Marshall’s Blog | Crazy Mormon Lib

I can’t say how happy I am that today the U.S. officially began it’s withdrawal from Iraq. Most Iraqis celebrated, which was to be expected. A very small number of people got violent, which was also to be expected. My prayers go out to the families of the Iraqis and Americans who died today.

The possibility of continued violence is often cited as a reason not to withdraw. The British made the same arguments about nearly every colonial interest they had. I’m sure there will be more violence to follow in Iraq, but it won’t change the fact that withdrawing is the right thing to do. In the next year we will need to watch Iraq and the Obama Administration with a close eye to ensure that we withdraw completely and do not leave behind significant numbers of U.S. troops or any permanent U.S. military bases. Still, this is a day that I’ve been working toward for so long. It seems surreal.

With the amount of hard work that remains, it’s hard for me to feel ecstatic about the largely symbolic transfer of authority today. Still, I feel relieved. I feel like I can breathe a little easier and hold my head a bit higher. I feel like America is getting back on the right path after nearly a decade of trugding through a dark and virulent mist.

The task now is two-fold: 1) Ensure the withdrawal continues uncompromised. 2) Hold accountable the people who instituted and initiated illegal war, torture, and indefinite detention.

The following is the text of a speech I gave at the Accountability for Torture Day in Salt Lake City, Utah on June 25. It’s not word for word, but I thought it was worth posting.

Thank you for showing up here today. I’m so glad to be with you. That may sound strange to say given the seriousness of the topic, but it’s true. This rally, and your presence, shows how far we’ve come as a country.

In 2003, I attended a protest against the impending invasion of Iraq at Utah State University. A handful of people showed up to support peace and about 200 people showed up to support war. Groups of them wore T-shirts that read “Bomb Saddam.” They yelled at us, they mocked us, they tried to take our microphone and stage away from us. We yelled back.

It was the beginning of a dark time for our country. Since then, we’ve watched, heartbroken, as our nation has gone down the strange path of illegal war, xenophobia, and torture. But now, today, less than a decade later, we can already see that our country is beginning to awake from the nightmare that has gripped it.

I feel more hope for an end to the war today than I ever have before. And I feel surer that those who put this country on this path will face justice in this life. To come to this event, and see you here, makes e believe that it will happen. And that makes me relived. It makes me happy and it makes me hopeful for the future.

Spending a year in Iraq as a soldier, I came to understand more fully that every act of violence has at least two victims: the person who commits the violence and the person who is on the receiving end of that violence. Both may be burdened and scarred for life, and both may eventually die of their wounds.

And so, when our country chooses a path of war and torture, we create twice the pain, twice the broken lives, and twice the destruction. When I think of this, I think of Spec. Alyssa Peterson, who was one of the first women to die in Iraq. I’ve told her story before, but I will keep telling it until everyone knows it.

I’ve never met her, but I feel very close to her because we have some important things in common. We are both Mormons who served as missionaries for our church. We both returned from those missions with a desire to serve our country, and joined the military. But Alyssa was exceptional. She was a gifted linguist who taught herself Dutch before going to the Netherlands as a Mormon missionary. She applied this gift to learn Arabic and serve her country as an interpreter and interrogator.

But when she got to Iraq, her country betrayed her. Alyssa was ordered to participate in an interrogation operation referred to as “the cage.” Our government refuses to tell us what went on in the cage, but from what we know it wasn’t good. Some accounts talk of men being stripped naked before female interrogators who would then proceed to mock the men’s genitalia. Some accounts hint at things much worse.

As Mormons, Alyssa and I were raised to believe that we are all children of God. We believe in the divinity of our bodies and the sacredness of our sexuality. And so I understand the betrayal she must have felt when she realized that her country was asking her to use that sacred sexuality and the divine feminine within her as a weapon to humiliate, defile and torture another child of God.

Weak and naïve men, thousands of miles away from any danger, acted out of fear and hate and ignorance and ordered Alyssa to abandon her morals, to defy here sense of right and wrong, and to rebel against her God.

