated.
Under immigration
law, there are three mechanisms by which a member of the Armed Forces
can become a naturalized US citizen.
Section 328 of the
Immigration and Nationality Act permits a person who has served honorably
in the US Armed Forces for a period aggregating three years to naturalize.
Section 329 of the
INA allows an alien to naturalize if they served honorably under active
duty status during World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam
War or in other periods of military hostilities designated by the President
by Executive Order.
On July 3, 2002,
President Bush designated the period following September 11, 2001 as
one of military hostilities which allowed for immediate naturalization
eligibility for active duty US Military service
members. The Department of Defense and the Bureaus of Citizenship and
Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security work closely
together to process military naturalization applications.
The third way a
non citizen member can become a citizen is after death while on active
duty service where much discussion has taken place regarding the ability
of their direct family members to obtain American citizenship.
One of the first
deaths of US led forces in Iraq was of Lance Corporal Jose Gutierrez,
an orphan from Guatamala who hitchhiked on to railcars to Mexico before
making it to the streets of Los Angeles. There were three others who
died in the early months of the invasion of Iraq including Private First
Class Francisco Martinez Flores, Corporal Jose Angel Gabray, and Lance
Corporal Jusus Sorres Del Solar, all originally from Mexico.
As the Republicans
leadership pushes on its unilateralist course, the Democrats are floundering
on multiple approaches and are unable to reach a consensus on how to
move forward on the question of withdrawal. Representative Lynn Woolsey
is pushing for "immediate withdrawal," Representative Marty
Meehan has released a white paper calling for a phased withdrawal over
12 to 18 months while Senator Ted Kennedy has called for the immediate
withdrawal of 12,000 troops while keeping 30,000 t0 50,000 troops in
place to prevent the kind of chaos that would lead to a civil war within
Iraq. His Democratic Senate colleagues including John Kerry have spoken
against his plan.
"What do you
tell a kid that just came back from war with the economy the way it
is and the lack of jobs, who's just got finished murdering innocent
civilians because his government has violated every law in the Geneva
Conventions?" Massey said in a previous interview. "You expect
him to come back to the US and be a productive citizen? What do you
do? For me, I keep hanging on to one thing that my grandfather used
to say: 'The truth shall set you free.' I'll keep talking as long as
people listen."
Make no mistake
- despite the Democratic floundering this is a Republican War, not an
American War. If dissent is the highest form of patriotism as Thomas
Jefferson once said, then American citizens need to send a message to
their government before the drum beats of war lead to Iran.