The Peace Movement—From the Front Lines:
Iraq Veterans Against the War is a group of Iraq vets who… well, I guess the name pretty much says it all. It’s a national organization, they have a website with all kinds of information for active duty service men and women and veterans on everything from how to file for conscientious objector status to how to get medical treatment. They have speaking tours and events, and at one point they were getting so many requests for guest speakers that they couldn’t cover them all.
So here’s another group of Homo sapiens who are attempting to preserve the survival of their DNA by the most effective means perceivable to them. I don’t think it requires a whole lot of explanation. War is a pretty obvious threat to people’s survival, safety, reproduction, and communities, so they put their abilities to use in solving the problem, and that feels good to them.
And with that, here’s their story in their own words. You can find this on their website, along with a bunch of links to find out more about any of these topics.
First of all, 10 reasons they oppose the war:
1. The Iraq war is based on lies and deception.
The Bush Administration planned for an attack against Iraq before September 11th, 2001. They used the false pretense of an imminent nuclear, chemical and biological weapons threat to deceive Congress into rationalizing this unnecessary conflict. They hide our casualties of war by banning the filming of our fallen’s caskets when they arrive home, and when they refuse to allow the media into Walter Reed Hospital and other Veterans Administration facilities which are overflowing with maimed and traumatized veterans.
2. The Iraq war violates international law.
The United States assaulted and occupied Iraq without the consent of the UN Security Council. In doing so they violated the same body of laws they accused Iraq of breaching.
3. Corporate profiteering is driving the war in Iraq.
From privately contracted soldiers and linguists to no-bid reconstruction contracts and multinational oil negotiations, those who benefit the most in this conflict are those who suffer the least. The United States has chosen a path that directly contradicts President Eisenhower’s farewell warning regarding the military industrial complex. As long as those in power are not held accountable, they will continue…
4. Overwhelming civilian casualties are a daily occurrence in Iraq.
Despite attempts in training and technological sophistication, large-scale civilian death is both a direct and indirect result of United States aggression in Iraq. Even the most conservative estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths number over 100,000. Currently over 100 civilians die every day in Baghdad alone.
5. Soldiers have the right to refuse illegal war.
All in service to this country swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. However, they are prosecuted if they object to serve in a war they see as illegal under our Constitution. As such, our brothers and sisters are paying the price for political incompetence, forced to fight in a war instead of having been sufficiently trained to carry out the task of nation-building.
6. Service members are facing serious health consequences due to our Government’s negligence.
Many of our troops have already been deployed to Iraq for two, three, and even four tours of duty averaging eleven months each. Combat stress, exhaustion, and bearing witness to the horrors of war contribute to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a serious set of symptoms that can lead to depression, illness, violent behavior, and even suicide. Additionally, depleted uranium, Lariam, insufficient body armor and infectious diseases are just a few of the health risks which accompany an immorally planned and incompetently executed war. Finally, upon a soldier’s release, the Veterans Administration is far too under-funded to fully deal with the magnitude of veterans in need.
7. The war in Iraq is tearing our families apart.
The use of stop-loss on active duty troops and the unnecessarily lengthy and repeat active tours by Guard and Reserve troops place enough strain on our military families, even without being forced to sacrifice their loved ones for this ongoing political experiment in the Middle East
8. The Iraq war is robbing us of funding sorely needed here at home.
$5.8 billion per month is spent on a war which could have aided the victims of Hurricane Katrina, gone to impoverished schools, the construction of hospitals and health care systems, tax cut initiatives, and a host of domestic programs that have all been gutted in the wake of the war in Iraq.
9. The war dehumanizes Iraqis and denies them their right to self-determination.
Iraqis are subjected to humiliating and violent checkpoints, searches and home raids on a daily basis. The current Iraqi government is in place solely because of the U.S. military occupation. The Iraqi government doesn’t have the popular support of the Iraqi people, nor does it have power or authority. For many Iraqis the current government is seen as a puppet regime for the U.S. occupation. It is undemocratic and in violation of Iraq’s own right to self-governance.
10. Our military is being exhausted by repeated deployments, involuntary extensions, and activations of the Reserve and National Guard.
The majority of troops in Iraq right now are there for at least their second tour. Deployments to Iraq are becoming longer and many of our service members are facing involuntary extensions and recalls to active duty. Longstanding policies to limit the duration and frequency of deployments for our part-time National Guard troops are now being overturned to allow for repeated, back-to-back tours in Iraq. These repeated, extended combat tours are taking a huge toll on our troops, their families, and their communities.
And now, their reasons for calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq:
1. The reasons and rationale given for the invasion were fraudulent.
There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq during the time of the invasion according to US officials and former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix. The idea that Al Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorist attacks were connected to Saddam Hussein and the Baath party were proven false in the 9/11 Commission Report. Members of the Bush Administration have admitted that they “misspoke” in the run up to the war.
2. The presence of the US military is not preventing sectarian violence.
The US occupation of Iraq has proven to be unable to prevent sectarian violence and halt an escalation towards a civil war. Despite having an average of 140,000 troops in country since the occupation began, internal violence and attacks against civilians and Iraqi security forces have been on a steady incline.
3. The occupation is a primary motivation for the insurgency and global religious extremism.
The insurgency can be broken down into many individually named factions with various goals, beliefs, and techniques. However, our membership of veterans believe that the occupation of Iraq is the primary thing encouraging the insurgency and giving it legitimacy in the eyes of many Iraqis. Likewise, other people of the Islamic faith are encouraged to resist America ’s policies internationally based on how they perceive our military operations in the Middle East.
4. We can no longer afford to fight this war of choice.
The financial burden is destroying our domestic programs that could be used to protect us from natural disasters, provide medical programs, or help improve education. We are jeopardizing the US economy and putting strains on the budgets of important government agencies like the Veterans Affairs Department.
5. National security is compromised.
Funds that could be used to protect our ports and transportation are being stripped away while our National Guard units are on constant deployments instead of being used to protect and defend us here at home.
6. The world is becoming more dangerous.
International terrorist attacks have increased and it has become more dangerous for Americans to travel abroad. Approval for US policy has decreased and the dislike of Americans has increased.
7. Our national “moral authority” is being undermined.
The US has lost credibility to much of the world as the defender of liberty and freedom and our national identity is eroding. We can no longer deploy our armed forces for peace keeping measures with the good faith of the international community. We need to regain the respect and faith of the global community. This begins by withdrawing our troops from Iraq and helping the Iraqi people rebuild their country and society.
8. The majority of American citizens, Iraqi citizens and US military would like to see an immediate end to the war in Iraq.
If we are truly a democracy and we aim to create a democracy in Iraq our leaders will represent the will of the citizens and lead according to their wishes.
9. The military is broken.
We are abusing the small population of armed service members with multiple deployments while using inadequate vehicles and equipment. Less than one half of a percent of the American population is serving in the active armed forces, which is the least amount in the last century. Only 25% of the troops in Iraq are there for their first tour, while 50% are there on their second tour, and the remaining 25% are there three times or more. We continue to involuntarily extend soldiers with Stop-Loss, recall them repeatedly for additional service using the Individual Ready Reserve, and send soldiers with diagnosed medical problems into combat.
Sergeant Kevin Benderman served one tour of duty in Iraq and when he came home he filed for conscientious objector status and refused to return. He ended up doing 15 months in prison.
Now Sergeant Benderman has a book and a DVD out. Here’s the beginning of his story, as told by his wife. They’re Christians, obviously, but when it comes to things like “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, really what is there for anyone to argue about? I don’t know what they think about evolution or what I’m doing, but for whatever it’s worth, the Bendermans are such good Christians that they earned their place in a book called The Third Testament© not by believing in evolution, but by practicing Christianity in way that’s helping everyone—and consequently themselves—survive and reproduce.
(I think Ms. Benderman made a few typos here, but I left everything as she wrote it.)
One Soldier’s Fight to Legalize Morality
by Monica Benderman
Hinesville, Georgia, Thursday, July 7, 2005–On July 28, 2005, in a small non-descript courtroom on Ft. Stewart, Georgia, a Court Martial is scheduled to begin. Again. One Army NCO who decided that he had no choice but to make a conscious choice NOT to return to war is being put on trial for caring about humanity.
