Last night at Trinity United Methodist Church, area peace groups including the Institute for Global Education, the Grand Rapids District Peace with Justice Community, and Grand Rapids Friends Meeting, hosted a program titled "U.S. Veterans & Iraqis Creating the Way Forward." The program, which was organized by the American Friends Service Committee featured two speakers--National Guard veteran Patty McCann and Iraqi political analyst Raed Jarrar.

Patty McCann spoke first and explained how she served in Iraq with the Illinois National Guard from 2003 to 2004. Upon returning home she was confused about what she had experienced and found that the only way she was able to make sense of her experience was to become an activist. According to McCann, the military and government were not telling her the truth about what happened. She said that her training was based on dehumanizing people, starting with herself. The military was designed to make her willing to kill, it taught her to fear Iraqis, and it taught her to kill people indiscriminately. This training makes it difficult to rejoin the civilian world, as soldiers have become socially ill-equipped. She said that when shed joined the military she hoped to excel in an environment that disregarded sex, but that shortly after joining she found that the military had a racist and sexist power structure in which old white men had all of the power. She told the audience that she found that women in the military are treated far worse than they are outside of the military.

As part of her effort to make sense of her experience, McCann has worked with Iraq Veterans Against the War. Next month, the group will be hosting "Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan" in Washington DC that will feature testimony from veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars on military crimes, misconduct, and other such topics. She said that the goal of the hearings is to illustrate that atrocities such as Abu Ghraib and Haditha are not individual acts but rather are police.

Beyond the Winter Soldier hearings, McCann also told the audience that 17 veterans from the Iraq campaigns (the Gulf War and the Iraq War) are killing themselves. Moreover, McCann told the audience that many Americans have an incomplete view of the Iraq War. McCann said that while people know that nearly 4,000 US troops have been killed since 2003, many have forgotten that thousands have been wounded, that approximately 200 were killed in the Gulf War, and that 13,000 who served in the Gulf War have died for "unknown reasons." She reminded the audience that depleted uranium (DU) weapons--built from nuclear waste--were used extensively in both the Gulf War and the Iraq War and that they are likely responsible for some of those deaths.

In addition to her work with Iraq Veterans Against the War, McCann also works with the American Friends Service Committee's "Truth in Recruitment Program" to challenge military recruiting as part of the Committee's broader "Youth & Militarism" program. She explained that the group chose to use "Truth in Recruitment" as a title because too often people define themselves as "anti-this or anti-that" and that doing so makes it difficult to deal with the varying reasons that people join the military. She said that it is critical that activists be attentive to the reasons--family, college, education, and jobs--that people join the military and respond accordingly.

After McCann spoke, Raed Jarrar--an Iraqi who moved from Iraq in 2005--spoke about US policy towards Iraq. Jarrar began by saying that many politicians and journalists often take the flawed position that Iraq is an isolated example of poor policy. Instead, Jarrar argued that we must look at the Iraq War in a larger context of an intervention that began 18 years ago and was built on maintaining a long-term military presence in the Middle East.

He said that despite a changing "marketing strategy" from those in power in which different reasons--from protecting Iraq's neighbors to WMD--have been given for US intervention, the policy has remained remarkably consistent. Along with this, there have also been various "red herrings" promoted by the government--whether "the surge" worked or how Muslims treat women--that are designed to keep people from debating the realities of US policy. Jararr said that despite having two major political parties, there are no substantial differences in US policy. He outlined two justifications for the policy--a "left" vision of "humanitarian imperialism" in which the US allegedly needs to stay to keep Iraqis from killing each other and a rightwing argument based on "security" and the idea that the US must fight terrorists in Iraq rather than in the US. Jarrar explained that Iraqis generally do not care what reason is given for the occupation, they simply want their independence and self-determination.

The margin of discussion on Iraq--by politicians and in the media--is limited. Jarrar said that must often it comes down to how the US will run the country, whether the occupation will be "nice" or "harsh," whether to have 10,000 more troops or 10,000 less, and how to contain Iran. None of the underlying assumptions are challenged.

