Paul Abernathy of Iraq Veterans Against the War

Sunday, February 24. 2008
3:30 PM
McCaskey East High School Auditorium • 1051 Lehigh Avenue • Lancaster, PA

Summary by Bob Lowing and Urbane Peachey

Paul Abernathy, an Iraq combat veteran, spoke in Lancaster on February 24, 2008 at McCaskey East High School. Abernathy’s talk was sponsored by LIPW and hosted by the Amnesty International Service Club of J.P.McCaskey High School. He gave Lancaster residents, and the local press, something unique. He was an authentic eyewitness on the ground, a well informed person about the expanding war in the Middle East and a spokesperson for a movement within the ranks of the military to end the war in Iraq, the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW).

The tone was set in his opening remarks: “This war must be ended, and it must be ended at the local level.” (i. e. by the will of people across the US) “The anti war movement is not against the GI’s.” He continued--“There are those who say we need to support our troops in the Iraq war,” he said, “I say, the soldiers are leading the protests calling for an end to the war in Iraq.” 40,000 soldiers have gone AWOL since 2001.

He called this the “untold story about war.” He is a member of the IVAW, an organization consisting of 40 chapters and 800 members. But it is a larger movement he said, because soldiers must express their opposition among themselves and out of the public eye. US soldiers are joining the antiwar movement because of the US military’s “disregard for Iraqi human life...and that view won out over helping Iraqis because it is promoted by the chain of command.” Abernathy’s appeal for comprehensive care for veterans was underscored by his observation that this war is doing long term and sometimes irreparable “damage to the soul” of Iraq veterans.

Tom Hassler, speaking on behalf of the LIPW Board, quoted President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s words warning about the dominance of the “military industrial complex” at the end of his administration, leaving no doubt that the U.S. is dominated by militarism, from human rights to public education. It was a rare opportunity to hear a person bucking the mainstream of his country.

Typically, there were no dissenters in the crowd of 175 persons, who gave Abernathy a standing ovation at the end of his speech. Abernathy dispelled several popular conceptions that have placed the effects of the Iraq war out of public media since the surge and out of Congressional debates for two months.

He made it quite clear that the occupation has increased violence and that a withdrawal of all occupying forces would help the Iraqi people in the long view. Repeated attempts by the media and the US Government to divide Iraqis into two warring sects, nationalities, or terrorists groups belies the strands of unity that exist among the Iraqi people. Too often the US has exploited and exacerbated the differences rather than the common ground that exists between Iraqis and their Middle Eastern neighbors. Abernathy punctuated this perspective: “In the Iraqi unity movement there is no place for American soldiers!” Claims for the effectiveness of the surge in American forces is misleading; the main reason for reduced violence is that people escaped areas of conflict, ie. the areas were “purified.”

He observed that there are Iraqi refugees just across the Iraqi border who could return and help rebuild their country. He believed the efforts of the Saudis and the Iranians at peacebuilding would serve Iraq and its neighbors better than a failed state, or an American occupation on their doorstep.

He compared the effect of a withdrawal from Iraq to the US retreat from Vietnam in 1975. He pointed out the the United States is the largest trade partner to Vietnam today. To avoid the bloodshed and reckoning in Vietnam and Cambodia, Abernathy proposed evacuating 100,000 Iraqis. "it's the right thing to do", he said, "they bet on us, so we owe it to them."

Abernathy has a master’s degree from University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, and is presently a student at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York.

Read The Intelligencer Journal's articles covering the event:

02/26/08 : Loyal soldier unafraid to fight the war

02/25/08 : Veteran calls for end to Iraq War

02/23/08 : Iraq war vet will talk Sunday. Amnesty, peace groups host event