Poetic Discourse
the Current Policitcal process and other writings
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As a Vietnam Veteran
Comments on the Iraq War
by John Peterson
As a former member of the US Armed Forces during the Vietnam War and as one who lived through the
terrible domestic struggles here at home as a result of that War I had to come to grips with the meaning of my
participation in an activity that took the lives of others both combatants and civilian. I remember as I drove
trucks loaded with napalm to Ton Son Nuet Air Base in Saigon, finally coming to the understanding that I was
as responsible for the consequences of that bomb as the pilots who dropped them. Later I followed that logic
back to all of those throughout the military who handled/transported/produced/designed/financed that bomb.
And finally to the American people who dug the raw material, financed the military, and supported the
government who created the War. This thinking held for napalm and all the implements of war down to the
simplest shoelaces, bed sheets, boxes of cereal and on and on and on. War is surely a communal activity that
involves all its members.
I remember asking myself difficult questions about how and when a person could take another’s life and not be
burdened with the murder of that person. I understood that a police officer in the protection of the community
was given the authority to take another’s life under the strictest of circumstances and still the personal
consequences would be grave. That authority does not come from the desire of the community for
preservation though it has that as a result, it does not come from the desires of one its members for personal
gain, that we recognize as corrupt. It comes from a deep moral and ethical consideration that we invest in
these officers to operate on the truth of a situation and only in the larger realm of protecting those who cannot
protect themselves. This is what police work is about, this is why we need officers who can act but only with
trained instincts and clear thinking, knowing that what they act on is grounded in a fair and true representation
of what is in fact the case. They are then absolved, in the community’s eyes, from the terrible responsibility of
taking another’s life. We hope they personally will be free from the consequences as well. Even if it becomes
clear that the death was not warranted, if they act on the best and most honest information at hand we, the
community, absolve them. Without these underlying truths the person and the community are in grave danger.
Police offices who deviate from these stricture bare a great burden; the taking of an innocent life leaves a
sever malady in the community and in the officer, not to mention the family of the victim. And the burden
becomes greater if the officer operates out of carelessness or from false information or worse still with
premeditation where the taking of a life becomes murder. It becomes most egregious when it comes from
policies reaching out from high office. All members of the community are responsible for that office and that
officer and the community bares the consequences for his/her action. There is a great moral vacuum created
when wrong is done in this way and it is not easily filled.
Members of the military in time of war are vested with these same imperatives but often in circumstances that
can be far more confusing and the outcome far more devastating. It is even more imperative that individuals
and leaders operate on the most lucid truth, insuring that truth is present at all levels and is conveyed in the
most open and honest way. The problem is that in the realm of power and politics lucid truth is often hard to
come by. We hear much on the need for transparency in the corridors of power. Openness, the willingness to
reveal the thinking that precedes a decision, seems to be a necessity but is mostly one of the spins that power
puts on decision-making. So much of the decision-making process stays under the banner of “Confidential”
for years. Much never comes out at all.
But military personnel for the most part are far from the decision making process, they rely on the “chain of
command” for the authority to encage in the most damaging of human activities, the taking of another’s life. If
that “chain of command” begins from a point of failed thinking or worse, deception, then military personnel act
without the absolute moral failsafe regarding the taking of innocent life.
Sometimes, as again in the Vietnam era, members of the community and members of the military, once they
find that the premises of their actions and the actions of their government are flawed and are based on
falsehood or worse outright deception, are propelled to another course of action by the need to redress this
failure. There was a time in the early 70s when the moral collapse in this country was eminent. Many chose to
make extraordinary scarifies to right what was becoming a spiral into a sinister realm. I knew some who fled
the country, some who went to jail, some who lost jobs, some whose futures were altered completely, some like
myself and John Kerry who spent time in the War and came back to actively protest the continuing “horror,”
and horror it was. Some went far and paid dearly; Jane Fonda’s courage during these times came back years
later and proved difficult for her. I knew a man who fled to the mountains to resist the draft and 25 years later
had still not fully reengaged with the community. Some chose to join the National Guard and should not be
condemned for this.
It took thousands and millions of people in many ways to stop what had taking us beyond the realm of the
acceptable. Have we entered this region again? It seems so. Those who could not and would not recognize
the fundamental message of that era have driven us relentlessly into the same predicament and it appears are
using the same failed thinking and overt deception. Worse still our leaders in Washington may have entered
the most egregious realm of all and may have implicated all of us in the murder of the innocent through
deception.
