06/02/08 – Matthis Chiroux – The Scott Horton Show

All right, my friends, welcome back to Anti-War Radio Chaos 92.7 FM in Austin, Texas.
Our next guest today is Mathis Shuro, and he's a young kid who's now refusing to deploy to Iraq.
Let's take a listen here first to his recent press conference.
My name is Sergeant Mathis Shuro, and I served as an Army photojournalist until being honorably discharged last summer after over four years of service in Afghanistan, Japan, Europe, and the Philippines.
As an Army journalist whose job it was to collect and filter service members' stories, I heard many a stomach-churning testimony of the horrors and crimes taking place in Iraq.
For fear of retaliation from the military, I failed to report these crimes.
But never again will I allow fear to silence me.
Never again will I fail to stand.
In February, I received a letter from the Army ordering my return to active duty for the purpose of mobilization for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
It's in great part to the truths of war being fearlessly spoken by my fellow IVAW members.
I stand before you today with the strength, clarity, and resolve to declare to the military, my government, and the world that this soldier will not be deploying to Iraq.
This occupation is unconstitutional and illegal, and I hereby lawfully refuse to participate as I will surely be a party to war crimes.
Furthermore, deployment in support of a legal war violates all of my core values as a human being, but in keeping with those values, I choose to remain in the United States to defend myself from charges brought by the Army if they so wish to pursue them.
I refuse to participate in the Iraq occupation.
Thank you.
All right, everybody, that is Matthew Chereau, and we have him on the line right here.
Welcome to the show, Matthew.
Hey, how are you, Scott?
It's Mathis.
Oh, Mathis.
I'm sorry.
No, it's quite all right.
It's quite all right.
My apologies.
Please forgive me.
Not many people decide to use that as a first name.
Yeah, there you go.
Well, yeah, I got thrown off.
I wasn't paying close enough attention.
No, not at all.
Not at all.
Okay, so I guess let's just first start off with the basics.
Name, rank, serial number, where are you from, how long have you been in the Army?
What was your job, that kind of thing?
Okay, my name is Sergeant Mathis Chereau.
I served on active duty in the U.S. Army from August 2002 to August 2007.
Five years I was in, I was an Army photojournalist.
That is a 46th Quebec in Army speak.
And I did, I guess, four and a half years overseas in various places in Japan and Germany, as well as the Philippines and Afghanistan.
I was honorably discharged last summer, at which point I moved from Heidelberg, Germany, to Brooklyn, New York, where I worked a series of odd jobs with little to no support from the government until I got into school in January and was then informed of a forced recall to active duty for deployment to Iraq in February.
That was a stop-loss order then?
Well, a stop-loss, yeah, technically.
That's how most people know it.
A stop-loss is generally when you're still on active duty and you're about to get out.
And they say, wait a minute, wait a minute, you're not out yet.
You're stop-lossed.
You've got another year.
My situation is basically the same, except I was already out.
I already had my honorable discharge in hand, and they contacted me after I was out of the military and my hair was already about five inches long and said, hey, shave it off, buddy, and come back and go to Iraq.
Well, that's interesting.
You were not in the Individual Ready Reserve or anything?
There's not a technicality in your contract that even says they can do this?
Well, I am in the Individual Ready Reserve.
Oh, I see.
I did five years active duty.
At this point, I've got about another two in the Individual Ready Reserve.
I see.
So it's under the IRR that they're calling you back up.
Exactly.
It's under the IRR, which technically they don't have the right to do anyway, as Congress has never officially declared war on Iraq, and it does stipulate in that contract that during times of war you can be called back to boost numbers.
Good point.
But, I mean, the fact is they authorized the present use of force in pursuit of, you know, to fight the global war on terrorism.
But, I mean, as everybody in this country I hope now understands or is coming to understand, Iraq and terrorism never had anything to do with each other.
Now, look, I'm an anti-war guy.
I wish every single guy in the Army would up and quit right now.
Officers, too.
However, well, let me just pretend to play war party here and ask you some devil's advocate questions.
Sure, please.
By all means.
Let's be serious about this.
Your job as a soldier is not to question policy, but to follow your orders.
I mean, you're bound to follow your conscience and not commit any particular war crime, but it sort of sounds like you just don't like the politics of this war.
