[Marxism] US War Vets to Speak Publicly About War Crimes

[Greg McDonald]

Published on Friday, November 30, 2007 by One World.net

US War Vets to Speak Publicly About War Crimes

by Aaron Glantz

SAN FRANCISCO — U.S. war veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have  
announced they’re planning to descend on Washington, DC this March to  
testify about war crimes they committed or personally witnessed in  
Iraq.1130 09

“The war in Iraq is not covered to its potential because of how  
dangerous it is for reporters to cover it,” said Liam Madden, a  
former Marine and member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War.  
“That’s left a lot of misconceptions in the minds of the American  
public about what the true nature of military occupation looks like.”

Iraq Veterans Against the War argues that well-publicized incidents  
of American brutality like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the  
massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha are not  
the isolated incidents perpetrated by “a few bad apples,” as many  
politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a  
pattern, the group says, of “an increasingly bloody occupation.”

“This is our generation getting to tell history,” Madden told  
OneWorld, “to ensure that the actual history gets told — that it’s  
not a sugar-coated, diluted version of what actually happened.”

Iraq Veterans Against the War is calling the gathering a “Winter  
Soldier,” named after a similar event organized by Vietnam veterans  
in 1971.

In 1971, over 100 members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War  
gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities  
like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war,  
but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were  
isolated exceptions.

“Initially even the My Lai massacre was denied,” notes Gerald  
Nicosia, whose book Home to War provides the most exhaustive history  
of the Vietnam veterans’ movement.

“The U.S. military has traditionally denied these accusations based  
on the fact that ‘this is a crazy soldier’ or ‘this is a malcontent’  
— that you can’t trust this person. And that is the reason that  
Vietnam Veterans Against the War did this unified presentation in  
Detriot in 1971.

“They brought together their bonafides and wore their medals and  
showed it was more than one or two or three malcontents. It was medal- 
winning, honored soldiers — veterans in a group verifying what each  
other said to try to convince people that these charges cannot be  
denied. That people are doing these things as a matter of policy.”

Nicosia says the 1971 “Winter Soldier” was roundly ignored by the  
mainstream media, but that it made an indelible imprint on those who  
were there.

Among those in attendance was 27-year-old Navy Lieutenant John Kerry,  
who had served on a Swift Boat in Vietnam. Three months after the  
hearings, Nicosia notes, Kerry took his case to Congress and spoke  
before a jammed Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Television  
cameras lined the walls, and veterans packed the seats.

“Many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes  
committed in Southeast Asia,” Kerry told the Committee, describing  
the events of the “Winter Soldier” gathering.

“It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in  
Detroit — the emotions in the room, and the feelings of the men who  
were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute  
horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.”

In one of the most famous antiwar speeches of the era, Kerry  
concluded: “Someone has to die so that President Nixon won’t be — and  
these are his words — ‘the first President to lose a war’. We are  
asking Americans to think about that, because how do you ask a man to  
be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the  
last man to die for a mistake?”

Nicosia says Americans and veterans find themselves in a similar  
situation today.

“The majority of the American people are very dissatisfied with the  
Iraq war now and would be happy to get out of it. But Americans are  
bred deep into their psyches to think of America as a good country  
and, I think, much harder than just the hurdle of getting troops out  
of Iraq, is to get Americans to realize the terrible things we do in  
the name of the United States.”

© 2007 One World.net