06/22/10 – Ann Wright – The Scott Horton Show

It's all good, it's Antiwar Radio on the Liberty Radio Network, LRN.
FM.
I'm your host, Scott Horton, sometimes forgetting to push buttons on time, but you know, that's how it is sometimes, live radio.
Anyway, enough of that.
First guest today on the show is Anne Wright.
She is a former U.S. Army colonel and State Department official, turned peace activist, and was involved in the recent unpleasantness with the Israeli raid on the Gaza peace flotilla.
Welcome to the show, Anne.
How are you?
Thank you, Scott.
I'm doing well.
Thanks.
Yeah, sorry about the trouble at the beginning there.
It happens.
Oh, also, I should mention that Anne's work is featured in the book Dissent, Voices of Resistance, Government Insiders Speak Out Against the War in Iraq.
So I guess I'd like to, well, first of all, set it up.
There's a little background noise because you're in Chicago, is that right?
No, I'm in Detroit.
Oh, Detroit.
I'm in one of the big convention centers where the U.S. Social Forum is just kicking off today with tens of thousands of people from all over the country and all over the world.
Oh, wow.
Well, tell me about that a little bit.
What's the peace movement like there, the antiwar movement?
Well, we've got workshops galore on the issues of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, on the issues of the use of drones, on U.S. war making in the Israeli-Palestinian issues.
It's a wide ranging of, I think, something like 20,000 people will be here and there are 1,400 workshops during the course of five days.
So there are a lot of people with a lot of things to say.
Right on.
Wow.
Progressive, including Palestine, huh?
Absolutely.
Yes.
Right on.
All right.
Well, so now let's talk about this Gaza flotilla raid and your experience there.
First of all, could you please tell us why you were involved in this?
What's so important about the blockade of Gaza that you thought you needed to risk your life attempting to break it?
Well, I am very concerned when the international community puts a blockade sanctions as collective punishment on a people to try to get the people to do a political act on behalf of the international community.
In this case, trying to squeeze the people of Gaza, the 1.5 million people that live in this tiny little area, 25 miles long, five miles wide, 1.5 million people, one of the most densely populated places in the world.
The international community is squeezing them by this blockade and siege in order to try to get them to change the government they elected, a government that is run by a political, social, militant group called Hamas.
That is, the United States, Israel, and other countries have put on a terrorist list.
The siege has been going on and the blockade has been going on for four years now in earnest.
And as a result, a tunnel system has had to be, the Palestinians, in order to survive, have built an extensive tunnel system under the Egyptian border through which most of the food and materials for Gaza, keeping the people of Gaza alive, go.
I started, after the Israeli attack on Gaza, which was in December of 2008 and January of 2009, that killed in 22 days, killed 1,440 people, wounded 5,000 and left 50,000 homeless.
I went to Gaza 10 days after the attack ended and saw for myself the level of destruction, the disproportionate use of force by the Israeli military on the Palestinians.
The Israelis said it was because of rockets that were being sent into Israel, which I do not agree with.
I mean, that's wrong for those rockets to go in.
Some 30 people of Israel have been killed over the last six years by those rockets.
But the disproportionate use of force of essentially using, you know, the might of the United States military, which is what Israel has, F-16s, Apache helicopters, to pound the people of Palestine, of Gaza, for 22 days, was something I had to go see for myself.
And then I helped two other groups go into Gaza in March and May of 2009 and then helped organize the Gaza Freedom March in December of 2009 that brought 1,350 people to Cairo, although the Egyptian government wouldn't let us get into Gaza.
So the next step for me was to join a group called Free Gaza that for the last two years has been trying to take boats into Gaza to break the naval blockade on Gaza.
And their idea of finally taking a flotilla, not just one boat, but a flotilla that turned out to be of six ships, was something that I wanted to be a part of.
So that's what led me to being on one of the three passenger ships.
Okay, now, before we get to your story of what happened that night, I'd like to ask you to clarify one thing.
And I already know you're right, but I'd like to hear you provide evidence for your assertion that the blockade is about collective punishment of the people of Gaza until they choose, I think you said, on behalf of the international community, who the international community wants to be in charge.
That kind of thing.
Well, but we hear all the time that no, they're just trying to keep the weapons out and you can't let in a bunch of food because there will be rockets hidden in the food.
And so it all has to go through Israel.
And it's, this is just a matter of self-defense on the part of the Israeli government, basically.
