“We blew her to pieces…”
“I remember one woman walking by,” said Jason Washburn, a corporal in the US Marines who served three tours in Iraq. “She was carrying a huge bag, and she looked like she was heading toward us, so we lit her up with the Mark 19, which is an automatic grenade launcher, and when the dust settled, we realized that the bag was full of groceries. She had been trying to bring us food and we blew her to pieces.” …
cjwardle:
Will the perpetrator/s by held to account for this war crime - or does it just get “blown away” as another case of collateral damage?
22 September 2008, 6:54 amRadical_Camera:
Everything I’ve read that is anti-war about Afghanistan and Iraq cites violent atrocities or acts of humiliation and dehumanization of the populace. Obviously these are all major and extremely important things that are going on that the public needs to know about, however I think there’s a big piece of the puzzle missing.
From my experience in Afghanistan, a lot of soldiers never leave the wire, barely interact with the native population at all except for the Afghans working with the cleaning crews and in the Bazaar, or when they do leave the wire on short convoys, there are no ambushes, fire-fights, run-over children or mistakenly shot at grandmothers. What this amounts to are soldiers who have little concept of war crimes going on (or war as crime) who end up having a largely positive view of what’s happening there, especially when Afghan interpreters tend to be very pro-American and Humanitarian Aid missions are filled with large groups of adoring children thanking soldiers for food, water, soccer balls and candy.
Being against the wars myself, it can be very challenging to see the bigger picture of imperial occupation when the non-combat ground truth seems to suggest that things aren’t so bad. All the time I have Afghans telling me the Americans need to be there and they want us there. (Whether they truly believe that or it’s just lip service doesn’t make much difference in my opinion, the point is that it’s an impression that’s being projected.) I was expecting to see war crime after war crime being committed in very clear cut terms here, but instead I’m surrounded by subtleties that are not obviously the symptoms of brutal imperialism such, as in the case of random killing of civilians. I find myself having to think through what is criminal about the occupation because on a surface level things might be badly run, but not radically unethical; perhaps slightly or moderately unethical. And slightly or moderately unethical is not enough for a soldier to resist the gargantuan war machine at the sacrifice of themselves or the financial security of their families, nor is it enough to overcome “self-defense” as a line of reasoning for violent or threatening actions.
It’s a deeply confusing experience for dissenting soldiers who know the war is wrong and yet have not experienced anything to the degree of ‘We blew her to pieces.’
I think along with the perspective of soldiers who witness or take-part in war-crimes where people are killed or dehumanized, there has to be talk about the criminal nature of day-to-day operations where armed conflict or obvious violence doesn’t arise, where Afghans may not even be direct participants. Killing and dehumanizing people is just not a typical experience for many soldiers. Even if it were something some soldier had an interest in doing, many just don’t have access to Afghan civilians that way, particularly at the larger bases. And some soldiers who do get into fire-fights engage combatants in terms where the morality of the armed response isn’t so ambiguous, such as in the case of Afghans (Taliban or whoever) ambushing coalition convoys. If a soldier experiences a few ambushes, fights back, lives through them, gets medals, and no children or innocent civilians were killed as far as he or she knows, it’s not going to be an experience with great potential to foster dissent or reveal the occupation to be the colossal crime that it is.
If we’re interested in pushing more veterans into being against the war, we have to see planting the seeds of dissent in more fields than in exposing overt racism and the murder of innocent civilians alone. I don’t mean to imply that it’s obvious where these fields are, how to go about finding them, or how to plant the seeds of dissent when they are found, as the whole thing is a knot I’m currently trying to unravel, but a Maintenance Control Officer who works in a maintenance shop all day just isn’t going to have much reason to suddenly turn against the war unless she or he starts to see what is criminal about the non-violent (or at least the less-violent/non-kinetic) aspects of the war.
There needs to be a perspective that speaks to the soldiers who oppose the war but who otherwise have not had any really terrible or violent experiences in theater. Not having a horror story can make a soldier question their own credibility in criticizing the war, especially for men who take a gender risk in speaking out against war when they themselves didn’t experience any close-range death or mutilation.
22 September 2008, 9:51 amTimothy R. Anderson:
To Remember One of Many.
On October 3, 2005 an Iraqi Sunni woman named Nafia Aziz was killed on a street in Mosul, Iraq. The Los Angeles Times newspaper and one of its reporters, Louise Roug, put together a news article about Nafia Aziz’s LIFE and the manner of her death. It was published on October 19, 2005 :
” The State Department cable from Iraq betrayed a hint of emotion
rare in diplomatic communiques. ”
” ‘ An extraordinary woman ‘ said the message to Washington DC .