Is that your place as a soldier to decide because you lean this way or that way on the larger political questions?
Right.
Well, first of all, this has nothing to do with politics.
In doing the work that we do as IVAW, we have to address political players, but I am constantly reinforcing to people the fact that we are not trying to play politics.
We are, in fact, witnesses to crime, and we are bearing witness to our leaders as we are required to do so.
Just as in the military, if you can be punished for not reporting a crime, we feel that translates as well into civilian life.
And so as far as the political stuff goes, I'm not going to really address it.
We're not trying to endorse any candidates.
We're not trying to endorse any platform.
What we are doing, though, is standing against, or what I'm doing is I'm standing against, illegal orders as I'm required to in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Now, Iraq being an inherently illegal occupation, it was, I guess, they quickly and quite carelessly authorized or recognized the occupation of Iraq by the United States in the days after we invaded, but they very carefully and clearly stipulated that that authorization only comes with the understanding that the U.S. will provide basic needs and services to the Iraqi people, which we have completely failed to do.
Furthermore, acts occurring in Iraq on a daily basis as the result of flawed policy on top are putting otherwise good soldiers and good Marines and good service members in the position where they are left in the moment with no choice but often to violate terms of the Geneva Convention, even stuff laid down in military law that has become increasingly, increasingly cloudy and unclear, especially to the people serving on the front lines.
Rules of engagement have gone under constant redefinition.
One day you're authorized to use force, shoot your weapon at just anybody inside of this zone, period, in what's called a free-fire zone.
The next day they say, okay, only if you see somebody with a weapon, or has been documented by many of my fellow members, if you see somebody with a shovel and a bag, you're allowed to take their life.
So all of these things, as well as the corporate profiteering taking place in Iraq, leads me and all of my brothers and sisters in IVAW, and I think many, many, many members of the active-duty military to question whether or not simply being in Iraq is legal for us as soldiers.
And my decision there has been no, it is not legal for us to be there.
It is illegal, therefore orders to deploy to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom is an illegal order, and it is my responsibility as an upstanding service member to refuse those orders.
I've made the point, people keep trying to label me as a conscientious objector, and while I am not a huge fan of war, I feel like it is not completely unnecessary in every single situation.
For example, I deployed to Afghanistan while I was in the military, and I did so willingly.
And had they recalled me and said, go to Afghanistan, I most likely would not have come to the same conclusion.
But Iraq is an illegal occupation that has nothing to do with fighting the global war on terrorism, has everything to do with a few people making money, and has everything to do with promoting U.S. hegemony in the Middle East.
And none of that has anything to do with fighting terrorism.
So for me, as a service member, as an individual, I see it as my responsibility to oppose those orders, and if necessary, stand trial and stand court-martial in defense of my position, in defense of the Iraqi people, and also my brothers and sisters still in the military, being forced to prosecute an unwinnable and illegal occupation that is not benefiting the Iraqis, that is not benefiting the U.S., and is furthermore doing nothing to fight terrorism, in fact is only fermenting the problem.
Now, your press conference here was, I guess, a couple of weeks ago.
How long ago was it that you notified the Army that you were refusing to deploy?
May 16th.
I notified everybody.
I notified the world.
I notified the military.
I have been on my Army Knowledge Online account since, and have been carrying on conversations with troops on both sides of the debate here.
And, you know, a lot of them I have full support.
I have complete support from many, many military members.
In fact, a lot of people I used to know in the military have been defending my actions online in different forms.
And, yeah, everybody was made aware of my decision at the same time.
Okay, and so have you heard from your commanding officer, from the DoD, as to whether you're going to be charged or not?
I have not.
Actually, according to them, I don't think I've done anything illegal in their eyes yet.
I have announced to the world that I will not be reporting for duty on June 15th, as ordered.
And, you know, at that time, if I don't show up, which I won't, I will be considered AWOL by the military.
And I'm guessing I will hear something from them after that point.
But until then, right now, I am in Washington, D.C., and I am meeting with members of both the House and the Senate to try and build congressional support for my position.
