Spirit in Action
Voices for Peace 2008, Part 3 - Speak for Peace, Raed Jarrar & Eugene Cherry
[music] Let us sing this song for the healing of the world That we may hear as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along And our lives will feel the echo of our healing [music] Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpes Me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. [music] Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world That we may dream as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along Today for Spirit in Action, we'll be catching the last speakers from the main stage at Eau Claire's Voices for Peace 2008 event. This was back on September 14th, and you've already heard several other speakers in parts one and two. If not, go to northernspiritradio.org Listen to these fine speakers and leave us some comments while you're visiting the site. Last time, we ended with the representative of the Speak for Peace tour sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, and I will be visiting with Eugene Cherry again one on one later on in this program. But right now, we're going to listen to Rod Girard, also with the Speak for Peace tour. Rod is Iraqi-born, came to the U.S. few years ago, and speaks out eloquently on the issues surrounding the Iraq War. Let's listen now to Rod Girard's speech at Voices for Peace 2008. And afterwards, I'll speak with both, Riot and Eugene. Thank you, everyone. Thanks, Eugene, for your presentation. We started this tour a few months ago, actually. This is the third or fourth phase of it. And the major reason that the American Friends Service Committee decided to pair an Iraqi civilian voice with a U.S. veteran voice is that these are the two groups that are usually used by the media and the administration to justify the war. The U.S. government and the mainstream media usually say, "If you support the troops, you have to support the war." And they usually say, "If you want to support or liberate Iraqis, you have to support the war." Now, the problem is that we never hear from either. We never hear from U.S. veterans, and we never hear from Iraqis. And the important fact is that almost three-fourth of both Iraqis and U.S. veterans, or even active duty troops in Iraq, are against this war, and they want to end it. So it's such an irony that the two constituencies that more than three-fourth of them are against the war, are being used to justify it, and to manipulate public opinion. In the last years, since the U.S. involvement in Iraq started since the early '90s, there have been two different stories told in the two different countries. The mainstream media in the U.S. and the mainstream understanding in the U.S. toward the Iraq war and occupation mean, and why are they happening, and why should they continue? It's one story, and on the other hand, what do the Iraqis think about that? What do Iraqis think about their country, their present, their past, and their future? Now, in the U.S., we never get to hear what Iraqis are thinking about, or what do they want, or what do they envision as a future of their country. Where we stand now, there is one major issue that is being debated in both the U.S. and Iraq, but the discussion is actually very different. The issue, as most of you know, is the issue of the long-term U.S. presence in Iraq. There is a pending agreement between the Bush administration and the Amaliki administration in Iraq. They're trying to sign a long-term agreement to keep the U.S. military on the long run or legitimize the U.S. presence in Iraq. Now, the discussion that is happening in Iraq, it's a huge national debate about whether the U.S. must withdraw completely without leaving any permanent bases or mercenaries or troops, or whether the U.S. must stay in permanent bases. Now, in the Iraqi side, there is an overwhelming majority of Iraqis who want the U.S. to leave completely, without leaving any permanent bases or troops or mercenaries, without leaving a 5,000 employees embassy as well. You know, the U.S. is building the biggest embassy in the world, the biggest embassy in the history of the world, so as big as the Vatican, and it will leave 5,000 U.S. employees in Iraq. Iraqis don't think that this is really an embassy that will build bridges with them, rather they believe that this is a shadow government that will be running Iraq on their behalf. The overwhelming majority of Iraqis in the public, 3/4 or more, are for a complete U.S. withdrawal. And by a complete U.S. withdrawal, they mean that everyone must leave. No bases, no other ways of occupation, no economic intervention, no associate intervention. Just leave Iraq alone completely, hand it over to Iraqis, and let them enjoy their national sovereignty and independence. There aren't many discussions about how long the time of the timetable should last. I think the general understanding from the Iraqi point of view is that it's more important to set that timetable or announce the U.S. intention for a complete withdrawal, but then whether the timetable is three days or three months or three years, that's something to be negotiated between both sides. Now, let's look at what's the debate in the U.S. side. It's very different. In the U.S., we have the two major parties, the two ruling parties in Washington, D.C., Republicans and Democrats. Both want to keep long-term bases in Iraq. They both want to continue the occupation indefinitely, but now they're just discussing how many troops should be left in Iraq, what's the troop level, what's the troop task, what should we call them, should we call them the peace and love occupation, or should we call them the humanitarian task force or whatever? Generally, that's not shocking for non-U.S. audience, that the two major parties in the U.S., the two ruling parties, actually don't have differences when it comes to their foreign policy. The Republican and Democratic foreign policies are usually very similar. Now, in the case of Iraq, it's actually more identical than similar, in the sense that both parties, Democrats and Republicans, and both parties, presidential nominees, Obama and McCain, are both for leaving permanent bases in Iraq, what they call residual force, for three exceptions, protecting the U.S. embassy, training Iraqi forces, which is the most sectarian forces that are viewed by Iraqis as militias supported by the occupation. And the third reason is counterterrorism attacks, whatever that means. Now, these three exceptions might leave up to 75,000 troops, according to military experts. So, what's speaking about the plan of the two parties in D.C., is to change troop level from 150,000 now to 75,000, and to tell you the truth, I don't think that Iraqis will wake up one day and say, now that we have half an occupation, let's have violence and half resistance. This will not happen, because they will still view their country as falling under a foreign occupation. This Iraqi overwhelming demand for a complete withdrawal of the U.S. is based on Iraqi's belief that what's happening now in Iraq is not a sectarian civil war or a religious civil war, like the U.S. media and politicians like to say. Iraqis don't believe that. Iraqis don't believe that what's happening in Iraq is a war between crazy Muslims who have been killing each others for 1400 years, because they just like to blow themselves up, because they have a different DNA. They don't believe these things. In fact, in the Iraqi major discussions, people believe that what's happening now is a foreign occupation that is illegal and unwanted, and this foreign occupation has been taking the side of some Iraqis against other Iraqis, taking the side of some Sunnis and some Shiites and some Kurds and some Christians and some seculars against the side of other Sunnis and other Kurds and other Shiites and other Christians and other seculars. So from the Iraqi point of view, what's happening is not a sectarian or religious war built on ancient hatred, but what's happening is apolitical and economic conflict that the U.S. occupation is actually participating in. Iraq is nothing that the U.S. is a peacekeeping force or a convener of reconciliation or anything. They think of them as a foreign occupation that is taking the side of the minority of Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds who are allied with this occupation, who came on the tanks of this occupation against the majority of Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds and seculars and Christians who are against the occupation and who tend to be more nationalist against partitioning Iraq and against privatizing its wealth and natural resources. So what do the Iraqis want? The short answer to that question is that they want to get their country back. Not just because they are Iraqis, but because they are humans. It's not an Iraqi nature that people don't like to be occupied. We don't really need to go ask Iraqis, do you like to be tortured? Do you like to have your house bombed? I mean, these are universal things, right? And same is occupation. There is no nation that likes to be occupied or to fall under a foreign occupation. Now in the case of Iraq, Iraq even has more specificities that as a country, since Baghdad became the capital of Iraq 13 centuries ago, 1246 years ago, Baghdad became the capital of Iraq. Since that time, Baghdad was either attacked or occupied 20 times, 20 times and 13 centuries. In fact, the last occupation, my grandfather was alive and his dad was alive. We still remember that British occupation that happened in 1917. So in the Iraqi collective memory, people know that their country falls under foreign occupations, and people know that these foreign occupations always end because there is no way to win an occupation. Occupations can't be won. Every single one of the former 20 occupations ended because Iraqis did not stop resisting against them in political and non-political means. And I don't believe that Iraqis will stop resisting against their 21st occupiers, the U.S. and Britain and others, until they leave Iraq completely. Now, when we understand this, I think, especially at this political moment in the U.S., where we're expecting elections in a few months, in a couple of months, it's very important to understand that these are very important months to work in, very important months to push the presidential candidates to have a better policy towards Iraq. And to realize that we don't really have different options when it comes to the two plans submitted by the major two presidential candidates. So I think these are the very important months to say we need, we deserve to have a choice to get out of Iraq, and we need a plan not to reduce the number of troops, not to keep some troops to protect Iraqis from their neighbors, not to keep some troops to build some bridges in Iraq. Iraqis don't need any of these things. The best way to help Iraqis is not to help them build bridges or electricity plans. They know how to do this. The best way to help them is to give them their country back, a complete withdrawal that leaves no permanent bases, no troops, and no mercenaries. It's the only way, and it's the first step towards stabilizing Iraq and ending violence. So I hope this will be clear. (Applause) I hope this will be clear to all of us, because sometimes I feel even people who have been against the war for years still fall in the propaganda of humanitarian intervention. Maybe we should go there and save those savage people from their neighbors. Well, they don't need that, you know? I mean, I personally have Sunni and have Shiite. One of my parents is a Sunni and the other is Shiite. And I assure you that Sunnis and Shiites don't need someone to come 10,000 miles away who doesn't speak their language, who's not from their religion, to protect them from each other. They know how to take care of themselves, you know? (Applause) Well, my parents sometimes need troops to protect them from each other. I hope that if there is one takeaway point of what I've said today, it will be that the first step towards our responsibilities as you as taxpayers, the first step is to push towards a complete withdrawal. That will not be the last step. After that, we have a lot of steps as Iraqis and Americans to reach out to each other, work on an American Iraqi reconciliation to fix what happened in the last years. But I don't think we should lose the focus on the vision that the first step is ending this illegal occupation. Thank you very much. (Applause) Thanks so much to Riot, Eugene and Jessica. I want to close this speaking portion of what we're doing by a prayer from Sister Judy, from St. James. Judy is a member of School Sisters of Notre Dame. Those of us who've been here since one o'clock have been experiencing a variety of ways that we listen, that we learn, that we observe in regard to how we look at peace, how we are promoters of peace. So I'd like to just take maybe about 30 seconds and just kind of reflect on maybe something that especially has touched you this afternoon, music or sound, and just kind of be with it. (Pause) In whatever way that you touch in with a great power, or whoever you see as being the power center of your own being or life, just ask that we all be in touch more with the depths of our own spirit and how true it is that we will not be promoters of peace but we do not grow at peace within ourselves and as we listen, as we observe, as we groove about in this world, help us to really be in tune with how we are more alike than different, how we are called to promote unity and just as we have very diverse creation all around us and let it live in harmony, help us to be promoters of that, and let us be makers and promoters of inner peace. Amen. That was Sister Judy Wagner of St. James the Greater Catholic Church here in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the final main stage speaker at Voices for Peace in 2008. Check VoicesForPeaceInstitute.org for more about that event and group. I'm Mark Helpsmeet, this is Spirit in Action, and please remember to visit northernspiritradio.org to hear all of our programs. Maybe subscribe to our iTunes podcast and post us a comment. We love to hear from you. The Speak for Peace tour members had to depart immediately at the end of festivities on September 14th, so I caught up with both Riot Girard and Eugene Cherry later by phone with some follow-up questions. First, let's go to the phone with Riot back home in Washington, D.C. Thank you so much, Riot, for joining me for Spirit in Action. Thank you for having me. You're back in Washington, D.C. now at your desk there. How long have you been working with the AFSC? I've been working with the American Friends Service Committee for a few years now, maybe four or five years, even before I moved to the U.S. but I've been on their payroll for the last maybe year and a half or two years because my initial work was more voluntary. How was it that you connected up with them and what was it? Obviously there was some kind of confluence of your interests and abilities that came together. How did this develop? Actually, it's a funny story because my next door neighbors in Baghdad were the representatives of the American Friends Service Committee in Iraq and they just happened to be my next door for neighbors in the building that we lived in. And that's why I knew about the American Friends Service Committee. Then they introduced me to one of the projects of AFSC, which is eyes wide open as the project of trying to bring to our memories the numbers of Iraqis and Americans who were killed during the war. And at that time, I used to work on collecting Iraqi civilians, casualist names in Iraq, and they were interested to include some Iraqi names in their project. That was the moment where we started actually working together to coordinate and I gave them the names of the thousands of Iraqis who were killed and injured during the initial invasion, first maybe 100 days of the invasion of 2003. And I continued having a relationship with them on other projects. So when I moved to the United States in 2005, it just seemed very natural to continue coordinating and collaborating with AFSC. You're an architecture student, or maybe you have a degree in that. How did you get into this other side, the activism side? Well, my master's degree is in post-war reconstruction. It actually mixes architecture and my background in architecture to a lot of civil society and anthropology work. I mean, I did a lot of work on the ground in Iraq doing reconstruction with the help of grassroots organizations or local residents of areas. And I was always interested to do this type of work. What linked me to the work of AFSC wasn't actually a choice of mine. I didn't wake up one morning and decided to stop working as an architect and start doing more humanitarian or political work. What pushed me to do this work was the fact that my own neighborhood was bombed and my own country was invaded and occupied. And my own people were killed and injured and tortured and displaced. So it wasn't a decision that I had in the moment of privilege. It was a decision that I had to do. When I moved to the U.S., I felt it even more my personal responsibility to continue doing this type of work rather than moving on and doing architectural work because there aren't many people who were born in Iraq or spent most of their life in Iraq who had the chance to come to the United States and convey the message that the majority of Iraqis believe in, which is we want our country back and we want to end this occupation. So that's why I'm doing this type of work rather than my real career architecture. And I hope that once the U.S. leaves Iraq alone and Iraq gets its independence that I will go back to working as an architect. I guess we could say that you're doing the same work. In one case, you're building buildings and this way you're helping rebuild a nation. I was wondering, a lot of people, I'm sure, Iraqis live in the U.S. now and they still haven't found your calling. Is there some spiritual or religious or deep ethical basis that made you, Uriah, step forward to do this work as opposed to your other country men and women who are here? Well, I don't want to come across as self-righteous or bash others who are not doing this type of work. I'm sure many people have their priorities. I mean, I do respect parents who are working hard to raise their children or to keep their family together and alive. And I'm sure many people maybe don't have the linguistic capacity or capability to speak to English-speaking audience or whatever. I am, on the other hand, disappointed to see the lack of number of participation in public life by Iraqis or Arabs or Muslims in general. When it comes to the issue of Iraq, one of the examples that I always give is about working in Washington, D.C. There aren't a lot of voices around for Iraqis or Arabs or Muslims or people who are linked to the region, who are doing work in Washington, D.C. to end the occupation. Very few number of them. So it is a problem, I think. Maybe a part of it is the huge pressure put by these communities, by the U.S. government. They are discriminated against and they are threatened and they feel scared that maybe if they spoke out and wanted to oppose the unjust foreign policy, that they will be jeopardized and their personal safety, they will be attacked personally. So, I mean, there isn't a safe space for them to express their true views in the U.S. And so, I mean, I think it's a combination of all of these things that we don't see many people in the U.S. conveying the messages from the Iraqi public at the same time that in Iraq, it's a huge, a huge opposition. We're speaking about massive overwhelming majority of the public who demonstrate sign on petitions and go on strikes and they are expressing their anger from this current occupation. They want this occupation to end completely and they want to get their country back. So there's a big gap between the Iraqi community in Iraq and the Iraq community here in the U.S. unfortunately. I believe you must be Muslim. I think that's what I took from what you were saying. You're working with AFSC, which, I mean, it's certainly Quaker founded. So you're working with AFSC. Is it a comfortable fit and does that give you some protection? A number of the other people might be speaking up unless you have someone close to you who can vouch for your integrity. Maybe the U.S. government can more heedlessly go after them. AFSC does give me a space that I feel safe in it. I work with the other hundreds of employees in AFSC who more or less share the same values and the organization itself is ready to defend its beliefs. We're speaking about the 91-year-old organization that has historically taken very strong stance against unjust policies inside and outside the U.S. and in the case of Iraq, it's one of the very few organizations that opposed sanctions at the time that opposing sanctions was illegal. AFSC actually broke the law and they feel very proud that AFSC did break the inhumane laws to kill Iraqis and starve them to death. And until now, there are so many strong stance by the organization that makes me feel like I'm not alone and I'm shielded and supported by many of my colleagues. Now, I don't see the differences in religious background as an issue in being an AFSC. Actually, there are a lot of other Muslims and non-quakers in the organization who work together. I've never felt that was an issue that separates us from each other or unites us. I think what unites us more is our belief in common values and our belief in common goals that we all work towards. But I don't think many people view themselves or others as different based on their religion. I'm personally not religious. Sometimes I call myself a secular Muslim. I mean, I come from a Muslim background which I belong to and I can't forget or betray my Muslim connections. This is who I am. But I'm not the religious in the sense that I'm not a practicing Muslim and I'm secular in the sense of linking religious to my personal life or behavior. But we have other Muslims in the organization who are actually more religious or practicing religious Muslims who I've never felt that they had any problems in their work or I haven't felt that was an issue against them or for them. You know, I want to ask you, follow up on a couple of things that you said while you were here in Eau Claire and the ramifications that they have. You seem very clear that having the U.S. pull out at this point from Iraq would be a good thing for the country. And some people here have clearly defended saying, well, if we pull out then there's going to be more strife in the country and more damage in that our presence there is helping stabilize even as we're pulling out. Clearly, you don't share that idea. It struck me that you have a lot more to win or lose based on what the U.S. does. It's your family. It's your friends. It's the people you grew up with whose lives hang in the balance. So just to repeat, you feel very clear that that would be the best thing at the present time for your people, the people that you've known your life. Yeah, I think that a U.S. complete with trouble that leaves no permanent basis. It's not only the best solution. It's actually the only solution to make Iraq a stable country. And it's a first step towards that. So there are many other things that must happen. And many other buildings that must be rebuilt and many other social problems that must be addressed by Iraqis. And Iraqis know how to do this by themselves the same way that they've done it for hundreds of, if not thousands of years. So I personally believe in Iraqis capability and right to self-rule Iraq and to determine their future by themselves and deal with their issues and problems inside the country by themselves. Now, this is not to say that the U.S. doesn't have responsibility to help Iraqis help themselves or rebuild the country. But I think this is the issue that is very important to add to fear because we're talking about a U.S. constituency that wants to continue the occupation, not out of hatred or based on them wanting to kill more Iraqis, but out of a feeling of guilt and responsibility. And that's why I think it's very important to understand that this feeling of responsibility is appreciated, it's really good and important. But we cannot fix what a military occupation has done through continuing a military occupation. There are other venues to deal with this responsibility. And these venues start by giving Iraq back to Iraqis and ending the occupation completely. And then we can talk about reconstruction and reconciliation and reaching out to Iraqis to build bridges and whatever other peace and justice ideas that many people have. We can't talk about them now in a very efficient way because Iraq is occupied. We can't talk about helping one of our neighbors cook and clean their house while we're occupying their bedroom or their house and destroying it. First, we have to withdraw, give them their house, and then we can talk about how to build a good neighborhood or how good relationships between us. You mentioned when you were here that the U.S. is building, I think, the largest embassy that the U.S. has anywhere in building it in Iraq, which is a clear sign. I haven't seen any press on that here in the United States, and I've also heard about, I guess, via Internet and who knows how valid that is, that we're building very large permanent bases there. Where's the documentary evidence that Americans can go to and see that this is true and say, "Oh, that does change our opinion about what we're really doing there?" Well, ASSE has just posted on our website the only available English translation of the leaked draft of the U.S.-Iraqi agreement. The Bush administration is trying to sign an agreement with the Maliki government in Iraq. A draft of this agreement leaked to the press, and I actually personally translated it, and we put it on our website. The agreement states very clearly that the U.S. is planning to leave permanent bases indefinitely in Iraq with U.S. troops in them and U.S. contractors indefinitely, open-ended in Iraq. I think what they are looking to do is very similar to the bases in South Korea or Germany or Japan or whatever, and this issue is very, very rejected by the majority of Iraqis, and it will continue to raise violence in Iraq and cause more conflict and destruction, because Iraqis want their country back completely. They are against having any foreign bases or any foreign occupation or any foreign intervention. So this issue can, if you listeners were interested in more details, they can check our website AFSC.org, and it's on the front page now. You can read the full document. And now what the embassy, the embassy has already been built. It's the biggest embassy, not for the U.S. alone. It's the biggest embassy in history, in the history of humankind. It's as big as the Vatican. It has, I think, 5,000 employees. It doesn't have any link with Iraq. So, for example, the water and electricity and sewage and foreign services and mail and any... All of these things are generated inside this little America that is completely disconnected from the rest of the country. Now, the problem with it is that if it was an embassy, I don't think many people will say no to it, me personally. I love embassies, and I love the promatic relationships and building bridges between different nations and nation states. This is one of the things that I think is not just important. It's essential for us to live as humans on this one planet. But now the U.S. embassy in Baghdad is not built to enhance the relationship with Iraqis or to build bridges with the Iraqis. It's built with an intention to run the country instead of the Iraqis. And this is something that is rejected widely. That's why I was saying that Iraqis are not only against a foreign military occupation, but they are against foreign intervention in general, whether it's military in the case of armies and tanks going around neighborhoods or private contractors driving their cars and shooting civilians around Iraqi cities and towns, or whether it's a political or economic or other types of intervention like this embassy. That's why I think it's a huge disaster. It's more permanent base for political intervention than an embassy built to communicate or to rebuild bridges with Iraq. If, after removing Saddam Hussein from power, if the U.S. had left money, left support, but removed itself, would that have been a happy ending? How could we have effectively helped? I'm kind of assuming that people in Iraq were happy to see Saddam Hussein removed from power. Well, yes and no. Iraqis, including myself, were not happy that Saddam is in power, but they were not happy that a foreign country will come and interfere in Iraq and change him either. Iraq had a lot of revolutions and regime changes in the last century. I mean, of course, in its life, but just to give you an example, in the last century alone, there were more than eight political revolutions and regime changes that happened in Iraq. And all of them happened by Iraqis. Iraqis revolted against a government or a dictator or a corrupt leader, and they changed them, and they brought someone else. Now, in these other events when Iraqis changed their political regime, the country was not destroyed, you know, the education and health care and security and social security and food and all of the infrastructure. These things were not destroyed because it was done by Iraqis. They changed the head of the political regime without destroying the rest of their state and the rest of their government. Now, when the U.S. invaded Iraq, the U.S. didn't just destroy the political regime. It destroyed all of Iraq, destroyed all of the Iraqi government, destroyed all of Iraq as peoples and as the country and as infrastructure. The U.S. has no right and no capacity to go around the world changing regimes. This is against international law and it's against the concept of nation, state and sovereignty that people must self-rule themselves and change their regimes by themselves. The best way the U.S. could have helped Iraqis is not to interfere in their issues to start with, not to interfere with their issues to support their government and pressing them during the 70s and 80s or to support other people to go to war in Iraq or to invade Iraq and destroy the country. I think the best way to help Iraq or other nations around the world is to leave them alone. You know, people don't need to be rescued and