Well, but yes, that's one aspect of it, but certainly the political overtones of it that the international community subscribes to, just as they have subscribed to a blockade, the United States government in particular, a 40-year blockade on Cuba to get the Castro family out of power, the 10-year blockade on Iraq to get Saddam Hussein out of power to make the people of Iraq overthrow Saddam Hussein.
And you know, remember when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked, is that blockade worth the death of 500,000 Iraqi kids that have died from malnutrition and lack of medical care?
And she said, yes, it is.
And now we see another blockade that sanctions that are on Iran in order to pressure the Iranian people to overthrow the government, the revolutionary government, and not Hedinjian.
So you know, there's a whole history to all of this, and it's not just to prevent arms flow.
It's to overthrow government.
Right.
And well, and of course we can all remember from the 1990s in the Iraq situation, they made it perfectly clear, as you say, in no uncertain terms whatsoever.
This is to make the people of Iraq so miserable that they would rather risk their lives rising up to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
That's right.
And this is the collective punishment on the people of Gaza to overthrow Hamas.
And what the international community is willing to do to squeeze people, to squeeze them until they, I mean, the lack of travel, I mean, there are people in Gaza that cannot go out of Gaza, and they haven't been out of Gaza for years and years.
A few Palestinian families that can't come in.
No travel.
Students that can get international scholarships but can't get out of Gaza to go use them.
So it really is collective punishment to put the squeeze on the people of Gaza.
And what the people of Gaza have done is, of course, in creative ways, to have gotten around some of the sanctions.
Not all of them, but some.
But it costs them a lot of money.
The middlemen and women that are a part of bringing the food and materials through the tunnels to some, you know, hundreds of tunnels that go under that border with Egypt, everybody takes their cut.
And finally, when it gets to the people of Gaza, they pay top dollar for everything.
All right, we're going to have to hold it right there as we go out to this break.
We're talking with former Army colonel and State Department official Anne Wright about the situation in Gaza.
By the way, McClatchy published an Israeli document all about collective punishment.
Senator Schumer said that's what it was all about last week, just for the record.
We'll be right back.
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All right, welcome back to the show, it's Antiwar Radio on LRN, the Liberty Radio Network.
I'm your host, Scott Wharton, and we're talking with Anne Wright.
She is a former U.S. Army colonel and State Department official turned peace activist and was involved in the Gaza flotilla raid.
Now, if I'm not skipping ahead, I'd like to go ahead and let you now tell us about your experience on the night of, was it May 31st, right?
On the morning of May 31st, after we'd been steaming at a grand speed of eight knots, the sixth ship flotilla started getting radio calls from the Israeli Navy saying, you are approaching a security zone, turn back, turn back.
And each one of the captains of the ships was identified by name and told to turn back.
The ship's captain and members of the organizing committees on each one of the ships responded to the calls, the radio calls, saying, we are civilian ships, we are unarmed, we are taking humanitarian assistance to Gaza, we believe your siege on Gaza is illegal and that security zone is illegal, and we are continuing.
About three in the morning, we started seeing lights to the stern in the distance.
And by 4.30, swift boats, Zodiac boats, were steaming, racing toward all six of our ships.
We were right next to the Marvi Marmara, about 150 yards off its port side, and saw four Zodiac boats, two on each side of the stern, attempt to offload commandos onto the ship.
We saw passengers on the ship, you know, it was a six-level ship, this was a day ferry boat from Turkey that could hold a lot of people, and it had 600 people on board.
Their decision on trying to protect the ship peacefully, nonviolently, was to throw water down on the commandos, and they actually had ship fire hoses that they put salt water down on the commandos, similar to what the Israeli does to fishermen of Gaza every single day as the fishermen go out to try to fish, then they are met with Israeli military boats that many times fire these water cannons at them.
These were not water cannons, they were just fire hoses.
The Israeli commandos were firing percussion grenades up into the decks, these loud noises with, grenades with loud noises, with smoke, concussion sort of things, to really throw you back on your feet, to try to disorient people around there.
Also, rubber bullets filled with paint were being shot, and at some stage there was a decision made that live ammunition would be also shot.
At the same time, three helicopters were coming over the top of the ship that were starting to disgorge commandos down onto the upper deck to try to take control of the wheelhouse.
Now, I did not see that latter part, in fact, by that time our ship's captain had been talking with the captain of the Marmara, and they had decided that our ship would go forward, that we would go at top speed to try to get as far in toward Gaza as we could.
So, what I can relate next is what happened when the commandos attacked our ship, and then I can relate what women who were on the big ship and that were later in prison with us, in the Israeli prison, for 48 hours, what they told us.
