Veterans for Common Sense

“They’re firing at us!”

Capt. K.C. Hughes screams in his sleep. His body thrashing, his arms flailing, he points and barks orders, grinding his teeth, flipping from one side of the bed to the other.

“He starts breathing heavy, like he’s scared or fighting,” said his wife, Samantha Hughes. “He’s talking war talk, but it doesn’t make any sense.”

The 26-year-old Army captain doesn’t remember his dreams. Only a concerned “Are you OK?” from his wife when he wakes lets him know something happened while he slept.

What he does remember is the real life nightmare that started it all.

It was the morning of May 27, 2003, just after midnight. Operation Iraqi Freedom was in its infancy, and Hughes and half the members of his platoon with the 3rd Armored Cavalry unit were on checkpoint duty on the west side of Fallujah in Iraq. After someone has been hurt in a truck accident, attorney representation is often required to help them get back on their feet. Being a victim of this type of traffic mishap can be devastating or even fatal to those involved. These victims may be left with a stack of hospital bills, loss of a job, physical and emotional injuries, or the loss of a friend or family member. Although, no one wants to be the cause of a fatal traffic incident, failing to rest properly before getting behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler is negligent. You can visit the Marasco & Nesselbush Law Offices, their attorney can help the victims of this negligence to regain their footing in life. All of these victims deserve justice. Trucks travel the roads, day and night, hauling goods to various destinations. The trucking industry is an important one for getting merchandise from its origination point to waiting consumers. Fruits and vegetables are trucked across country from orchards and farms to grocery stores across the nation. Clothing made in factories or items imported from other countries are picked up at warehouses or on site to haul around the nation to consumers. Oil, gasoline, livestock, furniture, automobiles, electronics equipment, and food have spent some time on the back of a truck. The exception to the rule would be those items that were made or grown locally and sold within the community. Truckers are often well trained and experienced for their jobs but there are certain challenges that make accidents happen more commonly than one would hope. Because these drivers are on tight schedules to drop off and pick up loads, they often pull all nighters and go without much sleep. You can look at this website for more information.

They had conducted hundreds of checkpoints by that time. It was a common mission.

“At the checkpoint, we’re checking vehicles for weapons and contraband, enforcing the curfew and looking for bad guys,” Hughes said. “It’s a good way to tell who’s coming in and going out of town.”

They had been at the checkpoint about an hour and a half when the small pickup truck approached.

Guards had already opened fire by the time the driver pulled the pin from a grenade. Collapsing from fatal wounds, the driver let the grenade roll from his hands toward the American soldiers. But, it was the spray of machine gun fire from the truck’s passenger that wounded four soldiers and killed two others within seconds. The passenger, too, died in the firefight.

Hughes called for medical evacuation, but within 20 minutes, his unit was under fire again. And then, he was shot.

He can’t remember all the details of what happened.

“There are so many things going on, you just sort of go into a kind of automatic mode,” Hughes said. “And especially as a leader, my actions just kind of … happen. In situations like that, you really don’t have time to think about things, you just start doing things.”

At some point, a bullet entered Hughes’ left shoulder, ricocheted off his collarbone and traveled down his spine before exiting. He and four others were evacuated to the United States for medical care and recovery.

Two years later, he sits perfectly postured and straight-faced in his Fort Knox home marveling at the combination of grace and good luck that kept him from either being killed or quadriplegic as a result of the ambush. He has not a single neurological effect from the gunshot.

“It should have killed me in a bunch of different … it should have done a bunch of different things,” Hughes said.

It’s been six months since his last nightmare. The feelings of depression, hopelessness and guilt for surviving are now memories lumped together with the bad experience that caused them. He’s fine, as long as he keeps talking about it. He talks about it a lot.

That’s what his counselor at Fort Carson, Colo., told him to do, after telling him he had post-traumatic stress disorder.

PTSD is a psychiatric disorder that can occur after experiencing or witnessing a life-threatening event. It is often characterized by nightmares, flashbacks, hyper vigilance and feelings of being detached or estranged.

“It often affects survivors,” said Jeaneen Goodhue, nurse and coordinator for the military intensive outpatient program at Lincoln Trail Behavioral Health System. “It goes along with surviving crises or critical events that happen.”

What makes an event traumatic is its power to provoke fear, helplessness or horror.

As far as known causes of PTSD, combat ranks with criminal violence, such as rape, assault or torture, motor vehicle accidents, fires, earthquakes and terrorist attacks.

According to a 2004 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, while about 7 percent of those who experience traumatic events may develop PTSD in the civilian world, the disorder affects some 15 to 17 percent of active duty military personnel who have been deployed in Iraq and 11 percent in Afghanistan. Men and women recently removed from combat were interviewed for the study.

But Dr. James Stockard, civilian psychiatrist at Ireland Army Community Hospital’s behavioral health clinic, believes that prevalence could be lower or higher, depending on when the soldiers were interviewed.

“I would be suspicious of any single figure,” Stockard said, stating it is still too early to get a firm grasp on the scope of PTSD with the Iraq War. “I’m just saying the jury is still out. PTSD is dynamic. It goes away. It gets worse. You can’t take a snapshot and have the answer.”

While Fort Knox doesn’t deploy a lot of troops overseas directly, it has seen a number of soldiers come and go from its training installation and medical hold unit.

Soldiers and Marines from every unit or detachment at Fort Knox have participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom. At least five Hardin County soldiers and one Radcliff Marine have been killed in what is being called the most sustained ground combat operation since Vietnam.

In addition, Hardin County is the home to a large number of Reservists and National Guardsmen who either have directly or indirectly been involved in the war effort.

“You don’t come back from a hot war zone exactly the same,” Stockard said. Soldiers will have features and symptoms and some learned behaviors that don’t fit into civilian life. As long as the symptoms don’t cause dysfunction to the soldier, they can learn to adjust.

Some can’t do it alone.

The Lincoln Trail clinic sees patients every day who are experiencing some form of post-traumatic or combat stress, in both acute and chronic forms. Some are in treatment for days or weeks, others longer.

