Will this Country see this on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, most definantly not FOX, but the CBC puts together the Facts and presents them the way the United States Should, The Truth!!
Aired March 7, 2007 at 9pm on CBC-TV Repeating March 19, 2008 at 9pm on CBC-TV
Since the US-led invasion four years ago, the fifth estate has covered Iraq and the war on terror from virtually every angle--the military, media, intellligence, politics--revealing aspects of the story that you didn't find anywhere else.
Now, as the White House warns about the latest threat in the region, this time from Iran, we go back to examine the deception, suspect intelligence, even lies that convinced the world of the rightness of targeting Saddam Hussein.
On Sunday, 3-9-08, a fundraiser was held at the First Congregational Church of Long Beach for Iraq veterans eager to talk about the war they saw; a war rife with death, anger, courage and lies. The fundraisers intent was to help defray the costs needed to send the same vets to speak in Washington D.C. at Winter Soldier II, to be held from Thursday March 13 to Sunday March 16, prior to that The District Weekly of Long Beach asked several of them to tell them their stories.
Below you will find some snips about each and what they had to say, with the link above taking you to the rest.
Wendy Barranco was 19 when she served as an anesthesia technician at a Tikrit field hospital—from October 2005 to July 2006. She was just out of high school, like so many of her patients, including the first one she saw die. Now she is 22, a full-time student and anti-war activist Barranco still sounds young, with the sleepy voice of a teenager. She’s deferential, too—true to her military training—and wonderfully patient as she spells out every acronym and explains every bit of army shorthand. Her poise falters occasionally: When describing three badly burned Iraqis, she suddenly stops speaking, pausing for a full 12 seconds to steady herself. And certain aspects of the military experience are so ludicrous as to absolutely require the strongest of obscenities. There are also moments of emotional disconnect: She talks about a “guy” with a chronically infected leg, but it soon becomes clear that she is speaking of a child who may be as young as eight. With all of this in mind, I thank her for her time and willingness to engage in a conversation that must be very difficult—either because the stories are so gruesome and terrible, or because frequent retellings have rendered the subject so tiresome that she feels as if she’s going to go out of her mind if she has to go over it one more time. “Both,” she says.
“HOW WOULD I BE ABLE TO LOOK MYSELF IN THE MIRROR?” | SGT. JASON LEMIEUX | MARINES
“I got to Marine Corps boot camp in Parris Island, South Carolina, on Sept. 10, 2001. Boot camp is a media blackout so we didn’t realize the gravity of what was going on. The drill instructor told us the country had just been attacked by terrorists. But for all we knew he could have been exaggerating to scare us into submission. “My first deployment was to Kuwait on Jan. 21, 2003, in preparation for the invasion. I was part of a huge boot drop. That’s not official terminology—boot drop—but it’s what they call dropping fresh infantry school graduates straight into combat. Our boot drop comprised 50 percent of the manpower of the unit we were joining. Normally they wouldn’t put so many fresh, inexperienced soldiers together in combat, but that’s the way they’re doing it in this war. I invaded Iraq on March 21, 2003, and went all the way to Baghdad. Most of the units we were supposed to attack fled when they found out we were coming. After the invasion we moved down to Karbala, the safest city in the country at the time. We supported the local businesses with our money, and were welcomed for our ability to maintain order. I came home in September. “My second deployment was to Husaybah, from February to September of 2004. It was a meat grinder, incredibly violent, a whole different world than the Iraq I had left five months before.
“I SWORE TO THE HOLY FAMILY” | SPEC. EDGAR CUEVAS | ARMY
Edgar Cuevas hated the Iraq war long before he landed in Tikrit where, 24 hours into his first Iraq assignment, he watched medics haul in two soldiers injured in a roadside bombing. “From the beginning of the war, I was like, ‘Why are we even invading?’ There was no connection between Iraq and 9/11,” Cuevas says. He grew up in Burbank, joining the Army out of high school, in January 2001.“At that time I didn’t think we’d be in a war, so I thought it was good timing,” he says. The Army sent Specialist Cuevas to Schweinfurt, with tours in the Balkans—“police actions,” he calls them. “Both the Serbs and Albanians were really happy we were there,” he says. “We helped them and they helped us. Nothing there made me say, ‘I don’t like this, I want to get out.’” Then, in Nov. 2003, just 12 days from the end of his service, the Army hit Cuevas and thousands of other military men and women with a stop-loss order. “If you remember the election of 2004, John Kerry was talking about the ‘backdoor draft.’