This soldier fulfilled his commitment, he kept his promise to his enlisted contract, and when ordered to deploy to Iraq at the start of the invasion, he went, not because he wanted to “kill Iraqis” or “destroy terrorist cells,” but because he wanted the soldiers he served with to come home safely.
He returned knowing that war is wrong, the most dehumanizing creation of humanity that exists. He saw war destroy civilians, innocent men, women and children. He saw war destroy homes, relationships and a country. He saw this not only in the country that was invaded, but he saw this happening to the invading country as well – and he knew that the only way to save those soldiers was for people to no longer participate in war. Sgt. Kevin Benderman is a Conscientious Objector to war, and the Army is mad.
Sgt. Kevin Benderman, after serving one tour of duty in Iraq, filed for Conscientious Objector status, his Constitutional right. His commander refused to accept his application and one called him a coward. One chaplain was ashamed of his lack of moral fortitude, another, of higher rank, testified to the true sincerity of Sgt. Benderman’s beliefs, in writing. A military intelligence officer decided that he knew matters of the soul better than a man of God, and recommended to deny the CO claim. Five commissioned officers who had never met Sgt. Benderman agreed with the “intelligent officer” and the claim was denied, twice.
More than two weeks after my husband was placed in the Rear Detachment unit here at Ft. Stewart, charges of Missing Movement and Desertion were filed against him, even though he has never missed a single day of duty in almost ten years. At the first Courts Martial proceedings, the investigative hearing was over turned. According to the judge’s decision, the presiding officer had shown implied bias toward Sgt. Benderman, and a new hearing was ordered. As the session adjourned, the same command that brought the first charges were marching up the aisle in the courtroom to file a new charge, Larceny, against Sgt. Benderman.
The command that brought the charge, had erroneously ordered combat pay to be paid to Sgt. Benderman, along with 7 other soldiers in their unit. Rather than accept their responsibility for the error, these leaders chose to punish Sgt. Benderman for the mistake, and have yet to discipline any of the remaining soldiers for the officers’ gaffe.
The new investigating officer strongly recommended dismissing this larceny charge, but the convening authority, Ft. Stewart’s garrison commander, pressed on and filed the charges anyway, along with desertion and missing movement. The Courts Martial is scheduled to begin on July 28. The games began in January.
At the conclusion of the first hearing, I returned to the courtroom briefly for some things I had forgotten. The lights were dimmed, and no one was there. This small dark room, vintage WW II, had a reverent calm. Desks and chairs sat waiting, slightly turned, empty jurist panel, attorney’s podium – the stage had been set. I look back on it now, and the feeling is strangely surreal.
Last week we learned that the United States Supreme Court allows itself to keep the Ten Commandments hanging on the walls of its chambers, as a testimony to another form of law. The guardian of the Constitution of our country, presiding over the human rights of our people, maintains that the Ten Commandments, religious context aside, represent a form of law that is powerful enough to occupy a place in its chambers.
In a small, quiet courtroom, on the Ft. Stewart military installation, the stage is set. One soldier who, after firsthand experience with the destructive force of war, decided to take the Ten Commandments at their word – “Thou Shall Not Kill” – and use the rights given to him to declare his conscious objection to war, to no longer be in a position to voluntarily have to kill another human being, is now on trial for not wanting to kill.
The Army has removed itself so completely from its moral responsibility, that its representatives are willing to openly demand, in a court of law, that they be allowed to regain “positive control over this soldier” by finding him guilty of crimes he did not commit, and put him in jail – a prisoner of conscience, for daring to obey a moral law.
It is “hard work” to face the truth, and it is scary when people who are not afraid to face it begin to speak out. Someone once said that my husband’s case is a question of morality over legality. I pray that this country has not gone so far over the edge that the two are so distinctly different that we can tell them apart.
A sixteen year old in New York, was charged with involuntary manslaughter yesterday for stabbing another teen in the chest twice, over a computer game. There is no question of why. He broke a law – a legal, MORAL law – “Thou Shall Not Kill.”
After seeing war firsthand, Sgt. Kevin Benderman chose to follow a legal, MORAL law – “Thou Shall Not Kill.” A form of law significant enough to be represented on the walls of our Supreme Court. The US Army cannot let him go. I have to ask – “WHY?”
