A Message from an Ex-Blackwater Employee

I received the following message from someone claiming he/she is from Argentine and worked until recently with Blackwater as a security officer:

Dear Iraq and Iraqis: My name is not important and more important is to tell you what is happening in your Iraq right now. The company I used to work for and left them recently because of unethical practices, Blackwater, is hiring people to guard certain government and parliamentarian officials. This company is in business and makes a lot of money when people are afraid and when they kill each other. We, as security officers, were given orders to make raids and kill Iraqis without reasons. We are paid $2000 for each one we kill and make sure on blaming other Iraqis, Sunnis or Shea'is. Blackwater is responsible for killing about 200 civilians a month. They spead fear so that they remain in hire and make more money. Sometimes the killing is done dressed like Iraqi police and sometimes like American soldiers. We blame it on anyone Iraqi, Al Qaeda, Iranians, and Americans. Of course, Blackwater must be needed to defend and guard people. I could not take it anymore. I am a body guard and cannot kill innocent people who have nothing to do with fighting or killing. All I say is that Iraqis take care -- you are being taken for a ride. Thank you very much.

There you go, dear Iraqis. I said and say it again: There is no real fight between Iraqis themselves. There is no fight between the Sunnis who lived and intermarried with Shea'as for 1000 years. All this is the work of greedy companies who want to keep working in the atmosphere of fear. Let us get rid of them and solve our own problems, if they exist.

Dear Ms. Reed

Enclosed is an article written many years ago about a song my uncle Al Piantadosi wrote that seems quite apropos at this time. I hope you will agree and . . . get this song known to the people of the U.S. who feel as we do, that Mr. Bush is WRONG sticking to HIS point of view. "I DIDN'T RAISE MY BOY TO BE A SOLDIER."

Sincerely,
Mrs. Jane (Piantadosi) Peterson

See music and lyrics

MOTHER

Violence causes dehumanization and a lot of violence is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in many other places on this planet of ours. In a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, young Calvin questions his father, “Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world’s problems?” Killing people can be extremely difficult. A soldier wrote home, “It’s so hard when I am up close. When I see the faces of the people, I can’t bring myself to kill them. But when I am farther away just shooting artillery shells then I can do it, as long as I don’t see their faces.” Sad to say, young men, and now sometimes women, too, often not past their teens, are expected to be hardened killers. As George McGovern, during his 1972 presidential campaign put it, "I'm sick and tired of old men dreaming up wars in which young men do the dying.” Or let’s listen to some words from the book "Soldiers" by John Keegan, et al., “Old soldiers never die, but ninety-nine soldiers in a hundred are pitiably young, and they die in their millions, without beginning to guess why it is that life asks that of them.” Who speaks for them? MOTHERS OF THE WORLD, DON’T ALLOW THAT! SPEAK UP! Don’t let your children die in their millions, and when they’re pitiably young yet, and, according to Keegan, most don’t even know why they’re fighting, killing, and dying. Make friends with mothers in other countries than yours, join Mothers Against War, etc., etc.. (Fathers, of course, too, should speak up but if fathers can’t, or won’t, stop wars, maybe the women will.) When Dan Rather was on a hospital ship off the coast of Vietnam during the Vietnam War, he went into the hold of the ship and heard only one word from the lips of those wounded young soldiers (some with multiple amputations). What was the word? you may well ask. It was “MOTHER.” As Dan Rather puts it, “None called for father, or for doctor or nurse. Only mother.” Mothers, are you listening?

Yours sincerely,

Stan Penner

P.S. Dan Rather’s words are from “THE CAMERA NEVER BLINKS TWICE” by Dan Rather with Mickey Herskowitz in a Reader’s Digest book “Today’s Best Nonfiction.”

Clearly, Doctor Fadhli, who is also an artist, is in great personal agony. His letter expresses his terrible sorrow . We, of Mothers Against War, totally oppose the American invasion of Iraq because it is causing nothing but sorrow to the Iraqi people, from the day the American army invaded in 2002 until the present day. We extend our profound sympathy to Dr. Fadhli and his family, and invite him to talk about his brother's life and circumstances surrounding his death. This is his letter to Daphne, received August 7, 2007.

