Tales from the frontline in Iraq - interview with ex Marine

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report Friday November 18, 2005 15:54 by Interview - WSM - Workers Solidarity

BAD THINGS HAPPEN

James Massey is a tall well built man, aged 34. At the age of 19 he joined the US Marines. In Iraq he saw his first combat. He has left the army and has written an account of his experiences entitled "Kill, Kill, Kill". He visited Dublin to give evidence at the trial of the Pitstop Ploughshares and during this time Dermot Screenan interviewed him. An extract of the interview will be published in Workers Solidarity 89 - the full text is below.

The interview took place at five thirty on a dark dank wet November evening whilst commuters crawled down the quays in their cars. It was Jimmy's final night in Dublin before he flew back to the USA.

Q1: What was the moment of realisation for you ? That moment, if you use a religious analogy, the Saul on the road to Damascus moment when you know that you were in a situation which was wrong. What was that moment for you ?

JM: I call it becoming indifferent. I became indifferent to the Marine Corps. when I was recruiting duties, because I was having first hand knowledge of economic conscripts. Economic Conscripts, well in America we have no free health care, no retirement system, our social security system; you can barely feed yourself, the jobs in factories have gone overseas to China, South America, Mexico, so young men and women are going into the military for economic reasons. They care going in for health care or retirement benefits.

Q2: How was this recruitment carried out ? How were the poor youth targeted in this recruitment?

JM: Just like you see in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 - the scenario with the Marin Recruiters, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. I was up in the Appalachian mountains of western North Carolina, a very poor rural area, all the factories have shut down, so there are no economic sources for the young people when they graduate.

Q3: What was the turning point for you in a combat situation?

JM: It was when we started killing innocent civilians. Ehh we killed over thirty of them in a three month time period when I was there, in a clear violation of the Geneva conventions.

Q4: How long were you in Iraq before this type of situation started to happen?

JM: It started to happen around April 2003. We had already been in Iraq for a little over a month.

Q5: Can you take me through one of those situations?

JM: A red KIA; the car manufacturer, came speeding towards our checkpoint. We were given intelligence, basically that the average Iraqi was a terrorist so we were given 'carte blanches' to shoot first and ask questions later. This particular day the KIA sped towards our checkpoint, we gave a hand signal telling the vehicle to stop. The vehicle did not stop. We discharged our weapons into the vehicle; there were four occupants, total, three were hit. The driver was unscathed.

We immediately went over to the vehicle, started pulling documents out, searched the vehicle for weapons, ya'know anything that could link them to any type of terrorist activity. Meanwhile the driver of the vehicle was going around asking my marines why were they shot, they weren't terrorists, they were speaking plain English, they were dressed in western clothes, they looked like college students.

So, em, ultimately what happened was the driver confronted me and he said 'Why did you kill my brother?" And that is when I found out that one of the occupants was the drivers brother. So eh, that was when I opened my eyes and realised what we were doing and what the consequences...
And not only was I feeling guilty but other members of my platoon were just as guilty.

Q6: Was there any questioning of these orders, you mentioned the 'Carte Balance' order to shoot first and ask questions later, was there any questioning of these orders, or was there a feeling that this was coming from the top down, and nobody better question that authority?

JM: What happened is: Once you instill fear into a marine and you tell him that insurgents and terrorists are loading down police cars and ambulances with explosives and sending them at Marine Corps checkpoints, then that sort of thing escalates. At that point when you have that fear it's easier to pull the trigger.

And when you have intelligence reports like that, that are painted, ya'know it leads to bad situations, it actually escalates the violence.

Q7: And would you say that there is a feeling amongst the troops that they are what you might call 'trigger happy' and jumpy and that this leads to these situations a lot and that many of them aren't even reported?

JM: Yeah, yeah, yeah, when the incidences happen, the US Marine Corps said they were going to conduct investigations into it, and I later found out that they quickly ruled them out as insurgents. So, ya'know, early on I felt like there was a cover up.

Q8: Would you say that there is not a lot of media there on the ground, that they are bunkered down in their hotels or embedded in with the troops and only go out on very organised trips?
So that there is no media there to cover those type of situations! Is that true to say or is that an exaggeration ?

JM: No. The reporters.... If I'm a professional soldier and you're attached to my platoon or my battalion, ultimately you are going to rely on the marines to protect you, so it becomes almost like this lob-sided investigative journalism, so

Interviewer interjects with: "There's a dependency in the relationship there."

JM: Right. In Vietnam where you had true investigative journalism going on, ultimately it was the investigative journalism in Vietnam that brought the war to the end. Ya'know when they photographed the General shooting the prisoner, when you see the picture of the little girl running down the road with napalm, that's bringing the vivid realities home. The American people are not seeing the vivid realities of war. I don't know if they're censored or if they are scared.

Q9: I wanted to ask about the average age of the soldiers out there? Is is 19 or 20?

JM: I was the oldest. I was older than my Lieutenant.

Q10: Is there greater questioning going as as to why if your a kid from the Applacian mountains why are you in the middle east deposing a dictator ? Is there a question about why is it always US troops for the last fifty years fighting wars further and further away from home!

JM: I feel generally since the Summer, in America, since Cindy Sheehan, that the peace movement has come on leaps and bounds. I feel the information and stories are beginning to seep out to the general public. It took two years for the US to come out and admit that there were no weapons of mass destruction. So it's just time, everything's based on time but unfortunately while we are waiting for the truth, there are Iraqi's that are dying as well as US and British troops that are dying, continually, everyday.

The peace movement got a shot of adrenalin over the summer, so hopefully we can keep the momentum going, keep the pressure on the Bush Administration to tell the truth to the American people.

Q11: Is there any questioning / discussions going on with the troops like 'what the hell are we doing over here?"

JM: You know when you are in combat the only thing that you think about is about keeping the marine to your left and to your right alive, keeping yourself alive, you don't have time to think about politics. You're constantly tired, you're going out on patrol, you just don't have time. Generally what you do is try and make it home. 365 days that you're over there, you expect the American people or the American Government to answer the questions of why you're there. Ultimately when you are there, you're mind is on the mission.

Q12: After being in the army for so long and experiencing this war, what kind of person are you now after this, what's taken up your life since you are no longer a military man?

JM: It's been a difficult road. I mean I continue to ask questions, that's why I'm here. To expose the violations of the Geneva conventions that I saw, to expose them to the Irish population. To allow them to make up their minds on what they feel is war crimes or a fog off war. Ya'know it's so easy to just say things are collateral damage or a fog of war, where it effects the overall mission is your version of collateral damage or your version of fog of war, is as ultimately impacting the Iraqi people or is possibly escalating violence, that's what happened.

If you read a passage in the Koran, there is a passage in the Koran that states - when your enemies come to you, you treat them with dignity - so the Iraqi's were giving us the benefit of the doubt. They were expecting massive amounts of humanitarian aids, humanitarian support which we did not provide. With that the Iraqi's are saying 'What are you doing here? What are you doing in my Country?' So they make up their own minds, they say well they went to the oil fields first; before they came to us and asked us how we were going. So obviously they care more about the oil.
So it's like this big vicious cycle, ya'know that happens and when you combine that with Muslim ideology and Muslim culture, theory, it just doesn't fit. Western mentality does not fit eastern cultures, you have bad things that happen. I feel like the Iraqi's will continue to fight till we're gone, or till they feel they've been vindicated for the deaths that have happened.

How do you tell a 25 year old man who's just witnessed his brother being murdered at a checkpoint; how do you tell this young man not to become an insurgent? That is the question. I'd like to ask that to George Bush.

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Interview with James Massey (ex-Marine) for Workers Solidarity
St. Paul's Centre - 2nd November 2005