|
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now.
-Wilfred Owen, "Strange Meeting"
I get a lot of email. I received an email the other day from a woman named Jane, whose son was killed in Iraq in July. This is what she wrote to me:
--
Dear Mr. Pitt, I must share with you the obituary I wrote for my son, Sgt. Evan Ashcraft, who was killed July 24 near Mosul. I often think of the contributions my intelligent, sensitive wonderful son could have made. He could have been President of the United States. He could have been a doctor caring for children in a Third World Country. He had so much potential. He told us that when he came back from Iraq he wanted to help people. He said he had seen so much hatred and death that the only way to live his life was through aid to others. Look at what we've lost. The loss is not just mine, it's the world's loss. Evan will always be alive in my heart. He and all the other victims of this heinous action in Iraq must be more than mere numbers emerging from the Pentagon's daily tally. His death is a crime against humanity and the fault lies with the war criminals who inhabit our White House. Please share his story so that he may come alive to your readers.
--
It will be upon us soon. Sometime, likely before January is out, the 500th American soldier to die in Iraq will fall. He will be killed by a roadside bomb, or a mortar, or a rifle shot from afar, or a pistol to the back of the head in a crowd, or a rocket-propelled grenade into his convoy, or into his helicopter which will plunge, blazing, from the sky. He will fall in Baghdad, or Tikrit, or Mosul, or some unnamed town in between.
The 500th soldier will come to know what Luke Frist, age 20, knows now. He will know what Justin C. Pollard, age 21, knows now. Michael Mihalakis, who was 18, Stuart Moore, who was 21, Nathan Nakis, who was 19, Kenneth Souslin, who was 21, Rian Ferguson, who was 22, Jeffrey Braun, who was 19, Joseph Blickenstaff, who was 23, Jason Wright, who was 19, Ray Hutchinson, who was 20, Arron Clark, who was 20, Ryan Young, who was 21, Aaron Sissel, who was 22, Rel Ravago, who was 21, Robert Roberts, who was 21, Joseph Lister, who was 22, Scott Tyrrell, who was 21, Sheldon Hawk Eagle, who was 21, Richard Hafer, who was 21, Paul Bueche, who was 19, Damian Heidelberg, who was 21, Eugene Uhl, who was 21, Joey Whitener, who was 19, Irving Medina, who was 22, Daniel Parker, who was 18, Robert Wise, who was 21, Robert Benson, who was 20, Frances Vega, who was 20, Benjamin Freeman, who was 19, Steven Acosta, who was 19, and Charles Sims, who was 18, all know what this 500th soldier will come soon to find out for himself, in blood and anguish and a gathering darkness.
It is better to be alive than dead, better to be young than gone, better at least to die for one's country in a cause that is just than to be spent, oath and uniform and all, as a chess piece in someone's cynical power play.
Must that 500th soldier be a man? Ask Rachel Bosveld, who was 19, Kimberly Hampton, who was 27, Sharon Swartworth, who was 43, Karina Lau, who was 20, Analaura Gutierrez, who was 21, Alyssa Peterson, who was 27, Melissa Valles, who was 26 or Lori Ann Piestewa, who was 23, what place gender has on the fields of the dead. They would answer, if they could, but their voices were lost in the grinding of the guns in Iraq.
The number of wounded American soldiers shipped home fails to find a consistent count. Some say 2,000, others say 9,000, and still others say 11,000 and rising. Another generation of shredded American veterans has been born, honored when the country needs heroes to inspire the next generation into enlisting, but forgotten the rest of the time, left to pinch pennies and rub the stumps where their healthy young legs used to send them running and leaping and dancing through a life they surrendered in a blinding flash of pain and light.
Few American citizens are aware of this, because the Bush administration has made it policy to downplay these honored dead from the media. No cameras are allowed inside the Dover, DE facility that receives the ruined bodies of our troops. No cameras are allowed inside Walter Reed Army Medical Center to film the thousands of soldiers who have been catastrophically wounded in Iraq, nor are cameras allowed inside the facility at Ft. Stewart in Georgia where the wounded await treatment in conditions they have described as inhumane. The Pentagon is doing its part as well. The term "body bags" was dispensed with during the 1991 Gulf War for the kinder, gentler euphemism "human remains pouches." The term has been changed again by the Pentagon. Today in Iraq, soldiers killed in the line of duty are placed inside "transfer tubes" for their anonymous trip home.
