Winter Soldier on the Hill: Vets Testify, Then Resist
By Erin Thompson
May 17, 2008 | Posted in IndyBlog | Email this article
Capitol Hill—In the final moments of an unofficial hearing held in a small chamber of the House of Representatives on May 15, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee [D-Texas] asked members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, who had just finished testifying about atrocities committed by the U.S. military in Iraq, if they would be willing to help organize a mass mobilization in Washington, D.C., in an effort to end the war.
“Would you work with us and join us and help us bring 100,000 people to the [Washington] mall?”
The question, perhaps meant as a gesture of good faith from a progressive Democratic who had empathetically listened to nine testifiers describe the indiscriminate killing of Iraqi civilians, racism toward “everything that wasn’t us”, abuse of detainees, the mutilation of the Iraqi dead and high-level cover-ups and corruption, among other unsavory facets of the U.S. occupation, was met with an unexpectedly tepid response from the veterans.
“Beyond amassing hundreds of thousands of people, which has been done before, there have to be clear objectives,” said Army Officer Luis Montalvan, who served two tours in Iraq with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and who had testified earlier about corruption and lack of accountability at the highest levels of command in the U.S. military.
Jackson-Lee queried the other testifiers and got similar answers. Adam Kokesh, a former Marine who served in 2003 with the 3rd Civil Affairs Group in Fallujah, explained that he was less interested in mobilizing thousands of people for a mass demonstration than in organizing direct resistance to the war within the military.
James Gilligan, a former Marine who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, minced no words. “I fly this flag upside down because my nation is in distress. I do not see why we need to wait a day, a week, a month for impeachment.” Gilligan’s response was met with enthusiastic clapping from the audience.
The moment was a telling one, underscoring the disconnect between the political will of elected officials, who only narrowly defeated a $163 billion war-funding bill yesterday, and the resolve of a group of highly organized and determined veterans who are tired of marching and are not waiting for congress to take action to end the war in Iraq.
At the end of the hearing, Geoff Millard, the D.C. Chapter President of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, gave a closing statement. Like the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, which “was the leading force that led to the end of that occupation” in 1970s, Millard said that the resistance from veterans today would be key to ending the war.
“The only question is will Congress be there to help us?” said Millard.
A GROWING MOVEMENT
Since it was founded with only seven members in 2004, the Iraq Veterans Against the War has grown to a national organization with 1200 members, half of which have joined in the last year. Its members include veterans and active-duty personnel, who are working to bring about an immediate withdrawal of troops, full benefits and care for military personnel and reparations for the Iraqi people.
While in its first years the organization generally played a supportive role in the antiwar movement, with members speaking at antiwar events and marching at the head of antiwar mobilizations, the last year has seen the group come into its own. The group has focused its energies on organizing soldiers within the military and veterans, in order to foment direct resistance to the war.
Most recently, they organized Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, a four-day event, hosted at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, MD. Dozens of veterans and active-duty personnel testified about atrocities that they had seen or committed in Iraq. Panels covered issues such as racism and sexism in the military, dehumanization of Iraqis, abuse of detainees, how the rules of engagement provided by the U.S. military lead to the indiscriminate killing of civilians, the role of corruption and military contractors, and the breakdown of the military.
Inspired by the 1971 hearings of the same name, which was held in a Detroit hotel room and received virtually no media coverage at the time, the 2008 Winter Soldier hearings garnered a significant amount of press attention from progressive, independent and international media, and even got attention from the right-wing blogosphere. Though it was broadcast in full on Pacifica’s KPFA, the hearings barely made a dent in the corporate press.
‘WELCOME TO THE SECOND VIETNAM’
Two months later, the unofficial hearing hosted by the 72-member Congressional Progressive Caucus was a smaller affair, with only nine panelists testifying for nine minutes each. The press, however, showed up in force, with CNN and Fox News promising to attend and C-SPAN recording the event.
All of the testifiers had provided testimony at the March Winter Soldier hearings, and much of their testimony echoed their previous statements.
Jason Lemieux, a Marine who served three tours in Iraq, in Karbala, Husaybah and Ramadi, testified on how the rules of engagement used by U.S. forces “lead to widespread destruction for all life and property in Iraq.”
Lemieux described an incident in which a Marine platoon, after receiving four rounds of sniper fire, fired battery of weapons, including tank rounds, at an Iraqi village where there were known civilians. He explained how his commanding officer falsified the number of incoming round received from four to the “double digits” to cover-up the excessive use of force employed in the incident and testified about being ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians, and characterized such cover-ups of civilian casualties as “routine.”
