The Iraq Action Group at UCSF

From Despair to Hope Despite the Specter of Genocide
Mylo Schaaf, member of the Iraq Action Group at UCSF

Genocide? Hold the thought for a moment.

Last night at UCSF I attended a panel of speakers, three veterans and one veteran’s father. Their combined testimony pulled me out of the swamp of “feel bad but what can I do?” to a place of clarity, decision, and hopefulness.

Impossible?

Hold your disbelief and let me present a series of critical observations and experiences from last night.

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—Our soldiers—normal compassionate people, single mothers, only sons, your neighbor’s husband—are returning home in body bags, or maimed, or with psychological scars so deep that their families fall apart, their friends drift away, and their world is poisoned for years or forever. Veterans’ services are hard to come by and most veterans don’t apply. After all, a real soldier sucks it up and carries on.

—Our soldiers —normal compassionate people— frequently act in monstrous ways in Iraq. In order to carry out their often-brutal missions, many soldiers protect themselves psychologically by hating. One photo reveals a soldier poised with a spoon above the open skull of a dead Iraqi, waiting for his friends to take a snapshot.

—Our soldiers and our national guardsmen who volunteered to serve our country are being forced back to Iraq and Afghanistan and are being re-brutalized by an invisible draft called the Stop Loss policy. These men and women are required to fight, although many have come to understand that Iraq is a horrible mistake.

—Almost 15% of our forces in Iraq are women. They become truck drivers and gunners on the convoys that face regular attack and exploding roadside devices. There is no such thing as a front line in Iraq. And even if there was, women cannot be protected from combat when we have so few soldiers.

—Iraqi civilians and children are being brutally murdered. The term “collateral damage” is revealed in pictures as a severed foot and ankle, a bloody hole that was once a face, and the corpse of a child burned beyond recognition. John Hopkins researchers estimate the number of Iraqi dead at 650,000 out of a total population of 27 million. So between the injured and the dead, virtually every Iraqi family has a brother/sister/father/mother/child/relative to mourn. No wonder many Iraqis hate us.

—Dozens, if not hundreds, of the inmates at Abu Ghraib prison were incarcerated for minor offences like stealing a chicken. On our watch, under our care, these petty criminals were jammed into freezing tents where tuberculosis incubated. They were kept alive with rat-infested food provided by our contractors. Then they were tortured and died, or were killed by aerial munitions that hit their tents as the American guards took cover, or they expired from disease, malnutrition and exposure.

—The Iraqi people are native people. They have tribes and allegiances. They have songs and play drums. Their traditions go back hundreds, even thousands of years. Their history dates back to Mesopotamia and to the origins of writing. The Iraqis had amazing art and literature. But much of that is destroyed. We invaded them. We need to ask ourselves two questions: If you impose a government, can you call it a democracy? Do we meet the 1948 United Nations criteria for committing genocide, not war?

Hopeless? Read further.

—BUSH = (B) US (H). That’s correct. Bush equals us. He may have given the executive order that mired our brave soldiers in Iraq but we can get our soldiers out. As long as the war continues in our name, we are responsible for it.

—Many people feel that if we pull out, we will become responsible for the terrible tribal violence that is sure to erupt. Yes we are responsible. But understand two things:

that the United States Armed Forces act in Iraq like a lightening rod. Our very presence draws violence, hatred, and insurgent fighters to Iraq. The longer we stay, the greater the violence.
that we seem to be mistaking compassion for arrogance, believing that we need to stay and fix the mess. The Iraqi are intelligent and organized people. They have been solving their own problems for thousands of years, long before Saddam Hussein appeared, long before thirteen colonies became the United States.

—The average American family has spent $4000 in taxes to support the War in Iraq. Currently the cost is running a dollar a day. Shouldn’t we give that much to support Peace in Iraq? Maybe you can’t cancel out your entire war debt, but what can you give? There are a number of worthy organizations: Iraq Veterans against the War, Gold Star Families, Service Women’s Action Network, the Iraq Action Group at UCSF, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Iraq Moratorium, War Resisters League, Veterans for Peace…

—We are ignored by Washington. How can we individuals make our desire known to protect our troops and bring them home?

It is simply up to us to involve our colleagues, our neighbors, and our families. It is up to us to bring them to lectures, to get them to give money, to have them stand with us and add their voices until we become so loud that they hear us across the country. In fact, our voice can become the voice of the country.
In deciding how to use a fragment of free time to help bring our soldiers home, realize you have a smorgasbord of choices. Do something simple. Get a black ribbon and wear it on your lapel the third Friday of every month. When patients, elevator occupants, and colleagues ask you about your ribbon, invite them to look at the Iraq Moratorium website and help bring our troops home. What if black ribbons covered the lapels at UCSF? What if the 65% of Americans who disapprove of the situation in Iraq wore ribbons, donated money, and involved their loved ones in small actions against the war? What if we voted for leaders who are brave enough to take a stand against the war and even brave enough to go further and bring our troops home?

It’s not just possible, but it’s probable that we would succeed. Our brave mothers, and brothers, sisters, husbands, and children could stop dying and come home. The Iraqi people could take on their own destiny. And America could begin a long process of rebuilding respect in the eyes of the world.

The Iraq Action Group at UCSF meets most Thursdays 5-6 p.m. in S-172.