| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Warhol" |
| Date: |
06 Aug 2005 01:42:32 PM |
| Object: |
'What Have We Done?' |
'What Have We Done?'
by Dahr Jamail
August 6, 2005
"As the blood of US soldiers continues to drain into the hot sands of Iraq
over the last several days with at least 27 US soldiers killed and the
approval rating for his handling of the debacle in Iraq dropping to an
all-time low of 38%, Mr. Bush commented from the comforts of his ranch in
Crawford, Texas today, "We will stay the course, we will complete the job in
Iraq."
Just a two hour drive away in Dallas, at the Veterans for Peace National
Convention in Dallas, I'm sitting with a roomful of veterans from the
current quagmire.
When asked what he would say to Mr. Bush if he had the chance to speak to
him, Abdul Henderson, a corporal in the Marines who served in Iraq from
March until May, 2003, took a deep breath and said, "It would be two hits -
me hitting him and him hitting the floor. I see this guy in the most
prestigious office in the world, and this guy says 'bring it on.' A guy who
ain't never been shot at, never seen anyone suffering, saying 'bring it on?'
He gets to act like a cowboy in a western movie.it's sickening to me."
The other vets with him nod in agreement as he speaks somberly.his anger
seething.
One of them, Alex Ryabov, a corporal in an artillery unit which was in Iraq
the first three months of the invasion, asked for some time to formulate his
response to the same question.
"I don't think Bush will ever realize how many millions of lives he and his
lackeys have ruined on their quest for money, greed and power," he says, "To
take the patriotism of the American people for granted.the fact that people
(his administration) are willing to lie and make excuses for you while you
continue to kill and maim the youth of America and ruin countless
families.and still manage to do so with a smile on your face."
Taking a deep breath to steady himself he continues as if addressing Bush
first-hand; "You need to resign, take the billions of dollars you've made
off the blood and sweat of US service members..all the suffering you've
caused us, and put those billions of dollars into the VA to take care of the
men and women you sent to be slaughtered. Yet all those billions aren't
enough to even try to compensate all the people who have been affected by
this."
These new additions to Veterans for Peace are actively living the statement
of purpose of the organization, having pledged to work with others towards
increasing public awareness of the costs of war, to work to restrain their
government from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs
of other nations and to see justice for veterans and victims of war, among
other goals.
I type furiously for three hours, trying to keep up with the stories each of
the men shared..about the atrocities of what they saw, and committed, while
in Iraq.
Camilo Mejia, an army staff sergeant who was sentenced to a year in military
prison in May, 2004 for refusing to return to Iraq after being home on
leave, talks openly about what he did there:
"What it all comes down to is redemption for what was done there. I was
turning ambulances away from going to hospitals, I killed civilians, I
tortured guys.and I'm ashamed of that. Once you are there, it has nothing to
do with politics.it has to do with you as an individual being there and
killing people for no reason. There is no purpose, and now I'm sick at
myself for doing these things. I kept telling myself I was there for my
buddies. It was a weak reasoning.because I still shut my mouth and did my
job."
Mejia then spoke candidly about why he refused to return:
"It wasn't until I came home that I felt it - how wrong it all was and that
I was a coward for pushing my principles aside. I'm trying to buy my way
back into heaven.and it's not so much what I did, but what I didn't do to
stop it when I was there. So now it's a way of trying to undo the evil that
we did over there. This is why I'm speaking out, and not going back. This is
a painful process and we're going through it."
Camilo Mejia was then quick to point towards the success of his organization
and his colleagues. "When I went back to Iraq in October of 2003, the
Pentagon said there were 22 AWOL's. Five months later it was 500, and when I
got out of jail that number was 5,000. These are the Pentagons' numbers for
the military. Two things are significant here - the number went from
500-5,000 in 11 months, and these are the numbers from the Pentagon."
While the military is falling short of its recruitment goals across the
board and the disaster in Iraq is spiraling deeper into chaos with each
passing day, these are little consolation for these men who have paid the
price they've had to pay to be at this convention. They continue to pay, but
at the same time stand firm in their resolve to bring an end to the
occupation of Iraq and to help their fellow soldiers."
__________________
Love your enemies for love is stronger than fear, stronger than hate,
stronger than war. Love is everything. Peace
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| User: " George" |
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| Title: Re: 'What Have We Done?' |
06 Aug 2005 02:01:44 PM |
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"Warhol" <molarh@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:42f504c0$0$16796$ba620e4c@news.skynet.be...
'What Have We Done?'
Where did you dig up this ***** post? Care to post a link, Warhabbi?
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| User: "Defendario" |
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| Title: Re: 'What Have We Done?' |
06 Aug 2005 02:10:53 PM |
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George wrote:
"Warhol" <molarh@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:42f504c0$0$16796$ba620e4c@news.skynet.be...
'What Have We Done?'
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/
Where did you dig up this ***** post? Care to post a link, Warhabbi?
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| User: "Warhol" |
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| Title: Re: 'What Have We Done?' |
06 Aug 2005 03:06:00 PM |
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"Defendario" <Defendario@netscape.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
3lkgl5F1356b9U1@individual.net...
George wrote:
"Warhol" <molarh@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:42f504c0$0$16796$ba620e4c@news.skynet.be...
'What Have We Done?'
Where did you dig up this ***** post? Care to post a link, Warhabbi?
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/
Exactly. That's why we have to keep questioning and disregard Media minions'
attempts at silencing us.
http://66.155.114.80/video/dsl/john14-6.wmv
Pis-resident Bushamon..FREE THE SHEEPLE
http://www.mfso.org/
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| User: " George" |
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| Title: Re: 'What Have We Done?' |
06 Aug 2005 02:26:51 PM |
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"Defendario" <Defendario@netscape.com> wrote in message
news:3lkgl5F1356b9U1@individual.net...
George wrote:
"Warhol" <molarh@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:42f504c0$0$16796$ba620e4c@news.skynet.be...
'What Have We Done?'
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/
Where did you dig up this ***** post? Care to post a link, Warhabbi?
Oh gee, a wabblog, and one that doesn't work at that. Why am I not
surprised?
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| User: "Warhol" |
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| Title: Re: 'What Have We Done?' |
06 Aug 2005 02:55:32 PM |
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" George" <george@wtfiswrongwithyou.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
%98Je.226081$x96.223024@attbi_s72...
"Defendario" <Defendario@netscape.com> wrote in message
news:3lkgl5F1356b9U1@individual.net...
George wrote:
"Warhol" <molarh@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:42f504c0$0$16796$ba620e4c@news.skynet.be...
'What Have We Done?'
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/
Where did you dig up this ***** post? Care to post a link,
Warhabbi?
Oh gee, a wabblog, and one that doesn't work at that. Why am I not
surprised?
Great stuff. I hope their movement grows in leaps and bounds.
I hope the freaking media loses their indoctrinated minds and starts giving
this Ummah group and others like it a whole lot of time and attention.
Washingtons power lies in their fear mongering, and feeding the public their
unreal lies on loyalty.
Take that from them and they are beaten.
con't - 2/2
"Ryabov then begins to tell of his unit firing the wrong artillery rounds
which hit 5-10 km from their intended target.
"We have no idea where those rounds fell, or what they hit," he says quietly
while two of the men hold their heads in their hands, "Now we've come to
these realizations and we're trying to educate people to save them from
going through the same thing."
After talking of the use of uranium munitions, of which Ryabov stated 300
tons were used in the '91 Gulf War, and 2,200 tons and counting having been
used thus far in the current war, he adds, "We were put in a foreign country
to fire artillery and kill people…and it shouldn't have even happened in the
first place. It's hard to put into words the full tragedy of it – the death
and suffering on both sides. I feel a grave injustice has been done and I'm
trying to correct it. You do all these things and come back and think, 'what
have we done?' We just rolled right by an Iraqi man with a gunshot in his
thigh and two guys near him waving white flags….he probably bled to death."
Harvey Tharp sitting with us served in Kirkuk. His position of being in
charge of some reconstruction projects in northern Iraq allowed him to form
many close friendships with Iraqis…something that prompts him to ask me to
tell more people of the generous culture of the Iraqi people. His
friendships apparently brought the war much closer to home for him.
"What I concluded last summer when I was waiting to transfer to NSA was that
not only were our reasons for being there lies, but we just weren't there to
help the Iraqis. So in November of '04 I told my commander I couldn't take
part in this. I would have been sent into Fallujah, and he was going to
order me in to do my job. I also chose not to go back because the dropping
of bombs in urban areas like Fallujah are a violation of the laws of warfare
because of the near certainty of collateral damage. For me, seeing the full
humanity of Iraqis made me realize I couldn't participate in these
operations."
Tharp goes on to say that he believes there are still Vietnam vets who think
that that was a necessary war and adds, "I think it's because that keeps the
demons at bay for them to believe it is justified…this is their coping
mechanism. We, as Americans, have to face the total obvious truth that this
was all because of a lie. We are speaking out because we have to speak out.
We want to help other vets tell other vets their story…to keep people from
drinking themselves to death."
