Video of Iraq Vet Stomped by Police Horse at Last Presidential Debate
Steve Wallis
Local), one of my friends at MySpace. [The person who runs it added me
as a friend a while ago, presumably having seen stuff I'd put on-line
(including some songs/musical poems) about Priya Reddy (sometimes
known as warcry), a New York-based Indian anarchist who I believe is
my main ally in the struggle for a better world. I had come to a false
conclusion about her being a political prisoner in a psychiatric ward
that she had compared to Auschwitz concentration camp. She finally
emailed me to say that it wasn't true, and I did new versions of my
songs "You're A Rebel" and "On My Own" with my Glasgow band Red Day to
correct that false information. Having said that, I haven't heard from
her for several months so it is possible that forces of big business
such as the CIA have "tried to wreck her mind as well as spy" as I
suggested in my song "Belly Of The Beast" (which I wrote before coming
to the above mentioned conclusion about her). You can read more about
Priya on my page about her on my socialist website, at
http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/warcry.htm.]
Anyway, below is the blog entry, which I accessed at
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=353811559&blogID=445633314:
Iraq Vet Stomped by Police Horse at Last Presidential Debate
Category: Blogging
[The YouTube video of the event is embedded in the blog, but I don't
think I can send it by email. You can view it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlI7tQCqwbU
but you need to register/log in to access it there since they don't
deem it suitable for those over 18. Alternatively, view it on the blog
at http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=353811559&blogID=445633314.]
Pictures:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/10/100775.shtml
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/10/100762.shtml
Report by Alex Kane of NYC Indymedia:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/10/100761.shtml
As millions of Americans were readying their television sets to tune
into the final presidential debate between John McCain and Barack
Obama, a much different scene was unfolding outside of Hofstra
University in Hempstead, NY where the debate took place.
At least five members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), a group
of military veterans who are calling for immediate withdrawal from
Iraq, were arrested, as well as at least four civilians, according to
National Lawyers Guild observers. Nassau County police on horses
trampled one member of IVAW, Nick Morgan, a veteran who served in Iraq
for about a year. Morgan was knocked to the ground, and according to
witnesses, the horse hooves slammed down on his face. A gash was
visible on the side of his head as blood dripped down onto the
pavement.
Protesters in the crowd said that Morgan was taken to a local
hospital.
"The horses were pushing, like really pushing, against [members of
IVAW], and physically touching their bodies," says Erika Ward, an NYU
student and intern at Democracy Now! "To see people laying on the
ground…was crazy. For me, it was really emotional, [and] I saw people
crying," she continued.
AT THE HEMPSTEAD STATION
The protest began slowly, with about 70 anti-war activists rallying at
a parking lot nearby the Hempstead train station. Speakers included a
member of the New York Civil Liberties Union, a local civil rights
advocate, a Military Families Speak Out activist and a member of the
May 1st Coalition for Immigrant and Worker Rights. As more activists
from the NYC area poured in, the march to the campus of Hofstra
started, with defiant chants of "Stop the torture, stop the war, this
is what we're fighting for," and "They're our brothers, they're our
sisters, we support war resisters!" filling the streets of Hempstead.
With IVAW members at the front, the crowd swelled to around 400
demonstrators. Members of the local Planned Parenthood joined in along
the way. At one point, as the antiwar march neared the campus, a group
of ten members of the Gathering of Eagles, a conservative pro-war
organization, heckled the demonstrators. They shouted epithets like
"traitor" and "treasonous" at the Iraq veterans.
The troops have "been promised so much…it's important for IVAW to have
a voice," says Chelsea Florio, a freshman at Fordham University and a
member of the Fordham Anti-War Coalition.
The members of IVAW, backed by a crowd of anti-war protesters, were
allowed to pass through one line of police before they were met with
lines of Nassau County riot police and cops on horses who would not
allow the veterans to enter the Hofstra campus. IVAW members Matthis
Chiroux and Kris Goldsmith, who organized the protest, went first and
were promptly arrested. At least three other veterans and four
civilians followed and were arrested as well.
The arrests seemed to energize the crowd, and as they chanted, "Let
them in," it looked as if things could easily get out of hand.
The police on horses pushed back against the crowd, which was fronted
by a group of about 15 Iraq veterans, until the demonstrators had been
moved onto a nearby sidewalk.
After a tense standoff for five minutes, it looked like the police in
riot gear shoved veterans and demonstrators to push them even further
back, and around four people were knocked over by riot police and
horses. It was during this fracas that Morgan was injured. After the
police assault, a standoff between the cops and demonstrators occurred
for over an hour.
A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS
A week ago, Chiroux, who this past May publicly declared his intent to
refuse to deploy to Iraq, sent a letter to CBS debate moderator Bob
Scheiffer spelling out the demands of IVAW. Chiroux's letter demanded
that two members of IVAW, himself and Goldsmith, be allowed entry into
the debate to ask Senators Obama and McCain one question each. CBS or
Schieffer did not respond to the letter from Chiroux.
"What yourself and the candidates must decide now, Mr. Schieffer, is
what the legacy of this debate will be. Will this be remembered as an
event where both sides of the [aisle] and the media came together to
hear from our nation's heroes…or will the words and promises of both
candidates be forever shrouded in the image of a host of uniformed
veterans and their supporters going to jail because these campaigns
cared too little to hear from them?" Chiroux's letter read.
"Our goal is to make Iraq and veterans the forefront of the debate,"
said Goldsmith.
Chiroux planned on asking Obama a pointed question: "My question is,
as President of the United States of America, are you prepared to back
up your own words [about the illegality of the Iraq War] and the U.S.
Constitution by supporting service members refusing to participate in
what you describe as an illegal occupation?"
Goldsmith wanted to ask McCain a question about his lack of support
for veterans. "What promises are you willing to make, as a veteran, as
a senator, as a presidential candidate, to the veterans of the United
States, to prove that you will ensure the V.A. is fully funded,
staffed and capable of preventing troops from suffering as they are
now?" he says.
With the crowd emotionally exhausted and worn down, the protest
started to taper off at about 8:30 PM.
"We have a blind media [and] deaf candidates, but [IVAW] has a voice
that will be heard," James Gilligan, a member of IVAW said earlier in
the day.
--
Steve Wallis (Manchester, England)
Preferred email address: revolutionary...@yahoo.co.uk
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[There are all sorts of font/formatting errors using Yahoo! mail that
I have to put up with from time to time. It's worth it - yahoo.co.uk
is based in the UK unlike hotmail.co.uk, which avoids the censorship
of the Department of Homeland Security in the USA, that recipients of
this message in "the land of the free" have to put up with, on whose
authority spam detection programs are used to filter out political
emails (using artificial intelligence techniques not just checking for
keywords). I'm not a "patriot" so I guess the Patriot Act is aimed at
people like myself as well as (or rather much more than) Islamic
fundamentalists.]