While the activists took the width of Clarke Rd. and slowed the buses to a halt, police made no arrests, but instead beat the activists out of the streets using automatic weapons and police dogs so the deploying Soldiers could proceed.

Among those blockading were three veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and one military spouse. (See attached bios) The action, organized by a group calling themselves “Fort Hood Disobeys,” was aimed at preventing the deployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Soldiers to what the veterans termed an illegal and immoral occupation.

While standing in the street, the activists held banners reading “Occupation is a Crime” and “Please Don’t Make the Same Mistake We Did. RESIST NOW.” From the TX HW-190 overpass, additional supporters attempted to hang larger banners that read, “Tell the Brass: ‘KISS MY ASS’ Your family needs you more” “Sick of Fighting Your Wars” and “Col. Allen [3 ACR Commander]: Do not deploy wounded Soldiers.”

This latest deployment comes less than two weeks after President Obama announced the second end to combat operations in Iraq. FHD organizers denounced this as a lie, and pointed to the deployment of the 3rd ACR, a combat regiment, to Iraq as clear proof. They have stated they will continue to organize direct action in the Fort Hood community to oppose the wars as long as troops continue to deploy.

The action organizers have established a website at forthooddisobeys.blogspot.com where they will be posting statements, photographs and video from the actions as they become available during the next 48 hours. As well, for the length of the day, FHD ran live webcasts updating their supporters and depicting portions of the direct action. All live broadcasts from the day are archived at http://bit.ly/b1WEyv.

For more information or to arrange coverage of today’s events, call 347-613-8964 or write to forthooddisobeys@hushmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . See attached bios for more information on those who participated in today’s action.

——————
Participant Bios:

I am Bobby Whittenberg-James, a Marine veteran of the war against the people of Iraq, a Purple Heart recipient and a third generation military service member. I joined the Marines in June of 2003, believing the lies about weapons of mass destruction and an imminent threat to our safety. I have since come to learn that these wars and occupations do not keep the people of the United States or the Middle East safe, but instead serve the interests of politicians, capitalists and corporations; the ruling elite.

These unjust wars and occupations rob the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen of their dignity and their right to self-determination and serve to make the people of both the Middle East and the United States less safe. They also serve to further destabilize a region that has suffered under the boot-heel of western colonialism for over a century. The US Empire also supports both financially and militarily the brutal apartheid regime that occupies Palestine. All of this is done in our name with our money, and I am here to say “Not in my name!”

The recent information leaks about the US Empire’s wars lay bare their war crimes and crimes against humanity. We must face the truth, even if it makes us uncomfortable or shows us something about ourselves that we don’t want to see. When we find the truth, we must respond accordingly. I will not be complicit in the killing of people. Since I do not believe that the government or the capitalists will end these wars, I will vote with my body.

Bobby Whittenberg-James
Disobedient
——————————

I am Crystal Colon. I was a sergeant in the Army for five years, stationed at Fort Hood the entire time, save two deployments to Iraq totaling 26 months. I was a Signal Support Systems Noncommissioned Officer, coordinating communications for various commands. I was honorably discharged in Jan., 2010, and have been organizing in the veterans peace movement ever since.

I first began to question the war in Iraq during my first deployment in ‘05-’06. After my friend Robbie was killed, I was very deeply affected. I started questioning why we were in Iraq. It felt like he had died for nothing. After returning from Iraq, I planned to leave the military. I was stop-lossed and forced to return to Iraq for 15 months, in total held beyond the length of my enlistment more than 450 days. Since leaving the military, I have been active with the veterans peace movement, speaking out about my experiences and supporting troops who refuse to fight.

I am doing this today because I can’t allow this war in which I have fought to continue. I can’t allow other Soldiers to make the same mistake I did, deploying in support of a war crime. As a veteran of Iraq, how could I not do this today? For the people I helped occupy, for the friends I lost and stilI have over there, for the Soldiers on those buses. How could I not do this today? I should have disobeyed. I should have never boarded those buses to Iraq. I wish someone had tried to stop me.

