Frank Pauc: Why my son joined the Army

In our hallway we have a black and white photo of my father-in-law, Max Hanke. The picture shows Max as a young man. He is wearing a military uniform. In Max's case it is the uniform of an enlisted man in the Luftwaffe during World War II. My wife and I have a son, Hans, who is presently about the same age as Max was when this photo was taken so many years ago. Hans bears a strong resemblance to grandfather. They are similar in many ways.

When I was eighteen I went to West Point. My father had served for a while in a Navy during the early 1950's and he encouraged me to join the military. I graduated in 1980 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. I went to flight school and I flew helicopters for five years in the Army. I was stationed in Germany, and there I met and married my wife, Karin. I spent many evenings with Karin's family, talking in German with her father and her uncles. As time went on, they told me stories about their youth. I heard a lot about their lives during the Second World War.

Max had been drafted into the German military when he turned eighteen in 1938. He went into Poland during the invasion of that country. He was stationed in Italy for a while and then he wound up on the Russian front, like most of the other German soldiers. He ended up back in Germany with half of his lung shot out. He never went home. He had no idea where his family members were for months. Karin's Uncle Kurt was kept in a French prisoner of war camp until 1948. Her Uncle Friedolin was an German anti-aircraft gunner who only by sheer luck escaped being caught up in the firebombing of Dresden. Karin's Aunt Aga fled with her parents from Silesia ( now part of Poland ) just before the arrival of the Soviet troops. All these people suffered tremendously, and they all rebuilt their shattered lives.

The time I spent with Karin's family made me question the morality of my chosen profession. Everybody I had met had at one time been our country's enemy. But every one of them was a kind and compassionate person. It made me wonder why we were trying so hard to kill good people. It made me understand that every person, whether our enemy at the time or not, is a human being, just like me. In 1986 I resigned from the Army. I was beginning my journey toward pacifism. In 1987 Hans was born.

Time went by, and our children started growing up. 9/11 happened and then the invasion of Afghanistan. In 2003 our country invaded Iraq. As these events unfolded, I became motivated to speak out against the wars. I was ( and still am ) active in working to end the wars. Admittedly, I have not been as dedicated and passionate about it as many other people have been, but I tried to do what I could. I was very determined that our children would not have participate in these wars. When Hans turned eighteen, I went with him to the Quaker Meeting House in Milwaukee to learn how he could become a conscientious objector if the draft started up again. I worked with Hans on building a paper trail to show that he was a pacifist.

Hans went to MATC to study carpentry. He decided that he didn't want to continue in school. He decided instead to move down to Texas, where we have family, and try to make it on his own down there. Hans struggled for a couple years to make ends meet. He couldn't find work in construction, and he wound up in a minimum wage job in the mailroom of a newspaper. The economy took a hit and his job became less than secure.

In October of last year Hans called my wife and told her that he joined the Army. It would be a gross understatement to say that we were surprised by his announcement. " Shock and awe " would better describe it. It took a while for it to sink in, and it took a number of long distance phone calls to understand why he had made this decision. Eventually, it started to make sense.

The truth is that Hans' reasons for joining the Army are no different than my reasons for joining thirty-some years ago, and my reasons for joining are really no different than the ones my father had for joining the Navy in the prior generation. Primarily it was an economic decision. Hans is tired of being poor. He is tired of being in a deadend job. He wants to have things like a new pick up truck, or a house in the backwoods somewhere. He has dreams, and he needs money to bring those dreams to fruition.

It would over-simplistic to say that the decision our son made, like the decisions of many other young people, is solely motivate by economics. There is more to it. Hans wants to have an adventure. I understand that. A young man should have an adventure. A young woman should probably have one too. Part of youth involves risk-taking and participating in activities that are somewhat dangerous. Those of us who are older tend to play it safe, and we forget what a joy it was to do things that straddled the fine line between courageous and stupid. There is also an idealism in the young that often fades as time goes on. There is a desire to serve a higher purpose, even if that purpose is morally ambivalent.

My feelings about all that has happened are decidedly mixed. I admire Hans for making a commitment; it was a gutsy move. It was especially bold considering he knew that I would be deadset against it. I am sad because I had hoped so much to end this cycle in our family. I had hoped for my generation to be the last that felt the need to wear a uniform. I really had thought that I had driven stake through the heart of this nonsense. I fear for Hans, mostly for the condition of his soul. He has a gentle spirit; I would want him to keep that.

Hans starts basic training on February 8th. He came to visit us last week. He brought a sticker for our car. It says " Proud Parent of a Soldier ". I put it on the car near the sticker that says " War is not the Answer ". Both statements are true.