On our ship, the Challenger 1, the commandos, after about 20 minutes with them, we were going at top speed, about 20 knots, and we had commando zodiacs on each side of us.
We saw in the distance a large light coming toward our port or our bow, and all of a sudden our captain just pulled the power off the engines, and we just were dead in the water.
A large Israeli ship, a naval ship, had come straight across our bow and was stopping our forward movement, and we stopped.
We weren't about to run into anybody, but at that point, the commandos started boarding our ship.
We had made a decision that no red carpet would be rolled out for the commandos, that we would peacefully, nonviolently try to prevent their entry onto the ship by placing our bodies on the rails of the ship, trying to make their entry onto the ship much more difficult, and yelling at them, saying that they were not invited to come on, that these were international waters, that it was an act of piracy, that they come on board, and we didn't want them on.
Well, of course, when you've got about 25 commandos coming on, four women on the back of the ship standing up to them, it doesn't last long, especially as they started shooting percussion grenades onto our ship, blowing out windows, and then the first commandos that got on board, knocking out the back end of the ship into the main deck area, which was a plate glass door, and knocking that apart with glass flying everywhere.
One of the women on our ship was shot in the face, direct fire into the face, with one of these paint bullets, that the Israelis said, oh, we only had paint, we weren't going to injure anyone.
Well, let me tell you what happens with a paint bullet.
It can put out eyes.
If it hits in certain areas of the skull, it can give you a concussion.
As it happened with this woman, it hit her in the nose, and of course, the bleeding from the nose.
But these things, when fired at your face, which was a purposeful intent to hit her in the face, it shows that this was not, I mean, this was a forceful boarding.
Many people were thrown to the ground.
Two of the women were tied, handcuffed, and hoods put over their faces, and taken to the bow of the ship.
The hooded commandos boarded the ship, and forced everyone into one lounge area on the main deck, bringing down from the flybridge the two Australian reporters that were observing from above, and actually reporting back by satellite phone to Australia.
Now, Ann, I know you're on a tight schedule, but is there any way I can keep you one more segment here?
Sure, that'd be fine.
Okay, great.
Everybody, we're talking with Ann Wright.
She's a peace activist.
She used to work for the State Department, and lived through the Flotilla Raid, thank goodness.
We'll be right back after this break.
You're listening to the best Liberty-oriented audio streamed around the clock, on the air, and online.
We're talking with Ann Wright, former U.S. Army colonel, and State Department official turned peace activist, and I think what's going to happen here is I'm just going to be quiet and let you continue your story, at least for a little while here.
Okay.
Well, after the commandos boarded our Challenger 1 ship, they had control of it within about, oh, 30 seconds after they got on board.
Peace activists standing in front of them, yelling at them, aren't much match for heavily armed military folks.
They took control of our ship, put us all in a salon, you know, a lounge area on this small boat, about a 40-foot vessel.
And then we started being headed toward Ashdod, a port in Israel.
We were telling the commandos they were violating international law.
They were hijacking.
It was an act of piracy on the high seas and international waters to take our ship.
We were being kidnapped, taken to a place against our will, and little did we know at the same time that that was happening to us, that on the big ship, within 20 minutes of the Israelis boarding the ship there, nine Turkish or eight Turkish citizens and one American citizen and 50 other people had been shot.
Nine people had been killed, 50 had been shot, wounded.
The takeover was, in my opinion, that type of takeover, the use of force in that manner was totally unnecessary, that they were willing to provoke the reaction of some people on the top of the ship who apparently saw one of the people of the ship being shot from the helicopter above, as reported by an Al Jazeera reporter who says that he was standing on the top deck and a person next to him was shot from above from a helicopter, and I think that's probably what precipitated that melee that you saw on the videotapes.
It was not a pretty sight at all, where as the Israeli soldiers were, the commandos were repelling down out of the helicopter, there were men on top of the deck that were to protect the wheelhouse, the captain of the boat, that were hitting the Israeli soldiers with sticks and apparently they had taken some metal railing off and were hitting the soldiers, something I do not agree with, but if they had just seen somebody being shot right in front of them, one could say that that might be a probable reaction.
Well, we see also in the video that the Israeli soldiers who were disarmed and captured by the civilian passengers were taken down into the hold and they were protected, their wounds were tended to, and everybody stood around them in a circle facing out, there's pictures of some civilian, one civilian taking an Israeli soldier below and he's actually reaching his hand out and protecting the soldier in his custody from a man with a camera, and even holding the man, you know, so certainly they were treated fairly, even if they were hit with sticks, but I need to fast forward here to once they took you to Israel, were you all mistreated in custody at all?
