Gender in the Ranks
    By Maya Schenwar
    t r u t h o u t | Report

    Wednesday 09 April 2008

    Unlike many of the other panels at Winter Soldier, the one devoted to gender and sexuality in the military featured no gory videos. The testimonies included many secondhand accounts, especially when the subject came around to rape and sexual assault. And though it was the only panel in which none of the speakers divulged personal acts of violence, it was one that, at times, betrayed a raw sense of shame. At one point, a panelist broke from her testimony, biting back tears, and muttered, "I hate to be the girl." Another panelist, Jeff Key, later noted the significance of this: Even within the supportive walls of the peace movement, "this idea that men are beings devoid of feeling and compassion, and that women are weak and just a ball of emotion," pervades.

    Tellingly, the gender and sexuality event was also the only panel that took a little struggle to get on the schedule. Panelists mentioned that, when the idea for a gender panel was first suggested, some veterans dismissed it, calling the topic irrelevant.

    However, as National Guard veteran Margaret Stevens noted, gender issues pervade every topic discussed at Winter Soldier.

    Read the full article.

    Profile of a Conscientious Objector
    By Matt Renner
    t r u t h o u t | Report

"Can I kill someone and yet love them as Christ told me to love them?"
-Conscientious objector and former Army Sgt. Logan Laituri

    While attending Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, I had the opportunity to interview Logan Laituri, a former sergeant in the United States Army, about his time in Iraq and the religious awakening that led to the end of his military service.

    Laituri joined the military in 2000 to earn money for college. He served for two years as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division, after which he reenlisted with the 25th Infantry Division. He deployed to Iraq in January 2004 and spent 14 months in the war zone.

    His experiences in Iraq made him question the legitimacy of the invasion and subsequent occupation. He struggled to reconcile his religious beliefs with the bloody reality of Iraq.

    Read the full article.

    The "Rules" of War
    By Maya Schenwar
    t r u t h o u t | Report

    Wednesday 26 March 2008

"All personnel must ensure that, prior to any engagement, non-combatants and civilian structures are distinguished from proper military targets." - Consolidated Rules of Engagement for Iraq (2005)

    When it comes to modern-day war, the very term "rules of engagement" (ROE) can be a contradiction in terms. In theory, these military guidelines require soldiers to steer clear of civilians and civilian property, use only the minimum amount of force necessary to subdue a target and request approval from the Pentagon for missions that will yield high "collateral damage." Specific rules change based on unit, circumstances, risks and threats.

    Yet when a soldier's life is at stake, he or she is less likely to follow instructions printed on a card than to follow the instincts of survival and self-protection. When it comes to the war in Iraq, says former Wisconsin National Guard transportation specialist Daniel Fanning, the concept of strict adherence to the ROE is practically obsolete.

    "We covered the rules of engagement in basic training, but not to the extent we should have," Fanning told Truthout after speaking on a panel at the Winter Soldier 2008 conference, held March 13-16 in Silver Spring, Maryland. "Once we were over there, they literally became a joke."

    Read the full article.

    Five Years Into War, Soldiers Speak
    By Maya Schenwar
    t r u t h o u t | Report

    Wednesday 19 March 2008

    Washington - Today marks the fifth anniversary of the day President Bush announced from the Oval Office the "opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign" to invade Iraq. On that day, he invested the military with a great and grave responsibility.

    "To all the men and women of the United States Armed Forces now in the Middle East, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you," Bush said. "That trust is well placed."

    Five years later, more than 200 of those men and women joined last week in Silver Spring, Maryland, to reject that trust, to speak out against that mission and to invest their government with the responsibility to end it. During the Winter Soldier testimonies, they told their own stories of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the realities of life on the ground, not of the Oval Office. They told of the killing of civilians, the destruction of houses and farms, the mishandling of war dead, the use of illegal weapons, the dehumanization of the "enemy" and the pain that war has etched onto their own lives.

    Read the full article.

    Winter Soldiers to Testify Against War
    By Maya Schenwar
    t r u t h o u t | Report

    Saturday 01 March 2008

    Thirty-seven years ago, in the midst of a bitter-cold Michigan winter, 109 Vietnam veterans gathered at a Howard Johnson Motel auditorium in Detroit to tell their stories. For three days, they told of ransacking undefended villages, attacking civilians, mutilating bodies, torturing Viet Cong suspects, burning houses, destroying Vietnamese property and livestock and killing innocent children. At the conference, entitled Winter Soldier, the veterans accepted responsibility and mourned for their actions. But, taken collectively, their words incriminated a much larger culprit: the war itself.

    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.

    Read the full article.