Crystal Colon
Disobedient
———————-
I am Matthis Chiroux, former Army sergeant and War Resister. I was press-ganged into the Army by the Alabama Juvenile “Justice” System in 2002. While in the military, I occupied the nations of Japan and Germany for more than four years, with shorter tours in the Philippines and Afghanistan. I was a Public Affairs Noncommissioned Officer specializing in strategic communications. In reality, I was a propaganda artist. I was discharged honorably to the Individual Ready Reserve in 2007.

While I have always been against the war in Iraq, I began resisting it actively in 2008, after I received mobilization orders for a year-long deployment to Iraq. I refused those orders in Congress in May of 2008, calling my orders illegal and unconstitutional. I believed appealing to Congress would end the war. When 13 Members signed a letter of support for my decision and sent it to Bush, I thought we had won a victory for peace. This was more than two years ago. The president has changed, and the wars and destruction drag on.

Today, I am blocking the deployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment with my fellow vets and military family members because the wars will continue to victimize our communities until we halt this bloody machine from within. I am putting my body on the line in solidarity with the people of the Middle East, whose bodies have been shot, burned, tortured, raped and violated by our men and women in and out of uniform. I cannot willfully allow Americans in uniform to put their lives and the lives of Iraqis in jeopardy for a crime. We are here because we have a responsibility to ourselves as veterans and as humans of the world. I will not rest until my people, ALL PEOPLE, are free.

In Struggle and Solidarity,

Matthis Chiroux
Disobedient
——————————
I am Cynthia Thomas, and I have been an Army Wife for 18 years. My husband has been deployed three times since the wars began. During his second deployment, he was severley wounded and medevaced to Walter Reed Army Hospital on Life Support. Even though he had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injury, suffered three fractures in his back, three fractures on his pelvis and countless other injuries, the Army deployed him a third time. This was devastating to our two daughters, our step-son and to me.

Three months after my husband deployed for the third time, our step-son called to inform me he was joining the Marines. That was the exact moment I realized that our children would be fighting these endless wars. I decided that I needed to start resisting.

The reason I am doing this today is because for the past 3 years that I have been speaking out and advocating for Soldiers, things have only gotten worse. I have heard countless stories from Vets and Active Duty Soldiers that give people nightmares. I have heard stories from family members that would shock people awake if they would just listen! Our military community is being destroyed!

If these wars are destroying our Soldiers and military families with 12 to 15-month, often repeat deployments, how do you think the Iraqi and Afghan people doing? They have been living these wars 24/7, 365 days a year for nearly a decade! My youngest daughter is an Operation Iraqi Freedom baby. She was less than one-year-old when her father left to invade Iraq. I look at her, and I see an Iraqi or Afghan child having to live in constant fear with no end in sight! I am doing this for our community, for my girls, for my husband and our Marine. I am doing this for the Iraqi and Afghan People. Enough is enough. If Soldiers really want to go fight, they’ll have to go through me.

Cynthia Thomas
Disobedient

by Lina Thorne

Eight of us from the We Are Not Your Soldiers Tour recently hit  the first stop on the Warped Tour in Mountain View, CA. The Warped tour is a summer punk rock concert that draws thousands of youth. Our Crew included including five students who first heard the tour last Spring, and Robin Long, an Iraq war resister who spent a year in jail for refusing orders to go to Iraq .

Our booth was decorated with We Are Not Your Soldiers bandanas and graphic pictures that showed what the military is doing in the Middle East. We also had t-shirts reading “Military Recruiters: Get The Hell Away From Me”, and we put up an enlargement of the Crimes Are Crimes Statement, People stopped by the booth all day to read the statement. .