And, you know, hopefully in doing so, we'll send the message of legitimacy to the rest of my brothers and sisters so they can begin making decisions for themselves based upon, you know, not just their oath of enlistment, where they swear to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution, but, you know, also to their values as human beings and service members.
You know, if they see, hopefully, support for, you know, my position coming from, you know, places of power, they will understand that there is support for service members who are willing to, you know, make these very, very hard decisions in these, you know, very hard times that I can remember in my country.
All right, well, what's different about Afghanistan?
I mean, the Arab-Afghan army, the friends of Osama bin Laden, they escaped from Tora Bora back in 2001.
So what could possibly be fighting the war against terrorism in helping prop up the government of Hamid Karzai in fighting a civil war against the Pashtuns?
Well, first of all, I do not feel that the U.S. has done right by our Afghani brothers and sisters at all.
However, I feel the justification for invading Afghanistan was there.
Well, my question is about the continued occupation of the place, not the attempt to catch Osama and them back in 2001.
Right.
Well, as far as the continued occupation, you know, I have mixed feelings about it.
However, I do not feel that an order to go to Afghanistan is on the same level of illegality as an order to deploy to Iraq and support that illegal occupation.
Can you cite which laws it is that are being obeyed this time or in this case as opposed to the other?
What the difference is legally?
My stance is specifically on Iraq, and I'm not out trying to debate with people the legality of Afghanistan.
I am very much sticking to Iraq here.
So, you know, I can talk about laws we're violating in Iraq.
I can talk about laws we violated going into Iraq.
However, I'm just not here to address Afghanistan.
All right.
Well, so what exactly was your job as a photojournalist in Afghanistan?
You work for Stars and Stripes or what?
Well, I was working for U.S. Army Europe at the time in their command information office.
I was conducting missions having to do with strategic communications, and I produced stories.
A story that I produced from Afghanistan was about an Army unit from Hohenfels, Germany, actually, who played the opfor, the opposing forces.
They were a training unit, and Hohenfels was a training base.
So military members would go there to train, and these guys, Delta 1-4, would dress up in Middle Eastern garb and carry AK-47s.
And these guys from this non-deployable unit got orders to deploy to Afghanistan under the direct command of a Romanian battalion.
And so that is the first time that that's happened in the global war on terrorism.
So I went to produce stories and cover the operations they were conducting there in support of the first parliamentary elections in Afghanistan.
And I believe those stories are probably still online.
But it was my job to produce new stories and feature stories and photographs about the Army in the Army's best interest.
So I call that propaganda.
But that is a term we were taught not to use while I was in the military.
We were told we are not engaging in propaganda.
We are engaging in strategic communications.
And that by strategically communicating the Army's point of view, we were in fact providing balance to the, quote-unquote, liberal media who was on a mission to make us look bad no matter what kind of story it was.
So, yeah, and it wasn't just in Afghanistan.
I produced many, many articles that I look back on and say, boy, I just, I mean, even at the time I knew it and it killed me to be leaving out important pieces of information in exchange for putting a good face on our operations no matter where they were, no matter what the purpose, no matter the legality or illegality.
And in doing this job, as you heard in my testimony, I came across many, many, many folks talking about Iraq and what they did there.
And as I heard these testimonies from the front lines of Iraq, I began piecing together a picture that was not one of an occupying force acting above all in the best interest of the Iraqi people.
I was hearing stories of prisoner abuse.
I was hearing stories of unnecessary discharges of weapons.
I was hearing stories, I mean, of all different types.
But as a military journalist, I felt it was my job to omit and, in fact, completely delete these details in exchange for the rosier picture that we wanted to put on an occupation that has long since been doomed to failure.
What you say about your job as a propagandist, basically, for the U.S. Army, the key wasn't in really manufacturing a bunch of lies.
The key was in omitting the details that provide the accurate context for the rest of the story that actually does make it to print, right?
Exactly.
I was very much about my job, I felt, was very much about not making up facts, but framing a story in a way that made us look like liberators, that made us look like heroes, and did not actually tell the story of the real suffering being caused by our presence in the Middle East.
Well, so let me ask you about the Iraq Veterans Against the War.
You mentioned the IVAW a few times.
That's the Iraq Veterans Against the War.
And how did you become associated with them?
Well, I was actually out of the military.
I was in Brooklyn.
