Chris Hedges on the death of Tomas Young

Tomas Young with his wife, Claudia Cuellar, in March 2013.Creditphoto by Jill Toyoshiba/The Kansas City Star, via Associated Press

"Young hung on as long as he could. Now he is gone. He understood what the masters of war had done to him, how he had been used and turned into human refuse" 

Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges writes about the death of Tomas Young on November 10, 2014, who was one of the first US veterans to speak out publicly against the war. Young was a 34 year old veteran of the bloody US led war in Iraq who was shot and paralyzed below the waist in Iraq in April 2004.

Hedges writes:

his final months were marked by a desperate battle to ward off the horrific pain that wracked his broken body and by the callous indifference of a government that saw him as part of the disposable human fodder required for war.............................................................. We must grieve for Tomas Young, for all the severely wounded men and women hidden from view, suffering their private torments in claustrophobic rooms, for their families, for the hundreds of thousands of civilians that have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, for our own complicity in these wars. We must grieve for a nation that has lost its way, blinded by the psychosis of permanent war, that kills human beings across the globe as if they were little more than insects. It is a waste. We will leave defeated from Iraq and Afghanistan; we will leave burdened with the expenditure of trillions of dollars and responsible for mounds of corpses and ruined nations. Young, and here is the tragedy of it, was sacrificed for nothing. Only the masters of war, those who have profited from the rivers of blood, rejoice. And they know the dead cannot speak.

In October 2013 while contemplating suicide, Young sent an impassioned letter to George. W. Bush and other US leaders responsible for the Iraq War, in which he wrote:

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

Anzac Day: remembering Joe and Albert and the horror and pointlessness of war

 cartoon by Leunig, from The Age

“If we really saw war, what war does to young minds and bodies, it would be impossible to embrace the myth of war. If we had to stand over the mangled corpses of schoolchildren killed in Afghanistan and listen to the wails of their parents, we would not be able to repeat clichés we use to justify war. This is why war is carefully sanitized. This is why we are given war's perverse and dark thrill but are spared from seeing war's consequences. The mythic visions of war keep it heroic and entertaining… .... The wounded, the crippled, and the dead are, in this great charade, swiftly carted offstage. They are war's refuse. We do not see them. We do not hear them. They are doomed, like wandering spirits, to float around the edges of our consciousness, ignored, even reviled. The message they tell is too painful for us to hear. We prefer to celebrate ourselves and our nation by imbibing the myths of glory, honor, patriotism, and heroism, words that in combat become empty and meaningless.”  

Chris Hedges

Here in Australia it is Anzac Day. April 25th. 

The day the nation remembers, both the landing (or more accurately the invasion of a foreign country) by Australian and other troops at Gallipoli, Turkey in 1915,  as well as Australians who served and died in all wars and conflicts (well some Australians, as they won't mention Aboriginal people who died in the Frontier Wars)

Thinking about the day brings to mind James Scott's fine book Domination and the Arts of Resistance in which he writes of the public rituals, performances and ceremonies- parades, memorials, state ceremonies- that the powerful use to distract attention away from the strategies they use to retain power. War and ceremonies celebrating war, of course, being among those.

I will spend the day reflecting on the horror and tragedy of war, and of Australia's history of fighting in other country's wars. I will think of my own family members who fought (and suffered) as a result of their war experiences. They had no interest in the glorification and memorialisaion of war.

And I will think of a former neighbor of mine. He fought in New Guinea in WW 2 where he saw the horror of war. He told me once that "war is just ordinary men with families and children killing other ordinary men with families and children...... unnecessary killing that’s what war is”. I wonder if his message will get spoken this Anzac Day.

A piece inspired by a conversation I had with him on the eve of the 2002 invasion of Iraq is below.

The piece was written in 2002 a few days after the Howard government's imperial ambitions resulted in Australia going to war in Iraq as part of the coalition of the willing. My son is nearly 18 now. We have moved and don't live on that street. I don't know if Joe is still alive. The Howard government is long gone, (although his disciples are back in power). But Australian troops are still in Afghanistan. Afghani children still die at the hands of  Australian and Coalition forces. 

As Chris Hedges reminds us- war is an addiction- it gives life meaning for those consumed by it, as well as for the political and military elite who speak in lofty tones and soaring rhetoric of honor and defending freedom and who knowingly send young men off to to die. What is the meaning of all this celebration of war?

Stories that go untold: Australia and war

Our street is always a cacophony of activity. From my office window I see it all. There are usually children everywhere. My son and I often count the number of children. There are 19 living on the street he tells me. Then he proceeds to tell me their names and ages and what year they are in at school.

They all play on the street, run in and out of houses and invent new games. They fight, argue and entertain themselves for hours. Their games always reflect something of what is happening in the wider world, of things they hear and see. In recent times the games have taken on more shooting and war like qualities. Goodies against baddies, policeman capturing baddies, ambushes, hiding from the enemy, shooting the enemy, people being shot. But I ask myself how can they not be affected by the terrible images of war.

Early on in this war of liberation (how I ask myself is it possible to liberate a country and a people by destroying both) my 6 year old son asks me “Daddy will we get bombed? Is Iraq near us?”. I try my best to explain that no we won’t get bombed and that Iraq is along way away from Perth. I try to show him on a map. He thinks about that for a while and then wanders off to continue his play. I ponder my son’s question. What must it be like for the children of Iraq who are being bombed? What would an Iraqi father say if asked the same question. 50% of the population are under 16. I am haunted by their faces and the images of children , the collateral damage, the casualties by this so called war of liberation. My son is safe but not Iraqi children who die in their hundreds under American (and Australian) bombs and bullets).

Joe is a noticeable figure on our street. Every day around 5pm Joe shuffles gently and quietly down the street. It is his daily circuit around the block and Joe always passes the front of our house. I am often sitting here in my office and I see him slowly wander by. Usually he has his walking stick. Joe’s gait is slow but determined. He is ever watchful of all the activity taking place on the street. I see him pause to watch the children- my son, the neighbors 2 boys and other boys from the street. Joe is one of those people who watch children play, perhaps remembering his own children at that age or his own childhood. Joe tells me he is 85 and has lived in this neighborhood for 50 years. He bought the land and built the house 50 years ago It cost him 160 pounds to build his house. Paid by a war loan he tells me.

It is Sunday afternoon and I am standing out the front deep in thought, an eye on the children who have gone down the local park to play footy. My 6 year old son has put on his new footy boots and gone with the older boys to play footy at the park. I am melancholic, pessimistic, depressed at the state of the world. And haunted by the terrible images coming out of Iraq. Of women and children shot by Coalition forces.

As Joe comes by we start talking. I ask him how he is. He talks to me of the daily events of his life, of his daily walks. I tell Joe I am thinking about this terrible war and the innocent lives lost in Iraq. “Ah War is a terrible thing” Joe tells me. When he speaks of war I listen. You see Joe speaks with authority about war . He has been there. He has seen men die. Men shot. Men blown to pieces.

You see Joe fought in WW2. He spent 4 years in New Guinea fighting the Japanese. He saw men die horrible deaths. Joe does not speak of war as honorable, as ethical, as just. It is not about big geo political agendas and plans. No war is just ordinary men with families and children killing other ordinary men with families and children. And of innocent men, women and children in foreign countries being blown to pieces in Australia's name. Simple as that. “Unnecessary killing that’s what war is” Joe tells me.

Joe’s words cut through all the bullshit of our political leaders, of our media commentators and all those embedded and other journalists. He speaks a simple truth. War kills ordinary men and women in their thousands, even million and they die in terrible horrible ways. Soldiers, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, lovers, brothers, sisters, children. Just like us.

Joe speaks a truth like journalists such as Robert Fisk and Chris Hedges who tell us of the brutality and terrible nature of war and of the hypocrisy of political and military leaders.

Joe's words remind me of a fundamental truth: that most political leaders and commentators who adore and promote war have never been to war. Like John Howard who seems to have some romanticized and sanitized view of the honor and dignity of war fought for just causes ( like securing USA military interest, imposing American might and advancing American -and  Australian- corporate profits) Or George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield who send others off to die while fiercely avoiding military service himself.

Joe tells me that he drove tanks in the war. In the jungle the tanks could not do much. They could follow paths and tracks and support infantryman some time. But in the jungle they were of limited use.

One day he was told that someone else – a superior office - was going to command his tank. Joe was not pleased at the time but an order was an order. He had to drive another tank, further at the rear. Joe told me that later that day the tank he was supposed to be in was blown up by some enemy mines. He saw it blow up in front of him. Saw his friends and colleagues die. His voice trailed off as he told me. It was as if he was contemplating the fortunes and misfortunes of war. That he was alive but others weren’t and here he was nearly 60 years later on an autumn day in Perth talking about it to me. 

“War is a terrible business” he told me again. “ I saw that myself”

When he came back from the war and had children of his own Joe told me that he said to his wife that he would never let his children go to war to fight. If war came again he was going to take his family inland, out to the remote WA bush country where he was born and that knew well. He would hide his children away from any war.

My mother’s brother- my uncle- fought in the Western Desert and in New Guinea during WW2. His life was thereafter affected by that experience, not just because of the health effects of malaria. 

After his return from war he wanted nothing to do with all the celebratory war talk. He had no time for groups like the RSL. He used to say that those who talked the loudest about war were usually the ones who had never seen the real action close up. I am reminded of Albert’s words and of Joe's words and of the truths they knew.

Mark Mazetti on Obama and America's new war

The America journalist Mark Mazetti has published an important new book The Way of the Knife that documents how US President Obama has presided over a "third war", after Iraq and Afghanistan, that has resulted in an unprecedented expansion of the power of the CIA. Mazetti describes how the CIA under Obama has been transformed into a man hunting and killing machine.

This is the drone war, targeted killing and assassinations that Mazetti describes in this article in the New York Times as:

 "......a new American way of fighting, blurring the line between soldiers and spies and short-circuiting the normal mechanisms by which the United States as a nation goes to war"

Mazetti describes how the CIA has become consumed by drone warfare which is now the laboratory for new ways of killing.

Mazetti tells how covert drone warfare and targeted killings have been driven from the Obama White House by the President and his CIA Director John Brennan, and how it has transformed the CIA into a powerful para- military organization.

Mazetti also documents the increasing use by the CIA of private contractors and private corporations to carry out these targeted killings.

A long interview with Mark Mazetti is here

The rising tide of Anti-American protests

This video, story and live blog from Al Jazeera, slide show from the online publication Foreign Policy and this report from the ABC captures commentary, footage and images from the rising tide of anti-US protest across the Muslim world.

Across the Middle East protestors have taken to the streets outside U.S. embassies in Egypt, Israel, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen in response to the American-made Internet video called Innocence of Muslims. 

What started as protests outside the U.S. embassy in Cairo on Tuesday, Sept. 11, escalated dramatically with the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including the U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

The Al Jazeera report makes this point about the significance of the protests:

Whatever the cause, the events appeared to underscore how much the ground in the Middle East has shifted for Washington, which for decades had close ties with Arab dictators who could be counted on to crush dissent.

The contemporary relevance of the life and legend of TE Lawrence

Like many others my first knowledge of the life and legend of T.E. Lawrence was from seeing David Lean's epic move Lawrence of Arabia at the Albany Town cinema during the 1960's.

Lean's film was a cinematic masterpiece, winning 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. For many people it is perhaps the finest film ever made.

But Lean's film is neither historically accurate, nor an accurate account of the Arab Revolt against the Turks in the Middle East during WW1.

It is intriguing to read Michael Korda's new book (review here) about the life of T.E. Lawrence and his role in the 1915-18 Arab revolt, against the backdrop of the 2011 Arab spring uprisings that continue to sweep across the contemporary Arab world, most recently in Syria and cities such as Damasacus and Deraa (which in 1918 were liberated by Arab armies led by Lawrence).

It could be argued that the last time that the Arabs revolted in such unison was in 1915-1918  when they rose up, with Lawrence's assistance, to overthrow the 500 year old Ottoman Empire.  In 2011 they are rising up against repressive, merciless corrupt and greedy rulers who have terrorised their citizens under the protection of Western governments, particularly the British, French and American governments.

Korda's mammoth book (all 762 pages) Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia provides a detailed overview of both the life and legend of T.E. Lawrence. It is an overly long book, although its great strength is the detailed description and analysis of Lawrence's role in the 1916-1918 Arabian campaign and his post war involvement on behalf of Arab claims for independence.