Some soldiers seek help at the behavioral health clinic at Ireland hospital or the VA hospital in Louisville. Others turn to veteran centers, chaplains, family members and each other for support in dealing with the aftermath of combat-related traumatic events.

Though the average age of the combat-related stress patient for this war is 24, people experiencing PTSD run the gamut in age, gender, years of service, number of tours and other variables.

In some, it is not only the exposure to combat, but the transition back to civilian life that can be disruptive, particularly for Reservists and National Guard members who are less accustomed to being away from their families and may have more adjustment difficulties with deployment. Exactly what triggers the stress reaction in some soldiers and not others is unknown.

“We don’t know why one person will develop it and another not,” said Dr. Karen Grantz, coordinator of the Post-traumatic Clinical Team at Louisville VA Hospital. “It has nothing to do with psychiatric weakness or what they saw. It’s important to note, almost everybody has a post-traumatic response to being in combat.”

What the Army has learned is the earlier PTSD is addressed, the less its chances of becoming chronic and, in some cases, disabling.

When Hughes first noticed his depression, he talked to his girlfriend, whom he met during his recovery and soon married. She, too, had experienced PTSD.

A cancer survivor, she underwent six months of chemotherapy and radiation. Many of the patients she knew in the oncology ward of her hospital eventually succumbed to the disease.

“I had dealt with PTSD for three years,” she said. The two found they had a lot in common, and that was helpful to Hughes.

When he began having nightmares, together they sought the help of a specialist who helped them deal with what was happening.

“It wasn’t just affecting me anymore, it was affecting my family, and I had a little one on the way,” Hughes said.

He believes because he sought help early on and learned to talk openly about his experience, he can now control it.

Though research suggests he is right, each individual deals with the effects of combat stress in different ways.

Psychological, social and psychiatric effects from combat can be immediate, acute and chronic depending on the individual, according to the Iraq War Clinician Guide 2nd Edition, published in 2004 by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Center for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.

The guidebook also says that clinical assessment of Iraq war veterans is “likely to be complicated and clinically challenging … they will have difficulty sharing their thoughts and feelings about what happened and the toll those experiences have taken on their mental health.”

There is more concern with the Iraq war than other conflicts since Vietnam because the frequency and intensity of combat exposure is higher than in Afghanistan, Somalia or the 1991 Persian Gulf War, according to a national Center for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder fact sheet.

In 2004, 86 percent of soldiers in Iraq reported knowing someone who was seriously injured or killed, 68 percent reported seeing dead or seriously injured Americans and 51 percent reported handling or uncovering human remains.

Nearly 77 percent of soldiers deployed in Iraq reported shooting or directing fire at the enemy, 48 percent reported being responsible for the deaths of enemy combatants and 28 percent reported being responsible for the death of a noncombatant.

In addition, with suicide bombings and other insurgent attacks, urban guerrilla warfare in Iraq creates a constant state of alert because the enemy is not clearly identifiable. There is no safe place and no safe duty. A person may begin to feel helpless in the ability to protect him or herself, Grantz said.

“But, you have to be careful,” Hughes said. “It could be a family with children in the car just as easily as it could be insurgents. You have to be cautious, of course, at all times. But there are civilians all over this battlefield.

“In the grand scheme of things, what if you went over there and you did something you couldn’t live with. That would be far worse. You have to think, you may survive this whole thing, but you have to go back and live the rest of your life. That’s why this environment is so difficult.”

While drug therapy, psychotherapy and cognitive-behavior therapy such as relaxation techniques, stress management training and coping skills are used to treat and manage PTSD, most doctors are finding group therapy or just talking about the experiences, as in Hughes’ case, are key in getting PTSD symptoms under control.

“Talking in groups, actually sharing experiences, they benefit from each other,” Goodhue said. “In some cases, you have to rethink everything you do every day, especially how you react to things that make you uncomfortable.”

Many facilities conduct group counseling sessions in which soldiers and veterans talk openly about combat experiences and frustrations with others who have similar experiences. But, the problem remains getting those who need it most to seek help.

There exists a stigma that a person’s military career or reputation may be on the line if he or she seeks help for mental health issues.

Often it’s those who most need help who won’t seek it, Stockard said.

“A lot of your hardcore combat vets are the least likely to want to talk — the ones who are in the thick of things,” said Bill Spencer of the Disabled American Veterans.

So, instead, they suffer silently. They may withdraw from society or turn to drugs or alcohol to diminish the symptoms, “but they can actually exacerbate the symptoms,” Grantz said.

Though Hughes knows some soldiers may not want to ask for help, he’s never been concerned with other people think. He knew he needed help, so he got it, with his career remaining intact.

In March, he graduated from the Armor Captain’s Career Course at Fort Knox and Thursday assumes the role of commander for C Company, 1st Battalion 46th Infantry at the post.

“I think what’s really important is for commanders to realize PTSD exists,” Hughes said. “And, it’s going to exist in their unit, whether it does now or not.”

Hughes wrote an article for Armor Magazine about PTSD which is scheduled for publication in the July/August edition.

“It’s very important for commanders to make it an open environment, and it’s OK to ask for help,” Hughes said. “The Army is perfectly set up for it. It’s a way to say, ‘here I am, I went through a difficult situation, and I struggled.’ It’s OK to struggle. It’s not something that you have to hide.”

As his new bride, Amanda, and her friends chuckle at stories over dinner, Jack Self stares in silence. He doesn’t laugh much anymore.

Jack has spent half of the last two years patrolling the cities of Iraq, dodging sniper fire and roadside bombs, and watching friends die. The 26-year-old Marine corporal no longer sees the humor in everyday life.

“You forget how to have fun,’ he said softly, when I saw him for the first time since we shared a Humvee during the invasion of Iraq two years ago.

With bullets whistling overhead and rocket-propelled grenades exploding nearby, Self and I quickly bonded amid the chaos of war.