The number now stands at 497 Americans killed, according to figures provided by the Department of Defense. It was 487 yesterday, but a Blackhawk helicopter was shot down today, taking nine soldiers to their deaths. A tenth soldier died yesterday from wounds he received in a mortar attack that wounded 35 other troops. The Army Times, a reading staple for the enlisted ranks, had different numbers before the New Year. Jimmy Breslin, columnist from Newsday, wrote on December 30 that the Army Times said, "There were 506 killed by the time the newspaper closed last Friday.
Since then, another seven have died. The newspaper has said this is the deadliest year for the U.S. military since 1972, when 640 were killed in Vietnam." That makes 513 Americans killed before the ball dropped in Times Square. Add the seventeen who have died since then, and the number becomes 530. Even on this most important tabulation, the numbers are fuzzy.
There is no accurate accounting of the civilians who have died, but a cross-section of the math places their count in the tens of thousands. They died in their homes, shocked and awed before the fire took them. They died in the streets, fleeing the storm. They died in their beds from wounds, or disease, or despair.
How did it come to this?
It came to this, in no small part, because Dick Cheney said, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," on August 26, 2002.
It came to this because Ari Fleischer said, "We know for a fact that there are weapons there," on January 9, 2003.
It came to this because Colin Powell said, "We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more," on February 5, 2003.
It came to this because Donald Rumsfeld said, "We know where they are," about these weapons. "They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad," on March 30, 2003.
It came to this because George W. Bush said, "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons," on February 8, 2003.
It came to this because George W. Bush said, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised," on March 17, 2003.
It came to this despite the fact that Colin Powell said, "Hussein has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors," on February 24, 2001.
The Washington Post on January 7th ran a lead story titled "Iraq's Arsenal Was Only On Paper." The sub-headline reads, "Since Gulf War, Nonconventional Weapons Never Got Past the Planning Stage." This is yet another brick in the wall between what we were promised by the Bush administration, what we were told under the fearful and deliberately-cast shadow of September 11 was in Iraq and worthy of war, and what is actually there. The Post story reads, in part, as follows:
"In public statements and unauthorized interviews, investigators said they have discovered no work on former germ-warfare agents such as anthrax bacteria, and no work on a new designer pathogen -- combining pox virus and snake venom -- that led U.S. scientists on a highly classified hunt for several months. The investigators assess that Iraq did not, as charged in London and Washington, resume production of its most lethal nerve agent, VX, or learn to make it last longer in storage. And they have found the former nuclear weapons program, described as a 'grave and gathering danger' by President Bush and a 'mortal threat' by Vice President Cheney, in much the same shattered state left by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s."
"A review of available evidence, including some not known to coalition investigators and some they have not made public, portrays a nonconventional arms establishment that was far less capable than U.S. analysts judged before the war. Leading figures in Iraqi science and industry, supported by observations on the ground, described factories and institutes that were thoroughly beaten down by 12 years of conflict, arms embargo and strangling economic sanctions. The remnants of Iraq's biological, chemical and missile infrastructures were riven by internal strife, bled by schemes for personal gain and handicapped by deceit up and down lines of command. The broad picture emerging from the investigation to date suggests that, whatever its desire, Iraq did not possess the wherewithal to build a forbidden armory on anything like the scale it had before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. David Kay, who directs the weapons hunt on behalf of the Bush administration, reported no discoveries last year of finished weapons, bulk agents or ready-to-start production lines. Members of his Iraq Survey Group, in unauthorized interviews, said the group holds out little prospect now of such a find."
Today, the Bush administration was accused of "systematically misrepresenting" the threat posed by "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction" in a comprehensive report from four experts on weapons proliferation at the respected Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. According to the report, the absence of any imminent threat from Saddam Hussein's chemical or nuclear programs was "knowable" before the war. There was greater uncertainty over biological weapons but no evidence strong enough to justify war.
The authors say the intelligence reports of Iraq's capabilities grew more shrill in October 2002 with the publication of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which included an unusual number of dissenting views by intelligence officials. The intelligence community, the report says, began to be unduly influenced by policymakers' views "sometime in 2002". Repeated visits to the CIA by the US vice president, Dick Cheney, and demands by top officials to see unsubstantiated reports, created an atmosphere in which intelligence analysts were pressed to come to "more threatening" judgments of Iraq.
Who were these policymakers, and how did they exert this influence?
