^{“Ms. Sheehan, are you aware that you have a stay-away order from here?” The big, burly cop said to me as he crossed Pennsylvania Avenue to confront our small protest of intrepid peaceniks in Lafayette Park.}

^{“Yes, and I am also aware that I am not violating it right now,” I answered.}

^{That “stay-away” order was imposed on myself and five other people after we were arrested in front of the White House on the 7th anniversary of Shock and Awe this past March. I was just wondering if any of the law enforcement on duty even knew that I had a stay-away order--we were there only for about 5 minutes before I got my answer.}

^{This nation is supposed to have been founded 234 years ago today on the principles of freedom. My son was supposedly killed in Iraq defending those freedoms, but if I crossed the imaginary line of oppression and suppression on the sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue, I would have to go to jail for a mandatory sentence of six-months—and the police were fully aware of that fact. At one point, we had at least a half a dozen cops facing us and we only had about twice as many protesters.}

^{This is a strange holiday anyway. We are supposed to honor the “founding” of a nation that was inhabited by millions of people at the time it was “discovered.”}

^{The theme for our protest today was “Declare Your Independence from Oil” day and we passed out fliers to the tourists outlining the problem of this country’s addiction to petroleum and using our bullhorn to do chants like: “Drill, baby, drill; spill, baby, spill; kill, baby, kill.” I realize that this is a “holiday” and most people were coming to Lafayette Park as tourists, but it’s obvious that war, environmental devastation and economic oppression do not take holidays. People died today in the Middle East and Asia and millions of gallons of oil gushed out of the Oil-cano into the Gulf of Mexico as families clad in their Old Navy flag t-shirts started at us with anything from confusion to outright hostility.}

^{It is really pathetic that even in the midst of a cataclysm of such an enormous magnitude, so many people seemed to be so unconcerned and apathetic. Many of us traveled thousands of miles to be here in DC to try and throw some light on the violence of this Empire and just a couple of dozen also showed up to be with us.}

^{At one point, I had the bullhorn and I made an observation that the last time I was on the sidewalk next to the White House merely exercising my right to free speech and to peaceably assemble, I spent 52 hours in jail and two gentleman yelled: “Go back there.” Wow, in contrast to the couple that brought their two young sons to protest with us and “witness free speech in action,” wasn’t that a great message to send your children on the 4th of July—that it is “okay” to criminalize dissent?}

^{About five hours after we arrived at the Park, a man on the street in front of the White House yelled that he “had a bomb.” The cops had the man (who had no shirt on and clearly had no bomb) in rapid custody and then they cleared the park in a very harsh way—even pushing a few people who had the nerve to ask why they had to move. I thought it was interesting that many of the families there from near and far, were shocked—shocked, I say—that they could be treated like common criminals, even though they hadn’t committed any crimes. We were barred from the park for over an hour, and many people who were angry at us for having a protest just minutes before, joined us—and we blocked 15th Avenue by H with a few of our newcomers. Some of them even promised to return tomorrow for our protest called: “Don’t Attack Iran you Effing Psychos.” (9am to 3pm in Lafayette Park).}

^{One of my bullhorn chants today was: “We pledge resistance to the Empire.” I know I will be resisting, even if the crowds (that were as high as hundreds of thousands of people in 2005, to 24 today) dwindle down to just me.}

^{If you are reading this and if you can make it to DC, please join us. We do live in a psychotic empire and the only thing that matters to the leaders and corporations is the bottom-line and the top dollar.}

^{We need you all to help us make humanity the bottom-line.}

^{One last observation before I close—a highly fortified paddy wagon filled with heavily armed and armored robo-cops was parked across H St from our relocated protest.}

^{One man went up to one of our comrades, pointed at the robo-cops and said: “those are REAL Americans.”}

^{Now, doesn’t that just say a whole lot about our culture today? People who dissent from the status quo, like the “founders” of our country, are NOT real Americans, but those who are armed to the hilt and ready to crack some skulls open are Real Americans?}

Z3 Readers Family and Friends

This is a recent article about my cousin Ted Westhusing.

Published on The Nation (http://www.thenation.com)

Petraeus' Link to Troubling Suicide in Iraq:

The Ted Westhusing Story

Greg Mitchell | June 25, 2010

^{http://www.thenation.com/print/blog/36661/petraeus-link-troubling-suicide-iraq-ted-westhusing-story}

The scourge of suicides among American troops and reservists remains a serious and seriously underreported problem. One of the most high-profile cases involves a much-admired Army colonel and ethicist named Ted Westhusing -- who, in his 2005 suicide note, pointed a finger at a then little-known U.S. general named David Petraeus.

Westhusing's widow, asked by a friend what killed this West Point scholar, had replied simply: "Iraq."

Before putting a bullet through his head, Westhusing had been deeply disturbed by abuses carried out by American contractors in Iraq, including allegations that they had witnessed or even participated in the murder of Iraqis. His suicide note included claims that his two commanders tolerated a mission based on "corruption, human rights abuses and liars. I am sullied -- no more. I didn't volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves." One of those commanders: the future leader of American forces in Iraq, and then Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus.