We were confused together and nervous together. I watched quietly as he fired grenade after grenade from his MK-19 machine gun. He once exploded in anger at me, but really at himself, over one deadly trigger pull he has never forgotten.

Listening to Self now, in a different Humvee at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, it quickly becomes clear that the invasion we thought was chaotic and dangerous was nothing compared with what was to come.

That first deployment Self now calls “Disneyland.’ His second stint in Iraq, fighting the deadly, amorphous Sunni insurgency, that was “Vietnam.’

His days last summer were filled with mines and rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and bombs, snipers who worked with deadly accuracy.

Enemy fire thumped the windshield of his armored Humvee on one day, his door on another. He returned from a patrol to find his bulletproof vest pocked with shrapnel. The front of his vehicle crumpled when it ran over a mine.

Other than fellow Marines, he had no idea whom he could trust. So he trusted no one. Local Iraqi officials were corrupt, poorly trained and under constant threat from the insurgents. Any civilian could be an insurgent waiting to strike. Maybe the man who sold him ice every morning would attack.

“You give them the benefit of the doubt and they kill you,’ he said.

Officially, the mission was to stabilize the country, help train Iraqi troops and lay the groundwork for democracy.

“My mission,’ Self said, “was to keep my guys alive, and kill them before they got us.’

Self knows he’s changed, but it is hard to tell how. He only really sees himself reflected in the mirror of Amanda’s eyes. She tells him he is more serious than he used to be, perhaps more aggressive.

He sees it too, in comrades from the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines. Some can’t sleep. Some use alcohol to numb themselves. Others try counseling.

Self spoke informally to an acquaintance who was a counselor for the Army, and found that helpful. But he said, “You can’t talk about it to someone who hasn’t been over there. You’re always explaining yourself.’

He has tried to shield Amanda from the details, but has not always succeeded.

And he and his fellow Marines have to confront yet another trial.

The 3/7 is heading back to Iraq.

Beneath the tough exterior

When I first climbed into his Humvee in the Iraqi desert two years ago, a few days into the invasion, Self adopted his most intimidating pose. The 6-foot-2-inch former college linebacker reveled in the image of the tough-guy Marine.

As a gunner in 3/7’s Weapons Company, he spoke of his willingness to use overwhelming force. He prided himself on his restraint in shooting, but once he decided to pull the trigger he wouldn’t let go until his target was obliterated.

But Self was far more complex than his image. Weeks of long conversations during the lulls of war revealed a sensitive and thoughtful man, who, while never wavering from his mission, was deeply reflective about the violence around him.

Perhaps it was partly his age. Unlike comrades who enlisted out of high school, Self joined the Marines at 23. He had already spent three years in college and had worked before deciding to enlist, “to do something that I could look back on and be proud of,’ he said.

As the Marine column moved north toward Baghdad, he quickly warmed to the Iraqis he met. Many were farmers and reminded the self-described “farm boy’ of the people he knew back home in Arkansas. He wondered what he would do if columns of foreign tanks and infantry rolled through his hometown of Bentonville.

He played with Iraqi kids, when most other Marines pushed them away, and he befriended people in the Baghdad neighborhoods he patrolled, even giving gasoline to a family to power its generator.

While some Marines denigrated Iraqis as “Hajjis,’ a word meaning pilgrims which they turned into an epithet, Self still talks about the most beautiful woman he ever saw, an Iraqi he glimpsed walking shyly on the side of the road to Baghdad.

The deaths of civilians gnawed at Self’s conscience, yet he insisted he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot into a crowded schoolyard if an enemy was firing at him from there. The contradictory feelings collided on April 9, 2003, the day Baghdad fell.

As the Marines lined up on the side of a major road preparing for a final push into the city, they waved civilian cars off the road, far from their column. A rocket-propelled grenade exploded nearby, and the Marines were on alert for a potential attack.

One car, Self says it is a red sedan, I remember it as white, did not stop.

Marines frantically waved it back, but it glided past a line of civilian cars that had already heeded the Marines’ warning. The Marines screamed for it to stop. Now dangerously close, it flashed its headlights and continued.

Self, perched behind his gun on top of the Humvee, squeezed the trigger. Seven grenades tore through the car’s windshield, and the vehicle exploded in flames.

The Marines watched in silence, waiting for the fire to detonate any explosives or ammunition inside the car. Nothing, not even the sound of bullets cooking off, interrupted the faint notes of Johnny Cash’s “Live From Folsom Prison’ playing on the speakers in Self’s turret.

The three people in the car were almost definitely civilians, and they were dead.

Still behind the gun, Self looked down at me, standing in the road, and let out an angry, defensive yell: “Yeah, I’m a monster!’

That night, after the Marines took up positions in Baghdad not far from where the statue of Saddam was pulled down, Self was faced with another driver racing toward him. This time it was a motorcyclist heading toward a makeshift Marine checkpoint.

The rider stopped just a few feet away when the Marines raised their rifles. They yelled at him to turn around. But he was paralyzed in fear and confusion. Their yells grew angrier and more desperate and an instant before they seemed ready to shoot, Self pulled out his pistol and fired into the pavement in front of the bike. The man yelped, spun around and drove off.

“I knew if I didn’t get rid of him, he was going to get killed,’ Self later said. “I just had a feeling that he wasn’t a threat.’

An hour later, a ramshackle truck rolled up. But the vehicle was not stopping fast enough, and a Marine lifted his rifle and took aim. Self looked at the Marine and at the frightened driver and yelled: “He’s pumping his brakes.’ Again, no shot was fired.

In a calmer moment, Self tied the shooting that morning to his actions that night.

“If I don’t have to kill another man, that’s fine with me,’ he said.

But he did kill again. And he is still haunted by the image of the burning sedan, and the thought of the other victims of his gun. Dozens, scores, maybe more, he’s not really sure.

“That’s something I think about: If I’ll see the faces of every person I killed.’

He even worries he’ll be haunted by those whose faces he never saw.

War follows home

Back home now, the Marines of the 3/7 carry the scars of war.

