but we DON'T torture

bbc video at the link below

Former guard on Guantanamo 'torture'

A former guard at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay has spoken in his first television interview about the brutality he witnessed to inmates.

Chris Arendt told the BBC what he saw amounted to ''torture'' and that some of his fellow guards were so violent as to be ''psychotic.''............

Ex-gitmo guard who saw 'torture' calls co-workers 'psychotic'
Jeremy Gantz
As the Guantanamo Bay detention center reached its seventh birthday this week, a U.S. veteran said he witnessed cell beatings, forced head shavings and interrogation tactics--including sleep deprivation, floor shackles and loud music--while guarding detainees there.

"It's torture," Chris Arendt, who worked at Guantanamo when he was 19, told the BBC in this video. "It's a means of extracting information that I didn't even believe these people probably had. It's a means of making their lives more miserable."

Arendt, who joined the U.S. military when he was 17, testified at the Winter Soldier Hearings in Washington D.C. last March.

Wearing an Iraq Veterans Against the War sweatshirt, Arendt told the BBC that many people he worked with at the camp thought of their Guantanamo posting as "vacation."

"...This was the opportunity that they'd always wanted, to be violent and awful people...because they are genuinely pyschotic. And for others, it's just a job," Arendt said............

4,171*

that's the price of gas

iraq veterans against the war thinks it is. oh, i do too.

how ANYONE can still attempt to justify our invasion of that country is unfathomable. it was a crime, it was unjust, immoral and illegal. we've not only killed thousands or been responsible for them being killed but we've displaced many more. we've destroyed an entire country. WE that's right WE are responsible for al-qaeda being in iraq. THEY WERE NOT THERE BEFORE WE DECIDED TO 'LIBERATE' the country.

Anti-war veterans deploy 4,171 toy soldiers at gas station
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
In a daring guerrilla raid earlier this fall, members of the Los Angeles chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) infiltrated a local gas station to deploy a battalion of 4171 toy soldiers, together with a sign reading, "Price of Gas: 4171 U.S. Soldiers."

The project was initiated by designer Andrew Wilcox, who served as art director, and photographer and former marine Jonas Lara. According to Wilcox, it also involved "6 Iraq War Veterans who wish to remain anonymous."

A video of the action, carried out in the early morning hours of October 11, has now been posted on YouTube and Digg and featured at the IVAW website and on several blogs............

*of course the number NOW is 4,201

iraq veterans against the war

Iraq Veterans: It’s our turn to tell our stories
Iraq Veterans Against the War to convene Winter Soldier as occupation enters sixth year
Washington, D.C. – Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) is preparing to launch an
event that will give veterans and service members a chance to speak out about the
occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan will feature
testimony that will expose the human consequences of failed policy.
From March 13-16 at the National Labor College just outside of Washington, D.C.,
veterans from across the country will be standing up to share their experiences. Their
stories will show that wrongdoings in Iraq and Afghanistan are not isolated incidents
perpetrated by “bad apples.”
“We’ve heard from the politicians, we’ve heard from the generals, we’ve heard from the
media – now it’s our turn,” said Kelly Dougherty, executive director of IVAW and a
former sergeant in the Colorado Army National Guard, who served in Iraq as a military
police officer. “It’s not going to be easy to hear what we have to say. It’s not going to be
easy for us to tell it. But we believe that the only way this war is going to end is if the
American people truly understand what we have done in their name.”
The event has been named Winter Soldier to honor a similar gathering 30 years ago of
veterans of the Vietnam War. Winter soldiers, according to founding father Thomas
Paine, are the people who stand up for the soul of their country, even in its darkest hours.
Hundreds of veterans are planning to travel to Washington for the event, which will
feature live testimony – along with supporting video and photographic documentation –
as well as panel discussions that will focus on the human impact of the war as well as the
continuing break down of the military. For those who won’t be able to travel to
Washington, live video and audio feeds of the entire Winter Soldier weekend will be
available – groups across the country are already planning to gather and watch the event.
Iraq Veterans Against the War was founded in 2004 to give those who have served in the
military since September 11, 2001 a way to come together and speak out against an
unjust, illegal and unwinnable war. Today, IVAW has over 700 members in 49 states,
Washington, D.C. and Canada and on military bases overseas.
For more information or to register to attend:
www.ivaw.org/wintersoldier/media