End. the. wars. A powerful call to action. Obama is continuing Bush’s policies. This was part of the We Are Not Your Soldiers campus tour, filmed at UC Santa Barbara on May 7, 2010. Speech delivered by Emma Kaplan and former Army Sgt. Matthis Chiroux (an Afghanistan veteran and a war resister in Iraq Veterans Against the War) Please join the We Are Not Your Soldiers facebook page here: http://bit.ly/cxQwOj

Most of the students won’t graduate. They are mainly Latino and Black, a lot of immigrants and children of immigrants.  Emma wore a shirt with “Bush Regime: WANTED for Illegally Crossing Borders,” and got a lot of “I like that shirt!! Where did you get that shirt?”  The school has the highest number of foster kids in the county. But the teachers genuinely care about their students and want them to have a better future, even though they’re up against tough odds.

Military recruiters are at the school once a week if not daily. There’s an active JROTC (Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps) program on campus. The JROTC folks say they don’t want ROTC to be for recruitment and that they want kids to go to college before they decide to join.  However, you have to join ROTC and sign up to serve post-college if you want your college paid for. Matthis had done JROTC himself, and said “it’s like a gateway drug,” since it starts training you so young. Emma and Matthis observed some of the students (teenagers between the ages of 14-17) drilling with JROTC at the school, marching with rifles.

They spoke to a total of 7 classes starting at 7:30am. The number of people who knew someone in the military is huge. The idea of getting out and getting college benefits is powerful, as most kids work as well as go to school to support their families. The military is the most visible way of doing that – to the point that there’s a billboard for Marine Corps across the street from the school saying, “we don’t accept applications, only commitment.” The kids walk past it every day.

One of the teachers brings in speakers all the time and says the students are usually rowdy, not really paying attention.  All the students were totally riveted today. Emma and Matthis talked briefly, showed the Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” video, and took questions. There were a lot of questions for Matthis about what he went through in the military. They wanted to know if the Army and Marines are the same: “is it okay to join one, and not the other?” Matthis said they’re both bad. He spent only two months on the ground but, “Even a day would change you. Shooting children once changes your life. I wish someone had told me what this would do to me beforehand. I’m not a stronger man for it; I’m a weaker man.”

They asked, “Do you get brainwashed? How does protest convince people to not join if they’re already set on going? How do you talk to friends and family when they won’t listen, when it’s like talking to a wall? No matter what you say this is what they’re going to do. 50% of people in JROTC want to join the military.” Some of the students were afraid to watch the video: “What is it going to show?”

Emma said “We’re out to change the way the military is seen, and make it unpopular to join up. We need a societal shift in how military service is seen, so that people think not only ‘you might die and you’re signing your life away’ but confront whether that is worth it. What is the war about? Do you think this world is fine the way it is? Shouldn’t we be about changing the world rather than trying to find your place within it?’”

As they watched the video, Matthis continued to talk to the students, asking questions like, “does this guy look like a terrorist?” The students saw a cameraman walking down the street, so they answered, “no.” Then the video shows this man getting shot from a helicopter. The students said things like, “Oh my god, why did they do that!?” When the video showed an injured man struggling to crawl away, the soldiers say things like, “c’mon, pick just pick up a weapon,” so that they could have clearance to kill him.  Matthis asked if it sounded like the soldiers wanted to shoot the guy on the ground. Are these soldiers protecting freedom? Is this soldier a hero? The answer from the students was a resounding NO!

Emma reported that Matthis is good at talking about how he became a resister from within the military. Emma brought in the responsibility we have as people not in the military. “You have a responsibility as people living in this country. The crimes in that video are being done in the name of your freedom and your security. You have to figure out the ways to stop the military and the recruiters. It’s not going to come from within the military. It has to come from without.”

This brought a response from students of, “We have to protest military recruiters. If we don’t stand up to them who will?” Matthis told how, when he was stationed in Germany someone came up to him on the street, identified him as a US soldier and said, “I just want you to know your military is committing war crimes and genocide.” First Matthis freaked out and wanted to punch him, but the German said, “Look, it’s not personal, I just want you to know this.” This one exchange became the standard by which Matthis measured everything he was doing by and changed the whole course of his life.

