Read below for Kathy's account, first an outraged Vet speaks up.
Tivana here -- once again the peace movement is being shown the truth of what we are up against. The cold heart of the overly fearful soul. Drug induced rage triggered by a dehumanized military mind acts on orders from above. There can be no mercy, this is war, this is a Holy War and God is on our side excusing all means that justify the end -- save the Homeland, save the people, save the country, save the leader, at any cost. Kathy Kelly stared evil in the face and stood her ground. Firmly planted in her values she had the strength of a lion and with the support of a peoples' movement behind her she had the strength of a thousand lions.
Thanks to Kathy, the peace movement gained in strength on this day, each of us has grown a stronger resolve, a more determined will, a focused drive to abolish war and all its fear from the face of the planet once and forever.
Courage always wins over fear .....
First they ignore you
then they laugh at you
then they fight you
then you win
-- Gandhi
the following is the reaction of a Korean Vet - Wilson (Woody) Powell
The account below has left me feeling more outraged than I have felt since my tour of duty in Korea, 1952-53. There I was able to prevent a South Korean National Police Lieutenant from abusing an old woman who had been brought in to his command for attempting to steal a drum of oil from our base. I was in the Military Police at the time, and performing liaison with the paramilitary National Police who were doing much of our local security work. They were the most corrupt, vicious group of thugs I’d ever encountered, having learned their trade as minions of the Japanese occupation before us.
I remember a wave of anger engulfing me when the Lieutenant’s gloved hand lashed out and knocked the old woman to the floor. I was on my feet and between them in an instant, my hand on my forty-five and full of threat. He backed off – and I released the old woman.
I so wish I had been there with Kathy Kelley that day at the SOA. Even at 71 I think I could have stopped that bull---, with my outrage alone. I’m quivering as I write this.
I know Kathy Kelly, we have shared a podium, and there isn’t a gentler, more dedicated to non-violence soul on earth. I only wish I had her moral courage and restraint under provocation.
And now I ask, what the hell has happened to our military that such a thing can be done to any person - let alone one so perfectly inoffensive as Kathy? What kind of monsters are we training? In 1950, I struggled to maintain my moral balance in the midst of a guerilla war. Yes – I became violent and full of rage born of fear – but when it cam to whacking women around – well, I never went there.
The preservation of civil rights in the face of dissent, the lawful treatment of detainees, are issues exposed in courts and congressional committees.
But the de-humanizing of the men and women we ask to serve us, so they are capable of such gross incivility, is an issue that calls for an expression of outrage by the decent majority of our citizens.
Wilson (Woody) Powell
Published on Thursday, November 27, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Hogtied and Abused at Fort Benning
by Kathy Kelly
On Sunday, November 23, I took part in a nonviolent civil disobedience action at Fort Benning, GA, to protest the U.S. Army´s School of the Americas (SOA, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation -- WHISC)
Shortly after more than two dozen of us entered Fort Benning and were arrested, US Military Police took us to a warehouse on the base for “processing.” I was directed to a station for an initial search, where a woman soldier began shouting at me to look straight ahead and spread my legs. I turned to ask her why she was shouting at me and was ordered to keep my mouth shut, look straight ahead, and spread my legs wider. She then began an aggressive body search. When ordered to raise one leg a second time, I temporarily lost my balance while still being roughly searched and, in my view, ‘womanhandled.’
I decided that I shouldn’t go along with this dehumanizing action any longer. When I lowered my arms and said, quietly, “I’m sorry, but I can’t any longer cooperate with this,” I was instantly pushed to the floor. Five soldiers squatted around me, one of them referring to me with an expletive (this f_ _ _ er) and began to cuff my wrists and ankles and then bind my wrists and ankles together. Then one soldier leaned on me, with his or her knee in my back. Unable to get a full breath, I gasped and moaned, “I can’t breathe.” I repeated this many times and then began begging for help. When I said, “Please, I’ve had four lung collapses before,” the pressure on my back eased.
Four soldiers then carried me, hogtied, to the next processing station for interrogation and propped me in a kneeling position. The soldier standing to my left, who had been assigned to “escort” me, gently told me that soon the ankle and wrist cuffs, which were very tight, would be cut off. He politely let me know that he would have to move my hair, which was hanging in front of my face, so that my picture could be taken. I told him I’d appreciate that.
I was then carried to the next station. There, one of the soldiers who’d been part of pushing me to the floor knelt in front of me, and, with his nose about two inches from mine, told me that because I was combative I should know that if I didn’t do exactly as instructed when they uncuffed one hand, he would pepper spray me. I asked him to describe how I’d been combative, but he didn’t answer.
After the processing, I was unbound, shackled with wrist and ankle chains, and led to the section where other peaceful activists, also shackled, awaited transport to the Muskogee County jail.
At our bond hearing on Monday, Nov. 24, a military prosecutor told the federal judge that the military was considering an additional charge against me for resisting arrest. I explained my side of the story to the judge, grateful that there are at least several witnesses upon whom I could call.
The federal judge determined that most of us were “flight risks” and increased by 100% the cash bond required before we could be released, from last year’s $500. to $1000.
Today I have a black eye and the soreness that comes with severe muscle strain. Mostly, I’m burdened with a serious question, “What are these soldiers training for?” The soldiers conducting that search must have been ordered not to tolerate the slightest dissent. They were practicing intimidation tactics far beyond what would be needed to control an avowedly nonviolent group of protesters who had never, in thirteen years of previous actions, caused any disruption during the process of arrest. Bewildered, most of us in the “tank” inside the Muskogee County jail acknowledged that during the rough processing we wondered, “What country do we live in?” We now live in a country where Homeland Security funds pay for exercises which train military and police units to control and intimidate crowds, detainees, and arrestees using threat and force.
This morning’s aches and pains, along with the memory of being hogtied, give me a glimpse into the abuses we protest by coming to Fort Benning, GA. As we explore the further invention of nonviolence in our increasingly volatile time, it’s important that we jointly overcome efforts to deter our determination to stand together against what Martin Luther King once called, “the violence of desperate men,” -- and women.
Kathy Kelly is the founder of Voices in the Wilderness, a human rights group based in Chicago that worked to lift the economic sanctions against Iraq.
For more information, contact info@vitw.org, call (773) 784-8065
or visit www.iraqpeaceteam.org or www.vitw.org.