“In my unit the primary loyalty is not to democracy or the flag or to America or the Iraqi people or to the rule of law, it is to each other’s safety at the expense of everything else,” said Lemieux.
One of the most disturbing charges of systematic cover-ups was brought by Sergio Kochergin, who served two tours in Iraq with the U.S. Marine Corps, and explained that soldiers were given “drop weapons.”
“Drop weapons are the weapons that are given to us by the command – so if the person [is] shot, an AK 47 will be dropped on the body,” said Kochergin, who added that commanding officers had to be aware of the practice. “These weapons could not come from anywhere else but the hard chain of command.”
Scott Ewing, a cavalry scout who deployed to Iraq in March of 2005, testified that civilians were routinely the victim of American fire, “I personally witnessed more innocent civilians injured or killed by American forces than by the enemy,” said Ewing. He described coming upon two Iraqi women who were bleeding after being shot by American forces, one of whom died from a shrapnel injury to her head.
“This incident illustrates that there has been virtually no reporting by the mainstream media about civilian casualties in Iraq,” said Ewing.
Ewing also described the arbitrary detainment of Iraqi civilians. “In one case we detained three men just because they were running,” said Ewing. “There was no evidence they had done anything wrong, we detained them anyway.”
On the topic of house raids, Ewing showed photos of ransacked Iraqi houses, including one photo showing the words “Fuck u Iraq” written in chalk on the wall of an Iraqi citizen’s home.
Geoff Millard, a former Army National Guardsman who spent 13 months in Operation Iraqi Freedom, testified that racism toward Arabs and Muslims was endemic among soldiers in Iraq. “Everything that wasn’t us, became ‘hajis’,” said Millard, citing an Arabic term of endearment that is often by U.S. military personnel to denigrate Arabs and Muslims. “If it’s the Pakistanis who did our laundry, or KBR employees who served us food, they became ‘hajis’.”
According to Millard, this racism was not just common among enlisted men, but at the highest levels of office. Millard described a traffic control shooting, in which “a young private made a split second decision, and put more than 200 rounds into a car” containing an Iraqi family. After being briefed on the incident, Millard testified to hearing a general tell a room full of soldiers that, “If these fucking ‘hajis’ learn to drive, this shit wouldn’t happen.”
“I expected a lot more,” said Millard of his fellow soldiers. “I found no dissenting facial expressions or body language, just nodding the head, ‘yep, if these f-ing ‘hajis’ learn to drive, this wouldn’t happen.’”
Other soldiers echoed the charges of racism and dehumanization of the Iraqi people. When dealing with detainees, “Our unit engaged in punching, kicking, butt stroking, at times throwing [detainees] out of the back of our Humvees… throwing soft-ball sized rocks at their backs as they ran away,” said Vincent Emanuele who was deployed in 2004 to Iraq with the U.S. Marine Corps.
Emanuele described how the bodies of Iraqi dead were routinely mishandled and mutilated. When dead bodies were found by soldiers, “standard operation procedure was to run over these bodies with Humvees and sometimes take pictures.”
Kris Goldsmith, a former Army Sergeant, spoke first-hand about at his own racism when he entered the military. “I joined the army to kill people. I joined the army to kill Iraqis, to kill Muslim, to kill people [with] a skin tone that was other than mine.” He then apologized, “I’m no longer a racist, no longer filled with hatred like that.”
The 22-year-old, who now sports a Mohawk, served in Sadr City, Baghdad in 2005. He described a city missing even the most basic infrastructure, with citizens lacking access to water, power and living daily in garbage and raw sewage.
“It was bad with Saddam was in control; it is now worse than 2005,” said Goldsmith of conditions in the U.S.-occupied slum. He showed slides of raw sewage in the streets, describing how any clean-up of it was done perfunctorily by U.S. forces once a week, at best, with no real attempt to improve living conditions for Iraqis.
“This is a school which is flooded,” said Goldsmith showing a slide. “That’s a kid being exposed to massive amounts of sewage; that is sewage outside of the Red Crescent hospital.”
Contrary to what he had been led to believe, Goldsmith explained that the people he met in Sadr City were not grateful for the U.S. occupation, but resentful and angry, encouraging children to throw bricks at soldiers. He presented images of graffiti written on the sides of buildings in Sadr City. One, spray-painted in blue Arabic script on the side of a school read, “Welcome America to the second Vietnam.”
