Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Iraq Winter Soldier Hearings: Victory for Independent Media

In 1971 at age 19, I had a life-changing experience when I met dozens of Vietnam veterans who’d descended on my hometown of Detroit to testify at the “Winter Soldier” hearings organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In anguished presentations, the Vets painstakingly described the horrors against Vietnamese they’d seen or taken part in. And the attitudes of racism and bloodlust that motored the war. Many vets blamed the lies in mainstream media for convincing them to go to Vietnam in the first place.

Virtually every soul in that Detroit hotel banquet hall wept openly at the heartfelt, bone-chilling revelations pouring out of the Vietnam vets struggling with bloody memories and post-traumatic stress. But no one outside that hall could see or hear the proceedings. No TV or radio networks covered the event.

This weekend at the National Labor College near Washington D.C., a new generation of vets convened by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) presented powerful hearings - “Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan” - that were more extensive and perhaps even more emotional.

Thirty seven years later, I again found myself sobbing at testimony from solemn young Americans returned from needless war, grappling with shattered lives over brutalities against civilians and prisoners they’d witnessed or participated in.

But I was nowhere near D.C.

This time, I watched the dramatic testimony - often buttressed by photographic and video evidence — live online at www.IVAW.org.

Read the rest of this article by Jeff Cohen

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