When he is asked what he would say to Mr. Bush if he had a few moments with
him, he too took some time to think about it, then says, "It is obvious that
middle America is starting to turn against this war and to turn against
you…for good reason. The only thing I could see that would arrest this
inevitable fall that you deserve, is another 9/11 or another war with say,
Iran. There are some very credible indications in the media that we are
already in pre-war with Iran. What I'm trying to do is find a stand
Americans can take against you, but I think people are willing to say 'don't
you dare do this to us again.' My message to the American people is this –
do you want to go another round with these people? If not, now is the time
to say so."
The men are using this time to tell more of why they are resisting the
illegal occupation, and it's difficult to ask new questions as they are
adding to what one another share.
"I didn't want to kill another soul for no reason. That's it," adds
Henderson, "We were firing into small towns….you see people just running,
cars going, guys falling off bikes…it was just sad. You just sit there and
look through your binos and see things blowing up, and you think, man they
have no water, living in the third world, and we're just bombing them to
hell. Blowing up buildings, shrapnel tearing people to shreds."
Tharp jumps in and adds, "Most of what we're talking about is war crimes…war
crimes because they are directed by our government for power projection. My
easy answer for not going is PTSD…but the deeper moral reason is that I
didn't want to be involved in a crime against humanity."
Michael Hoffman served as a Marine Corps corporal who fought in Tikrit and
Baghdad, and has since become a co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
"Nobody wants to kill another person and think it was because of a lie.
Nobody wants to think their service was in vain," says Hoffman.
His response to what he would say to Mr. Bush is simple, "I would look him
straight in the eye and ask him 'why?' And I would hold him there and make
him answer me. He never has to deal with us one on one. I dare him to talk
to any of us like that, one on one, and give us an answer."
Hoffman then adds, "What about the 3 year old Iraqi girl who is now an
orphan with diseases and nightmares for the rest of her life for what we
did? And the people who orchestrated this don't have to pay anything. How
many times are my children going to have to go through this? Our only choice
is to fight this to try to stop it from happening again."
Earlier this same day Mr. Bush said, "We cannot leave this task half
finished, we must take it all the way to the end."
However, Charlie Anderson, another Iraq veteran, had strong words for Bush.
After discussing how the background radiation in Baghdad is now five times
the normal rate-the equivalent of having 3 chest x-rays an hour, he said,
"These are not accidents – the DU [Depleted Uraniaum] – it's important for
people to understand this – the use of DU and its effects are by design.
These are very carefully engineered and orchestrated incidents."
While the entire group nods in agreement and two other soldiers stand up to
shake his hand, Anderson says firmly, "You subverted us, you destroyed our
lives, you owe us. I want your resignation in my hand in the next five
minutes. Get packin' Georgie."
http://www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=6893
God dismantle the Pandora's Boxes of the 9 WMD nations.
The ****** got 250-400 nukes - but your prayer come from:
Man - I love these happy people....
http://www.nkusa.org/index.cfm
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| User: "Warhol" |
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| Title: Re: 'What Have We Done?' |
06 Aug 2005 02:40:05 PM |
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" George" <george@wtfiswrongwithyou.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
rO7Je.226052$x96.15010@attbi_s72...
"Warhol" <molarh@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:42f504c0$0$16796$ba620e4c@news.skynet.be...
'What Have We Done?'
Where did you dig up this ***** post? Care to post a link, Warhabbi?
Hmmmmmmm!
I never said that I am a teacher by profession.
Big mistake
Hello Everyone,
I'm one of those people who feel that mankind cannot use
technology wisely, but rather uses information gained from research not to
help mankind fullfill his destiny in life; but to use such knowledge to
destroy life in the end.
I think that Albert Einsten who helped to create the nuclear monster we now
have was sorry that he left the world a tool of great power that would be
used to end all human life, not
prolong it. But here you have a country who shows the world that they will
invade a soverign state government on a timetable of their own choosing and
occupies this land in the name of freedom against the wishes of the
worldwide opinion that asked America to not
use it's military might and strength to accomplish the task of removing the
leaders of Iraq.
With the continue militarism retoric of the United States to use force
against the nations of the world that Washington feels are 'breeding
grounds' for terriorists, or are a threat to the security of the United
States, with Washington's policy to establish American democratic
colonialism around the world, and America's history of actually using two
nuclear devices
against the beautiful people of Japan during the second world war; I'm not
surprised that some leaders who feel like they will be next on the
'invasion' list have scrambled their top people of
science to have something of great power to use against the Americans in an
event of hostilities.
Again, let us love one another and end war forever against our brothers and
sisters of the world in which we inhabit and are only but custodians
(caretakers) to give this world back to our children.
Amen!
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