Alyssa, however, was exceptional. She refused to do it. After only two days working in the cage, she complained about what was happening and utterly refused to serve. Shortly after that, she was found dead on her base in Iraq. The original story from the Army was that she died from a noncombat negligent weapons discharge. After a reporter dug deeper into the story, the Army declared her death a suicide. There is still is some doubt about that as well.

It is a shame that we do not know the full details of Alyssa’s story. It is a shame that we do not know what was going on in the cage that caused this exceptional woman such distress. It’s a shame that we have allowed our country to fall into this darkness.

Victor Hugo once wrote:

“If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.”

For Alyssa’s sake and for the sake of all those how have been affected by torture and illegal war, we must prosecute those who caused the darkness. We must govern ourselves or abandon the experiment of self-rule.

One painful irony in all of this is that listed among those weak and naïve men who caused the darkness and betrayed Alyssa are several of her fellow Mormons. I have to admit that I’ve cursed their names in the past, and I’ve hated them. But, I want to suggest today that I was wrong in doing so.

As hard as it is, we must forgive all those who are accused of war crimes in our country. We must prosecute them in courts of law, but we must forgive them on a personal level first.

The reason for this is our focus must be on justice and not on vengeance or retribution. We can’t afford to hate the members of the Bush administration who authorized and ordered torture because that hate will be a barrier for the justice that we truly desire. Our struggle for justice will be long and hard, and hate is not a good long-term motivator. We must be focused on something nobler.

I’ve often wondered what I would do if I ever had the chance to meet Pres. Bush. Would I shake his hand? Would I snub him? Would I yell at him? But now, considering the task at hand, I know that if I ever had the chance to meet George W. Bush, I would embrace him as a brother. Because he too is a child of God. He is an American and he was my president. I forgive him for the pain his actions have caused me, and forgive him for the pain his actions have caused the world. Nevertheless, Justice demands he be held accountable for his actions.

And so today is a wonderful day, and I’m happy to be here. We’re all here together to make our country a better place. We’re here to ensure that future generations have a good example to follow. We’re here to demand justice for the countless victims of illegal war, indefinite detention, and torture.

I’d like to share one last thing with you. It’s a Mormon scripture from one of our canonical texts, the Doctrine and Covenants. I think it perfectly describes my motivations in calling for the prosecution of war crimes and I hope it will inspire others to take up the cause as well. It reads:

“We believe that the commission of crime should be punished according to the nature of the offense; that murder, treason, robbery, theft, and the breach of the general peace, in all respects, should be punished according to their criminality and their tendency to evil among men, by the laws of that government in which the offense is committed; and for the public peace and tranquility all men should step forward and use their ability in brining offenders against good laws to punishment.”

It’s my hope today, that we can all come together and use our abilities to bring offenders of good laws to punishment, and do it in a way that is free of hate and focused on peace and justice. Thank you.

The following is a blog entry I made three years ago on Martin Luther King Jr. Day from Iraq. If you can’t tell, I was a little bit bitter.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I was hoping we’d get the day off, but that didn’t happen. G.W., whose visit to King’s grave was heavily protested, recently said that America has made progress toward King’s dream, but we’re not there yet.

This is one of those special occasions when I agree with G.W. Within the military in Iraq, I don’t see a lot of tension between white and black soldiers. It doesn’t mean it’s not there, I just haven’t experienced it. However, I have been witness to the emergence of a new racial epithet for Arabs.

Haji, once an honorable term for one who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, has moved into popular use among soldiers to denigrate and generalize Arabs and those who live in predominately Arab nations. Spencer Case wrote a great editorial about it in the Jan. 15 edition of the Anaconda Times on pg. 2. It will also run in the Army Times soon and you can read it on his blog, Case and Point, atwww.spencercaselog.blogspot.com.

The chow hall was nice. They made a huge MLK cake. I couldn’t help but notice that it was a two layer cake, vanilla and chocolate. I nearly teared up as I realized that, in a small way, this cake was realizing Dr. King’s dream. Two separate flavors combining to form one cake. But then I realized that the vanilla layer was on top of the chocolate and that they were separated by an impenetrable layer of cream cheese icing. Just another example of the vanilla cake keeping the chocolate cake down.

So, yes, G.W., I guess we’re not there yet.

The open-air burn pit at Balad Air Base in Iraq has been a terrible thing. In burns all sort of waste from plastic to human remains and the smoke permeates the entire facility. I continue to get e-mails and posts from people who are having health problems because of it. While I was in Iraq, I recognized the burn pit as a major problem and took precautions.

When I got home, however, my number one priority was working toward a responsible troop withdrawal and so the thick black smoke in Balad took back seat in my mind. I thought if we didn’t have troops at Balad Air Base, then we wouldn’t have to worry about the health hazard.

That was two and a half years ago now, and more and more people are being exposed to this incredible health hazard every day. I should have been speaking out earlier about this, but I suppose it’s better late than never.

One story about Iraq that I’ve never told publicly was the way we treat Third Country Nationals, or TCNs. They are people, usually from the Philippines and India, who have subcontracted to work for a U.S. contractor in Iraq, like Haliburton or KBR. In actuality, most of them have sub-subcontracted with a group like PPI who subcontracts with Haliburton or KBR.

The Third Country Nationals live in atrocious conditions on U.S. bases like Balad (Camp Anaconda for the Army folks). People I talked with said they made about $300 a month, minus their airfare, housing and food. The food they could get only at segregated chow halls consisted of rice, beans and a half a pita for lunch and diner. Most of them had contracted to stay in Iraq without a vacation for two or three years at a time.

The completely unaccountable subcontractors ran segregated housing complexes for the TCNs. The contractors would not allow military personnel to check for environmental or public health hazards or even make routine visits. The TCNs usually had three or sometimes four bunk beds to a room, which left hardly any space to move. Three people shared each bed and slept in 8-hour shifts around the clock. The Navy sometimes does this for short stints on submarines – it’s called hot bunking. It’s a terrible way to live three years of your life. With three shifts, there isn’t time to wash the sheets, so you’re often left sleeping in the sweaty linens of the person ahead of you.

On the base, the TCNs did all the undesirable jobs. And, you guessed it, that included manning the burn pit.

Military personnel work on and around the burn pit as well, and we have seen that the smoke has done some irreparable damage to their health. What we don’t know is how much devastation it has caused in the health and lives of the Third Country Nationals who are already exploited and abused.

This is a human rights violation. We need to fix it immediately and make reparations to every human being who has been affected. Like the war, it’s gone on too long.

The pen may well be mighter than the sword, but in some circumstances, a shoe is even mightier. As President Bush did what the AP termed “a victory lap without a clear victory” in Iraq, one Iraqi journalist set aside his pen and notepad and did something incredible. He picked up his shoes and hurled them, with amazing accuracy, at President Bush’s head.

While our Commander and Chief has been a dismal failure in both foreign and national policy, it seems he excels at dodging shoes. His inability to answer questions at press conferences has greatly belied his cat like reflexes while ducking out of the way of flying footwear. History will certainly judge Bush one of the greatest shoe-dodgers we’ve ever had as president.

As an Iraq War veteran, many people ask me what the Iraqis think of us. It’s hard to say. Kurds, like Pres. Talibani, usually really like us. On the other hand, the Sunnis and Shiites with whom I was able to speak almost always said something like “please leave.” Other times, they said it more forcefully, with mortars and bullets. If anyone still wonders what Iraqis think of America, this video should tell them.

Sure, it’s just one Iraqi. But it’s one Iraq who had been hurt so much by President  Bush’s policies that he lashed out in such an incredible way. His shoes were there, so he used them the best way he could. Bush was, once again, trying to pretend that the war was a good thing — that the invasion of Iraq, which killed over 4,200 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, was necessary for world peace. Starting an unecessary and illegal war can never be necessary for world peace. The whole idea is ridiculous. And yet, Bush was doing his “victory lap” and making that very claim.

In the past, the Bush administration has been able to “brass it out” when it comes to logical contradictions. They act and speak as if they have done something good, and then people assume that they’ve done it.  There was a slight danger of this occurring yet again with Bush’s photo ops in Iraq. However, thanks to one gutsy, shoeless journalist, Bush’s final tour of Iraq will go down as a major embarrassment. His shoes may have missed the physical target, but they shattered the false image of President Bush as a noble liberator and revealed instead, a small, sad man who is only just coming to grips with the carnage and devastation for which he is responsible.

I can’t watch this without feeling terrible for President Bush. The shock of the flying shoes must have been a stinging rebuke and a lasting insult. On a personal level, I hope George doesn’t feel too bad about the whole incident. Considering the broader issues of illegal war, loss of life and American treasure, however, I can understand the appropriateness of the action. Nonviolence is the only form of protest that I can practice or endorse. Throwing shoes isn’t a nonviolent act, but when people feel oppressed and desperate enough, they will make their voices heard any way they can. While I don’t condone it, I respect the reasons behind it.

For me, it is going to be one of the defining images of the Bush Administration. The new year can’t come soon enough.

A little over two years ago, I returned from a tour in Iraq and walked the length of Utah to call for a peaceful and responsible withdrawal. When I started, I considered my home state the reddest, most hawkish, war-loving state in the nation. My 500-mile trek for peace, however, changed my mind. I met so many good people who supported the war only out of an abused sense of loyalty and patriotism, and I met so many more who had seen through the lies and violence and were outraged.

I ended my walk convinced that I was wrong about Utah. Surrounded by a group of amazing peace-loving people who had followed me out in the desert to the Arizona border, I said, “I’ve never been prouder to be a Utahan.” And I meant it.

Obviously, not everybody knows Utah as well as I do. The Blackwater mercenaries from Iraq who killed 17 innocent Iraqis last year, turned themselves in at a federal court in Utah today because they thought it was their best bet for a sympathetic jury. This is how the New York Times put it:

“Mark Hulkower, a lawyer for one of the defendants, said the men surrendered in Utah, a relatively conservative, pro-military area, because they hoped to find a jury pool where ‘people are more sympathetic to the experiences of coming under enemy fire.’”

For those of you unfamiliar with Blackwater, watch this mini-documentary from the Daily Show:

Great. Utah has such a poor reputation that trigger happy mercenaries feel like Utahans will understand them the best. George Bush thought that a few months ago when he visited here with Mitt Romney, but we showed him otherwise. Thousands turned out to protest a president who has left a legacy of torture and war crimes.

I think it’s time to mount another protest and show the world that Utah will not be sympathetic to those who carried out Bush’s illegal policies for cold hard cash. If you can’t tell, I don’t feel any sort of connection to the Blackwater mercenaries, even though I also participated in the illegal war in Iraq.

While I deeply regret the entire tragedy of the war and my own role most bitterly, I can at least honestly say that I was trying to serve my country. The Blackwater mercenaries can’t say that, and any jury that tries them can’t forget that.

One of my buddies from Iraq, Spencer Case, studies just war theory. He told me that there are two sorts of ethical standards or scopes when it comes to war: jus ad bellum, which deals with the justification to go to war, and jus in bello, which deals with the actions of the individual combatants in a given conflict.

Bush failed when it came to jus ad bellum and the Blackwater guards failed when it came to jus in bello. While I would like to see mercy for all, I have to demand justice for the victims. Seventeen people are dead, the Blackwater mercenaries killed them, that much is not in doubt. The question is, how much blame will we, as a society, attribute to the circumstances and how much blame will we put upon the shoulders of the individuals. I’m glad I don’t have to be making those decisions.

I’m offended and embarrassed that mercenaries who gunned down innocent people when they posed no threat, think that Utahans will look kindly upon them. When I was serving in Korea, the status of forces agreement stated that U.S. service members would be tried in South Korea for major offenses. I don’t see why Blackwater mercs should be treated any better for crimes committed in Iraq. Let them have their trial there.

I’ve spent so much time working to convince people of the illegality and immorality of the Iraq War, that sometimes I forget to take the time to laugh at the little, completely inappropriate things.