“WE DON’T GO ANYWHERE” | SGT. JABBAR MAGRUDER | ARMY NATIONAL GUARD
“I joined the Army National Guard in 2000. I was a high school kid who wanted to learn a trade while serving my country. The day of September 11, I called my National Guard unit and asked them, ‘Are we going to get involved, are we going to go anywhere?’ And they told me, ‘We’re the National Guard. We don’t go anywhere.’
The Sunday Times Magazine, March 1, 2008 The veterans are not against the military and seek not to indict it – instead they seek to shine a light on the bigger picture: that the Abu Ghraib prison regime and the Haditha massacre of innocent Iraqis are not isolated incidents perpetrated by “bad seeds” as the military suggests, but evidence of an endemic problem. They will say they were tasked to do terrible things and point the finger up the chain of command, which ignores, diminishes or covers up routine abuse and atrocities. Some see it as their responsibility to speak out – like Jason Washburn, a US marine who did three tours in Iraq; Logan Laituri, a US Army forward observer in Iraq; and Perry O’Brien, an army medic deployed to Afghanistan in 2003. They believe that, as veterans, they are the most credible sources of information. They say they were put in immoral and often illegal positions. They will speak about what they saw, and what they were asked to do. Read the article from the London Sunday Times
Winter Soldiers march to Valley Forge Dozens of members of IVAW participated in a 25-mile march in Philadelphia from March 1-2, starting at the Constitution Center and ending at Valley Forge. In spirit, Valley Forge is the first Winter Soldier event. "230 years ago, a group of soldiers gathered at Valley Forge to stand up against oppression on behalf of their people. And we aim to do the same here today," said Steve Mortillo, president of the Philadelphia chapter of IVAW and former Calvary Scout in Iraq. Read the Philadelphia Daily News' coverage of the Valley Forge March
Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan will feature testimony from U.S. veterans who served in those occupations, giving an accurate account of what is really happening day in and day out, on the ground.
The four-day event will bring together veterans from across the country to testify about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan - and present video and photographic evidence. In addition, there will be panels of scholars, veterans, journalists, and other specialists to give context to the testimony. These panels will cover everything from the history of the GI resistance movement to the fight for veterans' health benefits and support.
When: Thursday March 13 to Sunday March 16
For those interested in watching or organizing around the proceedings at Winter Soldier, there will be a number of ways to watch and listen to the event.
**Live television broadcast via satellite tv, accessible through Dish Network as well as public access stations that choose to carry our broadcast - Friday and Saturday only
**Live video stream on the web - Thursday through Sunday{ no site url given, as yet, on this video stream }
**Live radio broadcast via KPFA in Berkley California and other Pacifica member stations - Friday through Sunday
**Live audio stream viaKPFA's website- Friday through Sunday
Please return to theIVAW websitefor specific details in the coming weeks.
You can find out more at the IVAW - Winter Soldier - Site, on the left you will find links to the needed information, as well as some embedded links in page text.
In the winter of 1777-78, after suffering three terrible defeats by the much larger British force and marching hundreds of miles, the 11,000-man Continental Army retreated to a winter headquarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Food was in desperately short supply, 2,000 men were without shoes, and many were without blankets. Typhoid fever, dysentery, malnutrition and exposure claimed some 2,500 lives that winter.
American Patriot morale had declined severely and whole militia companies had deserted to return home. Those that remained to weather the arduous winter formed powerful bonds that led them to eventually prevail in our war for independence.
Of these men and the 700 women who fed, nursed and warmed them through that winter, political activist and revolutionary thinker Thomas Paine wrote, “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of all men and women.”
Those that endured have come to be called the “winter soldiers.”
As veterans, we once swore to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” We do not foreswear that oath upon removing the uniform.
Two Vietnam Veterans visit the My Lai Memorial, Vietnam.
Upon that basis in 1971, following prosecution of Lt. Calley for the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, over 150 honorably discharged, many very highly decorated members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War {VVAW} gathered in Detroit to share their stories. Remaining faithful to their oath beyond their obligated service and harkening back to Paine’s words, they named this the “Winter Soldier Investigation.”
Atrocities like My Lai had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW testified at that time on the systematic brutality and war crimes they had witnessed and inflicted upon the people of Vietnam, stating that unspeakable atrocities such as “free fire zones” were in fact US government policy, violating the Geneva Conventions and other international treaties which are defined by Article VI of the Constitution as “the supreme law of the land.”
Asked by Chairman William Fulbright to present their findings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Lt. John Kerry delivered ringing testimony on behalf of the group. He explained, “We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.”
Kerry concluded his testimony, “We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped away their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission - to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more... And so when thirty years from now our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say ‘Vietnam’ and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.”
But thirty years have passed and America has failed to turn.
Thirty-two years later, America launched another equally brutal, equally mindless, equally unjustified attack on the nation of Iraq, again in violation of international treaty laws - the UN and Nuremberg Charters - that prohibit wars of aggression, and once more violating Article VI, the “Supremacy Clause,” of our Constitution. So once again winter soldiers are needed.
Thankfully, a current generation of outraged veterans is arising and a Winter Soldier II investigation is scheduled for March 13-16 in Washington, DC, where members of Iraq Veterans Against the War {IVAW} will replicate the model of their VVAW predecessors. All other peace organizations nationwide have been asked to suspend public events during that time so that media attention can be focused on this testimony. Information about the event may be found on the group's Web site.
“Over 30 years later,” IVAW states, “we find ourselves faced with a new war, but the lies are the same. Once again, troops are sinking into an increasingly bloody occupation. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming 'a few bad apples' instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.”
IVAW is planning to provide live broadcasting of the sessions for those who cannot hear the testimony firsthand.
Our blue-and-white Veterans for Peace bus, “Squadron13 Deployed,” will be there - our gas budget willing - following a 3,400 mile coast-to-coast awareness raising tour taking the southern route around the Rockies.
We will film and post on YouTube as we go and as we witness.
Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan will feature testimony from U.S. veterans who served in those occupations, giving an accurate account of what is really happening day in and day out, on the ground.
The four-day event will bring together veterans from across the country to testify about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan - and present video and photographic evidence. In addition, there will be panels of scholars, veterans, journalists, and other specialists to give context to the testimony. These panels will cover everything from the history of the GI resistance movement to the fight for veterans' health benefits and support.
When: Thursday March 13 to Sunday March 16
For those interested in watching or organizing around the proceedings at Winter Soldier, there will be a number of ways to watch and listen to the event.
**Live television broadcast via satellite tv, accessible through Dish Network as well as public access stations that choose to carry our broadcast - Friday and Saturday only
**Live video stream on the web - Thursday through Sunday{ no site url given, as yet, on this video stream }
**Live radio broadcast via KPFA in Berkley California and other Pacifica member stations - Friday through Sunday
**Live audio stream viaKPFA's website- Friday through Sunday
Please return to theIVAW websitefor specific details in the coming weeks.
You can find out more at the IVAW - Winter Soldier - Site, on the left you will find links to the needed information, as well as some embedded links in page text.
In February 1971, one month after the revelations of the My Lai massacre, an astonishing public inquiry into war crimes committed by American forces in Vietnam was held at a Howard Johnson motel in Detroit. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War organized this event called the Winter Soldier Investigation. More than 125 veterans spoke of atrocities they had witnessed and committed.
In the leadup to the present Winter Soldier we get words from one who participated in the one of the past.
Joe Bangert, Smedley Butler VFP, Star of "Winter Soldier" and "Sir! No Sir!" speaks at the Moonakis Cafe, Falmouth, Mass- 2/9/08- film by Paul Rifkin and David Souza:
Nixon, and the government agencies under his control, tried to stop and slander the Soldiers of 'Winter Soldier I' and that continues today by his loyalist and those still bent on the twisted ideologies, from the very top to the tv and radio talking heads to the print media and today to the internet.
Who will be the first to Attack the Soldiers of 'Winter Soldier II', which 'chickhawk' will try to Slander their Service and their Testimony on the Realities of War, take your pick, plenty to choose from!!
By Dennis Serdel, Vietnam 1967-68 (one tour) Light Infantry, Americal Div. 11th Brigade, purple heart, Veterans For Peace 50 Michigan, Vietnam Veterans Against The War, United Auto Workers GM Retiree, in Perry, Michigan **************** Bridging The Gap
There is a broken bridge that they call America between the people and their government. Stressed out cracked TV's, broken fractured newspapers with jagged concrete facts that they call Iraq.
There's a broken bridge between our Soldiers and what they were told they were fighting for. There is a broken bridge across the Euphrates river like a broken bridge across the Mississippi too.
