President Bush popularized the myth of a clean war against Iraq and actively misinformed the public about what his policies really involved. While he asserted that he was at war with Saddam Hussein alone and indeed that the U.S. military was utilizing technologies that would spare the civilian population, the bleak reality in the cities and towns throughout Iraq offers a painful refutation of the President's claims.
Witnesses to the destruction said that the Coalition (of the Willing) bombing leveled entire blocks of civilian homes. Testimony presented at The Winter Soldier revealed how outrageous are the war crimes committed by this Administration. Scott Ewing, who served for three years as a cavalry scout in the U.S. army, described his unit's "block-by-block" raid of the entire city of Talafar in September of 2005. Ewing said tactics were particularly brutal in the Sarai neighborhood of the city, which the U.S. military had identified as an insurgent stronghold. "We were told to search aggressively, to teach the residents a lesson not to harbor terrorists," Ewing testified. The result of those orders was doors kicked in, homes ransacked, and nothing found in the way of weapons. The Army then moved northward, and continued to terrorize innocent Iraqis. Ewing described one incident in which the military rounded up every male of military age and detained about 500 Iraqis in a barbed-wire enclosure as their families watched from across the street. A "masked man," as Ewing described him, then walked the line of detained Iraqis and gave either a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. In the end, 50 men were zip tied and taken away, with the crimes they were accused of written on their hands. Ewing said he had no idea what happened next to these 50 men. "It's hard for me to believe," Ewing said, "that the Iraqis who witnessed this could take seriously our version of justice and democracy." Ewing concluded his speech by noting, ironically, that, "The only war our country has really waged well is a propaganda war on its own people." Chris Arendt's strikingly youthful appearance was made all the more chilling when he referred to himself as a former "concentration camp guard" at Guantanamo. With disgust, Arendt recalled the dehumanizing absurdity of practicing to shackle detainees, in preparation for the "big game" of shackling actual detainees. He said, to applause from the audience, that he considered imprisoning human beings for five years away from their friends and families, without ever explaining why, to be torture in and of itself.
"If that wasn't enough," Arendt said, "there were other methods to make sure we got around to torturing people." Arendt testified that detainees were kept in rooms 10 to 20 degrees in temperature, blasted with loud music, and shackled to the floor by their hands and feet. Arendt also described how detainees viewed as unruly would be pepper sprayed and forcibly removed from their cells. "These are all on tape," Arendt noted. "The government makes sure all of these are on tape." Complete video of testimony at http://ivaw.org/wintersoldier/testimony
Whether you support this war or not, our government's/president's conduct has been illegal, immoral and needs to be prosecuted. There is now only one way to bring Bush to justice: General Strike USA 9/11/08 A General Strike is being called to end this war & to 'Bring Bush to Justice'.The Strike will continue until our demands have been met.
There will be ZERO mainstream media discussion of this General Strike BEFORE it happens. ZERO. So, we must BE OUR OWN MEDIA and promote it. Link to this site from sites and blogs. Mention it with links in your comments on blogs. PROMOTE IT.
In order to get involved, here are the five best steps to take now: 1) Sign up with your email address HERE in order to get updates,e-alerts@votestrike.com 2) Mark the day on your calendar and plan to be at a protest in your community, 3) Send this URL to all your friends, post it to forums, put it on your personal pages, http://www.votestrike.com 4) Be a volunteer activist, ask us how. 5) Take the lead and help organize a protest on 9/11.
