What kind of action do you think is necessary to stop the war?

Thom: I think a complete and utter direct action by all people involved is what’s necessary. This indirect, passive aggressive holding signs and vigils thing doesn’t really achieve anything. I think that we need to show our dedication every day because every single day there’s soldiers dying and the fact that we’re not out there protesting and raising up arms and getting in direct action is a disgrace to our movement. Part of civil rights, or the movement in India with Gandhi, or the Vietnam era antiwar movement, part of all these moments, was a little bit of nonviolence but it was also just a lot of direct action, people who cared so passionately about their cause that they were willing to risk life and limb in an effort to be heard and be felt.  

Jeff: I think what we can do to better stop the war is, like Thom said, more direct action. Not in a violent sense of course. But what I’ve noticed since I’ve been out of the army, for two years now, and going to protests, is the same routine is being played again and again, where we march down regulated, permitted streets and we have permission from the authorities to do this or that, or to stand in a certain area in order to express our freedom of speech, whereas it’s pretty widely known that any kind of social movement that works is made to be illegal, such as demonstrating in front of the White House or on the steps of Congress or the Capitol Building in DC. Those are illegal areas to protest in. And I think people who are dedicated to ending the war have to make it clear that we won’t accept these imperial wars of aggression, and that we need to stand together sometimes in certain areas or situations that could technically be considered illegal to make our voice heard and make our presence known, and we have to be more committed in making that happen. If that means directly opposing the law as far as where we could stay, or where we don’t stay, I just think we need to be more in the power structure’s face about it.

What are some elements of the war in Iraq that you feel people who haven’t been there don’t grasp?

Jeff: Some of the elements I feel that people don’t grasp about the war in Iraq is, like, I heard an Iraq veteran say, if America could see what was going on in Iraq right now they’d stop the war tomorrow. And I think that’s true to a very large degree. I think that Americans don’t understand the situation on the ground there. They don’t understand it because all the same old reasons, because the corporate media, biased media filtered through the Pentagon and the White House. That kind of stuff. They don’t see the truth on the ground and if they saw the way we were dehumanizing the Iraqis, they saw the way we were treating them, if they saw what some might consider Gestapo tactics we use in urban areas to confront not just the insurgency but the people they’d realize that we lost the war already, we lost all chance of winning hearts and minds, we never had it. If the American people could just see for a second that we haven’t really made any connections with the Iraqis one bit, and the way we treat them, dehumanize them, make them all out to be enemies, we’ve lost their trust and respect, they’d probably shut the war down at that point, but unfortunately that picture isn’t painted on the news.

Thom: I think one of the things that people don’t understand that haven’t been there is the amount of brainwashing that goes into your average military soldier. For the most part, these are young, impressionable people who joined up when they were eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old, and from day one they’re treated like shit, made to feel like they’re shit, and basically once they’ve been given a couple opportunities or a couple things that have trickled down their way, they’re made to feel that these things are these great privileges upon them when in actuality, things like being treated like a human being aren’t privileges, they’re basic human rights. I think that this amount of brainwashing and this poor treatment of our own soldiers and the means to make everybody subservient to the powers that be, I think that breeds this strange dynamic where you have these soldiers, who by their own people are treated like shit all day, and then they turn around and treat the Iraqi people like shit because it’s all they know how to do at that point. They think that’s being a leader, and that’s what leadership is, when in actuality that’s what fear and ignorant tactics lead to.

I think another element of the war that people don’t understand is how much the media portrays this just horribly. The media, almost anytime they say something about the war in Iraq, they’re fairly wrong, if not completely wrong. That’s not just the administration; we’re talking even CNN and the other corporate controlled media sources. I don’t know if it’s that they’re not in military mindset when they go over there, so they see things differently then how I saw them, but it still seems that the media have done a very poor job at trying to bring this war to the people of America, the people of the world’s face.

Jeff: It’s like what you were saying about the media, they don’t show the blood and they don’t show the gore on TV. They don’t show Iraqis being brutalized. They don’t show what it looks like inside of Abu Ghraib prison. They don’t show what it looks like inside of Guantanamo even. These are things the media doesn’t show the American people so the American people in general think that, yeah, the war is going badly, but there’s still hope for democracy in Iraq, and that’s why we have to stay, or we’re going to be leaving these people to the whims of civil war, but it’s just not true. We’re creating this civil war by dividing these ethnic groups.

How would you describe the sentiments of the US soldiers regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror in general?

