By Lila Schow
February, 2004
from International Action Organization
"The ultimate test of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and moments of convenience, but where he stands in moments of challenge and moments of controversy."
–Martin Luther King, Jr., 27 January 1965

Iraq invaded Kuwait August 2, 1990. Later that month Jeff Patterson, a US Marine sat on a Hawaiian runway, refusing to board the plane that was to take him to Saudi Arabia. His action stemmed from disgust at being forced to fight for "American profits and cheap oil".³ Arrested and confined to brig in Pearl Harbor¹¹ he later received an Other Than Honorable (OTH) discharge.³

Patterson is one of 2,500 estimated conscientious objectors enlisted in the military during the 1991 Gulf War. "A subsequent General Accounting Office investigation placed the number closer to 500, but this failed to include those who were jailed for refusing orders."⁶

In 1962, DoD (Department of Defense) Directive 1300.6 created a path for conscientious objectors (CO’s) to receive a complete discharge from the military or transfer to non-combat duties.¹ To meet the qualifications for CO status, a soldier must prove that they have a sincere objection (moral, ethical or religious) to all forms of war.²

Any soldier applying for a CO "solely upon considerations of policy, pragmatism, expediency, or political views" will not qualify for discharge or transfer under DoD 1300.6.¹

The process of receiving a CO discharge is intimidating, difficult and not widely known to Americans in or out of military service. And why should it be easy? As Army Lt. Col Ryan Yantis says, "It’s disingenuous for a soldier to wake up and say they never knew they were joining the Army to fight wars. … It’s much like a fire [fighter] suddenly realizing, ‘You mean I have to fight a fire?’" ⁴

(1997-2000): Alan Pogue is a remarkable photojournalist who has traveled several times to Iraq with Voices In the Wilderness.

Alan began his photographic-
documentarian career in 1968 while he was serving as an Army chaplain’s assistant and a combat medic in Vietnam. He returned from the war as both a photographer and a pacifist. In these photographs, Alan documents, through word and images, the common humanity underlying the political discord in Iraq.

View Alan Pogue: Bearing Witness in Iraq

from The Independent

The wards are filthy, the sanitation shocking, the infections lethal. Sewage drips from the roof above cots of premature babies. This is the state of Baghdad’s top children’s hospital, 10 months after the fall of Saddam, reveals Justin Huggler
21 February 2004

In Iraq’s hospitals, children are dying because of shockingly poor sanitation and a shortage of medical equipment. In Baghdad’s premier children’s hospital, Al-Iskan, sewage drips from the roof of the premature babies’ ward, leaking from waste pipes above.

Continue reading at The Independent

By Elton Davis,
Des Moines Catholic Worker

Elton was one of the four members of the Des Moines peace movement subpoenaed by the federal government regarding their participation in a rally and nonviolent direct action the weekend of Nov. 15, 2003. The federal government dropped the subpoenas under pressure from friends of the Iowa peace movement, elected representatives and national media. Elton offers us his reflections on the experience.

It’s been almost two weeks now since this disruption entered our lives, four individuals, as well as Drake University, being subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury here in Des Moines. I’ve read the accounts of activists who have been targeted by the US government over the years, just never figured I was a big enough fish to warrant any attention at all to be perfectly honest;

I know the accounts of those who were active against the Nazis, those who were sent to the gulags in the Soviet Union, those who were murdered in Central America in the 1980’s, those who were targeted in the 1950’s by McCarthy, those who were targeted during the Vietnam war, and under the tenure of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

By Anna Bachmann
Voices in the Wilderness
Feb. 18, 2004

The elderly woman dressed all in black with tattoos on both wrinkled cheeks sat down at our feet before the rubble of her destroyed house as we tried to explain our presence. She didn’t look pleased and after awhile she got up and left. Her neighbor, a lawyer, was the spokesman for the neighborhood in a small farming village called Al Jazeerah not far from Ar-Ramadi, which is a part of the Sunni Triangle where resistance to the U.S. forces has been high. The lawyer didn’t look pleased either.

He told us that it was potentially dangerous for him. All these people have come to talk and take pictures but nothing ever changes. Nothing is ever done to make up for what they have lost. People are starting to question him. Perhaps some of the Westerners coming are spies. Who are we really? Have we come to take pictures of the men and hand them over to the U.S.? Why should they trust us at all?