War Resister Robin Long Sentenced to 15 Months in Prison

War Resister Robin Long Sentenced to 15 Months in Prison

http://www.alternet.org/rights/96325/

By Sarah Lazare, Courage to Resist
August 25, 2008.

Long, an Iraq War resister deported from Canada last month, was
sentenced to 15 months of prison and dishonorable discharge.
--

This is an update to AlterNet's previous story
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/95832/robin_long,_war_resister_deported_from_canada,_faces_trial_this_week/
on the case of Robin Long.

Robin Long, an Iraq War resister deported from Canada into U.S.
military custody last month, was sentenced today to 15 months of
confinement and dishonorable discharge, receiving credit for 40 days
of time served.

Long's supporters, who flooded the Fort Carson, Colorado courtroom
where the court martial was held and held a vigil in his honor,
expressed dismay at the harsh verdict. "It sets a very chilling
precedent that someone who is brought back gets the book thrown at
them," said Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army Colonel who publicly
resigned in opposition to the invasion of Iraq and served as a
witness at Long's trial. "I hope the Canadian government recognizes that."

Three years ago, Robin Long fled to Canada rather than fight a war in
Iraq he deems immoral and illegal. On July 15th, the Canadian
government forcibly returned Long to U.S. military custody, making
him the first war resister deported from Canadian soil since the Vietnam War.

The Canadian government's actions flaunt its long-standing tradition
of providing safe haven for U.S. war resisters and ignore a
non-binding parliamentary resolution to allow U.S. soldiers to stay in Canada.

Long is a part of a growing movement of GI resistance against the
Iraq War, and his case has been met with widespread support from
friends and allies throughout the United States and Canada

Court Martial

Long's court martial was held near Colorado Springs, where he was
charged with desertion "with intent to remain away permanently." He
was given the maximum time of confinement negotiated in a pre-trial
agreement, despite the testimony of several supporters, including
Colonel Ann Wright and Matthis Chiroux, an army journalist who
recently refused to deploy to Iraq. Long's sentence stands as one of
the longest handed to an Iraq War resister.

Long gave an impassioned testimony at his trial, in which he declared
that he was still convinced that he had done the right thing morally,
even if he did not make the most prudent legal and tactical
decisions. He said that he was glad that he did not go to Iraq but
wishes that there was another option available to him other than
facing court martial and confinement.

The trial was packed with Long's supporters, including members from
Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, and the Peace and
Justice Coalition of Colorado Springs. The courtroom was so full that
many of his supporters had to wait outside. When Long stepped out of
the courtroom, he was met with throngs of people who cheered him on
loudly, despite being pushed across the street by military police.
Long's supporters have spent months rallying on his behalf, and
Courage to Resist raised funds for his civilian lawyer, James Branum.

"I think it was a long sentence but it was positive that he got his
day in court and got to speak up and say what he believed," said Mr.
Branum. "His spirits were relatively good. Having two war resisters
show up at his trial meant a lot to him."

Colonel Wright says that she is disappointed in the steep verdict,
but she believes the outcome would have been far worse if Long had
not received such overwhelming support. "Once soldiers are returned
to military control, it is in the best interest of everyone if there
is support for war resisters.

Who is Robin Long?

Born in Boise, Idaho, Robin Long was raised in a military family,
playing with G.I. Joes and dreaming of one day joining the service.
Upon enlisting in the Army in June 2003, the recruiter promised that
Long would not be sent to Iraq. Long was excited about this chance to
serve his country and finally make something with his life, and he
headed off for basic training feeling he had made the right decision.
"When the United States first attacked Iraq, I was told by my
president that it was because of direct ties to al Qaeda and weapons
of mass destruction," Long told Courage to Resist in an interview in
January. "At the time, I believed what was being said."

Over the next few months, Long's enthusiasm began to wane. His drill
sergeant repeatedly referred to Iraqi people as "ragheads" and led
the troops in racist cadences. When Long protested, he was punished
by senior officers and alienated by his peers. At this point, Long
began to suffer a crisis of conscience. "I was hearing on mainstream
media that the U.S. was going to Iraq to get the weapons of mass
destruction and to liberate the Iraqi people, yet I'm being taught
that I'm going to the desert to, excuse the racial slur, 'kill ragheads.'"

After basic training, Long was transferred to the nondeployable unit
at Fort Knox. Upon meeting soldiers returning from Iraq, Long was
horrified by their stories of violence and brutality. Soldiers
bragged about their "first kills" and showed pictures of people they
shot or ran over with tanks. "I had a really sick feeling to my
stomach when I heard about these things that went on," he said.

In 2005, Long received orders to go to Iraq. The only soldier to be
deployed from his unit, Long received a month's leave to check out of
Fort Knox and report to Fort Carson, Colorado. He was scheduled to
deploy to Iraq a few weeks later.

While on leave, Long educated himself about the "behind the scenes"
story of the Iraq invasion. He talked to friends about whether to go
through with his deployment. By his scheduled departure day, Long had
made the decision not to go. He skipped his flight and stayed in a
friend's basement in Boise over the next few months. From there he
caught a ride to Canada. "I knew that my conscience couldn't allow me
to go over there (to Iraq)," he said.

Long spent the next three years building a life for himself in
Canada. He met a woman, had a child and established contact with
other war resisters in Canada. Long applied for refugee status on the
grounds that he was being asked to participate in an illegal war and
would suffer irreparable harm if he returned to the United States.
Not only was his bid rejected, but Canadian authorities responded by
mandating that Long report his whereabouts every month. He eventually
settled in Nelson, a small town in British Columbia.

Orders for Deportation

Robin Long found his new life in Canada to be increasingly precarious.

He was issued a warrant for arrest by the Canadian Border Services
Agency on July 4 of this year, on the grounds that he did not
adequately report his whereabouts to the authorities, and he was told
a few days later that he would be deported to the United States. Long
appealed the order, and his supporters rallied throughout the United
States and Canada, urging Canadian authorities to let him stay.
Despite these efforts, Long was deported on July 15, after the judge
ruled that he would not suffer irreparable harm if returned to the
United States.

Long's family remains in Canada, and before the trial, he expressed
concern about the separation, which could last a number of years. "I
have a son I wouldn't be able to see. It's kind of hard to think
about that," he told Courage to Resist.

Canada is home to an estimated 200 U.S. soldiers refusing to serve in
the Iraq War, and 64 percent of Canadians favor granting them
permanent residence, according to a June 27 Angus Reid Strategies
poll. The Canadian House of Commons passed a non-binding resolution
June 3rd, calling for a stop to the deportation of U.S. soldiers and
allowing them to apply for permanent residency in Canada, but the
resolution was ignored by the conservative Harper administration.
Several other war resisters living in Canada face the immediate
threat of deportation, including Jeremy Hinzman, who received a
deportation order for September 23rd.

"We would hope that the Canadian government allow the men and women
who refuse to fight a war that Canadians also refuse to fight to stay
up there, especially after seeing the heavy punishment that Robin
Long faces," said Ann Wright.

A Growing Movement Against the War

The high profile of Long's case is also a sign of the growing
significance of the GI movement against the Iraq War. As the war
effort becomes increasingly unpopular, more and more soldiers are
speaking publicly against the invasion and refusing to serve out
their contracts, with high-ranking military officials like Ehren
Watada publicly denouncing military atrocities, despite facing harsh
penalties for doing so.

Meanwhile, Iraq War veterans are teaming up with war resisters and
other civilian and veteran supporters to build the GI movement
against the war. Iraq Veterans Against the War, whose membership
consists of people who have served in the U.S. military since
September 11th, 2001, has been active in supporting Long and other
war resisters. Several other groups, such as Courage to Resist and
the War Resisters Support Campaign (Canada), have risen to support
soldiers willing to take a stand. The orders for Long's deportation
were met with protests throughout the United States and Canada.

"Veterans and war resisters are beginning to see that they are in the
same boat, that they are brothers and sisters, and it is one
struggle," said Gerry Condon, a Vietnam War resister and active
supporter of the GI movement against the Iraq War. "The fact that
people are showing this kind of solidarity with each other is really
profound. Resistance within the military is certainly growing."
--

Sarah Lazare is the Project Director of Courage to Resist,
www.couragetoresist.org an organization that supports military war resisters.

.

U.S. Military Keeping Secrets About Female Soldiers’ ‘Suicides’?

U.S. Military Keeping Secrets About Female Soldiers' 'Suicides'?

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080826_us_military_keeping_secrets_about_female_soldiers_suicides/

Aug 26, 2008
By Col. Ann Wright

Since I posted on April 28 the article "Is There an Army Cover Up of
the Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers," the deaths of two more U.S.
Army women in Iraq and Afghanistan have been listed as suicides­the
Sept. 28, 2007, death of 30-year-old Spc. Ciara Durkin and the Feb.
22, 2008, death of 25-year-old Spc. Keisha Morgan. Both "suicides"
are disputed by the families of the women.

Since April 2008, five more U.S. military women have died in
Iraq­three in noncombat-related incidents. Ninety-nine U.S., six
British and one Ukrainian military women and 13 U.S. female civilians
have been killed in Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain, as well as probably
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women and girls. Of the 99 U.S.
military women, 64 were in the Army active component, nine in the
Army National Guard, seven in the Army Reserve, seven in the Marine
Corps, nine in the Navy and three in the Air Force. According to the
Department of Defense, 41 of the 99 U.S. military women who have been
killed in Iraq died in "noncombat-related incidents." Of the 99 U.S.
military women killed in the Iraq theater, 41 were women of color (21
African-Americans, 16 Latinas, three of Asian-Pacific descent and one
Native American­data compiled from the Web site www.nooniefortin.com).