Jeff: Well, compared to when I was in the army, and when I got out in 2005, I think there’s been a major antiwar shift in the last two years. But even while I was in Iraq, I think the general sentiment among soldiers that I was around was we were either there for the oil, or that we were there to fight terrorists. For the ones who knew it was about oil, they figured they’d just do their year and get out of the army when they got done. For some of the ones who were more naïve about it, they didn’t understand why were there, why the Iraqis didn’t trust us, didn’t understand why we couldn’t trust them, didn’t understand why there was no progress being made, they just assumed that we were fighting terrorism. But by the time I left, most of the soldiers around me were opposed to being in Iraq just because it was a long, grueling year where they didn’t see much accomplished. Compare that to now, and you’re getting soldiers who have been there two or three times and every time they go back they go back to a worsening situation. So it seems as though there’s more of an anti-war shift happening in the military now because of the fact that so many of these soldiers keep going back to a worsening situation, and they’re starting to realize that, hey, this Bush administration this government of ours, has manipulated us for the interests of corporations and corporate profit.

Thom: Well, I think that of course the sentiment of the US soldiers is they don’t like it. I don’t think anyone likes going to war, I don’t think anyone likes to get shot at and likes having the possibility of death looming over their shoulders the entire time. I kind of differ a little bit on Jeff’s opinion. I think a lot of the soldiers, they don’t support the war not because they’re actually opposed to the war, but because they had to go there and it was a horrible year and they’d rather spend the time going to the bar and hanging out and things of this such. There’s a strange schism in the military of people who support the war, people who don’t support the war, and also you throw into those people who support the military in general. So you have these separate groups of these people who are like yes, yes, no, no, yes, yes, to all these separate things. I think a lot of the soldiers are disillusioned by the internal propaganda and obviously the media propaganda of the war, and they’re led to believe that it’s for a noble cause. I think that a lot of the people joined the military post-9/11 so they knew what they were getting themselves into. They knew what they were getting themselves into and it was just worse than they had expected and that’s why they’re against the war. I think that’s also why most of these people I’ve been discussing aren’t very active in the antiwar movement because, in all actuality, they probably support the war, they just don’t want to be personally affected by the war, basically. They’d rather not have to spend a year in Iraq in the sand and in the summer, in the heat there sweating their ass off, they’d rather be sitting on their couch in their air-conditioned room or whatever watching it on TV and supporting it like that. I think that with education, though, these people can be brought around to seeing the reality of things. It’s just that you have to break through those mental barriers that have been built up in them through years of military training.

Can you talk a bit about the antiwar movement?

Thom: The antiwar movement right now is in a horrible state of affairs. There’s a small, dedicated base that is extremely active and constantly trying to do actions to bring about a closer end to this war, but then the majority, though, I feel are people that I think just care on Saturday when they’re not working, or care on Sunday after the softball game’s over. They’re not willing to do this, they’re not willing to do that, they’re only willing to sit there with a sign on the corner in front of Wal-Mart and not really talk to anyone, just hold the sign and look solemn. I think that we’re using all the wrong tactics right now. Most of these things that we’re doing, like the protest rallies, some of them are good but most of them I feel are just a big liberal masturbation scene where they just come out and show their numbers and then they go back and hide in their cave and never come out again until the next big protest rally. Those are nice because they’re espirit de corps and they show you how many people support you, however knowing that most of those people are going to lose the enthusiasm the next day, it’s like, why even do it. By having 20,000 people in Portland, or 3,000 people in San Francisco, you haven’t brought the war any closer to an end. All you did was come out and march on a designated parade route and feel good about yourself. I think we need to stop worrying about feeling good about ourselves and start worrying about getting this war over with right now.

I think that the mainstream liberal groups are not achieving anything, they’re just worried about getting Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton elected. Just like the Democrats in Congress have proposed this bill that says that if we don’t achieve these certain goals by 2008 we’re going to pull the troops out. I think that’s all just an election scheme for them. I think that the anarchist groups and the socialist groups are the only ones who are truly dedicated right now, or the majority of the ones who are truly dedicated right now. I think that, even still, they need to be educated better, they need to learn more about the veteran’s movement and things like that. But I think in general, the Democrats and the mainstream liberals, they’re not achieving anything, they’re just out there for their pomp and circumstance, to make themselves look nice, to blow their horn and feel good about themselves, puff up their chest, but they’re not bringing this war any closer to an end. And honestly, for me, it gets me all irate inside. I get so angry looking at these things and seeing that they’re not achieving anything and they’re acting like they are. Just drop the bullshit. Get real. Let’s do something that’s going to have an effect now. Let’s not worry about, well, oh, we’ll elect new people to Congress and they’ll change it in six years. That doesn’t achieve anything.

