| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Seawolf" |
| Date: |
31 Aug 2006 11:33:49 PM |
| Object: |
"PROCEDURE" TO KILL CHILDREN AND BABIES IN IRAQ! |
"A car comes through and it stops in front of my position. Sparks are
coming from the car from bad brakes. All the soldiers are yelling.
It's in my vicinity, so it's my responsibility. I didn't fire. A
superior goes, 'Why didn't you fire? You were supposed to fire.'
I said, 'It was a family!' At this time it had stopped. You could
see the children in the back seat. I said, 'I did the right thing.'
He's like, 'No, you didn't. It's procedure to fire. If you
don't do it next time, you're punished.'"
Anderson shakes his head at the memory. "I'm already not agreeing
with this war. I'm not going to kill innocent people. I can't kill
kids. That's not the way I was raised."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2318643,00.html
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| User: "NoNoBadDog!" |
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| Title: Re: "PROCEDURE" TO KILL CHILDREN AND BABIES IN IRAQ! |
01 Sep 2006 12:50:09 AM |
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"Seawolf" <seawolf82sc@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:1157085229.008419.270240@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
"A car comes through and it stops in front of my position. Sparks are
coming from the car from bad brakes. All the soldiers are yelling.
It's in my vicinity, so it's my responsibility. I didn't fire. A
superior goes, 'Why didn't you fire? You were supposed to fire.'
I said, 'It was a family!' At this time it had stopped. You could
see the children in the back seat. I said, 'I did the right thing.'
He's like, 'No, you didn't. It's procedure to fire. If you
don't do it next time, you're punished.'"
Anderson shakes his head at the memory. "I'm already not agreeing
with this war. I'm not going to kill innocent people. I can't kill
kids. That's not the way I was raised."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2318643,00.html
It is clueless, ignorant lumps of ***** like you that make me sick.
I served 23 years in the military. I was severely wounded in Iraq, by an
RPG, and as a result of those injuries I am medically retired.
I have personally seen cars with "families" in them detonate and kill. I
have seen children with explosives strapped to them.
You sit on your fat, stupid ***** and pass judgment on something you have no
concept of.
***** you. Get off your ignorant, cowardly *****, enlist, and go see what goes
on over there.
You are an ignorant turd floating in a sea of stupidity.
Bobby
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| User: "Ray Fischer" |
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| Title: Re: "PROCEDURE" TO KILL CHILDREN AND BABIES IN IRAQ! |
01 Sep 2006 01:59:53 AM |
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NoNoBadDog! <Diespammers@notme.com> wrote:
"Seawolf" <seawolf82sc@googlemail.com> wrote in message
"A car comes through and it stops in front of my position. Sparks are
coming from the car from bad brakes. All the soldiers are yelling.
It's in my vicinity, so it's my responsibility. I didn't fire. A
superior goes, 'Why didn't you fire? You were supposed to fire.'
I said, 'It was a family!' At this time it had stopped. You could
see the children in the back seat. I said, 'I did the right thing.'
He's like, 'No, you didn't. It's procedure to fire. If you
don't do it next time, you're punished.'"
Anderson shakes his head at the memory. "I'm already not agreeing
with this war. I'm not going to kill innocent people. I can't kill
kids. That's not the way I was raised."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2318643,00.html
It is clueless, ignorant lumps of ***** like you that make me sick.
I served 23 years in the military. I was severely wounded in Iraq, by an
RPG, and as a result of those injuries I am medically retired.
I have personally seen cars with "families" in them detonate and kill. I
have seen children with explosives strapped to them.
And we have seen bitter, irrational lunatics like you climb towers and
start murdering innocent people.
By your own argument you should be sent to prison and then executed.
--
Ray Fischer
rfischer@sonic.net
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| User: "NoNoBadDog!" |
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| Title: Re: "PROCEDURE" TO KILL CHILDREN AND BABIES IN IRAQ! |
01 Sep 2006 02:00:56 AM |
|
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"Ray Fischer" <rfischer@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:44f7da69$0$34578$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
NoNoBadDog! <Diespammers@notme.com> wrote:
"Seawolf" <seawolf82sc@googlemail.com> wrote in message
"A car comes through and it stops in front of my position. Sparks are
coming from the car from bad brakes. All the soldiers are yelling.
It's in my vicinity, so it's my responsibility. I didn't fire. A
superior goes, 'Why didn't you fire? You were supposed to fire.'
I said, 'It was a family!' At this time it had stopped. You could
see the children in the back seat. I said, 'I did the right thing.'
He's like, 'No, you didn't. It's procedure to fire. If you
don't do it next time, you're punished.'"
Anderson shakes his head at the memory. "I'm already not agreeing
with this war. I'm not going to kill innocent people. I can't kill
kids. That's not the way I was raised."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2318643,00.html
It is clueless, ignorant lumps of ***** like you that make me sick.
I served 23 years in the military. I was severely wounded in Iraq, by an
RPG, and as a result of those injuries I am medically retired.
I have personally seen cars with "families" in them detonate and kill. I
have seen children with explosives strapped to them.
And we have seen bitter, irrational lunatics like you climb towers and
start murdering innocent people.
By your own argument you should be sent to prison and then executed.
--
Ray Fischer
rfischer@sonic.net
You have your head so far up your ***** you wouldn't know what a fact was if
you tripped over it.
You are as dangerous as the terrorists.