Rivers of darkness and light that flow a lightning bolt currents dark and dangerous, pieces of humans lay at the bottom and who is responsible, who does not care at all as the rain and sand fall like teardrops trying to see through the murky waters, trying to find a way out, trying to stop the bleeding, trying to kill the cause and Americans stand and watch the horror of civilization pounded by combat boots, they want to stop it but they doubt it like by voting the war away.
Captain Amerika still acting like superman, the Statue of Liberty is cracking like the economy, who cares about a war debt, put it on a Chinese credit card, green back dollars going down and down drowning another bridge falling into the water.
To the energy poor depression crashed civilians of a war wreck they once called America, the Answer is within our Soldiers when they come back from another tour.
The Answer is within Americans when they stand behind the Soldiers when they refuse to deploy on a no way next tour.
Pete Seeger to Winter Soldiers
VVAW Dec 26th \'70 Once again Country living in Distress!
“ Every war, when viewed from the undistorted perspective of life's sanctity, is a "civil war" waged by humanity against itself." - Daisaku Ikeda
A growing number of active duty soldiers or recent Iraq war veterans are speaking up about the war in Iraq. And with the number of soldiers speaking up about their experiences in Iraq via online forums, blogs and pamphlets, some vets feel it's their duty to let the American public know the truth.
This occurred on the 17th, yesterday, outside of Ft Hood Texas, which has a rich history of action by Active Duty and recent Veterans of the Vietnam Conflict, back than one of many bases, around the country, as well as the world, and In-Country Vietnam!
This Austin Texas News Channel seems to have fallen in behind these Soldiers, embedded links and all, with no negative reporting!
'There is a cost to this war. This war is being paid in American blood, in my soldier's blood. And that is not okay,' Coppa said.
'We lost really good friends, really good leaders who died in Iraq. From my perspective, it didn't make any sense, we didn't accomplish anything, and I talked to a lot of other soldiers who feel the same way,' Fort Hood soldier Casey Porter said.
Many of you don't understand why I believe in Winter Soldier, or what I think Winter Soldier is going to be about. It's hard to explain, especially when you find yourself coming up against gaps. You can read my piece in the SIT-REP, if you're lucky enough to be by a base where that hot little newspaper is going around.
There's abit more, it was leading up to this Moving Video of what is to come next month in the Nations Capitol, Winter Soldier, March 13-16 2008
When I returned home Thomas, brother Vietnam Vet, of Military Project-G.I.Special had sent out the following in the News Letter, it's from an issue on 11-14-07, from an Active Duty Soldier, who might recognize it:
Army Values
“I Am Loyal To My Fellow Soldiers; I Do Not Want Them To Die In A Purposeless War”
“I Am Loyal To The Constitution; A Constitution Which Is Under Attack By Men Who Have Not Sacrificed To Protect It”
“Our Leadership Is Currently Dishonorable”
A lot of people question how I can be a sergeant in the Army, giving my oath true weight, and believing in its values, and still be a member of IVAW.
It’s easy.
I believe in the Army’s purpose-it is to defend our country and protect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
I don’t think its purpose is foreign wars we can’t win.
Its true purpose is noble, and has been subverted by armchair soldiers, politicians who have never had to serve.
They don’t know these values, and they don’t live them -- but I do. And here’s why they support, rather than contradict, what I’m doing now as a member of IVAW.
Loyalty: Bear true faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, the Army, your unit, and fellow soldiers.
Nowhere in this list does it say “the current leadership of your country, and their political decisions”.
I am loyal to my fellow soldiers; I do not want them to die in a purposeless war.
I am loyal to the Army; I do not want it to be weakened on multiple fronts and taken away from its true purpose, defense of the nation.
I am loyal to the Constitution; a Constitution which is under attack by men who have not sacrificed to protect it.
I bear true faith and allegiance to these, most particularly the Constitution which founded our nation.
Duty: Fulfill your obligations
Our highest obligations as soldiers is our obligation to our country and the flag we salute. Our obligation as citizens and patriots compels us to defend our country in any way we can -- against its destruction as well as its dishonor.
The Iraq War, and the way it is being prosecuted, dishonors us in the eyes of the world, and even worse, dishonors us to ourselves.
Respect: Treat people as they should be treated.
Treat the people of the United States as well as the people of Iraq with respect.
They deserve to be treated according to their status: if they are prisoners of war, then treat them with the full dignity accorded POWs. If they are criminals, then give them trials.