One terrified his wife when he swerved across lanes of highway traffic to avoid a bag of garbage, fearing it was a roadside bomb.

Another told of grabbing his girlfriend and running for cover at the crackle of fireworks after a college football game and of checking the rooms of her house for guerrillas when he woke to use the bathroom in the night.

Self, in a sleepy daze, leapt out of bed when he mistook the red light on a hotel smoke detector for a tracer round. Amanda told him he coordinates troop movements and calls out grid positions in his sleep.

The first time he returned to an American shopping mall, he was unnerved by the wide open spaces and by the numerous places snipers could hide. He wanted to back into a corner. “You don’t have security to your rear, to your flanks,’ he said.

He turned and hurried out.

Two different wars

Self speaks fondly of his first Iraq deployment in the spring of 2003, after I left his unit and before the insurgency exploded.

The Marines policed the placid streets of the Shiite holy city of Karbala, removing the doors from their Humvees and putting away their bulletproof vests and helmets.

They worked as a team with local Iraqis, who reported weapons caches and gave them other intelligence.

In return, the Marines built a playground, held a children’s day and gave away soccer balls. Self smiled as he talked of pushing a child on a swing and of the cash-strapped newlywed couple he befriended and gave $50 a week.

“It was awesome,’ he said.

After the 3/7 moved to Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, the men encountered their first makeshift roadside bomb and were occasionally targeted by rocket-propelled grenades and mortar fire. Still, the level of violence remained relatively low through September 2003, when they went home.

Self was especially excited to return to the states. He had met Amanda in a sort of blind phone date arranged by a fellow Marine when he was in Iraq. Soon after he got home, they began seriously dating and he spent much of his free time driving from Twentynine Palms to idyllic weekends at Amanda’s home in Austin, Texas.

The idyll ended in February 2004, when he returned to Iraq.

The Marines of the 3/7 talk of their two deployments as if they were two different wars. The first was a mission of liberation.

The second was an apocalyptic nightmare.

By the end of the first deployment, including the invasion, the battalion lost two men. In the second, it lost 18.

The Marines were sent to Anbar Province, the heart of the Sunni insurgency.

On their first patrol, near the Syrian border, a roadside bomb intended for the troops killed two Iraqi children instead, Self said.

“Every single day this time we encountered something,’ he said. “The longer we were there, the worse it was getting.’

The bombs quickly grew more elaborate. Soon they were being detonated by remote control, making it nearly impossible to find the attackers. Iraqis were burying land mines upside down so small civilian cars wouldn’t trigger them but heavy military vehicles would.

The bombers were joined by snipers, and their weapons supply was continually replenished by allies in Syria, who stuffed rockets and explosives into styrofoam-filled garbage bags and floated them down the Euphrates River into Iraq, Self said.

Local Iraqis were no longer interested in helping the Marines.

“Everybody just sits there and looks at you like, ‘If I had a gun, I’d kill you,” Self said.

The violence could come from anywhere at anytime. In many battles, Self only saw the shadows of the men he was shooting at. His unit began clasping hands, bowing their heads and praying before each patrol.

“There’s no safe spot over there. None,’ he said.

Killing had become far less of a concern for Self than being killed.

He saw nine comrades killed. Many others were badly injured.

“I don’t know what’s worse, a guy that’s dead or a guy with his arm and half his face blown off. He’s only got one eye and he’s crying out of his one eye and he’s patting his arm looking for it,’ he said.

At first, Self was reluctant to talk of his friends’ deaths. In time, the stories poured out.

One Marine was laying concertina wire when he suddenly fell over dead. A single sniper’s bullet had pierced his heart.

Another jumped on a grenade and covered it with his helmet, sacrificing his life to save his friends.

Once, a Marine was shot and vomiting. The medic couldn’t bring himself to do CPR, so Self did. The Marine died anyway. “I can still smell it. I can still see his eyes and know he’s dead,’ he said.

One morning Self and his radio operator were playing cards. Hours later his spades partner was dead.

On a mission searching for bombs, Self’s vehicle cruised past an elaborate explosive device: two rockets hidden in a roadside pile of garbage. As the next Humvee passed, the rockets were remotely launched into it, tearing through a group of Marines sitting in the back.

Self and a medic sprinted to help and found the vehicle, which had been filled with their friends, soaked with blood and carnage. Three Marines died.

“That was the worst thing I’ve ever seen,’ Self said.

Some Marines reacted to their buddies’ deaths by wanting to kill everybody, Self said. Others froze up.

As a leader in his platoon, Self felt he had to remain calm for his men, but sometimes he wanted to break down, too. One day when a friend was killed, he went behind his Humvee and let himself lose control for a moment.

Then, he said, “I dried my eyes, wiped my nose and went back to work.’ One more nightmare

At a shooting range at the base in Twentynine Palms, Self found himself navigating the parallel paths of his future, planning his new life with Amanda and preparing for a third deployment in Iraq.

He gruffly led new recruits through live-fire drills, teaching them how to clear buildings in urban areas, shoot insurgents, “two to the chest, one to the head,’ and fire heavy machine guns from moving vehicles. He yelled with impatience at times and erupted in fury when one new Marine broke a crucial safety rule, shooting his rifle too close to his comrade.

In stolen moments, Self made last-minute preparations for his April 23 wedding, sneaking behind a Humvee when Amanda called on his cell phone to talk about flowers and invitations. He slapped his head in mock anger when she sent him text messages from Texas telling him how much she just spent on her diamond-encrusted wedding ring.

He was a little nervous about the merger of his two worlds. Amanda has never really seen Self as the Marine now nicknamed “Beast,’ and he was worried about her reaction when she moved to the base.

He was concerned about life after the war, the effects the violence has already had on him and the hidden scars.

But he and the Marines were also focused on their next assignment.

They had been thrilled to hear they would be sent to Afghanistan, which appeared relatively safe, but those plans changed.

Now they wondered what new dangers await them in Iraq.

During the Iraq invasion, Self was cavalier about his mortality. He talked about wanting to get shot, just to see how it felt. He even talked about getting killed.