This inability to challenge assumptions has led to so-called humanitarian justifications for the war that have been adopted by many in the antiwar movement or on the left. This argument centers on the idea that Sunnis and Shiites will kill each other based on thousands of years of hatred if the US does not maintain a presence in Iraq. Jarrar said that this argument is flawed on multiple levels. Sunnis and Shiites never self-identified or fought based on their sects before 2003, instead they lived side-by-side and inter-married. Another fallacy of this argument is that Saddam Hussein's regime was Baathist and was oppressing Shiites. To refute this argument, Jarrar pointed out that 36 of the 55 "most wanted" individuals in Hussein's regime were Shiite. He said that US policy has promote tensions between Sunnis and Shiites as it has given power to minority parties that have little support in Iraq. Instead of creating a government dedicated towards achieving "national reconciliation," the United States has instead sought to have "native validators" that act in the interest of the United States.

Jarrar said that in the United States, one party--the Republicans--are saying that all troops should stay in Iraq, while the other--the Democrats--are saying that all troops should be withdrawn with three exceptions. These exceptions are quite large, prompting Jarrar to say that the plan is to "pull out all of the troops but all of the troops." The exceptions are for troops training Iraqis, troops guarding the US embassy, and troops "fighting terrorism." Jarrar said that with regard to training Iraqis, most Iraqis wish the United States would stop as they are most often training sectarian militias that fuel the violence. Similarly, troops protecting the US embassy are protecting a massive complex that is designed to be a "permanent base" for political intervention in Iraq's affairs. With regard to "fighting terrorism," the majority of Iraqis reject this argument. He pointed out that prior to the invasion in 2003, nobody from al-Qaeda was in Iraq. The United States has failed miserably to keep terrorists out and its presence as a foreign occupying force has fueled extremism. Jarrar cited a poll from last year in which 0% of Iraqis supported al-Qaeda attacks on Iraqis but 50% supported al-Qaeda attacks on US troops.

On the question of resistance, Jarrar said that Iraqis support a nationalist resistance that uses a variety of tactics including legislation, marches, and violence. He said that Iraqis would write more letters if it helped them, that they would pass more legislation if they thought it helped them, and they would demonstrate more if it helped. Unfortunately, the United States has not responded to these nonviolent means and instead only talks of withdrawal in the context of violence. Jarrar said that this is consistent with US policy over the past several decades from Vietnam to Lebanon. Most Iraqis simply want to live in dignity and would rather die standing rather than crawling on their knees.

During the question and answer period, Jarrar spoke more on the Democratic Party candidates and "leftist imperialism" following questions about whether there is a difference between the two Democratic Party candidates, about Michigan Senator Carl Levin's "blame Iraqis" rhetoric, and about a "plan" offered by a local activist to keep 50,000 US troops in Iraq. With regard to the Democratic Party candidates, Jarrar said that there are really no differences in policy despite minor differences in whether to start their limited withdrawal in 60 days or 3 months. Jarrar told the audience that Iraqis do not care if the bombs come from Bush, Clinton, or the current Bush--they see it as the same racist policy. He said that unfortunately that there is real no space for big changes by elections as the system is not open for change, due in large part to an entrenched media and NGO system that limit grassroots activism.

Jarrar rejected the idea that it is up to the United States--and the antiwar movement--to say how long US troops should remain in the country. He said that it is "leftist imperialism" to think that the United States should run others' countries. He said that this ideology is condescending at best and ask the audience to think about how they would feel if 50,000 Chinese troops were stationed in the United States to help US citizens build bridges. He said that it is wrong to think that we can know what is good for Iraqis without asking them and listening to them. He said that if we stopped to listen, we would hear clearly that the Iraqis want us to "get the hell out." He said that the problem is not that the occupation has been administered poorly, but that there is an occupation. He said that by all indications--such as the 1.1 million Iraqis that have been killed--the policy has failed.

He also criticized the idea that Democrats such as Senator Carl Levin are using their rhetoric of "blaming Iraqis" as a way to bring the occupation to the end. He said that these politicians are simply taking the safe route as nobody is defending the Iraqis and they are easy scapegoats. However, Jarrar said that if we blame Iraqis for everything and that if we adopt that argument--which is racist--it is only a matter of time before we become just like those politicians. He said that most likely if people adopt that argument; it will do nothing to end the occupation and that instead we will be left without our principles.