I got my call up in February.
And for about a month there, I locked myself in my room and entered a very dark state of alienation and depression over what I thought was an order I had no choice but to carry out and follow.
So after about a month of being locked away in my room and watching news stories and screaming at the top of my lungs and believing that I would go to Iraq and would probably participate in some heinous action, and nobody would ever know that I was against this from the start when one of my instructors at Brooklyn College told me about an anti-war event going on in Dumbo.
It's a district in Brooklyn.
And I went, and there I met the Iraq Veterans Against the War, who I never even knew existed.
And here was veterans as well as active-duty military personnel on leave from their units to participate in Winter Soldier, which happened the weekend before.
And they were speaking about peace and were speaking about justice while some of them still being on active duty.
And I realized these are my kind here.
These people are reflecting and are saying the things that I and so many of my friends have been thinking for years now.
And I don't have any reason not to join them and not to participate in voicing my opposition to a legal war.
So they really set the precedent for you and said, see, you can do it too.
Well, they provided the support necessary to me to voice my opinions, which I've had since the beginning.
I mean, I remember being in journalism school when we invaded Iraq, and I remember feeling completely shocked and awed as the Iraqi people were being shocked and awed by U.S. bombs falling in their neighborhoods and thinking, this is really, really, really bad, but I'm going to have to just bury my feelings on this because these people own me for the next four and a half years, and dissent will not be tolerated.
So I buttoned it up.
I buttoned up my point of view, and I toed the line, as they say in the military, until I realized, and as I said, it wasn't until after I got out of the military, that all of these things being thrown at me by my superiors about, you know, you traded your voice when you joined the Army.
You don't have First Amendment rights.
You don't have the right to speak.
You don't have the right to act.
You only have the right to follow orders.
Well, I bought all of that, and then to see active-duty folks working with Iraq veterans against the war to voice their opinions very legally, I realized, wow, I mean, this is the support.
These are the people that are going to empower me to make a stand for what I know is absolutely right.
And that I would not be alone in this fight to end an illegal occupation, as I thought I would be.
That, in fact, thousands of veterans and active-duty military people across the country share the exact same sentiments as I and are now organizing to ensure that they are heard and that the American people know the truth of what's actually going on rather than, you know, what the leaders of our country would like them to believe.
Yep.
Well, you know, it's coming across again, just in the last week or two in the news, just how dishonest this government was in getting us into this war.
And, you know, the more and more stories like that, the more and more people are going to wake up and, well, just like IVAW was there for you, these people, you know, I'm sure at least some of them are going to value the fact that you're there serving as an example and as help to them.
Well, I do hope so.
You know, I'm guessing you're referring to the book that Scott McClellan just came out with.
Sure.
And that was a, I tell you, that was a shock to me, and that was very exciting, because actually he's talking about, and he outlines a lot of points that, you know, I am trying to make myself.
Hey, I was forced to write propaganda to keep people from knowing what was actually going on, both in the military and in Iraq.
And for him, a senior member of the Bush administration, to also be echoing those same complaints, only goes to show that we are not, you know, a crazy minority that is just interested in griping because we had a bad experience in the military, that we are, in fact, you know, testifying about injustice, which knowledge of has been kept away from the American people.
And it's a very exciting time.
There's a whole lot of synergy going on right now between our organization and a number of other organizations.
As well, our own membership is starting to boom like we haven't seen since the beginning of this organization.
And I am so proud, my heart swells, to finally be able to go to sleep at night knowing that I'm fighting on the right side.
Well, good for you.
And, you know, I'd like, hopefully, to stay in touch with you so that we can find out, you know, developments in your case as it proceeds.
If it does at all, I hope that they just ignore you and let you go.
Well, June 15th, I'm supposed to report to Fort Jackson for re-improcessing and deployment to Iraq.
Father's Day, ironically.
Instead, I will be making a speech somewhere in Washington, D.C.
I'm hoping the Lincoln Memorial.
And when I do so, I'm hoping to have as many people, you know, citizens there as possible listening, and as well as much media as possible.
So maybe Anti-War Radio could consider picking that up live when it happens.
Yeah, we'd love to give it all the attention we can.
And, well, I guess, personally, I'd just like to thank you for following your own conscience instead of going along with these criminals.
