As you may recall, I have written
a number of diaries about Leonard Clark, the liberal National Guardsman serving in Iraq whose emails and voicemails were previously posted at
his blog before it was scrubbed (you can still read many of them in my diaries regarding Leonard).
This is the diary I never wanted to have to write. Leonard Clark has been silenced. He will no longer be allowed to express his opposition to Bush's War in Iraq.
Threatened with up to twenty years in a military prison he accepted a plea bargain in exchange for his future silence.
The full story is after the break.
Earlier this week, I was forwarded email which had originally been sent to
Kevin Spidel, Leonard's friend and the Political Director for
Progressive Democrats of America. Here is the contents of that email (sender's name deleted):
From: [deleted]
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 12:02 PM
To: Kevin Spidel . . .
Subject: Leonard seeing judges
Leonard is telling his wife that he has seen a judge, twice now.
He has requested that people not send through the internet anything that he as written in the past. GAG ORDER.
He mentioned that he could get 10 to 20 years in prison. That was sunday, monday [i.e., July 17th and 18th] he said he had seen the judge again and would be seeing him again.
If he is not under arrest or charged with any offense, why is he having to go before a judge. Maybe you can find out from military what is going on.
This was ominous news, and today we learned why. Leonard, in order to avoid prison, and on advice of his military counsel, took a plea bargain that will keep him out of prison but which will also effectively silence his voice of protest. Here are the details according to the official CENTCOM (i/e/, U.S. Central Command) press release about Leonard's case:
Private First Class Leonard Clark Press Release
On July 19, 2005, Lieutenant Colonel James F. Switzer, Commander, 504th Military Police Battalion, 42nd Military Police Brigade, Multi-National Corps-Iraq, notified Specialist Leonard A. Clark, 860th Military Police Company, of his intent to dispose of alleged misconduct under Article 15, Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
After consulting with a Trial Defense Counsel, a military defense lawyer, Specialist Clark elected to accept disposition of the alleged offense using Article 15 proceedings. Specifically, Specialist Clark was charged under Article 15 with the following violations of the UCMJ:
Article 92 (Failure to obey order), 11 specifications; by releasing classified information regarding unit soldiers and convoys being attacked or hit by an improvised explosive devices on various dates, discussing troop movements on various dates, releasing Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures and Rules of Engagement used by the unit on various dates, in violation of a lawful general order prohibiting the release of such information.
Article 134 (Reckless endangerment), 2 specifications; by releasing specific information, on various dates regarding Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures and Rules of Engagement used by his unit and encouraging its widespread publication, such that the enemy forces could foreseeably access the information, such that with that information it was likely that the enemy forces could cause death or serious bodily harm to U.S. forces engaged in the same or similar mission.
On July 19, 2005, at a hearing before Lieutenant Colonel Switzer, Specialist Clark was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of all Specifications. As a result, Specialist Clark received the following punishment:
Reduction to Private First Class (E-3), forfeiture of $820 per month for two months, 45 days restriction, and 45 days of extra duty. Both the restriction and extra duty were suspended for five months.
Private First Class Clark has appeal rights, but he has chosen not to exercise those rights.
As you can see, CENTCOM's press release is not very specific about which items in particular on Leonard's blog constituted the release of "classified information" that may have endangered his unit. However, I have copies of some of his emails, so I have reviewed them to try to ascertain which writings of Leonard's justified the above charges. Most of his emails deal with his opposition to the War and his political opinions. Here are some excerpts of items which I assume were part of the charges against him. They're a little lengthy but I urge you to read them and see if you believe they support the gravity of the charges brought against Leonard:
From the last paragraph of an email dated June 26, 2005:
One last note: Today, after my three-vehicle patrol passed through a certain stretch of highway, an hour to 2 hours later another patrol was hit by a bomb on that same stretch and ANOTHER AMERICAN soldier was killed and at least 3 of his comrades were wounded, hopefully they will all live.
From an email dated April 11, 2005, 2005:
Apparently, the men and women soldiers over here are starting to sense that the American politicians back home are starting to decide that we will be out of here sooner than later. Today at the chow hall on television CNN announced that President Talabani had announced that American forces could be out of here within two years. We have now been drastically limited in what we can do, as our commander has stated that Iraq now has a soveriegn government. Basically, we are support to go out on patrols as M.P. on the same routes over and over, looking for bombs or other suspicious activity.
The problem is, I fear, that since the enemy knows that we will not pursue them due to the shrinking role, they will start to use us as moving targets, as one would do in a "Turkey Shoot." My unit has already been hit multi-times with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).
. . . Our Captain is beginning to be felt by the men to be a glory seeker. He wants us to start going out on night missions and is volunteering us to go do more dangerous work than even the other MP units stationed here. Most of us believe it is because he is trying to look good when he gets back so that he can brag about what a big hero he is and he gets promoted to Major.
From an email dated April 13, 2005, 2005:
Today was another terrifying day for the soldiers in my unit who had to go out and patrol their little cruel section of Iraqi roads. One of our squads' lives were saved only by the grace of GOD. As they were coming up their stretch of road they spotted one vehicle next to another, one at the side of the road. They very quickly realized that one of the cars was trying to arm the other car, so that when our convoy came by they could blow us up. As soon as the other car spotted us it took off immediately. When our men and women M.P.'s went to block off traffic so no one would get killed from the Iraqi population, the bombers set off the car bomb. We got lucky; from what I understand, the closest we came to an injury was a fragment from the crashed car onto the top of the helmet of one of our gunners. This same unlucky yet lucky squad later in their patrol didn't spot the second vehicle loaded with a 500-pound bomb set to go off to kill them. By the grace of GOD the trigger man for the bomb was sloppy or sleeping on the job.
