Larry Wilkerson reflects on Veterans Day and meeting wounded soldiers thinking he helped put them in harm’s way for a war about oil and profits.
Paul Jay
Hi. Welcome to theAnalysis.news. I’m Paul Jay. In a few seconds, I’ll be joined by Larry Wilkerson. We’re going to talk about November 11, Veterans Day in the United States, and Remembrance Day in Canada, which is supposed to honor soldiers who have sacrificed their lives. But just how much is that about honor, and how much is it about promoting militarism, and what actually is done for veterans in the United States and Canada, which I don’t think amounts to much?
Back in just a few seconds. Please don’t forget the donate button. Come over to the website. If you’re on YouTube or if you’re listening on one of the different podcast platforms, come to the website where you can donate. Please get up on the email list. Be back in just a few seconds.
So, as I said, November 11 in the United States is Veterans Day. In Canada, it’s Remembrance Day, which mostly comes out of the– in Canada, at least– from the First World War. I think the name Veterans Day came during or after the Korean War, but it amounts to the same thing. It’s a day that is supposed to be where we remember the sacrifices soldiers made in order to maintain our, quote-unquote, “way of life,” and quote-unquote, “democracy.”
No doubt many soldiers made enormous sacrifices and did give their lives and were wounded and destroyed themselves in many ways, believing they were fighting for what was just, believing they were fighting for the good of their families, their countries, and such. I think in most cases, that wasn’t the case. I think a lot of soldiers died in unjust wars. What we do on November 11 is not talk about how to avoid unjust wars, or how to avoid new military confrontations. What’s done in both countries is to create this mythology and a, I would call, false patriotism. We’re in a very dangerous world now where we can’t afford such a culture.
Now, joining me to talk about this is a man who spent much of his life in the military, Col. Larry Wilkerson. Thanks for joining us, Larry.
Larry Wilkerson
Thanks for having me, Paul. Especially on Veterans Day.
Paul Jay
What are your thoughts on Veterans Day, and as I say in Canada, Remembrance Day?
Larry Wilkerson
I think in the United States, it’s been transfigured majorly from what purpose most Americans would attribute to it. Your opening comments alluded to some of that. The major thing that troubles me about the transmogrify, transmogrification of it, if you will, is that it no longer represents what we think as Americans it should represent, which is what you detail there. Defense of the homeland, patriotism, a certain degree of positive nationalism, if you will– if nationalism can have a degree of positivism– and the kind of thing that we celebrate rather than denigrate.
Today Veterans Day marks the fear, the apathy, and the guilt Americans feel about their veterans because they know intuitively, if not intellectually, I think increasingly both, that they’ve sent them to wars for the past 20-plus years that were absolutely not for anything but the national security state, corporate benefactors like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Grumman, and other defense contractors, merchants of death, and for the billionaires in the world who make so much money off of wars like they are making, for example, off the war in Ukraine right now. That’s why we fight, and that’s why we create veterans.
Let me just say to close my opening comment, that’s why I feel an enormous amount of guilt. No matter how small my contribution might have been, it nonetheless was palpable in putting across the case for war with Iraq in 2003. A preposterous war, a war that killed British citizens, American citizens, other allies, and literally hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and others in the region. It put millions of them into diaspora or made them refugees within their own countries and destabilized the Levant, the Middle East, for years. We probably won’t see it stabilized again in our lifetimes. It all started in 2003 and our invasion of Iraq. It was for nothing, nothing at all positive unless you count making Halliburton’s $44 billion a positive. That’s what bothers me.
The other thing is, we’ve gone from a veterans department that the DOD wanted to move out of its budget profile because it was beginning to cost so much at $35 and $40 billion a year, to a Veterans administration, now, that costs $245 plus billion dollars a year. That’s all because of these stupid wars we’ve had over the last 20-plus years. They still don’t service our veterans as adequately, comprehensively, and positively as they should.
Paul Jay
Well, the suicide rates amongst former retired military veterans, PTSD, homelessness, I mean, the levels are stratospheric. I don’t have the numbers off the top of my head, but I think veterans are one of the most significant portions of homeless people. The lack of care, and then there’s Veterans Day, when the reality is veterans are treated like shit.
Larry Wilkerson
As I said, it’s out of fear, guilt, and apprehension. Veterans will tell you more than not, they will tell you if you thank them for their service, and they have a moment to comment, “don’t thank me for my service. I don’t want to be thanked for my service. I’m really conflicted over my service. Where did you serve, by the way?” And then the person at the airport or the ballgame or whatever will turn and walk away or look sheepishly at them and say, “well, I didn’t serve.” That’s the majority of Americans. Less than 1% of Americans have served in these wars over the last 20 years; that’s boys and girls.
