GI SPECIAL 3D48

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“I Did Not Volunteer To Be Lied To, To Fight An Illegal War And Protect Multinational Corporations”

12.13.05 Kevin Zeese, democracyrising.us [Excerpts]

THE INTERNATIONAL PEACE CONFERENCE
London 10th December 2005

A panel on military families and Iraq war veterans featured many prominent peace advocates from those communities.

The British peace mother, Rose Gentle, described the death of her son, Gordon, as “a murder by my government.” She says her “sons life is worth more than oil.”

Another British mother, Ann Lawrence said her son Mark had a duty to serve his country but “their country and government had a duty to them and it brings us no comfort that Mark died for a lie in an illegal war.”

John Stockton’s son Simon told him before going to Iraq “Dad, there is a madman over there and he can deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes.” But, Mr. Stockton said: “The madman turned out to be the man in charge of our country.”

Reg Keys, whose son Tom died in Iraq, ran against Tony Blair in the last election said: “This country spends 700 hours debating the killing of foxes and seven hours debating the killing of people – we have our priorities wrong.”

He has come to conclude his son did indeed die for a noble cause that being “we will not tolerate wars based on false pretenses.”

Among the soldiers that spoke were Ben Griffin who served 8 years in the Army but became a conscientious objector after seeing what was really happening in Iraq. He described Iraq as “like a gold rush, indigenous people having our way of life forced on them brutally while multinational corporations plunder their resources.”

He was particularly critical of “production sharing agreements that pass Iraqi oil onto multinational oil companies.” He said “Blair promised an ethical foreign policy and now we’ve become the lap dog of American imperialism.”

He said “I volunteered for the Army and went to Iraq of my own free will but I did not volunteer to be lied to, to fight an illegal war and protect the interests of multinational corporations.”

Related to this were comments by Chris Nineham of the Stop the War Coalition who described how British and U.S. troops are losing faith, how they have low morale and their primary goal is to get out of Iraq alive and in one piece.

He discussed the history of the Vietnam War and how when soldiers in Vietnam turned against their officers the war was impossible to continue. He pointed to several U.S. and British military reports that indicated that this is beginning to occur in Iraq.

Kelly Dougherty of the U.S. group Iraq Veterans Against the War served in the Army National Guard for eight years in the Balkans and one year in Iraq. She helped form Iraq Vets Against the War because she believes the voices of Veterans need to be heard.

She described how when she was in Iraq she spent a lot of her time protecting Halliburton convoys, including protecting broken down Halliburton vehicles, waiting for them to return to get them and then when they didn’t return burning them.

She described how soldiers wanted to help Iraqis but “we could not help but see how our bombs hurt.” She described how military convoys are ordered to never stop and how this results in Iraqi civilians being killed by convoys driving over them.

She says her friends coming back from Iraq are missing limbs, can’t sleep, abuse alcohol and drugs, commit suicide “because they cannot reconcile what they did in Iraq.” She concluded: “Occupation does not make us safer. Our humanity is on the line. Freedom in Iraq cannot really start until the U.S. forces leave.”

The panel concluded with Cindy Sheehan who said “ending the Iraq war is so important, so urgent. There is no more important job than peace and bringing the war criminals at Ten Downing Street and the White House to justice.”

She described how the media often ask “stupid questions” like “Your son volunteered?” Her response “Are you saying he got what he deserved?” Or, “Do you want Iraq to descend into chaos?” She responds “What is your definition of chaos? Look at Iraq today.”

And, “Do you think you’re being used?” Her response, “Do you think you are being used!?”

She urges people to get active, take action and not to stand for the abuses of government saying “They will only take away our freedoms if we let them do it.”

Hassan Juma, President of the Southern Iraqi Oil Workers’ Union, described how union workers have continued to fight for their rights despite abuse and incarceration; how they see the war is really about the United States and Great Britain taking Iraq’s oil saying “the U.S. has evil intentions and is willing to kill for its own benefit.” Juma described Iraq oil as “a national treasure for Iraqis.”

He said “We will die for our objectives” and listed as their first objective “all occupation forces leave immediately and unconditionally leaving Iraqi people to decide their own fate, their own future.”

www.ivaw.net

Do you have a friend or relative in the service? Forward this E-MAIL along, or send us the address if you wish and we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Iraq or stuck on a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to the war, at home and inside the armed services. Send requests to address up top.