****************

Dear Daphne,

Two days ago my brother died in Baghdad. The only persons present at his death bed were his wife and his son. He has three brothers and two sisters,each has five children and each child has between four and six children NONE OF ALL THESE were present at his death bed VERY SAD . they were all outside the country running away from the absence of security and the indiscriminate murder by gangs supported by the current corrupt Iraqi government to promote their political agenda.

The primary duty of any government is to protect its own prople NOT THE CURRENT PUPPET government of Iraq . RECENTLY the government told the people OF IRAQ that the government is unable to control the chaos so we advise every individual to carry arms to protect themselves. THIS IS THE GOVERNMENT THAT AMERICA INSTALLED to act according to the orders of the American authority.

The Geneva convention dictates THAT ANY INVADER OF ANOTHER COUNTRY MUST PROTECT THE PEOPLE OF THE COUNTRY THEY INVADE. America did not.

My brother would not have died IF IT WAS NOT FOR THE LACK OF SECURUTY AND LACK OF SIMPLE ANTIBIOTICS THAT COULD HAVE CURED HIS PNEUMONIA AND WOULD HAVE BEEN ALIVE TODAY …Before the invasion under SADDAM's rule HEALTH CARE WAS FREE FOR EVERYONE AND SECURITY OF ALL WAS GUARANTEED. UNDER SADDAM's rule my brother would have been alive.. That is why most Iraqis wish for those days.

I do not know whether I have told you that in 1973 and 1974 I was one of six physician specialists who were taking care of the health and wellbeing of the president of IRAQ. Four of the six were SHIAT.. America created the conflict and the sectarian violence.

WITH A BLEEDING HEART AND TORTURED SOUL I SAY MY BROTHER DIED BECAUSE OF THE EVIL INVASION and its consequences.

My dear friend DAPHNE I HAVE TO STOP TYPING NOW BECAUSE MY TEARS ARE POURING ON THE KEYBOARD. ALL I CAN SAY MAY GOD PUNISH BUSH FOR WHAT HE HAS DONE TO A PEACEFUL COUNTRY AND DECENT PEOPLE AND FOR KILLING MY BROTHER. BUSH'S ACTS WERE ILLEGAL, IMMORAL, ILLEGITIMATE, AND INHUMANE. FORGIVE ME DAPHNE IF I ASK YOU WHERE Is GOD

Please try to publish this letter in the Mothers against War web site

IN PAIN

YOUR FRIEND Dr. FADHLI

Dear Ms. Reed,

I am very much touched by your concern about my wellbeing. My general health is OK but not my mental one -- nothing serious except the effect of the invasion on Iraq and the atrocities of the American policy on innocent people who did not harm us here in U.S. or abroad. Now 21 members of my family died while they are asleep in their home as a result of indiscriminate bombing of residential areas. The only therapy I got is by writing in the newspaper trying to understand the pain in my body and soul. . . .

Sincerely,
Dr. H.A. Fadhli, M.D.

9/11 Mom: An Open Letter to George W. Bush

By Donna Marsh O’Connor,Liverpool, NY,
Mother of Vanessa Lang Langer,
WTC Tower II, 93rd floor

Friday 22 October 2004

On the Thirty-third Anniversary of My Daughter’s Birth

cc: Senator John Kerry

Sometimes, Mr. Bush, it’s the smallest of details that makes everything click. The smallest of details. Right now, Mr. Bush, I am looking at your watch. It’s an item of clothing accessory and, unlike your other costumes, it is one that is particularly revealing.

On Halloween my daughter would be thirty-three years old. Her child would be almost three. Seven weeks before her twenty-ninth birthday, Vanessa, four months pregnant, ran from the falling towers of the World Trade Center. She did not make it. Her body, and in it the small body of her unborn child, was pulled from the rubble of the fallen towers on September 24th, just ten feet from an alley between towers IV and V. It is important for me to tell you that she was on the phone to her uptown office five minutes after the first plane hit tower I, explaining how she and others in tower II were "safe."