Lieutenant Ehren Watada served in the army, and was the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment. He was trained for combat duty in Iraq, and in preparation for deployment he started studying the area, its people, their history, their culture, and the history of the war, in order to prepare himself and the men he would be leading as best he could for the mission they were going to be carrying out.
Over the course of researching all this, he discovered pretty much what everyone else I’ve talked about here has said: that the war was started on false accusations. That was a serious problem to him, because when he joined the military, he, like everyone else who joins the military, swore to uphold the Constitution. By starting an illegal war, President Bush was violating the Constitution. That meant that if Lt. Watadah carried out his orders, he too would be violating the Constitution.
Lt. Watadah tells most of his story on his website in audio and video files. But here’s the timeline of his story surrounding his attempt to refuse duty in Iraq:
Jan 2006 Lt. Watada submits a letter of resignation to his battalion commander. He is told he will be transferred out of the unit but then ordered to deploy with the unit on its 30-day Mission Readiness Exercise. Initially told to reconsider his decision, he is informed in April, 2006 of procedural mistakes in the resignation.
Lt. Watada is offered a “safe” position within the Battalion HQ, one recently vacated by a lieutenant allowed to leave the unit. Having never claimed CO – conscientious objector — status, he declines the offer. Lt. Watada is then ordered to move immediately to that position. He is denied a 2-week leave granted to all others within his unit and informed that he will face legal proceedings if he does not change his decision by the time the unit returns from leave.
May 2006 A second letter is submitted, and the resignation is denied due to the unit’s “stop-loss” designation, which requires all members to remain on active duty for the full duration of the unit’s deployment. Lt. Watada offers to deploy to Afghanistan; the request is denied.
Jun 7, 2006 At a press conference held in a church near Ft. Lewis, Watada announces he will not comply with deployment orders to Iraq.
Jun 22, 2006 Lt. Watada fails to board the plane for Iraq with the Third Stryker Brigade of the U.S. Army’s 2nd Infantry Division. He is confined temporarily to base quarters, officially counseled, and notified of a pending investigation.
Lt. Watada faced 6 years in prison—2 for failing to deploy and 4 for speaking out against the war while serving in the military. But his trial was a tricky business for a lot of people, because by going to trial for refusing to deploy in order to uphold his sworn duty to defend the U.S. Constitution, he was putting the war itself on trial. There were only two ways the trial could be ruled: either the war was constitutional and he was breaking his orders, or he was upholding his sworn duty to defend the Constitution and the war was illegal. And he had all the evidence he needed to prove that he was right.
So it came as no surprise when the army prosecutors made their own procedural errors and a mistrial was declared. Lt. Watada was let off of his charges and discharged from the military.
Pat Tillman played football for Arizona State University, so his story has been big news where I live. After he graduated, he went to play in the NFL for the Arizona Cardinals. But he left his football career to volunteer for the army in 2002, along with his brother Kevin, who gave up his chances at a career in professional baseball.
They served together in the rangers in the Iraq invasion. Later Pat was redeployed to Afghanistan.
Like everyone else whose story I’m relaying here, Pat was critical of the Iraq war and the Bush administration. He’d made plans with Dr. Noam Chomsky to meet after he got back from Afghanistan. If you’ve never heard of him, Dr. Chomsky is an author who’s critical of just about everything. So for anyone who has heard of Noam Chomsky, it’s pretty obvious where that was headed…
But then on April 22, 2004, while out on patrol, Pat’s unit got in a firefight. Pat got killed by friendly fire.
This is where his story started getting really controversial. As it turns out, the whole battle was friendly fire, because Pat’s unit had engaged an allied unit. Evidently, a roadside bomb… or some kind of bomb… went off between them and they each though they were under attack by the other. So the story goes, anyway.
Then Pat was shot by someone from his own unit. Three times in the head.
Then his comrades burned his uniform and body armor to try to keep anyone from finding out he’d been killed by an American.