It’s tragic that that’s the circumstance, but when you have that kind of circumstance, no war tax, no threat to the average family that their son or daughter will be drafted, you’re going to have more war because it’s so much easier to do, and there’s so much less political pushback because so few people are involved.
Paul Jay
People who watch theAnalysis know I’ve mentioned this a couple of times. I have ten-year-old twins, and in their school, they’ve been reciting this poem which was taught to me decades ago. It’s called In Flanders Fields the poppies blow. This is to commemorate a battle that took place during the first world war in Flanders fields, where thousands of Canadian soldiers were sent to their deaths for absolutely no reason. This is now venerated year after year after year in schools.
On the surface, it is supposed to be a poem where we have sorrow about these young men that were slaughtered. The actual heart of that poem comes in later in the second or third stanza, which essentially says, “if you don’t pick up our torch, you will be betraying those of us who died.” In fact, that poem, which is taught in schools up to this day, was a recruiting mechanism to get more soldiers to go fight in the First World War and get slaughtered in their tens and tens of thousands for a war that did nothing but make arms manufacturers rich and help create the conditions for the rise of fascism in Germany. We don’t talk about any of this. It’s just this vague nationalism about fighting, serving, and preparing kids to go off to war.
I had a really interesting interview a few years ago with General Lewis MacKenzie. He is a Canadian General, and he said something which was, I don’t know, he was far more frank than I’ve ever heard a military guy. He went on to a bit of a political career. He said to me, “we need soldiers who don’t know history. If they really knew history, why on earth would they go off and do what we tell them to and go die in these wars? So we need them to be uneducated about these things.” Boy, things haven’t changed.
Larry Wilkerson
Yeah. Poems like Flanders Fields and some of Rudyard Kipling’s writings and others of that ilk are basically hymns written by people who are defending the rights– many of these poets know this– they’re defending the right of very rich men and increasingly today women, who send young boys and girls to die for state purposes so they don’t have to go themselves or so they can make more money. That’s really what it’s all about.
The Greeks said, “old men send young boys to die,” and then in parentheses, “because the state needs preserving.” Well, today it’s not even the preservation of the state. Tell me how our invasion of Iraq had anything to do with preserving America.
I remember the blatant lie that Tony Blair told, Prime Minister Tony Blair– I almost fell off my chair in the state department chief of staff’s office. Literally almost fell off my chair when I heard it on the TV because Powell had just told me, “watch it, Prime Minister Blair, he’s going to make a speech.” We had CNN on, I think it was, and we were looking up there and all of a sudden he said, “well, in 45 minutes, Saddam Hussein could blanket London with poisonous gasses.” “Where did he get that?” Powell said. I said, “probably the same place he got this dossier he just sent over to us,” which we found out later had been written by a grad student or something like that. It told about all the things that Saddam Hussein had from the first war and what he could do with them, and all this. It’s just a hodgepodge of someone who’d gone through, like, a plagiaristic student, picking things out of other people’s articles and putting them together. This was Britain’s public policy campaign to support its entry into the war in Iraq. Here’s Blair giving the ultimate statement and saying “that in 45 minutes, the weapons could actually hit London.”
We knew that was preposterous. I think it was, Tom Fingar was in my office. He was the deputy in INR, our intel guy. Tom was a very good intel specialist, and there’s no foundation to that whatsoever. No foundation whatsoever. The phones rang off the hook as the White House asked us where he got the information. We asked the White House where he got the information, but we were telling similar lies. Indeed, we would go to the United Nations and put a whole pack of lies out. A whole pack of lies. I wish I’d known they were lies at the time. Had I known they were lies, maybe I wouldn’t have helped put them out.
Why were they lies and why didn’t I know it? I’ve asked myself that question a hundred times, but that brings me to my point. My great angst on Veterans Days is all the boys and girls, mostly boys at that time, that I helped send into harm’s way, and some of them didn’t come back– or some of them came back like the young man on the first day I went over to Walter Reed, to the Wounded Warrior Project, the National Military Medical Center now, Walter Reed. I met him. He was the Air Force’s only triple amputee. Triple amputee! He’s sitting across the table from me as best he could. He’s getting a prosthetic arm, he’s getting a prosthetic right leg, and they’re working on his left leg. They built him a van he can drive. His wife was a third-grade school teacher in Tampa, Florida, and she came up and stayed with him for 19 months through something like 18 surgeries. I’m looking at him and I’m saying to myself, “my God, he’s a triple amputee, and he’s sitting here across, drinking a cup of coffee. I had something to do with putting him there.” The Marine sitting next to him had only one leg. His right leg was severed at the knee, and he felt like he was comfortably okay because Joe was sitting there with a missing arm and two missing legs. I’m thinking, this is the detritus. This is the refuse. This is the aftermath of this war. How horrible this is.
