Film Review: WHAT I WANT YOU TO KNOW

Last night I attended a screening of the veterans' documentary WHAT I WANT YOU TO KNOW. After garnering the audience favorite award at last summer's Maine International Film Festival the film attracted sponsors including peace organizations I belong to that worked to bring the film to more audiences here in Maine. Attendance at the November 13 screening in Brunswick was sparse -- about 20 people -- but an engaging discussion after the film was facilitated by veterans' counselor Robyn Belcher.

Archival footage of the wars the U.S. waged in Afghanistan and Iraq following 9/11 was interspersed with contemporary interviews of multiple veterans of those wars. Organized loosely by chronology of the enlistees' journeys from private citizens to imperial cannon fodder, the narrative arrived at moral injury -- a final resting place where one veteran predicted he will still be dwelling decades from now.

The film's theme is futility and the sensation that all the limbs and lives lost, plus the civilians terrorized or slaughtered, was for nothing. Several clips of a succession of U.S. presidents speaking conveyed the lies that combat veterans now believe they were told in the course of their enlistment. 

This photo and the one at the top are stills from the film's website.

There was no clear mission and, once in country, soldiers literally drove around in circles waiting for their turn to be blasted by an IED. They arrested the wrong men, they shot blindly into crowds of civilians, and in their view absolutely nothing was gained.

Ostensible reasons for being there i.e. bringing "democracy" or advancing the rights of women were quickly exposed as fraudulent. Insurgents had the support and loyalty of the people, and woe betide those who threw in with the occupying forces as interpreters only to be cast aside as the U.S. military departed. These acts of disloyalty contributed to the moral suffering described by veterans, and to the moral decay in evidence as soldiers whoop and congratulate themselves on shooting down from helicopters onto unarmed civilians.

U.S. soldier Steven Green hung himself in prison after being among a group of soldiers convicted of rape and murder committed in Mahmoudiyah, Iraq in 2006.  Photograph: AP

The film has a tight focus but I thought there were some glaring omissions in the moral injury department. No discussion of rape except in the context of Afghan warlords and their exploitation of boys? Really? Who can forget the gang-rape and murder of 14 year old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi by U.S. Army soldiers who then killed her entire family in order to eliminate the witnesses. 

And why was there no discussion of opium production in Afghanistan used to fund the war while driving an opioid epidemic in the West until the Taliban again eradicated it after the occupiers departed? Plenty of veterans have died of suicide by overdose in the intervening years.

Suicide was touched on as it's well known that more active duty soldiers die in "accidents" or by their own hand than die from enemy fire. Soldiers described feeling betrayed by their leaders and demoralized by the things they both saw and did while deployed, a potent combination that eroded their will to stay alive.

Most of the audience discussion focused on damaged vets and how to help them help themselves. I have to admit that was not my focus as an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in situations like this. Why not celebrate the fact that largely because of their suffering the will to enlist in the U.S. military is at an all time low? Even military families, traditionally the best source of volunteers, are telling their younger generations not to enlist. Decades of war for profit with dishonor have gutted what was once a proud military that believed in its mission (however deluded that notion might have been). 

The U.S. imperial mission in Ukraine and now in Israel have been spectacular failures that the government and its obedient press are still lying about today. Those in the know understand that Ukraine could not beat or even weaken Russia, and that Israel cannot win against Hamas, Hezbollah, and Resistance coalitions coming together to fight them and their U.S. sponsor. Attacks on illegal U.S. military bases in Syria and Iraq are reported almost daily. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands in the U.S. and millions across the globe continue marching to demand an end to the genocide happening right now to Palestinians.

Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din Street in Bureij, Gaza Strip, Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

The long downfall in morale that began with the Vietnam War has proven far more enduring than freedom.

If Ukraine Uses Depleted Uranium, Then It's Already A Nuclear War

Source: Medical Association for Prevention of War presentation on Depleted Uranium, 2006

My late friend Cecile Pineda wrote a powerful book arguing that nuclear war was already with us. 

As I wrote in my eulogy for Cecile, Devil's Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step (Wings Press, 2013) argued a thesis that acted as a tsunami demolishing my lifelong dread of nuclear war. It's not that I don't still dread it (and notice it creeping closer with each passing day), it's that I followed Cecile's carefully reasoned argument that nuclear holocaust is already here. Constant pollution from radiation leaks, accidents, and deliberate use of ordnance composed with depleted uranium already have global cancer rates and birth defects skyrocketing. Continuing to build nuclear weapon systems without any meaningful plans for containing the waste is collective suicide. 