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Suburban Soldier Dies

Dec 5, 2005 Pamela Jones Reporting, CBS 2

SCHILLER PARK: The Army says a Fort Campbell soldier from suburban Chicago died last week from non-combat injuries in Iraq.

Base officials say 25-year-old Sgt. Grzegorz Jakoniuk of Schiller Park died in Taji on November 30. The Army did not disclose the cause of his death, but the incident is under investigation.

Jakoniuk was a Blackhawk helicopter crewman with the 101st Airborne Division. A Fort Campbell spokeswoman says he was a specialist at the time of his death and was posthumously promoted to sergeant.

CBS 2's Pamela Jones reports his family says he was just a local guy with big dreams of helping his family.

Neighbors say Jakoniuk came here from Poland as an adult and joined the Army, in part, to get an education he otherwise couldn’t afford. He was a technician skilled in electronics.

His next door neighbors in Schiller Park can’t believe he is gone.

“It’s shock because he was like a brother to us. And I couldn’t believe,” said Eva Gronkiewicz.

A yellow ribbon draped with a black one hangs at her house, as well as a Polish flag and an American one for the country he served.

“It’s not fair. This young man had plans for a future, a very smart future, and now everything is gone,” Gronkiewicz said.

Jakoniuk was based out of a unit in Ft. Campbell, Ky.

Neighbors say this was his second tour of duty in Iraq and he was scheduled to come home in February.

Neighbors say Jakoniuk’s mother died in May, and his father is critically ill.

Centralia Marine Killed

December 9, 2005 By GORDY HOLT, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Joseph P. Bier, a 22-year-old Marine corporal from Centralia, was killed in Iraq Wednesday. A Marine Corps news release said today that he died from wounds suffered in an explosion of a homemade bomb.

A Centralia School District counselor said today that Bier had been home-schooled and was not known widely at Centralia High School. His family did not want to talk to reporters today.

In an Oct. 21 story published on a Marine Corps’ web site and datelined Ar Ramadi, Iraq, Bier told an interviewer how happy he was to find himself ordered to Iraq after two years at Bangor.

“I thought, ‘Finally, I get to do what Marines do,’ “ Bier said.

Later in the interview, however, Bier indicated he was disappointed he hadn’t found more action.

“I expected this place to be a little more hectic, to have more enemy contact,” he said. “I’m a little disappointed, I think it’s a little quiet. I expected more to happen here. It’s not like what is shown in TV.”

Maconite Among 48th Dead

Dec. 06, 2005 By Wayne Crenshaw, TELEGRAPH STAFF WRITER

A Macon soldier was among the three members of the 48th Brigade Combat Team killed in Iraq on Friday, but authorities have not released the name or details about the accident.

Another member of the 48th Brigade, Philip Allan Dodson Jr. of Forsyth, also was killed in the Humvee accident. The third soldier killed was from the Atlanta area, said Col. Larry McLendon, the 48th’s rear detachment commander.

The deaths of the three soldiers bring to 25 the number of 48th Brigade soldiers killed since the unit’s call-up, and they make it one of the hardest-hit National Guard outfits serving in Iraq.

A total of 14 deaths resulted from combat action, and the rest were accidents. The tally also includes one soldier who died in a training accident at Fort Stewart.

Jim Driscoll, director of communications for the Georgia National Guard, said the only information he had on the Humvee crash was that it happened southeast of Ali Air Base. He also said the accident was not caused by hostile action. Funeral arrangements for Dodson, 42, are incomplete. Monroe County Memorial Chapel is handling arrangements.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO COMPREHENSIBLE REASON TO BE IN THIS EXTREMELY HIGH RISK LOCATION AT THIS TIME, EXCEPT THAT A CROOKED POLITICIAN WHO LIVES IN THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU THERE, SO HE WILL LOOK GOOD.

That is not a good enough reason.

11.12.05 US Marines from Echo Company 2nd Battalion 7th Marine Regiment, search a building during a foot patrol through the city of Fallujah. (AFP/David Furst)

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

As G.I. Killed, Another Wounded:
Ass-Kissing General Says Drugs Are The Threat

12.16.05 New York Times & Los Angeles Times

An American serviceman was killed and another wounded in a firefight with insurgents in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar Province, the U.S. military reported. An Afghan soldier was also wounded and an insurgent killed.