Scott, thank you so much.
I appreciate that.
And I appreciate you helping us have our stories told as we deserve to have them told, as people who are not standing on the outside of this thing casting stones, as people who have directly experienced the horrors of what's going on, not just in Iraq but in the military at large right now, and are voicing, you know, our opposition to this administration, their policies of endless war and their policies of doing as little as possible to take care of veterans when they come home from Iraq and need serious, you know, mental and physical care.
Well, listen, we've still got a few minutes, and as long as you brought that up, I'm perfectly happy to continue that discussion if you'd like to.
Okay.
I actually considered earlier in the interview asking about the numbers of PTSD.
There's been scandals.
It's been covered in the Washington Post and so forth about how the VA was trying to lie and fudge the numbers and pretend that we didn't have nearly as much PTSD, a.k.a. shell shock, as we're actually having.
But they're saying now over 300,000 American soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have these problems.
And I wonder, do you know much about that?
It's not something that you're suffering from, I guess.
Sure.
Well, I think on some level all of us suffer from some form of PTSD especially when being forced to support this occupation that so many, many of us are against.
And that is a lie that has been told to the American people, that the soldiers and the service members in Iraq want to be there.
They want to, quote, unquote, finish this mission and so on and so forth.
But, yes, the numbers are high.
And I personally would say that's still a gross underestimate of the numbers of people coming back, not just from Iraq but from various places all over the world, with serious issues that the government does not want to address because it reflects the realities of what they're asking people to go through.
And furthermore, I would like to talk about the misdiagnosis of PTSD as adjustment disorder.
And this is a story that's been breaking over the last few weeks that we've been talking about for a long time at IVAW.
And, in fact, my best friend Chris Goldsmith has been doing a lot of interviews because when he got back from Iraq, he was showing all of the signs of post-traumatic distress, stress disorder, full-blown PTSD.
And, instead, he was given a diagnosis of adjustment disorder, which is basically like PTSD's baby brother.
And, in fact, as soon as he got out of the military and went to the VA, they said, why were you diagnosed with adjustment disorder?
It is clear that you were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and they changed that diagnosis.
Well, it's popping now because some high-level doctors from within the VA sent out a message to everybody, all VA mental health professionals, saying, you know, we are coming up with far too many diagnoses of PTSD, and, in fact, it's very expensive to treat.
Consider, instead, diagnosing people with adjustment disorder because they will not need the same level of care.
And, furthermore, that lowers the amount of people we have to admit to having given PTSD.
It's kind of tough for the narrative of war as valor and glory and liberation for the poor, downtrodden people of the world when the real story is people come home and can't even live inside their own minds anymore after what they've seen over there.
And they're coming home and beating, you know, our door down, Iraq Veterans Against the War's door down, saying, you know, how can I be involved?
And, furthermore, you know, can you help me?
And our answer is always yes.
For mental health services in many places in the country right now, there is a six-month waiting list for veterans with PTSD who need immediate care, and they're being told, here's some pills to hold you over in the meantime.
Come back and see us in six months when we have some availability.
And this is not acceptable by any level.
And it doesn't matter, you know, what side of the political spectrum you fall on.
I think we all can agree that veterans who have served overseas and are coming back with post-traumatic stress disorder deserve immediate care because while they're sitting around on waiting lists waiting to get help, the level of suicides among combat veterans are skyrocketing.
Yeah, they are.
Well, wait now.
You're telling me that IVAW, Iraq Veterans Against the War at IVAW.org, that you guys have your own support network for PTSD.
We do, in fact.
Yesterday I just participated in something we call Homefront Battle Buddies, which is peer counseling groups.
The one here in Washington, D.C., is and has been very successful.
And we're setting others up across the country where, you know, veterans who can't wait six months to be seen, you know, by somebody who you can understand them, can relate to their problems.
We have these Homefront Battle Buddy sessions where we offer peer counseling to each other.
One of the best things for veterans seeking to recover from these traumatic experiences, it's been proven time and time again, is to be among other veterans because, you know, collectively we understand what we've all gone through and can offer some consolation about, look, you're not alone.
You're not weak.
I'm just guessing here because I'm not a veteran.