Fourteen U.S. military women, including five in the Army, one in the
Army National Guard, two in the Army Reserves, three in the Air
Force, two in the Navy (on ships supporting U.S. forces in
Afghanistan) and one in the Marine Corps, one British military woman
and six U.S. civilian women have been killed in Afghanistan.
According to the Department of Defense, four U.S. military women in
Afghanistan died in noncombat-related incidents, including one now
classified as a suicide. Four military women of color (three
African-Americans and one Latina) have been killed in Afghanistan.
(Data compiled from www.nooniefortin.com.)

The deaths of 14 U.S. military (13 Army and one Navy) women and one
British military woman who served in Iraq, Kuwait or Afghanistan have
been classified as suicides.

Two Army women in Iraq (Pfc. Hannah Gunterman McKinney, a victim of
vehicular homicide, and Pfc. Kamisha Block, who was shot five times
by a fellow soldier who then killed himself) and two Navy women in
Bahrain (MASN Anamarie Camacho and MASN Genesia Gresham, both shot by
a male sailor who then shot, but did not kill, himself) have died at
the hands of fellow military personnel.

Several more military women have died with unexplained "noncombat"
gunshot wounds (U.S. Army Sgt. Melissa Valles, July 9, 2003: gunshot
to the abdomen; Marine Lance Cpl. Juana Arellano, April 8, 2006:
gunshot wound to the head while in a "defensive position"). Most of
the deaths of women who have died of noncombat gunshot wounds have
been classified as suicides, rather than homicides.

The Army, the only military service to release annual figures on
suicides, reported that 115 soldiers committed suicide in 2007.
According to Army figures, 32 soldiers committed suicide in Iraq and
four in Afghanistan. Of the 115 Army suicides, 93 were in the Regular
Army and 22 were in the Army National Guard or Reserves. The report
lists five Army women as having committed suicide in 2007. Young,
white, unmarried junior enlisted troops were the most likely to
commit suicide, according to the report (Pauline Jelinek, "Soldier
suicides hit highest rate, 115 last year," Associated Press, May 29,
2008, abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4955043).

From 2003 until August 2008, the deaths of 13 Army women and one
Navy woman in Iraq and Afghanistan (including Kuwait and Bahrain)
have been classified as suicides (numbers confirmed with various
media sources):

2008­Spc. Keisha Morgan (Taji, Iraq)
2007­Spc. Ciara Durkin (Bagram, Afghanistan), Capt. (medical doctor)
Roselle Hoffmaster (Kirkik, Iraq)
2006­Pfc. Tina Priest (Taji, Iraq), Pfc. Amy Duerkson (Taji, Iraq),
Sgt. Denise Lannaman (Kuwait), Sgt. Jeannette Dunn (Taji, Iraq), Maj.
Gloria Davis (Baghdad).
2005­Pvt. Lavena Johnson (Balad, Iraq), 1st Lt. Debra Banaszak
(Kuwait), USN MA1 Jennifer Valdivia (Bahrain)
2004­Sgt. Gina Sparks (it is unclear where in Iraq she was injured,
but she died in the Fort Polk, La., hospital)
2003­Spc. Alyssa Peterson (Tal Afar, Iraq), Sgt. Melissa Valles (Balad, Iraq)

The demographics of those Army women who allegedly committed suicide
are as intriguing as the circumstances of their deaths:
-- Seven of the women, being between the ages of 30 and 47, were
older than the norm (Davis, 47; Lannaman, 46; Dunn, 44; Banaszak, 35;
Hoffmaster, 32; Sparks, 32; and Durkin, 30). (Most military suicides
are in their 20s).
-- Three were officers: a major (Davis), a captain and medical
doctor (Hoffmaster) and a first lieutenant (Banaszak).
-- Five were noncommissioned officers (Lannaman, Dunn, Sparks, Valles
and Valdivia).
-- Five were women of color (Morgan, Davis, Johnson, Lannaman, Valles).
-- Four were from units based at Fort Hood, Texas, and were found
dead at Camp Taji, Iraq (Dunn, Priest, Duerkson, and Morgan).
-- Two were found dead at Camp Taji, Iraq, 11 days apart (Priest and
Duerkson).
-- Two were found dead at Balad, Iraq (Johnson and Valles).
-- Two had been raped (Priest, 11 days prior to her death; Duerksen,
during basic training).
-- One other was probably raped (Johnson, the night she died).
-- Two were lesbians (Lannaman and Durkin).
-- Two of the women were allegedly involved in bribes or shakedowns
of contractors (Lannaman and Davis).
-- Two had children (Davis and Banaszak).
-- Three had expressed concerns about improprieties or irregularities
in their commands (Durkin's concerns were financial; Davis had given
a seven-page deposition on contracting irregularities in Iraq the day
before she died; Peterson was concerned about methods of
interrogation of Iraqi prisoners).
-- Several had been in touch with their families within days of their
deaths and had not expressed feelings of depression (Morgan, Durkin,
Davis, Priest, Johnson).

The Death of Lavena Johnson

As discussed in my article "Is There an Army Cover Up of Rape and
Murder of Women Soldiers?," 19-year-old Army Pvt. Lavena Johnson was
found dead on the military base in Balad, Iraq, in July 2005, and her
death was characterized by the Army as suicide from an M-16 rifle
gunshot. From the day their daughter's body was returned to them, the
parents, both of whom have had a long association with the Army­the
father, a medical doctor, is an Army veteran and worked 25 years as a
Department of the Army civilian and the mother, too, worked for the
Department of the Army­harbored grave suspicions about the Army's
investigation into Johnson's death and the Army's characterization of
her death as suicide. As she had been in charge of a communications
facility, Johnson was able to call home daily; in those calls, she
gave no indication of emotional problems or being upset. In a letter
to her parents after her death, Johnson's commanding officer, Capt.
David Woods, wrote, "Lavena was clearly happy and seemed in very good
health both physically and emotionally."
In viewing his daughter's body at the funeral home, Dr. John Johnson
was concerned about the bruising on her face. He was puzzled by the
discrepancy in the autopsy report on the location of the gunshot
wound. As an Army veteran and a long-time Army civilian employee who
had counseled veterans, he was mystified how the exit wound of an
M-16 shot could be so small. The hole in Lavena's head appeared to be
more the size of a pistol shot rather than an M-16 round. But the
gluing of military uniform white gloves onto Lavena's hands, hiding
burns on one of her hands, is what deepened Dr. Johnson's concerns
that the Army's investigation into the death of his daughter was flawed.

Over the next two and a half years, Dr. and Mrs. Johnson and their
family and friends, through the Freedom of Information Act and
congressional offices, relentlessly and meticulously requested
documents concerning Lavena's death from the Department of the Army.
Gradually, with the Army's response to each request for information,
another piece of evidence about Johnson's death emerged.

The military criminal investigator's initial drawing of the death
scene revealed that Johnson's M16 was found perfectly parallel to her
body. The investigator's sketch showed that her body was found inside
a burning tent, under a wooden bench with an aerosol can nearby. A
witness, an employee of the defense contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root
(KBR), stated that he heard a gunshot and when he went to
investigate, he found a KBR tent on fire. When he looked into the
tent, he saw a body. The official Army investigation did not mention
a fire, nor that Johnson's body had been pulled from the fire.

KBR Women Employees Raped in Iraq

The fact that Lavena Johnson's body was discovered in a KBR tent
raises questions.

Many KBR women employees have been raped in Iraq. One law firm in
Houston has 15 clients with sexual assault, sexual harassment or
retaliation complaints against Halliburton and its former subsidiary
Kellogg, Brown & Root LLC (KBR), as well as against the Cayman
Island-based Service Employees International Inc., a KBR shell
company (Karen Houppert, "Another KBR Rape Case," The Nation, April 3, 2008).

Two female employees of KBR who were raped while in Iraq have
testified before Congress. On her fourth day in Iraq, July 28, 2005,
Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by seven fellow KBR employees at
Camp Hope in Baghdad. Jones' rape occurred nine days after Lavena
Johnson was found dead in a KBR tent at Balad Air Base. Jones was
drugged, raped and beaten, and the injuries she suffered were so
severe that she had to have reconstructive surgery on her chest
("Democracy Now," April 18, 2008, "Two Ex-KBR Employees Say They Were
Raped by Co-Workers in Iraq,"
www.democracynow.org/2008/4/8/exclusivein_their_first_joint_interview_two).

Jones reportedly was taken back to the KBR area, where she was placed
into an empty shipping container under KBR armed guard for almost 24
hours without food or water or the ability to communicate with
anyone. The military doctor who examined her turned over the "rape
kit" photographs and statement to KBR. Jones persuaded a guard to
allow her a phone call, which she made to her father. Her father
promptly called their Texas congressional representative, Ted Poe,
who then called the State Department in Iraq and demanded her
immediate release. Jones was rescued shortly thereafter and quickly
left Iraq. Congressman Poe again contacted the State Department and
the Department of Justice in an effort to launch an investigation,
but both departments ignored the requests and even refused to contact
Poe for the next two years. The "rape kit" and the photographs of and
statement from Jones taken by a military doctor disappeared (ABC
News, "KBR Employees: Company Covered Up Sexual Assault and
Harassment,"
abcnews.go.com/Blotter/popup?id=3948132&contentIndex=1&start=false&page=1).

Jones testified Dec. 17, 2007, before the House Judiciary Committee
on "Enforcement of Federal Criminal Law to Protect Americans Working
for U.S. Contractors in Iraq" (judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_121907.html).

The nonprofit foundation Jones created after her ordeal, the Jamie
Leigh Jones Foundation, has been contacted by 40 U.S. contractor
employees alleging that they are the victims of sexual assault or
sexual harassment on the job and that Halliburton, KBR and Service
Employees International Inc. have not helped them or have obstructed
their claims (Karen Houppert, "Another KBR Rape Case," The Nation,
April 3, 2008).

