US Marine’s powerful testimony about invasion and occupation of Iraq
Thank you, Matt Howard, for courageously speaking up and speaking out against abuses in Iraq. Matt attained the rank of corporal in the United States Marine Corps and is head of the Vermont chapter for Iraq Veterans Against the War. He gave this statement at a recent protest at the Statehouse. The International Red Cross has just released a report entitled Humanitarian Tragedy In Iraq, detailing how at least 375,000 people have gone missing: the tip of the human rights crisis iceberg.
Iraq war is a betrayal of American democracy | Rutland Herald | November 11, 2007
In 2003 I illegally invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq with 1st Tank battalion 1st Marine Division. My commander in chief unleashed the world’s fiercest fighting force upon the country and people of Iraq, and now those of us used and betrayed by him are demanding justice.
Four and a half years after our opening “shock and awe” Bush’s lies are known throughout the world, and yet he continues to act with impunity. Four and a half years later the Bush regime has unleashed a hell upon the country of Iraq that only those who have been there can truly understand.
As a two-tour combat veteran of this brutal war, I have a responsibility to speak honestly and openly about what has been done and what continues to be done in our name. We veterans know that this war is not the one being sanitized on the nightly news. It has nothing to do with the liberation of the people of Iraq; instead it has everything to do with the subjugation and domination of these people in the name of U.S. imperial economic and strategic interests.
We did not go to war with the country of Iraq, we went to war with the people of Iraq. During the initial invasion we killed women. We killed children. We senselessly killed farm animals. We were the United States Marine Corps, not the Peace Corps, and we left a swath of death and destruction in our wake all the way to Baghdad.
Let me say again so that there is no misunderstanding. I stand here today as a former U.S. Marine saying we are killing women and children in Iraq. This is the true nature of war. War lends itself to atrocities. Don’t think you can use an organization designed to kill other human beings for anything humanitarian. That has never been our mission. That was crystal clear from the moment I was forced to bury the crate of humanitarian food given to me in Kuwait.
Four and a half years later we as soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are done. We are done being told under threat of court martial to run over children that get in the way of our speeding convoys.
We are done raiding and destroying the homes of innocent Iraqis on a nightly basis.
We are done abusing and torturing prisoners.
We are done being hired thugs for the 160,000 contractors and U.S. corporate interests in Iraq.
We are done being poisoned by depleted uranium, the unspoken Agent Orange of this war.
We are done coming home broken, from two, three, four tours of duty – only to find our commander in chief has actually tried to CUT funding to the Department of Veterans Affairs. To find our doctors being told to diagnose us with pre-existing personality disorders instead of post traumatic stress syndrome.
We are done killing for lies.
So Iraq Veterans Against the War is taking back our history – the history that has been robbed from us. We are dispelling the myth that the Vietnam war ended when the Democrats started voting against it. Instead we are spreading the truth about how the American War in Vietnam ended.
The Vietnam War ended when soldiers put down their weapons and refused to fight; when pilots dropped their bombs in the ocean.
We are re-educating the public to let them know that the power ultimately lies with the people. Just take a look at the thousands of pages of internal documents from the Department of Defense explicitly detailing how at the end of the Vietnam war the military had collapsed. It was literally in a state of mutiny. And that movement is slowly starting again. Because ultimately in every war waged throughout human history, those forced to fight quickly realize they have much more in common with those they are being told to kill than with those telling them to do the killing.
And we are re-educating the public about the true nature of sectarian violence. No, the middle east is NOT inherently violent. In fact, in the 1,400-year schism between Sunnis and Shias – there has NEVER been a civil war fought. They have always lived in the same neighborhoods and even intermarried. The United States has caused this civil war using the classic colonial techniques of divide and conquer.
George Bush is a war criminal who has violated international law, the Geneva convention and the Nuremburg standards and needs to tried accordingly for crimes against humanity.
I ask every red-blooded American today: What would you do if your homeland was savagely invaded and occupied by another country? The Iraqis will continue to resist and fight until the last American has left their homeland. Period. End the violence in Iraq? End the occupation.
We veterans are speaking out to stop the violence being perpetrated in our name. When we voted in the Democrats on an anti-war mandate, the Bush regime expanded the war. As we are marching against further occupation, the Bush regime is making threats against Iran.
And we will not continue to be silenced by the mainstream media. Top generals and bottom privates are all speaking in unison now. We know the truth about the slaughter of upwards of one million Iraqis. Why is no one listening? We will not stand by as this regime tricks the country into thinking that if you oppose the war you do not support the troops. We ARE the troops and we have never felt support from this administration. Stop mindlessly supporting the troops. Start demanding that we come home – and maybe think about apologizing to us when we get back.
yeah, Matt is a pretty inspiring guy. Did you see him speak in Sydney?
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Hi Anne, Thanks for coming by. No, he must’ve been great, yes? cheers, Ann
Good sentiments expressed there, I’d say. This guy should get more coverage from the anti-war movement and from the progressive movement everywhere in the world.
But he’s damned wrong at some points. For instance, this part:
This is sheer romantic nonsense.
The marine needs to understand that the Vietnam War didn’t end with some glorious mutiny by the US military. Contrary to his Battleship Potemkin fantasy, the Vietnam War ended when the US establishment felt helpless in the face of the Viet Cong resistance fighters.
The victims of NATO aggression in the Third World have no need for imperialist soldiers to suddenly grow a brain or discover a conscience. They cannot sit and watch while their people get slaughtered until the foreign soldiers rediscover their morality and realize they’re doing something horrible.
The people targeted by US imperialism are quite capable of knocking a conscience into the aggressors. ;)
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Well said and that needed to be qualified. Thanks, dear friend. — Ann
This is some pretty tough testimony. I admire any veteran and feel that any American who has not served lacks the perspective necessary to comment on the horrors of war. I find it difficult, though, to embrace his perspective. Any war could be viewed as “illegal” and then all wars are “criminal”. Whether you agree with the merits of this conflict or not, nothing is ever quite as simple as waging peace. I know that if certain atrocities were being committed against my family, I would hope and pray for someone – anyone – to break the law.
Watch where you aim that thing, Red, or I might have to introduce you to friendly fire. Regardless of his knowledge of history or ideology, this young Marine is upholding a long tradition of honor and integrity and he makes me proud to claim the title. I won’t let my daughters date Marines because it takes one to know one, but I know they would be safe with this one. At least he has a conscience. At least he woke up. At least he’s paying attention. Now the others will fall in line behind this outstanding leader.
What’s the easiest way to kill a Marine? Throw some sand at a brick wall and tell em to hit the beach. — I know – It’s a Navy joke, but I still think it’s funny as hell.
Re: geopolitcalrooster’s comments, there’s “illegal” (subjectively) and then there’s illegal (literally) military action.
The Iraq Adventure/Debacle is a plain case of the latter; preemptive, lacking even a token ‘causus belli’, undertaken, not as a last resort, but as a premeditated act of aggression. It should not be dignified with the label of ‘war’, however. It was begun as an incursion to capture and/or assassinate Saddam Hussein and establish an occupation. It’s goal never was to achieve surrender of another government and the end of hostilities, as in an actual “war”. The violations of our Constitution and of the treaties and conventions our gov’t. has entered into, which have the same force of law as our Constitution & legal code, are quite clear.
The Iraq mess is really just state-sponsored terrorism, better funded but no more legitimate than any other gang activity.