Winter Soldiers Ignored

How is the mainstream media dealing with the inconvenient tragedies brought to light by Iraq war veterans who gathered over four days last weekend in Maryland? They are ignoring them. Five years after the invasion of Iraq, and nearly 4000 dead American soldiers later, many brave individuals have brought their poignant testimony to an event that deserves more exposure.

War is hell - always. At rare and tragic times in human history war is surely necessary. But ignoring its tragic reality creates a climate in which war is entered into far too easily.

We honor the dead soldiers as we should. The financial cost of war gets a fair amount of attention. But the tragic results of war are far more numerous than those two awful tally sheets.

Winter Soldier II, sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), mirrors an earlier event from 1971 at which John Kerry famously testified. War hawks love to mock these events as "far left" gatherings, and consider the testimony of these veterans as treasonous and "un-American". The dozens of veterans who have chosen to speak understand how they will be unjustly vilified because of that choice, and yet their conscience demands no less of them. We can be sure that they are only the tip of the iceberg, among returnees whose humanity has been challenged in ways that it never should.

The "Rules of Engagement" for the Iraq war have been exposed as an ever shifting standard, and the extent to which they have been followed is often in flux, and largely depending on the mindset of the military leaders of individual operations. Soldiers who returned for many tours of duty related the generally declining standards as time wore on, as soldiers and leaders became hardened by their experiences. The nature of the battle, where the enemy was often difficult to identify, made tragic deaths and maiming of innocents more and more commonplace with time.

Democracy Now has been airing this testimony this week, and will continue that tomorrow. IVAW has live blogged the event. I challenge you to listen or read and tell me that these soldiers are lying, or that their experiences do not challenge notions of decency in how this war is being waged.

One sample piece of testimony came from Corporal Washburn of the Marines:

Something else we were actually encouraged to do, almost with a wink and a nudge, was to carry drop weapons or, by my third tour, drop shovels. What that basically is, is we would carry these weapons or shovels with us, because in case we accidentally did shoot a civilian, we could just toss the weapon on the body and make them look like they were an insurgent. Or, you know, like my friend here were saying, we were told by my third tour that if they were carrying a shovel or—you know, and a heavy bag, if they were digging anywhere, especially near roads, that we could shoot them. And so, we actually carried these tools and weapons in our vehicles in case we accidentally shot an innocent civilian, and we could just toss it on them and be like, “Well, he was digging. I was within the rules of engagement.” And this was commonly encouraged, but only behind closed doors. It wasn’t obviously a public announcement that they would make. But, yeah, it was pretty common.

This is nowhere close to the most shocking testimony I've seen, but it is indicative of the layers of disconnect between the reality and the official, and between the official and the "ideal". No one expects that war will not be accompanied by horror, but when the horrible becomes sanctioned to one degree or another by a White House Counsel, or a military directive, or a commander's prerogative, we guarantee that the horror will become pervasive.

It is not easy to pay attention to this tragedy. The mainstream media knows that it is easier to simply ignore Winter Soldier II, and the questions which it raises. They have an election to cover and celebrities' misdeeds to watch. Meanwhile innocent citizens continue to be killed and maimed, our reputation continues to be dragged to greater depths, and soldiers return home with injuries both physical and psychological which will impact them for life, and a training in violence that in many cases will haunt us once again.

We cannot learn if we will not look.

Capitulation

Unfortunately there is nothing else to call it.

It's being said a million times in a million ways - and hopefully the media and the Democratic leadership will wake up to the fact that it's not just the "loony left" who want to see Congress stand up to this Administration and insist that we begin exiting from their insane and failed military boondoggle in Iraq.

An accidental similarity in title of one of my posts of a year ago with a recent opinion piece by Mark Buchanan published by the New York Times, has led me to that article which seeks to explain the disconnect between the media's "conventional wisdom" about the feelings of the American people and the breadth and depth of what they really feel. It's an interesting read, but with the Times odd policy of making opinion available only by subscription, I can point you instead to this reproduction of it.

I try to regularly watch Washington Week in Review, largely because it keeps me in touch with the DC pundits' "conventional wisdoms", but I frequently bristle at what they choose to cover or ignore, and at the characterizations of perfectly reasonable beliefs as being "fringe". Dan Balz is particularly nauseating - but I digress. Of course if you pay attention to the sponsors of this "public television" offering, one quickly sees big oil, big agribusiness, and military contractors. Who are we kidding? Brancaccio's NOW and anything Bill Moyers does in contrast is funded solely by foundations or socially conscious businesses.

So I sit here heartsick and dismayed that the Democratic leadership was so gutless that it could not come back with a bill that mandated a sane exit as a contingency to funding. It's even more sickening that so many Democrats voted for this capitulation - both in the House and the Senate.

Certainly I called both my Senators (Murray and Cantwell) to express my dismay, and my Congressman (Inslee) to applaud his courage.

Still, I think it is important not to come unhinged. By all means, let us point out that people are dying due to these decisions, but let us be aware that this is but one vote, and our continued engagement can still play a role in subsequent votes. I am not abandoning the Democrats over this, nor will I drop out. The voice of dissent is growing. To use it effectively we must continue to be involved - not drop out in disgust.

The Democratic leadership has sadly ceded the Republican talking point that a vote against an unreasonable funding resolution is a vote against the troops - we must not cede the talking point that only the leftwing fringe would do otherwise. That is provably not the case, but the more of us who come unhinged, the easier it will be for the opposition to paint us as such.

Choose hope - stay resolute - adopt a calm anger

We are here to stay.

Fair AND Biased Coverage Sought

I want bias in news coverage. That doesn't mean I want partisan spin filtered through some orthodoxy. But fairness is possible without cowering from any bias. Avoiding all bias fails to inform us.

News agencies' proclivity to avoid bias is particularly annoying when covering stories which have not been in the headlines, until some recent event brings them to our attention. When reading of stories involving foreign governments and resistance movements, invariably I want to know something about the evidence of the historic culpability of the various parties for violence and oppression. But what to me are the most obvious questions to ask, frequently go unanswered even in a multi-column article, I presume in the name of avoiding bias.

Sadly, I fear it is often pretty accurate to assume that there is a lot of culpability on all sides. The good and decent people of the foreign land are usually rendered powerless by the corrupt and powerful few, both in the government and in the resistance movements. But I also know there are some exceptions, and I think it is important to know about them. Unfortunately, the typical news story simply identifies the players, who is winning, and sometimes if we're lucky the putative ideology of the sides in question, though I know to take that with a grain of salt as well.

A classic example in yesterday's news is the story of the release of POWs by the Polisario Front independence movement for Western Sahara to the government of Morocco. I've long followed geography enough to have been aware that over two decades ago, Morocco annexed its southern neighbor Western Sahara, formerly controlled by Spain, in spite of a desire among some for independence. So I suspect that Morocco abused its power in annexing its southern neighbor. I also suspect that the Polisario Front's leaders have hardened into bellicose ideologues. Perhaps this news indicates some softening, though more likely it's just resignation to the impossibility of their cause. There is little that I can discern however from the ten paragraphs from Reuters which appeared in my local rag. U.S. mediators seem to have played a role in the release. Kofi Anan welcomed the release and hopes it presages better relations. The final paragraph is most telling:

Statements by Morocco and the Polisario Front showed that years of diplomatic mediation have not ended their mutual hostility.

But I still don't know what to believe about the various parties beyond my guesses going in. The second page of the article, which I found on-line, was only marginally more helpful, as it confined itself to the statements of the parties directly involved.

I went to O.T. Ford's Political Status of the States of the Earth, a document which I admire for its breadth, and which I trust based on the mission of its author. But one person can only do so much, and given the breadth of coverage all we learn of Morocco is

The recent succession has had some liberalizing effects, but the state remains a traditional monarchy. ’Islāmists have made the most dramatic gains in elections for a consultative assembly. Ruled by محمد Muham:ad VI.

and he red codes the country, essentially giving it a failing grade for democratic governance. Ford's approach may be simplistic, not accounting for all the gray between extremes, but in a brief sentence about each nation, we get a greater sense of where it falls in representing its people than most news agency articles manage in multiple paragraphs.

Similarly, recent articles about the truce pact in tsunami ravaged Aceh province of Sumatra, Indonesia, are long on the dry facts and short on context. Once again, journalists fail us in the name of balance.

Charity & Media Attention

As the enormity of the devastation caused by the great slosh of the Indian Ocean unfolds, the world looks on in horror, while many respond with their pocketbooks or their service to the impacted shorelines. This story IS getting the attention it deserves, displacing the inanities that usually get top billing on the local TV news. I still remember the last such enormous tragedy, the 1991 typhoon in Bangladesh, which must have received much less attention, as I've been surprised by how few remember it today. Though the death toll of 138,000 was comparable, the devastation was confined primarily to Bangladesh, which likely contributed to its having received less attention.

Recognizing that tragedies need a response regardless of how much media attention they receive, for my own donation to Mercy Corps I chose the "Where Most Needed" category, allowing the organization to funnel the money to Sudan, for instance, if the overwhelming response to the tsunami has left it or other tsunami-unrelated efforts underfunded.

Journalist Mathew Maavak, near the scene of the tragedy in Southern India, gives a mixture of on scene reporting and insightful reflections in its aftermath. His home page also accidentally pointed me to the writing of David Brin, who another friend coincidentally had just been telling me about in the previous week. But that's fodder for another post.