Have you ever heard of something called the Office of Special Plans? The Office of Special Plans, or OSP, was created by Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld specifically to second-guess and reinterpret intelligence data to justify war in Iraq. The OSP was staffed by rank amateurs, civilians whose ideological pedigree suited Mr. Rumsfeld.
Though this group was on no government payroll and endured no Congressional oversight, their information and interpretations managed to prevail over the data being provided by the State Department and CIA. This group was able to accomplish this incredible feat due to devoted patronage from high-ranking ultra-conservatives within the administration, most prominently Vice-President Cheney. This group worked according to a strategy that they hoped would recreate Iraq into an Israeli ally, destroy a potential threat to Persian Gulf oil trade, and wrap U.S. allies around Iran.
The State Department and CIA saw this plan as being badly flawed and based upon profoundly questionable intelligence. The OSP responded to these criticisms by cutting State and CIA completely out of the loop. By the time the war came, nearly all the data used to justify the action to the American people was coming from the OSP. The American intelligence community had been totally usurped.
When the OSP wanted to change or exaggerate evidence of Iraqi weapons capabilities, they sent Vice President Cheney to CIA headquarters on unprecedented visits where he demanded “forward-leaning” interpretations of the evidence. When Cheney was unable to go to the CIA, his chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, went in his place.
On three occasions, former congressman Newt Gingrich visited CIA in his capacity as a “consultant” for ultra-conservative hawk Richard Perle and his Defense Policy Board. According to the accounts of these visits, Gingrich browbeat the analysts to toughen up their assessments of the dangers posed by Hussein. He was allowed access to the CIA and the analysts because he was a known emissary of the OSP.
Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski worked in the office of Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith until her retirement in April, and often worked with the Office of Special Plans. "What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline," Kwiatkowski wrote recently. "If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of 'intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defence."
Kwiatkowski went on to charge that the operations she witnessed during her tenure regarding the Office of Special Plans, constituted "a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress".
According to Kwiatkowski, the same operation that allegedly cooked the intelligence also was responsible for the administration's failure to anticipate the problems that now dog the U.S. occupation in Iraq, or, in her more colourful words, that have placed 150,000 U.S. troops in "the world's nastiest rat's nest, without a nation-building plan, without significant international support and without an exit plan".
According to Karen Kwiatkowsky, the political appointees assigned there and their contacts at State, the NSC, and Cheney's office tended to work as a "network." The OSP often deliberately cut out, ignored or circumvented normal channels of communication both within the Pentagon and with other agencies.
"I personally witnessed several cases of staff officers being told not to contact their counterparts at State or the (NSC) because that particular decision would be processed through a different channel," wrote Kwiatkowsky.
In one interview, she insists that her views of the OSP were widely shared by other professional staff. Quoting one veteran career officer "who was in a position to know what he was talking about," Kwiatkowsky says, "What these people are doing now makes Iran- Contra look like amateur hour."
George W. Bush and his administration promised us that Iraq possessed 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX gas, 30,000 munitions to deliver these agents, uranium from Africa for the development of a nuclear weapons program, and al Qaeda connections.
This last bit was the key, for we were told that Saddam Hussein could hand these weapons to al Qaeda, and al Qaeda could bring them to the United States. "It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country," said Mr. Bush, "to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known."
None of it was there. The Washington Post story carried a photograph of a crudely-drawn sketch of a rocket, like a child's musings of science fiction. That was the sum and substance of the weapons program.
In the aftermath, the rhetoric for why all of this death has been visited upon us has changed. We went to free the Iraqi people, and to bring democracy to the Middle East. When Saddam Hussein was hauled out of his hiding place several weeks ago, it was heralded as a great victory. Yet the truth of the matter undermines the bloviating glee from the Bush administration and a mainstream media that caters to their story line. Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, no conventional military capabilities, no connections to al Qaeda, and no connections to September 11. Was he worth all this?
The reality is that, though Saddam Hussein was certainly a fiend, he was also a secular leader who spent thirty years killing every Islamic fundamentalist he could get his hands on, often with America’s glad-handed help. He was particularly fond of killing practitioners of Wahabbism, the sect of Islam practiced by Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda warriors. Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden have been blood enemies for years; bin Laden has called for Hussein’s death on several occasions. The idea that Hussein would arm bin Laden with a pea shooter, much less weapons of mass destruction, is laughable.
Saddam Hussein, fiend or otherwise, did not last in that neighborhood by being suicidal. Arming Osama bin Laden would have been suicide, because bin Laden would have used those weapons on Hussein first. Period. End of story.
