Evan Knappenberger, who served one year in Iraq with the Army 4th Infantry Division, spoke last weekend in Portland, Oregon with other returned soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan:
We are responsible as soldiers, we are murderers of over one million Iraqis. I participated in burglary, trespassing, knowledgeable negligence, criminal assault and battery, rape by association, and gangsterism, I am standing here today as a criminal – in a sense of the word that only someone who has worn the uniform can understand.
While I was in Iraq, I did many things, but nothing for freedom. We’ve lost this war on the polemic battleground of semantics. By naming arbitrary rules of engagement, we rationalised murder – this I witnessed…by calling it liberation, we justified occupation, this I witnessed…”