But it would seem to me, in fact, I read an article about a guy who came home pretty shell-shocked from Vietnam the other day, describing his experience.
It would seem to me that many veterans would be really suspicious of going to the VA at all.
They get turned away and told to come back in six months the first time.
If they even show up the first time at all, they probably, many of them, aren't going to want to go back in six months because they don't trust these people.
Meanwhile, IVAW, you guys are veterans of the war.
You guys are, you know, they're comrades that they can trust.
Right.
Well, first, we will never turn away a veteran from our door.
It doesn't matter what time of day or night or any other thing going on.
We will never, ever turn away a veteran in need of help.
And if, you know, we can't give them that help directly, then we have tons and tons and tons of mental health professionals volunteering their time across the country to try and help, you know, ease the burden that a lot of these guys have been forced to carry by this government, you know, irresponsible and illegal policies.
Yeah, we offer that help because, you know, we ourselves need that help, and we understand that, you know, only through supporting each other will we find peace in this whole thing.
As well, I did want to point out our Homefront Battle Buddy sessions, our meetings, our peer counseling sessions, are completely apolitical.
We are not discussing, you know, legality or illegality of the war.
We are not trying to push our perspective on anybody.
We simply come together to speak about what we've experienced and how that has affected us and, you know, offer, you know, comfort to each other and suggestions to each other of how to deal with those issues.
We're not sitting around talking about the illegality of the war.
We do a lot of that, but we do none of that during Homefront Battle Buddies.
It is purely therapeutic, designed, and intended to offer veterans from all walks of life and from all schools of thought some type of support from a group of people who understands, you know, what everybody is going through because at some point in our lives we've been there ourselves.
Yeah.
Well, good for you.
I sure hope that if anybody listening has any problems along those lines that they go to you guys.
If I was in that situation, I wouldn't want to go to the VA, but the IVAW, I think we could get along.
Well, we are a shockingly likable bunch of guys and gals.
And, I mean, we are only interested in doing what is right for veterans and what is right for soldiers and, I mean, what is right for humanity as a whole.
And, you know, be that, you know, helping somebody come out of the, you know, pro-peace closet, so to speak, or be that simply helping somebody to deal with issues that they're still carrying around from their time in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere in the military.
We are there to do that.
And we will not stop until every last veteran receives the care that they deserve.
All right.
Good for you, everybody.
That's Sergeant Matthew Shiro.
Mathis.
I'm sorry.
I did it again.
No, it's all right.
It's a good thing I can just go back and cheat and edit this before I post it.
It's Sergeant Mathis Shiro.
He is refusing to deploy to Iraq.
And the website where you can read all about it is IVAW.
That's IraqVeteransAgainstTheWar.org.
Thanks very much for your time on the show today.
Thank you, Scott.
Call me anytime.
I don't like words that hide the truth.
I don't like words that conceal reality.
I don't like euphemisms or euphemistic language.
And American English is loaded with euphemisms because Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality.
Americans have trouble facing the truth.
So they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it.
And it gets worse with every generation.
For some reason, it just keeps getting worse.
I'll give you an example of that.
There's a condition in combat.
Most people know about it.
It's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum, can't take any more input.
The nervous system has either snapped or is about to snap.
And in the First World War, that condition was called shell shock.
Simple, honest, direct language.
Two syllables.
Shell shock.
Almost sounds like the guns themselves.
That was 70 years ago.
Then a whole generation went by and the Second World War came along and the very same combat condition was called battle fatigue.
Four syllables now.
Takes a little longer to say.
Doesn't seem to hurt as much.
Fatigue is a nicer word than shock.
Shell shock.
Battle fatigue.
Then we had the war in Korea in 1950.
Madison Avenue was riding high by that time.
And the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion.
Hey, we're up to eight syllables now.
And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase.
It's totally sterile now.
Operational exhaustion.
Sounds like something that might happen to your car.
Then, of course, came the war in Vietnam, which has only been over for about 16 or 17 years.
And thanks to the lies and deceit surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder.
Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen.
And the pain is completely buried under jargon.
Post-traumatic stress disorder.
I'll bet you if we'd have still been calling it shell shock, some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time.
I'll bet you that.
I'll bet you that.