Soldiers Speak Out

The Defense Department used the services of two scholars from the Brookings Institution, experts on Middle East affairs, to visit Iraq for eight days and render a report. This was a guided tour. The two scholars were never out of contact with their military hosts. Not surprisingly, the report that was rendered painted a fairly optimistic view of the U.S. situation in Iraq.

In contrast, The New York Times Sunday Edition published an op-ed article by seven non-commissioned officers from the 82d Airborne Division as they were completing a one year combat tour in Iraq. Also, not surprisingly, the soldiers’ report varied substantially from that of the Brookings Institution. It is unusual for professional soldiers to go outside the chain of command to make their views known. The discipline ingrained in these men makes such an action almost unheard of.

The Brookings Report is just one more attempt at psychological warfare that the Administration does so unsubtly - but which works so well. They have fully conditioned the American people, with the eager aid of the corporate media, to accept the continuous stream of lies emanating from the Pentagon and the White House.

What does the future hold for the courageous sergeants who have told the truth? The Army has ways of putting a plug in an individual’s career, sometimes by an act as simple as an adverse notation in his service record. These young men performed a courageous act. They should not be punished for it. As an old soldier, I would take the word of a Sergeant every time against some “scholar.” The very discipline by which they live demands accountability of leaders.

And where are the officers in this affair? If seven sergeants considered it their duty to make this report, weren’t the same situations obvious to the Lieutenants, Captains, Majors and Lieutenant Colonels, all individuals subject to the relatively the same combat conditions as the Sergeants?

This is a situation that bears watching. What will happen to the Sergeants? What will the Division spokesmen have to say? What will the Defense Department’s response be? And what lies will the White House have to deliver to defuse this situation?

It is the duty of every citizen and every member of congress to keep an eye on this situation.

The soldiers' op-ed piece is the only bit of truth about this war that has come from a government source. Here is an excerpt :

At the same time the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries, close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. “Lucky Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.

In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are - an army of occupation - and force our withdrawal.