Drugs are a greater security threat in Afghanistan than a Taliban resurgence, NATO commander Gen. James Jones said. [OK. So from now on, he’s required to spend 5 days per week sitting in a Humvee on patrol in southern Kandahar Province, or face charges of cowardice in the face of the enemy? In your dreams. It’s safer spewing his lame bullshit at reporters, and ass-kissing his way up the chain of command to his next promotion.]

Coalition Of The Thieving:
“Allies” Want Pentagon To Hike Rent On Their Base “100 Times” To Allow Continued Use For Afghan Occupation

12.15.05 London Financial Times

Kyrgyzstan has dramatically raised the stakes in its dispute with the United States over payments for use of a key military base by demanding that Washington pay 100 times the current rent. The Kyrgyz government has been embroiled in a dispute with the Pentagon over payment for past and future use of Manas air base, which has become an important refueling port for U.S. aircraft flying in Afghanistan.

TROOP NEWS

Endless Tours Downrange Destroying Life On Home Front & Trashing Morale

12.16.05 Wall Street Journal

Like all wars, Iraq and Afghanistan have strained Army families. But today’s strains are different.

In Vietnam, most soldiers did a required one-year tour and never went back.

Today, because the Army is significantly smaller, most troops come home from a year in combat knowing that they will have to return to the fight 12 months later.

Returning soldiers often spend the first months home mourning losses, working through nightmares, and struggling to find their place in families that have grown accustomed to living without them.

All while the specter of a return to the war zone hangs over their heads.

Fake “Apology” From AF Academy Racists Won’t Cut It

Letter To The Editor
12.19.05
Army Times

I read and reread “Air Force Academy coach in hot water again” (Nov. 7) with great care. I read (Fisher) DeBerry’s racist comments. I also carefully studied his words of apology, delivered at a press conference the following day.

I looked in vain for some understanding of, and repentance for, the underlying racism his words seemed to reveal. There was none. DeBerry’s only concern seemed to be, “I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

And what about (Athletic Director Hans) Mueh? is only concern seemed to be, “The comments … were inappropriate.” And then, DeBerry wins lots of football games. We’re going to keep him.

And in the minds of both men, this seems to end the story.

Well, not quite. In the minds and hearts of people of color and their allies, this is just one more example of white men in positions of power just not getting it.

These kinds of incidents, repeated in this country a million times, are why many people of color feel a sense of despair and abandonment in their own country.

To bring proper closure to this incident, both gentlemen concerned need to step forward, forthrightly admit the racism seemingly existent in their own character, and determine to take whatever action necessary to rid themselves of whatever racist attitudes, concepts and beliefs they may have.

Sgt. 1st Class Earle L. Harvey (ret.)
Terre Haute, Ind.

Military Censoring Reporter For Showing Damages After Being Given Official Permission To Show Damages

[Thanks to T. Palmubo, who sent this in.]

Dec 16 The Virginian-Pilot

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The military this week revoked the press credentials of a Norfolk newspaper writer and photographer who were reporting from Kuwait, saying they had violated ground rules by photographing battle-damaged military vehicles.

Denis Finley, editor of The Virginian-Pilot, wrote a letter Friday protesting the Army’s confiscation of the badges that allowed the pair to interview and photograph service members. The letter seeks a written explanation of Army policy and a guarantee that journalists representing the paper be fully eligible for future “embed” privileges.

“Yes, we were at an Army base. And yes, we signed an agreement,” Finley wrote to Lt. Col. David C. Farlow, deputy director of public affairs for U.S. Central Command.

“But we were officially escorted and were under the immediate authority of the Navy, which was fully aware of our activities,” Finley wrote.

Reporter Lou Hansen and photographer Hyunsoo Leo Kim spent more than two weeks with the Navy in the Persian Gulf region, chronicling Navy and coalition units.

During the next two days, the pair visited Camp Arifjan in Kuwait with Navy public affairs officials.

They were assigned military escorts who gave them a tour of several lots where battle-damaged vehicles were stored and showed them an area where vehicles from Iraq were cleaned, the newspaper said in a story published Friday.

The pair asked the escorts if they could take photos and were told yes, according to Hansen and Kim.