What Korda shows is that Lawrence was a fierce advocate for the cause of Arab independence and for the creation of independent Arab states, and he understood the dangers of allowing Britain and France and their Western allies to divide up the Middle East amongst themselves. He foresaw and predicted many of the problems that arose in the Middle East, including the division of Palestine, as a result of the carve up of the Middle East (and the Balkans) by western powers. 

Yet Lawrence was instrumental in crafting a solution to the break up of the Ottoman Empire which simply entrenched and extended the power of the British and the French. Despite his misgivings Lawrence played a critical role in drawing the lines on the map and negotiating the arrangements that created the Arab states that now exist- Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia- as well as the creation of Palestine under British rule. 

Korda suggests that Lawrence was tormented by his failure to convince the British and French Governments  to keep their promises to the Arabs  and the part he played in the betrayal of Arab independence. Korda seems to be of the view that the rest of Lawrence's life was played out in the shadow of this betrayal.

Korda's book shows how ultimately the desire for Arab independence in 1915-18 was constrained and repressed by Western Governments. Despite his enormous achievements, TE Lawrence played a key role in that betrayal.

Human rights imperialism

Regrettably the doctrinal human rights community has largely closed its eyes and ears to the many ways in which its discourse has been politically and economically sullied. In not undertaking the task of constructing a political economy, or an ecology, of human rights, the doctrinal mainstream has allowed the discourse to be all-too-frequently harnessed to the service of contemporary imperialism and rapacious global capitalism. The hard political questions are deftly side-stepped."  Nick Rose (2008). quoted in Michael Barker 2010 

Stephen Kinzer knows a great deal about American and Western imperialism. His 2006 book Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq details three centuries of American involvement in the overthrow of foreign governments who failed to protect or advance US national and corporate interests. Kinzer documents the ways that American governments, politicians, intelligence agencies, military commanders and corporations took it upon themselves to overthrow governments they did not approve of.

Kinzer shows how the US and its allies have consistently appropriated the rhetoric of national security, protection of freedom and human rights and the promotion of Western democracy, to justify the overthrow of foreign governments. He also documents the role US corporations and the corporate elite have played in US imperialism.

So his latest argument in the UK Guardian that Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other global human rights organisations actually act as a vanguard for Western imperialism requires serious consideration. Of the human rights movement Kinzer writes:

"Founded by idealists who wanted to make the world a better place, it has in recent years become the vanguard for new forms of imperialism"
Writing in the Guardian Kinzer argues that the global human rights movement defines human rights in a narrow egocentric (Western and European) way and in many cases actually opposes human rights. Kinzer argues that the human rights movement has become scorned as an enemy of human rights:

"Human rights groups, bathed in the light of self-admiration and cultural superiority, too often make the wrong choice."

"Human rights need to be considered in a political context. The question should not be whether a particular leader or regime violates western- conceived standards of human rights. Instead, it should be whether a leader or regime, in totality, is making life better or worse for ordinary people."

Kinzer also points to links between the global human rights movement and multinational corporations and the global political elite, who increasingly fund international human rights organisations. Human rights have become interwined with European and US versions of liberal, capitalist democracies.

Kinzer is not the only writer to raise these concerns. In 2009 aid worker and writer Connor Foley made similar criticisms, arguing that Western aid organisations and NGO's are increasingly co-opted in the service of military intervention and capitalist and corporate domination (as in Iraq).  Belgian academic Jean Bricmont's book  Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to sell War argues that the US Government and its allies have used human rights as a justification for military and economic intervention.

The Australian writer Michael Barker has made similar criticisms arguing that mainstream human rights organisations have actively supported the imposition of neoliberal policies. Barker has written that human rights organisations have failed to challenge the primary driver of human rights abuses, which is an exploitive political and economic system.

Robert Fisk: exposing brutality and hypocrisy in the Middle East

photo of families whose relatives vanished during the Algerian civil war (1990-98) demand to know what happened to their loved ones during a recent demonstation in Algiers (photo courtesy of AFP/Getty)

There is no better chronicler of the brutality of Western and Arab governments in the Middle East than Robert Fisk, the Middle East Correspondent for the UK Independent.

