04/26/07 – Sara Olson – The Scott Horton Show

For Antiwar.com and Chaos Radio in Austin, Texas, I'm Scott Horton and this is Antiwar Radio.
To bring on our first guest, her name is Sarah Olson.
She's the recent recipient of the James Madison Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
She's a freelance journalist and radio producer from Oakland, California.
Welcome to the show, Sarah.
Thanks very much for having me.
Well, it's good to talk to you and we're running one of your articles today for the fourth or fifth time on Antiwar.com.
It's called War Causes Air Force Sergeant to Change Course and it's about an Air Force sergeant named Jeff Slocum.
So, why don't you briefly tell us his story?
Yeah, Jeff Slocum is a US Air Force Chief Master Sergeant.
He's a 21 year veteran of the US Air Force.
He's 41 years old and he's recently signed the appeal for redress.
He is someone who joined the Air Force kind of right out of school back when he was 18, 19 years old.
And he's someone who did it because he loved his country.
He is someone who is a patriot.
He voted for George Bush during the first election.
He watched Fox News.
He was very much someone who supported the war in Iraq.
He really was kind of going along with the agenda of the Bush administration in kind of every possible way.
He was in a lot of ways sort of a perfect person for the military until he started kind of questioning the Iraq war.
He started talking to some supportive family members and one of his aunts encouraged him to go see Fahrenheit 9-11 and pointed him to some alternative news sources, places like antiwar.com.
And he all of a sudden kind of started doing this research, this reading, and has completely shifted his point of view, his perspective.
And one of the things, one of the reasons that I wrote this story is because I think that this is the kind of thing that we're seeing happening all over the country.
And I always kind of think about it.
I live in the Bay Area and we see a lot of people here who oppose the war, people who kind of have gathered together with other kind of like-minded people and go out on Saturday or Sunday and march down Market Street here in San Francisco and protest.
And I think that's very good and I'm not kind of dismissing that.
But what I do think also is that it's not terribly challenging.
It doesn't require kind of a restructuring or a shifting of a life perspective in order to do that here in San Francisco.
Probably it doesn't out in Austin either from what I know about Austin.
But when we're talking about people who are inside the military, who are from smaller towns and more conservative areas of the country, I think what we're seeing is really very dramatic and profound shiftings of people's entire life, their entire structures.
This US Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Jeff Slocum has really known no other career outside of the US Air Force and he's resigning.
He will be out of the Air Force in October of this year, he hopes.
And he's speaking against the war in some very powerful and very profound ways.
And as you say, he's really not alone.
Tell us about this appeal for redress that these soldiers are now...
It's a petition to Congress, is that right?
Sure.
The appeal for redress is a relatively simple, as you say, petition to Congress.
And what it basically says is it's for active duty members of the military.
And it's a petition that asks Congress to withdraw US troops and bases from Iraq promptly.
And it asks Congress to take care of the soldiers upon their return from Iraq, from a war zone.
And the reason that it is so significant, you know, as you know, when members of the military speak out against the war, they can, it's possible for them to face some significant repercussions.
We can, for example, see the case of US Army First Lieutenant Aaron Watada, who became the highest ranking member of the military to refuse his orders to deploy to Iraq.
He's also someone who, he's the first officer to refuse to deploy to Iraq publicly.
He was, when he was court-martialed this past February, not only was he charged with refusing to go to Iraq, but he was also facing up to four years in prison at one point for just speaking about his opposition to the war.
So I think you can see a situation where certain parts of this administration, certain parts of the military would very much like to make it difficult for, you know, rank and file enlisted people and as well as other officers to speak out against the war, to voice their opposition to the war.
However, what is also true is that communication with their Congress people is something that is specifically protected for all members of the military.
So in order to, you know, speak out, the co-founders of Appeal for Redress decided to make this a petition to Congress, again, something that is fully protected, even under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, where certain, you know, free, certain speech protections are waived when you join the military.
So it's significant in that way.
It's a very safe, very legal way for members of the military to express what can only be described now as a growing opposition to the Iraq war.
And at this point, a little under 2,000 active duty members of the military have signed the Appeal.
It's growing.
I think that number is growing every day.
And, you know, I think what is also relatively significant about it is that once people sign the Appeal for Redress and an anonymous electronic signature, what many people find is that they continue to speak out in various ways.
So, for example, Chief Master Sergeant Slocum from the Air Force has been writing op-eds for military newspapers like Stars and Stripes and, you know, talking about the Appeal for Redress and talking about the importance of utilizing your First Amendment protections, your First Amendment rights, to express your personal opinions regarding the war.
There have been other soldiers who have marched in both the January as well as the March demonstrations in Washington, D.C. and around the country in opposition to the war.
The soldiers have been very well represented there.
Certain soldiers have chosen to go AWOL rather than deploy to Iraq.
And, of course, we're seeing just an enormous surge in soldiers that are speaking publicly about their opposition to the war.