Jeff: It’s one of the things that comes up a lot, the term ‘public masturbation’ because it is kind of what it looks like. These rallies are important and they need to keep happening. We need to have more of them if anything, we need to have them like every weekend if anything. But they’re really not working. We have to look at what we as a movement have accomplished in the last four years since this ground war has started and that’s nothing. In fact, the war is looking like it’s going to expand into Iran. We get to the point where we have to evaluate it and say hey, this isn’t working. Showing up with signs, going to these parades, it looks good, it’s fun to do, a lot of people get motivated by it, enthused, they want to spread their participation even more from it, but unfortunately that’s where it stops, and that’s where it has been stopping, and that’s why the term ‘public masturbation’ probably suits it best because it’s kind of what it is. A lot of people just go to it for the desired effect of standing in solidarity with other people and trying to end the war, which is understandable.

Here’s a good example. We were in Portland. We have to sell merch obviously to help keep our chapter running. But I noticed that every protest I’ve been to like this, merch tables get set out by a plethora of different organizations, and it resembles a marketplace of sorts. Whereas it should be a marketplace of ideas and communication, it’s just more consumer bullshit. There was this one woman who came and looked at all of our stuff, she looked like a typical old, aging hippie lady, and that’s fine and all, but she’s looking at our merch table like, and she’s like, oh this is interesting, this is interesting. And I ask her if she’d be interested in reading an actual book, The Logic of Withdrawal by Anthony Arnove and she said no, I’m going to look around some more and see if I can find something a little bit better. And that’s exactly how cold it was and then she walked away, and I got the feeling that I was literally in the business of selling her products, that it was customer service. I looked at the situation and evaluated it as, well, look at all the other organizations doing the same exact thing. We’ve lost touch with what it means to be anti-war, we’ve lost touch with the movement.

You try to compare what we have now to the Civil Rights movements of the sixties, I never read too much about people showing up with merchandise and selling merch at booths, or organizations competing to make money. We’ve completely lost touch with being activists and being in the antiwar movement. And because we have made no progress in the anti-war movement, meaning that we haven’t brought this war even closer to a stop then when it started, and it’s getting ready to expand into Iran, we need to step up our game in a big way. The system has stepped up theirs, this administration, this government, this one party system, they’ve stepped up their game in a huge way, and they’re not going to stop just because people show up in cities numbering in the thousands saying, we oppose this war. That’s not going to stop them. It’s going to take serious, motivated acts of civil disobedience before anything can happen. And they can’t be just one person getting arrested, they have to huge groups of people standing in solidarity saying no, we will not tolerate these wars of aggression any longer. And until that happens, unfortunately, we’re going to keep going to the same old scheme of marching down streets and holding signs and selling merch. That’s why I feel we’ve really lost touch and need to reevaluate the situation.

Thom: Take a look at the Port Militarization Resistance (PMR) here in Olympia and Tacoma. Our chapter of Iraq Veterans Against War was involved in going to the Tacoma protests, and I’d like to compare that action to a peace rally in a major city where there’s permits and there’s permission. You had a group of probably no more than 200 kids show up, not just kids but young adults and older adults of all backgrounds show up for this demonstration to stop the shipment of arms out of the port of Tacoma. It wasn’t planned the best and it did have its flaws, mostly because it wasn’t really well planned out, but it made a statement, and it was a shot heard around the country when people were getting arrested trying to prevent these arms shipments, these Stryker tanks from leaving the port of Tacoma. Compare that to an organized peace rally and you can see that these peace rallies over the past four years, they happen every year once the anniversary of the war comes up or United for Peace and Justice makes their shout out to stand up in arms together, and have their nationwide celebration. Those things get ignored. They’re just headlines on the news. Just because a protest numbers in the thousands and a lot of people show up and then walk away feeling a sense of accomplishment doesn’t mean it necessarily achieved the desired effect. When you compare that to 200 people showing up at a port to try to shut it down battling riot cops on the fog line, that got more attention than anything. So it goes to show that there’s a time and place for both actions, and don’t get me wrong, peace rallies and marches are still very important and they need to happen, it’s just that they need to happen more often, and they need to happen with more spontaneity. These other actions, these more direct versions of direct action, like the port of Tacoma, there’s a time and place for that as well. It’s just like the Civil Rights movements of the sixties. They kind of broke the ice for the anti-war movement, the anti-war movement more or less rode on the coattails of the Civil Rights movements. It was a puzzle, a collection of different movements and organizations working together to for one common agenda, and we face that same problem today. Comparing that to the port of Tacoma, yeah, port of Tacoma was more direct action, got more attention whereas you take Portland’s peace rally and it got some attention, but otherwise it was just another headline on the news, it was more or less widely ignored.  