Bobby
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| User: "NoNoBadDog!" |
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| Title: Re: "PROCEDURE" TO KILL CHILDREN AND BABIES IN IRAQ! |
01 Sep 2006 01:49:37 PM |
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"robpar" <robpar@netportusa.com> wrote in message
news:8kagf2l1q0jlgnbkna02tg4iug2te2ine4@4ax.com...
On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 21:00:56 -1000, "NoNoBadDog!"
<Diespammers@notme.com> wrote:
"Ray Fischer" <rfischer@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:44f7da69$0$34578$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
NoNoBadDog! <Diespammers@notme.com> wrote:
"Seawolf" <seawolf82sc@googlemail.com> wrote in message
"A car comes through and it stops in front of my position. Sparks are
coming from the car from bad brakes. All the soldiers are yelling.
It's in my vicinity, so it's my responsibility. I didn't fire. A
superior goes, 'Why didn't you fire? You were supposed to fire.'
I said, 'It was a family!' At this time it had stopped. You could
see the children in the back seat. I said, 'I did the right thing.'
He's like, 'No, you didn't. It's procedure to fire. If you
don't do it next time, you're punished.'"
Anderson shakes his head at the memory. "I'm already not agreeing
with this war. I'm not going to kill innocent people. I can't kill
kids. That's not the way I was raised."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2318643,00.html
It is clueless, ignorant lumps of ***** like you that make me sick.
I served 23 years in the military. I was severely wounded in Iraq, by
an
RPG, and as a result of those injuries I am medically retired.
I have personally seen cars with "families" in them detonate and kill.
I
have seen children with explosives strapped to them.
And we have seen bitter, irrational lunatics like you climb towers and
start murdering innocent people.
By your own argument you should be sent to prison and then executed.
--
Ray Fischer
rfischer@sonic.net
You have your head so far up your ***** you wouldn't know what a fact was if
you tripped over it.
You are as dangerous as the terrorists.
Bobby
It's stupid ***** holes like you and Bush that got us into
this mess. I hope the next pres will have enough sense to
get us out.
You are not in the "mess", *****. You are sitting on you fat ***** safe and
sound in some starbucks somewhere...
You are as stupid as the OP.
Bobby
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| User: "Ray Fischer" |
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| Title: Re: "PROCEDURE" TO KILL CHILDREN AND BABIES IN IRAQ! |
01 Sep 2006 12:13:19 PM |
|
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NoNoBadDog! <Diespammers@notme.com> wrote:
"Ray Fischer" <rfischer@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:44f7da69$0$34578$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
NoNoBadDog! <Diespammers@notme.com> wrote:
"Seawolf" <seawolf82sc@googlemail.com> wrote in message
"A car comes through and it stops in front of my position. Sparks are
coming from the car from bad brakes. All the soldiers are yelling.
It's in my vicinity, so it's my responsibility. I didn't fire. A
superior goes, 'Why didn't you fire? You were supposed to fire.'
I said, 'It was a family!' At this time it had stopped. You could
see the children in the back seat. I said, 'I did the right thing.'
He's like, 'No, you didn't. It's procedure to fire. If you
don't do it next time, you're punished.'"
Anderson shakes his head at the memory. "I'm already not agreeing
with this war. I'm not going to kill innocent people. I can't kill
kids. That's not the way I was raised."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2318643,00.html
It is clueless, ignorant lumps of ***** like you that make me sick.
I served 23 years in the military. I was severely wounded in Iraq, by an
RPG, and as a result of those injuries I am medically retired.
I have personally seen cars with "families" in them detonate and kill. I
have seen children with explosives strapped to them.
And we have seen bitter, irrational lunatics like you climb towers and
start murdering innocent people.
By your own argument you should be sent to prison and then executed.
You have your head so far up your ***** you wouldn't know what a fact was if
you tripped over it.
You offer nothing but hatred and death.
You're just another terrorist wannabe.
--
Ray Fischer
rfischer@sonic.net
.
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| User: "Benjamin" |
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| Title: Re: "PROCEDURE" TO KILL CHILDREN AND BABIES IN IRAQ! |
01 Sep 2006 11:17:47 AM |
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NoNoBadDog! wrote:
"Ray Fischer" <rfischer@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:44f7da69$0$34578$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
NoNoBadDog! <Diespammers@notme.com> wrote:
"Seawolf" <seawolf82sc@googlemail.com> wrote in message
"A car comes through and it stops in front of my position. Sparks are
coming from the car from bad brakes. All the soldiers are yelling.
It's in my vicinity, so it's my responsibility. I didn't fire. A
superior goes, 'Why didn't you fire? You were supposed to fire.'
I said, 'It was a family!' At this time it had stopped. You could
see the children in the back seat. I said, 'I did the right thing.'
He's like, 'No, you didn't. It's procedure to fire. If you
don't do it next time, you're punished.'"
Anderson shakes his head at the memory. "I'm already not agreeing
with this war. I'm not going to kill innocent people. I can't kill
kids. That's not the way I was raised."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2318643,00.html
It is clueless, ignorant lumps of ***** like you that make me sick.
I served 23 years in the military. I was severely wounded in Iraq, by an
RPG, and as a result of those injuries I am medically retired.
I have personally seen cars with "families" in them detonate and kill. I
have seen children with explosives strapped to them.
And we have seen bitter, irrational lunatics like you climb towers and
start murdering innocent people.
By your own argument you should be sent to prison and then executed.
--
Ray Fischer
rfischer@sonic.net
You have your head so far up your ***** you wouldn't know what a fact was if
you tripped over it.
You are as dangerous as the terrorists.
Bobby
It 's only hate in your voice. Wake up(!) and stop the american fascism.
http://www.loosechange911.com/
Benjamin
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| User: "Steve" |
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| Title: Re: "PROCEDURE" TO KILL CHILDREN AND BABIES IN IRAQ! |
01 Sep 2006 01:41:59 PM |
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NoNoBadDog! wrote:
"Seawolf" <seawolf82sc@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:1157085229.008419.270240@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
"A car comes through and it stops in front of my position. Sparks are
coming from the car from bad brakes. All the soldiers are yelling.
It's in my vicinity, so it's my responsibility. I didn't fire. A
superior goes, 'Why didn't you fire? You were supposed to fire.'
I said, 'It was a family!' At this time it had stopped. You could
see the children in the back seat. I said, 'I did the right thing.'
He's like, 'No, you didn't. It's procedure to fire. If you
don't do it next time, you're punished.'"
Anderson shakes his head at the memory. "I'm already not agreeing
with this war. I'm not going to kill innocent people. I can't kill
kids. That's not the way I was raised."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2318643,00.html
It is clueless, ignorant lumps of ***** like you that make me sick.
I served 23 years in the military. I was severely wounded in Iraq, by an
RPG, and as a result of those injuries I am medically retired.
I have personally seen cars with "families" in them detonate and kill. I
have seen children with explosives strapped to them.
Very sorry to hear about your injuries.
Yours is the only report I've seen of a soldier in Iraq actually seeing
children with explosives strapped to them, or personally seeing
multiple cars with families that included kids detonate. About when did
the attacks occur, and where in Iraq were you stationed, so I can read
about them? Thanks.
Steve
You sit on your fat, stupid ***** and pass judgment on something you have no
concept of.
***** you. Get off your ignorant, cowardly *****, enlist, and go see what goes
on over there.
You are an ignorant turd floating in a sea of stupidity.
Bobby
.
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| User: "NoNoBadDog!" |
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| Title: Re: "PROCEDURE" TO KILL CHILDREN AND BABIES IN IRAQ! |
01 Sep 2006 01:50:54 PM |
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"Steve" <anIndependent@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:1157136119.797409.35770@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
NoNoBadDog! wrote:
"Seawolf" <seawolf82sc@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:1157085229.008419.270240@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
"A car comes through and it stops in front of my position. Sparks are
coming from the car from bad brakes. All the soldiers are yelling.
It's in my vicinity, so it's my responsibility. I didn't fire. A
superior goes, 'Why didn't you fire? You were supposed to fire.'
I said, 'It was a family!' At this time it had stopped. You could
see the children in the back seat. I said, 'I did the right thing.'
He's like, 'No, you didn't. It's procedure to fire. If you
don't do it next time, you're punished.'"
Anderson shakes his head at the memory. "I'm already not agreeing
with this war. I'm not going to kill innocent people. I can't kill
kids. That's not the way I was raised."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2318643,00.html
It is clueless, ignorant lumps of ***** like you that make me sick.
I served 23 years in the military. I was severely wounded in Iraq, by an
RPG, and as a result of those injuries I am medically retired.
I have personally seen cars with "families" in them detonate and kill. I
have seen children with explosives strapped to them.
Very sorry to hear about your injuries.
Yours is the only report I've seen of a soldier in Iraq actually seeing
children with explosives strapped to them, or personally seeing
multiple cars with families that included kids detonate. About when did
the attacks occur, and where in Iraq were you stationed, so I can read
about them? Thanks.
Steve
You sit on your fat, stupid ***** and pass judgment on something you have
no
concept of.
***** you. Get off your ignorant, cowardly *****, enlist, and go see what
goes
on over there.
You are an ignorant turd floating in a sea of stupidity.
Bobby
I was in Fallujah, 2003-2004.
Bobby
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: "PROCEDURE" TO KILL CHILDREN AND BABIES IN IRAQ! |
03 Sep 2006 02:01:02 PM |
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On Fri, 1 Sep 2006 08:50:54 -1000, "NoNoBadDog!" <Diespammers@notme.com>
wrote in alt.atheism
"Steve" <anIndependent@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:1157136119.797409.35770@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
[]
I was in Fallujah, 2003-2004.
[wince]
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: "PROCEDURE" TO KILL CHILDREN AND BABIES IN IRAQ! |
03 Sep 2006 01:58:34 PM |
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On 31 Aug 2006 21:33:49 -0700, "Seawolf" <seawolf82sc@googlemail.com>
wrote in alt.atheism
"A car comes through and it stops in front of my position. Sparks are
coming from the car from bad brakes. All the soldiers are yelling.
It's in my vicinity, so it's my responsibility. I didn't fire. A
superior goes, 'Why didn't you fire? You were supposed to fire.'
I said, 'It was a family!' At this time it had stopped. You could
see the children in the back seat. I said, 'I did the right thing.'
He's like, 'No, you didn't. It's procedure to fire. If you
don't do it next time, you're punished.'"
Anderson shakes his head at the memory. "I'm already not agreeing
with this war. I'm not going to kill innocent people. I can't kill
kids. That's not the way I was raised."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2318643,00.html
The Sunday Times August 27, 2006
Report
You wouldn’t catch me dead in Iraq
Scores of American troops are deserting — even from the front line in
Iraq. But where have they gone? And why isn’t the US Army after them?