Dawn Leamon was another civilian contractor employed by KBR who was
raped allegedly by KBR employees. She was the sole medical provider
at Camp Harper, a base near Basra in southern Iraq. Leamon reported
being raped anally by a U.S. soldier in January 2008 while a KBR
employee forced his penis into her mouth. She says she was told to
keep quiet by her KBR supervisor and by the military liaison officer.
Her laptop computer was seized within hours after she e-mailed a
civilian lawyer. She testified on April 9, 2008, before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee in the hearing "Closing Legal Loopholes:
Prosecuting Sexual Assaults and Other Violent Crimes Committed
Overseas by American Civilians in a Combat Environment"
(foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2008/hrg080409a.html).

Johnsons' Quest Continues in Daughter's Death

After two years of requesting documents, the family of Lavena Johnson
received a set of papers from the Army that included a photocopy of a
compact disk. Wondering why the copy was among the documents, Dr.
Johnson requested the CD itself. The Army finally complied after a
congressman intervened. When Dr. Johnson viewed the CD, he was
shocked to see photographs taken by Army investigators of his
daughter's body as it lay where her body had been found, as well as
other photographs of her disrobed body taken during the investigation.

The photographs revealed that Lavena, barely five feet tall and
weighing less than 100 pounds, had been struck in the face with a
blunt instrument, perhaps a weapon stock. Her nose was broken and her
teeth knocked backward. One elbow was distended. The back of her
clothes contained debris, indicating she had been dragged. The
photographs of her disrobed body showed bruises, scratch marks and
teeth imprints on the upper part of her body. The right side of her
back as well as her right hand had been burned, apparently from a
flammable liquid poured on her and then lighted. Photographs of her
genital area revealed massive bruising and lacerations. A corrosive
liquid had been poured into her genital area, probably to destroy DNA
evidence of sexual assault.

Despite the bruises, scratches, teeth imprints and burns on her body,
Lavena was found completely dressed in the burning tent. There was a
blood trail from outside the contractor's tent to inside the tent.
She apparently had been dressed after the attack and her attacker had
placed her body in the tent before setting it on fire.

Investigator records reveal that members of her unit said Johnson had
told them she was going jogging with friends on the other side of the
base. One unit member walked with her to the post exchange, where she
bought a soda, and then, in her Army workout clothes, Johnson went on
by herself to meet friends and to exercise. The unit member said she
was in good spirits, showing no indication of personal emotional problems.

The Army investigators initially concluded that Pvt. Johnson's death
was a homicide and indicated that on their paperwork. However, a
decision apparently was made by higher officials that the
investigators would stop the homicide inquiry and classify her death
a suicide.

Three weeks later, a final autopsy report from the U.S. Armed Forces
Institute of Pathology, dated Aug. 13, 2005, said the cause of death
was an intraoral gunshot wound to the head and the manner of death
was a suicide. However, the autopsy report­written after the July 22,
2005, autopsy at Dover Air Force Base and signed on Aug. 9, 2005 by
associate medical examiner Lt. Cmdr. Edward Reedy and by chief deputy
medical examiner Cmdr. James Caruso­states much more in its opinion section:

"The 19 year old female, Lavena Johnson, died as a result of a
gunshot wound of the head that caused injuries to the skull and
brain. The entrance wound was inside the mouth and injuries to the
lips and oral mucosa were a direct result of the discharge of the
weapon. The exit wound was located on the left side of the head. No
bullet or bullet fragments were recovered. Toxicology was negative
for alcohol and other screened drugs. The investigative information
made available indicates that this was a self-inflicted gunshot
wound. With the information surrounding the circumstances of the
death that is presently available the manner of death is determined
to be suicide."

The medical examiners revealed that they were basing their
determination of suicide on "investigative information made available
indicat[ing] that this was a self-inflicted gunshot wound," not from
medical evidence. They did not address what caliber of bullet entered
her body­in fact, they stated that no bullet or bullet fragment was
recovered, and they did not offer comments on what caliber of bullet
would have made the entry and exit wounds.

The Aug. 25, 2005, report from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation
Laboratory in Forest Park, Ga., stated:

The characteristic gunshot residue particle indicated on Exhibit 5
(Gunshot residue kit (Item 9, Doc 775-05), the number is considered
insignificant. Based on these results, the report concludes that the
following possibilities exist, but the report makes no conclusion:
a. The subject did not handle/discharge a firearm.
b. The subject handled/discharged a firearm but an insignificant
number of gunshot residue particles were deposited on the hands.
c. The subject handled/discharged a firearm that deposited a
significant number of gunshot residue particles on the hand; however,
due to washing, wiping, or other activity, the particles were reduced
to insignificant numbers.

The medical examiners who did the autopsy on Johnson's body did not
mention any burns on her body, but when the family had gloves that
had been glued onto her hands cut off by the funeral home employees
in Missouri, they found her hands had been burned, and further
examination showed her back was burned. A witness statement taken on
July 19, 2005, states: "The witness [name redacted] ... found the
victim under the bench and verified there were no signs of life ...
related he saw the M16 lying across the victim's body ... he didn't
know what setting the weapon was on ... he related everything was
smoking, including parts of the body. He called for an ambulance and
secured the scene."

On April 9, 2008, Johnson's parents flew from their home in St. Louis
for meetings with members of Congress and their staff. They again
went to Washington, D.C., in July 2008 and were briefed by Army
investigators and the military medical examiner who conducted the
autopsy on Lavena. The Army briefers maintained that her death was a
suicide and were unable to answer Dr. John and Linda Johnson's long
list of questions. The Johnsons are asking for a congressional
hearing that would force the Army to further investigate their
daughter's death.

Murder of Three Women in North Carolina

Some of the circumstances surrounding Lavena Johnson's death in Iraq
three years ago are similar to those of other American servicewomen
who died in recent months. In the six months from December 2007 to
July 2008, three U.S. military women were killed by military males
near the Army's Fort Bragg and the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune, two
mega-bases in North Carolina.

Two of the women were in the Army. Spc. Megan Touma was seven months
pregnant when her body was found inside a Fayetteville hotel room
June 21, 2008. A married male soldier whom she knew in Germany has
since been arrested. The estranged Marine husband of Army 2nd Lt.
Holley Wimunc has been arrested in her death and the burning of her body.

Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach had been raped in May 2007 and
protective orders had been issued against the alleged perpetrator,
fellow Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean. The burned body of Lauterbach and
her unborn baby were found in a shallow grave in the backyard of
Laurean's home in January 2008. Laurean fled to Mexico, where he was
captured by Mexican authorities. He is currently awaiting extradition
to the United States to stand trial. Lauterbach's mother testified
before Congress on July 31, 2008, that the Marine Corps ignored
warning signs that Laurean was a danger to her daughter (testimony of
Mary Lauterbach to the National Security and Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee,
nationalsecurity.oversight.house.gov/documents/20080731134039.pdf).

Two Women Sexually Assaulted Before Their Deaths

Remarkably, a rape test was not performed on the body of Lavena
Johnson although bruising and lacerations in her genital area
indicated assault.

Another family that does not believe their daughter committed suicide
in Iraq is the family of Pfc. Tina Priest, 20, of Smithville, Texas,
who was reported raped by a fellow soldier in February of 2006 on a
military base known as Camp Taji. Priest was a part of the 5th
Support Battalion, lst Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division
from Fort Hood, Texas. The Army said Priest was found dead in her
room on March 1, 2006, of a self-inflicted M-16 shot, 11 days after
the rape. Priest's mother, Joy Priest, disputes the Army's findings.

Mrs. Priest said she talked several times with her daughter after the
rape and that Tina, while very upset about the rape, was not
suicidal. Mrs. Priest continues to challenge the Army's 800 pages of
investigative documents with a simple question: How could her
five-foot-tall daughter, with a correspondingly short arm length,
have held the M-16 at the angle which would have resulted in the
gunshot? The Army attempted several explanations, but each was
debunked by Mrs. Priest and by the 800 pages of materials provided by
the Army itself. The Army now says Tina used her toe to pull the
trigger of the weapon that killed her. The Army reportedly never
investigated Tina's death as a homicide, only as a suicide.

According to Tina's mother, rape charges against the soldier whose
sperm was found on Tina's sleeping bag were dropped a few weeks after
her death. He was convicted of failure to obey an order and sentenced
to forfeiture of $714 for two months, 30 days' restriction to the
base and 45 days of extra duty.

On May 11, 2006, 10 days after Tina Priest was found dead,
19-year-old Army Pfc. Amy Duerksen was found dead at the same Camp
Taji. Duerksen died three days after she suffered what the Army
called "a self-inflicted gunshot." The Army claimed that she, too,
had committed suicide. In the room where her body was found,
investigators reportedly discovered her diary open to a page on which
she had written about being raped during training after unknowingly
ingesting a date-rape drug. The person Duerkson identified in her
diary as the rapist was charged by the Army with rape after her
death. Many who knew her did not believe she shot herself, but there
is no evidence of a homicide investigation by the Army.

Women Had Concerns About Job Irregularities

Three women whose deaths have been classified as suicides had
expressed concerns about improprieties or irregularities in their
military commands.

Army Spc. Ciara Durkin, 30, a Massachusetts National Guard payroll
clerk, was found dead on Sept. 28, 2007, from a gunshot wound to the
head. She had gotten off work 90 minutes earlier and was found lying
near a chapel on Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Durkin had called
her brother just hours before she died, leaving an upbeat happy
birthday message on his telephone. In previous conversations, Durkin
told her sister that she had discovered something in the finance unit
that she did not agree with and that she had made some enemies over
it. She told her sister to keep investigating her death if anything
happened to her ("How did Specialist Ciara Durkin Die?" CBSNews, Oct.
4, 2007, cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/04/world/main3328739.shtml). In
June 2008, the Army declared her death a suicide.

