An Open Letter on the Needed Response to the Upcoming Wikileaks Report
October 24, 2010
By Josh Stieber
Znet
Josh Stieber was deployed in “The Surge” from Feb 07-Apr 08. Assigned to a district near Sadr City in Baghdad, the Infantry Company that Stieber deployed with was shown in the Wikileaks’ “Collateral Murder” video release in Apr ‘10. Stieber has shared his experiences on two cross countries tours and has met with elected representatives to inform them of the reality on the ground while trying to educate the public.
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Dear members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and other
willing parties,
This is an anticipatory letter aimed to advise you on your response and
responsibility for the coming Wikileaks release, expected on October 23rd. Based
on the White House’s response to the last leak about Afghanistan, the temptation
seems strong to once again divert attention away from accountability.
I write as a young veteran who once fully embraced the concept of a preemptive war to keep my fellow citizens safe and, as President Bush declared, because “America is a friend to the people of Iraq.” I now hope to preempt your response to the information regarding that war in which I fought. When I learned in school about the design of the American system of government and all the noble qualities it represented, invading Iraq seemed to me, at the time, to be a surefire way to make the world a better place.
On the front-lines however, I saw those very values that had so inspired me
seldom put into practice. Despite claims of goodwill, infantry training left my
comrades and I desensitized; how could we scream “Kill them all, let God sort
them out” on a regular basis and still believe that we were caring for the
oppressed people of Iraq? The glorious history I’d been taught--where colonists
could no longer tolerate harsh British rule and revolted over taxes, lack of
representation, quartering of homes, and other offenses--was turned on its head
when we displaced Iraqi families from their homes to build an outpost. The will
of the people—what a democracy is supposed to rest on—was brushed aside as we
stormed past a peaceful protest where Iraqi men, women, and children had
gathered, asking us not to occupy their neighborhood.
Though many of those ideals have fallen, one American ideal that can still be
shown, depending on how you react, is that of accountability. Our founding
fathers established a system of checks and balances to keep decision makers
accountable. However, there has been little accountability in the wars that my
friends and I once thought represented everything that was noble about our
country. Of course it highlights some of those qualities when investigations
find soldiers who kill Afghans for sport; but if legislators, the media, and the
American public had been paying attention to the testimonies of veterans,
instances like these would be understood a systemic, perhaps extreme, but
certainly not exceptional.
While government statements may be able to divert the attention of U.S. media
and public opinion, our national reputation continues to fade in the eyes of
people who have been at both ends of the gun. Do you think an Afghan whose loved
one was killed by mistake—perhaps the families of the seven children mistakenly
killed by Task Force 373 on June 17, 2007 in the Khelof province(1) cares what
Bradley Manning, accused leaker, said to a hacker? Do you think a soldier who
was asked to betray his or her beliefs and conscience cares if Jullian Assange,
Wikileaks founder, has a fierce temper?
The coming leak about Iraq is your chance, your obligation to make up for what
was largely ignored last time. For every question you ask of Manning and Assange
and their characters, the much greater question needs to be asked of where the
accountability in U.S. foreign policy has gone. Pentagon officials said there
was blood on Assange’s hands over the last leak; can you back those claims? And
how do you respond to the blood that has been needlessly spilled throughout the
war? Just as you demand accountability for leakers, you owe accountability to
those whose names these wars are carried out in. While you focus on only
questioning the messengers, it seems highly likely that allies of the U.S. will
question our priorities and honor, while our adversaries will be further assured
that our noble claims of caring for humanity and wanting to save their countries
is cheap rhetoric.
Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, griped that he "was ashamed to
have to sit there and listen to the president express his great angst about the
leaking that is going on here in this town." (2)
I write on behalf of those around the world who are ashamed to have to listen to
the President, along with military and political officials, express their great
angst over leaks while seeming to ignore the realities of what those leaks
reveal about the very nature of these wars. When you fail to take account for
what has been done in our names, funded by our taxes, and fought by those who
believe that the U.S. should represent something noble, we will search for and
tell the truth; if you are ashamed by citizens practicing the accountability
that our country was designed to demand, then that says more about you than
about us.
Please do something different; take accountability for these wars and the full
truth about them. More specifically, please take account for what is detailed in
both the Iraq and Afghanistan leaks by running the needed investigations,
addressing the policies and practices that have gone unchecked, and beginning a
much needed reconciliation process. If you need soldiers who are willing to
collaborate what is detailed in the reports, I will be the first to step forward
for this rounds of leaks.
Veterans have been stepping forward, partnered with civilian allies, to tell the
truth that the “official story” chases away:
Civilian Soldier Alliance.
We have taken part in campaigns to prevent the deployment of troops traumatized
by what they’ve been asked to do:
Operation Recovery;
we have partnered with organizations delivering aid on the ground in Iraq:
Iraqi Health Now
and have begun to repair the some of the damage that these leaks expose:
IVAW Reparations
. We are living out the care for humanity and personal responsibility that this
nation prides itself on; we have a long way to go, and your participation,
rather than dismissal, is highly needed.
Thank you for your consideration,
Josh Stieber, SPC, 2-16 Infantry Battalion, Combat Veteran
Josh Stieber was deployed in “The Surge” from Feb 07-Apr 08. Assigned to a
district near Sadr City in Baghdad, the Infantry Company that Stieber deployed
with was shown in the Wikileaks’ “Collateral
Murder” video release in Apr ‘10. Stieber has shared his experiences on two
cross countries tours and has met with elected representatives to inform them of
the reality on the ground while trying to educate the public.
Wikileaks' Afghan/Iraq Logs: Searching for Accountability, Andrew Kennis, October 11, 2010 by Al Jazeera
U.S. rethinks intelligence sharing after leaks anger Obama, Eli Lake, The Washington Post, Oct 6, 2010