Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: US/IRAQ:  "We Have to Share This Pain"

Ci sono guerre che è giusto combattere, questa invece è una guerra di 
merda: non c'è onore per chi la combatte.
"We are murderers of over one million Iraqis."
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US/IRAQ:  "We Have to Share This Pain"
By Dahr Jamail
Even Knappenberger, Iraq war veteran: "We are murderers of over one 
million Iraqis."
Credit:Mike Hastie
PORTLAND, Oregon, Oct 20 (IPS) - Veterans from the U.S. occupation of 
Iraq and Afghanistan, along with Iraqis, Afghanis, Vietnam veterans, and 
family members of U.S. military personnel converged in this west coast 
city over the weekend to share stories of atrocities being committed 
daily in Iraq, in a continuation of the "Winter Soldier" hearings held 
in Silver Spring, Maryland in March.
At the Unitarian Church downtown, some 300 people gathered to hear the 
testimonies, which left many in tears. The five-hour event was comprised 
of three panels; Voices of Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, The Human 
Costs of War, and Building Resistance to War.
The goal of the event is to give veterans a platform by which to 
disseminate information about their experiences abroad to the general 
public.
"War changes people. You do not come out of a combat zone the same," 
Iraq war veteran Chanan Suarez Diaz told the audience while moderating 
the veteran's panel. "War is very numbing...it comes to a point that you 
see so much destruction you become numb. This bullshit about bringing 
democracy or liberation is nonsense -- we've killed over one million 
Iraqis."
Jan Critchfield, an Army National guard specialist, discussed his job 
working in Iraq as an army "journalist", that in his words, "I was a 
propagandist, pure and simple."
A somber Critchfield said, "I'm not proud of any of what I did over 
there -- it was inhumane and it changed me as a person. I didn't do 
anything but yell at people, push people around, and aim my gun at people."
Other vets spoke as photos taken by soldiers were shown on a large 
screen above the stage.
Josh Simpson explained his work as an army counterintelligence agent in 
Iraq. "We would go to houses without any evidence, arrest people, and 
pay our source hundreds of dollars. This was common, it was a crazy cycle."
"We were raiding houses every night in Mosul," he continued. "You 
ransack their stuff, then ask our officer who he wanted to detain."
The number of people detained was a measure of success for a unit, 
Simpson explained. "People's mothers would be grabbing me, asking me why 
I was taking their child away, and I never had an answer. It's terrible 
to push an elderly Iraqi woman away so you can take her child and load 
her into your Stryker vehicle, when you don't even believe they belong 
there."
Evan Knappenberger served one year in Iraq with the Army 4th Infantry 
Division working as an intelligence analyst. "We are responsible as 
soldiers, we are murderers of over one million Iraqis," a visibly shaken 
Knappenberger said. "I participated in burglary, trespassing, 
knowledgeable negligence, criminal assault and battery, rape by 
association, and gangsterism, I am standing here today as a criminal -- 
in a sense of the word that only someone who has worn the uniform can 
understand."
"While I was in Iraq, I did many things, but nothing for freedom," he 
added. "We've lost this war on the polemic battleground of semantics. By 
naming arbitrary rules of engagement, we rationalised murder -- this I 
witnessed...by calling it liberation, we justified occupation, this I 
witnessed..."
Chris Arendt, who was a block guard at the Guantanamo Bay detention 
centre during 2004-05, spoke of his experiences "working at a 
concentration camp, and the people I was working for were invading other 
countries."
He explained, "I had a lot of time to think about things. What we do 
there is completely contrary to our own set of laws. We have 650 people 
in Gitmo right now waiting for us to do something with them. What have 
they done? They don't even have charges! We are ruining people's lives."
"Time is the silent killer there," Arendt explained, "You just put 
people in a cell and tell them they are never going home, and watch them 
slowly break apart. I wish I was angrier when I was there, but it was 
impossible to feel there, you can't feel, feelings are just not 
something you want to bring there in your rucksack., but I'm still 
trying to unpack them, three years later."