Beyond that is the simple fact that Saddam Hussein, in the last few years, has been little more than the Mayor of Baghdad. Vast areas in the north and south in Iraq have been totally beyond his control for some time now. These are the areas where al Qaeda fighters have been reportedly sighted. Those fighters had nothing to do with, and had no allegiance to, Saddam Hussein. To say that Hussein had al Qaeda connections because those guys were in his country at one time is to say that George W. Bush has al Qaeda connections because they were in America before the September 11 attacks.
The democracy promised by the Bush administration is equally vacuous. The majority of Iraq's population are Shia Muslims, who are seeking to establish a fundamentalist Shia government like the one currently controlling Iran. Democracy means majority rules, and if democracy is brought, that Iraqi majority will elect that fundamentalist government and throw democracy out the back door. We knew this going in, and knew as well that a Shia-controlled Iraq would align itself with the Shia-controlled Iran on top of all that oil. So democracy, in truth, was never on the table.
American forces will never leave Iraq. It was never about freedom, or democracy. It was about the occupation of an oil-rich nation in a world where petroleum stores are dwindling. Perhaps it was about revenge for September 11, but if so, it was revenge taken on a virtually defenseless civilian population that had no hand in these attacks. It was also about profit. Nearly $200 billion has been spent to date on this invasion and occupation. Most of that money has gone to massive corporations like Dick Cheney's Halliburton, to George Herbert Walker Bush's Carlyle Group, to weapons manufacturers, to other petroleum companies. Once upon a time, that money belonged to you. Now, it belongs to them.
Does that sound shrill? Let me ask you another question: Have you ever heard of a company called United Defense, out of Arlington, Virginia? Let me introduce you. United Defense provides Combat Vehicle Systems, Fire Support, Combat Support Vehicle Systems, Weapons Delivery Systems, Amphibious Assault Vehicles, and Combat Support Services. Some of United Defense's current programs include:
The Bradley Family of Fighting Vehicles, the M113 Family of Fighting Vehicles, the M88A2 Recovery Vehicle, the Grizzly, the M9 ACE, the Composite Armored Vehicle, the M6 Linebacker, the M4 Command and Control Vehicle, the Battle Command Vehicle, the Paladin, the Future Scout and Cavalry System, the Crusader, Electric Gun Technology/Pulse Power, Advanced Simulations and Training Systems, and Fleet Management. This list goes on and on, and includes virtually everything an eternal war might need.
Who owns United Defense? The Carlyle Group bought United Defense in October of 1997. For those not in the know, the Carlyle Group is a private global investment firm. Carlyle is the eleventh largest defense contractor in the US because of its ownership of companies making tanks, aircraft wings and other equipment. Carlyle has ownership stakes in 164 companies which generated $16 billion in revenues in the year 2000 alone. The Carlyle Group does not provide investment or other services to the general public.
Who works for the Carlyle Group? George Herbert Walker Bush, father of the current President, worked for the Carlyle Group until about a couple of weeks ago, had been a senior consultant for Carlyle for several years, and sat on the Board of Directors. This company is profiting wildly from this war in Iraq. A few days after Bush Sr. retired from Carlyle, “certain stockholders,” according to the press release, sold off their United Defense stock for a profit of more than $50 million. I wonder who those stockholders were?
And then, of course, there is Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, profiting in the billions from the oil in Iraq. Halliburton subsidiary, Brown & Root, is also in Iraq. Their stock in trade is the building of permanent military bases. Here is your permanent military presence in Iraq, and all for an incredible fee. Cheney still draws a one million dollar annual check from Halliburton, what they call a ‘deferred retirement benefit.’ In Boston, we call that a paycheck.
So it goes for that 500th soldier, who may be the 550th soldier for all we know. Not so long ago he, or she, raised a hand and swore an oath to defend the constitution of the United States of America, and the United States itself, and pledged his, or her, life to that cause. Implicit in that oath was a promise from the country honored to receive that oath. That promise? Your life will not be spent to no good end, soldier. Your life will not be wasted. The promise was broken.
Lt. General Harold G. Moore, in his shattering memoir of the battle of Ia Drang, Vietnam, in 1965, said this: "It was no movie. When it was over the dead did not get up and dust themselves off and walk away. The wounded did not wash away the red and go on with life, unhurt. Those who were, miraculously, unscratched were by no means untouched. This is also the story of the suffering of families whose lives were forever shattered by the death of a father, a son, a husband, a brother in that Valley. This is our story and theirs. For we were soldiers once, and young."