Innocent until proven guilty: we do not lose our values when we step away from our shores.
Selfless Service: Put the welfare of the Nation, the Army, and your subordinates before your own.
Being a member of IVAW is hard.
It is hard to stand up, to devote effort and time to an organization committed to what is right, when your leadership so firmly believes that it is wrong.
It’s hard to face the intimidation and harassment that many members of the active duty military face when they begin to speak out on what they feel. It’s hard to stand up and tell your higher ups that they are committing crimes.
But the welfare of the Nation, our continued survival as an honorable country, and the continued survival of the Army depends on some of us standing up, and saying, “Sir, no Sir!”
That we will not participate in illegal acts, and we will report them when and where we see them.
We will not train our soldiers to commit them, and will train our soldiers to follow the honorable path.
And the honorable path now, the hard service, means standing up and speaking the truth, so that legislators can begin to realize it, and bring us home.
Honor: Live up to Army Values
Honor is living up to all the Army Values, but it is even older than that. It is the thing you have when you have nothing else left. It is all you need: it should be the cornerstone of a soldier.
It is phrased as living up to all the Army Values, because if you lack even one, you cannot be an honorable soldier.
It is the ability to look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and know you have done all that you can, and that you have not had to reproach yourself for anything.
Our leadership is currently dishonorable.
By their bending of the torture legislation to allow what they want to take place, they are attempting to put a stain upon our honor that will take at least a generation to erase.
As soon as our soldiers have fulfilled their usefulness to them, leadership shuffles them away, with “personality disorders” instead of PTSD treatment.
Benefits are cut, while contractors reach huge rewards.
This is not taking care of the people who have given their all to the country.
It is dishonorable, and the only way to restore that honor is to stand up against the people who are doing so and will do so again.
Integrity: Do what is right, legally and morally.
The things that the political leadership of this country are trying to do right now are neither legal nor moral.
The acceptance of torture, the belief that once Americans go beyond their borders, they no longer have to hold to the beliefs that shaped our nation, ‘baiting’ with weapons caches, and other such tactics at the very least skirt the fine line of legality: they are definitely not moral.
Claiming that it is okay to treat people dishonorably because they are not an organized force fighting against us is simply wrong, as is the argument that they are not citizens and therefore do not deserve the protections of the Constitution. We are the good guys!
We do the right thing, even if others don’t, and if our leadership does not understand that, it needs to.
It needs to pull out of this war, and cease its immoral actions, to bring itself in line with the country’s beliefs and principles.
Personal Courage: Face fear, danger, or adversity (physical or moral)
It does not take physical courage to stand up and fight against injustice in this fashion.
Most members have not been physically attacked -- the cowards who attack people for their beliefs have gone after a father of a dead servicemember instead (Carlos Arredondo).
But it does take moral courage.
It takes moral courage to stand up for what you know to be true and right, moral courage to say that the country is steering in the wrong direction, and you are committed by your oath to turn it around.
It takes moral courage to resist a war that your leadership believes in, or to stand against your entire platoon and state that you will not treat a prisoner with anything less than full dignity.
And it takes moral courage to be counted, here, to let people insult you for perceived cowardice, when the truth is that you, like I, may not be against all wars, all places, all times.
But hopefully you, like I, like many committed and dedicated members of the military community, are against this one.
In the leadup to the present Winter Soldier we get words from one who participated in the one of the past.
Joe Bangert, Smedley Butler VFP, Star of "Winter Soldier" and "Sir! No Sir!" speaks at the Moonakis Cafe, Falmouth, Mass- 2/9/08- film by Paul Rifkin and David Souza:
“IT’S BEYOND ME” | SPECIALIST WENDY BARRANCO, COMBAT MEDIC | ARMY
The Sunday Times Magazine, March 1, 2008 The veterans are not against the military and seek not to indict it – instead they seek to shine a light on the bigger picture: that the Abu Ghraib prison regime and the Haditha massacre of innocent Iraqis are not isolated incidents perpetrated by “bad seeds” as the military suggests, but evidence of an endemic problem. They will say they were tasked to do terrible things and point the finger up the chain of command, which ignores, diminishes or covers up routine abuse and atrocities.
Winter Soldiers march to Valley Forge
Two Vietnam Veterans visit the My Lai Memorial, Vietnam. 
Asked by Chairman William Fulbright to present their findings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Lt. John Kerry delivered ringing testimony on behalf of the group. He explained, “We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.”