David Mann was an Army Specialist who was deployed to Nasiriyah, Iraq in 
2003 and forced to return after his tour ended under the "stop-loss" 
policy for a second deployment to Balad, Iraq in 2005.
"We were told not to stop when children ran in front of our vehicles as 
we invaded Iraq," he explained, his voice cracking. After being 
stop-lossed, Mann checked himself into an emergency room after 
threatening to kill himself.
Weeping he continued: "I told them I was going to kill myself if I had 
to go back to war. I was sent back...every man, woman and child who has 
died in this war has died in vain, because it was a war based on lies 
and profits."
The event was sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) Seattle 
Chapter, the American Friends Service Committee, PDX Peace Coalition, 
and the American Iranian Friendship Council, among many others.
On another panel, Dr. Baher Butti, formerly the chief psychiatrist at a 
mental health clinic Baghdad, told the stunned audience, "The Iraqi 
population has mass post-traumatic stress disorder, everybody is just 
trying to survive."
Dr. Zaher Wahab, professor of Education at Lewis & Clark College, who 
serves as a senior advisor to the Minister of Higher Education in 
Afghanistan, spoke eloquently of the catastrophic situation in Afghanistan.
"There is now more bombing in Afghanistan than in Iraq, because they are 
so short of troops," Dr. Wahab explained, "The average family lives on 
one dollar per day, two million people are seriously mentally ill, 70 
percent of Afghanis are traumatised. The society is being murdered by 
the occupation, and it's being done on live television."
Iraq war veteran and former Marine Benjamin David Lewis, 23 years old, 
also attended the event. Lewis, who has served two tours in Iraq and 
four years as a Marine, including being in Fallujah during the November 
2004 siege that killed thousands of Iraqis and destroyed much of the 
city, had just received his involuntary activation order to redeploy, as 
he is in the Individual Ready Reserve.
"My plane to Kansas City that takes me to be screened and get my orders 
leaves tomorrow," Lewis told IPS on Oct. 18. "Presumably I'll get my 
orders to go to Iraq or Afghanistan, but I'm going to refuse to activate."
Lewis explained that when a soldier is screened for deployment, they 
have five months to get their affairs in order before being shipped 
abroad. At the end of this five months, he has decided he will publicly 
refuse his orders to deploy.
When asked why he would refuse the orders, Lewis said his decision was 
based on educating himself about the goals of the U.S. government and 
military, coupled with his experience in Fallujah during both 2004 
sieges, of which he said, "My battalion in spring 2004 was operating in 
direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions (GC)."
"During the spring siege we sent military-age males back into the city, 
and were ordered to kill them," he told IPS.
Of the November siege, Lewis added, "The intention of the military was 
to take over and occupy the main hospital in Fallujah, which violates 
the GC's, as well as our being ordered to target all 'military age males'."
The intention of his refusal to activate is "To let the American public 
and other veterans know that this is an illegal war, and everyone should 
be opposing it."
The first Winter Soldier event was organised in 1971 by Vietnam Veterans 
Against the War in response to a growing list of human rights violations 
occurring in Vietnam.
 From Mar. 13-16, 2008, IVAW held a national conference titled "Winter 
Solider: Iraq and Afghanistan" outside Washington, DC. The four-day 
event brought together veterans from across the country to testify about 
their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"If we are going to end these occupations, we have to share this pain," 
Camilo Mejia, Iraq veteran and Chair of the Board of IVAW stated to 
conclude the veterans panel. "Only by sharing this pain, and acting to 
end it, can we heal ourselves and educate the American public."
(END/2008)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44359

 million Iraqis."
Pure tra i soldati americani vi sono degli emeriti *PIRLA* :)
Mica credevi di essere l'unico al mondo :)
-Stefano 

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Tu che non sei pirla, e' risaputo, fatti volontario e vai a imporre la
liberta'.
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Saluti
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