Westhusing, 44, had been found dead in a trailer at a military base near the Baghdad airport in June 2005, a single gunshot wound to the head. At the time, he was the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq. The Army concluded that he committed suicide with his service pistol and found his charges against the commanders unfounded. Petraeus would later attend Westhusing's memorial service back in the U.S.

Westhusing was an unusual case: "one of the Army's leading scholars of military ethics, a full professor at West Point who volunteered to serve in Iraq to be able to better teach his students. He had a doctorate in philosophy; his dissertation was an extended meditation on the meaning of honor," as Christian Miller explained in a major [1] Los Angeles Times piece.

"In e-mails to his family," Miller wrote, "Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. had come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military." His death followed quickly. "He was sick of money-grubbing contractors," one official recounted. Westhusing said that "he had not come over to Iraq for this."

After a three-month inquiry, investigators declared Westhusing's death a suicide, although some Web writers would charge murder, without a good deal of evidence.

In 2007, The Texas Observer published a cover story [2]by contributor Robert Bryce titled "I Am Sullied No More." Bryce covered much of the same ground paved by Miller but added details on the Petraeus angle and allegations of murder.

"When he was in Iraq, Westhusing worked for one of the most famous generals in the U.S. military, David Petraeus," Bryce observed. "As the head of counterterrorism and special operations under Petraeus, Westhusing oversaw the single most important task facing the U.S. military in Iraq then and now: training the Iraqi security forces."

Bryce referred to a "two-inch stack of documents, obtained over the past 15 months under the Freedom of Information Act, that provides many details of Westhusing's suicide....The documents echo the story told by Westhusing's friends. 'Something he saw [in Iraq] drove him to this,' one Army officer who was close to Westhusing said in an interview. 'The sum of what he saw going on drove him' to take his own life. 'It's because he believed in duty, honor, country that he's dead.'"

In Iraq, Westhusing worked under two generals: Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, and Petraeus, then a lieutenant general. But Bryce continued: "By late May, Westhusing was becoming despondent over what he was seeing." When his body was found, a note was found nearby addressed to Petraeus and Fil. It read:

"Thanks for telling me it was a good day until I briefed you. [Redacted name]--You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff--no msn [mission] support and you don't care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied--no more. I didn't volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way. All my love to my family, my wife and my precious children. I love you and trust you only. Death before being dishonored any more.

"Trust is essential--I don't know who trust anymore. Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs [commanders]. You are not what you think you are and I know it."

Twelve days after Westhusing's body was found, Army investigators talked with his widow, who told them: "I think Ted gave his life to let everyone know what was going on. They need to get to the bottom of it, and hope all these bad things get cleaned up."

Bryce concluded: "In September 2005, the Army's inspector general concluded an investigation into allegations raised in the anonymous letter to Westhusing shortly before his death. It found no basis for any of the issues raised. Although the report is redacted in places, it is clear that the investigation was aimed at determining whether Fil or Petraeus had ignored the corruption and human rights abuses allegedly occurring within the training program for Iraqi security personnel."

Since then, the corruption and failed training angles have drawn wide attention although the Petraeus's role, good or bad, has not.

The writer returned to the case one more time in February 2008 with another Texas Observer article [3]. It opened: “Since last March, when I wrote a story about the apparent suicide of Col. Ted Westhusing in Iraq, I had believed there was nothing else to write about his tragic death.

“But in December, I talked to a source in the Department of Defense who met Westhusing in Iraq about three months before his death. The source, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, was investigating claims of wrongdoing against military contractors working in Iraq. After a short introduction, I asked him what he thought had happened to Westhusing. 'I think he was killed. I honestly do. I think he was murdered,' the source told me. 'Maybe DOD didn't have enough evidence to call it murder, so they called it suicide.'"

I have since gone through hundreds of pages of the FOIA documents, including transcripts of interviews with Westhusing's widow, friends, colleagues. The Q & A with Westhusing widow is haunting. She claimed that her husband would never commit suicide, and she thought it more possible that "someone would kill him." While he never mentioned being afraid for his life, she said, "In Ted's voice, there was a fear. He did not like the night time and being alone in that trailer."

She reported that her husband had expressed to her the sentiments in his suicide note pretty much verbatim, and was especially appalled by "the treatment of the insurgents." She concluded that he had "lost faith in his commanders. He was a moral and ethical person."

In the documents I didn't find anything others missed about Petraeus or possible murder (which I contnue to find unlikely). So the case remains a buried footnote to Petraeus's storied, and now once more supremely influential, career.

Greg Mitchell first wrote about Westhusing in his book "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits and the President Failed on Iraq."

Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/blog/36661/petraeus-link-troubling-suicide-iraq-ted-westhusing-story

Links:

[1] http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/27/world/fg-colonel27
[2] http://www.texasobserver.org/archives/item/15039-2440-i-am-sullied-no-more-faced-with-the-iraq-wars-corruption-col-ted-westhusing-chose-death-before-dishonor
[3] http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2682

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Petraeus' Link to Troubling Suicide in Iraq:

The Ted Westhusing Story

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from Portland