Wilfred Owen, the poet who wrote "Strange Meeting," knows what that 500th soldier will come to know all too soon. Owen was a soldier once, and young. He served in World War I, and was cut down by a machine gun on November 4, 1918, just seven days before the Armistice that ended the butchery. The church bells were ringing to celebrate the war's end in his home town when his parents answered the door to find the telegram which told them of their loss. Owen was 25 years old.
Before he died, he wrote a truth.
"If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori."
So what are you going to do tomorrow? I am a professional activist, writer, political analyst. This is my job. I know that many of you do not have the time that I have to dedicate to dealing with all this. So I am asking you to tell your friends. Tell your neighbors. Tell your children.
Is it scary to do this? Of course. But that’s a funny thing about fear. Fear is the tool that has been used against us. If we can defeat fear, we will defeat these brigands, because that is all they have going for them. How does one defeat the fear within? Well, there was an interesting study done several years ago that compared the people who decided to defy Nazi Germany and hide Jews in their homes. To do this, and be caught, was a death sentence. The people who did this came from across the ethnic and social spectrum – the study showed that they had very little in common at all. Except one thing. All of them, each and every one, made the decision to be brave. That’s it. They decided to be brave.
Now is a time for patriots. Real patriots. Decide to be one. Decide to scoff at fear. Remember, in your decision, the words of the extraordinary anti-war activist Daniel Berrigan. A friend of Berrigan’s, Mitchell Snyder, was for years an advocate and activist for the homeless in Washington DC. Snyder became despondent over the fact that his government could spend billions on bombs and planes and guns, but could not seem to find the money to help the homeless. Snyder became so despondent that he committed suicide. Daniel Berrigan penned these lines in memory of Snyder, and it is in these lines that I find my ability to make that decision.
Some stood up once, and sat down
Some walked a mile, and walked away
Some stood up twice, then sat down, "I've had it" they said,
Some walked two miles, then walked away. "It's too much," they cried.
Some stood and stood and stood
They were taken for fools
They were taken for being taken in
Some walked and walked and walked
They walked the earth,
They walked the waters,
They walked the air
"Why do you stand," they were asked, "and why do you walk?"
"Because of the children," they said,
"And because of the heart,
"And because of the bread,"
"Because the cause is the heart's beat,
And the children born
And the risen bread."
The cause is the heart’s beat. Decide to make this cause your heart’s beat. Stand and be counted. Throw aside fear, spurn it, and anyone who would try to use fear against you. I have traveled 40,000 miles across this country in the last four months, speaking to groups large and small, and I am here to tell you that you do not stand alone. There is an army standing behind you. Join them.
I’m here tonight because your Amnesty group invited me. When I was a high school teacher, I often worked with the Amnesty group at my school. Last year, we traveled to New York to shout down the Chinese embassy for their human rights abuses. It was a rewarding experience, but I want to close tonight with two thoughts for the Amnesty people here in this room, and to anyone else who would listen.
The world is filled with injustice. Slavery, economic disenfranchisement, starvation, AIDS, war, human rights abuses…the list is long and long and long. To the activists in this room just beginning down this road, I say this: Justice begins at home. Before you cast your eyes to China, or anywhere else, look within. America is the greatest nation in the history of the world – I mean great in terms of goodness, and in terms of size. Our actions, and the example we set, echoes across the world.
The Bible says, Before attending to the mote in thy neighbor’s eye, attend to the beam in thine own. We are a great nation that has gone greatly astray, and our failures echo. Remember, however, the words of President John Kennedy: Our problems are man-made, and can be solved by man. For in the final analysis, we all inhabit this same small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal. While you can, attend to the problems in your own garden, for in doing so, you will change the world beyond. Our problems can be solved, so long as people like you choose to help solve them.
Finally, this. If you choose to be an activist, you are choosing a hard road. You will fail and be defeated far, far, far more often than you will win. The crisis will come to you again, and again, and again – why am I doing this? Remember, then, the words of Berringan. For the children. For the cause.
I challenge you this much. If you can do one thing, every day, that allows you to look yourself in the eye when you face the mirror, you will have done everything. One thing. Every day. That is your road. I have walked it, and will be walking it tomorrow. Knowing what you know, can you do otherwise?
I’ll see you on the road. Thank you.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