On March 22, China and Russia issued a joint statement of their intention to avoid the use of nuclear weapons.

Within days, Great Britain announced it will ship DU ammunition to Ukraine for use in the proxy war against Russia. Meanwhile, research physicist Chris Busby published data showing elevated levels of uranium in the atmosphere over the British isles. That's a fact, and his hypothesis about causation is that DU is already present in munitions used by Ukraine.

The British government's announcement has had several consequences.

☢️ Some commenters wondered if the plan to irradiate Ukraine's prime agricultural land would sit well with big corporate players like Monsanto that have been buying up real estate there.

☢️ Russia announced it plans to move nuclear weapons into Belarus this summer. (Naturally the U.S. and NATO nations are crying foul without acknowledging that they already have nuclear weapons in position in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Türkiye if not Poland, too.)

☢️ More attention was paid to data on the long term effects in Serbia of being bombed with DU munitions by NATO during the Clinton administration e.g. "5,500 out of every 100,000 Serbs suffer from some kind of carcinoma, a rate nearly three times the global average."

☢️ Same for data on the use of DU by the U.S. and NATO in Iraq, especially concentrated in the area of Fallujah. Clusters of birth defects occurred early there attributed to DU, and these persist. 

The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) condemned the UK decision to send depleted uranium shells to Ukraine and elaborated thus:

A byproduct of the nuclear enriching process used to make nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons, DU emits three quarters of the radioactivity of natural uranium and shares many of its risks and dangers. It is used in armour piercing rounds as it is heavy and can easily penetrate steel. However on impact, toxic or radioactive dust can be released and subsequently inhaled. 

DU shells were used extensively by the US and British in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, as well as in the Balkans during the 1990s.

It is thought that the extensive use of these shells is responsible for the sharp rise in the incidence rate of some cancers like breast cancer or lymphoma in the areas they were used. Other illnesses linked to DU include kidney failure, nervous system disorders, lung disease and reproductive problems. However, a lack of reliable data on exposure to DU means no large-scale study on its true impact exists. 

DU sidesteps frying its targets to a crisp. In other words, the thermo part of thermonuclear is absent. And that is a good thing.

My friend Fang used to protest during the Iraq war using a sign that said D.U. = war crime. I used to tease him about what passing motorists made of his message, guessing that they read D.U. as the Homer Simpson exclamation, "Duh!"

Maybe I was underestimating how informed the general public is, but after watching highlights of the congressional hearings about Tik Tok this week I don't think so. 

To end this grim post on a lightly humorous note (and the promise to do another geography quiz post soon):

Crenshaw: [Chinese citizens] must cooperate with Chinese intelligence whenever they are called upon, and if they are called upon they're bound to secrecy. That would include you.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew: I'm Singaporean. pic.twitter.com/YXICSoIY4c

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 24, 2023

Link to tweet if embedded video does not work for you: https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1639087482380910594

U.S. Will Now Steal Palestinian Land Also

Source: "REVEALED: Trump's 'deal of the century' map for Palestine, Israel"
Middle East Eye, January 2020

What is that "also" about? It could be read either way: 

the U.S. is now joining chief thief Israel in illegally occupying land belonging to Palestinian families in Jerusalem;

or, if you prefer, 

in addition to stealing land for military bases (e.g. Okinawa, Somalia) and oil theft (e.g. Syria, Iraq), the U.S. now plans to steal land in Jerusalem to construct an embassy.

The advent of neoliberal faker Joe Biden as POTUS has done nothing to halt U.S. enabling of Israel's violent occupation of the West Bank and bombing of blockaded Gaza. Remember when he told a roomful of oligarchs "nothing will change"? Following on the heels of the most pro-Israel president ever, Biden has in fact kept many of 45's bad policies in place. 

Building an embassy on Palestinian land in Jerusalem is the icing on the cake.

Back in July when Biden traveled to Israel (and before the election of the most right wing government in Israel's history), the White House issued the "The Jerusalem U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration." This document contains incendiary, even apocalyptic language: 

"unshakeable U.S. commitment to Israel’s security, and especially to the maintenance of its qualitative military edge [emphasis mine]"

"The United States further reiterates that these commitments are bipartisan and sacrosanct [emphasis mine]"

(One might wonder how a Democratic administration can pledge the support of Republicans. Or, one might have long since concluded that both the D and the R parties are wings of the same imperial government in service to corporate business interests.)