There is a strong, virtually unavoidable, sense that the U.S. Government’s attempt to show that Iraq still had
Weapons of Mass Destruction prior to the start of the Iraq War was fallacious. The generous view would be
that the error was due to lack of intelligence. That, as I said, would be the generous view.
Transcript: David Kay at Senate hearing
Wednesday, January 28, 2004, CNN.com
“Let me begin by saying, we were almost all wrong, and I certainly include myself here.”
The other view is that the deception was intentional and premeditated because for a variety of reasons the
Bush administration wanted to go to war and has continuously placed invention after invention out for public
consumption.
The Village Voice; By Cynthia Cotts - June 18, 2003
Reason To Deceive: WMD Lies Could Be The New Watergate
“In retrospect, the Bush administration's most publicized war stories have all been the products of smoke and
mirrors. Contrary to the initial hype, the Hussein "decapitation strike" turned up no bodies and no bunkers.
Chemical Ali walked out alive. Jessica Lynch was never shot, stabbed, or tortured by Iraqis. And despite all the
hot tips Ahmad Chalabi spoon-fed to New York Times reporter Judith Miller, the WMD search teams have not
found a single silver bullet or smoking gun. The war on Iraq is a Byzantine puzzle that begins and ends with a
lie. The media have an obligation to expose it.”
It does appear, no matter whether it is out of a lack of proper intelligence or out of pre-meditated deception,
that the Bush administration has exceeded both of the strictures against killing that hold those who are given
license to kill in our name to accountability.
Those strictures are: one, an individual or group must not operate out of carelessness or false intent and two,
policies reaching out from high office must operate on the most lucid truth, insuring that truth is present at all
levels and is conveyed in the most open and honest way.
The consequence for those carrying out the killing is extraordinary. Lt. Col Dave Grossman, Psychologist,
West Point Graduate and Military Veteran writes extensively on the consequences of learning to kill, its effect
on human physiology and the human psyche. “Indeed, from a psychological perspective, the history of warfare
can be viewed as a series of successively more effective tactical and mechanical mechanisms to enable or
force combatants to overcome their resistance to killing.”
“Any organization that sends individuals in harms way, and especially any organization that calls upon humans
to participate in the psychologically toxic realm of interpersonal aggression (which is, perhaps, the “universal
human phobia”), and does not subsequently conduct a critical incident debriefing is morally, medically, and
legally negligent.”
“Furthermore, there must be an environment wherein there are no “secrets” to be kept, since the perpetrators
may well be “only as sick as their secrets.” That means, to the utmost of our ability, we create an environment
of transparency and accountability in which no atrocities or criminal acts can occur, since these are the
ultimate “secrets” which often cannot be confessed and must be kept at all costs.”
“This means that atrocities, the intentional killing of civilians and prisoners, must be systematically rooted out
from our way of war, for the price of these acts is far, far too high to let them be tolerated even to the slightest,
smallest degree. This means that we enter into an era of transparency and accountability in all aspects of our
law enforcement, peacekeeping, and combat operations. This also says something about those who are called
upon by their society to “go in harm’s way,” to use deadly force, and to contend with interpersonal human
aggression. These individuals require psychological support just as surely as they require logistical,
communications and medical support.”
“Psychological Enabling Factors: The processes that can be manipulated as a weapon to psychologically
enable a human, or a group of humans, to kill. These can be broken down into posturing, mobility, distance,
leaders, groups, and conditioning.”
(The Killology Research Group, The Psychological Consequences of Killing: Perpetration-Induced Traumatic
Stress, www.killology.com)
But as the history of Vietnam squarely tells us, as the revelations of the lies and deceptions of the Johnson
and Nixon administrations unfolded, the soldiers, those most vulnerable, where left in the most precarious of
positions, many did not recover. And now the Iraq War combat soldiers and we, those who make the war
possible, are deeply into that phase of the war where the dangers are the greatest, where the psychological
support is collapsing, where leadership has broken down. Grossman here can surely be seen illuminating the
recent revelations of prisoner abuse and deaths. We have indeed already entered that most dangerous realm
During the years following my Vietnam tour I survived because of those around me, the lovers, fellow veterans,
the friends that held me up in those moments of deep psychological collapse that came often in the middle of
the night for no apparent reason.