Fisk uncovers and exposes the hypocrisy of the West and its ally Israel, but is equally critical of the leaders, political elite and leadership of the Muslim world. And Fisk knows history well.

In his latest piece Robert Fisk writes of recent celebrations in Algeria to commemorate 50 years of freedom from French rule. Fisk points out that the generals and politicians who were out in full force making speeches against colonial tyranny were themselves responsible for the deaths of an estimated 25,000 Algerians during the Algerian Civil War of 1990-1998.

While the families of the dead and civil society groups seek justice for those who died during the Algerian civil war of 1990-98, Fisk reminds us that the security forces and army responsible for many of those deaths are still in control in Algeria. Only now they are allies of the USA in the fight against "terrorism".

John Le Carre on political and corporate crime

“The things that are done in the name of the shareholder are, to me, as terrifying as the things that are done—dare I say it—in the name of God.” 
John Le Carre

The novelist John Le Carre is best known for his spy novels written in the shadow of the Cold War. Titles like the Spy who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Russia House, and The Little Drummer Girl were all made into films and were so successful that Le Carre is recognized as one of the great modern British novelists.

John Le Carre's writings of the last decade have shifted focus to reflect strongly political themes. In books like the Constant Gardener (made into a film starring Raph Fiennes) Le Carre focuses on the inequities of globalization, unchecked corporate power and the confluence of corporate interests and the activities of national spy services.

In this interview  to mark the release of his new novel Our Kind of Traitor John Le Carre makes clear his distaste for Tony Blair (and his decision to take the UK into war in Iraq and Afghanistan) and is highly critical of corporations who reak havoc all over the globe.

War and corporate profits and power

Christian Miller reports that in the last 6 months more private contractors than soldiers were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the first time in history that corporate casualties have outweighed military losses. Corporate casualties now make up 25% of total US deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The wars fought on behalf of the American empire are increasingly fought by private contractors working for large corporations, supplied and supported by logistical operations run by other large corporations. Modern warfare has become another way for large corporations to make money and extend their reach and power over governments and countries.

Remembering victims of terror worldwide

Important pieces by the Middle East based journalist and author Robert Fisk and US journalist Amy Goodman of Democracy Now  about the legacy of the terrible events of September 11th 2001.

Robert Fisk writes:

"On this grim ninth anniversary – and heaven spare us next year from the 10th – 9/11 appears to have produced not peace or justice or democracy or human rights, but monsters. They have prowled Iraq – both the Western and the local variety – and slaughtered 100,000 souls, or 500,000, or a million; and who cares? They have killed tens of thousands in Afghanistan; and who cares? And as the sickness has spread across the Middle East and then the globe, they – the air force pilots and the insurgents, the Marines and the suicide bombers, the al-Qa'idas of the Maghreb and of the Khalij and of the Caliphate of Iraq and the special forces and the close air support boys and the throat-cutters – have torn the heads off women and children and the old and the sick and the young and healthy, from the Indus to the Mediterranean, from Bali to the London Tube; quite a memorial to the 2,966 innocents who were killed nine years ago. All in their name, it seems, has been our holocaust of fire and blood, enshrined now in the crazed pastor of Gainesville.

Goodman remembers the terrible events that have taken  place on September 11th- like the overthrow of the democratically elected Allende Government in Chile and the torture of South African activist Steve Biko. She writes:

"If anything, Sept. 11 is a day to remember the victims of terror, all victims of terror, and to work for peace, like the group September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Formed by those who lost loved ones on 9/11/2001, their mission could serve as a national call to action: "[T]o turn our grief into action for peace. 

I am reminded, as well, by the steady stream of pictures of young people in the military killed in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and now, with increasing frequency (although pictured less in the news), who kill themselves after multiple combat deployments.For each of the U.S. or NATO casualties, there are literally hundreds of victims in Iraq and Afghanistan whose pictures will never be shown, whose names we will never know.

While angry mobs continue attempts to thwart the building of an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan (in a vacant, long-ignored, damaged building more than two blocks away), an evangelical "minister" in Florida is organizing a Sept. 11 "International Burn the Koran Day." Gen. David Petraeus has stated that the burning, which has sparked protests around the globe, "could endanger troops." He is right. But so does blowing up innocent civilians and their homes.