Every class responded to the presentation by filling out a survey.  In each class students said things like, “I don’t want to kill people – before I didn’t know that’s what the military is actually for – I thought it was about fighting for freedom, and defending your country.” The video really changed how they see the military, and they were moved by Matthis’ story, nodding their heads at the situation he was in when he joined: drugs, jail, rough times…but as he said, the military was “the most dehumanizing thing I ever went through – being broken down and built up to not be human anymore.” There were times when he pictured sticking a gun in his mouth and wanting to shoot. He didn’t have faith in himself or what he could do. But talking to these youth, he said he “has faith that you can do something with your lives. You don’t need the military to make you into the person you want to be,” and this resonated with them.

Many students wrote on their surveys that they had changed their minds about the military after hearing the presentation. A lot of them said the military has always been an option on the back burner for them. But after hearing from We Are Not Your Soldiers, “there’s no way I’m going to join now.”

Students also wrote that the recruiters lie about what you’ll actually be doing in the military. They don’t tell you that you will kill innocent people. Going along with what the government is doing is wrong. Seeing “behind the scenes information” like the video was the most important part of what changed their minds. Many wrote things like, “a military is for killing people. I wouldn’t want to kill people. I wouldn’t want people to kill me.”

One student said the war is about dominating others for their resources. A lot of them play the video game “Call of Duty” and said it looks just like the Wikileaks video: you shoot civilians. The target looks the same. Matthis asked, “do you think it’s a coincidence that the games that you play look the same as the kind of war you’re expected to fight? “No, we’re already being trained to look at the world a certain way. We’re being recruited.”

During one class, a girl debated the presenters a lot, saying, “you’re not talking about all the good things. The benefits. You can’t tell people what to do.” Emma and Matthis took on her objections but it felt like she wasn’t listening, only debating for the sake of debating. Later on, they learned, she told the teacher that she “really liked the presentation. It was inspiring. [She] just wanted to test them.” Next time when this happens, Emma wants to make the point that debating is not necessarily critically thinking, and hopefully have a more in depth, engaged conversation.

A couple students said we just need to change policy. “Without the military who would protect us? It’s kill or be killed.” This wasn’t the majority, though.

When it came to talking about resistance, giving examples and the effects it has on other people made a big difference. At Oakland High students texted each other and gathered quickly to respond to the recruiters at their campus. They quickly made some signs and held them up in front of the recruiters. “What happened? The recruiters left. They don’t want to waste their time where opposition is going to break open and they’re going to be exposed for what they are. They’re going to book it and strategize for next time.” Painting this kind of picture made it real for the students.

The idea of tracking the recruiters and texting friends to get people to meet up and protest them really appealed to the students. One of the slogans they came up with was, “stop the violence – stop the war.” One student said, just say, “Get the hell away from me!” The first thing that came up, though when they were asked what students can do, was “protest the recruiters.” They also thought it would make a big difference for others to see the Wikileaks video. That it would open people’s eyes to the fact innocent people are being intentionally, not accidently, killed.

As for making joining up with the war machine unpopular, as Emma and Matthis were walking past some youth drilling with JROTC, some of them came up and asked for the orange We Are Not Your Soldiers bandannas that were starting to pop up around the school. Everyone wanted one – even the future soldiers!

“We should resist and let the recruiters know that they are unwanted”-   Bay area high school student

Today at a high school in the bay area CA: 100 students heard Emma, Matthis and Robin Long present We Are Not Your Soldiers. 2-3 classes came, brought by their teachers. The school is extremely diverse: white, Latino, Black and Asian. Some of the students are already doing projects about military recruiting. One of the students researched, and found that this high school is the most heavily recruited from school in the Bay Area. Other students were already working on a “counter-propaganda” campaign within the school against military recruitment using posters.

Emma spoke, then Matthis and Robin spoke. Then they showed the Wikileaks video. One young woman started crying, saying her dad was in the military and she wanted to join but now she didn’t want to. Matthis had asked a question and this young woman raised her hand and said, “My dad was probably in a helicopter like that killing children. Maybe he had to do that to survive. Maybe if he was a stronger person and refused to do those things maybe he would have been killed.” Others pointed out that the soldiers in the video didn’t have to kill people to survive in that helicopter – it was obviously not in self-defense. A number of students actually said they changed their minds after hearing from Emma, Matthis and Robin about joining the military.