Do you have any numbers on the Absent Without Leave?
How many people have just deserted?
Well, it's really hard to tell.
The Army recently released numbers, I think this past February, that indicated that, in fact, more soldiers are going AWOL or Absent Without Leave.
It had been potentially a little over 3,000 soldiers in just 2006, I believe.
I don't have the solid statistics, but what we can see is that, you know, there are a lot of people going AWOL, and those numbers are not necessarily, you know, well reported.
It's interesting because, you know, what a lot of people say is that the Army just simply, you know, kind of quietly discharges many people, not really wanting to make a big deal about it, not really wanting to kind of say, hey, you know, a third of the people were calling up for duty or not showing up.
But certainly that we're seeing kind of growing numbers of people, you know, just simply not showing up.
Most of them are not holding press conferences and explaining to the public why they've decided not to show up.
So it's really, you know, it's not necessarily fair to say that all of these soldiers have decided to not fight in this war because of their ethical or moral, you know, opposition to it, but certainly many more people are feeling like this war is not a productive thing for the U.S. military to be engaged in.
Many people are feeling betrayed by their government, by the American people who, you know, have kind of allowed the government to silence debate and, you know, intimidate people who would question the war.
I think it's significant.
A couple weeks ago, near the end of March of this year, I flew out to Fayetteville, North Carolina, and I got on a bus with Veterans for Peace.
We traveled from Fayetteville, North Carolina, to New Orleans, Louisiana, and stopped in military base towns along the way.
So we stopped, for example, in Savannah, Georgia, which is located right next to Fort Stewart, I believe the largest Army installation east of the Mississippi.
And what we saw there, for example, is that Veterans for Peace, you know, basically was doing outreach to soldiers at Fort Stewart.
They, you know, showed up at a local Taco Bell right outside the gates of Fort Stewart during lunchtime.
There were, I would say, hundreds of soldiers coming and going, having lunch.
And Veterans for Peace, they were handing out, you know, copies of Sir No Sir, a video documentary about the Vietnam GI resistance movement.
They also handed out copies of the ground truth and were talking to soldiers about the appeal for redress.
At the same time, I, you know, took the opportunity to ask a bunch of the soldiers kind of coming and going, what they thought of the, you know, outreach by Veterans for Peace.
You might remember at the end of March, there was, you know, some fairly intense debate in Washington, D.C., amongst members of Congress, in the press, about whether or not, you know, a supplemental funding bill should be passed.
We're kind of seeing the fallout of that this week in Washington.
But really what, at that point, you know, the debate was really framed all about whether or not, you know, if you supported the troops, if you supported the men and women fighting the Iraq War, you absolutely could not question the war.
That was kind of the message that was coming out of the administration in Washington, D.C. at that time.
And what I find significant is that standing in that parking lot randomly on, you know, just kind of any kind of given afternoon, I was really hard pressed to find soldiers who were excited to deploy to Iraq.
There were, you know, I talked to probably a dozen people, not a lot, but none of them, all of them were deploying in May.
None of them wanted to go.
And I, you know, I'm not pretending like no soldier wants to deploy to Iraq, but what I am suggesting is that the numbers that we've been given in terms of, you know, well, the troops all support the war and so on, you know, just simply are not jiving with what I've seen from the individual men and women that I've been talking to.
And, you know, John McCain was on The Daily Show just the other day and said, yeah, well, listen, I hear from the troops all the time and they believe in the mission and want to finish the mission.
And John Stewart said, well, you know, I hear from some soldiers and McCain interrupted them and said, no, I hear from them every day and they like the war.
They want to fight it.
But what you're telling me is you go to a Taco Bell at the gates of Fort Stewart and you're with the Veterans for Peace and you didn't find anybody to come up to you and disagree or no one you talked to disagree?
There were a couple of people who, you know, weren't terribly appreciative of Veterans for Peace, but what's interesting is that even those people, you know, they had concerns about a whole bunch of things, but it wasn't really that they were supporting the war.
And I think it was, you know, a very interesting demonstration of the way that we are culturally kind of taught to think that, you know, all of the soldiers are supporting the war.
What I found was that a majority did not and were not excited to deploy.
You know, you brought up also the silence that's supposed to come with patriotism, which, you know, it seems like we ought to be past this argument by now that if you send soldiers to a desert to die for nothing, then you're not the one supporting the troops.
The people who want them safely back at Fort Stewart sitting on their duff doing nothing are the ones who support them.
Sure.
I mean, it's pretty interesting.
I mean, this kind of question of John McCain saying, well, I talk to the troops, they all support the mission.
You know, it's interesting because, you know, as a journalist, it's kind of my job to talk to the troops.
But as a congressional leader and representative, you know, John McCain's job is to provide some leadership.
You know, one of the things that I hear from veterans all the time is kind of, you know, we're soldiers.