Peter Laufer tracked down four of the deserters
They are the US troops in Iraq to whom the American administration
prefers not to draw attention. They are the deserters – those who have
gone Awol from their units and not returned, risking imprisonment and
opprobrium.
When First Lieutenant Ehren Watada of the US Army, who faced a court
martial in August, refused to go to Iraq on moral grounds, the
newspapers in his home state of Hawaii were full of letters accusing him
of “treason”. He said he had concluded that the war is both morally
wrong and a horrible breach of American law. His participation, he
stated, would make him party to “war crimes”. Watada is just one
conscientious objector to a war that has polarised America, arguably
more so than even the Vietnam war.
It is impossible to put a precise figure on the number of American
troops who have left the army as a result of the US involvement in Iraq.
The Pentagon says that a total of 40,000 troops have deserted their
posts (not simply those serving in Iraq) since the year 2000. This
includes many who went Awol for family reasons. The Pentagon’s spokesmen
say that the overall number of deserters has actually gone down since
operations began in Afghanistan and Iraq, but there is no doubt that a
steady trickle of deserters who object to the Iraq war have made it over
the border and are now living in Canada. There they seek asylum, often
with the help of Canadian anti-war groups. One Toronto lawyer, Jeffry
House, has represented at least 20 deserters from Iraq in the Canadian
courts; he is himself a conscientious objector, having refused to fight
in the Vietnam war – along with 50,000 others, at the peak of the
conflict. He estimates that 200 troops have already gone underground in
Canada since the war in Iraq began.
These conscientious objectors are a brave group – their decisions will
result in long-term life changes. To be labelled a deserter is no small
burden. If convicted of desertion, they run the risk of a prison
sentence – with hard labour. To choose exile can mean lifelong
separation from family and friends, as even the most trivial encounter
with the police in America – say, over a traffic offence – could lead to
jail.
Many of the deserters are not pacifists, against war per se, but they
view the Iraq war as wrong. First Lt Watada, for instance, said he would
face prison rather than serve in Iraq, though he was prepared to pack
his bags for Afghanistan to fight in a war that he considered just. They
don’t want to face the military courts, which is why they have decided
to flee to Canada. A generation ago, Canada welcomed Vietnam-war draft
dodgers and deserters. Today, the political climate is different and the
score or so of US deserters who are now north of the border are applying
for refugee status. So far, the Canadian government is saying no, so
cases rejected for refugee status are going to appeal in the federal
courts.
But there is no guarantee that these exiles will ultimately find safe
haven in Canada. If the federal courts rule against the soldiers and
they then exhaust all further judicial possibilities, they may be
deported back to the United States – and that may not be what the
Americans want. Their presence in the US will in itself represent yet
another public-relations headache for the Bush administration.
DARRELL ANDERSON
First Armored Division, 2-3 Field Artillery, at Giessen, Germany. Age:
24
Darrell Anderson joined the US Army just before the Iraq war started.
“I needed health care, money to go to college, and I needed to take care
of my daughter. The military was the only way I could do it,” he tells
me. As we chat, basking in the sun on a peaceful Toronto street, he
fiddles with his pocket watch, which has a Canadian flag on its face.
He’s wearing a peace-symbol necklace.
After fighting for seven months in Iraq, he came home bloodied from
combat, with a Purple Heart that proved his sacrifice – and seriously
opened his eyes. “When I joined, I wanted to fight,” he says. “I wanted
to see combat. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to save people. I wanted
to protect my country.” But soon after he arrived in Iraq, he tells me,
he realised that the Iraqis did not want him there, and he heard harsh
tales that surprised and distressed him.
“Soldiers were describing to me how they had beaten prisoners to death,”
he says. “There were three guys and one said, ‘I kicked him from this
side of the head while the other guy kicked him in the head and the
other guy punched him, and he just died.’ People I knew. They were
boasting about it, about how they had beaten people to death.” He says
it again: “Boasting about how they had beaten people to death. They are
trained killers now. Their friends had died in Iraq. So they weren’t the
people they were before they went there.”
Anderson says that even the small talk was difficult to tolerate. “I
hate Iraqis,” he quotes his peers as saying. “I hate these damn
Muslims.” At first he was puzzled by such talk. “After a while I started
to understand. I started to feel the hatred myself. My friends were
dying. What am I here for? We went to fight for our country; now we’re
just fighting to stay alive.” In addition to taking shrapnel from a
roadside bomb – the injury that earned him the Purple Heart – Anderson
says he often found himself in firefights. But it was work at a
checkpoint that made him seriously question his role. He was guarding
the “backside” of a street checkpoint in Baghdad, he says. If a car
passed a certain point without stopping, the guards were supposed to
open fire.
“A car comes through and it stops in front of my position. Sparks are
coming from the car from bad brakes. All the soldiers are yelling. It’s
in my vicinity, so it’s my responsibility. I didn’t fire. A superior
goes, ‘Why didn’t you fire? You were supposed to fire.’ I said, ‘It was
a family!’ At this time it had stopped. You could see the children in
the back seat. I said, ‘I did the right thing.’ He’s like, ‘No, you
didn’t. It’s procedure to fire. If you don’t do it next time, you’re
punished.’”
Anderson shakes his head at the memory. “I’m already not agreeing with
this war. I’m not going to kill innocent people. I can’t kill kids.