Iraq, Afghanistan veterans to reveal war atrocities and 'some pretty fucked-up shit'
Nick Juliano
As the war in Iraq approaches its fifth anniversary, veterans of that conflict and the war in Afghanistan will give first-hand accounts, supported by photographs and video evidence, of the true nature of the wars, including attacks the vets say killed innocent civilians.
Iraq Veterans Against the War is organizing the "Winter Soldier" conference outside of Washington, DC, to share their experiences from the front lines. The conference, which begins Thursday and will continue through the weekend, aims to build on a 1971 gathering in which Vietnam veterans gathered in Detroit to share their view of atrocities they witnessed in that war.
�It�s not going to be easy to hear what we have to say," IVAW executive director Kelly Dougherty, who served in Iraq as a military police officer, says in a press release. "It�s not going to be easy for us to tell it. But we believe that the only way this war is going to end is if the American people truly understand what we have done in their name.�
Although the 1971 Winter Soldier meeting inspired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to hold a hearing that featured Vietnam Veteran John Kerry -- "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" he famously asked -- it failed to receive wide ranging media coverage..............

winter soldiers

first from viet nam, now from iraq and afghanistan. we had best put our listening ears on. we haven't so far.

Winter Soldiers to Testify Against War
By Maya Schenwar
Thirty-seven years ago, in the midst of a bitter-cold Michigan winter, 109 Vietnam veterans gathered at a Howard Johnson Motel auditorium in Detroit to tell their stories. For three days, they told of ransacking undefended villages, attacking civilians, mutilating bodies, torturing Viet Cong suspects, burning houses, destroying Vietnamese property and livestock and killing innocent children. At the conference, entitled Winter Soldier, the veterans accepted responsibility and mourned for their actions. But, taken collectively, their words incriminated a much larger culprit: the war itself.
This year, from March 13 to 16, about 300 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will follow in the footsteps of their predecessors, gathering for a second Winter Soldier conference, in Silver Spring, Maryland. Organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) it will make up the largest gathering ever of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
Their mission? To tell the story of the war in the terms of those who have actually lived it.
"This is a moment when veterans won't let anyone else speak for us," said Aaron Hughes, an Iraq veteran who initiated the new Winter Soldier effort. "We hear from the pundits, we hear from the politicians, we hear from the generals, but we don't hear from the soldiers who've walked the streets, who've been there and know what it's about. We're the ones who can bring out the cruelties and dehumanization in US foreign policy."
The event, which will accommodate about 700 veteran advocates, social workers, support staff and members of the media in addition to veterans, will combine soldier testimonies and expert panels. The panels are intended to provide a factual context for the personal stories, according to Perry O'Brien, one of Winter Soldier's organizers. Panels and testimony will be grouped into 12 categories, including killing and wounding noncombatants, mishandling of dead, torture and abuse, sexual assault, discrimination in the military, destruction of civilian property, veterans' benefits issues and GI resistance. ..........

ivaw

nothing needs to be added by me

One year from now
As we enter 2008, please stop for a moment and consider where we are now, and where we are going. In just over a year, America will have a new President. We will have endured a year of campaign commercials and attack ads. We'll have watched debates devoid of any real discussion of the withdrawal from Iraq that a growing number of Americans now call for. We'll have waited, for yet another year, for our leaders to find a way to say what we know in our hearts: we must leave Iraq.
But what will have changed in the next year that will make that happen?
We must face this fact: we run the serious risk that one year from today we'll be right where we are now, but with another year's worth of casualties, a year’s worth of grieving families, a year's worth of Iraqi anger and suffering built on our occupation of a country we now know was no threat to us. Ending this war in a year is different than ending it now, just as ending it now is different than ending it a year ago, or a year before that. There is a price to pay for every day that we wait.............
IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR