Winter Soldier Hearings - AAR

Cross posted over at VFF. Only here you get pictures, cause pictures are pretty. You also get some video.

Last Friday I attended the first day sessions of the Iraq Veterans Against the War Winter Soldier Hearings. I would be remiss were I not to start by thanking the members of IVAW that invited me and welcomed me at their event, with particular thanks to Sgt. Selena Coppa (Yeah, our buddy AS) who kindly made all of my arrangements and proved to be very receptive to my needs. Also thanks to several others who were at least kind to me, if not openly suspicious, like Kelly Dougherty, Jenn Hogg and Perry O’Brien. These people in particular openly welcomed me to their event, and treated me with dignity and class.

Picture not taken by Lilyea, and does not unfortunately reflect Sgt Coppa's true feelings for TSO which alternate between vomitting and a sort of Tourette's syndrome thing of compulsively washing hands.

Unfortunately, I got off to a very inauspicious start. Military ID in hand, I arrived roughly 30 minutes early for the first hearing, that dealing with Rules of Engagement. The perimeter was ringed in Montgomery County Police personnel, while internal security was provided by Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I was waved down the street by a succession of VVAW guys until I reached the last one bearing a clipboard. He asked my name, which I promptly gave, and he consulted his list. I was not entirely surprised I wasn’t on the list. He asked what organization I was there representing, and that’s when the real fun began.

To say that VVAW doesn’t appreciate the VFF would be an understatement of unimagined degree. He began immediately screaming profanities, with harsh entreaties to leave his property immediately. This was backed up by other VVAW guys also yelling and law enforcement personnel coming from all corners of the campus. I was removed from the grounds, and told I would have to stand across the street. Needless to say, it would have been hard to blog from there.

However, one call to Sergeant Coppa and she came out to fix the problem. Her use of the English Language would make any drill sergeant swoon in admiration, much as it did me. Eventually I was escorted into the event, only to be greeted by Congressman Dennis Kucinich at the front door. Throughout the day I had my own PSD, which numbered between 1 and 8 personnel, who escorted me everywhere I went. Whether they were there for my safety, or that of the IVAW members was never adequately answered. Had they merely left me alone, no one would have noted my presence, despite the bright pink badge they made me wear. (It really was not my color, and clashed with my suit, but let’s not quibble over such trifles.)

I won’t go through all of the testimony. I had intended to do exactly that, but I think you guys owe it to yourselves to watch the testimony yourselves and come to your own conclusions. Over the next few weeks, I will be poring over all the testimony, as will a working group of pro-mission bloggers who will parse every story. But I do want to give my general perceptions of some of what I heard.

My battle buddys on this mission were Jonn Lilyea of This Ain't Hell and Rurik of Veteran American Voices. Both were outstanding partners on this trip, and I appreciated them being there.

Everyone interested in the WSII hearings, and IVAW should go to this YouTube site, and watch every video on there. I recommend you start with this one that outlines the verification process.

The first day was divided into several panels. Two of them dealt with the Rules of Engagement, while another dealt with contractors and the last dealt with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Dispensing with that last one first, outside the unnecessary blame game which fell squarely on the Bush Administration, I think this was an important panel. I don’t think any of us think that the VA is flawless, nor should that even be the end-state goal. It is unrealistic to expect a government entity not to have bureaucraticproblems, but as Rumsfeld might say, “You go to the VA you have.” There was one couple on the panel whose son couldn’t deal with what he had seen, and tragically took his own life. Their dealings with the VA were painful to listen to. The VA failed that soldier, no question about it. But as nearly every panelist said, the VA is people, and people fail, but the vast majority quite clearly care, and want to provide the absolute best for our men and women who served their country.

The panel on contractors was…..interesting. It was about what you expect, the war was illegal, fought for oil and to enrich the evil industries. I personally found the testimony of Kelly Dougherty the most interesting, not because it was the most horrific or anything like that, but it illustrated how much difference perspective can make. At the time, these are the notes I took:

Fuel tankers broke down on outskirts of a town. Within sight of the city. She was with an MP unit. 2 huge tankers. Had non-lethal rounds. Crowd control. Becoming riotous. Nervous, outnumbered. They shot with non lethal to get them away from fuel tankers. Iraqis of all ages. (Although all men.) After a few hours, told to destroy vehicles. Light fuel, so enough burns that the Iraqi's can't use, grenades in engine blocks. Burning fuel in front of Iraqis who needed it. Irony and absurdity was brought home.

Now, I can completely see where she is coming from. These people needed the oil, and here we are burning it. But on the other side, I can also see what a chaotic situation it would have been had they given the oil away. Fights would have broken out, people would very likely have been injured if not killed. And think of the precedence it would start. Kelly quite obviously felt empathy for the locals, something that all of us should feel. But empathy cannot obviate the need to protect troops, nor ensure that absolute chaos not rule.

