WAR VETERANS SPEAK

"You can honestly see how the Iraqis in general or even Arabs in general are being, you know, kind of like dehumanized," said Specialist Englehart. "Like it was very common for United States soldiers to call them derogatory terms, like camel jockeys or Jihad Johnny or, you know, sand nigger."

According to Sergeant Millard and several others interviewed, "It becomes this racialized hatred towards Iraqis." And this racist language, as Specialist Harmon pointed out, likely played a role in the level of violence directed at Iraqi civilians. "By calling them names," he said, "they're not people anymore. They're just objects."

From The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness

In July 2007, The Nation interviewed 50 US war veterans from Iraq 'in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians.' Some of the stories are published in this article, from which many of the quotes here are taken. Most of the others are from an event called Winter Soldier which took place in March of this year, and at which veterans from the whole of the US were invited to testify about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. The hearings for Winter Soldier were organised by Iraq Veterans Against the War, and were modelled on a similar event in 1971, during the Vietnam War.

The picture painted by these numerous personal testimonies are deeply shocking. They present a consistent pattern of brutal - psychopathic - behaviour by members of the US military, carried out on a regular basis, and with almost total impunity. Indeed - a number of the soldiers claimed that they were not only discouraged by superiors from reporting cases of abuse, but even that there was positive encouragement to carry them out.

On April 18, 2006, I had my first confirmed killed. This man was innocent. I don’t know his name. I called him “the fat man.” He was walking back to his house, and I shot him in front of his friend and his father...

We were all congratulated after we had our first kills, and that happened to have been mine. My company commander personally congratulated me, as he did everyone else in our company. This is the same individual who had stated that whoever gets their first kill by stabbing them to death will get a four-day pass when we return from Iraq.

Former Marine, Jon Michael Turner, at the Winter Soldier hearings

Watch some of the testimonies here, and feel the anguish of the veterans as they tell their stories. Or read short extracts at this page.