Winter Soldier Testimony - Iraq and Afghanistan

Based on recent posts, I believe a number of people on DU either missed the winter soldier testimony, or didn't realize it addressed both the occupations of Iraq AND Afghanistan.

If you fall into that category, if you didn't realize that the war resisters were resisting BOTH occupations, or if you didn't realize that Veterans for Peace and the IVAW have spoken out against both wars for years, the first-person testimony from those hearings would be good listening material. Much of it can be found on DU - I just searched "winter soldier afghanistan site:democraticunderground.com" and came up with 870 hits from that search string alone.

If you want to go directly to some of the testimony, the panels on Rules of Engagement would probably be helpful, as would the sessions on "Racism and War: the Dehumanization of the Enemy," and "The Cost of War in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Here's one of the videos, U.S. Marine Corps Corporal James Gilligan talking about personally being responsible for bombing a village of civilians by accident, and finding out later that the military told the villagers the taliban did it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2Ac18v5FdY&feature=related

Edit to add link to the IVAW page with all the panel videos: http://www.ivaw.org/wintersoldier/testimony/video

the horror stories they told were terrifying and made the hair on my neck stand up.

The vets and soldiers who are resisting and opposing these wars are the leaders of the New Peace movement and must be listened to an understood by anyone supporting these wars (and anyone who wants more strength to oppose them)

This is important testimony we all must share and pass along to those who think a "surge" is okay. It isn't. It is suicide for many of our young...and murder for the civilians who want only to be left alone to live in peace.

and yes, I agree with you that people need to really listen and understand them. There's a level of intellectualized arm chair quarterbacking that people do without understanding how the military - by necessity - trains people to dehumanize "the enemy," and you can't just shove that aside when you are on a so-called humanitarian mission combined with eradicating an enemy that looks exactly like the people you are supposedly protecting.

There is another story currently being discussed on DU about a woman in the Fort Hood area assaulting a muslim woman for no reason, except she's "the enemy." I didn't see anyone making the connections in that thread, but that's the mindset of some proportion of the military that's over there now. People enlisted to get revenge after 911. I've got friends who did that. You can't undo the history of why we are in that country and pretend it's a humanitarian mission now, when the mindset of half the troops is that "muslims" are the enemy, or are less than we are in some way.

nt

First they are send to some shit hole where they are not wanted by the locals, and where they have to endure conditions that would break most people on this board. Then they return home, sometimes to broken families, but always carrying the baggage of the shit hole they just endured only to be abandoned by the same government that send them there.

and I'd add that improving veterans benefits may begin to address that, but some of the damage is of the sort that a doctor or a disability check can't just fix. I'm bringing that up out of a concern that some people might think it's all okay if we just improve veterans benefits, but that's not really the case.

I hope people will at a minimum watch the video I linked. It shows the effects of our troops on civilians there - even when our intentions are absolutely the best, and it shows the effects on our soldiers.

:dem: