Please distribute in San Francisco Bay Area.
For those of you who missed the screening of:
"WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception"
and the informative discussion afterward with director
Danny Schechter, "The News Dissector,"
There is one more screening today at 4:50pm at:
Embarcadero Center Cinema
One Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level, San Francisco
(validated parking available)
Danny Schechter will be available for questions and comments
at this showing also.
This film is well worth seeing. It is a searing critique of the
corporate news media's failure to even feign disagreement about
the war. It exposes the psychology behind "embedding" reporters
and promoting the news as if written by a U.S. cheerleading squad
for war. The one missing ingredient to Iraq war reporting that was
not lacking during the War on Vietnam, is the dead bodies of both
Iraqi's and Americans. This war has been "sanitized" for public
consumption. This fact is well documented by film director,
Danny Schechter.
Don't miss this important film!
(Distributed by Cinema Libre Studio, www.cinemalibrestudio.com)
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STOP THE WAR ON IRAQ! BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!
ALL OUT JANUARY 20TH, 5:00 P.M., CIVIC CENTER, S.F.
NEXT BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR MEETING:
SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 11AM
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
(NEAR 16TH STREET IN SAN FRANCISCO)
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1) Deserters: We Won't Go to Iraq
CBSNews.com
Wednesday 08 December 2004
The Pentagon says more than 5,500 servicemen have deserted
since the war started in Iraq.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/06/60II/main659336.shtml
2) Analysis: Discontent Plaguing Military
By Tom Raum
The Associated Press
Friday 10 December 2004
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1) Deserters: We Won't Go to Iraq
CBSNews.com
Wednesday 08 December 2004
The Pentagon says more than 5,500 servicemen have deserted
since the war started in Iraq.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/06/60II/main659336.shtml
60 Minutes Wednesday found several of these deserters who left
the Army or Marine Corps rather than go to Iraq. Like a generation of
deserters before them, they fled to Canada.
What do these men, who have violated orders and oaths, have to
say for themselves? They told Correspondent Scott Pelley that
conscience, not cowardice, made them American deserters.
"I was a warrior. You know? I always have been. I've always felt
that way - that if there are people who can't defend themselves,
it's my responsibility to do that," says Pfc. Dan Felushko, 24.
It was Felushko's responsibility to ship out with the Marines to
Kuwait in Jan. 2003 to prepare for the invasion of Iraq. Instead,
he slipped out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., and deployed himself
to Canada.
"I didn't want, you know, 'Died deluded in Iraq' over my
gravestone," says Felushko. "If I'd gone, personally, because
of the things that I believed, it would have felt wrong. Because
I saw it as wrong, if I died there or killed somebody there, that
would have been more wrong."
He told Pelley it wasn't fighting that bothered him. In fact,
he says he started basic training just weeks after al Qaeda
attacked New York and Washington - and he was prepared to
get even for Sept. 11 in Afghanistan.
But Felushko says he didn't see a connection between the
attack on America and Saddam Hussein.
"(What) it basically comes down to, is it my right to choose
between what I think is right and what I think is wrong?" asks
Felushko. "And nobody should make me sign away my ability
to choose between right and wrong."
But Felushko had signed a contract to be with the U.S.
Marine Corps. "It's a devil's contract if you look at it that
way," he says.
How does he feel about being in Toronto while other
Marines are dying in Fallujah, Najaf and Ramadi?
"It makes me struggle with doubt, you know, about my
decision," says Felushko.
What does he say to the families of the American troops
who have died in Iraq?
"I honor their dead. Maybe they think that my presence dishonors
their dead. But they made a choice the same as I made a choice,"
says Felushko. "My big problem is that, if they made that choice
for anything other than they believed in it, then that's wrong.
Right? And the government has to be held responsible for those
deaths, because they didn't give them an option."
Felushko's father is Canadian, so he has dual citizenship, and
he can legally stay in Canada. But it's not that easy for other
American deserters.
Canadian law has changed since the Vietnam era. Back then,
an estimated 55,000 Americans deserted to Canada or dodged
the draft. And in those days, Canada simply welcomed them.
But today's American deserters, such as Brandon Hughey, will
need to convince a Canadian immigration board that they are
refugees.
Hughey volunteered for the Army to get money for college.
He graduated from high school in San Angelo, Texas, just two
months after the president declared war in Iraq.
What did he think about the case for going to war? "I felt it
was necessary if they did have these weapons, and they could
end up in our cities and threaten our safety," says Hughey.