Another written in broken English said, “The U.S. and Allawi are terror men,” referring to the former Iraqi Prime Minister. “That is the feeling of the people of Sadr City,” said Goldsmith. “They feel they have been let down by America and their own government.”
Goldsmith’s testimony also hinted at the deep psychological trauma that many veterans of the Iraq war are struggling with and the lack of support provided by the U.S. military. “Since I returned, I attempted suicide; I never redeployed. I lost my college benefits,” said Goldsmith, who is prevented from collecting education benefits due to the nature of discharge from the Army.
ENCOURAGING RESISTANCE
Moments after the hearing concluded, members of the IVAW gathered in the neighboring Cannon building of the House, just above the heads of dozens of tourists streaming through the metal detectors, to show just what they mean by direct resistance. Army Sgt. Matthis Chiroux, a 24-year-old photojournalist who served nearly five years in the military, read a short statement to members of the press, announcing his refusal to deploy to Iraq.
“As an army journalist whose job it was to college and filter service members’ stories, I heard many a stomach-churning testimony of the horrors and crimes taking place in Iraq. For fear of retaliation from the military, I failed to report these crimes,” said Chiroux. “Never again will I allow fear to silence me. Never again will I fail to stand. In February, I received a letter from the Army, ordering my return to active duty, with the purpose of mobilization in Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
“Thanks in great part to the truths of war being fearlessly spoken by my fellow IVAW members, I stand before you today with the strength and clarity and resolve to declare the military and my government and the world that this soldier will not be deploying to Iraq.”
Chiroux, a Brooklyn College student in his first semester, came to the decision to refuse to deploy only after hearing the testimony of soldiers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Winter Soldier hearings organized by the IVAW last March.
Chiroux’s statement was followed by comments by the IVAW Executive Director Kelly Dougherty. “I would like to let Matthis and everyone here know that IVAW stands in support and solidarity with your decision, which I know is very difficult and very personal,” said Dougherty.
“IVAW’s strategy to end the occupation in Iraq is to encourage and organize resistance and opposition to this occupation from within the ranks and from the recent veterans.”
Subscribe to the Indypendent!
Copyright © 2006 The Indypendent All Rights Reserved
By Erin Thompson
May 17, 2008 | Posted in IndyBlog | Email this article
Capitol Hill—In the final moments of an unofficial hearing held in a small chamber of the House of Representatives on May 15, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee [D-Texas] asked members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, who had just finished testifying about atrocities committed by the U.S. military in Iraq, if they would be willing to help organize a mass mobilization in Washington, D.C., in an effort to end the war.
“Would you work with us and join us and help us bring 100,000 people to the [Washington] mall?”
The question, perhaps meant as a gesture of good faith from a progressive Democratic who had empathetically listened to nine testifiers describe the indiscriminate killing of Iraqi civilians, racism toward “everything that wasn’t us”, abuse of detainees, the mutilation of the Iraqi dead and high-level cover-ups and corruption, among other unsavory facets of the U.S. occupation, was met with an unexpectedly tepid response from the veterans.
“Beyond amassing hundreds of thousands of people, which has been done before, there have to be clear objectives,” said Army Officer Luis Montalvan, who served two tours in Iraq with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and who had testified earlier about corruption and lack of accountability at the highest levels of command in the U.S. military.
Jackson-Lee queried the other testifiers and got similar answers. Adam Kokesh, a former Marine who served in 2003 with the 3rd Civil Affairs Group in Fallujah, explained that he was less interested in mobilizing thousands of people for a mass demonstration than in organizing direct resistance to the war within the military.
James Gilligan, a former Marine who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, minced no words. “I fly this flag upside down because my nation is in distress. I do not see why we need to wait a day, a week, a month for impeachment.” Gilligan’s response was met with enthusiastic clapping from the audience.
The moment was a telling one, underscoring the disconnect between the political will of elected officials, who only narrowly defeated a $163 billion war-funding bill yesterday, and the resolve of a group of highly organized and determined veterans who are tired of marching and are not waiting for congress to take action to end the war in Iraq.
At the end of the hearing, Geoff Millard, the D.C. Chapter President of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, gave a closing statement. Like the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, which “was the leading force that led to the end of that occupation” in 1970s, Millard said that the resistance from veterans today would be key to ending the war.
“The only question is will Congress be there to help us?” said Millard.
