MAINSTREAM MEDIA BLACKOUT ON IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR TESTIMONY

A quick search through the mainstream media indicates the gathering of the new age Winter Soldiers, Iraq Veterans Against the War http://ivaw.org/index.php, which was launched on Thursday in Washington, D.C. with scores of Iraq war veterans testifying about the atrocities they saw while deployed to Iraq, has been swept under the rug by the media.

The mainstream media is much too interested in giving every sleazy detail of the call girl who was involved with former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer than to devote even one line of copy to the Iraq veterans who gave so much to the United States when they were in Iraq.

The Iraq war, and even the Iraq war veterans, are now just a distant memory in the eyes of the mainstream media.

Yesterday we posted a report from Pew Research Center indicating only 28 percent of Americans polled had any idea that nearly 4,000 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq. There is no other place to place the blame for the lack of interest on the war but on the doorstep of the mainstream media who have dumped the Iraq war and the Iraq war veterans from the pages of the newspapers and reports on network TV news shows and cable news.

Iraq Vets Will Detail U.S. Atrocities in Winter Soldier Hearings

By Editorial Staff, AlterNetPosted on March 11, 2008, Printed on March 13, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/79286/

This week, on March 13-16, a new generation of "Winter Soldiers" -- veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq -- will descend on the nation's capitol to tell America in their own words what they saw during their service in the "war on terror," the Bush administration's signature policy. They'll give a ground's eye perspective on the occupation's toll on the people of those countries and the costs to the military, and they'll tell stories of what it was really like in places like Fallujah and Ramadi -- places that are just names on a map to most of the people back home.

They'll be following large footsteps. In the early months of 1971, a group of Vietnam vets, organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), gave two days of testimony about the Vietnam that they had seen, up close and all-too-personally, in the original "Winter Soldier" investigation. While largely dismissed by the political establishment, their wrenching testimony redoubled the peace movement's efforts to end that war.

In his opening statement 37 years ago, William Crandell, a 26 year-old lieutenant who served in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division -- the division that committed the infamous My Lai Massacre -- told the hushed room, "The Winter Soldier Investigation is not a mock trial. There will be no phony indictments; there will be no verdict against Uncle Sam." He promised "straightforward testimony -- direct testimony -- about acts which are war crimes under international law. Acts which these men have seen and participated in. Acts which are the inexorable result of national policy."

And they did just that. Over two days, more than a 100 vets of the Vietnam conflict bore witness to the horrors that they had seen with their own eyes -- "the inexorable result of national policy." One panel examined the question, "What are we doing to Vietnam?" and another asked "What are we doing to ourselves?"

The media largely ignored the hearings. The East Coast papers, with the exception of a New York Times article a week after the event, refused to even cover them. The VVAW complained of an "official censorship blackout."

That was before the right had built its formidable echo chamber -- before Fox News, the Washington Times, the New York Sun and the emergence of the right-wing blogosphere, with its instinctive attacks on any who question the morality of the "war on terror." It's difficult to imagine the kind of character assassinations the soldiers who gather in Washington this week will face from the war's supporters, but it's likely that they're going to redefine courage and genuine patriotism in the face of withering criticism.

But the progressive community is also better prepared to push back against those attacks this time around. A robust alternative media, of which AlterNet is proud to play a role, will at least allow this new generation of Winter Soldiers to be heard.

You can get involved as well by supporting IVAW, by tuning in to the proceedings live via the internet, satellite TV and select Pacifica Radio stations, or you can organize an event to view the testimony with others in your community.

AlterNet will feature special coverage of the hearings.

Several members of the AlterNet team will be in Washington this weekend, and we'll bring you the sights and sounds and in-depth coverage that the commercial media won't.
http://www.alternet.org/story/79286/