by Dahr Jamail
February 18th, 2010 | T r u t h o u t
Army Specialist and Iraq war veteran, Marc Hall. Photo: Courage to Resist; Edited: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t
US Army Specialist Marc Hall, jailed for writing a song about the personal impact of being forced to remain in the military, including lyrics the Army claims are veiled threats of violence, will face a military trial in Iraq instead of in the US. Attorneys for Hall - whose current whereabouts remain unknown - say this development threatens Hall’s right to a public trial.
A petition filed in the US District Court of the Southern District of Georgia to stop the Army from sending Hall to Iraq for a court-martial was denied on Wednesday.
It is believed that Hall is still incarcerated in the Liberty County Jail in Hinesville, Georgia, but it is possible that Hall could already be in Iraq. Neither Hall’s attorneys, nor even the military prosecutor, know of Hall’s whereabouts.
“Not just the Constitution, but the rules for courts-martial, prohibit prosecutors from holding a court-martial in a combat zone as a pretext for depriving an accused of a public trial, counsel of his choice and necessary witnesses,” David Gespass, Hall’s civilian attorney and the president of the National Lawyers Guild, said of the Army’s decision, “Whatever the Army may claim, that is exactly what the Army is doing to Marc.”
On December 17, Hall was charged with five specifications in violation of Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Conduct, two of those for wrongfully communicating a threat based on song lyrics. Article 134 is the vague rule that outlaws anything “to the prejudice of good order and discipline.”
Lyrics included Hall saying he may “go Fort Hood,” a reference to the mass shooting at Fort Hood on November 5, which prosecutors for the Army claim is a threat of violence. [Read more →]
by Dahr Jamail
February 18th, 2010 | T r u t h o u t
Photo: Staff Sgt. Jason Robertson / The U.S. Army); Edited: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t
“Look around,” the drill sergeant said. “In a few years, or even a few months, several of you will be dead. Some of you will be severely wounded or so badly mutilated that your own mother can’t stand the sight of you. And for the real unlucky ones, you will come home so emotionally disfigured that you wish you had died over there.”
“It was Week 7 of basic training … eighteen years old and I was preparing myself to die,” said Michael Anthony in “Mass Casualties: A Young Medic’s True Story of Death, Deception and Dishonor in Iraq.” The book is more than a simple memoir about a difficult experience. It is an insider’s scathing testimony of an ongoing illegal and unethical military action in a distant, once-sovereign state, by the US. Perhaps, this fresh account will raise some outcry over an issue that has all but dropped out of the American public’s radar.
Following the family legacy of military service, Anthony enlisted in the military at 17. The image he had nurtured of the idealism of military life, however, ran aground upon his arrival in Iraq, where he served as a medic in an operating room (OR) at a US military base.
“Mass Casualties” is a collection of Anthony’s personal journal entries from his time in Iraq. It includes his introspections on and insights into the inherently irrational and meaningless nature of military life. The rawness of the narrative reveals how the occupation broke down the young soldier’s spirit and almost desensitized him into believing “my job isn’t to feel.”
The late historian and Author Howard Zinn held the book in high regard. “Michael Anthony’s memoir is not about the politics of Iraq. Instead it takes us deep inside the war, inside and outside the operation room, the barracks, the talk of the soldiers, the feeling of the situation … unique and powerful,” Zinn wrote.
[Read more →]
by Dahr Jamail
February 11th, 2010 | T r u t h o u t
Army Spc. Alexis Hutchinson with son Kamani Hutchinson. (Photo: Alexis Hutchinson / Oakland Tribune)
On Thursday, February 11, Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother of an infant son, was informed she would be granted an administrative discharge from the Army.
Last fall, Hutchinson was ordered to prepare to deploy to Afghanistan. On November 5, 2009, after her childcare plans fell through, Hutchinson was faced with the dilemma of having no one to take care of her son when she deployed to a war zone.
She chose not to show up for the plane to Afghanistan and missed her deployment. When she reported for duty the following day the Army arrested her and took away her son, who was allegedly placed in an Army day care. His grandmother, Angelique Hughes of Oakland, California, picked him up a few days later. Alexis was granted leave to go home for the holidays in December, and returned to Georgia with her baby, Kamani, in early January.
After Hutchinson returned to Georgia in January, the Army filed court-martial charges against her and refused to discharge her under the Army regulations that clearly allow for discharges for reasons of parenthood responsibility. Truthout broke the story on January 14.
Both Hutchinson and her civilian attorney, Rai Sue Sussman, are happy with the results. In a press release from Sussman’s office, Hutchinson said that she is “excited to know what will happen to me, and that I am not facing jail. This means I can still be with my son, which is the most important thing.” Hutchinson will receive an “Other Than Honorable” discharge, but will not be facing criminal charges at a court-martial, which would have subjected her to a bad-conduct discharge and up to a year in jail if she lost, as well as a criminal record.
[Read more →]
by Dahr Jamail
February 10th, 2010 | Inter Press Service
MARFA, Texas - Army Specialist and Iraq war veteran Marc Hall was incarcerated by the U.S. Army in Georgia for recording a song that expresses his anger over the Army’s stop-loss policy. Now he waits to be shipped to Iraq to face a court martial.
Stop-loss is a policy that allows the Army to keep soldiers active beyond the end of their signed contracts. According to the Pentagon, more than 120,000 soldiers have been affected by stop-loss since 2001, and currently 13,000 soldiers are serving under stop-loss orders, despite public pledges by President Barack Obama to phase out the policy.
Attorney David Gespass, a member of the National Lawyers Guild and founding member of the Military Law Task Force, has been consulting on the case and will possibly represent Hall. [Read more →]
by Dahr Jamail
February 9th, 2010 | T r u t h o u t
An interview with Dr. Stjepan Mestrovic
(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: The U.S. Army)
Yesterday, Truthout ran the first part of an interview with Dr. Stjepan Mestrovic, a Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University who has written three books on US misconduct in Iraq: “The Trials of Abu Ghraib: An Expert Witness Account of Shame and Honor,” “Rules of Engagement?: Operation Iron Triangle, Iraq” and “The ‘Good Soldier’ on Trial: A Sociological Study of Misconduct by the US Military Pertaining to Operation Iron Triangle, Iraq.” He has three degrees from Harvard University, including a Master’s degree in clinical psychology, and has been an expert witness in psychology and sociology at several Article 32 hearings, courts-martial and clemency hearings involving US soldiers accused of committing crimes of war in Iraq, including the trials of prison guards involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal.
Dr. Mestrovic’s books meticulously document how the US Army, as an institution, has become dysfunctional, and how illegal rules of engagement (ROE) are issued by officers and politicians at the top of the Army’s hierarchy, but only low-ranking soldiers are punished for carrying out those same rules and orders. As an example, in one of the several hearings Dr. Mestrovic has attended as an expert witness, US soldiers openly admitted they had shot a 75-year-old man who had emerged unarmed from his house, but because the soldiers were following the rule to shoot all “military aged males,” neither they nor their officers were charged for that death.
In the second part of his interview with Truthout, Dr. Mestrovic examines the fallacious nature of the rules of engagement, Operation Iron Triangle in Iraq, the rampant nature of atrocities in the US military today, and the possibility of a solution. In Operation Iron Triangle, Iraqi detainees were murdered by US soldiers under the command of a legendary American colonel, Michael Steele. On May 9, 2006, American soldiers executed three unarmed men they had captured in an operation in the so-called Sunni Triangle in Iraq. Several of these soldiers were court-martialed and imprisoned, but some within the military say that responsibility ultimately lies with Colonel Steele.)
Truthout: What are your thoughts about the “Rules of Engagement?” How are these brought into being? Are they truly expected to work in the field? Given that they are clearly not working, why is that?
Dr. Mestrovic:There is insufficient information to answer the first question at the present time. The creation and actual wording of the written ROE are shrouded in secrecy. At the courts-martial of the accused soldiers in the Operation Iron Triangle killings, the government forbade the introduction of the actual, written ROE into testimony. It only allowed verbal testimony as to what the soldiers heard as to the ROE. The soldiers testified that the order was “to kill every military-aged male.” The brigade commander who apparently issued the order, Col. Michael D. Steele, refused and still refuses to testify and to be cross-examined, so that the question you are asking may never be answered. Presumably, he would know how the ROE are and were brought into being.
[Read more →]