people don't need to be civilized or anything by the U.S. They know how to do these things by themselves. So Iraq would have been better off without a U.S. intervention to start with and Iraq will be better off once the U.S. intervention ends. Once Iraqis are put to rule their country by themselves. They will have their problems, they will have their good things and bad things. It's none of the business of the U.S. What happens inside Iraq because that's not a part of the United States. It's another country. Well, I really appreciate so much you're taking time to come to Eau Claire and further time to speak with me now. Keep up your wonderful ministry of truth and connection with the people in the United States and with the people in Iraq. Thank you so much. Thanks a lot for having me. That was Rod Girard of the American Friends Service Committee. Speak for Peace Tour. Joining us from Washington, D.C. Check out more info on their work on AFSC.org. Rod spoke in Eau Claire back on September 14th. Listen to all the main stage events from that day on my northern spirit radio.org website. As did his tour compatriot Eugene Cherry. Eugene served in the U.S. military in Iraq back in 2004 and 2005, but has since become a member of Iraqi Veterans Against the War. I spoke to him by phone at his home in Chicago. Eugene, it was really nice to see you and why talking yesterday at the Speak for Peace event here in Eau Claire. You live in Chicago, don't you? Yes, I do. I think that when you went into the military about six years ago, so I suppose you're about 1918, had you lived elsewhere then in Chicago at that point? No, I have not. I was born and raised in Chicago and I was actually 19 when I joined. You mentioned yesterday as you were speaking that the reason you went in was not because it was the year after 9-1-1 happened. It wasn't for those kind of reasons. What were the reasons and what's your sense of the reasons why other people had joined the military? For me, at the time that I joined, I was a college student. My long-term goal was to eventually go to medical school. I wanted to find the money to go to medical school. I'm not a rich person and I come from a middle-class family. Going to school is always one of those worries that you have when you're coming from humble means. The military crew having found me was sort of the answer that I needed at that time to fund my way to medical school. In terms as to how other service members joined the military, I would say that a majority, if not an overwhelming majority of service members joined the military because of social economic reasons because many are coming from rural, small-town America and urban America, especially in big cities like one from Chicago, there are many neighborhoods that are very economically depressed. Those are the ones that are most susceptible to going into the military because of those social economic reasons because many are looking for a way out of the poverty trap. You said you were a medic while you were in. Did this get you along on your path towards a doctor ship which you were headed for? I say yes and no. I say yes because it does give me that experience that I would need to understand what the medical profession is like, especially in the medical field as a doctor. I did get that experience working in clinics, working in hospitals, treating wounded, treating casualties. I have that experience yes, but in terms of actually making the necessary steps in terms of in the context of going to school while in the military, no, and I'm going to give you an example as to when I first enlisted in the military. My first unit I took classes, they allowed me to take classes, but when I was transferred to the unit I went to Iraq with, they actually denied me the ability to attend college level classes while I was in the unit because of training issues because of issues that they had with me going to school during what they believed to be so-called training times. So in a sense what I gained on the technical side, I kind of lost on the school side of it. How did you get connected up with the American Friends Service Committee and it's under their sponsorship that you're doing this Speak for Peace tour? What was your connection? How did you get connected with them? Actually, it's because of another veteran, she is a friend of mine, she lives in Chicago as well, and she's in the National Guard, what she was in the National Guard, excuse me. But when I returned from Act of Duty July of last year, her and I are actually in the same chapter of a local veterans organization in Chicago. It's called "IRAC Veterans Against the War," but she works for FSC and she had told the FSC of who I was and of my story and such like that. And so I actually started out doing a little bit of volunteer work with FSC helping now with their initiative that they were doing in the Chicago public schools, trying to get the word out about the opt-out forms for high school students so that opt-out form would allow students to give out students' personal information to the military recruiters. And so FSC was trying to push that initiative through the Chicago public school system to get it actually put into the school's policy so that parents can actually know about it and make an informed choice or whether they want their child's personal information being given out. So I worked with them on this initiative for about a couple months, and they were actually pretty successful in getting it passed and also getting a small victory in changing other Chicago public school policy about recruiter access to students. You mentioned yesterday as you spoke that they gave your service over to KBR to work for a period, and I think you felt like that was unjust. Maybe it's helping line their pockets. I'm not sure what. You do have a strong objection to that though, right? Oh, that's probably one of my biggest objections in the military. Because I was a medic and also because I was in this medical unit, you know, this is what I was trying to do. I was trained to help people. I was trained to save lives. I wasn't trained to go out there and go beast