Ashamed To Be an American

LONDON, England—Kelan J. Turrington was only 18 years old when he was killed in action in Basra, Iraq on April 6. He was a Fusilier in the British Army’s Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, and for me he personifies the American, British and Iraqi fighters who fought and died proudly in a war based on false information. In an interview, his mother said, “We all really, really loved him. We were so proud of him.” At the funeral, one of Kelan’s friends, Darren Bone, said, “He died doing the job he loved most.” The Fusiliers’ commanding officer, Brigadier Roy Wilde, praised him: “He was outstanding, friendly, supportive and he was very conscious of being a member of a team—and it was as a member of that team that he gave his life.”

Kelan’s parents asked the mourners to donate money for Iraqi children rather than giving flowers, after the teen had written them to describe the suffering of children in Basra. The letter, which arrived after his death, said: “We had at least 10 kids following us today. They are sweet little kids, five to six-year-olds. They haven’t got a clue what’s going on.”

But the truth is that Kelan didn’t have a clue either. He didn’t know that he was involved in an unnecessary war. I have great respect for men and women who are willing to give their lives for the sake of their fellow citizens—so much that I don’t want them to die. What I cannot respect is the cowardly politicians who lied to and deceived Congress, Parliament and the public. The governments of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush committed the ultimate atrocity by sending brave boys like Kelan to die, to protect their countries from dangers that were never really there.

As part of my summer internship at the Independent on Sunday, I’ve been doing a lot of research on the invasion of Iraq. One thing I’ve concluded is that many lies, grotesque fabrications and exaggerations went into pushing the American and British people to support an invasion. I’m convinced that if Congress and Parliament, and the people they represent, had seen all the truthful information—and none of the falsehoods—which was available to Bush and Blair, there would not have been an invasion.

The second thing I’ve learned is that the human cost of war is never properly represented by the icily quantitative death tolls, the short paragraphs at the end of news articles that casually mention “collateral damage,” and the prepackaged television sound bites. I’m beginning to get a glimpse of the true suffering because one of my tasks has been to track down the names, addresses and phone numbers of the close relatives of British casualties. This means sifting through articles that recount the lives of young men like Kelan Turrington, looking at photos of the dead with their wives and children, and asking directory enquiries for phone numbers of the dead or widowed.

One question will haunt many families forever: “Why did he have to die?” Debi Allbutt was left to raise her two young boys alone after friendly fire killed her husband. “Stephen lost his life and yet his family are not being given a proper reason for why this military action was taken,” she told the Sunday Mercury. Debi has demanded a meeting with Blair “because he is the one who made the decision to wage this war. I want him to understand how his decisions can affect people directly. Stephen’s death has devastated our family.”

Blair, like Bush, used many piece of dubious intelligence to push his case for invasion. I only have space to give one example, but a full accounting of their deception has been skillfully detailed by John Judis and Spencer Ackerman in “The First Casualty,” which is available online from The New Republic. The most flagrant case of the two governments knowingly using falsified intelligence is forged documents that alleged Iraq had been trying to import uranium from Niger.

For months, Bush administration officials used the threat of nuclear terrorism to direct Americans’ fear of terrorist attacks towards Iraq, in an effort to rally support for invasion. According to the Los Angeles Times, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said on Sept. 9, 2002, “We don’t want the ‘smoking gun’ to be a mushroom cloud.” A month later, President Bush said, “The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.” As late as mid-March 2003, Vice President Cheney said, “It’s only a matter of time until [Saddam Hussein] acquires nuclear weapons.” But these were lies, and Cheney’s office had known it since early 2002.

In February 2002, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV had travelled to Niger for the CIA to investigate for Cheney whether the allegations contained in the documents were true. Upon his return, Wilson had offered an assessment to American government officials, which was, in his words, “very unequivocal” in its assertion that the allegations were false. The CIA then would have briefed Cheney’s office orally or in writing, according to Wilson’s op-ed in the New York Times. Nevertheless, on Jan. 28, 2003, President Bush said in his State of the Union address, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

Wilson was shocked because he knew Cheney would have read drafts of the speech. He called a friend in the state department to ask whether Bush was referring to the Niger allegation, but his friend suggested another African country. On March 7, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei told the U.N. Security Council that the Niger documents were fake. Months since then, the Bush and Blair governments have continuously claimed to have other evidence of the Iraq-Africa connection, yet they were unwilling to reveal it to Congress or Parliament.

Finally, on Monday the White House said the claim should not have been in the speech and “it might in fact be wrong.” Ridiculously, the Blair government is sticking to its story, despite this admission and a damning report from the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. It said that it was “very odd” that the Government “asserts it was not relying on the [forged] evidence…but that eight months later it is still reviewing the other evidence.”

The 42 British soldiers must be rolling in their graves. Also dead are 215 American and countless Iraqi soldiers, along with sixteen journalists. Worst of all, over 3,000 innocent civilians have been killed in our effort to protect America and Britain from phony threats.

I think of Sept. 11, when over 3,000 of our civilians died because of brutal attacks, based on false pretences. I feel ashamed for my country, which has sanctioned the killing of thousands more innocents, based on false pretences. Was our killing any less horrid, justified by faked evidence rather than religious fundamentalism? I should think the suffering of an orphan would be just as great, whether she lost her mother in the World Trade Center or the Baghdad ghetto.

Of course, the vast majority of the American politicians did not have to weigh the cost of losing a child against the supposed benefits of invasion. Only one of the 535 members of Congress, Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., had a son in the battle zone. George and Laura Bush, Tony and Cherie Blair, will never know the pain that John and Ann Turrington feel. They never even risked it. The Turringtons have lost their pride and joy—they’ll never have a chance to see their son grow old, get married or have children. But to Bush and Blair, Kelan is just another statistic.

Nicholas F.B. Smyth ’05, a Crimson editor, is a government concentrator in Dunster House. He is spending his summer in England, apologizing on behalf of his country’s government and reminding people that many Americans detest Bush.