The newspaper published the story and photos Dec. 10, under the headline “Scouring the skeletons of war.”

Army Lt. Col. Debbie Haston-Hilger wrote an e-mail Monday to Hansen’s editor from Camp Arifjan, saying a photo was “in violation of operational security and puts future troops in harm’s way by showing the vulnerabilities of vehicles which the insurgents can use against them.”

Col. Barrett King, chief public affairs officer at Coalition Forces Land Component Command’s headquarters in Atlanta, acknowledged the command’s policy is inconsistent with wider military regulations. He said he would revisit the policy.

NEED SOME TRUTH? CHECK OUT TRAVELING SOLDIER

Telling the truth – about the occupation or the criminals running the government in Washington – is the first reason for Traveling Soldier. But we want to do more than tell the truth; we want to report on the resistance – whether it’s in the streets of Baghdad, New York, or inside the armed forces. Our goal is for Traveling Soldier to become the thread that ties working-class people inside the armed services together. We want this newsletter to be a weapon to help you organize resistance within the armed forces. If you like what you’ve read, we hope that you’ll join with us in building a network of active duty organizers. www.traveling-soldier.org/ And join with Iraq War vets in the call to end the occupation and bring our troops home now! (www.ivaw.net)

Vicious Shit-Brains At St. Paul Pioneer Press Suspend Editor, A Vietnam Vet, For Trip To D.C. Anti- War Rally On His Own Time

St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church graphic

Many of the old tapes in Tim’s head began to play and he thought back as he said to the times in Vietnam when he wished the peace protests would get bigger so the nightmare would end sooner.

December 16 Via Ward Reilly, Vietnam Veterans Against The War

By Chuck MacDonald, Stjoan.com [Excerpts] Chuck MacDonald is a parish member and Project Co-Coordinator for the South African Hospice program.

In the parking lot of St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in South Minneapolis last September, a man got on a bus that would take him and many others, to Washington, D.C. to protest the war in Iraq.

This man did not ride into history; he came back to his job at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and got a three-day work suspension.

He had not been expected to be at work that weekend and was taking the bus ride on his personal time.

Hurricane Katrina caused the Pioneer Press to seek additional help that weekend. When the newspaper called the man’s home, his wife told them he was in Washington at the peace march. One man’s weekend choice became a public display of values and the workplace. The Twin City’s City Pages (October 26, 2005, page 12) carried the story, as did several national newspaper guild publications.

The man was told that any further display of personal conviction would lead to work termination.

The plot thickens and to get a better perspective on this one small act of tyranny, one needs to learn a bit about this would-be Midwest insurgent.

First of all, Tim Mahoney is not from the Midwest. He is from New Jersey, born and raised in the section of New Jersey that is used for the opening shots of The Sopranos. He says he is Irish and Yankee and the oldest of nine children. He grew up in the 50’s.

His parents’ limited income helped determine who went to Catholic schools and who went to public. The smart ones went to the Catholic schools. So Tim Mahoney did 13 years of 1950 style Catholic education. He describes his academic feats by saying he graduated near the bottom of the class and spent most of his high school years in the back of the classrooms.

To those of us who taught high school, it was known that hidden talent and rebellion frequently was found amongst those seated in the back seats of the classroom.

With no further academic goals in mind, Tim got a job in equipment sales, and five years later in 1970 his draft number came up.

As for so many of those young men drafted, it was a brief training period and a flight to Vietnam for a 360-day tour of duty, if you lasted.

Tim was trained to fire mortars, and at times, sweep villages. Two wrenching encounters changed Tim Mahoney. During a hidden bomb shelter search he drew his gun on a pair of eyes, but for some reason he did not pull the trigger. A second later he discovered the eyes belonged to a seven year old Vietnam girl. That day Tim lost what little interest was left of soldiering. A walk through a hospital ward filled with child victims of the war solidified his hatred of it all.

We seem to have a history in this country of naively thinking that our military men come home and start a Mayberry life again where they left off. The veteran’s hospitals, our homeless shelters, our city streets say otherwise.

Tim, like other veterans, attests to the reality that is sometimes takes years to right-side, or to find some life balance. Changed by the experience, Tim decided to try college. Two years at a community college got his academic grades up, and then he went off to the islands of Hawaii to finish college.