from personal pawns for some government contracting company. This is what they hire civilians and pay them tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to do. Not service members. We get paid like one-fourth of what the average contractor gets paid from this organization. And this is one of the biggest problems that I have is that I feel because of how I felt that we were sort of like these bodies, these numbers and such like that we were treated as a spendable, personal, expendable materials. I just kind of feel like it was just passed off and passed around, and I don't like to feel like I'm someone's personal property that belongs to the government or belongs to some corporate interest. What is your sense of the rank and file, I guess, of our army over there? Were they supportive of the mission in Iraq? Were they not? What's your sense of how supportive our enlisted personnel are of the mission there? I think that what happens in the military is that service members are forced, especially in the active duty military and when you're deployed into a combat zone. Members are forced into sort of this, what I like to call political silence and just silence in general about whatever their personal views and ideology may be. And so you're not getting the facts and the story directly from veterans' mouths. And I think that veterans get forced into this whole political silence and sort of having to take this like a political type role in the military because at least from what I understand that they say that they do it because they don't have to lower morale. The only thing that I see is that it makes good propaganda to strengthen the case for why the military is in Iraq and fighting the war or whatever war it is at the time. Does that mean that when you were there, folks couldn't talk openly with one another, you couldn't talk with other folks there, other enlisted soldiers? No, we would talk about each other, but so many users in Iraq have embedded journalists with them. And what you see is that before we even got to Iraq, they gave us what my unit called media cards. And it was just like a little standard business card itself. They had questions that the media can ask you and how you answer each and every one of those questions. And you can only answer the three questions that they gave you on this card. And you couldn't say no more. And it tells you exactly how your answer should be. And any other questions after that, you cannot answer. So do you have a sense over all of how the percentages might have been back in maybe 2005 when you were there? How many people were supportive of being in Iraq? How many people wanted us to get out of there? I would say honestly, I believe that in my unit, for example, I believe that the majority of the service members, and we were about 1300 members in my unit, I believe that the majority, if not an overwhelming majority of the other members in my unit were against being in the war. And all of it, I wouldn't say it was a fact because they were just anti-war. I would think a lot of it was because many of them were dealing with issues, family, marital spouse issues, and just many of them just had other personal issues that they felt were probably more important than being in Iraq. And so I think that many service members, I mean, I'm not going to say were anti-war, and so that's why they didn't want to be in Iraq. I'm going to say many when I just felt that there was no real need for us to be in Iraq, and that they felt that we had no real mission in Iraq, and that's the general sentiment that I got from talking to some of my peers. One of the complaints that we sometimes hear from prominent politicians is that anti-war protest undermines the morale of our soldiers over there. Did you experience that? Did you see that happening? Did you see people saying, "Why aren't all these people over the United States supporting our mission in Iraq, and because they're not, I'm feeling despondent?" No, you know what? And see, this is once again goes into the propaganda tactics of the military, of politicians, and of the government. Is that when I was in Iraq, 90% of the service members are shut off from the world we call the United States. We are shut off. We don't have televisions where we can sit there and watch everything that's going on in the U.S. know. We don't have radios where we can hear what people are saying. The only thing we have is the Internet, and most service members, they can only use the Internet whenever they're not on doing the mission. And for most guys, that's usually in the evening or early or very early morning hours. And by the time you get on the Internet, you're not thinking about what's going on in the U.S. as a whole. You're thinking about, "I want to talk to my wife. I want to talk to my son or daughter. I want to talk to my girlfriend." You're thinking, "I want to talk to my mother or father." You're thinking about those kinds of things. You're not thinking about what's going on in America as a whole. And so I think once again, that's a very sly propaganda tactic that the military and the government uses to try to manipulate public opinion about somehow there's this, if you're doing this anti-war poor test, you're not being a patriot. You're not supporting the service members. And I just think that's totally wrong. Mainly what I've heard from you, Eugene, is that you've got concerns about how our soldiers are treated, and that makes good sense to me. I'm wondering if you have moral concerns about the war as well, and I'm also curious if you come from any particular religious or spiritual background. Actually, I was born into a Muslim religion, actually, because my parents were both Muslim. I'm not actually a practicing Muslim. But in a moral sense, yes, I do have this more obligation. And this was one of the key things that led me to go AWOL is something as I talked yesterday, and I talked a little bit about how they were. This was one of the things, because in a moral sense, that I felt that, you know, when I'm in Iraq, these are people just like you and me. They go home. They have families to support