There was a long discussion this weekend about
U.S. Soldiers kicking the heads of decapitated Iraqis around like soccer balls. I read through it, and did not really care to comment, until I researched it a bit, because it was only a single source link, and a very dubious media outlet at that.
To be honest with everyone, I get very surprised by my fellow DU’ers at times, especially in light of several recent sensationalist and emotional "breaking stories" that were posted on DU, that later turned out to be false, and burned quite a few people. Given our love of "argument for argument’s sake" and playing devils advocate, I am used to seeing news stories, even from the most reputable of news outlets, get ripped to shreds within minutes, and that is what I truly love about this website. Naturally, I get quite surprised when any stories that are unconfirmed, manage to suck hundreds of DU’ers into an orgy of postings, where the emotional content runs very high, yet the facts and back-stories are either missing, or buried and ignored.
That’s actually personal, and something I had to get off my chest.
As to the "soccer balls" story; the entire base of the story actually started back in 2005, when a soldier by the name of Joshua Key, deserted his unit in Iraq, and proceeded to leave the U.S. and flee to Canada with his wife and four kids, in search of a home, and Canadian refugee status. A very small part of his story was the quote of "I see two soldiers kicking the heads around like a soccer ball." That one statement has been grabbed by quite a few blogs, and circulated around the Internet, where everywhere that it is posted- both right and left wing blog alike; has resulted in a wake of outrage, and emotional outpouring in almost every comment section that it appears on, where the right chastises him as a coward and a deserter, and the left him chastises him as a murderer and a baby killer.
Personally, I am reserving judgement, because you have to also realize that the guy was shell-shocked, fatigued, and completely mind screwed from constantly being on the front lines of a war zone. I have to bear in mind as well, that the entire "soldiers kicking heads like soccer balls" story, revolves around the statements made by a single person, and have yet to be confirmed by anyone else. I know that it is not a stretch of the imagination, given the hundreds of "Haditha’s" and "Mai Lai’s" that have occurred in the bloody history of the United States, to believe that it could have happened, but without any type of confirmation, I feel the need to be extremely cautious about what I see in print, and prefer to remain skeptical at this point.
BUT, as a Vet, his story, hit very close to home for me. I empathize with the man, and hope he finds amnesty and a new life in Canada. If he should ever wish to return to the United States, I would welcome him back home, whole-heartedly. You see; I had several friends in the sixties that ran to Canada, to avoid getting drafted for Vietnam. I personally did not have the guts to run, because going to Canada to avoid a war that you do not believe in, is something that is not done lightly, and is something one thinks about long and hard beforehand. It means you leave your family, your friends and your country, possibly forever. Even if you are allowed to come back someday, it means that for the rest of your life there will be some jerk waving a flag in your face, calling you a traitor and a coward. Not only does it take a brave person to stand up for their beliefs to such a degree, it takes a very strong person as well.
Here are the stories of U.S. soldiers that ran to Canada after serving in the Gulf War. Please, take a few moments out of your busy day, and read through the stories of Mr. Key, and please keep an open mind:
Mon June, 5 2006- TheTyee.ca Key describes himself as a patriotic citizen who grew up learning “all-American values.” Raised by his grandparents in a small town in Oklahoma, Key became a welder and was earning $7.25 an hour before he joined the Army. With a rapidly growing family, he desperately needed a better job to make ends meet. After a visit to the local military recruiting office and then a score of 50 percent on an aptitude test, Key was told he could pick between three different jobs.
“I decided on a bridge builder in a non-deployable unit,” he explains with a slight southern drawl. “This was my incentive to join the Army. I wanted to be close to my family. Other guys were offered money incentives.”
Key felt that his situation was so desperate that he signed a contract with the US military even though his wife was pregnant with their third child. “They don’t usually let guys in who have three kids. They told me they were hiding the fact that my wife was pregnant. After I signed the paper it didn’t matter anymore. The Army was the only option we had.”
During basic training in May 2002, Key learned that his legally binding contract could be changed by the military at any time. “In the first few days of basic training, you learn that you are just a number and to keep your mouth shut unless spoken to. We were told that we were going to learn how to be the worst damn killers in the battlefield. I was already thinking; what the hell are you talking about?”
Several U.S. Soldiers have deserted and gone to Canada, and here are some of their stories.
When Private First Class Joshua Key was shipped to Iraq, the US army combat engineer believed he was doing the right thing.
"I left for Iraq with a purpose, thinking this was another Hitler deal," he said in a recent interview. "But there were no weapons of mass destruction. They had no military whatsoever. And I started to wonder."
He served eight months in Iraq before going AWOL. Key arrived in Toronto in March of 2005, with his wife Brandi and their four young children. Asked what led him to desert, he says: "The atrocities that were happening to the innocent people of Iraq. I didn't want to be part of it no more. I came home and I deserted."
August 23, 2005, Why Key will not fight for George W. Bush any moreBrandi said that her own family still believes the war in Iraq is about terrorists and weapons, because the media is controlled and because people are kept afraid.
"I wasn't protecting Americans from terrorists over there," said Josh. "I was protecting my President's business interests."
"In all the hundred or more homes I raided there were never any terrorists," said Josh. "There were never any caches of weapons."
"There were only angry women and children left who blamed us for taking away their husbands, fathers, brothers and uncles."
"They didn't see the American government in their houses at night," he said. "They saw us and I saw hate in their eyes."
Josh's greatest regret about America's time in Iraq so far is Fallujah, the city where he saw American soldiers desecrating Iraqi dead.
"I remember thinking how beautiful the river looked in the moonlight that night," he said.
"The tank I was riding in came around a bend in the road and I saw a line of bodies on one side of the road and a line of heads on the other."
"Fallujah was beautiful," Josh said. "And now it is gone. Utterly destroyed. It was a beautiful city full of families. It seemed like that city was there forever and now it is gone."
"It is a great loss to the whole world."
Now, he and Brandi are looking forward to settling on Gabriel Island in British Columbia and letting their two oldest kids start school on September 6.
When AWOL Is the Only Way Out-AlternetSleep deprivation while on duty, first in Kuwait and then in Iraq, was routine, Joshua says, and he thinks exhaustion was generated intentionally by his commanders. "You'll do whatever the hell they say just to get that sleep. That's the way they controlled us. You ain't had no sleep and you got shitty food all the time. I got to call my wife once every month, maybe once every two weeks if I was lucky. Mail, shitty, if it even came."
Food and water were inadequate, he says. "When we first got to Kuwait we were rationed to two bottles of water a day and one MRE . In the middle of the desert, you're supposed to have six bottles of water a day and three MREs. They tell us they don't have it. I'm thinking 'How in the hell can the most powerfullest nation, the most powerfullest military in the world, be in the middle of a damn desert and they don't even have no food to feed us?'"
Joshua rejects the U.S. government line that the Iraqis fighting the occupation are terrorists. "I'm thinking: What the hell? I mean, that's not a terrorist. That's the man's home we killed. That's his son, that's the father, that's the mother, that's the sister. Houses are destroyed. Husbands are detained and wives don't even know where they're at. I mean, them are pissed-off people, and they have a reason to be pissed off. I would never wish this upon myself or my family, so why would I do it upon them?"
Have a nice day…
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