Robin Long, another Iraq Veteran against the war who recently spent a year in prison for refusing to fight in Iraq joined in, saying a few things about his experience – going to Canada, getting deported, getting court martialed. It made a big impression the students and the teachers. When they were brainstorming about things that the students could do, some people raised questions about whether there would be repercussions- would they get in trouble? Other people pointed out that Robin Long had been in prison for a year and this put the potential repercussions the students might face into perspective. A lot of students wanted to get involved… this is controversial at the school since not all the teachers/administrators are against the war. In the course of the event, some of the students left the room and came back with a Marine recruiting poster from elsewhere in the school. They took it in front of the room and ripped it apart, demonstrating how they felt about the whole enterprise in a really dramatic way. The rest of the students were transfixed, but one of the teachers said you can’t just do that. So the other students responded in support of the action, arguing that the teachers should also support this kind of righteous action.

Matthis asked students if the Wikileaks footage looked like a combat zone – they answered “no” of course. He talked about being trained to shot people dressed as civilians, revealing this whole view towards the people of the Middle East. One of the students said “here, if you murder someone you get 25-life but these soldiers are getting away with it over there.” Matthis said these soldiers are committing war crimes and he doesn’t want to be thanked as a “hero” for committing war crimes. Then he introduced Robin Long as a real war hero, someone who has been through a lot, and deserves to be thanked more than anyone. He talked about being in the military as a form of torture. They break you down to build you back up. Then they try to buy you. But no amount of money can make this torture worth it. It feels like being a slave. What do they charge you with if you try to commit suicide? Destruction of property; as if they literally own you. When he burned the U.S. flag in Washington, DC this past March 20^th, he said the flag is a symbol of slavery.

Many of the students had friends who were already in the military. One young woman said her friend was scared because a rape happened on her base. Another said his friend in the air force told him he was in the military because, “I need to kill people.” She responded, “You’ll be killing children,“ and he came back with, “they deserve to die because they attacked us on 9/11.”

When Emma asked the students what they thought caused the war, a number of students said imperialism. This is definitely because at least one of their teachers has made a positive impact on them. He uses “A People’s History of the United States” in his classes and also talks about the present day wars. Another example of the power and importance of courageous truth-telling teachers.

Tomorrow, LA and Santa Barbara!

Collateral Murder?
It’s not an aberration.
It’s not acceptable.
This whole war is illegal and immoral!

SPEAKERS SCHEDULED TO APPEAR AT UCSB

**Matthis Chiroux**
Matthis joined the U.S. Army at age 18. For five years, he worked in Public Affairs until being discharged as a sergeant in ‘07 following tours in Japan and Germany, with shorter deployments to the Philippines and Afghanistan. He publicly refused activation and deployment to Iraq from the IRR in ‘08 and won a victory for resisters when the military discharged him under honorable conditions as a result. Mathis has been going to high school classrooms all over New York City on the We Are Not Your Soldier to tell students the truth about what happens when you join the U.S. Military. Mathis currently sits on the Board of Directors for Iraq Veterans Against The War.

**Emma Kaplan**
Emma Kaplan is the National Youth & Student Coordinator of World Can’t Wait. She has organized protests against torture,military recruiting centers, and against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She is going to trial in August for participating in the protests with Port Military Resistance, where people formed human blockades to prevent the Stryker brigades from being sent to Iraq. Most recently Emma has spoken to hundreds of students at assemblies & classrooms around the country on the We Are Not Your Soldier Tour.

Endorsers to date: Students for Justice In Palestine

This event is open to the community. Don’t miss this event!

We are publishing this statement in the NY Review of Books – due to appear May 13th. Deadline to raise $11,825 is now Tuesday, April 27th.  Donate now and help bring this message to a national audience. Click to enlarge.

April 15, 2010

I know that these incidents happen more often than not. This is reality, not some video effigy edited to demonize soldiers. What you see in this video and the entire occupation is illegitimate.