their mothers, their daughters, their fathers and sons and aunts and uncles. You know, no more different than the average America that I see when I walk down the streets of Chicago every day. You know, the thing different is that maybe they come from a country where what a religion is mostly Islamic. And I think in a moral sense is because during my tour in Iraq, I began to relate to these people, because I think initially when I got into Iraq, and before I even got into Iraq, we kind of had these ideas that these people weren't able to help themselves. And so we had to be these great liberators for this country, and these people were barbaric, and they don't know anything. They were ignorant. And as I began to work with these people, and see that these people are highly intelligent, and as I work with Iraqis over the course of the 12 and a half months that was in Iraq, I began to very much empathize and sympathize with these people, because this is their country. This is their home. They don't come from a perfect country, America isn't perfect as well, but it doesn't give us the right as a more powerful country to come in and pretty much do a coup and overthrow their government and put in government officials of U.S. choosing. And I think the one key thing that I think really was kind of astonishing to me about Iraqis, and in my experience as a whole, traveling to many other countries, is that they knew more about the U.S. than we knew about them. And I felt really ignorant when I told to me these Iraqis, because many of them spoke English. They spoke many other languages. And I totally felt ignorant around them, because they knew so much more about the U.S. than I knew about their own country. And it's really hard to say I'm going over here to liberate somebody or to be involved in the killing of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, and when I look at them as someone just like me. In fact, I found there to be some of the most hospitable, some of the nicest, sweetest people I've ever met in my life. I mean, when I did missions, people would invite me to their homes. They barely had food to eat, but yet they were all for me food. You know, I think we've spent so much of the past five years of trying to demonize Iraqis and demonize their culture and their religion as a whole, that we're totally ignorant to who they really are as a people and as a culture and as a civilization. You know, they are a civilization that has existed for over 6,000 years, 60 centuries. America has existed about close to 250 years now. So, Eugene, I'm just trying to be clear on this. If our soldiers were treated properly, and if specifically you had been treated properly, so you could get the training and eventually the educational benefits to become a doctor, would you find it acceptable at this point to go into our military? Let's say we had Ironclad offer to you tomorrow. You're going to get that training, you're going to get the education, become a doctor, and you'll get sent over to Iraq. Would that be okay with you? No. No. Because regardless of however I was treated, I still believe in my heart that there are so many other issues that are not addressing the military. And not just the treatment of the soldiers, we're talking about the treatment of their family members. We're talking about going to fight an award that I believe is illegal and immoral. Part of me, I guess, I can say is more about being at peace and, you know, just kind of living my life and going about my business. And I feel that Iraqi should have that be given that same kind of dignity and respect. Definitely, I have no doubt in my mind that if the military were to offer me an Ironclad contract, I still wouldn't do it. Just because I totally do not believe in the reasons for us being in this war. Would you feel differently about Afghanistan? Afghanistan? I don't know, because I've never been to Afghanistan, and I don't know much about the Afghani people. But I do know this much. I do believe that the person that we're looking for is Osama bin Laden. I do believe that he is in Afghanistan. But I also believe that there are other ways that we could have went about getting into Afghanistan and getting him. I don't think a full-blown war is the way, because we're seeing this sort of full-blown war in Afghanistan right now. And for the past seven years, and look where Afghanistan is nowhere, we still haven't called bin Laden. We still haven't called some of his very top lieutenants and officers in his organization. What has Afghanistan blessed for you? We have gotten nowhere. America is still just as unsafe as day 9/11 happened. And what's even worse is that now, because of the mistakes that this government has made myself, and perhaps maybe even my children, are going to be paying for these mistakes for the next five or six decades. And really, I mean, people don't really understand just the truly lasting effects and cumulative effects of war. You know, people are wondering, "Why am I having a hard time filling up my gas tank with fuel?" You know, people are wondering, "Why are my taxes so much higher this year?" It's hard to say that when a third of your pay is going to taxes, and about half of those taxes are going to fund two wars. I'm with you there for sure. Well, again, it's great talking to you, and it was great to meet you yesterday. Thank you for doing this, speaking for peace, traveling around, getting the word out and sharing your personal experience. Thank you so much, Mark. It's been a great experience, and it's been wonderful talking to you. You know, this is one of the first interviews where I've actually had the chance to really talk in this capacity and with such detail. So, thank you for the opportunity. Very welcome. That was Eugene Cherry, a member of Iraqi Veterans Against the War, joining us by phone from Chicago. Thanks to Eugene, his Speak for Peace co-tour participants, Ryah Girar and Jessica Flores, and all the fine folks who took part in Voices for Peace, 2008, here in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit in Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