That’s not the way I was raised.” He says he started to look around at
the ruined cityscape and the injured Iraqis, and slowly began to
understand the Iraqi response. “If someone did this to my street, I
would pick up a weapon and fight. I can’t kill these people. They’re not
terrorists. They’re 14-year-old boys, they’re old men. We’re occupying
the streets. We raid houses. We grab people. We send them off to Abu
Ghraib, where they’re tortured. These are innocent people. We stop cars.
We hinder everyday life. If I did this in the States, I’d be thrown in
prison.”
Birds are singing sweetly as he speaks, a stark contrast to his
descriptions of atrocities in Iraq. “I didn’t shoot anybody when I was
in Baghdad. We went down to Najaf with howitzers. We shot rounds in
Najaf and we killed hundreds of people. I did kill hundreds of people,
but not directly, hand-to-hand.”
Anderson went home for Christmas, convinced he would be sent back to the
war. He knew he would not be able to live with himself if he returned to
Iraq, armed with his first-hand knowledge of what was occurring there
day after day. He decided he could no longer participate, and his
parents – already opposed to the war –supported his decision. Canada
seemed like the best option. After Christmas 2004, he drove from
Kentucky to Toronto.
But he says he has had second thoughts about his exile. Not that he is
worried much about deportation: he has recently married a Canadian woman
and that will probably guarantee him permanent residency. But he plans
to return to the US this autumn, and expects to be arrested when he
presents himself to authorities at the border. “The war’s still going
on,” he told me.
“If I go back, maybe I can still make a difference. My fight is with the
American government.”
It’s not only anti-war work that’s motivating him to go home; he’s
thinking about his future. “Dealing with all the nightmares and the
post-traumatic stress, I need support from my family.”
Anderson expects to be convicted of desertion, and he says he will use
his trial and prison time to continue to protest against the war. He
imagines that just the sight of him in a dress uniform covered with the
medals he was awarded fighting in Iraq will make a powerful statement.
“I can’t work every day and act like everything is okay,” he says about
his life in Toronto. “This war is beating me down. I haven’t had a dream
that wasn’t a nightmare since I came to Canada. It eats away at me to
try and act like everything’s okay when it’s not.” Not that he feels his
time in Canada was a waste. “There was no way I could have gone to
prison at the time: I would have killed myself. I was way too messed up
in the head to even think of sitting in a prison cell. I owe a lot to
Canada. It has saved my life. When I came back and was talking about the
war, Americans called me a traitor. Canadians helped me when I was at my
lowest point.”
JOSHUA KEY
43rd Company of Combat Engineers, at Fort Carson, Colorado. Age: 28
We was going along the Euphrates river,” says Joshua Key, detailing a
recurring nightmare that features a scene he stumbled into shortly after
the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003. “It’s a road right in the city of
Ramadi. We turned a sharp right and all I seen was decapitated bodies.
The heads laying over here and the bodies over there and US troops in
between them. I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, what in the hell happened here?
What’s caused this? Why in the hell did this happen?’ We get out and
somebody was screaming, ‘We f***ing lost it here!’ I’m thinking, ‘Oh
yes, somebody definitely lost it here.’” Key says he was ordered to look
for evidence of a firefight, for something to explain what had happened
to the beheaded Iraqis. “I look around just for a few seconds and I
don’t see anything.”
Then he witnessed the sight that still triggers the nightmares. “I see
two soldiers kicking the heads around like soccer balls. I just shut my
mouth, walked back, got inside the tank, shut the door, and thought, ‘I
can’t be no part of this. This is crazy. I came here to fight and be
prepared for war, but this is outrageous.’”
He’s convinced that there was no firefight.
“A lot of my friends stayed on the ground, looking to see if there was
any shells. There was never no shells.” He still cannot get the scene
out of his mind: “You just see heads everywhere. You wake up, you’ll
just be sitting there, like you’re in a foxhole. I can still see Iraq
just as clearly as it was the day I was there. You’ll just be on the
side of a little river running through the city, trash piled up, filled
with dead. I don’t sleep that much, you might say.” His wife, Brandi,
nods in agreement, and says that he cries in his sleep.
We’re sitting on the back porch of the Toronto house where Key and his
wife and their four small children have been living in exile since Key
deserted to Canada. They’ve settled in a rent-free basement apartment,
courtesy of a landlord sympathetic to their plight. Joshua smokes one
cigarette after another and drinks coffee while we talk. There’s a
scraggly beard on his still-boyish face; his eyes look weary.
Key rejects the American government line that the Iraqis fighting the
occupation are terrorists. “I’m thinking, ‘What the hell?’ I mean,
that’s not a terrorist. That’s the man’s home. That’s his son, that’s
the father, that’s the mother, that’s the sister. Houses are destroyed.
Husbands are detained, and wives don’t even know where they’re at. I
mean, them are pissed-off people, and they have a reason to be. I would
never wish this upon myself or my family, so why would I wish it upon
them?”
On security duty in the Iraqi streets, Key found himself talking to the
locals. He was surprised by how many spoke English, and he was
frustrated by the military regulations that forbade him to accept dinner
invitations in their homes. “I’m not your perfect killing machine,” he
admits. “That’s where I broke the rules. I broke the rules by having a
conscience.” And the more time he spent in Iraq, the more his conscience
developed. “I was trained to be a total killer. I was trained in booby
traps, explosives, landmines.” He pauses. “Hell, if you want to get
technical about it, I was made to be an American terrorist. I was
trained in everything that a terrorist is trained to do.” In case I
might have missed his point, he says it again. “I mean terrorist.”