A GROWING MOVEMENT
Since it was founded with only seven members in 2004, the Iraq Veterans Against the War has grown to a national organization with 1200 members, half of which have joined in the last year. Its members include veterans and active-duty personnel, who are working to bring about an immediate withdrawal of troops, full benefits and care for military personnel and reparations for the Iraqi people.
While in its first years the organization generally played a supportive role in the antiwar movement, with members speaking at antiwar events and marching at the head of antiwar mobilizations, the last year has seen the group come into its own. The group has focused its energies on organizing soldiers within the military and veterans, in order to foment direct resistance to the war.
Most recently, they organized Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, a four-day event, hosted at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, MD. Dozens of veterans and active-duty personnel testified about atrocities that they had seen or committed in Iraq. Panels covered issues such as racism and sexism in the military, dehumanization of Iraqis, abuse of detainees, how the rules of engagement provided by the U.S. military lead to the indiscriminate killing of civilians, the role of corruption and military contractors, and the breakdown of the military.
Inspired by the 1971 hearings of the same name, which was held in a Detroit hotel room and received virtually no media coverage at the time, the 2008 Winter Soldier hearings garnered a significant amount of press attention from progressive, independent and international media, and even got attention from the right-wing blogosphere. Though it was broadcast in full on Pacifica’s KPFA, the hearings barely made a dent in the corporate press.
‘WELCOME TO THE SECOND VIETNAM’
Two months later, the unofficial hearing hosted by the 72-member Congressional Progressive Caucus was a smaller affair, with only nine panelists testifying for nine minutes each. The press, however, showed up in force, with CNN and Fox News promising to attend and C-SPAN recording the event.
All of the testifiers had provided testimony at the March Winter Soldier hearings, and much of their testimony echoed their previous statements.
Jason Lemieux, a Marine who served three tours in Iraq, in Karbala, Husaybah and Ramadi, testified on how the rules of engagement used by U.S. forces “lead to widespread destruction for all life and property in Iraq.”
Lemieux described an incident in which a Marine platoon, after receiving four rounds of sniper fire, fired battery of weapons, including tank rounds, at an Iraqi village where there were known civilians. He explained how his commanding officer falsified the number of incoming round received from four to the “double digits” to cover-up the excessive use of force employed in the incident and testified about being ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians, and characterized such cover-ups of civilian casualties as “routine.”
“In my unit the primary loyalty is not to democracy or the flag or to America or the Iraqi people or to the rule of law, it is to each other’s safety at the expense of everything else,” said Lemieux.
One of the most disturbing charges of systematic cover-ups was brought by Sergio Kochergin, who served two tours in Iraq with the U.S. Marine Corps, and explained that soldiers were given “drop weapons.”
“Drop weapons are the weapons that are given to us by the command – so if the person [is] shot, an AK 47 will be dropped on the body,” said Kochergin, who added that commanding officers had to be aware of the practice. “These weapons could not come from anywhere else but the hard chain of command.”
Scott Ewing, a cavalry scout who deployed to Iraq in March of 2005, testified that civilians were routinely the victim of American fire, “I personally witnessed more innocent civilians injured or killed by American forces than by the enemy,” said Ewing. He described coming upon two Iraqi women who were bleeding after being shot by American forces, one of whom died from a shrapnel injury to her head.
“This incident illustrates that there has been virtually no reporting by the mainstream media about civilian casualties in Iraq,” said Ewing.
Ewing also described the arbitrary detainment of Iraqi civilians. “In one case we detained three men just because they were running,” said Ewing. “There was no evidence they had done anything wrong, we detained them anyway.”
On the topic of house raids, Ewing showed photos of ransacked Iraqi houses, including one photo showing the words “Fuck u Iraq” written in chalk on the wall of an Iraqi citizen’s home.
Geoff Millard, a former Army National Guardsman who spent 13 months in Operation Iraqi Freedom, testified that racism toward Arabs and Muslims was endemic among soldiers in Iraq. “Everything that wasn’t us, became ‘hajis’,” said Millard, citing an Arabic term of endearment that is often by U.S. military personnel to denigrate Arabs and Muslims. “If it’s the Pakistanis who did our laundry, or KBR employees who served us food, they became ‘hajis’.”
According to Millard, this racism was not just common among enlisted men, but at the highest levels of office. Millard described a traffic control shooting, in which “a young private made a split second decision, and put more than 200 rounds into a car” containing an Iraqi family. After being briefed on the incident, Millard testified to hearing a general tell a room full of soldiers that, “If these fucking ‘hajis’ learn to drive, this shit wouldn’t happen.”