Frank Pauc
Oak Creek, WI

Frank Pauc is a member of Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.

At 'public' hearing on energy, the public is relegated to sit in the back of the bus

By Bill Christofferson

It may be impolitic to say this while we are encouraging people to attend public hearings on the Clean Energy Jobs Bill, but the first public hearing on the bill, held Wednesday by a special State Senate committee, was a nightmare if you were a member of the public trying to have a voice.

Most of the activists from the Carbon Free Nuclear Free campaign, opposed to the nuclear section of the bill,waited more than eight hours to testify for four minutes in a nearly-empty room with almost all of the committee members gone. Environmental groups, who supported the bill, didn't fare much better.

If you had the misfortune to be a woman, or a person of color, you were at the absolute bottom of the barrel. With a single exception, a parade of white men in suits testified for the first eight hours. The one exception was a woman representing an electric utility.

The hearing on the comprehensive 174-page bill drew a full house in one of the State Capitol's biggest hearing rooms. Many of the CFNF representatives -- which included most of the women in attendance -- got there early and registered before the hearing started at 10 a.m., when the room was less than half full. The page who took my registration slip said people would be called in the order the slips came in.

It's understandable that the first witnesses were the heads of three state agencies -- the Public Service Commission, Natural Resources and Commerce -- with key roles in the legislation, although it's debatable whether that should have taken two hours with questions and posturing from committee members.

After that came the parade of lobbyists, business and utility executives, unions, and other suits -- the people who are in the Capitol regularly and, in many cases, probably had already delivered their messages personally to members of the committee in private meetings.

You might have thought that, for comic relief, if nothing else, someone representing a citizens group might have been thrown into the mix -- maybe even one every hour or so, just to provide a little contrast and have someone talking about something besides money.

Never happened. And as the hours dragged on -- and on -- and on -- without a single member of a citizen group or individual citizen called to testify, it sometimes became theater of the absurd, as State Sen. Glenn Grothman and State Rep. Jim Ott put on a show to challenge whether global warming was really happening. If you could keep a sense of humor, what John LaForge of Nukewatch called a Flat Earth Society meeting was kind of amusing -- for awhile.

"The reason to fight global warming is to make it colder," Ott, a former TV weatherman said. "How much colder would you like it to be?" It was, indeed, cold outside, not that it had any relevance.

Grothman, meanwhile, declaring that the last two years had been colder in Wisconsin, asked witnesses how many years in a row it would have to get cooler before they gave up this silly global warming idea.

A representative of the Union of Concerned Scientists said the last decade was the warmest on record, and explained that climate change is measured in periods of 20 to 30 years, while weather -- which is measured by TV weathermen --- is measured pretty much all the time.

And that thought that someone from the public should get shuffled in now and then? What a silly idea. The suits marched on. (In fairness, I should note that even the we energies lobbyist, Joel Haubrich, a white guy in a suit, didn't get called till around 4 p.m.)

After that, the first environmental groups, Clean Wisconsin and Wisconsin Environment, (represented by two suitably attired white men) got a chance to weigh in.

I was the first (suitless, but reasonably clean) Carbon Free Nuclear Free representative called, about 5:45 p.m. The only people left in the room were those doggedly awaiting their turn to speak. Many had left, including more than half of the dozen people in our loosely-connected contingent. John LaForge of Nukewatch drove 4-1/2 hours from Polk County on Tuesday, and finally had to leave and drive the 4-1/2 hours back late Wednesday afternoon without ever getting to testify.

By the time I finished, or soon thereafter, the only members of the eight-member committee still there were the co-chairs, State Sens. Jeff Plale and Mark Miller, who were awarded the Order of the Iron Butt when the hearing ended.

Sometime after 6, Shahla Werner of the Sierra Club (profile: woman representing an environmental group) got her turn. Then the floodgates opened. Plale, in the chair, began calling names of women and activists,, most of whom had had to leave by then. Finally he reached Jennifer Nordstrom of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, and Rosy Ricks of Think Outside the Bomb, the first person of color, who noted that "the working poor, women and people of color" were missing from the hearing.

"I don't have a fancy degree; I'm working on it. I don't have a suit, and I didn't get paid to be here," Ricks said in what was hands-down the most heartfelt testimony of the day. More nuclear power, she said, will expose her 3-year-old son and other Wisconsin children to poison for the sake of corporate profiteers.

Then came the only black man of the day, Royal Elmore, a nuclear advocate and gratuate student with the Nuclear Engineering Research Group at the University of Wisconsin.

The last person called, at 6:40 p.m., about nine hours after she registered, was Diane Farsetta, who coordinates the Carbon Free Nuclear Free campaign for the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.

Democracy in action.

Rosy Ricks suggested we might do better at next week's hearing if we change the name of our organization to something like Wisconsin Network for Corporate Profit and National Security. It might be worth a try. Should I wear a suit?

For the record, here is some of the testimony that was or would have been delivered at the hearing. Those with asterisks had to leave and only were able to submit written comments. Others without written comments simply had to leave after waiting for hours.

Jennifer Nordstrom, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

Bill Christofferson, Wis. Network for Peace and Justice

John LaForge, Nukewatch*

Pam Kleiss, Physicians for Social Responsibility*

Diane Farsetta, Wis. Network for Peace and Justice's Carbon Free Nuclear Free campaign

Sara Barczak, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy*

Rosy Ricks, Think Outside the Bomb

(The Wisconsin Eye camera was there to capture the entire proceedings, so if you have eight hours to kill, here's a link. It's the Senate Committee on Clean Energy on 1.27.10) Enjoy.

Bonnie Block: U.S. has only "outsourced" torture

Bonnie Block, WNPJ past chair and an attorney who resigned from the Wisconsin Bar association because "I did not want to be part of a profession where its members were writing memos justifying torture," writes to Wisconsin Congressional representatives about new reports that the U.S. hasn't stopped torture, it's just outsourced it to foreign governments acting under U.S. sponsorship. Here's her letter to her own Congressional Representative, Tammy Baldwin:

January 25, 2010

Dear Congresswoman Baldwin,
Five days ago I ended a 12-day liquids only Fast for Justice called by Witness Against Torture. I engaged in this fast because I felt compelled to take some action against the shameful practice of torture. The fast started on January 11, the date that men were first imprisoned in Guantanamo and ended on January 22, the date the President said it would be closed.

Yet Guantanamo is not closed—almost 200 men are still imprisoned there. Many of them are from Yemen and have been approved for release and yet the President announced they will not be returned home. There is even talk of having other prisoners being indefinitely detained without charges and without trial. As a lawyer, I know that this violates our most basic values and the rule of law. It is why during the second Bush/Cheney Administration, I petitioned for voluntary withdrawal from the Wisconsin State Bar. I did not want to be part of a profession where its members were writing memos justifying torture!

Credible reports, such as one by Allan Narin on Democracy Now, also tell us torture has not really ended even under the Obama Administration. It’s now being done by foreigners acting under US sponsorship. And the media has moved on to other issues as has the Congress it seems.

Even worse the people who authorized and engaged in torture have not yet been brought to justice. That must happen, starting with the events related in an article in Harper’s Magazine. If the allegations of three men being tortured to death in 2006 with a cover up by the Pentagon and Justice Department are true, it makes me ashamed to be an American. At the very least the allegations demand immediate investigation because they seem to be yet one more example of how the use of torture has made a sham of our system of justice.

Dealing with the issue of torture is also vital because “violence boomerangs.” The photos from Abu Ghraib were a better recruiting tool for future terrorists than anything a marketing genius could have dreamed up. The existence of Guantanamo and the twisting of our law by men like Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Yoo cry out for justice. Yet up to now their crimes are granted impunity.
I believe until we close Guantanamo and all of the other secret CIA or JSOC sites that that I am convinced still exist, we will not be safe, nor will we be an honorable nation. Please bring this issue back into the public arena and do what is necessary to insure Guantanamo finally closesand this shameful regime of torture ends.

I know that there are those who will keep trying to frighten the American people into thinking that torture works -- but as political leaders it is your job to tell us the truth. And it is your job to do those things that will help make us safe in what is admittedly a sometimes dangerous world. But pretending that torture and a wasteful, unsuccessful “war on terror” will make us secure is living a lie—a lie that it is bankrupting us both financially and morally.

I long for you to tell the American people that we will stop dealing with crimes like that of 9/11 by war and occupation instead of by the rule of international law; that we will end the war in Afghanistan and the use of drones over Pakistan; and that we will not continue to spend over half of our income tax dollars every year for war, occupation and ever more lethal weapons. Our militarism means that we don’t have money for the things that provide Americans with true security, i.e. a safety net that protects the vulnerable, health care for everyone, an effective response to global climate change, and an economic system that functions with living wage jobs for all of our people.

I would like to hear what you are currently doing to insure that our country doesn’t continue to stoop to torture and indefinite detention as part of the so-called “war on terror.” And I would also like to hear how you will work to cut our massive military spending that always leads us to use the terror of war in a vain attempt to resolve global problems.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute issued its annual report on military spending in June of 2009. Worldwide, governments spent $1.46 trillion on their armed forces in 2008. The United States accounted for 42 percent of the global arms spending (and we are 6 percent of the global population!) How can we possibly continue to justify such disproportionate spending when there are starving, homeless, and despairing people in this country and all over the world who desperately need the resources we waste on war?
Sincerely,

Bonnie Block
Madison, WI

Bonnie Block: Letter to the President: "Provide Americans with true security"

WNPJ Past chair Bonnie Block wrote this letter to President Obama, challenging him not only to close Guantanamo prison, but to rethink the myths on which our current regime of torture and militarism is founded:

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear President Obama,

I am writing you on the eleventh day of my twelve-day liquids only Fast for Justice (called by Witness Against Torture) I write because tomorrow was the day you said Guantanamo would be closed. Yet it is not closed—almost 200 men are still imprisoned there. Many of them are from Yemen and have been approved for release and yet you have announced they will not be returned home. As a retired lawyer, I know that indefinite detention without trial and a decision by a court of law is illegal.

Credible reports say that torture has not really ended either—it is just being outsourced to repressive governments. And the people who authorized and engaged in torture have not yet been brought to justice.

I know that you inherited an awful mess from the Bush Administration. I know there are fierce pressures to continue the policies of the previous administration because they will keep us safe. But I think that is a lie. The existence of Guantanamo and the practices engaged in there are a violation of human rights and will actually make us less safe because such brutality will only help recruit new terrorists.

I long for you to tell the American people we will stop acting out of fear and thus you are ending the awful policies of the past. Three in particular cry out for real change:

--dealing with the crime of 9/11 by going to war instead of by using the rule of international law;

-- the on-going military occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq that may build empire and the multinational corporations’ bottom line, but make us less secure and kill and wound our soldiers for nothing;

--the myth that the military is the basis of our security so that we spend over half of our income tax dollars on war and don’t have money for the things that provide Americans with true security, i.e. a safety net that works, health care for everyone, an effective response to global climate change, and an economic system that functions justly.

Please close Guantanamo, not just the facility, but the perversion it symbolizes. Please show you are serious about ending torture by investigating and prosecuting those who ordered torture or provided the justifications for it. There should be no gulags, no military tribunals, no denial of habeas corpus, and no torture by anybody, anywhere.

Bonnie L. Block
Madison, WI

Bonnie Block is a former chair of Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.

Kathy Kelly: Tough minds and tender hearts

By Kathy Kelly
January 19, 2010

I spent Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday in Washington, D.C. as part of the Witness Against Torture fast, which campaigns to end all forms of torture and has worked steadily for an end to indefinite detention of people imprisoned in Guantanamo, Bagram, and other secret sites where the U.S. has held and tortured prisoners. We’re on day 9 of a twelve day fast to shut down Guantanmo, end torture, and build justice.

The community gathered for the fast has grown over the past week. This means, however, that as more people sleep on the floor of St. Stephen’s church, there is a rising cacophony of snoring. Our good friend, Fr. Bill Pickard, suggested trying to hear the snores as an orchestra, when I told him I’d slept fitfully last night.

There is a young boy in Mir Ali, a town in North Waziristan, in Pakistan, who also lies awake at night, unable to sleep. Israr Khan Dawar is 17 years old. He told an AP reporter, on January 14th, that he and his family and friends had gotten used to the drones. But now, at night, the sound grows louder and the drones are flying closer, so he and his family realize they could be a target. He braces himself in fear of an attack.

We’re told that we will be more secure if the CIA continually attack the so-called lawless tribal areas and eliminates “the bad guys.”

In late May and early June of 2009, while visiting in Pakistan, a man from the village of Khaisor, also in North Waziristan, told us about his experience as a survivor of a drone attack. Jane Mayer, writing in The New Yorker, mentioned that the people operating the drones and analyzing the surveillance intelligence have a word for people like him who managed to survive a blast and run away. They are called “squirters.” So, I suppose he would have been considered a squirter.

This man, at some risk to himself, walked a long distance and took two buses to meet with us. Because of travel restrictions, we would not have been allowed to visit him in North Waziristan. His village is so remote that there are no roads leading up to it. Five hundred people live there. Often, western media refers to his homeland as “the lawless tribal area.” One day, three strangers entered Khaisor and went to the home of vigil elders. For centuries, villagers have followed a code of hospitality, which demands that when strangers come to your door, you feed them and give them drink. It’s not as though you can point them toward a Motel 6 or a 7-11. The strangers were welcomed into the home they approached and they left after having been served a meal. They were long gone when, at 4:30 a.m. a U.S. drone, operated by the C.I.A., fired 2 Hellfire missiles into the home they had visited, killing 12 people, two of whom were village elders. Children were dismembered and maimed.

“What do people do?” I asked, “if you’ve no Emergency Medical Teams, if you’ve no roads?” I was wearing a “tbutta” the long scarf that Pakistani women traditionally wear. “You see your scarf,” my friend said. “We wrap it around the wounded person, as tightly as we can, to stop the bleeding.” I could imagine the white scarf I wore becoming blood-soaked, in seconds.

The CIA uses sophisticated technology, extensive education and a great deal of money to collect intelligence. The drone surveillance produces picture images so vivid that when the CIA targeted a Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, they knew that he was on the rooftop of his in-laws’ home. His wife’s parents, both doctors, were tending him, and had inserted an IV into his arm, giving him fluids. The drone attack killed all of them, and Mehsud’s wife.

The CIA made fifteen attempts to kill Baitullah Mehsud. In the fourteen previous attempts, people were killed who may not have been members of a Taliban group. Some may have been family members of the murdered victim. Baitullah Mehsud’s successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, was known to be more violent and unpredictable and also media savvy. According to speculation, the Jordananian suicide bomber who killed nine CIA agents, Dr. Al-Balawi, had gained credibility with those same agents by providing information about drone targets. But, the information he supplied named political rivals of Hakimullah Mehsud, or people suspected of disloyalty or people considered to be expendable.

This past weekend, celebrating the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s birth, we’ve been guided by his words. One mantra for us, from Dr. King, urges us to develop tough minds and tender hearts. With tough minds, we must ask why we are being told that the drone attacks are successful.

With tender hearts, let us mourn for the families, friends and community members of the nine CIA agents who were killed in the suicide bomber attack at a CIA base in Afghanistan. Their arms will ache, longingly, for loved ones who will never return. In the spirit that says everyone in, nobody out, let us realize their humanity.

The CIA asks “who are the bad guys” so that they can eliminate them.

We are fortunate to be guided by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, who asked the same question, but Dr. King actually, earnestly wanted to understand the humanity of his adversaries. At the time, he was speaking of the Viet Cong. He urged his listeners to try and understand how they are seen by their adversaries.

We need tough minds and tender hearts to build a world wherein the United States will not be seen as a menacing, fearful force. Let’s work toward a world wherein 17-year-old youngsters won’t lie awake at night, listening to low-flying drones and readying themselves to die.

Kathy Kelly (Kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence which is also maintaining a presence in Washington, D.C.

Bonnie Block: Torture STILL Illegal, Immoral and Ineffective

Two years ago, WNPJ past chair Bonnie Block penned the op-ed below, which was published by Madison's Capital Times and picked up by the national progressive site Common Dreams. Today, sadly, Bonnie's editorial is as necessary as ever, as the President acts to ratify many of the Bush administration policies that he criticized on the campaign trail. We reprint her editorial again, below, in the hopes that there won't be a need to reprint it again in January of 2011.


Torture Is Illegal, Immoral and Ineffective

by Bonnie Block

I was appalled by a recent letter that attempted to normalize torture. The letter writer and other apologists do this by limiting what is defined as torture, minimizing its effects and arguing that torture is necessary to save us from terrorism. I strongly disagree, and here's why.

Torture is first of all a violation of human rights. Article 5 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights says quite simply, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." There are no exceptions.

Torture is illegal under the Geneva Conventions, the U.N. Convention Against Torture, the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Army Field Manual. Redefining it (as the Bush lawyers have tried to do) does not make torture legal.

Torture "destroys the human soul." It is not mere "mental anguish" or "enhanced interrogation." Experts such as Alfred McCoy from the UW-Madison and Carol Wickersham from Beloit College, as well as those who staff Centers for the Victims of Torture like the one in Minneapolis, all say the effects are deep and permanent and that psychological torture is even more harmful than physical torture.

Torture is not effective. The testimony of those who have been tortured is that they confess to anything to stop the pain. Many FBI and CIA officials also say torture does not provide reliable information. Nor can coerced confessions be used in legal proceedings -- which is why the Bush administration, with the unfortunate consent of Congress, passed the Military Commissions Act. The act subverts our justice system by creating military tribunals, allows the president to declare any citizen an "enemy combatant," and denies the right of habeas corpus so people can be held indefinitely in a gulag like Guantanamo.

Torture is not going to keep us safe. In fact, there is a strong likelihood that it will make us less safe, because the practice of torture results in extremism and a desire for revenge. Furthermore, there is absolutely no way of finding every single person plotting a terrorist attack even in a police state -- which is exactly what we will become if we try to swoop up anyone who might be a potential terrorist.

Fortunately our choice is not between practicing torture and becoming victims of terrorism. Torture is a response of fear and despair. We can choose instead to respond with courage and hope. We can act humanely. We can obey the rule of law. We can work to resolve international conflict with diplomacy, negotiation, and nonviolent means. We can stop the death and devastation that result from waging war. We can instead focus on development and a more just distribution of Earth's resources.

The Web sites for Witness Against Torture, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and The World Can't Wait provide ideas for action.

We should act on our best instincts instead of our worst. We should speak out against torture.

Bonnie Block is president of the Dane County United Nations Association and former chair of the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.

Kathy Kelly: Speaking truth to power

By Kathy Kelly
January 8, 2010

There’s a phrase originating with the peace activism of the American Quaker movement: “Speak Truth to Power.” One can hardly speak more directly to power than addressing the Presidential Administration of the United States. This past October, students at Islamabad’s Islamic International University had a message for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. One student summed up many of her colleagues’ frustration. “We don’t need America,” she said. “Things were better before they came here."

The students were mourning loss of life at their University where, a week earlier, two suicide bombers walked onto the campus wearing explosive devices and left seven students dead and dozens of others seriously injured. Since the spring of 2009, under pressure from U.S. leaders to “do more” to dislodge militant Taliban groups, the Pakistani government has been waging military offensives throughout the northwest of the country. These bombing attacks have displaced millions and the Pakistani government has apparently given open permission for similar attacks by unmanned U.S. aerial drones.

Every week, Pakistani militant groups have launched a new retaliatory atrocity in Pakistan, killing hundreds more civilians in markets, schools, government buildings, mosques and sports facilities. Who can blame the student who believed that her family and friends were better off before the U.S. began insisting that Pakistan cooperate with U.S. military goals in the region?

In neighboring Afghanistan, 2009 was the deadliest year for Afghan children since 2001, according to the Afghanistan Rights Monitor. In a January 6 statement, the group noted that in 2009 about 1050 children had died in suicide attacks, roadside blasts, air strikes and the cross-fire between Taliban insurgents and pro-government forces, both Afghan and foreign. The group’s director, Ajmal Samadi, noted that this figure amounted to nearly three children per day. It’s estimated that nearly one third of these children’s deaths were caused by US/NATO coalition forces. This week, hundreds of Afghans have taken to the streets in protest after the Afghan government said its investigation has established that all 10 people killed by U.S. led forces on January 3rd, in a remote village in Kunar province, were civilians and that eight of those killed were schoolchildren, aged 12-14. The London Times reports that the U.S.-led troops were accused of dragging the innocent children from their beds, handcuffing several of them, and then killing all eight of them.

Stories of carnage, horror and impoverishment aren’t new in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan. Ten years ago, each of these countries suffered under severely repressive governance and extremes of poverty. In the case of Iraq, these conditions were made immeasurably worse by U.S.-imposed economic sanctions that punished innocent Iraqi citizens for their inability to rise from under Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime, all the while rendering them completely dependent on Hussein’s regime to meet their basic survival needs. Yet in all this suffering that preceded the U.S. invasions of the region, there were very few accounts of suicide bombings in the lands where the U.S. is now at war. The kidnapping and torture industries, now rife in all three countries, had not developed, and their entire economies had not been hobbled by blatant official corruption.

What has U.S. invasion and occupation unleashed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan? And how are these wars creating security for U.S. people?

The New York Times reported on November 14, 2009 that, according to internal U.S. government estimates, it costs one million dollars to keep one soldier in Afghanistan for one year. Consider this sum in light of the fact that, in Afghanistan, district governors earn 70 dollars per month. Their operation budget is 15 dollars per month, and half of them have no dedicated office. Or, in light of the UN estimate that the Gross Domestic Product, per capita, in Afghanistan, is less than $1,000 per year. Or that The United Nation's Children's Fund, better known as UNICEF, says Afghanistan is the worst place in the world to be born, having the highest infant mortality rate in the world with 257 deaths per 1,000 live births. Only 70 percent of Afghans have access to clean water.

Kai Eide, the outgoing Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Afghanistan, briefed the UN Security Council on January 5, 2010. With regard to military activities, he bluntly stated that “civilian casualties, house searches, and detention policies are sources of recruitment for the insurgency.”

President Obama’s administration is soon expected to request another "emergency" supplemental expenditure for the Iraq and Afghan wars, this time for between 40 and 50 billion dollars. If (some would say, when) this figure is approved, it will make 2010 fiscally the most costly year of the ongoing War on Terror, surpassing President Bush's expenditures by a significant margin. Before the year is out, President Obama will also have submitted a budget item to fund the wars in 2011, with military services already planning to request something in the range of $160 to $165 billion.

The U.S. Constitution states that Congress shall make no law to abridge the right of people to assemble peaceably for redress of grievance. We are deeply aggrieved by the folly of these wars. Our right to free speech is irrelevant if we don’t exercise it, and so we intend to raise the lament of those who bear the brunt of our wars but whose voices seldom reach U.S. government figures.

For two weeks this January, leading up to the date when President Obama is due to submit his budget for Fiscal Year 2011 to Congress, Voices for Creative Nonviolence and friends will gather in Washington D.C. for a “Peaceable Assembly Campaign” project. We’ll be meeting with elected representatives to raise questions about the folly and the crime of war, holding daily vigils at the White House, and engaging in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience to emphasize our refusal to cooperate with the war makers.

We urge you to join us in this year-long campaign, whether in Washington D.C. this month, or participating locally where you live. Please make sure to visit the Voices website, www.vcnv.org, to learn more about ways to become involved, both locally through this coming summer and in the Days of Resistance in Washington. We’ll be there from January 19th through February 2nd.

Kathy Kelly (Kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence.

'A comic book view of war' from Journal Sentinel's managing editor

I'm seldom accused of being too kind in my commentary, but maybe I pulled my punch a little on a recent post about Journal Sentinel Managing Editor George Stanley's series of cheerleading articles for the war in Afghanistan.

An online column by Milwaukee Magazine Editor Bruce Murphy makes my comments seem tame.

Murphy calls the series "...at times, embarrassing, and at its heart a boy’s view of war... It’s a comic book view of war, with no room for nuance."

Murphy on Stanley's insistence that we commit to "winning" the war:

Our government’s leadership has spoken, and Obama has set a deadline of 2011 for ending the war in Afghanistan. Stanley proceeds to undercut this idea, telling us every soldier and Marine he talks to wants to stay there as long as necessary to “finish the job.” Well, yes. And football players always want to go for it on fourth down rather than take the safe bet of kicking a field goal. That’s why you have a coach. The American tradition of civilian oversight of the military has long assured that cooler heads on the sidelines determine strategy. But the managing editor of a major American newspaper apparently thinks our soldiers should make such decisions.

There's lots more, and you can read it here, as well as an article Murphy wrote about the Iraq war in 2004, which was spiked by Stanley, presumably because it raised too many troubling questions about how we got there and what we were doing.

Good stuff.

Dan Kenney: New Year, Same Old Story: Blackwater Still Gets Away with Murder

This may be the first day of a new year, and the start of a new decade, but it is also a day that marks the continuation of an old sad story of injustice. On New Year’s Eve Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed all charges against five Blackwater contractors that had been indicted for 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 of attempting to commit manslaughter and one weapons violation. This New Year’s Eve gift to Blackwater was bad news for the Iraqi families expecting the American judicial system to deliver justice for the deaths and injuries of their loved ones.

The old story is that once again by using the system to their benefit and with the possible deliberate sabotage on the part of the U.S. Attorney assigned to the case, the contractors accused of shooting innocent unarmed Iraqi citizens may never be brought to court.

Judge Urbana’s written 90-page opinion does not dispute the investigations by the Iraqi police, the U.S. Army, and the F.B.I. The Iraqi and U.S. investigators found that the guards of the Raven 23 convoy had indiscriminately fired on unarmed civilians in an unprovoked and unjustified assault in the crowded Nisoor Square of Baghdad on September 16, 2007. Witnesses and reports stated some of the victims were shot in the back trying to flee the scene. A nine year old boy riding in the back seat of his father’s car was shot in the head and died. None of the investigators were able to find any physical evidence to support the guards’ contentions that they had been fired upon. The F.B.I. stated in their report that the Blackwater guards recklessly violated American rules for the use of lethal force. The U.S. military investigators went further saying that all the deaths were unjustified and potentially criminal. Iraqi authorities called the shootings “deliberate murder.”

Judge Urbina labeled the misconduct of the trial team, headed by Assistant U.S. attorney Kenneth Kohl, as a “reckless violation of the defendants’ constitutional rights,” This violation occurred when U.S. Attorney Kohl and Department of justice trial lawyer Stephen Ponticello built their case around the written statements made by the contractors immediately following the shooting. The Judge stated, “In short, the government has utterly failed to prove that it made no impermissible use of defendants’ statements or that such use was harmless beyond reasonable doubt. Accordingly, the court must dismiss the indictment against all the defendants.”

The Rest of the Story

However in the background section of the opinion it becomes obvious that this violation could have been avoided. Judge Urbina describes in detail the many instances where Kohl and the trial team ignored the directives and warnings of Raymond Hulser, a Deputy Chief in the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division, who was assigned as the “taint attorney.” His responsibility was to prevent prosecutors and investigators handling the investigation from using statements that could contaminate the case which could cause it to be dismissed.

On page 82 of the written opinion Judge Urbina points out that the government’s attempts to characterize Kohl’s failure to heed the warnings and directives of Hulser as a mere “miscommunication” to be “simply implausible.”

Judge Urbina writes, “These inconsistent, extraordinary explanations (given in interviews by Kenneth Kohl) smack of post hoc rationalization and are simply implausible.”

“The only conclusion,” the Judge continued, “the court can draw from this evidence is that Kohl and the rest of the trial team purposefully flouted the advice of the taint team when obtaining the substance of the defendants’ compelled statements, and in so doing, knowingly endangered the viability of the prosecution,”

As Rep Jan Schkowsky of Illinois said in the LA Times, “We’re going to have to understand how this happened.” The Iraqi families and the U.S. citizens that are funding companies like Blackwater, as well as paying for the investigations, have a right to know the motivation behind such reckless misconduct by a seasoned U.S. Attorney. (It is important to note that Kenneth Kohl was also the U.S. attorney assigned to the anthrax case. He was appointed by the Bush administration.)

The Loophole

You may recall Order 17, put in place by Paul Bremmer in 2003, which provided immunity for contractors operating in Iraq. The order was struck down in the latest U.S. Security agreement with Iraq. However the U.S. State department replaced it with the “Hunter Memorandum.” Regional Security Officer Mark Hunter authored a memorandum titled “WPPS (Worldwide Personnel Protective Services, a company of Blackwater) On-Duty Discharge of Firearms Reporting Procedures” (“the Hunter Memorandum.”) The Hunter Memorandum required all Blackwater personnel involved in a shooting incident to report immediately for debriefing by the State Department. After the debriefing any employee who discharged his weapon was to be given a sworn statement form attached to the memorandum. The statement that the five contractors signed included this line, “I further understand that neither my statements nor any information or evidence gained by reason of my statements can be used against me in a criminal proceeding, except that if I knowingly and willfully provide false statements or information.” This statement is required and an employee may be terminated for failure to sign it. This is commonly referred to as a “Garrity warning” or “Kalkines warning.” The Hunter memorandum and the attached Sworn Statement form were standard procedure to be followed after any shooting incident. So this is the loophole which allowed any guard involved in a shooting to avoid accountability for his actions.

This loophole is still in place and you can be sure that it is in Afghanistan as well.

What Next?

It was reported that the five contractors were “overjoyed” and that a “great burden had been lifted from their shoulders.” However it was a startling blow for the Iraqi government and citizens. As one Iraqi lawmaker said in a speech to Iraq’s parliament, “Ask the Iraqi courts to release all the (Iraqi) defendants…sentenced to death for killing Americans in Iraq, as an act of reciprocity with the U.S. judicial system,” he said.

An adviser to the Iraqi council of ministers said, “This is very bad for the overall look of the United States outside its borders. It’s very important for the Americans to realize that this will work against their interests in Iraq and other places.”

Although Judge Urbina’s decision would make it difficult to reinstate the original charges the guards could still prosecuted for willfully providing false information in their statements. There is also the possibility that the government will bring obstruction of justice charges against Blackwater managers.

There is also the civil case the Center for Constitutional Rights has in the courts against Blackwater. The Iraqi government said that they will support this lawsuit as well as ask the U.S. Justice Department to review the criminal case.

And the Story Goes On

So the old story goes on. The safety of our soldiers and our citizens put at risk by the careless actions of hired private military and security contractors. The pattern of unaccountability is also continued by providing immunity for all contractors regardless of how murderous their actions may be.

We must ask ourselves and those who represent us, how much longer will we allow those whom we fund to get away with murder in our name.

UPDATE: Attorney and expert in international law Scott Horton discusses Judge Urbina's decison on Democracy Now! here...

Dan Kenney is with WNPJ member group DeKalb Interfaith Network for Peace and Justice and the national organization No Private Armies.