We're not supposed to be questioning our duty.
You know, when we do, you know, we're court-martialed.
But, you know, that questioning, that's something that is the job of the American people.
That's something that's the job of the press.
And I hear from veterans and from soldiers all the time and say, my God, you know, I just feel unbelievably betrayed by the American public.
How could they have allowed us to go to war in this way without, you know, we assumed that if we were going to be sent to Iraq to fight and to die, to give our lives, we were going to be doing so for a war, for a conflict that had been thoroughly vetted by the American public, that had been discussed and debated and, you know, that people were pretty sure that, you know, it was a good thing.
You know, it had been thoroughly discussed and everybody agreed that it was maybe regrettable but necessary.
And, you know, I mean, I think it's real clear at this point that that didn't happen.
You know, after the Iraq War started, we saw major media outlets, major venues like the New York Times, right, the paper of record, kind of publish a, you know, a mea culpa apologizing for their failure to properly question the assertions of the administration prior to going to war.
And I think that that's very significant.
I think that when you're looking at people who, you know, when you're looking at the major media outlets, major institutions in this country, major reporters, you know, kind of saying, wherever my president wants me to be, I'll be.
You know, I think we all recognize right now that there was a failure of the media to do its job.
Well, and that's a spin that we don't ever hear that the soldiers kind of resent the fact that the American people aren't having a vigorous debate about this when all we hear is we're not supposed to debate it or else we'll hurt the troops' feelings.
Right, right, absolutely.
I mean, certainly there's been a reframing of this question of, you know, what does it mean to support the troops?
What does it mean to support this country and to be patriotic even?
Let me ask you, Sarah, real quickly, if there's a soldier out there listening who maybe has signed up and is in boot camp right now or something and wants to get out before it's too late or find out when the too late marker is, what does he do?
Who does he call?
Where does he go?
Well, you know, that's a good question.
I think there's a lot of different organizations out there.
I would certainly recommend, you know, calling the G.I.
Rights Hotline.
I don't have the number handy, but you probably do, and it's, you know, something that's available around the country.
Certainly there are a number of very good veterans organizations, people that have served today, you know, in the Iraq War today, you know, that can give people some kind of solid advice in terms of what their options are.
I think that, you know, when people are making decisions regarding what they're going to do, it's a very personal kind of decision, and I guess, you know, that's probably an important thing to emphasize.
It really is something there's really, you know, kind of people are being forced to weigh their kind of personal convictions, you know, on all sides of this issue, and it's a very private, very personal thing, and it's not an easy decision.
And, you know, I hope that people can kind of take the time and the space that they need to kind of weigh their various options and, you know, make decisions that are right for them.
And for anybody who does want that number, it's 800-394-9544.
That's the G.I.
Wright's hotline, 800-394-9544.
Now, Aaron Ouattata's trial was dismissed in a mistrial, right?
But there's a new trial coming together this summer.
Can you tell us about what the future holds for this young man?
Sure.
U.S. Army First Lieutenant Aaron Ouattata, as we were talking about before, is the highest ranking member of the military, the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq.
He was court-martialed in February.
His court-martial then ended in a mistrial.
He also, he was charged with four violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
One was for simply not going to Iraq.
The other four were for conduct and becoming an officer and a gentleman.
Those four charges had to do with statements he made to members of the press, myself and some other people, as well as in public regarding his opposition to the Iraq War, regarding the reasons he refused to deploy.
And he is facing up to six years in prison at this point.
The Army, again, they charged him.
They had a court-martial back in February, February 5th to the 9th it was scheduled for.
It ended about halfway through that week in a mistrial.
The Army has refiled all five charges, and they are beginning a pretrial hearing.
And if I'm not mistaken, that begins on May 16th.
He is scheduled to be court-martialed for the second time in July.
There are some very serious questions, and a growing number of lawyers appear to agree, lawyers and military law experts appear to agree that there's a question of double jeopardy.
Can the Army actually try Lieutenant Ouattata again, given the fact that they presented and closed their case, and then ask for a mistrial?
Do they have the right to present the same case again?
And a growing number of legal experts believe that no, they don't, in which case, you know, there's a possibility that the Army wouldn't be able to try Lieutenant Ouattata again.
Lieutenant Ouattata has, you know, kind of objected to, you know, raised this, his lawyers have raised the question of double jeopardy.
The Army, needless to say, dismissed the notion, and I believe that there are, there is an appeal in U.S. federal court going forward with regards to the viability of the second court-martial.
So it's certainly something that bears watching, but for the moment, his pretrial hearing starts in the middle of May, with a court-martial scheduled for later on in July.
All right.
Well, thank you very much for your time today.
This has been most enlightening.
Everybody, Sarah Olson, she's an independent journalist and radio producer from Oakland, California.
She's got one on Truthout today.
It's also running at antiwar.com.
Thanks very much.
Thanks for having me.