As in Vietnam in the 1960s, Afghanistan has a dedicated, indigenous, armed resistance, and a deeply corrupt group in Kabul masquerading as a central government. The war is bleeding over into a neighboring country, Pakistan, just as the Vietnam War spread into Cambodia and Laos.

Right after Sept. 11, 2001, as thousands gathered in parks around New York City, holding impromptu candlelit vigils, a sticker appeared on signs, placards and benches. It read, "Our grief is not a cry for war."

This Sept. 11, that message is still-painfully, regrettably-timely. Let's make Sept. 11 a day without war."

False ending: the continuing American occupation of Iraq?

Much of the Australian press reports uncritically the claim of the Obama administration that the US combat mission in Iraq has ended and occupation of Iraq is over. President Obama claims that all US combat troops are leaving Iraq (well with the exception of 50,00 that is).

Bill Quigley and Laura Raymond show that these troops are simply being replaced by an influx of private soldiers. A shadow army of private military contractors employed by the US Government are flooding into Iraq. The US occupation of Iraq continues.

War without end: The Iraq debacle

image courtesy of War Crimes Times

A US based coalition of civil society groups opposed to US involvement in Iraq has released this statement to mark the August 31 supposed "withdrawal" of US troops from Iraq.

The Coalition concludes that:

1. The US occupation continues, there is no reduction of US troops and the occupation is just being re-branded
2. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein has not led to a better life for the majority of Iraqis- in fact the opposite is the case
3. The majority of the 4 million refugees created by the military intervention have been abandoned
4. Iraq does not have a functioning government
5. The Iraq War has left a terrible legacy for US troops
6. The war has drained the US treasury
7. US officials who lied to prosecute the war have not been held to account
8. The war has led to the pillaging of Iraq resources and institutionalized corporate corruption
9. The war has not made the world more secure.

Makes you wonder what was the point of it all?. And what of the Australian Government's culpability for their active involvement in the occupation of Iraq. Just silence on that issue here in Australia.

You can read more here, here, here and here

Catastrophe for the Iraqi people

Jeremy Scahill, who has featured on this blog before, has written about what 7 years of the war in Iraq has produced. Scahill argues that Iraq:

".... is as unstable as it has been. They (Iraqi's) can't form a government. The vast majority of people don't have consistent access to pottable water, to electricity, to gasoline in one of the richest, oil richest countries in the world.... It is a disaster and a humanitarian catastrophe."

Scahill writes that the situation for the Iraqi people is so bad that many (including those who hated Saddam Hussein) are saying that life was better under Hussein. Violence is an all time high, with July being the deadliest month for civilian casualties in over a year.

Scahill points out that Obama's announcement that US troops will be withdrawn by the end of the month is a sham. The Obama administration and the Pentagon are in fact rapidly beefing up private military forces in Iraq and have sought a massive cash injection from Congress to ramp up the number of private military contractors. The numbers of US military will increase substantially. They will be private para- military forces paid for by the US taxpayer

The occupation is being re branded. Obama is presiding over a radical expansion of the use of private US military companies like Blackwater and private soldiers in Iraq. Scahill points out that Obama and Hillary Clinton are looking to have between 6,000 and 7,000 private security operatives in Iraq.

The US embassy in Iraq is now the largest embassy of any country in the history of civilization. It is the size of eighty football fields and is larger than the Vatican City in Rome.

Iraq Veteran on the slaughter of Iraqi civilians and journalists

Josh Stieber is a former soldier of the company shown in the video recently released by Wikileaks (Bravo Company 2-16 features in David Finkel's book the Good Soldiers), which showed U.S. soldiers killing civilians including a Reuters photographer. Josh Stieber is now a conscientious objector and writes an interesting blog where he wrote this:

"A lot of my friends are in that video. Nine times out of ten, that's the way things ended up. Killing was following military protocol. It was going along with the rules as they are.... If these videos shock and revolt you, it's because they show the reality of what war is like. If you don’t like what you see in them, it means we should be working harder towards alternatives to war....Secretary Gates put his seal of approval on the attack. We're funding the war with our tax dollars. We have to decide if this really represents us as a country, is this what we really value?"
The Company that Josh Stieber was part of- Bravo Company 2-16- features in David Finkel's book the Good Soldiers, which is published in Australia by Scribe Publications