Army interrogator Spc. Alyssa Renee Peterson, 27, assigned to C
Company, 311th Military Intelligence Battalion, 101st Airborne
Division, Fort Campbell, Ky., was an Arabic linguist who reportedly
was very concerned about the manner in which interrogations of
detained Iraqis were being conducted. She died on Sept. 15, 2003,
near Tal Afar, Iraq, in what the Army described as a gunshot wound to
the head, a noncombat, self-inflicted weapons discharge, or suicide.
Peterson had reportedly objected to the interrogation techniques used
on prisoners in Iraq and refused to participate after only two nights
working in the unit known as "the cage." Members of her unit have
refused to describe the specific interrogation techniques to which
Peterson objected. The military says that all records of those
techniques have now been destroyed. After refusing to conduct more
interrogations, Peterson was assigned to guard the base gate, where
she monitored Iraqi guards. She was also sent to suicide prevention
training. Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself
with her service rifle on the night of Sept. 15, 2003. Family members
challenge the Army's conclusion.

Maj. Gloria Davis, 47, an 18-year Army veteran, mother and
grandmother, was found dead of a gunshot wound on Dec. 12, 2006, the
day after she reportedly talked at length to an Army investigator
about corruption in military contracting. She had been accused of
accepting a $225,000 bribe from Lee Dynamics, a defense contractor
that provided warehouse space for the storage of automatic weapons in
Iraq (Eric Schmitt and James Glanz, "U.S. Says Company Bribes
Officers for Work in Iraq," New York Times, Aug. 31, 2007).

Davis' mother, Annie Washington, told the author that military
investigators have never located any of the $225,000 Davis is alleged
to have taken. Washington said her daughter was right-handed and
would have had a hard time holding the weapon in her left hand and
shooting herself on the left side of her head (telephone conversation
between Ann Wright and Annie Washington, July 2008).

Federal court documents show that the Army suspended Lee Dynamics
from contracting on July 9, 2007, over allegations that the company
paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to numerous U.S. officers in
Iraq and Kuwait in 2004 and 2005 to get contracts to build, operate
and maintain warehouses in Iraq where weapons, uniforms and vehicles
for the Iraqi military were stored.

Reportedly included in the documents was a seven-page statement by an
Army investigator who questioned Maj. Davis the day before she was
found dead in her quarters. The deposition has apparently been used
in ongoing federal cases on corruption in military contracting (Ed
Blanche, "Kickbacks, Weapons and Suicide: The US Army's Battle With
Corruption," March 15, 2008,
kippreport.com/article.php?articleid=1056&page=1). The author
attempted to obtain a copy of Davis' statement from the Department of
Justice, but a DoJ public affairs officer said the statement is not
yet in the public domain and intimated that it is being used in other
ongoing DoJ investigations into contracting fraud (telephone
conversation on July 28, 2008, with DoJ public affairs officer).

The Lee Dynamics warehouses were part of a circle of corruption
involving military personnel and contractors throughout Iraq and the
disappearance of 190,000 U.S.-supplied weapons­ 110,000 AK-47 assault
rifles and 80,000 pistols intended for Iraqi security forces for
which the U.S. military cannot account. A July 2007 Government
Accountability Office report said that until December 2005 the
U.S.-Iraqi training command had no centralized records on weapons
provided to Iraqi forces, and although 185,000 AK-47 rifles, 170,000
pistols, 215,000 sets of body armor and 140,000 steel helmets had
been issued by September 2005, because of poor record keeping it was
unclear what happened to 110,000 AK-47s and 80,000 pistols and more
than half the armor and helmets (GAO Report 07-711, Stabilizing Iraq:
DOD Cannot Ensure That U.S.-Funded Equipment Has Reached Iraqi
Security Forces, July 2007, Pages 14 and 15, gao.gov/new.items/d07711.pdf).

In December 2007, the U.S. military acknowledged that it had lost
track of an additional 12,000 weapons, including more than 800
machine guns (Ed Blanche, "Kickbacks, Weapons and Suicide: The US
Army's Battle With Corruption," March 15, 2008,
kippreport.com/article.php?articleid=1056&page=1).

In 2005, Col. Ted Westhusing, 44, at the time the highest-ranking
officer to die in Iraq, allegedly committed suicide after reportedly
becoming despondent about the poor performance of private contractors
who were training Iraqi police, for which he was responsible. After
graduating third in his West Point class and serving as the honor
captain for the entire academy his senior year, Westhusing became one
of the Army's leading scholars on military ethics and was a professor
at West Point.

In January 2005 Westhusing began supervising the training of Iraqi
forces to take over security duties from the U.S. military. He
oversaw the Virginia-based USIS, a private security contractor, which
had contracts worth $79 million to train a corps of Iraqi police to
conduct special-operations missions. Westhusing was upset about
allegations, in a four-page anonymous letter, that USIS deliberately
shorted the Iraqi government on the number of trainers it provided in
order to increase its profit margin. The letter also revealed two
incidents in which USIS contractors allegedly had witnessed or
participated in the killing of Iraqi civilians. After an angry
counseling meeting with the contractor, Westhusing was found dead of
a gunshot wound. Many of Westhusing's professional colleagues
question the Army's ruling of suicide, despite the note found in his
quarters. They point out that Westhusing did not have a bodyguard and
was surrounded by the same contractors he suspected of wrongdoing.
They also question why the USIS company manager who discovered
Westhusing's body was not tested for gunpowder residue.

In the space of three months in 2006, three members of the U.S. Army
who had been part of a contracting and logistics group in Kuwait and
Iraq were accused of taking bribes from contractors and allegedly
committed suicide. Two of them were women, Maj. Gloria Davis and Sgt.
Denise Lannaman, and the third was Lt. Col. Marshall Gutierrez. In
August 2006 Gutierrez was arrested at a restaurant in Kuwait and was
accused of shaking down a laundry contractor for a $3,400 bribe. He
was allowed to return to his quarters and was found dead on Sept. 4,
2006, with an empty bottle of prescription sleeping pills and an open
container of what appeared to be antifreeze.

The second woman soldier who was allegedly involved with bribes and
allegedly committed suicide was New York Army National Guard Sgt.
Denise A. Lannaman. Lannaman, 46, had completed one tour in Tikrit,
Iraq, in 2005. In December 2005 she decided to volunteer to stay in
Iraq longer and took an assignment at a desk job at a procurement
office in Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, that purchased millions of dollars in
supplies. She received excellent performance ratings, and her
supervisor said that her oversight eliminated misuse of funds by 36
percent. On Oct. 1, 2006, Lannaman was questioned by a senior
officer about the death of Lt. Col. Gutierrez and was reportedly told
by that officer that she was implicated in the contracting fraud and
would be leaving the military in disgrace. She was found in a jeep
dead of a gunshot later that day.

The Army has classified Lannaman's death as a suicide. A member of
her family said that Lannaman had a history of psychiatric problems
but somehow been allowed to enlist in the military. She had attempted
suicide four times in her life, according to the family member. In
September 2007, Army spokesman Lt. Col. William Wiggins told the
family that Lannaman had not been the subject of any contract
investigations, but he said he could not say whether Lannaman had
been threatened by a superior officer with dismissal from the service
(Jim Dwyer, "Letter from America: Journey from New York to Kuwait,
and Suicide," New York Times, Sept. 19, 2007). Lannaman's family
said that because of her pre-existing mental state, the threat that
the superior officer made to send her home in disgrace could have
caused her to take her life.

Soldiers Convicted of Bribery

In June 2008 four persons plead guilty in bribery and kickback
scandals concerning military contracts in Iraq. On June 11, 2008,
recently retired Army National Guard Col. Levonda Joey Selph, a key
person on Gen. David Petraeus' team that was training and equipping
Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, pleaded guilty to bribery and
conspiracy. She admitted disclosing to the owner of Lee Dynamics
International confidential bidding information about a $12-million
contract for building and operating U.S. military warehouses in Iraq
that stored automatic weapons and other equipment. Lee Dynamics
International is the same company that reportedly gave Maj. Davis a
$225,000 bribe. Col. Selph helped the company owner, a former Army
pay clerk, to submit "fake bid packages on behalf of six companies he
controlled to create a false sense of competition," for which she was
given a trailer valued at $20,000; she eventually returned the
trailer, and the contractor then gave her $4,000 in cash and paid for
air fare and accommodations for a trip to Thailand in October 2005,
valued at about $5,000. Selph has since agreed to pay the U.S.
government $9,000 and could serve a prison sentence of up to two
years (Eric Schmitt, "Guilty Plea Given in Iraq Contract Fraud," New
York Times, June 11, 2008).

After having been in military custody since July 2007, Army Maj. John
Cockerham, 43, pleaded guilty last January to bribery, conspiracy and
money laundering in awarding illegal contracts for supplies such as
bottled water. He had received more than $9 million in bribes from at
least eight defense contractor companies, and records found in his
home indicated he expected to get $5.4 million more. Melissa
Cockerham, Cockerham's wife, also pleaded guilty to money laundering.
Their plea bargains were kept under federal court seal until June 25,
2008, while they cooperated with investigators. Cockerham faces up to
40 years in prison, while his wife could face up to 20 years in
prison (Dana Hedgpeth, "2 Plead Guilty to Army Bribery Scheme,"
Washington Post, June 25, 2008).

The Death of Spc. Keisha Morgan

Army Spc. Keisha Morgan, 25, was on her second tour in Iraq. Just
days before her February 22, 2008, death, she called her mother,
Diana Morgan, and happily told her that she had reenlisted. Her
mother said that Keisha wanted to be a nurse and planned to fulfill
that ambition after she got out of the Army. Assigned to the Fourth
Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas, Keisha reportedly suffered two
seizures in her barracks at Camp Taji and died in a military hospital
in Bagdad. The Army reportedly told Keisha's mother that Keisha was
on antidepressants and may have overdosed. In a blog, Keisha's mother
said her daughter had never mentioned being on antidepressants.