Atrocities like this were commonplace in 2004-2005 when I was there with the First Cavalry Division, it’s was common in 2007, and innocent casualties are still piling up. The continued “Insurgency” in Iraq is fed by these kinds of atrocities.

If a military force came to my neighborhood in Chicago with this kind of unchecked aggression, there would be a formidable “insurgency” here too. Most of us have more in common with the people murdered in this video than we do the bourgeois right-wing madmen propagating their destruction.

The Rules Of Engagement (ROE) do not protect the innocent people of Iraq, how do you think we’ve managed to cause such a staggering death toll in that country? It’s shocking to hear people try to come up with ways to improve the ROE so that we, the soldiers, might become kindler-gentler-more accurate killers in a country we had no right to be invading and occupying in the first place.

If this video, which I find to be unbiased, isn’t a wake up call to the citizens of the United States, I don’t know what is. I’ve patrolled the streets of Baghdad not far from where this happened and I’ve witnessed innocent civilians become “Collateral Damage.”

I find it abhorrent and disgusting that I’ve seen more about a philandering golfer in the mainstream media than I have this video. If this were a video showing American civilians being ripped to shreds by 30MM bullets, the outrage would be overwhelming.

Personally, I’m outraged either way. If our government had it’s way, this leaked footage would never see the light of day. “Collateral Murder” has the potential to fuel the “Insurgency” and it’s easy to see why. This leaked footage further cements my resolve to speak out against these illegal and immoral wars for EMPIRE.

U.S. operations in Iraq and have amounted to Sociocide and the whole world is realizing this. Of course, it doesn’t have to go on like this, I still have a semblance of faith in humanity. Everyone has a voice in this and it will take the voices of many to put an end to the most privatized war in modern history. Actions like these will continue to be carried out by trained killers until we put a stop to them. Will we learn from our past or are we destined to repeat it time and time again?

-Anthony Wagner

U.S. Army

Iraq Veteran Against the War

Now, with the military’s own footage showing people walking down the street being gunned down by an unprovoked team of US troops circling above in an helicopter, there is widespread outrage and questioning.

What is the government’s response to this outrageous footage being released?

As Craig Considine writes:

“Wikileaks.org, a publicly accessible Internet Web site, represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, operational security (OPSEC), and information security (INFOSEC) threat to the US Army,” a secret report  authored by the Army Counterintelligence Center and leaked by the notorious truth-seeking website explains.

…In order to stop WikiLeaks, it is suggested in the document the person (or persons) responsible for the leaks be hunted down and prosecuted.

Right. So the response to this outrageous war crime is not panels, investigations, calls from prominent people to immediately uncover the identities of the people who ordered this massacre… but a call to find out who is blowing the whistle and prosecute them.

Be apart of spreading this video everywhere. This week, students around the country will be showing this video. To be apart of hosting a showing at your school or to bring the tour into your school, volunteer

READ
Cindy Sheehan – Take This Empire and Shove It!
(Note! Cindy suggests you get involved with We Are Not Your Soldiers – including by donating now).

Elaine Brower – Why all the Shock over “Shock and Awe?”

Glenn Greenwald – Confirmed: Obama Authorizes Assassination of U.S. Citizen

This “collateral murder” uncovered by Wikileaks must not be swept under the rug. It’s not an aberration – it was just caught on tape. It’s not acceptable – U.S. troops are gunning down civilians from the sky *in our names.* This whole war – from Iraq to Afghanistan to Pakistan is illegal and immoral. And it’s up to us to stop it!

MORE from worldcantwait.net
Albany Common Council Passes Resolution Supporting Review Of Terror Prosecutions

Obama’s Lies About Iran by Margaret Kimberly

Photos from the Wikileaks video:

This video footage, confirming the crimes that it does, is a challenge to people living in this country.  It’s not as if this is some historical footage of a long-ago war.  It’s still going on; it’s evidence of the illegitimate, criminal, aggressive war where civilians suffer… and what are YOU going to do about it, American public?

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