Compared to torture, wars of aggression, and the total violation of civil liberties, the Dallas Cowboy’s cheerleaders ridiculing the traditional dress of their host country isn’t that big of a deal, but it sure is funny. In case you can’t see the video, two women come out on stage during a USO tour in Kuwait wearing abayat, the traditional attire in many Middle Eastern countries. Then, the music starts, they drop their abayat and start doing a sexy dance in their cheerleader uniforms. God bless America.

I know it’s not a big deal, but I would argue that it’s indicative of America’s general lack of respect and understanding of Middle Eastern culture. That, of course, is kind of a big deal.

The other funny part about this is that most civilians have a gauzy, nostalgic view of USO shows. Unfortunately, much of the entertainment for our troops is less like “South Pacific” and more like “Northern Exposure.” (That’s a strip club in Utah … or so I’m told.)

The other funny part is where I obtained this embarrassing video: the military’s official media outlet, www.dvidshub.net. It’s amazing what you can find there. If you’re bored, take a few minutes and see what you can find. Hint: for the most inappropriate, look up “Purrfect Angelz.” One of the female soldiers I served with in Iraq described the Purrfect Angelz as strippers who just happen to keep their clothes on.

Maybe it’s the feminist in me, but I wonder when the USO is going to start brining the Thunder from Down Under to Iraq? Female soldiers need a morale boost, too. Just think, the sooner we can end this war, the sooner women won’t have to exploit their bodies to “entertain” the troops.

Earlier this month I blogged about the photos I took of the Balad Air Base burn pit in Iraq. Instead of using an incinerator, the U.S. has cut costs by burning garbage, including plastic and amputated limbs, in an open-air pit. Anyone who has ever been to Camp Anaconda (Balad) will remember the sight, smell and taste of the thick black smoke that wafts through the base all day and night. The other day, a woman named Jill left this message on my blog:

“My husband, Major Kevin E. Wilkins, 920ASTS Patrick AFB Florida, was a nurse at the hospital in Balad, Iraq, summer of 2006. He spoke some of the “burn pit”. Six months after he returned the headaches started. He just turned 51 years on March 8, 2008 and died of a brain tumor on April 1, 2008. He was perfectly healthy before his tour in Balad.”

I felt so bad for Jill when I read this. There is a special sort of horror that we feel when we realize our loved ones are different then they were before they went to war. Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is. Jill noticed that her husband had headaches. He didn’t have them before. That’s a frightening situation.

I was there at the same time as her husband, and I wonder how many more stories there are like Jill’s. Even with a large amount of anecdotal evidence, I’m sure the Department of Defense will deny there is any connection between the air pollution and subsequent illnesses. When I was a military journalist in Iraq, a Lt. Col. told us during our orientation to never mention the pit to any members of the media. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the DOD has already started classifying their reports on the burn pit.

The DOD has even asked for the photos I took of the smoldering garbage dump. A great blogger, Ms. Sparky, posted a link to my blog about the burn pit. She e-mailed a few days later and told me that the DOD asked her to collect all the information she could, including my photos, for a report. She said it seemed odd that they would want mine since they could easily get their own in Iraq. I agree.

Maybe they wanted my photos so they could classify them with the other reports. They’re already public domain at this point, so I don’t think that’s even possible. Still, it’s baffling behavior.

The DOD is claiming that the reports on the burn pit and its effects on the health of service members at Balad Air Base are vital to national security. That is, of course, a load of crap. In the meantime, Jill has lost her husband. She thinks it could have something to do with the burn pit. I think she’s right. The DOD needs to be more transparent about this or we may never know. I hope Jill can mourn and feel comforted in the absence of that understanding. Until then, I hope those suppressing this information feel the damning weight of their betrayal.