However, the Army reportedly frequently prescribes antidepressants to
soldiers with anxiety from effects of war, and one of the known side
effects of some of the depressants is seizures. The Army's fifth
Mental Health Advisory Team report indicates that, according to an
anonymous survey of U.S. troops taken in the fall of 2007, about 12
percent of combat troops in Iraq and 17 percent of those in
Afghanistan are taking prescription antidepressants (such as Prozac
and Zoloft) or sleeping pills (such as Ambien) to help them cope,
with about 50 percent taking antidepressants and 50 percent taking
prescription sleeping pills. In 2007, the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration expanded the warning on antidepressants that the drugs
may increase the risk of suicide in children and young adults ages 18
to 24, the age group most taking prescribed drugs in the Army. The
Army should question whether there is a link between the increased
use of the drugs by military troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the
rising suicide rate, which is now double the Army's suicide rate in 2001.

Deception or Just Incompetence?

It's now well known that there was deception by the U.S. military in
the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman and the decision to make a
heroic character out of Pvt. Jessica Lynch
(oversight.house.gov/documents/20080714111050.pdf). But there are
many other cases of deception and of misinformation given to families.

After much pressure from the families for more information on the
deaths of their sons in 2004, the parents of Army Spc. Patrick
McCaffery and 1st Lt. Andre Tyson were finally told by the Army two
years after the death of their sons that they were not killed by
insurgents but by Iraqi army recruits with whom they were training
and patrolling (democracynow.org/2006/6/23/army_lies_to_mother_of_slain).

The parents of Spc. Jesse Buryj were initially told their son died in
an accident. After relentless pressure on the Army for a copy of the
autopsy, his mother read that Buryj had died of a gunshot wound. She
had to request through the Freedom of Information Act a copy of the
incident report, which states he was killed by friendly fire from
coalition Polish troops. And later a soldier from Buryj's unit came
to her home and told her he had been killed by "one of our own
troops"
(democracynow.org/2006/3/15/sunshine_week_newspapers_and_broadcasters_challenge).

Karen Meredith had to request the report on the May 30, 2004, death
of her son, 1st Lt. Ken Ballard, through the Freedom of Information
Act. Ballard did not die in a firefight with insurgents as she was
originally told (arlingtoncemetery.net/kmballard.htm). He actually
died in an accident when a branch fell on a tank in which he was
riding and set off an unmanned gun (mydd.com/story/2005/9/12/14492/7912).

On Sept. 9, 2005, Meredith met with an Army colonel in the Pentagon
and received a letter of apology from the Army for its misinformation
on her son's death. On Sept. 27, 2005, she met with Secretary of the
Army Francis Harvey and asked him to promise that soldiers' families
would promptly be told the truth about casualties.

As the Beaumont, Texas, newspaper the Enterprise stated in its June
20, 2008, editorial, "There is no excuse for the U.S. Army's shabby
treatment of Kamisha Block's parents and others who cared for her.
Her commanders knew right away that she had been killed by a fellow
soldier in Iraq, who had been harassing her. It was a standard
murder-suicide. Incredibly, the Army first told her parents that it
was an accidental death due to friendly fire."

A few days later, the Army changed its story and told the parents of
Spc. Block that their daughter had been murdered by a shot to the
chest. At the funeral home in Vidor, Texas, Block's mother noticed
her daughter had a wound to her head, not mentioned by the Army.
Six months later, after numerous phone calls to the Army and
enlisting help from Congressman Kevin Brady, Block's family was told
by the Army that she had been murdered by a fellow soldier in her
unit, a man who had physically assaulted her three times. His unit
had disciplined him once but kept him in the same unit where he
assaulted Block two other times before he murdered her by firing five
shots into her and then killing himself in the same barracks room.
After many attempts, the parents finally received a 1,200-page
investigation that gave the name of the murderer.

Our Soldiers' Families Deserve Better

The families of slain soldiers deserve the truth about how they
served and how they died. A professional military should handle each
case with utmost care and concern. Tragically, in the past seven
years, too many families have been faced with unanswered questions
and a military bureaucracy that closes ranks against those who are
trying to find answers.

I appeal to those in our military who know how these women died to
come forward. Hopefully, the House Armed Services Military Personnel
Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Susan Davis, (202) 225-2040, will hold
hearings on military suicides in the next two months and provide
protection from retaliation for those willing to testify.
--

Army Reserve Col. Ann Wright, retired, is a 29-year veteran of the
Army and Army Reserves. She was also a U.S. diplomat in Nicaragua,
Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia,
Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned from the Department of State
on March 19, 2003, in opposition to the Iraq war. She is the
co-author of "Dissent: Voices of Conscience."

.

Why Soldiers Rape

Why Soldiers Rape

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3848/

Culture of misogyny, illegal occupation, fuel sexual violence in military

August 13, 2008
By Helen Benedict

An alarming number of women soldiers are being sexually abused by
their comrades-in-arms, both at war and at home. This fact has
received a fair amount of attention lately from researchers and the
press ­ and deservedly so.

But the attention always focuses on the women: where they were when
assaulted, their relations with the assailant, the effects on their
mental health and careers, whether they are being adequately helped,
and so on. That discussion, as valuable as it is, misses a
fundamental point. To understand military sexual assault, let alone
know how to stop it, we must focus on the perpetrators. We need to
ask: Why do soldiers rape?

Rape in civilian life is already unacceptably common. One in six
women is raped or sexually assaulted in her lifetime, according to
the National Institute of Justice, a number so high it should be
considered an epidemic.

In the military, however, the situation is even worse. Rape is almost
twice as frequent as it is among civilians, especially in wartime.
Soldiers are taught to regard one another as family, so military rape
resembles incest. And most of the soldiers who rape are older and of
higher rank than their victims, so are taking advantage of their
authority to attack the very people they are supposed to protect.

Department of Defense reports show that nearly 90 percent of rape
victims in the Army are junior-ranking women, whose average age is
21, while most of the assailants are non-commissioned officers or
junior men, whose average age is 28.

This sexual violence persists in spite of strict laws against rape in
the military and a concerted Pentagon effort in 2005 to reform
procedures for reporting the crime. Unfortunately, neither the press
nor the many teams of psychologists and sociologists who study
veterans ever seem to ask why.

The answer appears to lie in a confluence of military culture, the
psychology of the assailants and the nature of war.

Two seminal studies have examined military culture and its attitudes
toward women: one by Duke University Law Professor Madeline Morris in
1996, which was presented in the paper "By Force of Arms: Rape, War,
and Military Culture" and published in Duke Law Journal; and the
other by University of California professor and folklorist Carol
Burke in 2004 and explained in her book, Camp All-American, Hanoi
Jane and the High-And-Tight: Gender, Folklore and Changing Military
Culture (Beacon Press). Both authors found that military culture is
more misogynistic than even many critics of the military would
suspect. Sometimes this misogyny stems from competition and sometimes
from resentment, but it lies at the root of why soldiers rape.

One recent Iraq War veteran reflected this misogyny when he described
his Marine Corp training for a collection of soldiers' works called
Warrior Writers, published by Iraq Veterans Against the War in 2008:

The [Drill Instructor's] nightly homiletic speeches, full of an
unabashed hatred of women, were part of the second phase of boot
camp: the process of rebuilding recruits into Marines.

Morris and Burke both show that military language reveals this
"unabashed hatred of women" all the time. Even with a force that is
now 14 percent female, and with rules that prohibit drill instructors
from using racial epithets and curses, those same instructors still
routinely denigrate recruits by calling them "pussy," "girl,"
"bitch," "lady" and "dyke." The everyday speech of soldiers is still
riddled with sexist insults.

Soldiers still openly peruse pornography that humiliates women.
(Pornography is officially banned in the military, but is easily
available to soldiers through the mail and from civilian sources, and
there is a significant correlation between pornography circulation
and rape rates, according to Duke's Morris. And military men still
sing the misogynist rhymes that have been around for decades. For
example, Burke's book cites this Naval Academy chant:

Who can take a chainsaw
Cut the bitch in two
Fuck the bottom half
And give the upper half to you…

The message in all these insults is that women have no business
trying to be soldiers. In 2007, Sgt. Sarah Scully of the Army's 8th
Military Police Brigade wrote to me in an e-mail from Kuwait, where
she was serving: "In the Army, any sign that you are a woman means
you are automatically ridiculed and treated as inferior."

Army Spc. Mickiela Montoya, who was in Iraq for 11 months from
2005-2006, put it another way: "There are only three things the guys
let you be if you're a girl in the military: a bitch, a ho or a dyke.
One guy told me he thinks the military sends women over to give the
guys eye candy to keep them sane. He told me in Vietnam they had
prostitutes, but they don't have those in Iraq, so they have women
soldiers instead."

The view of women as sexual prey has always been present in military
culture. Indeed, civilian women have been seen as sexual booty for
conquering soldiers since the beginning of human history. So, it
should come as no surprise that the sexual persecution of female
soldiers has been going on in the armed forces for decades.

• A 2004 study of veterans from Vietnam and all wars since, conducted
by psychotherapist Maureen Murdoch and published in the journal
Military Medicine, found that 71 percent of the women said they were
sexually assaulted or raped while serving.

• In 2003, a survey of female veterans from Vietnam through the first
Gulf War by psychologist Anne Sadler and her colleagues, published in
the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, found that 30 percent
said they were raped in the military.

• And a 1995 study of female veterans of the Gulf and earlier wars,
also conducted by Murdoch and published in Archives of Family
Medicine, reported that 90 percent had been sexually harassed, which
means anything from being pressured for sex to being relentlessly
teased and stared at.

• A 2007 survey by the Department of Veterans Affairs found that
homelessness among female veterans is rapidly increasing as women
soldiers come back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Forty percent of these
homeless female veterans say they were sexually abused while in the service.