From an email dated April 14, 2005, 2005:
Routine day for myself and my miltary police company. I went beyond the wire today and we patrolled our normal stretch of road today in our Humvees. We stopped at many diferent places, and my team leader woud get ouf of the vehicle and talk to different peoople.
The children will usually watch us and peek at us from a distance, while the braver ones will even approach us and carry on conversations that we can't understand, but the smile of a child and a G.I. while observing each other is universally understood by both.
. . . You see, here in Iraq we are not really fighting a war now-- we are fighting a police action. Basically, to us soldiers this means that you sometimes have to hesitate whether you should fire your weapon or not to defend you or buddies' lives, because our leaders have received orders from higher leaders to warn us we might be prosecuted for any mistakes we make. This is the state of things--fire your weapon and maybe stay alive, make a mistake and shoot wrongly in the moment of intense terror and you go home a war criminal. You see, it's not our leaders who will be prosecuted--it's us soldiers, because our commanding officers and many platoon sergeants don't even have to fire their weapons or even leave the safe confines of these fortresses that we live in.
And one last one from May 6, 2005:
During the foot patrols I went on through this town I constantly surveyed the ground on up to the rooftops, looking for snipers. There had been a lot of insurgent activity in this town, and no doubt many of the people that lived there were sympathizers. The insurgents who lived in this town knew that it would be sheer death to expose themselves while there was so much American force there, but I'm optimistic that after we leave, if enough Iraqi National Guard are trained and stay in the town, the terrorists can slowly be defeated, if the ING and Iraqi police do not become total thugs themselves.
My whole job where I was located was to take turns with my gunner in the turret along with our team leader and squad leader to watch the alley in front of us. It had barbed concertina wire laid across it and rocks laid across it. One or I.P's (Iraqi Police) were also watching it with their AK-47's. At least one time I watched one of them fire off a warning shot at a vehicle that kept going and made them nervous that it was a VBID. I was instructed that once the IP's started firing into a vehicle if it came past our line of wire to also fire into the vehicle. The Iraqi National Guard and Iraqi Police needed the smallest justification to fire off their rifles.
Once on one of these patrols I watched an IP fire off his AK-47 along with other weapons by the civilians in celebration of a wedding procession of cars honking their horns.
If you have an interest you can read more of his emails
here.
Now I am no military expert, but I fail to see how these emails are significantly different than any number of other blog posts from our soldiers in Iraq in terms of describing what they do on a daily basis. As an example, read this June 1, 2005 entry from Boots on the Ground, another soldier's blog:
Well, not much has been going on. We are still just as busy as we have been. Recently, we found a VERY dangerous IED. Luckily, we caught it before it blew on an unlucky patrol. It would probably have really messed us up. Our area has been pretty quiet lately. Which is good, but now it seems the enemy has stopped trying to engage us in fire fights and rockets and has moved solely to using IEDs. We have been finding them alot lately.
Or this one:
Recently our Company took a hard blow. We lost 2 guys. One of them was a good friend of mine. It was hard on all of us to loose him, but he was pretty much loved by all. Sadly, the other guy, I didn't know too much about. We were all right out in the area when it happened. We showed up to give help look around for the perpetrators. The had already been taken out by medical helicopter. About an hour later, we learned they did not make it. As soon as the word got around, people started crying and consoling each other right there. I had a hard time being in the turret having to pull security and try not to think about what just happened. It has been a really rough time for us. Rest in peace guys, we sure as hell miss you.
The one major difference is that Leonard voices his opinion about his superiors and about the Bush adminsitration a lot more than this gentlemen (and you really need to read the full text of his emails to see this), but I don't see how what they both say about their actual day to day activities is all that different.
Or what about this guy: Major Bob Bateman, who's emails are published at Eric Alterman's blog, Altercation. Let's look at one of his emails posted on the internet June 23, 2005 for comparison to Leonard's missives:
The attack came almost as soon as our two HMMWVs pulled off the road and rolled to a stop. We found ourselves assailed not by bullets or rocket-propelled grenades, nor IEDs and mortar rounds, but by a swirling squealing smiling mass of diminutive petitioners all under four feet tall. Three or four children stood on the road just ten seconds earlier, yet by the time I climbed from my seat in the lead vehicle at least forty of them swarmed between my vehicle and the next.
. . . I accomplished my mission, handing to two now-smiling women great boxes of food and toiletries. Thirty seconds later we were remounted and on the road again, just in case, because we were a long way from friendly forces and our convoy of two was very small.
What I describe above took place two weeks ago.
Four days ago, just a few kilometers from where I sit now inside Baghdad's Green Zone, another group of American soldiers were doing much the same. They were passing out candies to children, as American soldiers have been doing for decades. The children were playing near the parked HMMWVs, and if my experiences are any guide, the kids were probably yelling and begging for yet more sweets, surrounding the Americans, when a suicide bomber drove straight into the pack of children and detonated his lethal cargo among them...
Or how about
this from Major Bob on March 13th:
Loud explosions we are used to. As we work moderately close to one of the gates into the International Green Zone, we have front row seats to the sounds, if not the sights, of what takes place beyond our enclave. Suicide bombers, in cars, on foot, and most recently on bicycles, make loud noises.
Some of those are significant enough to shake our building, our windows, both at work or in our trailer-homes. They occur often enough that we've become accustomed to them. After even a short while here one has a professional detachment upon hearing an explosion, IED, Mortar or Rocket.
My point isn't to castigate either of these two soldiers for what they revealed on the internet, but to point out that it doesn't differ significantly from what Leonard posted. In fact, one can argue that Major Bateman and Boots on the Ground were far more specific about their respective units' locations than Leonard ever was, and just as explicit in terms of their respective activities. yet Leonard was singled out for criminal investigation and threatened with imprisonment in order to get him to shut up.
All I can say is that's a bloody shame.