Hello,
jon4paz wanted to share this article with you:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0818-04.htm
Thanks!
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Senator Hagel On Iraq: “It Is Very Wrong…To Put American Troops In A Hopeless, Winless Situation”…
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/archive/../../2006/08/06/senator-hagel-on-iraq-_n_26662.html
© 2006 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Peter Laufer: Not Shooting our Heroes: It's a Start
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/../../peter-laufer/not-shooting-our-heroes-_b_27462.html
© 2006 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Ed,
Nice job on the VFP website. When I clicked on Calendar and Minutes, nothing showed up. If you haven’t loaded the content here, you might want to add an “under construction” message.
Would you like some links to include:
http://akpeacevets.blogspot.com/
http://akcountermilrec.blogspot.com/
I you know of anyone who would like to contribute to these blogs, have them drop me an email and I can add them to the list of authors. Stuff can even be emailed into the blog pretty easily! (I am cc’ing the vets blog so you can see how it looks—I usually do a little clean up afterwards). I find this much easier than trying to keep everything up-to-date on a website. There is a balance between the two.
Jon4paz
Breathe, smile & work for Peace
Note from the blogger. Karen is a local journalist who has been travelling to the Mideast periodically to report on the war in Iraq. I am pleased to present this interview with a resistor in Canada. While I don't have any numbers, I do question her assertion that "Fragging of superiors and outright refusal to follow combat orders became commonplace" [during the latter years of the Vietnam War]. If anyone can quantify this statement and cite sources, please comment.
Those who have seen the recent documentary about U.S. GI resistance during the Vietnam war “Sir No Sir!” will understand the numerous parallels to growing resistance in today's military and its solidarity with the civilian anti-war movement. From non-violent demonstrations and sit-ins to the radical actions of The Weather Underground, hundreds of thousands protested the Vietnam war for years. Finally, officials began leaking classified information. But, ultimately, it was the individual soldier refusing to participate any longer that brought the military machine to its knees.
Fragging of superiors and outright refusal to follow combat orders became commonplace. Desertion and Absent Without Leave (AWOL) hit an all-time high; the Pentagon documented 1,500,000 during that time. About 100,000 of those active duty members went into exile, and at least 90 percent of them fled, to Canada.
Today, those precedents are being repeated. Resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq (and, to some degree, Afghanistan) among its own military is growing rapidly and the Department of Defense teetering on the brink of recruitment crisis.
Thousands of soldiers are refusing to participate any longer. Dozens, like First Lt. Ehren Watada—the first commissioned officer to refuse—have chosen to go public and face the consequences. Others simply disappear.
By the Pentagon’s own admission, over 8,000 GIs are now AWOL (many now
calling it Against War of Lies). While most are living underground in
the States, according to Canada’s War Resisters Support Campaign,
another 100-200 have fled to Canada, following the footsteps of their
Vietnam-era counter-parts. Of those, 24 have come forward and sought
assistance from the Campaign. Based in Toronto, the Canada’s War
Resisters Support Campaign (WRSC) reinforces Canada’s historical stance
and provides a base of support for those, like American Kyle Snyder, who
refuse to fight.
Thus far, the Canadian government has not deported any U.S. war
resisters. Says Lee Zaslofsky, Coordinator of WRSC and Vietnam War
deserter, “The US government has no authority to arrest or deport anyone
who is in Canada. Since it is not a crime in Canada to be AWOL from the
US military, the US cannot extradite anyone for that ‘offense’.”
This is good news for 22 year-old Kyle Snyder, who arrived in Vancouver
last August on leave. Though he went to visit a friend, Snyder also knew
he would not return to an Army he says has lied to him.
A thin young man with a small soul patch, spiked hair and tattoos
running down both arms, Snyder looks more like he’s about to hop on a
skateboard than talk about the life-changing events that brought him to
Canada. I talked with Kyle Snyder after he and other resisters spoke at
Vancouver’s World Peace Forum.
