Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations
by Iraq Veterans Against the War and Aaron Glantz
Haymarket Books, £9.99
LAST year more than 200 young American men and women came together just outside Washington DC to publicly testify about their personal experiences of the occupation of Iraq (despite the title, Afghanistan features very little). Based on the Vietnam Winter Soldier hearings in 1971, veterans presented oral, photographic and video evidence about the ever-changing rules of engagement, racism and dehumanization of the enemy, gender and sexuality in the US military, the corporate plunder of Iraq and the crisis in veteran health care. This book includes 54 emotional testimonies from those hearings, highlighting how the atrocities committed by US troops are not down to “a few bad apples” but are widespread and systematic.
While the eyewitness accounts of random killings, torture and looting are shocking, the message is one of hope. “We believe that those who have taken part in death, destruction and trauma can transform their experiences to build a more just, peaceful world”, says Kelly Dougherty, executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
This volume contains valuable lessons for the British anti-war movement. While not natural bedfellows, peace activists could gain much from working closely with sympathetic ex- or serving British soldiers who have fought in Afghanistan or Iraq. Indeed, it is this partnership that Nancy Lessin, the mother of an Iraq veteran, celebrates when she notes: “It’s never been a politician who’s ended a war. It’s always been a social movement.”
Ian Sinclair