Deserting seemed the only viable alternative, Key says. He did it, he
insists, because he was lied to “by my president”. Iraq – it was obvious
to him – was no threat to the US.
Key feels that some of his unit were trigger-happy. He recalls another
incident that haunts him. He was in an armoured personnel carrier when
an Iraqi man in a truck cut them off, making a wrong turn. One of his
squad started firing at the truck. “The first shot, the truck sort of
started slowing down,” Key recounts. “And then he shot the next shot,
and when he shot that next shot, it, you know, exploded.” Key watched
the truck turn to debris. “It was very strange. He was just going along
and because he tried to cut in front of us… No kind of combat reasons or
anything of such…”
Key seems still in shock at the utter senselessness of it all. “Why did
it happen and what was the cause for it? When I asked that question, I
was told, basically, ‘You didn’t see anything, you know?’ Nobody asked
no questions.” Assigned to raid houses, Key was soon appalled by the
job. “I mean, yeah, they’re screaming and hollering out their lungs.
It’s traumatic on both parts because you’ve got somebody yelling at you,
which might be a woman. You’re yelling back at her, telling her to get
on the ground or get out of the house. She don’t know what you’re saying
and vice versa. It got to me. We’re the ones sending their husbands or
their children off, and when you do that, it gets even more traumatic
because then they’re distraught. Of course, you can’t comfort them
because you don’t know what to say.”
While the residents are restrained, the search progresses. “Oh, you
completely destroy the home – completely destroy it,” he says. “If
there’s like cabinets or something that’s locked, you kick them in. The
soldiers take what they want. Completely ransack it.” He estimates that
he participated in about 100 raids. “I never found anything in a home.
You might find one AK-47, but that’s for personal use. But I never once
found the big caches of weapons they supposed were there. I never once
found members of the Ba’ath party, terrorists, insurgents. We never
found any of that.”
A soldier’s life was never Joshua Key’s dream. He was living in Guthrie,
Oklahoma, just looking for a decent job. “We had two kids at the time
and my third boy was on the way,” he says. “There’s no work there. There
wasn’t going to be a future. Of course you can get a job working at
McDonald’s, but that wasn’t going to pay the bills.” The local
army-recruiting station beckoned. Shortly after he finished basic
training, he was en route to the war zone. After eight months of
fighting, he received two weeks’ leave back in the US. At the end of
that, he was due for another Iraq tour.
He didn’t report for duty. Key and his wife packed up, took their
children and ran, with the intention of getting as far from his base in
familiar Colorado as possible. The family ran out of money in
Philadelphia, and Key found work as a welder. They lived an underground
lifestyle for over a year, frequently checking out of one hotel and into
another, worried that if they stayed too long at one place they would
attract attention. “I was paranoid,” Key says, and he contemplated
deserting to Canada.
The research was easy. He went online and searched for “deserter needs
help to go Awol”. Up popped details about others who had escaped across
the border. He and Brandi decided to opt for a new life as Canadians.
George W Bush should be the one to go to prison, says Key.
“On the day he goes to prison, I’ll go sit in prison with him. Let’s go.
I’ll face it for that music. But that ain’t never going to happen,” he
laughs.
RYAN JOHNSON
211th Armored Cavalry Regiment, Barstow, California. Age: 22
Twenty-two-year-old Ryan Johnson meets me at his Catholic hostel in
Toronto wearing a black T-shirt, blue jeans and black running shoes.
When Ryan went Awol in January 2005, he simply went home to Visalia,
California. “It was very stressful,” he says. “I lived only four hours
away from my home base. I figured they could come get me at any time.
But they never came by. They never came looking for me. They sent some
letters – that’s all they did.” The military doesn’t devote significant
manpower to chasing Awol soldiers and deserters, other than issuing a
federal arrest warrant. Those who get caught are usually arrested for
something unrelated, their Awol status revealed when local police enter
their names into the National Crime Information Center database – a
routine post-arrest procedure throughout the United States.
Johnson moved to Canada because he was afraid that if he applied for a
job, a background check would cause him to be arrested and give him a
criminal record that would make it even more difficult for him to find
work in the future. Voluntarily turning himself in to the US Army would
not have improved his options, either.
“I had two choices: go to Iraq and have my life messed up, or go to jail
and have my life messed up. So I came here to try this out.”
Back at his base in the southern California desert, Johnson had listened
hard to the stories told by soldiers returning from the war.
“I didn’t want to be a part of that,” he says. I remind him that, unlike
in the Vietnam era, there was no draft when he became eligible to join
the army. He went down to the Visalia recruiting office and signed up.
Did he really not know then that the army was in the business of killing
people? “That’s true, yeah, they are,” he acknowledges. “But what I
didn’t understand is how traumatising it was to actually kill somebody
or watch one of your friends get killed. I’ve never seen anyone die.
“When I joined,” he says, “I joined because I was poor.” He says that
jobs were hard to come by in Visalia and he lacked the funds for
college. The sign in the strip mall outside the recruiting office
beckoned, despite the fact that war was already burning up the Iraqi
desert and sending GIs home dead.
“I talked to the recruiters,” says Johnson.
“I said, ‘What are the chances of me going to Iraq?’ They said, ‘Depends
on what job you get.’ So I said, ‘What jobs could I get that wouldn’t
have me go to Iraq?’ And they named jobs. I picked one of those and they
said that I probably wouldn’t go to Iraq.”
