Published on Thursday, July 15, 2004 by Newsday / Long Island, New York
Common Dreams
by Jimmy Breslin

In less than a month, there have been 37 same-sex deaths of our troops in Iraq. There is one woman, Army Spc. Julie Hickey, age 20, who died of illness on the Fourth of July. If the men were getting married, George Bush would shout more than ever for a constitutional amendment.

As they die in battle in the Middle East, Bush doesn’t even notice. This man of limited mind and unlimited arrogance is unmoved by deaths that have put blood on his hands for all time.

I want to tell you what it’s like to type this list of names that runs below. You keep typing these ages of “20″ and “19″ and “22″ and soon, you hear them. They are shouting over loud music. Laughing uncontrollably. Girls, girls, girls. Swearing viciously at their fates. And always with these young fast voices. Why should they die? What right have we to play God and send them to be blown to pieces? I finish typing this job and go to bed. These young should be living in the sounds of an American summer, of water rushing over rocks, or lapping a lakeshore pier, or crashing onto an ocean beach; of music in the soft nights or the elated cries of kids running through a field. If not a field, then enjoying nature’s finest sight, a crowded city street.

Daniel Woodham, NWTRCC’s representative to the International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Funds, taped some short statements from U.S. war tax resisters to deliver to attendees at the conference in Brussels, Belgium, July 8-11, 2004. If you’d like to listen, click here.

By Paul Rockwell

Sacramento Bee (California) - Sunday May 16, 2004

“We forget what war is about, what it does to those who wage it and those who suffer from it. Those who hate war the most, I have often found, are veterans who know it.” - Chris Hedges, New York Times reporter and author of “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning”

For nearly 12 years, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was a hard-core, some say gung-ho, Marine. For three years he trained fellow Marines in one of the most grueling indoctrination rituals in military life - Marine boot camp.

The Iraq war changed Massey. The brutality, the sheer carnage of the U.S. invasion, touched his conscience and transformed him forever. He was honorably discharged with full severance last Dec. 31 and is now back in his hometown, Waynsville, N.C.

When I talked with Massey last week, he expressed his remorse at the civilian loss of life in incidents in which he himself was involved.

Democracy Now
Monday, May 24th, 2004

Ex-Marine Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey talks about his time in Iraq where he admitted the U.S. treatment of Iraqi civilians is fueling the Iraqi resistance. In a recent interview he said “I felt like we were committing genocide in Iraq.” [includes rush transcript]

The US Army is denying reports that the highest-ranking American officer in Iraq, Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, was present during some of the interrogations and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad. This follows a report in The Washington Post over the weekend about an April 2nd military hearing on the prisoner torture allegations. According to The Post, a lawyer representing one of the accused soldiers said that the commander of the U.S. military police company at the centre of the abuse scandal, Donald Reese, told him that General Sanchez was aware of what was taking place.

Tonight President Bush will deliver a prime time address on Iraq aimed in part at controlling the damage from the situation at Abu Ghraib. Meanwhile, Conscientious Objector Sgt. Camillo Mejia was sentenced to a year in prison for desertion from the Army. His application for CO status mentioned prisoner abuse in Iraq long before the current scandal.

Now another US soldier who participated in the Iraq invasion and occupation has begun speaking out. Twelve year Marine veteran Jimmy Massey joins us on the line from North Carolina.

Marine Staff Segt. Jimmy Massey (Ret.), former Marine staff sergeant who was honorably discharged in December after serving 12 years, most recently in Iraq. He is speaking to us from his home in Waynesville, North Carolina in the Smokey Mountains.