Here is what you did regarding specifically the events of that morning: You vacationed before, during and after August 6th, the day you were handed the presidential daily briefing that said very clearly Vanessa Lang Langer and many other Americans were not safe. After the first plane hit tower I, the fact of the PDB did not click in your mind, did not cause you to act, to turn on a television, to contact the Pentagon. You sat so that you did not frighten a group of children. You did not worry about Vanessa’s brothers, or the young children who would certainly be directly affected by that event. You did not, like her fourteen year-old brother, rush from your seat and head for a phone, desperately trying to reach out, to fix, to save. You sat. You said, two weeks to the day before the general election of 2004, that you would protect Americans; that is, according to you, your primary responsibility as Commander-in Chief; no terrorists would get us, no terrorists would attack us (you said this with your arm extended), and I you said and I quote, on your watch. You said this with no sense of irony, no sense, no indication of how that text would sound to those you failed miserably to protect. You never notified officially the airlines, flight schools, persons who lived or worked in our tallest structures. You failed in your watch and on it.

Help me to understand this, because I was looking so closely at your watch. Five minutes, Mr. Bush. Five minutes. In that five minute space my sons lost a best friend, a future that included a loving sister and her future family. And my daughter lost the only thing in life I ever knew she really wanted. In fact, you stood on September 13th, on the rubble that covered my child’s bones and you began your move to have the war you had been planning since the beginning of your term in office. You, Mr. Bush, used my daughter’s murder to perpetrate the most hideous example of racism with the direst of consequences and you did it standing literally on her bones.

I am going to be very honest with you, Mr. Bush. I suspect that your culpability does not begin with your failures that day. It may be imprudent to mention this now because evidence is difficult to produce, but I am one of those pragmatists that rely on some basic fundamentals in crime solving. So let me say, when a crime is committed we are to find suspects by exploring motive, by looking at who had most to gain. You did, Mr. Bush, you and your friends at Halliburton and your friends in Saudi Arabia. And you have never answered for this. Don’t you think with all that has happened it would be in order for you to explain all you have come to gain, now and in the future, in terms of both money and power?

On September 11th, I was in Canada. When I heard the news I was walking in the street, enjoying what was to be the last of the purely beautiful sunny mornings of my life. My cell phone rang. And every second after that call was a mix of panic, dread, calm because this couldn’t be happening, and utter, absolute need to touch my daughter. What would you have done, Mr. Bush? What would your instincts have been? As a parent? I ask this because Senator Kerry during the second debate mentioned you are a “good father.” Are you? Have you made Americans, including your own daughters safer? Let me tell you what I wanted that morning. I wanted to fly to New York, to put my feet on my home soil as fast as humanly possible. I wanted to get to an airport and get home. Not an option for me, Mr. Bush. My husband and I just made it over the border before it closed. And on that morning, when no American citizen was allowed to fly in our airspace, on that morning and the mornings to follow, Americans were grounded. But bin Laden’s family flew. They flew home to Saudi Arabia. Before they were vetted by the F.B.I., by the C.I.A. And worst of all, you never were made to tell the truth about why that was so. I’m sorry, Mr. Bush. I will never understand this. Never. But still: your responsibility was then and is now to explain it. And to explain while that watch of yours leading up to the election is still ticking.

Right now there is a report from the C.I.A. that names explicitly your administration’s culpability regarding those events. Bipartisan leaders have requested, even demanded that those reports be turned over now to congress. You, according to reports, have refused to allow the C.I.A. to release them, just as you refused to testify under oath before the 9/11 commission. Now, Mr. Bush, release them. Before the election.

Right now, Mr. Bush, there are wide-spread rumors of vote tampering all over this country. And let me be clear about this: the rumors are that Republicans are benefiting from this tampering. Instead of enumerating our safeties, perhaps you could show some leadership, Mr. Bush, and demand that it stop now. Demand, Mr. Bush, that in this country our right to vote is protected. Because without that, we are not safe. Wouldn’t you agree?