By that time, I had learned quite a bit. It was all a farse. It was all a farse. Not only were there no WMD, but if you go through the streets of Iraq today, especially Al Anbar province or Baghdad itself, and you ask the average Iraqi merchant, male or female, if they were better off under Saddam Hussein, or better off now, they’ll tell you without equivocation they were better off under Saddam Hussein.
So what did we do all that for and why did we do it? When you start answering those questions categorically and with some authenticity to your answers, it’s revolting. It truly is revolting, because we did it for money, basically. We did it for money, and we did it for the complex, and we did it for people who– like I used Halliburton, Dick Cheney’s favorite company. I mean, he was CEO of Halliburton before he became Vice President of the United States. Forty-four billion they made off of Iraq and Afghanistan combined in the years of those wars. That’s why we have wars.
We ask ourselves, why do these people come home and commit suicide? Why do they have posttraumatic stress? Well, there are a lot of reasons, but one of those reasons has to be, just has to be, logically speaking, it just has to be that they come home and they understand what they’ve done. They understand they spent three tours in Iraq shooting at women, children, and other soldiers, and they were shooting at them, not for freedom and democracy, not even for the defense of their nation, but for Lockheed Martin, or for Halliburton, or for George W. Bush, or for Donald Rumsfeld.
Paul Jay
I think it’s important for viewers that don’t know that you were not just some bureaucrat in an office sending people to their deaths or to fight. You believed all this yourself and went to fight in Vietnam and put your own life on the line. You could have easily been one of these people because you believed the mythology. How did you get from that person who volunteers to go to Vietnam and fight to a person who now is one of the sharpest critics of U.S. foreign policy?
Larry Wilkerson
It was a long, difficult road in the distance from Vietnam to just before I became what you might call a member of the top power echelon in Washington, first when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, and then when he was Secretary of State. The distance between Vietnam and there, I learned about Vietnam. So it’s not like I went into the Iraq war totally ignorant of what had been done to me in Vietnam. I not only learned about Vietnam, but I also taught it at the Naval War College and at the Marine Corps War College.
I’m entering– and this increases my guilt, as far as I’m concerned– I’m entering this environment of war with Iraq in 2002 and early 2003 with this sure knowledge of Vietnam being a farce. Worse than a farce. Not even a tragic farce, a diabolical farce where so many boys and girls were killed, where 59,000 names are over there on that black marble wall that doesn’t need to be there. I went into this with that idea, as did Colin Powell. One of the first things he told me, as we knew that we were getting closer and closer to war in January, early January, right after Christmas, 2002-2003. We knew that there were so many similarities between Vietnam and Iraq that we needed to tell the president about them.
So he ordered me to get it. He ordered me to get a hold of everything I could get on the Vietnam War, from David Halverson to General [John L.] Throckmorton, to whoever had written something about the Vietnam War telling LBJ, “don’t do this, don’t do this.” Or had written afterward about, “you shouldn’t have done this, LBJ”. All the material. Then he said something with a smile, “he won’t read any of it. So we’ll just do a memo. We’ll do a one or two-page memo summarizing all of it because we can get him to read that.” He being George W. Bush President of the United States.
We did all that, and we shipped it over to the executive secretary, Condi Rice, a national security advisor, and we said, “you got to tell the president about this. This is looking a lot like Vietnam.” Did he read it? Did he do anything about it? Did he have any conversation with anybody about it? I mean, Powell told me he didn’t even think he read it. It didn’t have any impact at all. So then I waltz over to the CIA to listen to George Tenet and John McLaughlin tell me all about how Saddam Hussein does have weapons of mass destruction, et cetera, et cetera.
Everything pointed towards the possession of WMD that we were shown. If he was working on an active nuclear program, as General Powell said repeatedly, that was the only one that really frightened him, then we needed to do something. Did we need to invade? Did we need to do that? Maybe not. Today I look back on it, and I wish that I had done what I anticipated doing when I was asked to put together the UN presentation; that was quit, retire, get out, leave, resign, go, and tell the president I was leaving. I didn’t, and so that’s the reason I come full circle. That’s the reason I say I share some of the blame for those boys and girls who were killed in Iraq.
Paul Jay
In a recent interview I did with Dan Ellsberg, who released the pentagon papers, but before that worked for RAND corporation who were developing American nuclear war plans, he said, both for his participation in the nuclear war planning and his role in Vietnam, prior to the pentagon papers release, if he was accused of war crimes, he said he wouldn’t plead not guilty.
Larry Wilkerson
Nor would I. I once said publicly if Dick Cheney will go before the bar, I’ll go with him.
Paul Jay
Well, you certainly made amends. Dick Cheney should have been and still should be, along with Bush, charged with war crimes for the Iraq war.
Larry Wilkerson
The most significant comment I ever made to Colin Powell was when he was going on the show for memorial day, the concert on the Capitol lawn. And I said, “you know, sir, the best thing you can say, the best thing you could stand up there and say is stop these stupid wars and quit making veterans.” Of course, he wasn’t going to say that.