The statement also contained some astonishing hypocrisy:

"the United States and Israel affirm that among the values the countries share is an unwavering commitment to democracy, the rule of law..[emphasis mine]"

Israel is and has long been an apartheid state with full rights for its Jewish citizens -- and even its foreign settlers as long as they profess the correct religion. It detains, tortures, and executes Palestinians, including children, regularly. In May an Israeli military sniper assassinated a U.S. citizen, journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, well-known as an Al Jazeera t.v. correspondent for decades. Succumbing to pressure to investigate the murder of a U.S. citizen by a foreign military, last month the Biden administration announced the FBI will investigate the incident. Not holding their breath for that outcome, Al Jazeera Media Network has requested that the International Criminal Court investigate and prosecute those responsible.

As for the U.S. "commitment to democracy" and "the rule of law" one has only to look at its many coups toppling elected governments (e.g. Ukraine 2014, Australia 1975, Iran 1953) to bely that claim. And the destruction and looting of Iraq beginning in 2003 is emblematic of what the U.S. means when it proclaims it values the rule of law. Or maybe persecution of journalist Julian Assange would be a clearer example of how little the U.S. cares for the law?

Three paragraphs in, we get to the heart of the matter:

The United States stresses that integral to this pledge is the commitment never to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, and that it is prepared to use all elements of its national power to ensure that outcome. The United States further affirms the commitment to work together with other partners to confront Iran’s aggression and destabilizing activities..

The U.S. is building new nuclear weapon systems as fast as it can since the Obama administration's green light, and Israel pretends not to have nuclear weapons though everyone knows it does. But it's Iran that's the threat! 45 scuttled the U.S.-Iran nuclear agreement and Biden, despite campaign promises to restore it, is letting the JCPOA sink to the bottom of the sea.

Source: "Exclusive: Tracking the flow of stolen Syrian oil into Iraq"
The Cradle, September 2022

Iran is indeed a threat to U.S. ambitions in Syria where the theft of oil proceeds apace.

So Israel, the wealthiest of nations, receives billions from U.S. taxpayers each year as credit to buy weapons that further enrich the oligarchy that owns and operates Congress and the White House.

Stealing from Palestinians to construct an embassy in Jerusalem is arguably the least of U.S. crimes against an occupied people. By contrast, 45's closure of the U.S. Consultate General for the Palestinians in Jerusalem remains in effect.

But the land theft for an embassy is highly symbolic of the dangerous alliance between two aggressive nuclear powers. 

It's an alliance the U.S. will go to great lengths to support as the lure of cooperating with Russia beckons amid the global economic meltdown over sanctioned energy supplies and soaring prices.

In Sophisticated Propaganda, Even The Reverse Isn't True

 

On this inauguration day, as Democrats pretend that all will be well under a neoliberal regime headed by the very corporations that are killing the life support systems of our planet, and that empty promises are as good as kept, I'm worried. 

False dichotomy is a very effective tool for keeping the masses confused. The above meme claiming "the left" just won* the presidential election is not stupid, it is dangerous.

And we've lived through this before.

President Obama was constantly portrayed as a socialist or communist by propagandists and political enemies. Meanwhile, the banks got bailed out and the people got sold out on his watch. (And Occupy Wall Street encampments were violently evicted in a coordinated national effort.)

Also, Chelsea Manning and free speech martyr Julian Assange were jailed and tortured for revealing war crimes and financial crimes. Their fellow whistleblower Edward Snowden escaped the empire's grasp to go into exile in Russia; he was at risk of suffering their fate for revealing that the federal government was conducting illegal surveillance of us all.

And those who had opposed wars under George W. Bush mostly went to brunch rather than hold their handsome, articulate warmonger accountable.

Yesterday the Biden nominee for Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, (yet another recycled Obama administration hack) indicated a desire for the war in Afghanistan to continue indefinitely. He bemoaned the fact that the Obama administration overthrew the socilaist government of Libya without installing an effective replacement for Gadaffi, whom Hillary Clinton gloated about killing. 

Blinken not asked about most wars, not even Iraq, nor about his revolving door profiteering. He thinks Iran is evil but favors the agreement. He defends Libya war lies and war, arming Ukraine, freaking out over China. Asked how to rejoin the world he named 0 steps.