“I have a father and brother back home and a mother and sister in heaven. It doesn’t matter to me who I see,’ he said with a bravado I didn’t really believe.

Now Self has Amanda and his dreams of their future together. He has already sent out applications to fire departments in Texas, looking for a job for after he leaves the Marines early next year.

He just has one more nightmare to confront first. The 3/7 is scheduled to return to Iraq in September.

2,200 Journalists Await Jackson Verdict

By GREG RISLING, Associated Press Writer, Fri Jun 10, 3:25 PM ET

About 2,200 members of the media have received credentials to cover Michael Jackson’s trial — more than the O.J. Simpson and Scott Peterson murder trials combined and enough to form a vast, humming tent city outside the modest courthouse.

Reporters from every continent but Antarctica are covering a story that has attracted perhaps the largest-ever media contingent for a criminal trial.

The satellite trucks and portable toilets function at all hours, since foreign correspondents must file past midnight to meet deadlines an ocean away.

Major TV networks have committed dozens of staff members. Nearly four miles of television cables snake around the complex. The explosion of phone calls that a verdict will trigger prompted some news organizations to install land lines for fear the region’s cell networks could become jammed.

The reporters do their work as Jackson fans crowded behind a chain-link fence hurl insults. On Thursday, Court TV anchor Diane Dimond was granted a restraining order barring an 18-year-old man from interfering with her work.

As jury deliberations in the child-molestation case reached the one-week mark Friday, about half of the credentialed crew of media members milled around outside.

The crowd of reporters is distinctly international, a reminder that Jackson’s popularity remains intense outside the United States. News organizations from more than 30 countries are here.

“This trial is the perfect intersection of sex, crime and celebrity,” said Jonathan Wilcox, an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism. “It makes it very much one-of-a-kind for the media.”

The salacious details are selling newspapers in Britain, where Jackson has a large fan base.

“The appetite for Michael Jackson is insatiable,” said Graeme Massie, who has covered the trial for Splash, a British news agency. “In the U.S., people may believe that Jackson’s star has fallen, but in Europe it still shines brightly.”

The case is also being watched closely in Japan, which is considering using a jury system.

“People in Japan are interested in the King of Pop, but they also want to know how the jury will treat celebrities,” said Wataru Ezaki, who works for a Japanese news organization in Southern California. “They want to see if jurors can be fair. It’s a very unique case.”

Though the press corps has swollen since the case went to the jury last week, many reporters relocated to this city of 88,000 for all the trial’s four months.

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Although many reporters look forward to the trial’s end, some admit they will be sad to see their colleagues go.

“It feels a little bit like the end of summer camp,” Massie said. “It’s a long time to be away from home, but you also get to meet people from different walks of life and get their opinion on things.”

The United States of America is the only state that is actively opposed to the new International Criminal Court. US opposition to the Court can be traced back to the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute) in 1998, where the USA was one of only 7 states to vote against adoption of the Statute. Reportedly a major reason for not supporting adoption of the Statute stems from the refusal of the international community to grant the United Nations Security Council (of which the USA is a veto holding permanent member) control over which cases the Court considered, instead favouring an independent Prosecutor who – subject to safeguards and fair trial guarantees – would make such decisions.

On 31 December 2000, however, President Clinton signed the Rome Statute, which was a positive step in favour of the Court. However, the US position has changed dramatically since the new administration under President Bush took office in 2001. On 6 May 2002, the US government took the unprecedented step of repudiating its signature of the Rome Statute and began a worldwide campaign to weaken the Court and to obtain impunity for all US nationals from the jurisdiction of the Court.

Amnesty International believes that the US concerns that the ICC will be used to bring politically motivated prosecutions against US nationals are wholly unfounded. The substantial safeguards and fair trial guarantees in the Rome Statute will ensure that such a situation would never arise.

This page provides information on two parts of the current US campaign against the ICC: impunity agreements and Security Council Resolution 1422. For further information on the USA and the ICC, please see the AI USA website, the AMICC website, the CICC website, or the Washington Working Group on the ICC website.

US Impunity Agreements

Further information

Click here to see a list of states who have signed an impunity agreement

The USA is currently approaching governments around the world and asking them to enter into illegal impunity agreements. These agreements provide that a government will not surrender or transfer US nationals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes to the ICC, if requested by the Court. The agreements do not require the USA or the other state concerned to investigate and, if there is sufficient evidence, to prosecute such a person in US Courts. Indeed in many cases it would be impossible for US courts to do so, as US law does not include many of the crimes under the Rome Statute.

On 1 July 2003 the USA announced the withdrawal of military assistance to 35 states who are parties to the Rome Statute and have refused to sign an impunity agreement with the USA. On 8 December 2004, the USA went even further, withdrawing economic support from states that still refuse to sign impunity agreements. The withdrawal of this economic funding threatens to undermine counter-terrorism efforts, peace process programs, anti-drug trafficking initiatives, truth and reconciliation commissions and HIV/Aids education, and threatens states such as Jordan, Ireland, Cyprus, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and South Africa.

The USA claims that these agreements are legal and in conformity with Article 98 of the Statute. However, Amnesty International has conducted a legal analysis which demonstrates that US Impunity Agreements do not fall under Article 98, and states that enter into such agreements with the USA are in breach of their obligations under international law. This legal analysis (International Criminal Court: US efforts to obtain impunity for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, IOR 40/025/2002) is available in Arabic, English, French and Spanish.

The European Union’s legal experts have also analysed the agreements, and have reached the same conclusion “[e]ntering into US agreements – as presently drafted – would be inconsistent with ICC States Parties’ obligations with regard to the ICC Statute … “. The EU has issued guiding principles which Amnesty International analyses in International Criminal Court: The need for the European Union to take more effective steps to prevent members from signing US impunity agreements (IOR 40/030/2002). This paper is available in Arabic, English, French and Spanish.