After the 2000 election, where there were in Florida widespread problems with voting, Mr. Bush, voting in African American communities, you also did nothing. Absolutely nothing. You did nothing to counter the rumors that your brother handed you Florida. Nothing to smooth over what must have felt to African Americans (even if this was just rumor) the painful and the absolute, clear enactment of racial prejudice, not encoded in the ordinary acts of ordinary citizens, but in the very structure of the government that must be protective of all citizens of this country and the world. Why, Mr. Bush, did you fail to go to Florida and demand that these persons’ rights were protected? Or, at the very least, to apologize and guarantee that this would never happen again? What does America mean to you? In August of 2001, the United Nations hosted a conference on racism and Colin Powell, your Secretary of State wanted to attend. You did not allow this because, you said, we don’t have problems with racism in America. Do you see the pattern I am pointing at, here, Mr. Bush? In each case, the problems in this country have been enacted and exacerbated by you and you have attempted to cover them up. How could you do that to Colin Powell? How could you do that to another man?

When your children are young, Mr. Bush, they are often rebellious. They often admire you, but buck you at the same time. One way a mature parent feels this love is sometimes in the very ways in which your children buck you—by using the very part of your example they most admire. Vanessa confronted me every day of her life, especially on the days when she acted most loving. Parent/child things. The kind of things that all someday are made into family jokes when the child becomes a parent and sees that the very methods of touching and teaching and learning come from actions the parent used without thought. I never had that fully with Vanessa, the day when she consciously, because she was parenting herself, used my methods on another generation. But one day, almost there, Vanessa said to me, “Mom, you always made Christmases at home so beautiful…” and then she said, “And you taught us how not to be racist. You have no idea, Mom, how much racism there is and white people don’t always see it.”

I cannot tell you in shorthand, Mr. Bush, how important it was that she said those words before I lost her because unless she did, I would always have wondered, was I in any way that mattered a good enough parent to a woman who would die so young. I can tell you some of the methods I used with Vanessa and her brothers, but let me show you what you did that I had to explain and counter with all three of them:

You refused, when you met face-to-face with James Byrd’s daughter (You remember him, I am sure. He’s the African American man whose head was ripped almost off of his body in Texas by three white men who tied him to their pickup and dragged him along a Texas road.), you refused to sign a hate crimes bill as she begged you, crying. You didn’t even, as Molly Ivins reported, offer her a tissue. In that sense, Mr. Bush, you functioned as a very hostile branch of government, one that we might have predicted would not care if persons of color or persons of the other party were denied the right to vote.

But then, Mr. Bush, you used this tendency of yours, this refusal to get behind most Americans’ desires to eradicate racism by pretending Osama bin Laden is the embodiment of Saddam Hussein and vice versa. One man equals the other. They are both Arabs. Do you own a globe, Mr. Bush? Do you know where Afghanistan is? Do you know where Iraq is? Have you been there since the war began to examine what you have done to the civilians you were going to protect? Interesting detail (and perhaps a warning from G-d): Vanessa, when she got one of her first jobs, bought me a daily planner with a map on it. The map on this particular piece of canvas has in its center Afghanistan. To the right of this small country is a larger country—Iran and to the right of that—Iraq, also small, even smaller (geographically and metaphorically speaking) of Afghanistan. Just under Iraq, writ very large on my daily planner is Saudi Arabia. You know, Saudi Arabia, Mr. Bush. I know you do because the families of 9/11 who got together to bankrupt terrorism, those people who are bringing suit against the Saudis got no help from your administration. None. Though you should know that a coalition of the willing, including France, Spain, Great Britain and Germany have offered help to the families of 9/11 as they try to connect the events of 9/11 to the real perpetrators. There are connections between the Saudis and the terrorists, the terrorists who, no doubt, now that you have opened up a haven for terrorism in Iraq, are growing in number and resources. How much time do you have left, Mr. Bush? What is on your watch? Am I taking too long?

What costume will you wear on Vanessa’s birthday this year, Mr. Bush? Will you dress up as the head of the military or a foot soldier of Prince Bandar or Dick Cheney? Will you wear a white sheet with a cone head, Mr. Bush? Will you pretend you’re a plain speaking, Texas cowboy, with your shirt sleeves rolled up, proclaiming happily how safe you’ll keep us as you point to your watch? Will you dress up again as a good Christian? Will you dress up as a Republican? You are, you know, not a Republican. You have shamed Republicans. I know one thing, Mr. Bush: I am going to try very hard not to have you dress up anymore as Commander-in Chief. In more ways than I have articulated here, that costume does not fit you. I am a proud American citizen, Mr. Bush, who is disgusted that you try to portray yourself as patriotic. You have trampled every value of decency America ever held dear.

Do you believe in G-d, Mr. Bush, really? Really? Because, to me, as a flawed parent, flawed person, flawed citizen, I ask G-d to help me fix my flaws, to forgive me my trespasses. And here’s what I hear Him telling me:

Don’t let him speak for Me. If you do, it is you who fail to watch over your children. You.

Ph.D. Candidate (MAW member) seeks help with research

I protested with your group against this awful war. I have since gone back to school to work towards a Ph.D. in Justice Studies at Arizona State University. I wonder if you may be able to help me.

I intend to work with the wives of men who are now in the war zone. I want a list of any/all hardships that the wives may have had to endure since their husbands have gone into war. I would like any assistance in creating an email network of both enlisted and officers' wives that would be interested in participating. Do you think you may be able to assist me? Please advise.

Carole McKenna
sociology_carole@hotmail.com

My son Andy joined the Marine Reserves at age seventeen. We were surprised at his decision, but he explained to us that he was only joining the Reserves, and in a event of war he would be the last one to go. This was the Summer of 2001 before 9/11. We were surprised at his decision, but we let him, my husband had to sign for him. He was a wonderfut student, a leader at his school so we taught it was one more thing he wanted to do besides going to college. He went to basic training right after graduation from high school, in June of 2002. He was supposed to finish with his training in August and start college with a full academic scholarship, but they delayed his graduation, so he was unable to start school in the fall. He was hoping to start in January 2003, but his unit was activated in January and he was sent to Kwait and eventually to Iraq where he lost his life April 7, 2003 at the tender age of eighteen. They send my son to a senseless war and got him kill. I still do not understand what has happened here. This administration did not listen to the American people, or the United Nation. I ask Who do they answer to? Aren't the American people who elected them to represent us? why are they getting away doing what ever they please with our country and specially our children that happened to volunteer in the Arm Forces?. Obviously this is something they do not understand because they did everything possible not to serve. My son was so excited about starting college, he went to Orientation, they even assigned a room for him in his dorm at Florida State,all he wanted to do is serve his country in his own community like they claim in the advertisements for the Reserves,instead he was sent in the front lines, and now he is gone forever.
Thank you for starting this movement and letting me tell story.
Sincerely,
Norma Aviles
Mother of Lcpl. Andrew J. Aviles USMC

One night last April, I was unable to sleep. My future daughter in law had alerted me to an extension of stay to 20,000 US soldiers so that they would remain in Iraq indefinitely. On the international channels, I saw faces of US soldiers (compungidos?) - among them I searched for, with my heart in my hands, the face of my son. Intuitively, I knew, his silence confirmed it. Right now JJ is in a non-specified place; he has been in Irak now for over 15 months and does not know when he will return. He goes wherever they send him, alert, while Mothers against the War protest the reasons behind this immoral and unjust war that is affecting all of us in so many ways.

We ask ourselves, the same way the US Congress questioned last April 22, if the Bush Administration has provided the North American people with a real description of the costs of the war. That day, President Bush proposed a budget of $401.7 billion for the next fiscal year. Senator Joseph Biden indicated that they need at least an additional $60 billion just to maintain the troops that are already there. General Richard Myers, president of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated that the cost of maintaining those 20,000 soldiers in Irak costs $700 millions every three months. And among those soldiers is my son.

Let's look at the actual costs: To this day, the war has cost the American tax payers $118,136,731,012.00. That amount, calculated by the same congressional appropriations, would be sufficient to feed the world population for four years, add an additional 2,250,229 teachers and fund 16,702,554 children in pre-school programs for two years. This amount costs $419 per person and $1679 per household in the United States.

Wars affect all of us, but, in particular, the dispossessed. Those that declare wars are the rich and powerful and those that fight them are the sons of the poor, the U.S. minorities, the unemployed, those that have the illusion of having academic benefits and employment opportunities. Oh!, but your son went as a volunteer. Being a volunteer is relative given the conditions of unemployment in our country.

If we look at the human costs, there are no words that can describe the anguish that mothers and family members of the soldiers feel, the pain of knowing that this is an unnecessary conflict, when a report from the investigative commission on the September 11 events states that ". . . there is no credible evidence that Irak and al Qaeda cooperated in the attacks to the United States." The final report will be published in July. For now, at least 45,000 Irakis have died, besides the emotional toll, costs to the property and material wellbeing.