— David Swanson (@davidcnswanson) January 19, 2021

The inside job that allowed black clad men with zip ties to breach capitol security did not look like "the left" had any involvement. Someone who's paying attention told me Erik Prince and Blackwater -- or whatever he calls his band of mercenaries these days -- had their people inside.

The large number of clownish participants on January 6 tend to draw our attention, but let's not get distracted from what was allowed to happen -- and what it is being used to justify.

Photo: Leigh Vogel UPI/Rex/Shutterstock

In the 1970's my late father warned a teenaged me, "Watch for the U.S. to become a police state. It's already well underway." 

Let's not be distracted by the shiny surface of things, but instead keep our eye on the ball.

*A handy guide to know if "the left" ever comes to power in Washington DC: we'll get universal health care and guaranteed basic income.

Racism Is What Makes U.S. Wars, Pollution Invisible To Those Who Fund Them

Houdieda, Yemen September 9, 2016. © Abduljabbar Zeyad / Reuters

Racism is what makes U.S. wars around the planet largely invisible to those who fund them. We've payed to starve and bomb the people of Yemen for years now courtesy of U.S. good buddy Saudi Arabia, but who among us could find Yemen on a map?

Racism is what makes many in the U.S. label anyone with the hint of Middle Eastern origin or culture a "terrorist" when it's obvious that our government and its military (and militarized police) are the worst terrorists ever.

It's what covers for NATO when it upsets regimes that are providing for people in ways that a few years later sound like the best of times: clean water, no power outages, and health care systems intact (think Iraq here).

A scene from Gaza last week shows how Israel uses U.S. taxpayer support in the form of millions annually in military aid.

Racism is what makes most U.S. taxpayers turn a blind eye to Israel's genocidal policies in Gaza and the West Bank. Last week Israel passed an apartheid law establishing itself as a Jewish state with its capital in Jerusalem, and it issues maps wiping Palestine off the Earth -- but most here in the U.S. side with white Zionists over Arab Muslim or even Christian Palestinians.

Racism is also what makes the most dire effects of pollution and climate change invisible to those who cause them. 

Malecon, Cuba beach cleanup

The people who live in the Dominican Republic and Bua are brown and black and speak Spanish, so who cares if "their" ocean is covered with trash, right? I would say put the indigenous grandmothers back in charge but sadly Taino/Arawak people were wiped out by genocide after Columbus landed here first.

Will racism lead most polluters to continue ignoring this problem because (for now) it presents in places where the population is mostly not white?

Map from Parley for the Oceans

Most people in the U.S. cannot see racism because they are white, and they don't believe they suffer from it.



Liberals will react with horror when the annual Unite the Right rally occurs next month in Washington DC, the very heart of white supremacist government. Last year's rally in Charlottesville, Virginia (which is nearby) resulted in violence against people of color and a white counter demonstrator being killed when a white nationalist drove his car into the crowd. Afterwards, the demagogue with bad hair said from the White House that there were some "fine people" in Unite the Right.

Racism is what keeps most white people silent, and allows a vocal minority to claim their hate speech represents majority opinion.


Sadly, that's not far from true. Brown, black and Native children have been torn from their families for years, and they have inter-generational trauma to show for it. Brown, black and indigenous families continue to suffer under the militarized terror regimes our taxes support.




A lot of jokes have been made about the so-called Second Civil War coming. This video of police officers brutalizing brown children in El Paso, Texas brought that phrase to mind for me. 

I think this is what the Second Civil War will look like: heavily armed state agents battling young people who scare them by not acting scared enough.


Unfortunately, most people in the U.S. will side with the highly militarized police when the time comes. So did the Germans. And look where that got them.

Wars Rage On As Circus Show Of National Politics Distracts The Masses

Rev. Chris Antal and a quilt commemorating the victims of U.S. drone attacks.
Image source: DronesQuiltProject.com

Not sure how I missed this back in June: a concise, searing indictment of the Obama administration as it "continues to claim the right to kill anyone, anywhere on earth, at any time, for secret reasons." It was delivered by Unitarian minister and Army Reserve officer Christopher Antal as he resigned his post. Saying "I refuse to serve as an empire chaplain" he outlined the reasons why his role in the military could no longer be reconciled with his Christian beliefs.

What is this "permanent military supremacy and global power projection" so celebrated at the recent Democratic Party convention? Most in the U.S. would be hard pressed to describe it beyond a vague notion that we are at war with terror, and ISIS is its latest face. 