‘ Bold and daring, she was unstoppable. Until today. ‘ ”
” That morning ( October 3, 2005 ), gunmen ambushed Nafia Aziz
, an Iraqi human rights activist, and her 24-year-old son,
Ahmed, on a street in Mosul , Iraq. ”
“Mother and son died together in the car. ”
” To many, the 49 year-old Iraqi woman ( Nafia Aziz ) symbolized
hope for progress in this northern Iraqi city. ”
” Self-assured in the company of generals and comfortable around
prisoners, she worked to improve conditions for those being held
by Iraqi police and the U.S. military. ”
” Days before her death, Nafia Aziz met with U.S. military servicemember Staff Sgt. Krista Englert of the 401st Civil Affairs
Battalion and three other female soldiers to talk about future
projects. Aziz was planning to build a women’s center
in Mosul and had been sponsored by the USA ’s State Department
to visit Washington DC. ”
” ‘ Working with her was like going Mach 3, ” Englert said.
” ‘ If Nafia didn’t like how a prison was being run, her first
reaction wouldn’t be to come to me for help, but to ask the-guy-in-charge ‘ Hey, Why Are You Doing That ? ‘ ”
” ‘ She is my Iraqi mom ‘ Englert said, slipping into present tense
” ‘She is my Iraqi mom ‘ Englert said, slipping into present
tense ” Sometimes she was the only good thing I thought about
this place. ”
In one of the pictures on Englert’s computer, Nafia Aziz sits
smiling at the head of a conference table, wearing a stylish head-
scarf with bold white dots. ”
” She reminded me of Jackie O. ” said Englert, 31 years old, a nurse and former firefighter.
” When Englert’s commander told her that Aziz had been killed
” I lost all military bearing . The slaying ” left me with a horrible,
sick feeling about this place ” Englert said.
So, whenever a politician, Democrat or Republican, Senator or
Governor, President or member of the House of Representatives,
tells you that the ” surge” in Iraq is successful, please don’t believe it………………. for more than thirty thousand
Iraqis have DIED since the “surge ” began. Those that haven’t
died are likely suffering. Even if ” 60 Minutes ” portrayal
of Iraq on their September 28, 2008 broadcast tried its best
to make Iraq look ” fixed. ”
My my my my ….
Timothy R. Anderson
Oh and in case they fail to mention it, politicians should be
30 September 2008, 2:20 pmtold that more than 600 U.S. military servicemembers have died in Iraq since the Surge started. More than 2, 800 U.S. military servicemembers have been wounded in Iraq since the Surge started.
And more than 110 billion dollars have been spent in Iraq since
the Surge started.
Michael Anderson:
Recently, a friend of mine who is a recording and sound specialist went to Iraq, to film European humanitarian medical work for an Italian TV network. Some caveats here—He is an ardent supporter of the “free” (sic) market, and easy credit, and wants the bailout to pass so that we can keep on going like we have been (good grief, how many contradictions are in those two sentences?!). He is also a former helicopter pilot in the German Luftwaffe…but amiable nonetheless.
But—he was emphatic about the U.S. media of both liberal and conservative stripes distorting the picture about Army atrocities against Iraqi civilians there for us folks here at home, and stated emphatically that the sectarian violence is responsible for the large majority of killings there, and that U.S. troops are doing many good things for the Iraqi people, like building schools and hospitals, and that it’s really hard to make judgments about the situation unless you go there. He was there this summer, arguably after the main thrust of the “surge”, in Baghdad and Nasirya, which are evidently (according to him) somewhat calm nowadays—he compared the differences between violence-prove cities and ones that are calm to “staying out of a bad neighborhood” in a large city. I’ve never been to Iraq, or in the military—but I keep seeing those Winter Soldier videos in my head.
That being said—Radical_Camera’s post, along with talking to my friend, got me thinking about the process of this war (and other wars), and wondering if and how a few decisions made at the top, by time they filter down through various hierarchies and situations over time take on other meanings for different people. I also know about the principle of “shock and awe”, perhaps summarized best in Naomi Klein’s book “The Shock Treatment”. I guess, in this, I have a question for Stan, hopefully drawing on your experiences in the military: was this war “under-capitalized”, perhaps with the aim of drawing it out to the point where the meanings of what soldiers (and civilian contractors) are doing to make it (seem) more benign? Did we go in and screw it up and smash it to pieces (given it was already foundering) knowing that this would keep us there interminably—to get the oil, of course—and that sooner or later other processes would begin, and help to mask the original atrocity with the fog of memory? Stan, you evidently were an instructor at West Point for a time—- Is this a piece of strategy or method that is taught?
For the record, I fought the draft in ’72 and got out with a 4-F, with help from Senator Mark Hatfield and a pile of x-rays. My number, in the first lottery in ’68, was 24. I did not want to go where you were.
1 October 2008, 11:18 pmStan:
I don’t think the war’s architects were nearly that clever. At West Point, they train Second Lieutenants, not Generals. It’s a fraternity of insiders, not a War College. By the time officers become Generals, they are thoroughgoing bureacrats who have climbed through the cannibalistic Officer Personnel Managment System by channeling their bosses (ass-kissing). Those who might be creative strategists have been culled. The military is left with silly, posturing man-boys (it remains a Boys Club) — graying adolescents who constitute the lumpen-intelligentisa of the US ruling class.
The main purposes (emphasize the plural) were post-Cold War rediposition (bases), control over the oil patch for leverage against European and Asian competitors, and “demonstration effect” (showing the world what would happen if they stepped out of line). The latter failed terribly, not because of under-capitalization, but because the war was unwinnable at the outset without a wholesale slaughter of hundreds of thousands in the earlest days… for a bunch of reasons. Hubris combined with Orientalism and plain garden-variety ignorance. Turkey balked on the Northern front. The Iraqis employed new and more flexible strategies. And shock and awe did neither. Demonstration effect cancelled. Bases… that’s not been determined yet. I believe this, too, will fail. Oil? That’s the big sticking point no one talks about that divides the “government” of Iraq. Antonia Juhasz has written quite a bit on this.
2 October 2008, 5:15 amMichael Anderson:
Thank you, Stan…perhaps a minor point in the big scheme, but it takes a lot of bricks to make a wall. My friend also made a comment about Iraqis making lots of money from the oil—-I don’t believe him, and think anyone who does is sadly misinformed, and wonder what his source was. I believe those Iraqis who WILL make money off the oil are those in the collaboration government (if the Empire lasts that long), and, as you said, they will have to “channel” their bosses (sic).
2 October 2008, 12:51 pmTimothy R. Anderson:
And to follow on with some more of the reasons why 2009 ain’t exactly looking like a “rosy, sweet-scented scenario” for Iraq:
a. Kirkuk is a city that the Kurds and the “government” in Baghdad both claim. So that’ll be a sore spot for several more months.
b. al-Sistani, spiritual leader for the Shiites, is not a young man
and when he passes away there’ll be a clawing, fierce battle for his ” place ” in the power-structure.’
c. Whether or not the mainstream media of the United States Of America can be bothered with it or not , money from Saudi Arabia
continues to fund the ongoing, deadly civil war and terrorist
attacks in Iraq. Which , ” successful surge” or not, have
killed more than 2, 975 Iraqis since January 1, 2008 and injured thousands more.
d. Turkey keeps making the USA ’s military look fairly inept.
Which of course doesn’t get noted by the main contenders for the USA’s top jobs, vice President and President, because that would be
like saying the USA cannot keep Turkey out of Iraq. Well, the USA cannot be bothered, at this point anyway, to even try to keep Turkey out of Iraq.
e. Making it clear to all terrorists, world-wide, that the USA’s military is on Iraq’s soil and is not going anywhere might not
be the best idea !
f. I recommend the journalism of Dahr Jamail.
Thanks for the space, Mr. Goff.
Timothy R. Anderson
2 October 2008, 1:54 pmRadical_Camera:
Stan is right that the architects of war are not nearly that clever as to design some sort of long-term atrocity masking strategy of the sort Michael speaks of. Even if they were, I doubt how well it would work.
The sort of thing I was speaking to has more to do with just the vast size and structure of the military in general. Even in a combat zone, or even in a conflict as bloody as WWII, only a small percentage of military personnel (relative to the size of the entire force) actually participate in direct violence. The experience of that small minority is vastly different than the rest, and comparatively, as in my situation, the experience of soldiers who have close contact with Afghans (or whatever native population) every day, is a very different experience from the soldiers who are basically surrounded by Americans at all times.
Essentially, war is a situation where many perspectives can be produced, and there is no one unifying narrative. Even between two soldiers experiencing the same IED, they might draw very different conclusions from it. A soldier with a dissenting viewpoint against the war might experience the occupation very differently than someone who supports it, even though they’re seeing the same thing. Or to speak of it in a different light, a black woman, a black man, a white woman, and a white man might all have very different views of the same firefight. Being something of a socialist, I see my time here in Afghanistan very differently than most of the soldiers I work with. Being a feminist colors my perspective in an equally powerful way.
One example of differing viewpoints: A Captain I work with once said something to the effect that the quality of the training that the Afghan military receives from the Americans is inferior and inadequate. From that statement, I was expecting him to see that as a sign that the occupation was failing, and that our being here is doing no good for the country (my perspective). Instead, he saw it as a reason to upscale the occupation, going on to say, “all these people say we need to pull out, but I’m telling you, if we left tomorrow this army would get run over by the Taliban in a week.” Two very different conclusions from the same observation.
It reminds me of something Noam Chomsky once said, “It’s not what you read that matters, but how you read it.” I guess one might derive a similar conclusion about war. It’s not what you see in war that matters, but how you see it.
10 October 2008, 9:09 amJonathan:
Thought I’d share a link to a documentary I caught on PBS - Soldiers of Conscience. You can watch it streaming online for the next week. A powerful film, I was actually quite surprised to see it on PBS, as it quite graphically brings the realities of war home, something I’ve only seen on independent media. (especially to hear the voices of veterans that oppose war, something that is almost never talked about)
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2008/soldiersofconscience/fullfilm.html
There is much that it leaves out, I was interested to see what others thought.
17 October 2008, 9:02 pm