Reports from Boston
by Bruce Gagnon
The VFP Convention
On July 22-23 I attended the annual convention of Veterans for Peace, held
in Boston. Over 400 veterans from WW II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Iraq wars
came from all over the nation. In one workshop, Iraq Vets Sound Off, six men
and women who have recently returned from service in the Iraq war theater
shared stories of personal transformation as a result of witnessing the
insanity of the war.
One of the most moving was Jimmy Massey, a Marine Staff Sergeant, who was
recently discharged after nearly 12 years of service. He was part of a squad
that repeatedly killed innocent civilians. According to Massey, "We were
pretty much rolling death." He began by describing how he witnessed the
planning for the war at least six months before the actual U.S. invasion of
Iraq. Marine commanders told him that the oil fields were the "prized
jewel."
As his Marine unit entered Iraq it came upon empty Iraqi military bases with
weapons lying on the road. "We shot it up with everything we had, and we
were laughing and having a good time. The Iraqis let us in the country; we
didn't take it."
Upon entering Baghdad his unit came upon an unarmed pro-Saddam
demonstration. His unit killed several of the demonstrators. "I knew that we
caused the insurgency to be pissed off because they had witnessed us
executing innocent civilians." Massey told us how the U.S.-embedded
reporter, Ron Harris, from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote that there was
a "ferocious battle" between his unit and the Iraqi military, but it never
happened. The reporter was writing what the Marines wanted him to write.
Massey, showing the signs of severe depression for which he now takes
medication, explained how his mental state began to deteriorate when an
Iraqi man asked him, "Why did you kill my brother?" After that Massey tried
to put himself in situations where he too would be killed because "I didn't
want to carry the burden anymore." He soon became belligerent toward his
military superiors, telling them how he really felt about the war. Quickly
enough they asked for his resignation to prevent his infecting the unit of
which he was a leader. "We are committing genocide," Massey told us. The
U.S. military is firing depleted uranium shells into buildings, ensuring
that the toxic debris will leave a wave of contamination in the country for
years to come.
The Boston Social Forum
On July 24-25 I attended the Boston Social Forum held at nearby University
of Mass-Boston. Several thousand people had come from all over the country
to participate in over 500 workshops and panel discussions on progressive
issues. I want to report on one particular workshop on community organizing
facilitated by a group of low-income women fighting to stop cutbacks in
social spending. They spoke about how corporate profiteering destroys
networks of people as jobs move out of communities to other parts of the
world. Movement building becomes extremely difficult when you have a
transient society where every "man" is on his own ‹ a dog eat dog culture.
The women talked about how creating our own cultures, celebrating our
diversity and spirituality, have to be relied upon to ground people so they
can then begin to become politically active again.
The women also spoke about the need for our organizing strategies to be
multi-dimensional. Many times people ask, "What is the one thing we can do?"
In order to ultimately defeat the overwhelming power and control of
corporate America we must do many things at once that in the end overwhelm
the system causing its breakdown and thus opening the door to fundamental
structural change.
Bruce K. Gagnon is the Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons &
Nuclear Power in Space
Back to Peace Talk Index, Autumn, 2004