"I was supportive. At first, I didn't think to question it."
He says at first, he was willing to die "to make America safe."
And while Hughey was in basic training, he didn't get much news.
But when he left basic training, he started following the latest
information from Iraq.
"I found out, basically, that they found no weapons of mass
destruction. They were beginning to come out and say it's not
likely that we will find any - and the claim that they made about
ties to al Qaeda was coming up short, to say the least," says
Hughey. "It made me angry, because I felt our lives were being
thrown away as soldiers, basically."
When Hughey got orders for Iraq, he searched the Internet
and found Vietnam era war resisters willing to show him the
way north. In fact, they were willing to drive him there, and
a Canadian television news camera went along.
Hughey had an invitation to stay with a Quaker couple that
helped Americans avoid the draft during Vietnam. From Fort
Hood, Texas, to St. Catherine's in Ontario, Canada, Hughey
crossed the border, duty free.
Pelley read letters about Hughey's desertion that were sent
to the editor of a San Antonio newspaper.
"It makes me sad to know that there's that much hate in
the country," says Hughey. "Before I joined the Army, I would
have thought the same way. Anyone who said no to a war, I
would have thought them a traitor and a coward. So, in that
essence, I'm thankful for this experience, because it has opened
my eyes and it has taught me not to take things on the surface."
However, he adds: "I have to say that my image of my country
always being the good guy, and always fighting for just causes,
has been shattered."
Hughey, and other deserters, will be represented before the
Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board by Toronto lawyer
Jeffry House.
His clients will have to prove that, if they are returned to the
United States, they wouldn't just be prosecuted for what they
did -- they would be also be persecuted. How will House make
that claim?
"People should have a right to say, 'I'm not fighting in that war.
That's an illegal war. There's illegal stuff going on the ground.
I'm not going,'" says House. "And anyone who says soldiers should
go to jail if they don't fight in an illegal war is persecuting them."
And it's something House has experience with. In 1969, he
graduated from the University of Wisconsin, got drafted, and
spent the rest of his life in Canada.
House's legal strategy will focus on his contention that President
Bush is not complying with international law. But how will he
defend volunteers who signed a contract?
"The United States is supposed to comply with treaty obligations
like the U.N. charter, but they don't," says House. "When the
president isn't complying with the Geneva Accords or with the
U.N. charter, are we saying, 'Only the soldier who signed up
when he was 17 - that guy has to strictly comply with contract?
The president, he doesn't have to?' I don't think so. I don't think
that is fair."
The first deserter to face the Canadian refugee board is
likely to be Spc. Jeremy Hinzman of Rapid City, S.D. He joined
the military in Jan. 2001, and was a paratrooper in the
82nd Airborne.
He wanted a career in the military, but over time, he decided
he couldn't take a life. "I was walking to chow hall with my unit,
and we were yelling, 'Train to kill, kill we will,' over and over again,"
recalls Hinzman. "I kind of snuck a peek around me and saw all
my colleagues getting red in the face and hoarse yelling - and at
that point a light went off in my head and I said, 'You know,
I made the wrong career decision.'"
But Hinzman said he didn't want to get out of the Army:
"I had signed a contract for four years. I was totally willing to
fulfill it. Just not in combat arms jobs."
While at Fort Bragg, Hinzman says he filled out the forms
for conscientious objector status, which would let him stay in
the Army in a non-combat job.
While he waited for a decision, he went to Afghanistan and
worked in a kitchen. But later, the Army told him he didn't
qualify as a conscientious objector, and he was ordered to
fight in Iraq.
Hinzman decided to take his family to Canada, where he's
been living off savings accumulated while he was in the military.
Wasn't he supposed to follow orders? "I was told in basic
training that, if I'm given an illegal or immoral order, it is my
duty to disobey it," says Hinzman. "And I feel that invading and
occupying Iraq is an illegal and immoral thing to do."
"But you can't have an Army of free-thinkers," says Pelley.
"You wouldn't have an Army."
"No, you wouldn't. I think there are times when militaries or
countries act in a collectively wrong way," says Hinzman. "I mean,
the obvious example was during World War II. Sure, Saddam
Hussein was a really bad guy. I mean, he ranks up there with
the bad ones. But was he a threat to the United States?
Still, isn't it worth fighting to free the people of Iraq? "Whether
a country lives under freedom or tyranny or whatever else,
that's the collective responsibility of the people of that country,"
says Hinzman.
Hinzman and the other American deserters have become
celebrities of sorts in the Canadian anti-war movement.
Only a few of the reported 5,500 deserters are in Canada,
but House says he's getting more calls from nervous soldiers
all the time.
Wouldn't the right and honorable thing for deserters to do
be to go back to the United States, and turn themselves in
to the Army?
"Why would that be honorable?" asks House. "(Deserters
signed a contract) to defend the Constitution of the United
States, not take part in offensive, pre-emptive wars. I don't
think you should be punished for doing the right thing. What
benefit is there to being a martyr? I don't see any."
Hinzman began his hearing before the Canadian Immigration
and Refugee board last Monday. But there's no telling when
he'll find out if he'll be allowed to stay in Canada - or be sent
back to the United States to face the consequences.
The maximum penalty for deserting in wartime is death.
But it's more typical for a soldier to draw a sentence of five
years or less for deserting in wartime.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) Analysis: Discontent Plaguing Military
By Tom Raum
The Associated Press
Friday 10 December 2004
Washington - Soldiers always gripe. But confronting the defense
secretary, filing a lawsuit over extended tours and refusing to go on
a mission because it's too dangerous elevate complaining to a new
level.
It also could mean a deeper problem for the Pentagon: a lessening
of faith in the Iraq mission and in a volunteer army that soldiers can't
leave.
The hubbub over an exchange between Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld and soldiers in Kuwait has given fresh ammunition to
critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy.
It also highlighted growing morale and motivation problems in
the 21-month-old war that even some administration supporters
say must be addressed to get off a slippery slope that could
eventually lead to breakdowns reminiscent of the Vietnam War.
For thousands of years, soldiers have grumbled about
everything from their commanders to their equipment to shelter
and food. But challenging a defense secretary to his face is rare.
So is suing the military to keep from being sent back to
a combat zone.
"We are seeing some unprecedented things. The real fear is
that these could be tips of a larger iceberg," said P.J. Crowley,
a retired colonel who served as a Pentagon spokesman in both
Republican and Democratic administrations and was a White
House national security aide in the Clinton administration.
"The real issue is not any one of these things individually.
It's what the broader impact will be on our re-enlistment rates
and our retention," Crowley said.
Several Iraq-bound soldiers confronted Rumsfeld on Wednesday
at a base in Kuwait about a lack of armor for their Humvees and
other vehicles, about second-hand equipment and about a policy
keeping many in Iraq far beyond enlistment contracts. Their
pointed questions were cheered by others in the group.
The episode - the questions and Rumsfeld's testy responses
were captured by television cameras and widely reported -
did not raise new issues. Complaints about inadequate protection
against insurgents' roadside bombs and forced duty extensions
have been sounded for months. But not so vividly.
President Bush and Rumsfeld offered assurances that the
issues of armor and equipment were being dealt with, and that
the plainspoken expression of concerns by soldiers was welcome.
"I'd want to ask the defense secretary the same question,"
Bush said, if the president were a soldier in overseas combat.
"They deserve the best," he added.
The display of brazenness in Kuwait came just two days
after eight U.S. soldiers in Kuwait and Iraq filed a lawsuit
challenging the military's "stop loss" policy, which allows the
extension of active-duty deployments during times of war or
national emergencies.
In October, up to 19 Army reservists from a unit based in
South Carolina refused orders to drive unarmored trucks on
a fuel supply mission along attack-prone roads near Baghdad,
contending it was too dangerous. The Pentagon is still
investigating the incident.
"Tensions obviously are rising," said Anthony Cordesman,
a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies and a former adviser to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
"The fact is that you do need now to consider how to change
the force structure: the role of the reserves, the role of the
actives. Troops are being deployed in continuing combat under
what are often high risk conditions for far longer periods
than anyone had previously considered or planned for."
When the war began in March 2003, the troops were
predominantly active duty military. Today, National Guard
and Army Reserve units make up about 40 percent of the force.
The growing restiveness of U.S. troops in the Middle East
echoes a drop in optimism at home that a stable, democratic
government can be established in Iraq. A new poll for The
Associated Press by Ipsos-Public Affairs shows that 47 percent
of Americans now think it's likely Iraq can establish such
a government, down from 55 percent in April.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan on Friday said that
Bush "is committed to making sure our troops have the best
equipment and all the resources they need to do their jobs.
And that's exactly what he expects to happen."
Tom Raum has covered national and international affairs
for The Associated Press since 1973.
(c) : t r u t h o u t 2004
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