Security Council Resolution 1422 and 1487

Another strategy being pursued by the USA is to obtain impunity for US nationals through the United Nations Security Council. In July 2002, the Security Council, under immense pressure from the USA, passed Resolution 1422. This resolution seeks to give perpetual impunity from investigation or prosecution by the ICC to nationals of states that have not ratified the Rome Statute, when such persons are involved in operations established or authorized by the United Nations. In June 2003, the Security Council renewed this resolution for another year in a vote of 12-0 (Resolution 1487). Many states made strong statements against the resolution and in support of the ICC in a public debate before the adoption. Three Security Council members abstained from voting – France, Germany and Syria.

Amnesty International has published a legal analysis of this resolution, which concludes that the resolution is contrary to the Rome Statute, and also to the United Nations Charter (International Criminal Court: The unlawful attempt by the Security Council to give US citizens permanent impunity from international justice, IOR 40/006/2003). Amnesty International is calling on the Security Council not to renew this resolution again when it expires on 30 June 2004.

A summary of this legal analysis is available in Arabic, English, French and Spanish (International Criminal Court: Security Council must refuse to renew unlawful Resolution 1422, IOR 40/008/2003).

On 23 June 2004, the USA withdrew its attempt to renew Resolution 1487 for a further year. In the light of the revelations of prisoner abuse in Iraq and the public opposition to the renewal by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, at least eight members of the Security Council refused to support the renewal of the resolution. Resolution 1487 expired on 30 June 2004, ending the blanket impunity enjoyed by nationals of non-states parties when involved in peacekeeping operations established or authorized by the UN. However, the USA has warned that it will continue its efforts to conclude impunity agreements with individual states. There is also the risk that the USA may try to seek similar exemptions from ICC jurisdiction on an individual basis by blocking any peacekeeping missions that do not contain such protections for nationals of non-states parties. For Amnesty International’s press release on the USA’s withdrawal, please click here.

In a move that could expand the police powers in the Patriot Act, the Senate Intelligence Committee will meet behind close doors to discuss, among other things, “a little-discussed provision to enlarge the FBI’s ability to wiretap people who it suspects are national security threats.” The bill they will discuss is called the Patriot Reauthorization Act (PAREA)

The Boston Globe reported Sunday that the provision in the bill, sponsored by committee chair Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, “would lift one of the last restrictions on special warrants the FBI can obtain through a secret court originally set up to monitor foreign spies: that the information the bureau wants must be related to international terrorism or foreign intelligence.”

Instead, the FBI could use the warrants, which bypass normal constitutional safeguards, to look for evidence of unrelated crimes that it could use to get suspects off the street. The wiretap provision is one of three major additions in the draft bill, which would reauthorize the Patriot Act, the package of enhanced law enforcement powers enacted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

If the bill became law, it also would give FBI agents the power to write their own subpoenas without permission from a judge, allowing them to seize records from hotels, banks, and Internet service providers. This provision would require the FBI to make periodic reports to Congress about how often it uses that power to obtain library records, bookstore and firearms sales receipts, and medical or tax records.

CNN reported in late March that conservative and liberals groups who are normally “at each other’s throats” will work together to “gut major provisions” of the current anti-terrorism law.

Gregory D. Miller, US attorney for the Northern District of Florida, writes in The Tallahassee Democrat that concern about the Patriot Act being used for non-terrorist related criminal investigations has proven unfounded.

To date, the act’s delayed notice provisions have been used in less than one-fifth of 1 percent of all federal search warrants. In one of the rare but critical instances in which delayed notice was employed, the act enabled agents to secretly seize more than 30,000 pills of the hallucinogen ecstasy from a drug courier without jeopardizing the long-term investigation of the international drug organization that employed him.

That’s 30,000 pills that never made it to the streets, or the nightclubs, or the college campuses for which they were destined. In the massive take-down that took place fewer than 30 days after the ecstasy seizure, investigators put that drug organization out of business, arresting more than 100 of its key members. The Patriot Act enabled law enforcement to take those drugs off our streets, without tipping off the people responsible for their distribution.

The Washington Post reports on one case where the Patriot Act was used as it was originally intended, that of former University of South Florida professor Sami al-Aria, who was indicted in 2003 on charges of “conspiracy to commit racketeering through the murder of Israelis, money laundering and other crimes.”

US officials were allowed to use the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] intercepts in the case because the USA Patriot Act of 2001 and a FISA appeals court decision in 2003 had torn down the long-unbreachable wall between FBI criminal investigators and intelligence personnel. The legal wall had previously prevented FBI intelligence agents from sharing any information about the FISA taps with agents pursuing criminal cases.

But Anita Ramasastry, a columnist for FindLaw.com, a legal resources website, argues that not only should some of the previous sections of the act be scrapped, but that adding some of these new wiretap sections are a direct assault on the US Constitution.
PAREA should be rejected, or substantially modified to allow review by a neutral judge (a federal judge, not an administrative judge).

The government has obtained a broad range of powers in intelligence investigations – especially against foreigners, but also against US citizens. Given the secrecy with which these investigations are conducted, their wide scope, and the lack of checks and balances, independent judicial review – requiring a factual premise and particularized suspicion for a subpoena to be authorized – are the very minimum required to safeguard our liberty.

In an editorial, The Muskegon [Michigan] Chronicle argues that even if the Act is renewed, the current Act’s “Sunset Provisions” must be renewed as well.

Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee began work — in secret, no less — to mark up a new Patriot Act with even tougher provisions that among other things would allow for the issuance of “administrative subpoenas” not requiring the permission of a judge who has reviewed the evidence beforehand. Minority Democrats are too weak to put up much opposition, but let’s at least hope that a bipartisan majority of legislators has enough sense — and yes, patriotism — to tack similar sunset provisions onto this next Patriot Act.

Otherwise the “War on Terror,” at least from a constitutional standpoint, is liable to go on forever. To paraphrase a line from a current movie, is this how liberty dies?

The San Francisco Chronicle is also critical of the decision to hold these hearings behind closed doors. Sen. Roberts has said in the past that he needs to hold these meetings in secret because of the sensivitity of the intelligence matters being discussed. But the Chronicle argues that a “closed-door session would allow the committee to expand a law that affects the basic freedoms of the American people without public scrutiny or debate.”

