US veteran feels ‘duty’ to protest US policy towards Israel

A US veteran who was arrested in a recent demonstration in a Senate building calling for a US arms embargo on Israel spoke with The New Arab about her experience and why she believes it was an important statement, despite knowing it likely wouldn’t change the outcome of the vote.

Last week, Brittany Ramos DeBarros was one of around a hundred demonstrators who gathered on the floor of the Hart Senate Office Building as part of a broad coalition of activists, composed of Palestinians, Jews, healthcare workers, immigrants, teachers and mothers, urging for senators to vote against sending certain offensive weapons to Israel to prevent further casualties in its war on Gaza. 

Since October, more than 44,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli airstrikes. Some estimates put the number much higher. Multiple human rights groups have described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.

The Joint Resolutions of Disapproval, led by Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, aim to block $20 million in offensive weapons funding to Israel. 

When Debarros joined the US army, she says she did it as a true believer, thinking she would be fighting for ‘truth and democracy’. Then, when she was deployed to Afghanistan, her views on the US mission began to change.

“I spent years trying to make sense of it,” says DeBarros, who started speaking out in 2018, while on active duty orders, though careful not to break regulations.

“I was just trying to raise awareness,” he says. ” I don’t regret it. You can’t put a price on integrity.”

‘We were manipulated’

As she saw it, the global war on terror, as a response to 9/11, was largely counterproductive, with the US putting valuable resources towards combatting terror instead of focusing on the environment and infrastructure.

On the Senate office floor, DeBarro and other demonstrators wore T-shirts that read: “Fund healthcare, not genocide”, “Fund climate, not genocide”, and “fund housing, not genocide”.

“When I see what’s fuelling the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, it’s the same lie and logic that we’re doing this for self-defence,” she said.

Like many who join the military, DeBarros came from a conservative working-class background, raised by parents in the Dallas, Texas area who had also served and who believed in the promise of the American Dream, though they often struggled.

“I was surrounded by people who saw the military service as honourable and an economic opportunity,” said DeBarros, who herself joined for the scholarship. “When I was in Afghanistan, I was seeing people who were supposed to help, but they weren’t being of service.”

She recalls an instance of a government contracting company designated to clear explosives that she believed could have been done by her platoon, seeing it as a waste of US tax dollars.

When she returned to the US in 2013, she recalls not feeling proud of her service in Afghanistan. 

“I came back in 2013 and didn’t feel proud of what I’d done. I didn’t feel like I’d accomplished anything positive. The more I learned, the most disgusted I became,” said Debarros. She added that the publication of the 2019 Afghanistan Papers indicating that the war was unwinnable confirmed her belief that the US mission there was not viable.

“The black and white evidence based on my own experience made me realise that we were manipulated for the bottom line, which was existentially devastating,” she said.

Feeling encouraged

Once she started speaking out against US wars, she found other like-minded veterans who similarly felt a sense of responsibility for something they’d been a part of.

“As a person who participated in this, knowing I was used and manipulated, I feel a sense of responsibility and duty to make it right,” she said. “We need to work towards government accountability to the people.”

Over the last year and a half with Israel’s war on Gaza, she is concerned about government repression of protesters, particularly on college campuses. 

“It flies in the face of the idea of our duty to the American people, to continue to protect a foreign government that has carried out war crimes,” she said.

Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif. For the most part, only US elected officials in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party have expressed support for the warrants.

Still, DeBarros feels encouraged to see the growth of progressives holding public office. In previous years, only a handful of Democratic senators would have voted to limit arms to Israel.

“For decades, it was unconditional support for Israel. But nineteen senators voted for the bill, despite pressure to fall in line,” she said.

“What we’re really saying is let’s stop the killing. This shows the moral positioning of the fight. The ICC finally issued arrest warrants on reasonable grounds,” she said.

“I was really proud that we had so many people coming from different walks of life saying this is what the people want, to uphold our values,” she said. “It’s always surreal, especially as someone who used to wear a uniform for this country.”