Uncensored Testimony

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"Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light,"
George Washington

Marking the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a three day Press conference was held in Missouri by the group IVAW - Iraq Veterans Against the War, aka "Winter Soldier", bringing together veterans, service members and civilians to share their eyewitness accounts of the occupations in Iraq. Many spoke out about the indiscriminate violence ordered by their commanders, about the cover-up by American military of widespread civilian killings in Iraq, and about other hair-raising ordeals.


The IVAW is calling for
(1) the immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces from Iraq
(2) Veterans benefits and healthcare
(3) reparations for the Iraqi people


(Note: This event was not reported by any of the U.S. mainstream media...)

Luis Montalván, a 34-year-old former captain with a chest full of medals and two Iraq tours under his belt, said he joined the anti-war movement to denounce the statements put forward by high-ranking officials and to disclose the rampant corruption.

Captain Luis Montalván who is now tied to a cocktail of medications for ailments ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder to chronic pain resulting from an attack, slammed the Bush administration for "perpetrating high crimes and misdemeanors, committing dereliction of duty, lies and mismanagement" in Iraq.

As the medals on his chest caught a glint of spring sunlight,
he called on Americans to "vote the right way"
in the November presidential election:

"Vote for the candidate
who is most likely
to extricate us from Iraq," Montalván said.
(via Middle East online)

[See also: "No, thank you!"]


[Related link: How to pick and choose]



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Roundup Remembered

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In 1942,

Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), prominent American photographer and photojournalist, was hired by the War Relocation Authority of the U.S. government to document the evacuation and relocation of Pacific coast Japanese Americans.



Executive Order 9066, authorized by President Franklin Roosevelt, sent 120,000 civilians of Japanese ancestry to various detention and concentration camps with armed guards and barbed wire.





This was an immediate and drastic response to the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Strong sentiments of prejudice and dehumanization of "Japs" in the general population were fueled by anti-Japanese propaganda during World War II.
These hateful sentiments were extended indiscriminately toward the enemy forces along the South Pacific battle lines as well as, unjustifiably, toward the peaceful and loyal citizenry of Japanese Americans at home in the U.S.

When justice fails

Up and down the West Coast, Japanese Americans, from doctors to shopkeepers, to farmers right down to school children and babies were summoned. The majority did not even speak Japanese, only English. All pledged their loyalty to the United States, their homeland, but to no avail:


Entire communities of Japanese American families were rounded up and herded into horse stalls at the Tanforan Assembly Center in Northern California. There they were inventoried and tagged and held for up to six months at what had been a racetrack before being transported to more permanent camps in the deserts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico and other remote locations, such as North Dakota and Arkansas. One of the first things the prisoners did was form baseball leagues to pass the time while in captivity.

Dorothea Lange's photographs vividly denounce this cruel, hysterical and racist policy. Her lens captured the quiet dignity of the forgotten men, women and children even as their lives were tossed into turmoil and deprivation.
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Over 90% of Dorothea Lange's documentary photos were suppressed and never published until much later.





Although she did not live to know it, 23 years after her death her photographs would help remind a nation of its tragic wrongdoings and might have contributed, in some small measure, to the passing of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, a United States federal law that granted reparations to Japanese-Americans who had been interned by the United States government during World War II.


Beginning in 1990, the government paid reparations to surviving internees.



[Read an interview with Dorothea Lange]


[See also: Discrimination]


[Related Abu Ghraib]

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Mark Twain elucidates again

Mark Twain on the subject of War
(edited and abbreviated)

There has never been a just one, never an honorable one on the part of the instigators of war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change. The handful in power, as usual, will shout for the war. The pulpit will warily and cautiously object at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder.

A few fair men will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.

And now the whole nation, pulpit and all, will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open.

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is being attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

Mark Twain (1835-1910), was a popular American writer, humorist and satirist, with a keen wit. Twain is perhaps most noted for his novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (published in 1884), which deals with overcoming the entrenched racism of the time.


[See also: A poem by Walt Whitman, and Siegfried Sassoon's Aftermath]


[Related: a Theodore Roosevelt quote]

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Have you forgotten yet

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (1886-1967) was a British poet, diarist and author, known for his anti-war verse which resulted from his own experiences while in military service during World War I.

Horrified by the brutal realities of war, Sassoon's writing took a drastic turn away from the romantic sweetness of his early verse. This new stark and unembellished war poetry was intended to disclose the ugly truths of the trenches to an audience that had been seduced by patriotic propaganda.

Graphic descriptions of mangled limbs, rotting corpses, horror, depravity and despair are the trademarks of Sassoon's poems about WWI. These word-paintings are rendered in a rich and compelling language and with the utmost candor.


In 'Aftermath' the poet admonishes us, not to be lulled into complacency, to always remember "the slain of the War" and to "stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'"

Sadly, since Sassoon's time in WWI many more wars have been unleashed on mankind right up to the current U.S. war with Iraq.

Yes, Siegfried, it did all happen again, is all happening again and will continue to happen again...


[Related: Looking back on World War II ]

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Looking back on 1945 - Memoirs of a US Soldier

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...The City Square (in Leipzig) looks a little like the square I was in with the 69th. We were at the near end and a Kraut ran across the far end. We all shot at him, but I don't know whether he got out. It was almost dark.

Some time after that, Dan Carey and I captured one. I just recall Carey talking with the guy in his high school German. The Kraut seemed to be a decent guy so we treated him well.

I have a picture of a few guys from our squad sitting on a curb waiting for orders to move out. Carey was the one who liberated a camera and took the photos I have. He had a German print copies for some of us.
He's also the guy who shot his rifle right next to my ear and left me with the ringing I still have after all these years.

Carey really was some piece of cake as was a guy he used to pal around. (I think the guys name was Rowe.) Once they went kind of crazy and went into a German home and ripped it apart for no reason whatsoever. The only German Rowe knew was, "Guten tag. Fraulein. Haben sie Kinda?" (For John: Ich weiss. "Kinda" hat Recht nicht. When he saw a Fraulein, he would ask her that stupid question, looking straight at the woman and rubbing his hands together. (That wasn't in Leipzig.) ...

One other thing I remember in Leipzig was being in a large cellar
with booze all over the place. Don't remember how or why I was in there.

[Military humor: How to prepare for Deployment]

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