The other panelists on this panel gave a veritable liturgy of evils of capitalism. It had two authors; Antonia Juhasz who told us that the Bush Administration, contrary to popular belief, had a very well thought out plan for post-invasion Iraq that included carving up the country for various corporations, and; Jeremy Scahill who is not a big fan of Blackhawk, Obama, Clinton and Pelosi. Captain Luis Montalvan, former Scout PL, one-time NYT Op Ed piece writer and former AEI analyst, also gave the most loquacious testimony I’ve ever heard, and had a schematic diagram that nearly gave me an aneurysm. You can see him here. (The video posted below)

But the highlight of Day 1 was the two panels on the Rules of Engagement. Everyone who testified can be seen on You Tube. The first panel is up on IVAW’s website. It consisted of Clifton Hicks (who once wrote the VFF founders a letter, found here) , Steven Casey, Steve Mortillo, Jesse Hamilton, Adam Kokesh and Jason Hurd. When this panel had ended, I discussed with John Lilyea (of This Ain’t Hell, But You can See it From Here) what we had heard thus far. The first panel was largely about war stories, and the perception of what the Rules of Engagement were at varying times. But to us, we didn’t hear any anecdotes that rose to the level of war crimes.
This is what Jonn had to say in his excellent AAR:

But to the testimony; War sucks. It’s sucked since the beginning of the invention of the rock as a weapon. Innocent people die in war, and that sucks, too. But not since the beginning of warfare has any Army taken such care to minimize innocent deaths as the United States armed forces. Never. That’s indisputable.

There were: civilians killed when they failed to stop for a TCP (Kokesh), civilian personnel taken for questioning who were later returned unharmed after being declared innocent (Hurd), Iraqi army spray and pray “Death Blossoms” that are apparently a misnomer since no one was killed (Jesse Hamilton), suppressing fire but being uncertain where the fire is coming from (Mortillo), scaring women in a nighttime raid (Casey), and a little girl being killed in a firefight which allegedly started with an IED attack and (at the same time) celebratory firing at a wedding (Hicks.)


While the first panel largely consisted of people testifying that war is, indeed, hell, the second panel though had more of what I had expected. Garrett Rappenhagen told of killing two unarmed farmers who were irrigating their crops at night on account of not having electricity during the day. The ROE at the time dictated that anyone out after curfew could be taken down. James Gilligan recounted shooting 3 guys who refused to stand still, a 1SG beating up a kid after the kid stole candy from a little girl, and his squad stealing gold coins and bringing them home as war trophies. Logan Laituri told of the death of an American Soldier who had been denied medical attention for several minutes on the basis of “triage” that he thinks could have survived had aid been rendered. Also he told of firing WP indirect rounds for training purposes, and snipers shooting people in the street when a curfew was in effect.

Jason Lemieux told a third-person story of his commander shooting two old ladies who were carrying their groceries. Jason Washburn has a similar story, although the old lady this time was engaged with a Mk19. Sergio Kochergin talked about his battle buddy taking his own life in country, even though the command was aware that he was suicidal, and also testified to the shifting ROE. Vincent Emmanuelle talked about his unit taking pot shots at cars for no reason at all, and about running over decapitated bodies before going back to have pictures taken with the corpses. The testimony of John Michael Turner was by far the most graphic, but also the most detailed and supported, as he had pictures and video of many of the incidents in question. At one point we see a video of his XO saying “I think I just killed ½ the population of northern Ramadi” and then we see pictures of (allegedly) the first guy he sniped.

Some recurring themes kept coming up. The use of Spectre gun ships to engage houses, and indiscriminately taking out civilian areas was something that numerous testifiers discussed. Also, the extensive use of drop weapons and shovels to cover up for civilian deaths. The ROE would become less and less restrictive as time went on, and there was nearly unanimous confusion as to what the actual ROE were. One panelist even stated he had never seen an ROE card before Kokesh had shown his earlier.

That is just a brief take on what I witnessed on Friday. I want to credit IVAW with a few things. They apparently put a good deal of effort into verifying as much as they could. Many of the stories are largely unverifiable without a great deal of effort, but for my part I was satisfied that they did do that to the best of their ability, and I wouldn’t blame any false stories on the group as a whole. Mind you, I think many of the stories were, indeed, quite fanciful, but I think IVAW’s verification team as a whole tried to limit that. Second, before each panel, an announcement was given encouraging anyone there having problems to seek help. As noted in one video, an IVAW spokesperson said that on the ROE panel, nearly all suffered some form of mental trauma resulting from service. I noted that as a group, IVAW is very close. There was a lot of hugging and signs of affection between the groups members, and I think they support each other a great deal. And the reaction of IVAW members to me was significantly better than their “allies” and other groups. On at least 5 occasions someone took my picture, which likely will end up on some Internet wanted poster. And each time it was someone well over the age one would expect for an OEF/OIF veteran. With only 1 very noted exception, I received a fair shake from all IVAW Members.

At one point early in the day, during the panel on the VA, Sgt Coppa came up to introduce me to her friend Jenn Hogg. Now, I know Jenn only from an incident that occurred about 2 weeks ago where Little Green Footballs mistakenly credited something to her that was actually another “Jen.” Ms Hogg sent Charles an email that was both very well written, and surprisingly funny, and she essentially won over even “The Lizardoid Army” of LGF. When she came up she joked that she would distract me so I couldn’t write any bad things about IVAW. I knew she was joking, but told her that that would be unnecessary as the topic at the time was one where I fully agreed with IVAW, to wit, that the VA needs more resources, and that the veterans deserve the best we can give them. She responded that this was a good thing, and we should find common grounds like this and try to work from there. She’s right, of course.

For all my disagreement with nearly every syllable uttered by Jeremy Scahill, I did find one thing he said to be both appropriate and correct. He said that veterans of these wars have a unique credibility in the political sphere, and that OEF/OIF vets need to apply pressure and voice their opinion. Like Ms Hogg, he is right, although he would resent my saying that this applies equally to our side. And when our day comes, the Vets on the Hill day on April 8, I hope that you hear the call and become a leader in our movement.

All Pictures provided by Jonn Lilyea of This Ain’t Hell, the best battle buddy you could have for something like this. Jonn is a retired army veteran, and an incredibly good blogger.