Today I offer an overview of the many, many wars the U.S. is engaged in while attention focuses on the circus of electing the next actor who will explain to us what our corporate overlords have decided to do.

Aftermath of U.S. bombing of Sabratha, Libya.
Image source: d.ibtimes.co.uk

Libya
We're bombing Libya this week, the nation whose leader was toppled in an event described gleefully by a corporate party candidate as, "We came, we saw, he died." Now widely considered a failed state with no effective national government five years on, some also consider it the launching pad for AFRICOM's projection of force over that rich continent. The president explained to reporters that we are bombing Libya to "finish the job" of driving out terrorists. This despite the fact that bombing civilians very often leads to the young men of a targeted area signing up to resist U.S. aggression.

Analysts, including those embedded in the U.S. power structure itself, often remind us that "There is no military solution in ____." But the Pentagon and Wall St. aren't looking for solutions, just profits.

Image source: SyrianRefugees.eu

Syria
The bloodbath and refugee crisis of staggering proportions continue, with U.S. officials ordering air strikes and sending in troops while demagogues denounce the refugees as dangerous in order refuse them entry. Even the president acknowledges that "there is no military solution in Syria" but the Pentagon keeps bombing Syria anyway. Invading Syria was part of the neocon game plan back in 2003 when the U.S. invaded neighboring Iraq; things didn't go as swiftly as the Pentagon had planned, and it has taken more than a decade to ramp up the destabilizing violence in this key petroleum corridor.

Image source: pbs.org "Marines say latest fight for Fallujah reignites anguish over Iraq War"

Iraq
The president has announced several times that he ended combat in this inherited warfront, adding to the pile of lies he was hired to tell. There seem to be around 5,000 troops there currently. This summer saw the third big battle to control the key city of Fallujah, a military action ironically code named "Operation Breaking Terrorism." A U.S. soldier who died in Iraq in 2004 became an unwitting political football in the election circus as his parents allowed themselves to be used by one of the corporate parties earning the disdain of the demagogue with the bad hair, ostensible candidate for the other corporate party.

Image source: Global Research
"Troops are protecting Afghan opium as U.S. occupation leads to all time high heroin production"

Afghanistan
Who weeps for Afghanistan, the country targeted after the inside job of 9/11 ushered in the endless war on terror? After 14 years of U.S. led war, conditions are as bad for Afghans as they have ever been: Kabul's infrastructure is in ruins and the Taliban continue to regain control of key areas. Drones rain down bombs on civilians while U.S. casualties continue. Perhaps if people in the U.S. better understood the connection between U.S. support for the warlords who fund their operations via opium production and the heroin crisis here at home they would insist that the U.S. military leave Afghanistan.

Image source: Voice of America 
"Pakistani local residents gather around a burning vehicle hit by a U.S. drone strike, May 21, 2016. 
Afghan Taliban Mullah Akhtar Mansoor was the target of the drone near Dalbandin, Baluchistan, Pakistan."

Pakistan
Supposedly a U.S. ally, Pakistan's government cannot stop the CIA and/or Pentagon from drone bombing their border areas with Afghanistan. 

Image source: CNN.com

Somalia
Last year Western journalists in Somalia reported that being on the receiving end of U.S. drone strikes was considered an honor by terrorist group Al Shabaab. Not so much by the civilians who die in the bombings. 

Could most in the U.S. find Somalia on a map? Doubtful.

Image source: todayonline.com
 "A man and a boy walk at a site hit by a Saudi-led air strike in Yemen's capital. Photo: Reuters"

Yemen
"Obama disastrously backed Saudi Arabia in Yemen, now he's deploying U.S. troops to deal with the fallout: the U.S. says it is fighting the same Al Qaeda affiliates that are allied with elements of the coalition America is backing" by Sarah Lazare on May 12 pretty much says it all. These are not wars that are meant to be won. Here's her full article on Alternet.

I grow weary, as I suspect you do, too, if you've continued reading to this point. Perhaps tomorrow I will continue my inventory of U.S. military presence in far flung spots around the planet. Next up: South Korea, Ukraine, Okinawa, Lithuania, Poland, etc.

Just because it's invisible to most in the U.S. doesn't mean WWIII isn't rolling onward to oblivion. When the blowback reaches our shores, a hard rain is gonna fall.

'Tis The Season To Bomb Civilians

Image: Anthony Freda

It's the dark time of year when we of the North get up before sunrise and eat supper after sundown. As we approach the turning point of the winter solstice, we are encouraged to be kind to one another, to keep the light of love burning in our hearts in order to help us endure the darkness.

So that's why the Pentagon and the White House have decided to send more special operations troops to Iraq and Syria. Veterans have told me that these troops are mostly scouts for where to bomb. Because the Pentagon and the White House are also planning to continue bombing civilians right through the Christmas season.

The doublespeak employed by the blood-spattered officials who try to explain and justify all this mechanized killing for profit is absurd.

Top brass could hardly be expected to talk about how they are counting on cushy post-retirement jobs in the military contracting corporations that are predicting a "significant uptick" in business as a result of more combat. 

So they make up other, implausible reasons e.g. more attacks on areas that sometimes produce terrorists will, in the magical thinking the U.S. government continues selling to a somnolent public, reduce terrorism emanating from those areas. Even though many of these very officials have observed that bombing innocent civilian populations and occupying their countries tends to breed still more terrorists. As Democracy Now! reported:

Speaking to Congress Tuesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said the U.S. special forces are authorized to conduct raids, gather intelligence, free hostages and capture members of ISIS. He also said the troops would conduct unilateral operations inside Syria. Facing questions from Virginia Republican Rep. Randy Forbes, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford acknowledged the U.S. is not technically at war in Iraq or Syria, even as the military ramps up combat operations. 

Randy Forbes: "You heard the Secretary of Defense say both in writing and verbally that we are at war. Who declared that war?"
Joseph Dunford: "I think what the secretary is saying, because we discussed this, is that we view the fight against ISIL as a threat to the United States and we are mobilizing all of the military capabilities that are necessary—"
Randy Forbes: "Who would have actually made a declaration? Is that something that you would make?"
Joseph Dunford: "Congress."
Randy Forbes: "Has a declaration been made?"
Joseph Dunford: "No, it has not."
Randy Forbes: "So how does the secretary say we’re at war? I only have five minutes."
Ashton Carter "I’m just going to tell you—"
Randy Forbes: "I would ask if he wants to elaborate, he can submit written statements, but he is taking my five minutes. General, can you tell me as the joint Chiefs, if you know?"
Joseph Dunford: "We are technically not at war."

When our system of government was founded, the intention to avoid the standing armies and endless wars of European monarchies was expressed by a plan to have the people's representatives oversee the military. 

Now that our government represents mostly corporations and other moneyed interest groups, that oversight has been rendered null and void.

"Defense" Aerospace Top Contributors, 2015-2016

Source: OpenSecrets.org

As a result, I think the dark days will extend far beyond December 21 this year.

As hate media pundits spew invective about Islam as an inherently violent religion, so-called Christians will ignore the ten commandments and the Golden Rule to bomb oil rich countries. 

Meanwhile, I am left worrying and wondering: is it World War III yet?

A Veteran Of Fallujah Speaks Out In An Open Letter To John Kerry

Source: Global Research "Fallujah: A disgrace for the USA, an eternal curse on humanity"

This terrific letter from a man who has known the horror of war as a US invader of Iraq was in my inbox yesterday. I'm glad to share it here. You can sign his petition demanding we NOT send weapons to be used on the residents of Fallujah.

Open letter to John Kerry from Fallujah veteran

Submitted by ross on Sun, 02/09/2014 

Dear Secretary Kerry, 

        I am writing to you veteran-to-veteran, man-to-man. However, I have decided to write to you publicly. The issue that I am writing about is too important, too many lives depend on it, and I cannot take the chance that this letter and the linked petition will only reach the eyes of one of your aides. 

        Like you, I felt betrayed that my country sent me to fight an unjust war, though my war was several decades after yours, and in Iraq. I have spoken out against that war to the best of my ability, as you once did against your war before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In recent years you have found yourself on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but your attitudes towards war have changed drastically. 

        You supported the war in Iraq, the war that I was deployed to as a Marine, where I participated in the 2nd siege of Fallujah. You were at the end of your Presidential run during the build up to this operation. The 2nd siege of Fallujah was compared to Hue City for its military character, and to the My Lai Massacre for its moral character. But you supported this operation. 

        Fallujah is currently under siege once again. You have stated that US troops will not be sent back to Iraq to assist in the current siege, but you have agreed that the US should send weapons to the Iraqi government. I am writing to implore that you do everything within your ability to stop shipments of US weapons to Iraq, whether they are sold, gifted, or loaned. Arming an oppressive regime so that they may better crush a popular uprising is not in the best interest of Americans or Iraqis.  

        During that 2nd siege of Fallujah we killed thousands of civilians, displaced hundreds of thousands, destroyed nearly the entire city, and brought immeasurable loss and hardship upon those poor people. Since then I have devoted my life to raising awareness about the suffering I helped create in Fallujah, and to assisting Fallujans in their struggle with a public health disaster and ongoing repression.  

        I feel a moral obligation to do whatever is within my power to help these people who I once hurt. But I was not a lone actor in Iraq. I had the support of a nation behind me and I was taking orders from the world’s most powerful military. The 2nd siege of Fallujah was not exceptional; rather it was symbolic of our military’s conduct in Iraq and the way that our mission impacted the lives of Iraqis. Our war and occupation took so much from them. It resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions displaced, permanent environmental contamination, and a new repressive regime that most Iraqis regard as begin more brutal than that of Saddam Hussein. This is the legacy of America’s involvement in Iraq. The least that we can do at this point is to end our complicity in their suffering. 

         The current violence in Fallujah has been misrepresented in the media. The Iraqi Ministry of Interior asserted earlier in the month that al Qaeda had taken over half of Fallujah and the media parroted this assertion. However, journalists who have done serious investigations into this assertion found it to be false. The uprising in Fallujah is a popular uprising, not one lead by an international jihadist group. The Iraqi government has not been attacking al Qaeda in Fallujah. Their assault has been indiscriminate, killing dozens of civilians and wounding even more. Many of these deaths have been documented by human rights organizations within Fallujah.  

        I know that the US plans to send further shipments of Apache attack helicopters and Hellfire missiles. If we continue to send weapons to the Iraqi government, we will be further complicit in this violence. Iraqis have long known the Maliki regime to be brutal and repressive. This is not a regime the US should be sending weapons to. Some of your colleagues in Congress have voiced this same concern.  

        When you spoke before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971, you spoke with compassion for the Vietnamese people. You sympathized with the suffering that our illegitimate war brought to them. I am asking you to do the same for Iraqis. Please end all shipments of US made weapons to Iraq.  

        I have attached a petition with 11,610 signatures. Most of the signatories are Americans like myself who want to be able to feel proud of their country, but cannot do so while we are assisting the Iraqi government in its violent internal repression. 

Sincerely, 

Ross Caputi

Ten Years After, The Stench Remains

The stench of bodies burned by white phosphorus, of stillborn children with depleted uranium-induced deformities so gross they are barely recognizable as human, of torture and rendition conducted by contracting firms such as Blackwater (now known as Academi), recently revealed as directly in the employ of the CIA and its taxpayers; the stench of burning oil fields, of hungry children shivering in the cold in North America, of the farts of fat, sleek war profiteers the mainstream media tells us to revere as "winners" in the vicious game of access to the dirty fuels that keep the light burning for capitalism.

Business, politics and war -- there you have it. Haliburton, the love of Dick Cheney's life, made billions off the Iraq war.  Bush will get a presidential lie-brary in Texas. Rice will continue with lucrative teaching and lecturing gigs. Et cetera, ad nauseum.

The people of Iraq will continue to suffer the effects of civil unrest, and of the destroyed infrastructure that was never repaired even though corporations billed the U.S. government billions to do the job.

The veterans who went to invade Iraq will continue to wrestle the demons of despair, many broken in body and spirit. Many will not make it back to their families or the lives they left behind. Many went into the military after the gigantic lie of 9/11 -- that it was the unaided work of Islamic terrorists -- and many more went, not out of idealism, but because there were no living wage jobs for kids with high school diplomas, and they wanted the money to go to college. They never studied true world history and current events, so they never really knew that the dictator they were supposed to be risking their lives to topple had been a close U.S. friend and ally for years.

Four million Iraqi refugees, one million of whom have yet to return home. At least hundreds of thousands, perhaps as many as a million civilian deaths in Iraq. A highly profitable war for the 1%. That's why Bush made a buffoon of himself very early in the occupation declaring "Mission Accomplished." The direct feed from the U.S. taxpayer to the corporations that kept him in office was firmly in place. And in 2013, the U.S. taxpayer is still bleeding dollars into those accounts faster than a human being could even count.