An Easy Target for Recruiters
“I joined the military when I was 19 years old from a government program
called Job Corps, in Clearfield, Utah,” Snyder begins. “I wasn't a good
kid. I didn’t have a good background. I was in foster homes from
thirteen to seventeen, then when I was seventeen, I went through a
government program called Job Corps. So, from thirteen all the way up, I
didn’t have parental figures in my life really. My parents divorced; my
father was really abusive towards my mother and he was abusive toward
me. I’ve still got scars on my back. I was put in Social Services when I
was thirteen. I was an easy target for recruiters, plain and simple.
“The minute I graduated in 2003, Staff Sgt. Williamson came to me and he
mentioned all the benefits military programs had to offer. And, for the
first time in my life, I saw that I could become something more. I saw a
man in a professional uniform, clean-cut, a very professional man coming
up to me, wanting me, saying I could look just like him. I wanted that.
I don’t know any other 19 year old that wouldn’t want that.
“I joined the military for materialistic benefits. A $5,000 bonus seemed
really really nice being 19 years old. Maybe I could put a down payment
on a car or something. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to provide
for a family; I wanted to have a family. I wanted all the benefits that
the military had to offer.”
I asked Snyder if he thought about the invasion of Iraq when he joined
the military. He said yes, but “more than anything I wanted to
reconstruct the civilization of Iraq. I wanted to help liberate the
people of Iraq, just like the American president was saying. So, I
signed up to be a heavy construction equipment operator, part of the
94th Corps of Engineers. I figured if I was an engineer in the United
States Army I could build foundations for the Iraqi people to form their
new government, to form a civilization after the bombings of 2003.”
Snyder did his basic training in Ft. Lenonwood, Missouri, which he
described as “a simple military process that…breaks you down, breaks
down all of [your] values into believing that killing another human
being is ok, and that you can make money off of killing another life,
taking another human being’s soul.”
“The military took my child”
While at basic training, Snyder’s grandfather died. He was denied leave
to attend the funeral. Two weeks later he was allowed to go home, and it
was then that his fiancée became pregnant.
After graduation, Snyder was sent to Germany where he became part of the
94th Engineers Combat Battalion Heavy. “That’s where I met my new
friends, my new brothers that I would fight with. This was my family.”
It was there, Snyder says, he found out that his “child was dying inside
of my fiancée’s…womb. I brought it up to medical sergeants, medical
commanders. They told me that they couldn’t provide any medical
attention for my child because we were not legally married. The military
took my child! And nobody could say that I wasn’t trying to become a
good father because I was in the military.”
Bitter and angry at the military now, it was the loss of Snyder’s child
that planted those first seeds. Depressed and in shock, Snyder requested
an exit from the military. “I tried for six months while the deployment
orders were still in effect for my unit.” He was refused. “I became very
depressed. I just went numb inside. I was put on medication, Lorazipam
and Paxyl. I later refused to take the medication because I felt that it
was numbing me. I decided that was something I needed to heal from
myself. And I believe it’s still something I need to heal from.
“I felt that the only reason I was getting [the anti-depressants] was
because they wanted me…to be a soldier.
“I learned all the different weapon system that the military could offer
in a combat situation. 50 cal are used with depleted uranium rounds; I
found that out when coming to Canada. I was never told that while I was
in Iraq.”
Though Snyder had just lost his child, was depressed, and was about to
be deployed to the violence that is now Iraq, for the month prior his
superiors assigned him to “Fallen Soldier Detail,” where, Snyder says
matter-of-factly, “I would salute the dead bodies that were put into
caskets as they were returning to Germany before we shipped them off to
the United States.”
I ask him if that affected him, to see the dead coming back from where
he was about to go. Surprisingly, he shakes his head…”nah, not really.”
Snyder says he didn’t expect to see combat anyway. “Going to Iraq meant
I was going to reconstruct a city, not kill people. That’s what I
believed I was going to do.”
Lied to by the Military
When Snyder arrived, however, he says he saw no reconstruction of Iraq.
“The only reconstruction I saw was building army bases.
“I was in Mosul. I was in Baghdad. I was in Stryker. I was in Scania.