What happened at the port of Tacoma?

Jeff: Basically what happened in Tacoma was Stryker brigades from Fort Lewis were supposed to ship and there were a lot of people who had been in the Oly PMR decided to organize a Tacoma PMR and people showed up to protest this. Not so much protest but more kind of connect with the Longshoremen union and the troops that were there to actually load up and drive the trucks. So people were trying to connect with them and let them know that there are a lot of people who are against this war and all it takes is a few of you to stand up and say we’re not going to do this. You’ve got to bring things down from within, basically, and they were trying to spark that, I think. The police were there, they were very militant, they were quick to attack as usual, and it ended in a very heated, volatile situation. But all in all, I think that we tried to get our message out to the troops and to Longshoremen as much as possible. The police were using teargas regularly and arresting people that had backpacks and things of this matter. They totally ripped up the Bill of Rights and such, at least in this one circumstance. I think it was very indicative of how police are nowadays, they’re willing to trample all over your rights in order to do whatever they want to do. That’s basically Tacoma PMR in a nutshell.

Has music played a part in your political development?

Jeff: Music has certainly served a major role in helping me form the ideas that I have today. It’s amazing I ever joined the Army in the first place, but it goes to show you that lyrics in a song or lyrics on paper, if you don’t really pay attention to the message you can happen to misconstrue or just miss it all together. I think that’s kind of what happened to me. Before I joined the army I was kind of just frustrated, a young, twenty year old adult male, who saw no way out of my dead end town. I never really considered the political aspects of being a soldier in the United States Army. But it was funny because for years before I joined the Army, I’d been listening to old school punk like the Subhumans and Dead Kennedys and Operation Ivy, all sorts of that shit. It wasn’t until after I got in the military and actually continued to listen to these words that I realized, wow, it’s amazing how prophetic a lot of these lyrics are and how they relate to me, this is while I was in the military. I was probably just another ignorant teenager listening to punk music but not really understanding the message too clearly. And I lived in a pretty narrow minded town in Colorado where it’s so secluded from reality at times it seems that thinking outside the box in terms of politics doesn’t come up in casual conversations like it does nowadays with my friends. I think the message in the music eluded me at times when I was younger. But looking back on it now, I can say that music has helped me form some of my radical ideas. Literature has played a bigger part in radicalizing my thoughts, but certainly music. And even today, I’m a political junkie and I like to listen to political music. It certainly plays a major role in helping young adults to form ideas about how reality is and how the world really works. Music’s a great vessel to convey these political ideas in and I can definitely attribute music to helping me form some of mine.

Thom: I think that music has definitely played a role. I have a very eccentric and eclectic music selection I guess, primarily independent and progressive-type music. I think it plays a role in breaking down the barriers of what’s normal, or what’s perceived as normal. You’re force-fed this crap from the music industry that’s horrible music for the most part, and part of opening your mind and thinking for yourself is finding music you actually like, and when you find out that the music you like isn’t what the music companies are trying to give you, it starts to make you question everything around you, and look around at the world around you and see what else is being forced upon you, see what else you’re being taught to like or told to like instead of actually choosing that you like it. The majority of people in America listen to crappy, overproduced record industry American music, and I think it’s very indicative of our culture that we don’t really search out to try to find what we feel is best, we just want to find what we feel is familiar, or other people will like us for liking this music.

So not just political music in general but any music that is not the mainstream helps you get into this mindset of, I will think for myself, I will choose the music that I feel to be beautiful because I find it to be beautiful for these reasons, not because I’m told that it’s cool or whatever. I feel like music and all arts are very, very vital in opening people’s minds, and breeding the counterculture, I guess, and hopefully making that counterculture the primary culture in this nation and in the world, you know, of free thought, and free speech, appreciating the beautiful things and the valuable things in life. I think things like music have such a profound effect. The effect is powerful and it doesn’t require argument or anger or things like this, you just make a beautiful song. And people start thinking, okay, this is a beautiful song, and what is this person signing about? And they start thinking about the lyrics. That leads to this counterculture, which I think is awesome.

-M