“I expected a lot more,” said Millard of his fellow soldiers. “I found no dissenting facial expressions or body language, just nodding the head, ‘yep, if these f-ing ‘hajis’ learn to drive, this wouldn’t happen.’”
Other soldiers echoed the charges of racism and dehumanization of the Iraqi people. When dealing with detainees, “Our unit engaged in punching, kicking, butt stroking, at times throwing [detainees] out of the back of our Humvees… throwing soft-ball sized rocks at their backs as they ran away,” said Vincent Emanuele who was deployed in 2004 to Iraq with the U.S. Marine Corps.
Emanuele described how the bodies of Iraqi dead were routinely mishandled and mutilated. When dead bodies were found by soldiers, “standard operation procedure was to run over these bodies with Humvees and sometimes take pictures.”
Kris Goldsmith, a former Army Sergeant, spoke first-hand about at his own racism when he entered the military. “I joined the army to kill people. I joined the army to kill Iraqis, to kill Muslim, to kill people [with] a skin tone that was other than mine.” He then apologized, “I’m no longer a racist, no longer filled with hatred like that.”
The 22-year-old, who now sports a Mohawk, served in Sadr City, Baghdad in 2005. He described a city missing even the most basic infrastructure, with citizens lacking access to water, power and living daily in garbage and raw sewage.
“It was bad with Saddam was in control; it is now worse than 2005,” said Goldsmith of conditions in the U.S.-occupied slum. He showed slides of raw sewage in the streets, describing how any clean-up of it was done perfunctorily by U.S. forces once a week, at best, with no real attempt to improve living conditions for Iraqis.
“This is a school which is flooded,” said Goldsmith showing a slide. “That’s a kid being exposed to massive amounts of sewage; that is sewage outside of the Red Crescent hospital.”
Contrary to what he had been led to believe, Goldsmith explained that the people he met in Sadr City were not grateful for the U.S. occupation, but resentful and angry, encouraging children to throw bricks at soldiers. He presented images of graffiti written on the sides of buildings in Sadr City. One, spray-painted in blue Arabic script on the side of a school read, “Welcome America to the second Vietnam.”
Another written in broken English said, “The U.S. and Allawi are terror men,” referring to the former Iraqi Prime Minister. “That is the feeling of the people of Sadr City,” said Goldsmith. “They feel they have been let down by America and their own government.”
Goldsmith’s testimony also hinted at the deep psychological trauma that many veterans of the Iraq war are struggling with and the lack of support provided by the U.S. military. “Since I returned, I attempted suicide; I never redeployed. I lost my college benefits,” said Goldsmith, who is prevented from collecting education benefits due to the nature of discharge from the Army.
ENCOURAGING RESISTANCE
Moments after the hearing concluded, members of the IVAW gathered in the neighboring Cannon building of the House, just above the heads of dozens of tourists streaming through the metal detectors, to show just what they mean by direct resistance. Army Sgt. Matthis Chiroux, a 24-year-old photojournalist who served nearly five years in the military, read a short statement to members of the press, announcing his refusal to deploy to Iraq.
“As an army journalist whose job it was to college and filter service members’ stories, I heard many a stomach-churning testimony of the horrors and crimes taking place in Iraq. For fear of retaliation from the military, I failed to report these crimes,” said Chiroux. “Never again will I allow fear to silence me. Never again will I fail to stand. In February, I received a letter from the Army, ordering my return to active duty, with the purpose of mobilization in Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
“Thanks in great part to the truths of war being fearlessly spoken by my fellow IVAW members, I stand before you today with the strength and clarity and resolve to declare the military and my government and the world that this soldier will not be deploying to Iraq.”
Chiroux, a Brooklyn College student in his first semester, came to the decision to refuse to deploy only after hearing the testimony of soldiers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Winter Soldier hearings organized by the IVAW last March.
Chiroux’s statement was followed by comments by the IVAW Executive Director Kelly Dougherty. “I would like to let Matthis and everyone here know that IVAW stands in support and solidarity with your decision, which I know is very difficult and very personal,” said Dougherty.
“IVAW’s strategy to end the occupation in Iraq is to encourage and organize resistance and opposition to this occupation from within the ranks and from the recent veterans.”
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Copyright © 2006 The Indypendent All Rights Reserved
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