Mike Booth: The Gringo Chronicles

Last March 13-16 some 250 American veterans of the Iraq and Afghan occupations gathered at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, MD for the “Winter Soldier – Iraq and Afghanistan” conference, a replica of a similar event which took place in Detroit in 1971, during the Vietnam War. This recent weekend was devoted to the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans’ first-hand testimonies regarding the events which they both witnessed and participated in during their tours of duty in those two countries, events which included abuses and atrocities from the destruction of homes to the cold-blooded murder of innocent civilians.

What seems remarkable to me in all of this is not that there were U.S. abuses, even atrocities, in Iraq. We suspected that all along. What boggles the mind is that this mass confession by more than 200 American veterans, which took place in Silver Spring, MD, not 25 miles up Georgia Ave. NW from Washington DC, received virtually no coverage in the American mainstream press. It’s as if the “normal” media, the papers that most people read, the TV news programs that most people watch, had universally boycotted this uncomfortable news event. Because a group of American soldiers, “our boys,” sitting in front of cameras and microphones recounting first-hand experiences of cold-blooded murder of Iraqi civilians, however uncomfortable, is certainly news. But CNN was not there, nor ABC, nor NBC. In order for American citizens to learn about these events they had to read reports from the alternate Internet news websites such as alternet.org, truthout.com, Democracy Now, The Real News, or Indy Media, or through the coverage of foreign news organizations who sent teams to Maryland to cover the event.

The British Guardian newspaper commented afterwards:

The 200 veterans who came together just outside Washington DC to testify in Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan in March this year were ignored by the US mainstream media. The only newspaper to report the event, the Washington Post, relegated it to its local news section. In the UK, only the Times and the Morning Star covered this important story (the Guardian published a report online, but not in the actual newspaper).

So this eminently newsworthy event–covered by both British and French news organizations–was ignored by the mainstream American media, including even their newspaper of record, the once-august NY Times. How did this news blackout come about? Was there a conspiracy of silence? I think not. That seems far fetched even for the U.S.A., where everything is possible. The truth is even sadder. No sinister authority nor conspiration has to intervene to oblige the great American media to turn their backs on the ugly and uncomfortable truths coming out of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. All editors know these are subjects which mainstream Americans would rather not think about, subjects which are better simply swept under the rug.

Here’s the excellent Democracy Now coverage on You Tube: