Veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan to Testify About Torture, Abuse

Posted by GottaLaff , Cliff Schecter's Blog at 8:59 AM on March 3, 2008.

It's about time they were heard and respected for it:

This year, from March 13 to 16, about 300 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will follow in the footsteps of their predecessors, gathering for a second Winter Soldier conference, in Silver Spring, Maryland. Organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) it will make up the largest gathering ever of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Their mission? To tell the story of the war in the terms of those who have actually lived it.

"This is a moment when veterans won't let anyone else speak for us," said Aaron Hughes, an Iraq veteran who initiated the new Winter Soldier effort. "We hear from the pundits, we hear from the politicians, we hear from the generals, but we don't hear from the soldiers who've walked the streets, who've been there and know what it's about. We're the ones who can bring out the cruelties and dehumanization in US foreign policy."

How much column space will the corporate media give to this? You can stop laughing now.

Panels and testimony will be grouped into 12 categories, including killing and wounding noncombatants, mishandling of dead, torture and abuse, sexual assault, discrimination in the military, destruction of civilian property, veterans' benefits issues and GI resistance.

Some testimonies will address acts of large-scale violence and human rights violations, while others will zero in on incidents that are often overlooked, such as racism toward Iraqis, sexual harassment of civilians and the military's waste and destruction of environmental resources.

O'Brien hopes that, through the medium of veterans' firsthand accounts, the public will gain new insight into the concrete abuses perpetuated by what may seem to be abstract foreign policy decisions.

Can't get much blunter than that, now, can ya?

"When we say, 'this is what we saw, this is what we were ordered to do,' patterns emerge. The patterns show that what the US is doing in Iraq is immoral and in many cases illegal."

More on the flip:

With a wider reach comes the possibility of backlash. The first Winter Soldier met with a groundswell of criticism, including accusations that the testimonies were untrue or deceitful. This time around, though, IVAW will leave little room for critics to attempt to invalidate their stories. A 20-member verification team, made up mostly of combat soldiers, is collecting and vetting all the testimony before it is presented. "Among the far right-wing fringe we'll be accused of being 'phony soldiers,' and there will probably be accusations of false testimony," O'Brien said. "But we're confident that the case we'll be making is very credible."

Jose Vasquez, an Army reservist who refused to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been working for months on the verification team. The meticulous process starts with interviews, basic background checks and questionnaires, then moves on to incident reports and photos. Vasquez speaks with other soldiers in each would-be testifier's unit, looking for corroboration. The team is also working with the National Lawyers Guild to put together Freedom of Information Act requests about operations in Iraq, and with Iraqi translators on the ground who can sometimes find civilians to corroborate accounts of particular events.

Vasquez holds that only testimonies that hold up to the most meticulous scrutiny will be presented.

Tagged as: torture, us military, afghanistan, iraq

GottaLaff is a regular blogger for Cliff Schecter's Blog