The boy, who sat in the back of the classroom and at the academic bottom of his class at the age of 34, won a scholarship to none other than the prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Life became better, and Tim wrote two books about the war that he had no trouble publishing and found employment at the San Francisco Chronicle as a copy editor. He fell in love and married at 40. His wife wanted to get her doctorate in botany, so they moved to Madison and eventually both landed jobs in Minnesota.

Now to the part about stepping over that unseen line in the sand.

All of us have had times when we find ourselves doing something we didn’t think we would do. This year, Tim as copy editor was checking out a story about St. Joan of Arc and decided to look at the St. Joan Community website. As a long ago East coast Catholic, he was intrigued by what he saw on the website and decided to check it out. Tim Mahoney at 58 one day walked through the gym doors of St. Joan of Arc and stepped over a personal line because he came back the next Sunday, and the Sundays that followed.

Five months later and still going to St, Joan’s, the subject of buses going to Washington to protest this war in Iraq got Tim’s attention.

Many of the old tapes in Tim’s head began to play and he thought back as he said to the times in Vietnam when he wished the peace protests would get bigger so the nightmare would end sooner.

He repeats his mantra that it was the peace marchers of the 60’s and 70’s who brought pressure to lower the troop numbers and scale down the war. He says that he always believed that some peace marcher had saved his life. In September of 2005, Tim Maloney, writer, copy editor, and Vietnam vet stepped on a peace bus because he wanted to be one more number to count against this Iraqi bloodbath.

Shakespeare said “Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable.” In the end only Tim Mahoney knows why he stepped on that bus or walked into St. Joan of Arc because it is his journey.

Tim Mahoney’s life has been rich and wide with experience. He gives the appearance of a quiet man, but in conversation one senses the boy who chose at first the back of the class room but then later became a published author writing about the horrors of war.

When Tim Mahoney signed up to participate in a peace rally, did he know he was stepping over that line?

But like a Colleen Rowley, or a Dorothy Irvin, or a Kathy Itzin and so many more at St. Joan of Arc and in other churches and communities, there comes a time when you know you must step over that unseen line. If you do not, you will have no peace.

“Modern wars do terrible things to innocent people, children included. Sometimes in this world of fog and ambiguity, there is a clear right and wrong. I can’t think of anything more clearly wrong than to inflict suffering on the innocent in an ‘optional.’ Tim Mahoney November 2005

Beware of Slanted Apostrophes

By Laura Merlo, a former co-worker of Tim Mahoney’s on the copy desk of the San Francisco Chronicle

It’s very distressing to learn that copy editor Tim Mahoney was suspended without pay for taking part in a peaceful antiwar protest, and that the newspaper might terminate his employment if he participated in similar events in the future.

Having to relinquish one’s right to participate fully as a citizen in our democracy is just too high a price to pay for being a copy editor. There has never been an ethics-based requirement that journalists give up their freedom, and such a rule should not be imposed now.

Mahoney is a Vietnam War veteran and author of two wonderful novels, We’re Not Here and Hallaran’s World War. He has learned about war from the inside and has risked his life defending his country. Clearly, he has earned the right to exercise his conscience, to protest peacefully on his own time.

An experienced journalist knows how to keep his personal beliefs out of his work. As long as Mahoney doesn’t twist the facts or write slanted headlines, what the newspaper has done is wrong. It should stop its heavy-handed treatment of its workers.

[Refuse to buy St. Paul Pioneer Press publications. If you have any, use them to wipe your ass. Then send to the Editor. T]

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Imprisoned And Tortured Under Saddam’s Regime, He Pointed Out:
“Occupation Is The Worst Act Of Terrorism”
“The Resistance Is Legitimate”

12.13.05 Kevin Zeese, democracyrising.us [Excerpts]

THE INTERNATIONAL PEACE CONFERENCE
London 10th December 2005

Ayatollah Jawad al-Khalisi President of the Iraq National Foundation Conference said he came to “help heal the wounds the war has opened.”

He urged more demonstrations by the anti-war movement as they have a big, positive impact in Iraq.

The Ayatollah, who had been imprisoned and tortured under Saddam’s regime, pointed out how the occupation forces are “imprisoning people where Saddam’s secret police imprisoned people and are doing the same things that Saddam did.”

