Veterans and Activists Slam “Illegal” Iraq War

For more than 300 people gathered in the auditorium at the Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley Sunday, May 29 graphic photographs and gritty testimony dominated their Memorial Day celebration.

Residents from throughout the Bay Area decided to forego barbecues and parades to find out from Iraqi war veterans, a mother of a slain son and a military surgeon about the true cost to human life taking place daily in Iraq.

The program “Military Voices Against Endless War” presented testimony from Stephen Funk, the first military resister to the current war, Camilo Mejia, the first Iraqi War veteran to resist, Tim Goodrich, a co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Aidan Delgado, who was stationed at Abu Ghraib, Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq and Dr. Gene Bolles, a neurosurgeon who treated wounded soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

“We were treating from 40 to 60 soldiers a day,” said Bolles. “In this war we are seeing more amputees and more brain damage.” Bolles told the sober crowd that every war has a signature injury associated with it, such as Agent Orange in Vietnam and The Gulf War Syndrome from the Persian Gulf War. “This war will be remembered for the high incidences of brain damage,” he said.

In addition to testimony, the doctor showed a series of slides showing severely injured Iraqi War soldiers. Mangled bloody men missing limbs and even their faces flashed on the screen causing collective hushed sounds of horror from the audience.

But Bolles’ slides weren’t the only ones to cause discomfort to the more than 300 hundred sitting riveted in their seats. Delgado, who attained conscientious objector status after refusing to kill Iraqis, offered his collection of photos from Abu Ghraib Prison. He presented pictures of dismal, inhumane living conditions for the prisoners consisting of tents staked over muddy ground in a place that got down to 25 degrees in the winter. He said the camp was rampant with communicable diseases, including tuberculosis, and that the prisoners were fed rotting and rancid food.

“The guards used the cold weather as a punishment by taking away blankets and warm clothing from the prisoners,” he said.

Mud and cold were not the worst of it for the prisoners, according to Delgado. He said that the prison was attacked my mortar fire regularly and that the missiles landed in the prisoners’ part of the compound.
“We were inside the buildings,” he said. “It was the prisoners who were injured in the attacks. There were dozens of prisoners killed. They died and were injured in droves.”

He showed Iraqi prisoners with blown off limbs and missing heads from the attacks.

“I heard that 22 more died the week after I left.” he said. And, Delgado painted a grim picture of the conduct of the majority of the guards at the prison. “To say that it was just a few bad apples (referring to soldiers prosecuted for the abuse that was exposed last year) is laughable.”

He said the fear and confusion was devastating for the 17 to 21-year-olds there trying to run the prison. He also pointed out that the American Red Cross has estimated that 70 to 90 percent of the prisoners were being held there mistakenly. He went on to say that most of the crimes the prisoners did commit were petty non-violent offenses.

Former soldiers, Funk, Mejia and Goodrich, brought home clearly the face of the young men and women who are being sent over to Iraq to fight a war that many believe is only being fought to protect America’s oil interests.

Funk, 22, looked more like a shy teenager getting ready to ask a girl to dance than the Marine he used to be. He shuffled his feet and humbly told the audience about the heroic action he took that changed his life.

“I was just the first resister,” he said. “It’s no big deal. There are thousands of others who are doing the same thing.”

Funk was tried and spent several months in prison for his actions. However, the young man seemed to take the punishment in stride.

“Being in jail was better than boot camp,” he said with a big smile.

Mejia, who took his action after witnessing the debacle that is the Iraq War, is spending his time traveling the country spreading a message of the need for unity around the tough issues that face our nation. Informing the crowd that more than 100,000 Iraqis have been killed and not counted he urged personal action against the war.

“When we see what the war is doing we must come forward and speak out against it,” he said. He also touched on the price soldiers who have been in the war are facing when they come home to a government that is discarding them.

“They are coming back and committing suicide and going homeless,” he said, bringing up visions of the similar fate of the Vietnam vets. “We need to hold the government responsible for taking care of them.”

Goodrich, looking every bit like a clean cut native son of Middle America, told the crowd that he had proudly fought in Afghanistan, but was soured to Iraq War and wanted no part of it.

“There are pictures of me smiling and signing bombs used in Afghanistan,” he said. His patriotic zeal took a dive when he started researching information on the war apparently.

“I looked up a web site with information from a weapons inspector that showed there were no weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq. He said he realized that government was going in under false pretenses.

Perhaps the most powerful voice for peace came from Sheehan, who turned from grieving mother to outspoken anti-war activist. As a founder of Gold Star Families for Peace, Sheehan travels around the country indicting the George W. Bush Administration for what she believes is an illegal war.

“My son Casey was murdered,” she said. “As far as I am concerned George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice blew off the back of Casey’s sweet head.”

Sheehan helped wrap up the three-hour event by calling for actions against the government. She called for the Bush’s impeachment and for him to be charged with international war crimes.

“We have already lost 1,656 young Americans just to pad somebody’s bank account,” she said angrily.