Goodman Amy - The silenced majority: stories of uprisings, occupations, resistance, and hope

October 27, 2010

War Should Be an Election Issue

Just days away from crucial midterm elections, WikiLeaks, the whistle-blower website, unveiled the largest classified military leak in history. Almost 400,000 secret Pentagon documents relating to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq were made available online. The documents, in excruciating detail, portray the daily torrent of violence, murder, rape, and torture to which Iraqis have been subjected since George W. Bush declared Mission Accomplished. The WikiLeaks release, dubbed The Iraq War Logs, has been topping the headlines in Europe. But in the U.S., it barely warranted a mention on the agenda-setting Sunday talk shows.

First, the documents themselves. I spoke with Julian Assange, the founder and editor in chief of WikiLeaks.org. He explained: These documents cover the periods of 2004 to the beginning of 2010. It is the most accurate description of a war to have ever been released... each casualty, where it happened, when it happened and who was involved, according to internal U.S. military reporting.

David Leigh, investigations editor at the Guardian of London, told me the leak represents the raw material of history... what the unvarnished version does is confirm what many of us feared and what many journalists have attempted to report over the years, that Iraq became a bloodbath, a real bloodbath of unnecessary killings, of civilian slaughter, of torture and of people being beaten to death.

The reports, in bland bureaucratic language and rife with military jargon, are grisly in detail. Go to the website and search the hundreds of thousands of records. Words like rape, murder, execution, kidnapping, and decapitation return anywhere from hundreds to thousands of reports, documenting not only the scale and regularity of the violence, but, ultimately, a new total for civilian deaths in Iraq.

The British-based Iraq Body Count, which maintains a carefully researched database on just the documented deaths in Iraq, estimates that the Iraq War Logs document an additional 15,000 heretofore unrecorded civilian deaths, bringing the total, from when the invasion began, to more than 150,000 deaths, 80 percent of which are civilian.

In one case, in February 2007, two Iraqi men were attempting to surrender, under attack by a U.S. helicopter gunship. The logs reveal that the crew members called back to their base and were told, They cannot surrender to aircraft and are still valid targets. The two were killed. The helicopter unit was the same one that, months later, attacked a group of civilians in Baghdad, killing all of the men, including two Reuters employees, and injuring two children. That case, also documented in the Iraq War Logs, was the subject of another high-profile WikiLeaks release, which it called Collateral Murder. The Apache helicopters own video of the violent assault, with the accompanying military radio audio, revealed soldiers laughing and cursing as they slaughtered the civilians, and made headlines globally.

Imagine if the military operations were not subject to such secrecy, if the February murder of the two men with their arms raised, trying to surrender, had become public. If there was an investigation, and appropriate punitive action was taken. Perhaps Reuters videographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, twenty-two years old, and his driver, Saeed Chmagh, the father of four, would be alive today, along with the civilians they were unlucky enough to be walking with that fateful July day. Thats why transparency matters.

Sundays network talk shows barely raised the issue of the largest intelligence leak in U.S. history. When asked, they say the midterm elections are their main focus. Fine, but war is an election issue. It should be raised in every debate, discussed on every talk show.

I see the media as a huge kitchen table, stretching across the globe, that we all sit around, debating and discussing the most important issues of the day: war and peace, life and death. Anything less than that is a disservice to the servicemen and -women of this country. They cant have these debates on military bases. They rely on us in civilian society to have the discussions that determine whether they live or die, whether they are sent to kill or be killed. Anything less than that is a disservice to a democratic society.

This book is dedicated to our parents,

Patricia Moynihan, the late Michael Moynihan

and the late George and Dorrie Goodman

Acknowledgments

This book exists only thanks to the contributions and support of so many.

First, the remarkable team at Democracy Now! , who work day and night to give voice to the Silenced Majority. Julie Crosby, Brenda Murad, and Karen Ranucci have for many years committed themselves tirelessly, and without them our work would be impossible.

Our daily, global, grassroots news hour is produced by a remarkable team, including Democracy Now ! s award-winning journalist and cohost Juan Gonzalez, our incredible team of producers: Mike Burke, Renee Feltz, Aaron Mat, Steve Martinez, Nermeen Shaikh, Deena Guzder, Hany Massoud, Robby Karran, Sam Alcoff, and Amy Littlefield; and the team who pulls together the broadcast each morning, including Mike DiFilippo, Miguel Nogueira, Becca Staley, Hugh Gran, John Wallach, Vesta Goodarz, Jon Randolph, Kieran Krug-Meadows, Rah Campenni, Carlo de Jesus, Ahmed Abdel Kouddous, Jon Gerberg and Manal Khan; and the crew who helps keep the whole operation running smoothly, among whom are Neil Shibata, Isis Phillips, Angie Karran, Miriam Barnard, Rob Young, Wayne Neale, Jessica Lee, Simin Farkhondeh, Diana Sands, Sumner Rieland and Brendan Allen.

Democracy Now ! s Spanish language team, in addition to putting out our daily headlines in text and audio for the world, also does a very careful translation of the column, along with an audio version of it. Spanning many countries, this amazing group includes Clara Ibarra, Maria Eva Blotta, Mercedes Camps, Allne Hbert, Csar Gamboa, Fernanda Gomz, Andres Conteris, Oscar Benitez, Daniella Mndez, Marcela Schenck, Gonzalo Giuria, Rossana Spinelli, Fernanda Gerpe, and the inimitable Chuck Scurich.

Also, we continue to be inspired by the very talented journalists who have worked with us and moved on to continue as friends as they pursue their work around the world, including Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Anjali Kamat, Nicole Salazar, Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, John Hamilton, Jaisal Noor, Ryan Devereaux, Frank Lopez, Julie Drizin, Dan Coughlin, Rick Rowley, Jacquie Soohen and Jeremy Scahill. Allan Nairn remains a constant inspiration as both friend and journalist.

We thank Patrick Lannan, Andy Tuch, Laurie Betlach, Randall Wallace, Janet MacGillivray Wallace, Irma Weiss, Diana Cohn, Israel and Edith Taub, Len Goodman, Edith Penty, Roy Singham and the Thoughtworkers.

At King Features, Glenn Mott, the ever-patient Chris Richcreek, and Amy Anderson, and the talented team at Haymarket Books, especially Anthony Arnove, Julie Fain, Sarah Macaraeg, and Eric Kerl.

Also deep appreciation for the support of Elisabeth Benjamin, Caren Spruch, Maria Carrion, and their little and not-so-little ones, Ceci, Rory, Sara, Aliza, Gabriela, and Estrella.

Loving thanks to our family members, as always, who provide constant support, including the Goodman brothers, Dan, David and Steve, along with sisters-in-law Sue Minter and Ruth Levine, and all the incredible nieces and nephews: Jasper, Ariel, Eli, Sarah and Anna. Also the Moynihan brothers Tim, Sean and Mike, sister Deirdre, sisters-in-law Mary, Kate, and Amy, the nieces and nephews Quinn, Liam, Maren, Nora, Evan, Maeve and Fergus, and, for her support, caring, and tolerance for frequent absences, Denis fiance, Trish Schoch.

July 17, 2012

Foreword by Michael Moore

I first met Amy Goodman in the first month of the First Palestinian Intifada. Its where I usually go to meet people. You throw an intifadaIm there! And so is Amy. In fact, if youre in the middle of any sort of rebellion, revolution, uprising or youre just getting the familiar everyday ass-whoopin by forces that seem much greater than yours, that is where youll find the fearless Amy Goodman. Its safe to say that she lives by the promise Tom Joad made to his mother at the end of Steinbecks Grapes of Wrath :