Today, people in Iraq are afraid to go out as they do not know what will happen to them.

When he is asked about Iraq elections he describes them and the constitution as “a ‘big lie’ sold by the Western media: fake elections and a fake constitution.”

Echoing Sami Ramadani he said Iraqis can live together. “These differences have existed for a long time but we have lived together for long time. The occupation has escalated problems, increased divisions in an attempt to divide the Iraqi people and redraw the map of the Middle East in favor of their interests.”

He said “the war is illegitimate and illegal: no subsequent UN resolutions change that reality. And, the resistance is legitimate.”

He concluded: “Occupation is the worst act of terrorism as it strips people of their dignity. Human rights have no value under occupation as soldiers and mercenaries can kill anyone at any time.”

OCCUPATION ISN’T LIBERATION
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!

“There Is No Iraqi Muslim Who Wants A Foreigner To Occupy This Country”

15 December 2005 Aljazeera

“I’m not voting because I have nothing to do with politics. Even if they pick Saddam Hussein, I don’t care because Iraq will never be back on its feet. Iraq was usurped by the Americans who are there to stay” Ali, 39, construction worker, Amman, Jordan

“I came to vote because I want the Americans to leave Iraq. Things will be much better after they leave. There is no Iraqi Muslim who wants a foreigner to occupy this country.”
Ahmed Jassim, 52, Mosul

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

Heavy Medal

Alan Patten (C) and his fiancee Diane Kerr pick up the remains of Alan’s nineteen-year-old son US Marine Lt. Cpl Andrew Patten, who was killed in Fallujah, at O’Hare airport. (AFP/Getty Images/Scott Olson)

From: Mike Hastie
To: GI Special
Sent: December 17, 2005
Subject: Heavy Medal

The picture of the casket on the fork lift [above] is probably the heaviest picture to come out of this insane war.

The warehouse, the fork lift, the father, the Marine in the picture: it has all the elements of a picture that can change people’s lives.

This picture should be shown frequently.

It says it all.

I could write a thousand page book, and not say what this single photograph says.

This picture gives me chills. Denial, anger, grief, betrayal, it’s all there.

It’s heavy, because the fork lift is heavy.

The emptiness of the warehouse.

The silent madness of the Iraq War.

The mental illness of a war economy.

The shame is all there.

Mike Hastie
Vietnam Veteran
“The most revolutionary act is to name reality.” Paulo Freire

GEORGE JACKSON/TOOKIE WILLIAMS

A song by Bob Dylan from 1971.

I woke up this mornin’,
There were tears in my bed.
They killed a man I really loved
Shot him through the head.
Lord, Lord,
They cut George Jackson down.
Lord, Lord,
They laid him in the ground.

Sent him off to prison
For a seventy dollar robbery.
Closed the door behind him
And they threw away the key.
Lord, Lord, They cut George Jackson down.
Lord, Lord,
They laid him in the ground.

He wouldn’t take shit from no one
He wouldn’t bow down or kneel.
Authorities, they hated him
Because he was just too real.
Lord, Lord,
They cut George Jackson down.
Lord, Lord,
They laid him in the ground.

Prison guards, they cursed him
As they watched him from above
But they were frightened of his power
They were scared of his love.
Lord, Lord,
So they cut George Jackson down.
Lord, Lord,
They laid him in the ground.

Sometimes I think this whole world
Is one big prison yard.
Some of us are prisoners
The rest of us are guards.
Lord, Lord,
They cut George Jackson down.
Lord, Lord,
They laid him in the ground.

“All Empires And Tyrants Torture”

If there’s any available space on planet earth, or in the heavens, or underwater, or underground, or even inside your head, the logic of empire dictates that the corporate-state will want to be there, too.

12-15-05 By Seth Sandronsky, Politicalaffairs.net [Excerpts]

It’s widely known that the US locks up people at a much higher rate than any country in Europe. It is less known that it locks up people at a higher rate than China, which most would call a repressive society.

Yes, it’s we, not the Chinese, who lead the world in imprisonment. And the crimes that people are locked up for are increasingly non-violent crimes. More and more it is for such things as petty drug possession offenses. And the brunt of those policies fall on blacks and browns: specifically African Americans and Hispanics. More specifically on young African American males.