Years earlier watching a senseless war movie
tears flood me like the afternoon monsoon
I call Rich and sit in the basement
drink a six-pack, he holds our circle
'til the steel bands loosen
What then should be the consequences for the current leadership that has brought this calamity on us?
Shortly after 911 I wrote in my journal that we should not be hasty in our evaluation of what has happened and
what should be done. But now, with the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the war on “terrorist” (that
descriptor without content), the revelations have become clear and we must stop what is happening in the
name of those who died on 911.
]
If the Iraq War is the result of faulty intelligence this administration must be replaced as inept. If it is the result
of deception before the American people, this administration must surely be removed from office. Rumsfeld,
Powell, Chaney, Bush removed from office. Impeached if necessary, and there are those who have a case for
their prosecution for the crime of murder. It can be construed as murder with premeditation against the Iraqi
people, against the Hussein family, and ultimately against the American people and those who died as a result
the deception. We had better turn the corner now or the future will just get worse and worse.
Bush contends that even if Weapons of Mass Destruction are not found it is better that Saddam Hussein is out
of power. Once again Bush has breached the rule of law. From:
American Society of International Law Insights
Pre-emptive Action to Forestall Terrorism
By Frederic L. Kirgis
June 2002, www.asil.org
“There are also questions relating to tactics. If the United States were to attempt to remove a foreign head of
state from office (leaving aside what it might do during an actual war), the analysis would differ depending on
the method used. If it were done by supporting opposition groups within the foreign country who are seeking
to remove the leader by the use of force, what the World Court said in the 1986 case of Nicaragua v. United
States would be relevant:
The Court therefore finds that no such general right of intervention, in support of an opposition within another
State, exists in contemporary international law. The Court concludes that acts constituting a breach of the
customary principle of non-intervention will also, if they directly or indirectly involve the use of force, constitute
a breach of the principle of non-use of force in international relations.3
The Court decided in that case that the United States, by supporting and aiding the “Contras” in their attempt
to overthrow the Nicaraguan government, had breached its obligation under customary international law not to
intervene in the affairs of another State.”
A direct assassination attempt by the government of one state against a head of another state would be even
more problematical. For example, earlier this year the World Court enunciated a rule protecting the
inviolability of a top government official “against any act of authority of another State which would hinder him or
her in the performance of his or her duties,” even if the official is suspected of having committed war crimes or
crimes against humanity.” (my bold type)
So, the rational for the legitimacy of the Iraq War has no basis in the very institutions that we look to for
guidance in international affairs. We know the United States has a long and horrendous history of intervention
in other countries, Nicaragua of course, Chile and the assassination of Salvador Allende, Cuba, Guatemala, El
Salvador, Greece after WWII, Indonesia, the Philippines, Venezuela and Haiti today; the list is as long as you
wish to make it. The resolution to that history is a long and complicated affair but musts start here, with the
end to this deception.
I was in Nicaragua in 1990 as an election observer and experienced once again the devastation this country
brings on a people through the relentless disruption of their social and political life, in the past the imposition of
dictators now the imposition of political choices that come through economic coercion and at the end of a gun.
Still the people survive and some day they will find there own freedom and make choices out of the deepest
places of their heart. This is true of Nicaragua and true of so many other countries in the world. And it is true
of Iraq today and yes, this country as well.
Voice
-for Brandon
I look to Nicaragua and see the poet
Ernesto Cardenal
Rigoberto Lopez Perez
he is a poet
I am a poet
Dark soil, canopy of dark, dark green
I know now the protection of the word
Why the Nicaraguan's sing
Why the poets speak the word
wrap the people in a cover
of words to hold
the dead
who died by Somoza who
died
by the Contra's bullets again
House with Mayan rooms,
room of the Catholic, Indian, African--
women who speak the Caribbean lilt--
Spanish walls and the gold
House of Sandino, communista,
Ché, Fidel, Fonséca--revolucionario
who loves the people and gives blood
in the life of sisters and brothers
I know why the people sing,
cover the children in a love song of words
Poetry is not only a literary discipline
It is myriad pulsing
in the night time of lovers
A mother's breath sound
in her child's heart
Rhythm of nerves
dancing in space
The word before there was voice
to transmit the word
Truth talking to truth
glowing bodies in the gold light of morning
Poetry is the earth covering her own
in a green and gold mantle of love