Then the military officials involved all started covering everything up. Within days his commanding officers knew he’d been killed by friendly fire. But his citation for the Silver Star, Purple Heart, and posthumous promotion to Corporal reported that he’d been killed in a battle everyone knew never took place, and the report was approved by his commanding officers. His death by friendly fire wasn’t revealed to his family until weeks after his memorial service.
So at best Corporal Tillman was a celebrity serving in the military, who was critical of the military and had big plans to become a lot more critical as soon as he got out, who was killed by someone on his own side, in a battle that was started by accident, and whose death was immediately covered up. The other possibility, which no one can prove, but that depends on a lot less coincidences and mistakes all happening at the same time, was that it was murder.
And with that, here’s what his brother Kevin had to say about it when he got out of the military:
After Pat’s Birthday
By Kevin Tillman
It is Pat’s birthday on Nov. 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How, once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice … until we got out.
Much has happened since we handed over our voice:
Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.
Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.
Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a 5-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping bumper stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a 5-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.
Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.
Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.
Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.
Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.
Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.
Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.
Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution is tolerated.
Somehow suspension of habeas corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.
Somehow torture is tolerated.
Somehow lying is tolerated.
Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma and nonsense.
Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.
Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared and distrusted countries in the world.
Somehow being politically informed, diligent and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.
Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.
Somehow this is tolerated.
Somehow nobody is accountable for this.
In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity.
Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.
Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.
I know I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating. A war of ideas can’t be won by bullets; it can only be won by weaponized education. I’ve said that the military of the Kingdom of Earth is completely invisible. But I’ve also said that no one has ever won a war without infantry, and that revolutions are illegal, which is why the success of the revolution depends on people like the Animal Liberation Front who dump tea in Boston Harbor—oops, I mean liberate animals—without killing or injuring anyone, who are not only willing to break the laws of mortal men, but to be branded as terrorists, to turn ideas into actions, in order to make the ideas personally meaningful to the enemy.
But something else that’s critical to the success of the revolution are people who know first hand why we’re fighting a war of ideas with ideas, because they’ve seen first hand what happens when you fight wars with bullets. These people understand better than anyone else why fighting with anything other than ideas doesn’t work. And in their own ways, they all took risks and made sacrifices to defend what they stood for. All of these veterans swore to defend Americans from those who threaten us. But the people who are threatening us didn’t turn out to be who we thought they were going to be.
After September 11th, I considered joining the military too. I figured I was too old, but maybe if I volunteered for something really complicated—namely helicopter pilot—and did well enough on the entrance exams, they’d take me anyway. But considering the way I get along with authority, I figured I’d be a Second Lieutenant for the rest of my life. And most importantly, ever since Vietnam politicians have been calling the shots and winning elections, and I really didn’t want to spend eight years being President Bush’s pawn. So I tried volunteering to fight the terrorists as a civilian, since that was who the terrorists were attacking anyway. And you know how well that worked out for me.
But there is one thing I can still do. These people whose stories I’ve relayed here all volunteered to defend my right to free speech, so the least I can do is to use my right to free speech to help them tell their own stories. Ideas can’t be communicated without speech, and a war of ideas can’t be waged without free speech—at least, not by civilians it can’t. So all these people who have done all they can to defend everyone’s free speech are the people who make it possible for anyone to win a war of ideas.
You can’t win a war without infantry, but you can’t win a war without officers either. The military of the Kingdom of Earth is completely invisible, so how officers are appointed is anyone’s guess. But for my own part, I refer to any military vets who are participating in the war of ideas by using ideas against our current government by their military ranks, whether anyone is officially supposed to do that or not. The way I see it, if you had to leave a military run by mortal men to defend higher laws that those mortal men weren’t defending, all that proves is that you’re part of a more important army than anything your mortal commanders could think of. What the world really needs is an Army of Peace. And that’s exactly what the army of the Kingdom of Earth is.
I think this would be a good time to remind everyone that the Kingdom of Earth isn’t anything of my creation, it’s a thing that people all over the world have been trying to create in various ways, without realizing that other people were also trying to create it in other ways, or how all their efforts fit together. I call it Globalization 4.0, or a global revolution, or a war of ideas, or world conquest, or whatever fits best with whatever I’ve been talking about, but really all it is a bunch of people who are each doing what they can to try to create a world where people don’t have to fight each other anymore.