For me, Veterans Day is fast becoming as miserable as Valentine’s Day is when you’re lonely. Yesterday, I attended an amazing concert in Logan featuring the American Festival Chorus, a massive choir that includes many family members. The music was excellent, everything else was frustrating. All the pomp and glorification of war, while well intended, is disturbingly inappropriate. It’s a day of mourning, but usually it ends up being a day of celebrating the very things that took our loved ones away. It did not help that it was an absolutely full house. I’m still struggling with PTSD and the amount of people everywhere made me very uncomfortable. So, maybe I’m being a bit pessimistic here.

The last two years during Veterans Day, my wife and I have traveled down to Arlington West, a memorial for the fallen service members in Iraq and Afghanistan on the beach near the Santa Monica Pier in California. It is a beautiful gathering of veterans and people who care and understand how to mourn. The first year we went, I met one of my personal heroes, Ron Kovic, the Vietnam veteran who wrote the book Born on the Fourth of July. The next year, in 2007, I met another hero of mine, Seymour Hersh, the investigative journalist who uncovered the My Lai massacre and a lot of what we know about Abu Ghraib, among other things. Those were good Veterans Days.

I spent a Veterans Day in Iraq, but I don’t remember much about it. I do, distinctly remember Veterans Day, 2001, however. That was the exact date I returned to the United States from my first deployment in Kosovo. We were supposed to have a two-day wait in Georgia while we turned in equipment and then we would finally go home.

However, it was Veterans Day, so the entire base was shut down. Long story short, because the holiday messed up our schedule, we spent almost two weeks confined to a dirty set of barracks on a remote cul-de-sac in Ft. Benning, GA. With nothing to do but obsess about how poorly we were being treated, not to mention the stress of a deployment to combat zone, we all started to go a little nuts. It culminated when a good friend of mine had a melt down on a public bus.

We had finally finagled the privilege to leave our area for a few hours and go bowling on base. We took a bus that was full of new recruits, civilians, and some army personnel. My friend got into an argument about something with someone and before we knew it, he was standing up, yelling at the top of the his lungs that the Army would f*** you. He didn’t stop there. He went on to describe where and in what manner the Army would f*** you.

We couldn’t stop him, he was scaring the pants off the recruits. When we tried to calm him down, he would get wound right back up again, repeating himself all the more loudly. Finally, we arrived at the bowling alley, and he stopped.

As we got off the bus, a specialist who was escorting a group of recruits said, “Don’t listen to him, he’s just a civilian.”

Now, it was my turn to freak out. I got right up in the face of the guy until we were only inches apart and I said, “That man’s a veteran. Are you a veteran?”

“No,” he replied.

“Then shut up.”

So, considering Veterans Day 2001, I  guess I would have say that last night was a pretty good one after all.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me what I was going to do now the “war was in the bag.” It was all I could do not to go PTSD on him. Just because we’ve made progress doesn’t mean everything is fine now. Less U.S. service members are dying, but to the families of the fallen, the suffering hasn’t lost any of its intensity.

With Obama’s presidential victory and the Democrats’ substantial lead in the Senate and increased majority in the House, it’s more important than ever to protest the War in Iraq. While we have recently made gains toward a withdrawal from Iraq, much more work remains.

For instance, I recently met with Rep. Jim Matheson’s office to talk about the war and ways to end it. Matheson is the only Democrat representing Utah, one of the most insanely Republican states in the Union. As you might guess, Matheson is a Conservative Democrat and has had a lackluster record of opposing the war.

His staff was sympathetic, but said Matheson’s concerns were primarily about energy and the economy, not the war. We of course tried to explain that those issues are inseparable, but Matheson’s office was unyielding.

I believe that Obama has the desire to withdraw troops quickly and responsibly, but he won’t be able to do it without the necessary political capital. It’s an executive decision, but he will need support. Democrats like Matheson are going to have to have a change of mind, and we’re going to have to change it.

Activists, protesters and crazy peaceniks normally work against repressive government. However, in this situation, we can work to encourage a government that is moving in the right direction. Take a second now and e-mail your representatives to let them know that you expect them to support withdrawal.

And if they don’t? We’ll speak out, we’ll protest, we’ll raise hell. If necessary, we’ll replace them. Now that there is momentum for the Peace Movement, it’s more important than ever to keep up the pressure.