Paul Jay
That’s a good ending. Alright, that’s good. Thanks very much, Larry.
Larry Wilkerson
Thank you, take care.
Paul Jay
Thank you for joining us on theAnalysis.news.
Paul Jay
Hola. Bienvenido a theAnalysis.news. Soy Paul Jay.
En unos segundos, se me unirá Larry Wilkerson. Vamos a hablar del 11 de noviembre, Día de los Veteranos en los Estados Unidos y Día del Recuerdo en Canadá, que se supone que honra a los soldados que han sacrificado sus vidas. Pero ¿hasta qué punto se trata de honor y hasta qué punto se trata de promover el militarismo, y lo que realmente se hace por los veteranos en los Estados Unidos y Canadá, que no creo que sea mucho.
Volvemos en unos segundos.
Por favor, no olvide el botón de donar. Visite el sitio web, si está en YouTube o si está escuchando el pódcast, acceda al sitio web donde puede donar. Y por favor registre su correo electrónico.
Volvemos en unos segundos.
El 11 de noviembre en los Estados Unidos es el Día de los Veteranos; en Canadá es el Día del Recuerdo, que en su mayoría proviene… en Canadá, al menos, de la Primera Guerra Mundial. Creo que el nombre Día de los Veteranos surgió durante o después de la Guerra de Corea, pero equivale a lo mismo. Es un día en que se supone que recordamos los sacrificios que hicieron los soldados para mantener, entre comillas, nuestro estilo de vida y la democracia. Y sin duda muchos soldados hicieron enormes sacrificios y dieron sus vidas y fueron heridos y destruidos de muchas maneras, creyendo que luchaban por lo justo, creyendo que luchaban por el bien de sus familias, sus países y tal.
Creo que en la mayoría de los casos, ese no fue el caso. Creo que muchos soldados murieron en guerras injustas. Pero lo que hacemos el 11 de noviembre no es hablar sobre cómo evitar guerras injustas, cómo evitar nuevos enfrentamientos militares. Lo que se hace en ambos países es crear esta mitología y una especie de, yo lo llamaría falso patriotismo. Y ahora estamos en un mundo muy peligroso donde no podemos permitirnos esa cultura.
Me acompaña para hablar de esto un hombre que pasó gran parte de su vida en el ejército, el coronel Larry Wilkerson. Gracias por acompañarnos, Larry.
Larry Wilkerson
Gracias por recibirme, Paul. Especialmente en el Día de los Veteranos.
Paul Jay
Entonces, ¿cuál es tu opinión sobre el Día de los Veteranos y como digo, en Canadá, el Día del Recuerdo?
Larry Wilkerson
Creo que en los Estados Unidos se ha transformado en gran medida del propósito que le atribuirían la mayoría de los estadounidenses. Y tus comentarios iniciales aludieron a algo de eso. Pero lo más importante que me preocupa sobre la transfiguración, por así decirlo, es que ya no representa lo que los estadounidenses pensamos que debería representar, que es lo que has mencionado, defensa de la patria, patriotismo, un cierto grado de nacionalismo positivo, por así decirlo, si el nacionalismo puede tener un grado de positivismo, y el tipo de cosas que celebramos, en lugar de denigrar.
Hoy el Día de los Veteranos marca el miedo, la apatía, la culpa que sienten los estadounidenses con respecto a sus veteranos porque saben intuitivamente, si no intelectualmente, y creo que cada vez más los dos, que los han enviado a guerras durante los últimos 20 años o más que beneficiaban exclusivamente al estado de seguridad nacional, benefactores corporativos como Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Grumman y otros contratistas de defensa, mercaderes de la muerte, y para los multimillonarios que ganan tanto dinero con las guerras como lo están haciendo, por ejemplo, con la guerra en Ucrania en este momento. Por eso luchamos, y por eso creamos veteranos.
Y permíteme decir para cerrar mi comentario inicial, por eso siento una enorme cantidad de culpa. No importa lo pequeña que haya sido mi contribución, sí fue palpable, en presentar el caso de la guerra con Irak en 2003. Una guerra absurda, una guerra que mató a ciudadanos británicos, ciudadanos estadounidenses, otros aliados y cientos de miles de iraquíes y otros en la región y llevó a millones de ellos a la diáspora o los convirtió en refugiados dentro de sus propios países y desestabilizó el Levante, el Oriente Próximo, durante años, probablemente no lo veremos estabilizado nuevamente en nuestras vidas. Y todo comenzó con 2003 y nuestra invasión de Irak, y fue por nada, nada en absoluto positivo, a menos que hacer que Halliburton ganase 44 mil millones de dólares sea positivo. Eso es lo que me molesta.