[Both, military bases.] I was in Tikrit… Iraq is the size of Texas, it’s
a small country. People need to realise that. There were reconstructions
of forward operating bases and military bases, but no city work being
done. I mean, none of that. So, why are the engineers there? “ he asks
rhetorically, shaking his head.
Instead of doing the job he signed up for, says Snyder, “I was sent into
what we called The Force Protection Program; it was a separate entity
from my unit. We escorted everything up to a general.
“I don’t know what is worse, telling your friends you can’t fight with
them because you’re escorting a general who doesn’t want to see combat,
or actually being a part of the combat.”
Snyder’s first mission further demoralised him. “Capt. John G. Chung
left me during my first mission. He left me and 8 personnel and 4
vehicles behind in Baghdad. He went to Forward Operating Base Scania,
which was an hour north of Baghdad. My platoon sergeant, Staff Sgt
Perkins went up to him and asked him why he had left. He didn’t answer
us for about two months, until we confronted him and set a meeting up
asking him why he had left us during the mission. ‘That’s not any of my
concern, because I’m just a Private. He has different orders. I don't
care what his orders are.’ How would he explain to my mother if I had
died, that he was missing during that mission?”
Though in Iraq only four and half months, Snyder says he conducted over
38 documented missions. “Most men don’t even do two in a year. The
chances of me surviving a firefight were 30 percent…because I was a
gunner. I was lucky because I wasn’t in too much combat. But I did see
my friends come back injured and I did see men from other units killed.”
“Three months into Iraq, my friend, a man that I drank beer with, a man
that I had even gone to college with for awhile, shot an innocent
civilian who was raking rocks along the side of the road. I remember
having to go back to Forward Operating Base Marez, and reporting to my
commanding officer what I just seen. I remember writing a mission
statement. I remember requesting an investigation be done and I remember
it being refused.
“’I can’t take this anymore!’ That’s what I thought to myself. This is
not what I signed up for and it’s not what’s being shown to the American
public. So, why the hell should I fight? Because what that commanding
officer was telling me by refusing that investigation, was that I could
pick up my M-16 or my M-4 or my M-2 and go and kill 50 Iraqi civilians
because I was angry and get away with it because it’s war!”
Snyder angrily declares, “The American president was saying that we were
liberating and we were reconstructing. Well, I expect to be doing that!
I mean, who’s in the wrong here? I was given false orders. I was given
false information. I did expect to go and help reconstruct a society.
“You know, if they want to help people in Iraq….imagine a15 year-old
kid, for the last 5 years all he’s seen is [US] military personnel with
weapons going through his city. How is that child supposed to believe
that that man, in that uniform is helping him? Now, if that child saw a
convoy of logs being brought to his city, or a convoy of water being
brought to his city, still guarded, it would be a completely different
situation. That’s where the American military messed up. Because they
forgot about the perception of civilisation. They forgot about the
perception of the Iraqi people.”
A Refugee in Canada
Snyder began documenting his missions. “I wanted to find out…you know it
might have been because I was already angry with the United States
Army…but it doesn’t matter. When they took my soul that way… you want
them to be accountable for what they have done. Right? So, for me,
documenting and taking pictures and doing all of that, that was my way
of saying ‘look, you know what? You guys are the ones that are fucking up.’
He is now using the documentation as evidence in his refugee claim. His
defense? “That this war is illegal and I should be able to make moral
decisions as a soldier; I’m using international law and this is an
international war, it’s not a civil war so they need to take into
consideration international law.”
“I left the military because the situation is now that it is not
conducting itself as a professional unit. Altogether the US military, in
my eyes, is scrambled to the point that nobody knows what they’re doing,
except the generals. I think the generals are making bad decisions and
giving bad orders to people like me. So, I refuse to work in an
organisation that is not professional. I refuse to work in an
organisation that commits war crimes. It would be like if I worked for
7-11 and I found out my boss was laundering money. I wouldn’t want to
work for them, would I? Nobody would question me then, if I quit that
job. I mean, that’s the reality of it.
“I thought about turning myself back in about four months ago. I thought
hard about this, to just get it over with. But, you know what? More and
more, I think they have to catch me first. I’m not hiding. I’m right
here. But how bad would that look if Americans came over to Canada to
arrest me?”
A De-moralised Army
Still in touch with his unit, Snyder says they fully support what he’s
doing and now confide in him. “From the people that I know morale is
like, ‘well, what are we doing here for the fourth time?’ They’re upset
because they’ve been there for the third or fourth time and they’re
married…a lot of them are. So, if you’ve see your wife two months out of
three years, how are you supposed to maintain a stable relationship? And
that’s part of the reason that a lot of them joined the military in the
first place! A lot of family men join, so nobody wants to fight a war
they don’t have to.”
I ask Snyder about soldiers committing atrocities, like those in Haditha
where 24 civilians were intentionally killed, or the rape of a teenager
and subsequent murder of her and her family in Mahmoudiya.
Snyder says he and most other soldiers are horrified by these events.
But, he says, it’s also important to remember the situation in which
they’ve been placed. “You‘ve got people who just don’t care! It’s
probably their third or fourth deployment and they blame the Iraqis
because who are they going to blame?”
There have been accusations that some soldiers have been using drugs and
I ask what Snyder thinks. Snyder says he personally didn’t see drug use,
but, says, “there is prostitution. The US military brings Iraqi women on
the bases, five to six at a time. They were probably in their
mid-twenties…it was right across the street at Camp Diamond, in a
massage parlor. I was appalled the U.S. would be funding this! It’s
sickening. U.S. taxpayer’s money is going toward prostitution rings on
U.S. bases. I’m willing to sit in front of a court and say these same
things.”
When I ask how he knows the U.S. is funding this, he fires back, “You
tell me where the money is coming from? I hold the Bush Administration
responsible.” Someone, he says, has approved it, otherwise they would
not be on the bases. “They owe an explanation why that kind of shit is
going on.”
Leaving the U.S.
“I love my country. And that’s why I’m in Canada right now. That’s it.
Plain and simple. …and any soldier that refuses to fight in this war has
my respect.”
They also have the respect of the War Resister’s Campaign members, many
of whom, like campaign coordinator Lee Zaslofsky, are U.S. deserters of
the Vietnam war.
Of this current conflict, he says, “Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey
are the first two war resisters to apply for refugee status. Their
refugee claims were denied by the Immigration and Refugee Board. They
appealed to the Federal Court and their case was dismissed. They now
await a hearing on their appeal before the Federal Court of Appeal,
which will probably happen this Fall. These two cases are different from
each other, but are being considered together for convenience. If they
are successful, it will be a good precedent that will benefit other war
resisters; if their current appeal fails, we will try to appeal to the
Supreme Court of Canada.”
Kyle Snyder and other resisters are watching these cases closely because
they will set precedent. But no matter how the cases turn out, there is
still strong support among Canadians.
“The War Resisters Support Campaign does not rely only on legal
proceedings to make it possible for US Iraq War resisters to remain in
Canada permanently,” says Zaslofsky. “We are also rallying support among
Canadians with a petition campaign, media, political lobbying, speaking
tours, etc. We believe that the best solution will be a provision by the
government that makes it possible for the war resisters to stay
permanently, rather than repeated refugee claims, each of which is
considered individually.”
Until that happens, resisters like Kyle Snyder remain in limbo. But,
that doesn’t mean that life has stopped for him. Snyder’s schedule is
full with speaking engagements, interviews, letter-writing, and
organising. “Right now I’m working on getting a [safe] house in Surrey
than any resister can come to.”
Though emotionally exhausted, Snyder says he keeps going on the support
he’s received. “It’s what fuels me, what gives me strength, just knowing
that people all over the world support me.”
I ask Snyder what he wants for the future. “I want to go back to
college. I want the government to leave me alone and give me time to
think and to process everything. I want 21 back. I want this war to
stop. That’s what I want.
“I want my friends home, and I want to know that Iraq is being
reconstructed. And that can still happen. Economically, we owe the Iraqi
people billions of dollars if you add up every single home and every
single life that’s been taken. America owes at least that.”
For more information about the War Resisters Support Campaign go to
www.resisters.ca.
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