Defense Department numbers are much lower. In Fiscal Year 2007, the
Pentagon reported 2,085 sexual assaults among military women, which
given that there are about 200,000 active-duty women in the armed
forces, is a mere fraction of what the veterans studies indicate. The
discrepancy can be explained by the fact that the Pentagon counts
only those rapes that soldiers have officially reported.

Having the courage to report a rape is hard enough for civilians,
where unsympathetic police, victim-blaming myths, and the fear of
reprisal prevent some 60 percent of rapes from being brought to
light, according to a 2005 Department of Justice study.

But within the military, reporting is much riskier. Platoons are
enclosed, hierarchical societies, riddled with gossip, so any woman
who reports a sexual assault has little chance of remaining
anonymous. She will probably have to face her assailant day after day
and put up with resentment and blame from other soldiers who see her
as a snitch. She risks being persecuted by her assailant if he is her
superior, and punished by any commanders who consider her a
troublemaker. And because military culture demands that all soldiers
keep their pain and distress to themselves, reporting an assault will
make her look weak and cowardly.

For all these reasons, some 80 percent of military rapes are never
reported, as the Pentagon itself acknowledges.

This widespread misogyny in the military actively encourages a rape
culture. It sends the message to men that, no matter how they feel
about women, they won't fit in as soldiers unless they prove
themselves a "brother" by demeaning and persecuting women at every
opportunity. So even though most soldiers are not rapists, and most
men do not hate women, in the military even the nicest guys succumb
to the pressure to act as if they do.

Of the 40 or so female veterans I have interviewed over the past two
years, all but two said they were constantly sexually harassed by
their comrades while they were serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, and
many told me that the men were worse in groups than they were
individually. Air Force Sgt. Marti Ribeiro, for example, told me that
she was relentlessly harassed for all eight years of her service,
both in training and during her deployments in 2003 and 2006:

I ended up waging my own war against an enemy dressed in the same
uniform as mine. I had a senior non-commissioned officer harass me on
a regular basis. He would constantly quiz me about my sex life, show
up at the barracks at odd hours of the night and ask personal
questions that no supervisor has a right to ask. I had a colonel
sexually harass me in ways I'm too embarrassed to explain. Once my
sergeant sat with me at lunch in the chow hall, and he said, 'I feel
like I'm in a fish bowl, the way all the men's eyes are boring into
your back.' I told him, 'That's what my life is like.'

Misogyny has always been at the root of sexual violence in the
military, but two other factors contribute to it, as well: the type
of man who chooses to enter the all-volunteer force and the nature of
the Iraq War.

The economic reasons behind enlistment are well understood. The
military is the primary path out of poverty and dead-end jobs for
many of the poor in America. What is less discussed is that many
soldiers enlist as teenagers to escape troubled or violent homes.

Two studies of Army and Marine recruits, one conducted in 1996 by
psychologists L.N. Rosen and L. Martin, and the other in 2005 by
Jessica Wolfe and her colleagues of the Boston Veterans Affairs
Health Center, both of which were published in the journal Military
Medicine, found that half the male enlistees had been physically
abused in childhood, one-sixth had been sexually abused, and 11
percent had experienced both. This is significant because, as
psychologists have long known, childhood abuse often turns men into abusers.

In the '70s, when the women's movement brought general awareness of
rape to a peak, three men ­ criminologist Menachim Amir and
psychologists Nicholas Groth and Gene Abel ­ conducted separate but
groundbreaking studies of imprisoned rapists. They found that rapists
are not motivated by out-of-control lust, as is widely thought, but
by a mix of anger, sexual sadism and the need to dominate ­ urges
that are usually formed in childhood. Therefore, the best way to
understand a rapist is to think of him as a torturer who uses sex as
a weapon to degrade and destroy his victims. This is just as true of
a soldier rapist as it is of a civilian who rapes.

Nobody has yet proven that abusive men like this seek out the
military ­ attracted by its violent culture ­ but several scholars
suspect that this is so, including the aforementioned Morris and
Rutgers University law professor Elizabeth L. Hillman, author of a
forthcoming paper on sexual violence in the military. Hillman writes,
"There is … the possibility that the demographics of the
all-volunteer force draw more rape-prone men into uniform as compared
to civil society."

Worse, according to the Defense Department's own reports, the
military has been exacerbating the problem by granting an increasing
number of "moral waivers" to its recruits since 9/11, which means
enlisting men with records of domestic and sexual violence.

Furthermore, the military has an abysmal record when it comes to
catching, prosecuting and punishing its rapists. The Pentagon's 2007
Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military found that 47 percent
of the reported sexual assaults in 2007 were dismissed as unworthy of
investigation, and only about 8 percent of the cases went to
court-martial, reflecting the difficulty female soldiers have in
making themselves heard or believed when they report sexual assault
within the military. The majority of assailants were given what the
Pentagon calls "nonjudicial punishments, administrative actions and
discharges." By contrast, in civilian life, 40 percent of those
accused of sex crimes are prosecuted.

Which brings us to the question: Do the reasons soldiers rape have
anything to do with the nature of the wars we are waging today,
particularly in Iraq?

Robert Jay Lifton, a professor of psychiatry who studies war crimes,
theorizes that soldiers are particularly prone to commit atrocities
in a war of brutal occupation, where the enemy is civilian
resistance, the command sanctions torture, and the war is justified
by distorted reasoning and obvious lies.

Thus, many American troops in Iraq have deliberately shot children,
raped civilian women and teenagers, tortured prisoners of war, and
abused their own comrades because they see no moral justification for
the war, and are reduced to nothing but self-loathing, anger, fear and hatred.

Although these explanations for why soldiers rape are dispiriting,
they do at least suggest that the military could institute the
following reforms:

• Promote and honor more women soldiers. The more respect women are
shown by the command, the less abuse they will get from their comrades.

• Teach officers and enlistees that rape is torture and a war crime.

• Expel men from the military who attack their female comrades.

• Ban the consumption of pornography.

• Prohibit the use of sexist language by drill instructors.

• Educate officers to insist that women be treated with respect.

• Train military counselors to help male and female soldiers not only
with war trauma, but also with childhood abuse and sexual assault.

• Cease admitting soldiers with backgrounds of domestic or sexual violence.

And last ­ but far from least ­ end the war in Iraq.
--

[Editor's note: This article is adapted from The Lonely Soldier: The
Private War of Women Serving in Iraq, to be published by Beacon Press
in April 2009.]
--

Helen Benedict, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, is
author of several books concerning social justice and women. Her
writings on women soldiers won the James Aronson Award for Social
Justice Journalism in 2008.

.

US Army Deserter Ordered Deported

US Army Deserter Ordered Deported

http://www.truthout.org/article/us-army-deserter-ordered-deported-from-canada

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080813.wwardeserter0813/BNStory/National/home

Wednesday 13 August 2008
by: The Canadian Press

Mississauga, Ontario - One of the first U.S. army deserters to seek
refugee status in Canada rather than serve in Iraq was ordered
deported Wednesday.

Jeremy Hinzman, along with his wife, son and a new baby, have
been ordered by the Canada Border Services Agency to leave by Sept. 23.

"I'm tremendously disappointed, we've been here nearly five
years, we have lots of friends and family," said Mr. Hinzman. "But
life goes on and we'll make the most of it wherever we go."

A handful of friends gathered outside the border services office
where the decision came down, along with supporters from the War
Resisters Support Campaign.

Mr. Hinzman was handed the order after a Citizenship and
Immigration officer decided his application, filed under the
pre-removal risk assessment program, didn't qualify.

The 29-year old was stoic as he walked out with his son Liam and
his wife, Nga Nguyen, who cradled a newborn daughter in her arms.

Mr. Hinzman said he still believes he and other deserters did
the right thing by coming to Canada rather than fighting in Iraq,
despite the potential for a court marshal, jail time and a felony
conviction in the U.S.

"Iraq was an unjust war based on false pretences and every
soldier who refused to fight probably saved a lot of lives," said Mr. Hinzman.

The former paratrooper from Ft. Bragg, N.C., fled to Canada with
his family in January 2004, shortly after learning that his unit was
to be deployed to Iraq.

Mr. Hinzman and his family were seeking refugee status in Canada.

The Immigration and Refugee Board rejected his claim in 2005 and
the Federal Court of Appeal held that he wouldn't face any serious
punishment if returned to the United States.

Mr. Hinzman took his pleas to the Supreme Court of Canada, which
refused to hear the case.

Michelle Robidoux of the War Resisters Support Campaign vowed
the organization's support for Mr. Hinzman and an estimated 200 other
resisters in Canada.

In light of a motion passed in Parliament in June calling for
all deportations of war resisters to be halted, the government is
contradicting public sentiment, she said.

"This government is not abiding by democratic norms," said Ms. Robidoux.

Federal NDP Citizenship and Immigration Critic Olivia Chow, who
put forward the June motion, called the decision "mean spirited."

She called on Citizenship and Immigration Minister Diane Finley
to halt the deportation of Mr. Hinzman and other resisters immediately.

.

Coffeehouse by Fort Lewis would support veterans

Coffeehouse by Fort Lewis would support veterans

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/373649_gicoffee06.html

'We're trying to reach out to soldiers'

By CAROL SMITH
P-I REPORTER
August 6, 2008

A group of local veterans hopes to launch a coffeehouse near Fort
Lewis where soldiers – both active-duty and out of the military –
could brew both good java and good company.

The coffeehouse would be a safe place, off base, where GIs and their
families could go for support, information about their rights and a
chance to express what's going on in their lives, said Mateo
Rebecchi, 24, a student at Seattle Central Community College and
member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, one of the coffeehouse backers.

"We're trying to reach out to soldiers who feel they have nowhere to
go," he said.

The coffeehouse would be the third such effort around the country,
said Molly Gibbs, a community organizer who has worked with Veterans
for Peace and other Seattle advocacy groups.

Rising concerns about the effect of longer deployments, the increase
in post-deployment suicide rates, sexual assaults in the military,
PTSD and employment have created a need for a place where people can
go to share experiences and find resources to cope, she said.

These kinds of coffeehouses have a time-honored tradition in the
post-Vietnam era, said Gibbs, whose first job in the mental health
field was with Vietnam vets, every one of whom came back "indelibly
shaped" by that experience. Something one of them told her has stayed
with her and kept her motivated to help veterans connect.

"I had a friend who was a medic in Vietnam," she said. "He told me,
'I left who I was over there – I never came back.' "

The coffeehouse, which has yet to be named, is still in the
fundraising stages, said Rebecchi, who estimated $30,000 is needed to
launch and operate the first year. The group is hoping to nab space
in an abandoned coin-operated laundry near the base. The cafe also
would serve up music, movies, poetry slams, lectures and access to legal help.

Rebecchi said one of the main goals of the coffeehouse is to inform
soldiers and veterans of their rights and to encourage them to speak
their minds, even if they don't agree with official military policy.

One of the best things the community can do for soldiers, and
soldiers can do for each other, is to listen to each other's stories,
Gibbs said. Time and again, she's heard from veterans and active-duty
military that what they needed most when they got back from a
deployment was a chance to share what happened to them and have it be
heard in a nonjudgmental way.

Rebecchi hopes the climate of the coffeehouse will encourage more
military members – both active duty and not – to consider ways to end
the war in Iraq.

Rebecchi served a four-year tour in the Persian Gulf with the Coast
Guard before being honorably discharged. He said he began questioning
the war effort while he was deployed.

"Ultimately, what's going to stop it is the GIs standing up and
saying, 'We're not going to fight anymore,' " he said.

The coffeehouse effort, which also has been endorsed by Seattle
Veterans for Peace, Citizen Soldier, Sound Nonviolent Opponents of
War, Fellowship of Reconciliation and Physicians for Social
Responsibility, is holding a fundraiser at the Richard Hugo House in
Seattle on Aug. 25 from 7 to 9 p.m., featuring Tod Ensign, director
of Citizen Soldier and co-founder of the Different Drummer Internet
Cafe near Fort Drum in upstate New York.
--

For more information, contact Gibbs at mollygibbs3@ gmail.com.
P-I reporter Carol Smith can be reached at 206-448-8070 or
carolsmith@seattlepi.com.

.

Canadian Iraq War deserter who fought under U.S. Forces, says war is wrong

Canadian Iraq War deserter who fought under U.S. Forces, says war is wrong

http://www.thehilltimes.ca/html/cover_index.php?display=story&full_path=/2008/july/21/war_deserter/&c=1

But critic says war deserters voluntarily signed a contract and
should face the consequences of their actions.

The Hill Times, July 21st, 2008
NEWS STORY
By Harris MacLeod

When Andrei Hurancyk, a Canadian citizen born in Poland and from the
Ottawa area, was 19 years old, he was such a strong supporter of the
Iraq war and of U.S. President George Bush's administration that in
2005 he went to New York state, became an American citizen, and
joined the U.S. Marine Corps. He was deployed to Iraq in March 2007
and finished his first tour of duty in October. Today, he's a war deserter.

"Originally, I volunteered to go to Iraq because I supported the war
and supported the cause, that's why I left Canada and went to New
York state and joined the U.S. military. I did one tour and came back
in October and that's when I started thinking: what have I really
done to Iraq? Was it the right cause? And I just realized we're not
fighting terrorists there, it's just the occupation of the country
and a lot things go unreported there, things that are not supposed to
be happening in a war zone, things being covered up," Mr. Hurancyk
said last week in an interview with The Hill Times.

Mr. Hurancyk, 22, said an immigration lawyer has told him that,
because of his Canadian citizenship, there is no possibility of him
being deported and he doesn't need to apply for refugee status like
other war deserters.

Mr. Hurancyk returned to Canada just before his second tour of duty.
He said that though deserters voluntarily entered into a legal
agreement, this is a moral issue.

"They did sign up for the United States military but they didn't sign
up to commit war crimes or even being involved with that, or violate
the human rights of other nations," said Mr. Hurancyk. "They signed
up to protect and uphold the United States Constitution and [defend
against] enemies, foreign and domestic. In the Iraq case, they're not
our enemy; it's just an occupation of the country for no true cause,
like freedom and war on terrorism. So I don't think they should be
obligated to fulfill this contract."

Mr. Hurancyk, who could face a court martial if he were to return to
the U.S., said people have a right to change their mind, and that
even the possibility of legal proceedings is unfair.

"For issues of conscience that's not a right punishment, in my
opinion. They're not criminals, they just refuse to participate in an
illegal war of aggression and they should not be facing jail time for that."

On Tuesday, Robin Long, a U.S. army deserter who was seeking refuge
in Canada because of his opposition to the Iraq war, became the first
to be deported after a British Columbia court ruled that he was not a refugee.

"I was disappointed because Parliament passed the motion on June 3 to
let them stay and 64 per cent of Canadians, they actually want U.S.
war resisters to stay in Canada. It's just the complete disregard for
the democratic process by the government makes me upset," said Mr. Hurancyk.

While Mr. Long was handed over to U.S. authorities on Tuesday, it is
not yet known whether he will face a court martial.

"I still talk to some of the Marines I served with, and the funny
thing was one of them totally supports me in what I did and he said
he would do the same if he had the status in Canada," said Mr. Hurancyk.

Lee Zaslofsky, of the War Resisters Support Campaign, an organization
that lobbies for and gives support to Iraq war deserters, said Prime
Minister Stephen Harper's (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) government today
is a lot different from the Trudeau-era government that allowed him
to stay in Canada when he came here as a Vietnam draft dodger in 1970.

He said the Conservative government should heed the non-binding
opposition motion, passed in the House on June 3, calling for a
freeze on deportations of U.S. Army deserters, and for them to be
allowed to apply for permanent resident status.

"The Canadians government has basically taken a hands-off attitude.
Their tactic is to try to keep this as a refugee question, now
Parliament's motion says nothing about refugees but the government
chooses to ignore that because they want to say that it's the refugee
process," said Mr. Zaslofsky. "If they decide they're not [refugees],
well then of course we just automatically throw them out of the country."

Mr. Zaslofsky, who said there are about 200 Iraq war deserters living
in Canada, said that while he has met with members of all three
opposition parties, the government has ignored his organization.

"We've been trying to get a meeting with [Immigration Minister] Diane
Finley and we've basically been told she'll be busy until she dies."

Mr. Zaslofsky said he recently met with a Conservative MP, whom he
would not name because he said he didn't want to "embarrass" the man.
"I'm sure there are other Conservatives like that who would be
interested in at least considering this."

Mr. Zaslofsky also noted that a recent Angus Reid poll found that 64
per cent of Canadians believe the war deserters should not be deported.

While the Conservatives, who voted against the unanimous opposition
motion in the House calling for the deserters to be allowed to stay,
have made no secret of the fact that they believe the Iraq war
deserters should be returned to the U.S., since the first deserter
arrived in 2004 they have let the courts handle the issue.

"I think what the government is saying is, 'We're only going to make
it worse if we politicize it, let's just let the courts work it
through case by case and don't put any pressure on it either way.'
That probably makes sense politically," said Chris Sands, a senior
fellow at the Hudson Institute, a public policy think tank in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Sands said that while he didn't agree with the Trudeau-era
government's policy of "harbouring" draft dodgers, it is important
that Canadians recognize the distinction between then and now.

"It was the policy of letting them stay that was actually the
aberration. Generally, friendly countries don't harbour draft dodgers
or fugitives, especially now where we no longer have the draft, we
have a volunteer military. In the Vietnam case, I think some Canadian
courts felt that because participation in the military was compelled
there were people who were fleeing," Mr. Sands said. "The judgment
was partly on the injustice of the war, but mainly on that people
were being compelled to participate and therefore faced harsh punishment."

Mr. Sands said war deserters voluntarily signed a contract, and that
by letting them stay Canada would risk hurting relations with the
U.S. simply because the deserters don't want to face the consequences
of their actions.

"They've made a commitment, they're trying to get out of it not by
negotiation, litigation, any of the normal means, but by fleeing. Why
should Canada harbour them, provide them with some protection from
American justice. As the judge who ruled in the case sending this one
guy back last week said, 'He's going back to face a trial, it will be
military trial, he'll have a chance to have his own lawyers, he'll
have a change to have a hearing," said Mr. Sands. "This is not a poor
refugee from Southern Sudan, someone who's really facing death or
some horrible process, but somebody who is going to have his day in
court and is going to have to face the consequences of his actions
just like anyone else would."

Mr. Sands noted that most deserters would most likely receive a "less
than honourable discharge" from the military, as opposed to anything
more serious, like jail time.

Though Mr. Sands said he believes adamantly that deserters should be
returned to the U.S., he thinks the opposition motion is a good thing
because he said there has not been enough discussion of the issue in Canada.

"The great stereotype of Canadians is that you're really nice people.
Their sort of knee-jerk, gut reaction is, 'Oh, let's be
compassionate, we were always nice to the Vietnam draft dodgers,
let's let these guys stay'...I don't think there's really been a
public debate on it."
--

hmacleod@hilltimes.com

.

How should Canada deal with Iraq war deserters?

How should Canada deal with Iraq war deserters?

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/columnists/top3/story/4207793p-4800185c.html

Don Marks
Updated: August 3, 2008

Judging by the extensive media coverage of Iraq war resister Michael
Welch's protests against deporting American soldiers who have come to
Canada after going AWOL from the U.S. military, and the number of
letters to the editor in local newspapers calling for the Canadian
government to send these same soldiers stateside, there is certainly
interest in what to do with this latest round of war resisters, if
not agreement.

This is perhaps natural because Winnipeg was the North American
centre for war resistance during the Vietnam War era of the 1970s.
The War Resister Information Program (WRIP) and the Winnipeg
Committee to Aid War Objectors were the only organizations that
Senator Ted Kennedy entrusted with the final, client confidential
list of cases of draft evasion which had prosecutorial merit while
president Gerald Ford announced a "clemency program" for military
AWOLs (which WRIP replied to by leading a class-action lawsuit
against him). How many organizations in any Canadian city can say
they sued the president of the most powerful country in the world?

Winnipeg led the country while Canada generally welcomed
conscientious objectors by opening their hearts and homes. The
Canadian government of the day even granted an amnesty so that these
refugees could apply for landed-immigrant status while remaining in
Canada. Then WRIP helped these ex-patriates get their charges dropped
so they could return home for Christmas, a kid sister's wedding or a
father's funeral.

The question now is how will Winnipeg (and the rest of Canada)
respond to the growing number of young Americans who have left or
will be leaving their country and its military because they can no
longer live up to their commitment to serve.

So far, the Canadian government has responded by closing the border
to them. If they manage to sneak in, the policy of the Harper
government is to kick them back out. On the contrary, all of Canada's
opposition parties voted in favour of relief but they don't control
the courts and recently a federal judge ordered the removal of
25-year-old Robin Long, a U.S. Army deserter, from Canada. This means
that Canada is no longer a safe haven for American soldiers who
decide to evade military service at home or abroad.

Long would be the first U.S. deserter to be deported since the Iraq
war began five years ago. About 200 other war resisters have sought
refuge in Canada and, while some have lost their court appeals, they
remain in Canada pending further deportation procedures.

About 20,000 expatriate Americans remain in Canada from the Vietnam
war. The size of that number raises the stakes. Is Canada going to
respond to resistance to the war in Iraq the same way that this
country responded to the Vietnam war, or has there been a change in
the attitudes of Canadians since the 1960s and 1970s?

Well, of course attitudes have changed about many things since those
times, but we are talking about basic values in this case -- opening
up our hearts and homes to people from another country even though we
may not particularly like or agree with their nationality or politics.

The old standard arguments remain. Are these young men really
conscientious objectors? Or are they simply cowards? Then there is,
"They knew damn well what they were getting into when they signed
up," versus, "Hey, these kids may have signed up to defend their
country in all good conscience but they didn't expect to be fighting
to line the pockets of oil barons or to put Persian art treasures in
the living rooms of Bush's buddies, and some of the black kids simply
bought into the message emphasized in those recruitment posters
offering a career as a pilot or communications technician, not some
controversial war."

No weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq and, while Osama
bin Laden may be found in Afghanistan, he wasn't hiding out in Iraq,
which is also not the central breeding ground for al-Qaida
activities. So who was really fooling whom in those enlistment contracts?

Canada didn't buy in to the war in Iraq. The majority of the Canadian
Parliament supports providing a refuge for American war resisters.
Canadians, particularly the citizens of Winnipeg, have a
long-standing history of opening up their hearts, their minds and
their homes to young Americans in this situation.

So what is it going to be?

Welch is asking Canadians to lobby the Canadian government to
implement a policy that welcomes and shelters Iraq war resisters
right now. Welch has the support of the United Church of Canada, the
Mennonite Central Committee and the Canadian Friends Service
Committee, among many others similar large, national groups, and 64
per cent of the Canadian public, according to the latest poll.

What are you going to do?
--

Don Marks] is a freelance writer and the former co-ordinator of the
War Resister Information Program.

.

The Military Lies

The Military Lies

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/young-r4.html

by Roger Young
August 6, 2008

Not exactly a bold, controversial statement, right? Even the most
ardent supporter will agree that the military lies during its
day-to-day mission of "defending" the country, in part to confuse the
enemy de jour. But the far greater deceit lies in justifying the
reasons for this organization's mere existence.

My recent piece asked honest, logical questions disputing certain
rationalizations pertaining to the military. The response from
readers was overwhelmingly positive and the vast majority of those
respondents were veterans! Among the small minority of dissenters,
only a few made polite, thoughtful rebuttals. Not surprisingly, their
arguments failed to convince me. However, their points did cause me
to realize that the military's claim of "defending my freedom" was
not only untrue but an impossible task for the military to accomplish.

Military supporters certainly claim the organization "protects my
freedom." Does the military make identical, documented claims? The
Army sees itself as "protecting America's freedoms at home and
abroad, securing our homeland, and defending democracy worldwide."
The Soldier's Creed for the Army and Army National Guard claims "I am
a guardian of freedom and the American way of life."

The Airmen's Creed for members of the Air Force maintains themselves
to be a "Guardian of Freedom and Justice."

The Creed of a United States Marine seems more about a love affair
with their rifle (their rifle is human?) than a claim of protecting
anyone's freedom. However, one of their numerous websites does
explain the motto, "Semper Fidelis" and how "this phrase defines the
honesty and dedication of the Marines for their work of protecting
the U.S.A." The Marine's recruiting literature also mentions their
search for "men and women to join their organization who are ready to
fight for their country and protect their people."

The Sailor's Creed, for those in the Navy, remembers "those who have
gone before me to defend freedom and democracy around the world."

And let's not forget the US Coast Guard whose stated mission includes
"protecting" the public and boasts of it role in the Homeland
Security apparatus.

Although their defense claims are rather broad, I think it can be
accurately stated that the military professes to protect my person
and my freedom. But is this reality?

Lie #1: The military protects your freedom.

Imagine that I have a conversation concerning this assertion with a
member of the military or a supporter:

Militarist: "The military protects your freedom from those who would take it."

Me: "I disagree. More and more of my freedoms are disappearing
through actions initiated by the government that claims to represent
me." [Numerous examples are given including illegal assaults by state
and federal law enforcement, denial of habeas corpus, spying on
American citizens, being searched without warrant or probable cause
at airports, etc.]"

Militarist: "I stay very well informed on such matters and I agree –
many areas of the government have overstepped their constitutional
authority and damaged or taken some of your freedoms. However, the
military did not take those illegal actions. Other areas of the
government did."

Me: "Agreed. But earlier you claimed, unequivocally, that the
military protects my freedom. You have agreed with my assertion that
my freedoms are quickly disappearing. Therefore I can conclude that
the military, despite their claims to the contrary, is not protecting
my freedom. The military may not have the authority to counter other
rogue elements of the government that threaten my freedom, but that
fact is irrelevant. What is relevant is the fact that my freedom is
not being protected and you claim the military is protecting my
freedom. I'm not so much upset that the military can't (through legal
restrictions) defend my freedom as I am that they claim they do
protect my freedom. When the military claims to protect my freedom
they do so without listing any qualifiers or exceptions. Therefore,
the military and its supporters are promoting a lie."

Lie #2: The military protects and defends the US Constitution

Again, imagine that I have a conversation concerning this assertion
with a member of the military or a supporter:

Militarist: "The military protects and defends the US Constitution in
obedience to its member's pledge to defend it "against all enemies,
foreign and domestic."

Me: "I disagree. Many areas of the government have damaged, taken,
and continue to threaten my liberties guaranteed under the US
Constitution. You have previously agreed to this claim. But the
military makes no effort to protect or rectify these abuses. It
cannot do so because it lacks the legal authority to interfere in the
activities of other areas of the government. Yet, the military claims
it does protect the US Constitution and therefore protects the
individuals safeguarded by that document. Clearly, as these examples
prove, the military does not and can not. The military is telling a lie."

"In addition, the military continues to execute acts of war against
other states without the declaration of war required for such action
by Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution. By doing so, the
military actively participates in an illegal, unconstitutional
action. How can the military be defending the Constitution at the
same time it is actively violating it? The military may be excused
for not having the authority to question or refuse participation in
such illegal actions. It is, in effect, impotent. But by not having
this authority to refuse participation it is clearly unable to take
steps that would stop such an action. The military claims to defend
the Constitution without offering any qualifiers or exceptions.
Therefore, this unequivocal, categorical claim is a lie."

"To top it off, members of the US military swear an oath to defend
the Constitution "from all enemies, foreign and domestic." They
obviously violate this oath for the reasons stated above. Strict
Constitutionalists may consider this offense "treasonous." More
importantly, this fact exposes one of the weaknesses of such a
document. Members of the US military swear an oath to defend a rule
of law (the US Constitution) even though they don't have the
Constitutional authority (in many cases) to defend it! How bizarre is that?"

Conclusion

The military does not and cannot, protect my freedom. It is in fact a
threat to my freedom by protecting or ignoring those "domestic
enemies" from which they claim to protect me. It is a threat to my
freedom by claiming it protects me when it does not even have the
authority to defend me from the most immediate threats; those of the
"domestic" variety originating from numerous areas of the federal
government. The military is a threat to my freedom by protecting and
defending that very entity that is the greatest danger to my safety
and freedom – the United States Federal Government and the regime
that controls it. There is no "foreign" threat that can equal it,
particularly since so many perceived foreign threats wind up being
manufactured. Personally, I have more faith in the protection offered
by two large oceans than a trillion dollar/year "defense" agency that
can't protect its own building.

To some, my analysis may be viewed as nit picking. But I refuse to
apologize for demanding accountability from an organization that
fraudulently claims to provide a service while pointing a gun to my
head forcing me to finance it.

Why don't the military and its supporters revise their claim to, "The
military "tries to protect your freedom?" Such a statement might
actually be grounded in honesty, though no more convincing than the
original claim. Or how about, "The military protects your freedom
when it is legally allowed to do so?" Somehow, that statement just
does not have the sound-bite simplicity necessary to excite
supporters, reassure the masses and continue the deception.

Knowing that the military and its supporters can be proud of failure
(despite any valid excuses), they should have no problem taking pride
in the fact that they "tried." However, if they have tried and still
failed, how does that benefit me?

And please, cease and desist the strident demands that I be "grateful."

.