Tamara Oyola

From our Puerto Rican chapter

I had already read your mission statement and I loved it. Have MAW members ever held peace marches or anything like that?

I did see the card sent to the children of Iraq. It was very sweet. That's the part about the war that kills me, is all the children who are hurt or taken away from their mothers to be sent to war. Being the mother of two adult girls, I know that even when they are grown, they are still your children. The fact that they are going to start drafting people soon scares the living daylights out of me. (I believe this is definite rather than a possibility even though it hasn't been instituted yet. GWB has shown that he isn't going to just stop and people don't want to go so they will have to draft next.) Even though I don't have any soldiers in my family, I am very much affected by by the tearing up of the Iraqis' homeland and the loss of their family members, as well as the loss of the parents and children here who have lost family members. I want it all to STOP. So, I'm looking for ways to get involved in different forms of protest.

Thanks again for writing and adding me to the roster!

Jessie Weis
Grays River, WA

Thank you for organizing this movement. There are many mothers out here who don't know where to turn in their effort to stop the insanity of Iraq (I'm one of them), and perhaps your website is a starting point. Politicians listen to vocal voters -- voters who are willing to influence others and lobby for their cause, because voters can remove them from their cushy jobs there in Washington and send them packing back home to obscurity -- a fate worse than death for many of our so-called leaders.

So . . . the more souls you can bring on board, the more clout you/we will have. Although I have never been one to join in with mass movements, the current state of affairs and the mortal jeopardy I see my only child being placed in due to the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld regime (an axis of evil if there ever was one) leads me to ask that you please add my name to your list of supporters. I will proudly display my royal blue ribbons.

--Bettie Thorne

Dear Mothers Against War:

I have said many times that it will take the collective will of mothers everywhere to turn humanity away from the institutionalized intimidation, violence, murder, and wholesale destruction that is called war. The history of militarism is a male tradition, yet it is we women who suffer the most from the activities of this most horrific "men's club".

We carry, deliver, and raise the children who become the soldiers, pilots, generals, and statesmen who devise and execute these inexcusable actions. We take over work and family duties when the men are away at war, then abdicate our place at the head of the household when they return. Why, I ask? Why do we offer our sons to the slaughter, and our daughters, mothers, wives, and relatives, who are wounded, raped, and who perish as non-combatants? Why do we tolerate spending the rest of our lives tending to our permanently disabled, and psychologically scarred citizens, and rebuilding devastated countries?

Why do we American women accept this, especially now, when we have more power to enact change than we ever have before? We possess the right to vote, earn money, access the media, and organize! Why do so many women support or ignore the fact that the United States possesses the largest, most highly funded, and most diversified military-industrial complex in the history of the world? Or fail to know or understand that our top government officials have publicly committed to a violent strategy of United States-led global domination, also known as "Pax Americana," while our domestic quality of life goes down, and our national debt soars? Why does virtually every state in our Nation house some type of military weapon system, or tons of nuclear, chemical or biological agents?

Because men tell us that it must be this way, or our privileged way of life will cease to exist. I'm not buying it. I refuse to believe that we MUST behave this way, and I refuse to support any regime that promotes violence as a means to economic, strategic, and political advantage.

I have spent many, many thoughtful years observing and studying militarism. I am an honorably discharged Air Force veteran, former DoD Federal employee, and a military widow. I never thought that militarism was good, right, or inevitable, but so many apparently decent and intelligent people were so devoted to its inevitability and just nature, that I tried to see things their way.

I never could, and I know that I never will. Wars are engineered by the men who plan to profit most by them. They are not accidents; therefore, they are not inevitable. Our propensity for violence may be imprinted on our genes, but the decision to act on it is a choice, not a foregone conclusion. I refuse to accept any other "truth."

As long as any party, state, or nation receives any advantage or support for acts of aggression, war as an institution will not end. I am only one person, but I am using my voice to state that at least one more person refuses to buy into militarism, and I will spend the rest of my life trying to work for change, with my pen, my money, my labor, and my vote.

-- M. K. Keene