In an editorial for usatoday.com, Sen. Roberts argues, however, that the Congress needs to give the FBI “all legal tools” to fight terrorism, which it will use within its constitutional limits.

Today’s FBI honors the rule of law, is bound by executive orders and attorney general guidelines, and is subject to vigorous oversight by congressional committees that will monitor closely how it uses administrative subpoenas. In four years, I predict we will find again that the tool was used wisely and that allegations of abuse are not supported by facts – and Americans will be safer.

But the Detroit Free Press reports that Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein of California, who is also on the Senate Intelligence Committee and plans to press for the hearing to be made public starting Tuesday, was skeptical of her colleague’s claims. “This is a very broad power, with no check on that power. It’s carte blanche for a fishing expedition.”

Stanley Adams spent more than 30 years building up his business. But he had just days to decide what to do with his thriving livestock trailer companies when he was activated for duty in Iraq in April 2003.

“My wife didn’t have a clue. I had to cram-course her and my daughter in a day and a half,” said Adams, 52, who had applied to retire from the National Guard six months before he was called up.

While he was in Iraq, his wife had to shut down one of the Montgomery, Ala., companies, and the other one barely made it. Adams’s revenue dwindled from $1.5 million in 2002 to just $250,000 in 2003.

“I had over a million dollars’ worth of trailers here. Everything came to a halt, and all this money still had to be paid,” he said.

Self-employed reservists and small-business owners who are called to duty run into problems other reservists don’t. Most employees’ jobs are protected by the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) when they are called to duty. But small-business owners like Adams have little support to help them save companies they have labored to build.

“When you get mobilized in the National Guard, they go through to make sure you have power of attorneys, all your affairs are in order, you have insurance, make sure your wife knows what to do. They tell you about the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ act [which protects reservists called up from eviction and provides some debt relief]. That’s all real good if you’re not an owner of a business,” Adams said. “But it doesn’t affect business credit cards or business loans or business notes.”

Many small-business owners who must leave their companies behind, often at a moment’s notice, have no plan for managing the business, or for a partner to take over. As a result, they find themselves deeply in debt or forced to shut down while they serve their country. Some businesses never recover.

“USERRA doesn’t really cover self-employment, and so there is no protection per se,” said Maj. Robert Palmer, Air Force Reservist and public affairs officer for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, a Department of Defense agency. “Obviously, mobilization can be catastrophic to someone who is self-employed or a small-business owner. There’s no question that it’s a huge challenge. A reservist who is self-employed or owns his or her own small business has to calculate the risk.”

Some lawmakers have attempted to bring attention to the situation.

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) introduced a bill in the House in February — a Senate version was introduced last month — that would provide for tax credits for employers who lose key employees to active duty, including themselves.

A small-business owner could be eligible for up to $42,000 in tax credits under the Lantos bill.

But that’s no help to those who have been called up during recent conflicts.

Robert Kalb, an orthopedic surgeon in Toledo, has been a Navy reservist since 1999 and was called to duty about nine months ago. “I had a lot of friends injured and killed in Vietnam, and I thought, it’s a huge sacrifice people make and you have to do your part,” he said. However, he didn’t expect his sacrifice to include the possibility of losing his medical practice.

Kalb, deployed to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, was told he would be gone “for a year or two.”

“The experience has been extremely difficult,” Kalb, 53, said. First he had to inform patients who had been waiting for surgery that he couldn’t operate.Then he tried to find other surgeons to take over his patients’ care. Kalb had 10 days to get everything in order.

“When you are in the military, you have no relief from your obligations to continue to pay your lease for your office, your equipment, and you have to continue to maintain staff to complete the transfer of care, provide medical records and take care of the patients’ business,” he said.

So far, Kalb estimates, he has lost more than $500,000 and is digging himself deeper into debt every day.

Because he will be gone for longer than three months, he will have to reapply for reinstatement to the hospitals where he performed surgeries. It will take two to four months before he can receive credentials to practice again, while he continues to pay $70,000 a year for malpractice insurance.

The experience has forced him to make a major decision about his future — and it doesn’t include the military. “When I get relieved of my activation status, I’m going to return to private practice and pick up and rebuild, because I have the loans to pay back and can’t afford to pay those back if I stay in the military,” he said. Deployments in the past few years have been longer than in previous eras because of the war on terrorism and the Iraq war. Troops are stretched thin, and reservists have been asked to stay on duty for longer periods of time. Others have been called out of retirement.

“There is a lack of predictability. You get mobilized, but how long are you going for? [It affects] more than just reservists. It’s the family, spouse and employer,” said Lt. Col. Louis Leto, director of public affairs at the Reserve Officers Association. “The Guard and reserve are used much differently now. They are really part of the total force now.”

Many small-business owners who are also reservists have not thought to put plans in place in case they are called to duty. Although there is scant support for business owners planning to keep their businesses going when they are deployed, there is a loan program designed to help them recover from costs incurred. Run through the Small Business Administration, the loan program was launched during the Kosovo conflict. It provides loans with a fixed interest rate of 4 percent and allows borrowing up to $1.5 million.

Adams credits the loan with saving his business when it seemed that everything was falling apart. While in Iraq, Adams received an emergency call from home: He was told his wife, Becky, had suffered a mild heart attack. It turned out to be “nothing but stress,” Adams said, from trying to keep the businesses running while working her own full-time job as a secretary.

“It just kind of fell in my lap,” Becky Adams said of her new role running the businesses. “He always handled the money. I didn’t know how he did all that.”

Then in October 2003, while he was in Iraq, Adams was found to have cancer. He was sent home for treatment and called the Small Business Administration for help. He received a loan for $350,000 that he said saved his second business.

“We ain’t on our feet 100 percent, but we can make all our bills,” he said. His revenue for 2004 was a little over $1 million again.

