VETERANS OF WIKILEAKS VIDEO WRITE “LETTER OF RECONCILLIATION” TO IRAQIS INJURED IN ATTACK
BREAKING NEWS
Josh Stieber and Ethan McCord, members of Bravo Company 2-16, are making a stand against the war and are rallying supporters. Go to www.lettertoiraq.com to read the letter they are sending to the Iraqis who survived the Apache attack.
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SECOND MEMBER OF COMPANY INVOLVED IN WIKILEAKS INCIDENT SPEAKS OUT
Sajad Mutashar and his sister were both injured in the attack that killed their father in 2007.
A second veteran of Bravo Company 2-16, Ethan McCord, has spoken out about the incident shown in the Wikileaks video “Collateral Murder”. Ethan is seen in the video rushing a wounded child (pictured Right) to a medical vehicle.
Sajad Mutashar and his sister were both injured in the attack that killed their father in 2007.
INTERVIEW WITH ETHAN AND JOSH ON BALTIMORE’S “MARC STEINER SHOW”
We have been working with Ethan and Josh to help them take their message to a larger audience. Stay tuned here for updates.
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VETERAN OF “COLLATERAL MURDER” COMPANY SPEAKS OUT
PRESS RELEASE AND CONTACT INFO HERE: Josh Stieber deployed to Baghdad with Bravo Company 2-16, whose members were involved in the controversial Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” incident that has surfaced recently. Though he was not at the scene of the video due to a punishment for refusing an order a few days earlier, he served for 14-months alongside these same same soldiers seen in the video. Josh is now speaking out, telling the world that at the time, these actions were not extremely out of the ordinary for any soldiers serving in Iraq, and that these soldiers were not “bad apples”, but were carrying out U.S. military policy: “If these videos shock and revolt you, they show the reality of what war is like,” says Stieber. “If you don’t like what you see in them, it means we should be working harder towards alternatives to war.”
Josh is now a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and works to promote peace and alternatives to war on his blog Contagious Love Experiment. We have been working with Josh on this story and have supported him through an ad hoc media team we formed along with members of IVAW.
THINGS YOU CAN DO (JOSH’S SUGGESTIONS):
1. Help provide information and support to those who are within the military on ways of standing up for their beliefs through work being done with the GI Rights Hotline.
2. If you are a veteran or service-member, see Iraq Veterans Against the War or Courage to Resist’s websites to get involved in anti-war work.
3. Support and spread the word about the Civilian-Soldier Allience, embracing those within the military or veteran communities who want to talk about their experiences and work towards other options.
4. Question the training that our government and our tax money puts our impressionable young people through. Again, if we object to this video, we need to look at what training led to it. Check out books like On Killing and pressure political and military leaders to reconsider the psychological methods that teach soldiers to dehumanize.
5. Look at what we teach our children. Throughout our history we have justified killing of civilians if it helps our end goal. TEACH our kids otherwise, work towards starting peace studies programs in the schools in your counties.
6. Question where our tax money is really going and why so much is spent on warfare.
7. Inform yourself on the deeper priorities of our society by watching for example, The Story of Stuff and ask yourself if your lifestyle is contributing to those mistaken priorities.
8. If we are repulsed by the callousness shown in this video, start removing our society’s tendency towards callousness through the movies we watch and video games we play that reinforce the very thing which repulses us when we actually see it in real life.
NEWS LINKS:
DEMOCRACY NOW!
TRUTHOUT
SALON (audio interview)
SALON (transcript)
RUSSIA TODAY
ALTERNET
ISLAM TIMES
BOING BOING
DAHR JAMAIL
OPED NEWS PODCAST
OPED NEWS ARTICLE
COUNTER CURRENTS
IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR (Josh posted this)
CONTAGIOUS LOVE EXPERIMENT (Josh’s blog)
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CIVILIAN ALLY
A guide to organizing with veterans and service members to build a GI resistance movement.
A project of the Civilian Soldier Alliance, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and The War Resisters League.
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REFUSING TO FIGHT: IRAQ WAR RESISTERS SPEAK
Photos from “Refusing to Fight” event in Baltimore last Saturday.
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