Yet Another Reason to Leave Iraq
You know how in Lost, the character Sayid Jarrah went from an Iraqi communications officer to an outright torturer?
Well:
I really don't blame the soldiers; they were acting out based on a lie. They were trying to find an outlet for the conflicting emotions they have about this occupation. Sure, there are probably a small number of sadists, but I don't believe those people constitute the majority of the US military, let alone the country.
But it's just another reason these guys need to get out.
Well:
CAMBRIDGE - Liz Jackson's eyes were fixed on a screen showing a live broadcast of anguished testimonies by Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans describing what they had seen and done during their combat tours.
Jeffery Smith recalled how his Army unit beat and humiliated Iraqi prisoners. Former Marine Bryan Casler recounted how fellow Marines urinated and defecated into food and gave it to Iraqi children. Former Marine Matthew Childers talked about how he used to humiliate Iraqi civilians during predawn raids on their homes. When he described turning away an Iraqi father who was asking American troops to help the badly burned baby he carried in his arms, Jackson began to weep silently.
"These soldiers are saying: 'I'm complicit,' " said Jackson, 29, a community organizer from Cambridge. "But every American citizen who saw this happen and isn't out there protesting is complicit. I include myself."
Hundreds of soldiers and Marines from across the country are testifying this weekend in the "Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan" hearings, a four-day event held at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md. The event is named after the 1971 Winter Soldier hearings in which Vietnam War veterans testified in a Detroit hotel about war crimes they had participated in or witnessed.
The hearings, which began Thursday and end today, were organized by the Iraq Veterans Against War, a national antiwar organization, and broadcast live in locations across the country. The veterans who testified called for an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
I really don't blame the soldiers; they were acting out based on a lie. They were trying to find an outlet for the conflicting emotions they have about this occupation. Sure, there are probably a small number of sadists, but I don't believe those people constitute the majority of the US military, let alone the country.
But it's just another reason these guys need to get out.
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