Johnson was too unsophisticated to ask probing questions at the army
recruiting office, and he didn’t question many of the answers he did
receive. “I was 20 years old,” he says defensively. “I thought we were
rebuilding in Iraq. I thought we were doing good things. But we’re
blowing up mosques. We’re blowing up museums, people’s homes, all the
culture. I mean, I didn’t even realise Iraq was Mesopotamia, you know?
There’s all this culture and everything in Iraq. I like to think of
myself as pretty well educated for someone that didn’t even graduate
high school, but I’ve never really known anything about history or other
cultures.
“The soldiers that are going to Iraq, most of them aren’t patriotic,” he
says. “They aren’t going to Iraq because our flag has red, white and
blue on it. They’re not going because they think that Iraq is posing a
threat to us. Most of us are going because we’re ordered to and our
buddies are going. That’s one of the reasons that I was going to go –
because my buddies are over there.”
He is immediately wistful when asked how he feels about being safe in
peaceful Toronto while those buddies are fighting and dying in the
desert: “I check the casualties list every day. Every day I go on the
internet and I check the casualties list to see if my friends are on
there. And as of yet,” he pauses, “seven people from my unit have died,
and I knew four of them.”
Johnson is unwilling to consider a return to America and time in prison.
“It seems absolutely insane,” he says. “They’ll put someone in jail for
five years for not wanting to kill somebody. I’m trying to avoid killing
people. I know if I went to Iraq I would kill somebody. If I got put on
patrol I would probably shoot somebody, because I would know that it’s
them or me, you know? And they feel the same way. If I don’t kill these
guys, they’re going to kill me.”
Johnson is hoping to feel at home in Canada. His introduction to the new
country when he drove across the border was unexpectedly welcoming. He
tried to give his ID to the border guard, but she was not interested in
checking it. She just said: “‘Welcome to Canada.’ Yeah, that’s what she
said. She said, ‘Welcome to Canada.’ And I said, ‘Thank you!’ and then
we crossed the border and my wife, Jennifer, screamed.”
However, Johnson is now appealing, as his initial request for refugee
status in Canada has been rejected by the Canadian authorities.
IVAN BROBECK
2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
Age: 21
Aged 21, former Lance Corporal Ivan Brobeck has an inviting smile. We
meet in a park near his new home in Toronto. “I knew I couldn’t take it
any more,” he says of his decision to desert to Canada. “I just needed
to get away, because my unit was scheduled to go back to Iraq for a
second time and I couldn’t take any more.”
Brobeck had no problem staying in the military, but he decided that he
was not accepting orders to return to Iraq, and desertion seemed his
only alternative. He spent much of 2004 on duty in Iraq. He fought in
Falluja, and lost friends to roadside bombs “You tend to be very angry
over there, because you’re fighting for something you don’t believe in,
and your friends are dying,” he tells me.
His war stories feel out of place in the peaceful, upmarket Toronto
neighbourhood where we are talking. During battles, he says he operated
“on autopilot”, fighting for survival.
“I started thinking about what was wrong while I was over there, but it
didn’t really get to me until the end of my stay in Iraq – and
definitely once I was back home.”
Back at Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina, Brobeck says he began to
consider “the totally bad stuff that shouldn’t have happened” during his
watch. “I have seen the beating of innocent prisoners,” he says. “I
remember hearing something get thrown off the back of a seven-ton truck.
The bed of a seven-ton is probably something like 7 or 8ft high. They
threw a detainee off the back, his hands tied behind his back and a
sandbag over his head, so he couldn’t brace for the impact. I remember
he started convulsing after he hit the ground and we thought he was
snoring. We took the bag off his head and his eyes were swollen shut and
his nose was plugged with blood and he could barely even breathe.”
In addition to the abuse of prisoners, the regularity with which
civilians were killed at checkpoints confounded the young marine. “My
friends have been ones who’ve done that, and after the event it’s
always, ‘Oh, so and so is a little down today – he killed a guy in front
of his kids.’ Or, ‘He killed a couple of kids.’ These marines that had
to do that were my friends, who I talked to every day. It’s hard knowing
that your best friend had to kill innocent people.”
Brobeck started to develop sympathy for the enemy. “A lot of people that
shoot back at us aren’t bad people. They’re people who had their wives
killed or their sons killed and they’re just trying to get retribution,
get revenge and kill the person who killed their son. They’re just
innocent people who lost a whole lot and don’t have anything else to
do.”
Brobeck was a marine for a year before being deployed to Iraq. “I always
heard all these great things that the US military have done throughout
history, like great battles that they’ve won. Out of all the forces I
knew, the marines were the toughest, most hard core. I wanted to do
that. I was willing to risk my life for an actual cause,” he muses, “if
there was one.”
What would be a cause worth dying for? “A good cause” is his answer.
“But this war doesn’t benefit anyone. It doesn’t benefit Americans, it
doesn’t even benefit Iraq. This is not something that anyone should
fight and die for. I was only 17 when I signed my contract, and my whole
childhood, all I did was play video games and sports. I didn’t pay
attention to the news. That stuff was boring to me. But I know
first-hand now.”
Last July his unit shipped out without him. “The day I decided to
actually leave was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing. I had wanted to
for so long, I just couldn’t bring myself to actually do it, because
going Awol is definitely a huge decision, and it’s like throwing away a
lot of your life. Plus, I didn’t know what I was going to do if I went
Awol.”
The night before leaving, Brobeck confided his intentions to another
marine. “He said, ‘You’ve been to Iraq; I haven’t. You have your reasons
for going Awol and I’m not going to stop you.’” The departure from the
North Carolina base was easy.
“I walked to a bus station and stayed at a hotel that night. The only
way I could get home was by bus, and the station was closed. When the
Greyhound station opened, I got my ticket and left for Virginia. I was
nervous because reveille, the time we wake up, was at 5.30, and they
would have definitely noticed I was missing. I thought they would have
checked the Greyhound station, the only one near the base. They didn’t,
which was good. I didn’t go home to my mom, because I was worried about
police being there. I stayed with a friend.”
Twenty-eight days after he went Awol, Brobeck headed for Canada. He
discovered the website maintained by the War Resisters Support Campaign,
a group of Canadians organising aid for American deserters, and learnt
that there would be help from them were he to flee north to Toronto.
He called his mother and together they drove across the Niagara Falls
crossing point.
“She doesn’t like the fact that I’m away in Canada and can’t come back
to see her,” he says, “but it’s better than me going back to Iraq for a
second time.”
Exile in Canada feels good for Brobeck. “Life feels for me, even if I
wasn’t Awol, freer up here than it would in America. Everyone is so
polite in Canada, friendly.” In the year since he crossed the border, he
has met and married his wife, Lisa. His application for refugee status
has been denied, but he has hopes of winning his appeal.
“The only thing I left behind was my family and my friends,” he says.
“So that’s the only thing I’m going to miss about America – the people.
“The US used to be something you could say you were proud of,” he adds.
“You go to another country now and say that you’re an American, you
probably won’t get a lot of happy faces or open arms, because of the man
in charge. It’s amazing what one person can do. The leadership totally
screwed up any respect we had.” His rejection of US policy in Iraq is
making him question his sense of national identity. “In my heart I’m not
American… if it means I have to conform to what they stand for,” he says
about the Bush administration. “I’m not American because America has
lost touch with what they were. The founding fathers would definitely be
***** if they found out what America’s become.”
Mission Rejected, by Peter Laufer, is published in the US by Chelsea
Green, and will be published in the UK in January 2007 by John Blake
THE BRITONS WHO ARE SAYING NO
It’s not just Americans: hundreds of our own troops have ‘retreated’
from Iraq. Philip Jacobson reports
Over 2,000 members of Britain’s armed forces have gone long-term Awol
since the war in Iraq started, and most are still missing. Before the
fighting began, about 375 absconders a year were at large for any length
of time, and were dismissed; that figure rose to 720 last year. About
740 men are thought to be on the run still, but have not yet been
disciplined.
While the MoD denies that this trend reflects growing opposition to the
war, lawyers specialising in court martials report a continuing increase
in requests for advice from personnel desperate to avoid being posted to
Iraq. Although the overall number of Awol cases has been fairly stable
for a few years (about 2,500 annually), there is growing concern in the
military about the “Iraq factor”. Before, most absconders were Awol for
a relatively short time, typically owing to family or financial
problems, or bullying, and either went back to their units voluntarily
or were arrested quickly. Most were disciplined by their commanding
officers; punishments ranged from demotion to “jankers”, a spell in a
military jail.
But it seems that a growing number are ready to risk a charge of
desertion — a far more serious offence than going Awol, with penalties
to match. According to Gilbert Blades, an expert on military law, the
MoD is playing down the true extent of the problem. “It is absolutely
clear to me,” he says, “that the crucial factor in driving up Awol
levels has been what more and more service people consider to be an
illegal conflict.” As Blades sees it, the tightening of the legal
definition of desertion in new legislation going through parliament is
intended to deter potential absconders. Under the new Armed Forces Bill,
people refusing active-service duty in a foreign country could be jailed
for life. “It seems obvious this is a direct response to the situation
that has developed as the war has intensified,” he says.
Two cases this year have highlighted the issue of morally motivated
“refuseniks” in the forces. Ben Griffin, an SAS soldier stationed in
Baghdad, told his commanding officer that he was no longer willing to
fight alongside “gung-ho and trigger-happy” US troops. Griffin fully
expected his eight-year career to end in a court martial and
imprisonment, but he was allowed to leave and was given a glowing
testimonial to his “strength of character”. Flight Lieutenant Malcolm
Kendall-Smith, an RAF doctor, received eight months in prison for
rejecting orders to report for a third tour of duty in Basra on the
grounds that the occupation was illegal. He was later freed, but spent
the rest of his sentence under house arrest.
An MoD spokeswoman told The Sunday Times Magazine that claims that the
level of desertions was rocketing were untrue. “There is a good deal of
confusion about this, because people often don’t understand the
distinction between deserting and going absent without leave. Only 21
cases of desertion have been recorded over the past five years, and just
one person has been convicted of that offence since 1989.” She also said
criticism of the new legislation was “misguided and sometimes
malicious”. Under the present military legal system, she explained, each
arm of the forces administers its own discipline. This no longer
reflects an era in which combined operations are becoming common. “It
makes sense in the circumstances to have a single law addressing matters
of military discipline for all service personnel.” But Blades argues
that the clause providing for life sentences in the event of refusal to
serve in a foreign combat zone “was driven through solely by the defence
establishment to provide a drastic legal remedy to the problem of
conscientious objection”. It remains to be seen whether the courts, if
pushed, will hand down such a stiff sentence.
Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
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