Although there are no specific numbers available, the SBA estimates about 6 or 7 percent of National Guard members are self-employed or are small-business owners.

But the loan program is not enough, the SBA acknowledges. “While it’s a wonderful tool, it’s not going to fit all the circumstances these people face,” said William Elmore, administrator for the SBA’s Office of Veterans Business Development. “Somewhere down the road we may have even additional or better tools.”

Richard Parsons still has a lien on his house from an SBA loan he received when he was called to duty after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Parsons, 42, owns the Churchville Veterinary Hospital in Churchville, N.Y., near Rochester.

More prepared than some, he had advertised for a replacement for when he was called up but had come up only with other veterinarians who could help occasionally. He said he already had “a ton” of debt from starting the clinic in 1997. His wife, the office manager, tried to keep the clinic running while he was away, but it was hard to keep clients who never knew if they would have a veterinarian available, he said.

His wife left her job with a pharmaceutical company to run his practice when he was called up. Parsons received a $72,000 loan to cover operating expenses while he was in Afghanistan, including the costs of veterinarians who filled in at the clinic until he returned.

Currently, the best advice for reservists who own small businesses is simply to prepare, said Ken Yancey, chief executive of the Service Corps of Retired Executives, a group that counsels small businesses. SCORE is trying to start an online counseling program for such reservists. “We can do our best work if we had our opportunity to spend time with them before deployment. But they are called up, go quickly and often haven’t made plans,” he said.

As Staff Sgt. Terrance Staves dodged bullets recovering a burned-out Humvee in Baghdad’s Sadr City, he heard a rocket-powered grenade zooming toward him. All he could do was hold his breath, he recalled, when it crashed into the armored Bradley vehicle sitting just feet in front of him.

Back at camp, Staves went to his makeshift recording booth to vent his anger and fear by spitting rap lyrics. Some of those lyrics were used on “Live From Iraq,” an album he and a few other Fort Hood soldiers wrote, recorded and produced while on a one-year deployment in Iraq.

On the 15-track album, soldiers voice frustration at what they call shabby equipment and the lack of support they feel from the American public. The album vigorously defends soldiers charged with crimes for actions committed during the conflict.

“I was outside the gate a lot and had a lot of stuff happen to me,” said Staves, 26, of Houston. “So for me to … be able to get in the booth and let all my anger out was wonderful. Because sometimes you can’t let all your anger out there because you might endanger yourself, your brothers or do something you’re not supposed to do. It was a beautiful outlet.”

The group, led by Sgt. Neal “Big Neal” Saunders, includes Sgt. Edward “Greg-O” Gregory, Staves, Spc. Michael “Paperboi” Davis, Sgt. Ronin Clay and Spc. Michael Thomas.

They were deployed with Taskforce 112 of the 1st Calvary Division at Fort Hood on March 12, 2004, and returned exactly one year later.

Within two weeks, the CD was mastered and the group had 2,000 copies made. The group has sold about 1,000 copies through its Web site and a regional music store chain has agreed to sell it.

Saunders, who spent nearly $35,000 on the project, said the soldiers don’t have a group name and didn’t include their names or pictures on the CD because they wanted to focus on their comrades, both dead and alive.

The album opens with “The Deployment,” a heartbreaking tale of the moments before they left and their emotions as they approached Iraq. Several soldiers’ wives cried when they heard the song, Saunders said.

“You would have really thought the world was coming to an end and for some of us it was,” Saunders says in the song. “You were literally prying your loved ones off of you so you could make it out the door to the bus. I’ve never seen so much emotion in one place before.”

Another track, “Holdin’ My Breath,” discusses how they conceal the horrors of war from their families and a song called “Dirty” is about a soldier dealing with a cheating spouse back home.

“`Live from Iraq’ is the writing on the wall,” said Davis, 21, of Lanett, Ala., “It’s that magnifying glass to that huge picture that’s been painted since this whole thing has begun. It’s the attention to detail that has been overlooked in everyday life.”

Saunders, from Richmond, Va., said the soldiers often found inspiration for their music during missions. But some of the songs recorded immediately after battle had to be redone after the men had cooled down.

“A lot of times the first draft might not have been what you really wanted to say,” he said. “You may come off stupid because you didn’t have your thoughts together and you’re just kind of rambling. So we would take time to think because we didn’t want to put out a stupid album.”

The album’s title track recounts a particularly bloody day last April when eight of their fellow soldiers were killed in a fierce gunbattle:

“This here is blood of soldiers of which the streets are paved … And there is no reimbursement for the price that we pay.”

Most of the rapping soldiers didn’t know each other before they went to Iraq, but all say they had an interest in music.

Saunders planned to put his musical aspirations on hold while he was deployed, but soon after arriving at Camp War Eagle near the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, he came up with the idea for the album.

“I’d been trying to find my angle my whole life as an artist,” he said. “If I can’t take this opportunity and have anything to say about probably the most influential year of my life then I could never really consider myself to be an artist.”

Many soldiers answered his call for participants, but most lost interest when they heard what he had in mind.

“Everybody wanted to do their own thing,” Saunders said. “And when I gave them the guidance and said, `This isn’t gonna be about 23-inch rims when you’re over here riding a Humvee … they didn’t like it.”

Staves said some people actually laughed at the group and told them no one would buy a rap album about Iraq.

“I told them it’s not about the money. It’s about the music,” he said.

Thomas initially resisted the idea too, but relented when he realized how serious they were about the project.

But first they had to get professional recording equipment to Iraq a task that took almost nine months. Saunders said he contacted dozens of companies before he found one willing to ship the equipment.

His bunkmates gave up space for the improvised studio. Soundproof foam for the room was too expensive, so the crew used exercise mats adorned with flowers and foam padding used for shipping packages.

Saunders, whose job in Iraq was to provide personal security for the commander, said the soldiers’ superiors knew about their project but underestimated the seriousness of the recordings.

“They just thought it was going to be a regular rap album,” he said. “But it wasn’t. I think if they would have known the type of CD I was putting out they wouldn’t have let it come out.”