Y la otra cosa es que hemos pasado de un departamento de veteranos, que el Ministerio de Defensa quería sacar de su perfil presupuestario porque estaba empezando a costar tanto, 35 y 40 mil millones de dólares al año, a una Administración de Veteranos. Ahora cuesta más de 245 mil millones de dólares al año. Y todo eso se debe a las estúpidas guerras que hemos tenido durante los últimos 20 años o más. Y todavía no dan a nuestros veteranos una ayuda tan adecuada, integral y positiva como deberían.
Paul Jay
Bien, las tasas de suicidio entre exveteranos militares retirados, PTSD, personas sin hogar… quiero decir, los niveles son estratosféricos. No recuerdo los números de memoria, pero creo que los veteranos son una de las porciones más significativas de personas sin hogar. La falta de cuidado. Y luego está el Día de los Veteranos, cuando la realidad es que a los veteranos los tratan como una mierda.
Larry Wilkerson
Como he dicho, es por miedo, culpa, aprensión. Los veteranos te dirán a menudo, si les agradeces su servicio y tienen un momento para comentar: “No me des las gracias por mi servicio. No quiero que me agradezcan mi servicio. Tengo grandes dudas sobre mi servicio. ¿Dónde serviste, por cierto?”. Y luego la persona en el aeropuerto o en el partido o lo que sea se volverá y se alejará o lo mirara tímidamente y dirá: “No lo hice”. La mayoría de los estadounidenses, menos del 1 % de los estadounidenses han servido en estas guerras durante los últimos 20 años. Eso es chicos y chicas.
Y es trágico que sea así. Pero cuando tienes ese tipo de circunstancia, sin impuesto de guerra, sin amenaza para la familia promedio de que van a reclutar a su hijo o hija, vas a tener más guerras porque es mucho más fácil y hay mucho menos rechazo político porque muy pocas personas se ven involucradas.
Paul Jay
Las personas que ven theAnalysis saben que he mencionado esto un par de veces. Tengo gemelos de diez años y en su escuela, han estado recitando este poema que yo aprendí hace décadas. Se llama In Flanders Fields. Y conmemora una batalla que tuvo lugar durante la Primera Guerra Mundial en Flanders Fields, donde miles de soldados canadienses fueron enviados a la muerte sin ninguna razón. Y esto ahora se venera año tras año tras año en las escuelas. Y en la superficie se supone que es un poema donde sentimos dolor por estos jóvenes que murieron. Pero el corazón real de ese poema viene después, en la segunda o tercera estrofa, que esencialmente dice: “Si no recoges nuestra antorcha, estarás traicionando a los que morimos”.
Y de hecho, ese poema, que se enseña en las escuelas hasta el día de hoy, fue un mecanismo de reclutamiento para conseguir más soldados que fueran a luchar en la Primera Guerra Mundial y ser masacrados por decenas y decenas de miles en una guerra que no hizo más que enriquecer a los fabricantes de armas y ayudó a crear las condiciones para el surgimiento del fascismo en Alemania.
Y no hablamos de nada de esto. Es solo este tipo de nacionalismo vago sobre luchar y servir y preparar a los niños nuevamente para ir a la guerra.
Hice una entrevista muy interesante hace unos años al general Louis Mackenzie, general canadiense, y dijo algo que, no sé, fue mucho más franco de lo que jamás he oído de un militar, y tuvo después una carrera política. Pero me dijo: “Necesitamos soldados que no sepan historia. Si realmente supieran historia, ¿por qué demonios irían y harían lo que les decimos y morirían en estas guerras? Así que necesitamos que no sepan sobre estas cosas”. Y las cosas no han cambiado.
Larry Wilkerson
Sí. Poemas como Flanders Fields y algunos de los escritos de Richard Kipling y otros de ese tipo son básicamente himnos escritos por gente que está defendiendo el derecho, y muchos de estos poetas lo saben, están defendiendo el derecho de hombres muy ricos, y cada vez más mujeres hoy, que envían a chicos y chicas a morir por el Estado para que no tengan que ir ellos mismos o para que puedan ganar más dinero. De eso se trata realmente. Los griegos decían: los viejos envían a los jóvenes a morir, y luego entre paréntesis, porque hay que preservar el Estado.
Bueno, hoy ni siquiera es la preservación del Estado. Dime cómo nuestra invasión de Irak tuvo algo que ver con la preservación de Estados Unidos. Recuerdo la mentira descarada que dijo Tony Blair, el primer ministro Tony Blair. Casi me caigo de la silla en la oficina del jefe de gabinete del Departamento de Estado, literalmente, cuando lo escuché en la televisión, porque Powell me acababa de decir: “Mira, el primer ministro Blair va a dar un discurso”. Y entonces pusimos la CNN, creo que fue, y lo estábamos viendo y de repente dijo: “Bueno, en 45 minutos, Sadam Hussein podría cubrir Londres con gases venenosos”. “¿De dónde sacó eso?”, dijo Powell. Y dije: “Probablemente del mismo lugar donde consiguió este dossier que nos acaba de enviar”, que más tarde descubrimos que lo había escrito un estudiante de posgrado o algo así. Hablaba de todas las cosas que tenía Saddam Hussein de la primera guerra y lo que podía hacer con ellas, y todo eso. Era una amalgama de alguien que había pasado… Como un estudiante plagiario, sacó cosas de los artículos de otras personas y las juntó. Y esta fue la campaña de política pública de Gran Bretaña para apoyar su entrada en la guerra de Irak. Y aquí está Blair haciendo la última declaración y diciendo que en 45 minutos, las armas podrían llegar a Londres. Sabíamos que eso era absurdo. Creo que Tom Fingar estaba en mi oficina. Era el ayudante… nuestro chico de inteligencia. Tom era un excelente especialista en inteligencia.
Y eso no tenía ningún fundamento. Sin fundamento alguno. Y los teléfonos sonaron sin parar, la Casa Blanca nos preguntó de dónde sacó la información. Le preguntamos a la Casa Blanca, pero nosotros estábamos diciendo mentiras similares. De hecho, iríamos a las Naciones Unidas y lanzaríamos toda una sarta de mentiras. Todo un montón de mentiras. Ojalá lo hubiera sabido en ese momento. Si hubiera sabido que eran mentiras, tal vez no habría ayudado a difundirlas.
¿Por qué eran mentiras y por qué no lo sabía? Me he hecho esa pregunta cientos de veces. Pero eso me lleva a mi argumento. Mi gran angustia en el Día de los Veteranos son todos los chicos y chicas, en su mayoría chicos en ese momento, que ayudé a poner en peligro.
Y algunos no volvieron, o algunos volvieron, como el joven el primer día que me fui a Walter Reed, al Proyecto Guerrero Herido, el Centro Médico Militar Nacional ahora. Walter Reid. Y lo conocí. Era el único amputado triple de la Fuerza Aérea. Triple amputado. Está sentado al otro lado de la mesa frente a mí lo mejor que puede. Le están poniendo una prótesis de brazo, una prótesis en la pierna derecha y están trabajando en su pierna izquierda. Le han construido una furgoneta para que pueda conducir. Su esposa era maestra de tercer año en Tampa, Florida, y ella permaneció con él 19 meses a través de unas 18 cirugías. Y lo miro y me digo: “Dios mío, es un triple amputado”. Y él está sentado aquí, bebiendo una taza de café. Y yo tuve algo que ver con ponerlo allí. Y el infante de marina sentado a su lado solo tenía una pierna. Le cortaron la pierna derecha a la altura de la rodilla y se sentía afortunado porque Joe estaba sentado allí con un brazo amputado y dos piernas amputadas.
Y estoy pensando: “Este es el detritus. Esta es la basura. Estas son las consecuencias de esta guerra. Qué horrible es esto”. Y en ese momento, había aprendido bastantes cosas. Todo fue una farsa. Todo fue una farsa. No solo no había armas de destrucción masiva, si recorres las calles de Irak hoy, especialmente la provincia de Alambar o la propia Bagdad, y le preguntas al comerciante iraquí promedio, hombre o mujer, si estaban mejor bajo Saddam Hussein o mejor ahora, te dirán sin dudarlo que estaban mejor bajo Saddam Hussein.
Entonces, ¿para qué hicimos todo eso y por qué lo hicimos? Y cuando empiezas a responder esas preguntas categóricamente y con algo de autenticidad en tus respuestas, es repugnante. Realmente es repugnante, porque básicamente lo hicimos por dinero. Lo hicimos por dinero, y lo hicimos por el complejo, y lo hicimos por las personas que… Uso Halliburton, la compañía favorita de Dick Cheney, director general de Halliburton antes de convertirse en vicepresidente de los Estados Unidos. 44 mil millones de dólares que ganaron en Irak y Afganistán combinados en los años de esas guerras. Por eso tenemos guerras.
Y nos preguntamos por qué estas personas llegan a sus casas y se suicidan. Por qué tienen estrés postraumático. Bueno, hay muchas razones, pero una de esas razones tiene que ser, lógicamente hablando, tiene que ser que regresan a casa y entienden lo que han hecho. Entienden que sirvieron tres veces en Irak disparando a mujeres y niños y otros soldados y les disparaban a ellos, no por la libertad y la democracia, ni siquiera por la defensa de su patria, sino por Lockheed Martin, o por Halliburton o por George W. Bush o por Donald Rumsfeld.
Paul Jay
Creo que es importante para los espectadores que no sepan que no eras solo un burócrata en una oficina enviando gente a la muerte o a luchar. Tú mismo creíste todo esto y fuiste a luchar en Vietnam y arriesgaste la vida. Fácilmente podrías haber sido una de estas personas porque creías en la mitología. ¿Cómo evolucionaste de esa persona que se ofrece como voluntaria para ir a Vietnam y luchar a una persona que ahora es uno de los críticos más duros de la política exterior de EE. UU.?
Larry Wilkerson
Fue un camino largo y difícil el recorrido desde Vietnam hasta justo antes de convertirme en lo que podría llamarse un miembro del más alto nivel de poder en Washington, primero cuando Colin Powell era presidente del Estado Mayor Conjunto, y luego cuando era Secretario de Estado. En este recorrido aprendí sobre Vietnam.
Así que no es que fuese a la guerra de Irak totalmente ignorante de lo que me habían hecho en Vietnam. No solo aprendí sobre Vietnam, lo enseñé en el Naval War College del Cuerpo de Marines. Así que entro, y esto aumenta mi culpa, en lo que a mí respecta, entro en este ambiente de guerra con Irak en 2002 y principios de 2003 con este conocimiento seguro de que Vietnam es una farsa. Peor que una farsa. Ni siquiera una farsa trágica, una farsa diabólica donde fueron asesinados muchos chicos y chicas, y hay 59 000 nombres en esa pared de mármol negro que no deben estar allí.
Y entré en esto con esa idea, al igual que Colin Powell. Una de las primeras cosas que me dijo, como sabíamos que nos estábamos acercando cada vez más a la guerra en enero, principios de enero, justo después de Navidad, 2002-2003, sabíamos que había tantas similitudes entre Vietnam e Irak que debíamos decírselo al presidente. Así que me ordenó que consiguiera todo lo que pudiera obtener sobre la guerra de Vietnam, de David Halverson al general Throckmorton o quien hubiera escrito algo sobre la Guerra de Vietnam diciéndole a LBJ que no hiciera eso, o hubiera escrito después: “No deberías haber hecho esto, LBJ”. Todo el material.
Y luego dijo algo que era, como con una sonrisa. “No leerá nada de eso. Así que haremos un memorándum. Haremos un memorándum de una o dos páginas resumiendo todo, porque podemos hacer que lea eso, siendo él George W. Bush, presidente de los Estados Unidos”.
Así que hicimos todo eso, y se lo pasamos a la secretaria ejecutiva, a Condi Rice, asesora de seguridad nacional y dijimos que se lo dijera al presidente. Que se parecía mucho a Vietnam. ¿Lo leyó? ¿Hizo algo al respecto? ¿Tuvo alguna conversación con alguien al respecto? Powell me dijo que no creía que lo hubiera leído. No tuvo ningún impacto en absoluto.
Entonces me acerqué a la CIA y George Tenet y John McLaughlin me dijeron: “Saddam Hussein tiene armas de destrucción masiva”, etcétera.
Pero todo apuntaba a que tenía armas de destrucción masiva que nos mostraron. Y si estaba trabajando en un programa nuclear activo, como dijo Powell en repetidas ocasiones, eso realmente lo asustó, entonces debíamos hacer algo. ¿Era necesario invadir? ¿Era necesario hacer eso? Tal vez no.
Hoy miro hacia atrás y deseo haber hecho lo que esperaba hacer cuando me pidieron que preparara la presentación de la ONU, renunciar, jubilarme, salir, irme, renunciar, irme, decirle al presidente que me iba. Pero no lo hice.
Y esa es la razón por la que cierro el círculo. Por la que comparto parte de la culpa por esos chicos y chicas que fueron asesinados en Irak.
Paul Jay
En una entrevista reciente que hice con Dan Ellsberg, que publicó los Papeles del Pentágono pero antes de eso trabajó para la corporación RAND, estaban desarrollando planes de guerra nuclear estadounidenses, dijo, tanto por su participación en la planificación de la guerra nuclear y su papel en Vietnam, antes de la publicación de los Papeles del Pentágono, si lo acusaban de crímenes de guerra, dijo que no se declararía inocente.
Larry Wilkerson
Ni yo. Una vez dije públicamente que si Dick Cheney era acusado, yo iría con él.
Paul Jay
Bueno, ciertamente has reparado mucho de ese daño. Cheney, junto con Bush, debió ser, y aún debería ser, acusado de crímenes de guerra por la guerra de Irak.
Larry Wilkerson
El comentario más importante que le hice a Colin Powell fue en el Día de los Caídos, el concierto en el césped del Capitolio. Y yo dije: “Sabe, señor, lo mejor que puede decir es que paren estas estúpidas guerras y dejen de crear veteranos”. Por supuesto que no iba a decir eso, pero es un buen final.
Paul Jay
Muy bien, eso es bueno. Muchas gracias Larry. Gracias.