I saw at least the report from the former marine, the former American citizen, saying that he was beaten while in custody by the Israelis, can you confirm any of that?
Well, that's Ken O'Keefe, who said that he was beaten on board the ship, he was beaten in the Israeli prison where we were taken, and I can confirm, I did see him being beaten at the Ben-Gurion airport, along with Paul LaRudy, another American citizen, and then one of the organizers of the Greek delegation, Vangelis, was also beaten, and there was a fourth person that I don't know the identity of, but while we were at the airport waiting for us to be processed, we saw those four people being taken by armed persons, and we heard hits and slaps and yells at that airport.
The airport was probably the most, other than on board the ship, at the airport, that's where we got the roughest treatment.
Everyone that was in uniform there was pretty rough and pretty surly, including slapping at least one of the women that was there, a Greek woman, who was with our group of 11.
We were the last of some 120 women that were a part of the three groups.
We were the last ones to come out of the prison and the last ones to be processed, and they kept us in a box patrol car for five hours on the tarmac of the airport before they brought us into the airport, and then isolated us in one area.
And while we were going up the stairway to this isolated area, they started pushing us, and then all of a sudden there was a whap, and one of the uniformed guys had just reached out and slapped the lady from Greece.
And let me tell you, that sort of provocation gets even us that are trying to be as peaceful as we can.
I mean, we were furious to see how we were being treated.
Of course, it's nothing in comparison to what happens on a daily basis to the Palestinians in the West Bank as they try to go through checkpoints.
It's nothing compared to the people in Gaza who are being shot in the buffer zone along the border.
So our treatment was, while harsh on one level, it's nothing to the extent of what happens on a daily basis to the Palestinians, with the exception of those who were murdered, nine people murdered and 50 that were shot.
And that does compare.
Right, 50 that were shot, you say?
That's correct.
All right, now, I'm sorry because I've got more questions than time here, but I guess let me try to ask, too.
There were reports that some of the people are not accounted for.
Maybe they were Mossad spies.
Maybe they were killed and dumped overboard.
Nobody knows what happened to a certain number of people, at least last I heard.
And then, probably most importantly, I'd like to know what you make of the American government's response to this.
You're a former State Department official.
An American citizen was shot in the head here, killed.
Others may have been wounded, apparently people abused in custody.
And Joe Biden says, what's the big deal?
And Barack Obama says nothing at all.
Well, first, the organizers of all of the delegations that were part of the flotilla have now gone over their list.
There are no missing people now.
In the chaos that was going on around the events of May 31st, there were some people that were unaccounted for, but they are now accounted for.
Oh, okay, thank you for that clarification.
Yeah, and then on the issue of the response of the United States government, it's awful.
It's pitiful.
I mean, when they say it's regrettable, the loss of life, and yet they call reprehensible the statements of Helen Thomas when she made her comment that I don't agree with, but it just shows the Obama administration, just like every other U.S. administration, will not criticize Israel in the forceful terms that these types of criminal actions should be criticized.
I am appalled, I am dismayed.
I've already met once with officials of the State Department to express my concern, and I've written a letter to Hillary Clinton with all of my concerns about what's going on.
I think it's appalling that the United States government has said virtually nothing about the murder of a U.S. citizen.
I mean, they have just swept it under the carpet, similar to what, 34 years ago, the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, swept under the carpet.
And in fact, we had a survivor of that USS Liberty attack, the Israeli attack that killed some almost 40 people and injured 176, I believe, 34 years ago.
A survivor of that was one of the ships of the flotilla, so he's been attacked twice by the Israelis in virtually the same area.
Well, and even technically speaking, the other Scott Horton, heroic anti-torture international human rights lawyer, clarified that even under the San Remo Memorandum and whatever excuse that people can come up with on a technicality basis, that no, the Israelis had no right whatsoever to raid those ships in international waters.
Well, that's right, although I'll tell you, I raised that at the State Department, and the comment back from our own representative at the State Department was that, well, you know, the United States does not subscribe to that, that we, the United States, board vessels anywhere we want to in the world.
And it's true.
And so we can outsource and delegate that authority to Israel, too, I guess.
All right, we're all out of time.
Thank you so much for your time, Anne.
I hope we can do this again soon.
Indeed, Scott.
Thank you.
Anne Wright, everybody.
We'll be right back.