Larry Wilkerson
Cuídate.
Paul Jay
Y gracias por acompañarnos en theAnalysis.news.
[powerpress]
[simpay id=”15123″]
Lawrence B. Wilkerson is a retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell.
I always like to hear Wilkerson, especially when he gets all red and exorcised, even if I am not quite sure how much weight to ascribe to his opinions. 😉 I’ve never seen that 45 minutes story before. Terrifying. It really makes me wonder about what is really going on in Ukraine. I don’t buy the official narrative at all.
A lot of soldiers died in unjust situations, true … but lots more civilians and people who tried to fight back for their own democracies or self-determination in their own countries died as well. Lots more.
It’s a lot easier and cheaper to talk the talk and wave the flag than it is to live up to the vaunted ideals out country pretends to be about. Love the comment from PJ about our soldiers NOT knowing history.
In the British talk show Question Time ( I would love to see a show like this in America, it’s truly brilliant ) all the participants always wear little poppy pins which I guess are in memorium of WWI. Not sure if this is done on many other shows.
? Hopefully the result of a healthier lifestyle, but LW has lost a lot of weight. Also, nice NOT to see those big headphone.
My ultimate question to Larry Wilkerson or any other person who has dedicated their lives to supporting and expanding our US system would be to ask him if he thinks the US could exist without the system of imperialism and exploitation we have had in place for the last 100 years, and what would happen to it if it faltered or was voted out by popular desire?
And, has all this off-shoring of jobs, massive legal and illegal immigration, and shipping our factories overseas been about burning our ships, so to speak figuratively, so that we cannot reverse course even if we wanted to or had to, like …
– In 296, the Praetorian Prefect, Asclepiodotus, commanded an army belonging to the emperor Constantius Chlorus, and led it against the usurper Allectus. Having arrived in Britain to confront Allectus, Asclepiodotus burned his own ships to prevent his men from retreating.
– In 363, Julian the Apostate, Emperor of Rome invaded Persia. After his army crossed the Tigris he had all the pontoons and barges burned so there would be no thought of going back.
– Hernando Cortez burned his ships to prevent homesick sailors from returning to Spain.
And the recent contemporary equivalent of that the blowing of the NordStream pipeline to prevent Europe from negotiating a peace with Russia on Ukraine in order to get their cheap energy back.
This attack on Ukraine seems to be about killing and damning Russia, but also killing and destroying Ukraine like we did Iraq, but also a more covert attack on Europe in order to kill Europe’s competitive to the US economy, and make its social democracies fail so that Bernie Sanders cannot point to how great life is in Norway and how Americans should demand Universal Health Care. I think this is a master attack by the US and UK to expend their/our hegemony by destroying opposition … even our own closest allies. After all the plutocrats benefit even more this way and have shown how easy it is for them to betray their own countries … if you know some history.
Larry Wilkerson is always able to articulate my thoughts better than I can myself. Thanks for another thought provoking interview with Larry.
Gosh, Mr Jay, you should know that November 11th is Armistice Day, the Day that WWI ended. The Canadians have it right, by continuing to call it Remembrance Day. The US has whitewashed it by calling it “Veterans Day.”
Remember? WWI was supposed to be “The War to End All Wars.” That’s why we want to remember them.
I appreciate that Mr Wilkerson’s conscience has finally caught up with him and he feels remorse for his role in the endless wars.
The way that the government has treated the young people who they talked into endangering themselves in return for a college education or a couple of thousand dollars and who came back destroyed is diabolical. None of them get the care that they are owed.
Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, I was talking about when the name changed to Veterans Day
The British voluntarily wear red poppies in the first half of November to remember all those who died in 20th & 21 st century wars to preserve freedom and democracy . The Politicians ( and visible BBC media types) have to do it . But the rest of us do not , we do it because we want to.
Nowadays, nobody makes us wear them & we wear them out of simple gratitude for those that fought ( & especially those that died ) to defend democracy. In my case I remember 4 uncles who fought their way from North Africa , through Italy to victory in Germany. They all came home with the scars to prove it _ some visible & some less so .
As a callow youth I , only once, asked my Uncle Tom where he had been sent in Germany . His response was “Where they f – – — – _g sent me ! ” Like most who really served he did not want to talk about it. Remembrance is not about patriotism , much less jingoism . It is about gratitude. As a 68 year old English Male , I do not even know how to work a rifle . This makes me even more grateful for those ( including my 43 year old son in law, veteran of the Afghanistan wars ) who have given me a peaceful environment rare in history.
From our safe, comfortable ,home in London our Anglo-American Family every year hold our Thanksgiving feast in November , and every year we drink a toast to ‘The American Republic and the ideals to which it aspires’ . For one day only we forget the failures and hypocrisies and focus. on the aspirations. I would very much wish that we could all take the same approach to ‘Armistice Day’