If you compare South Africa under apartheid with the US today, we lock up African Americans at much higher rates.

Consider also the high rates of recidivism among prisoners, their political disenfranchisement, the horrendous rates of sexual assault including male rape in prisons, the explosion of prison building, the privatization of many aspects of incarceration and the growth of what some have called the prison-industrial complex: place these developments over the last 10-15 years against what we observe in the current prison torture scandal, and things become quite clear.

We have the same explosion of prison building, this time abroad, this time covert, the same tales of sexual abuse and assault, the same tales of torturous or abusive treatment, the same privatization, the same creation of a “grey zone” in which prisoners no longer have a clear legal status to protect them. The vote deprivation on the domestic front is matched by the rights deprivation in the war on terror.

All empires and tyrants torture.

It grows out of their huge size, their ambition, and their desire to dominate. Because they need to know more and more about their enemies, their friends, the country next door or on the opposite side of the globe.

That’s what full-spectrum dominance, the stated goal of American empire, is about.

We are seeing the first, the very first, early signs of a police state in this country. It does not have to go that way if people stand up to it.

But the torture scandal cannot be dealt with separately from the impending emergence of a police state.

The distortions of the corporate-media cannot be analyzed separately from that emergence.

Vietnam GI, May 1968

The above picture shows exactly what the brass want you to do in the Nam. The reason for printing this picture is not to put down G.I.’s but rather to illustrate the fact that the Army can really fuck over your mind if you let it.

It’s up to you, you can put in your time just trying to make it back in one piece or you can become a psycho like the Lifer (E-6) in the picture who really digs this kind of shit. It’s your choice.

“The Best Thing About The Left-Behind Books Is The Way The Non-Christians Get Their Guts Pulled Out By God”

If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of last book in the Left Behind series, Glorious Appearing, and publish it across the Middle East, Americans would go berserk. Yet tens of millions of Christians eagerly await and celebrate an End Time when everyone who disagrees with them will be murdered in ways that make Islamic beheading look like a bridal shower.

December 17, 2005 by Joe Bageant, Dissidentvoice.org [Excerpts]

“Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again.” From Glorious Appearing by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

“The best thing about the Left Behind books is the way the non-Christians get their guts pulled out by God.” 15-year old fundamentalist fan of the Left Behind series

That is the sophisticated language and appeal of America’s all-time best selling adult novels celebrating the ethnic cleansing of non-Christians at the hands of Christ.

Jesus, who apparently has a much nastier streak than we have been led to believe, merely speaks and “the bodies of the enemy are ripped wide open down the middle.”

In the book Christians have to drive carefully to avoid “hitting splayed and filleted corpses of men and women and horses,” even as the riders’ tongues are melting in their mouths and they are being wide-open gutted by God’s own hand, the poor damned horses are getting the same treatment.

Sort of a divinely inspired version of “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”

So far the Democratic political elite, who only take their thumb out of their ass to change thumbs, has not been able to stop the religious right’s relentless push.

And I think it is because, at least from where I sit right now, the democratic establishment has not offered, much less delivered, and is incapable of delivering what my people really need: decent educations so they will not be prey to three thousand year old superstitions.

The Left has yet to demand for all Americans a genuine absolutely free education, an opportunity to enjoy a life of the mind, or to even know such a thing exists.

Hell, you got yours and I got mine, right?

So screw ’em.

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.” Samuel P. Huntington

What do you think? Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Send to contact@militaryproject.org. Name, I.D., withheld on request. Replies confidential.

OCCUPATION REPORT

Election Spin Vs. Reality

December 15, 2005 By Chris Tomlinson, Associated Press & 16 December 2005 By Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer, The Washington Post

MOSUL, Iraq

U.S. troops weren’t at the polling stations for Thursday’s national elections.

But they were close by, ready to back up Iraqi security forces if called upon.

In Fallujah, many of those who cast ballots in the city of about 250,000, west of Baghdad in Anbar province, said they considered voting an act of resistance against the continued presence of U.S.

On Thursday, polling sites were protected by Iraqi police, while Marines withdrew to a perimeter no closer than 100 yards away.

How It Is

December 16, 2005 Michael Schwartz [Excerpt]

Don’t expect the new government to accomplish anything beyond taking positions.

It has no power: the power rests with the U.S. and with the resistance, and with the local leaders in the Shia areas.

The government has no army (the Iraqi police and military are trained, commanded and supervised by the U.S.); it has no administration (all local administration, such as there is, in locally controlled by local leaders, militias, and/or the resistance, even in Shia areas); and it has no resources (the oil revenues are so small and so mortgaged that they borrow from the U.S. to run their meager administration).

U.S. OCCUPATION RECRUITING DRIVE IN HIGH GEAR;
RECRUITING FOR THE ARMED RESISTANCE THAT IS

Foreign fighters from Charlie Company 2nd battalion 22nd Infantry regiment search Iraqi citizens in eastern Baghdad December 7, 2005. (Laszlo Balogh/Reuters)

[Fair is fair. Let’s bring 150,000 Iraqis over here to the USA. They can treat the citizens on the street like POWs, kill people at checkpoints, bust into their houses with force and violence, overthrow the government, put a new one in office they like better and call it “sovereign” and “detain” anybody who doesn’t like it in some prison without any changes being filed against them, or any trial.]

[Those Iraqis are sure a bunch of backward primitives. They actually resent this help, and consider it their patriotic duty to fight and kill the soldiers sent to occupy their country. What a bunch of silly people. How fortunate they are to live under a military dictatorship run by George Bush. Why, how could anybody not love that?]

Bush Regime Whines That Other Nations “Boycotting” Hussein Trial

December 14 AFP

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has accused the world community of boycotting the trial of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and doing little to help prosecute him.

After praising world backing for UN resolutions on Iraq, she said, “I’m sad to say that the international community has barely done anything to help Iraq prosecute Saddam Hussein.

“The international community’s effective boycott of Saddam’s trial is only harming the Iraqi people who are now working to secure the hope of justice and freedom that Saddam long denied them.”

US officials later said she was referring to the failure of countries to provide money, training for court personnel, security and technical expertise out of concern over the potential death penalty in the case.

The United States has invested some $US128 million to train and equip the judges and lawyers in the trial against Saddam and the others on charges of crimes against humanity, according to the group Human Rights Watch.

This has prompted defence attorneys to frequently complain the tribunal has been created by a foreign occupying power that toppled Saddam in April 2003 and captured him 20 months later. [Wow! Imagine that!]

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

The Traitor Bush Personally Authorized Spying On American Civilians Multiple Times

The White House View

John A. Murphy December 16

[Thanks to AH, who sent this in.]

Dec. 16, 2005 The Associated Press

NEW YORK – President Bush has personally authorized a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States more than three dozen times since October 2001, a senior intelligence official said Friday night.

The disclosure follows angry demands by lawmakers earlier in the day for a congressional inquiry into whether the monitoring by the highly secretive National Security Agency violated civil liberties.

The official said that since October 2001, the program has been renewed more than three dozen times. Each time, the White House counsel and the attorney general certified the lawfulness of the program, the official said.

Bush then signed the authorization.

“There is no doubt that this is inappropriate,” declared Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He promised hearings early next year.

“I want to know precisely what they did,” said Specter. ”How NSA utilized their technical equipment, whose conversations they overheard, how many conversations they overheard, what they did with the material, what purported justification there was.”

What do you think? Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Send to contact@militaryproject.org. Name, I.D., withheld on request. Replies confidential.

A White House That Acted As Though The War In Iraq Were “A Public Relations Problem First And A Military Problem Second”

December 19, 2005 By Leon Hadar, The American Conservative [Excerpt]

A few years ago, I participated in a workshop taught by a well-known marketing guru who guaranteed in a brochure that after a few sessions with him “you’ll be even able to sell ice to Eskimos, sand to Bedouins, and condoms to eunuchs.”

I suppose that if an updated brochure were issued in late 2005, in the fifth year of the presidency of George W. Bush and at a time when according to the Pew Research Center “anti-Americanism is deeper and broader now than at any time in modern history,” the celebrated PR whiz-kid would add to his marketing mission-impossible list the selling of a very unappealing product, the Bush administration’s foreign policy, AKA Democratic Empire, to an unreceptive global target audience that includes Eskimos (”Let’s make the North Pole safe for democracy”), Bedouins (”From the guys who brought you Lawrence of Arabia: won’t you buy a used camel from Bush?”), and perhaps even a few eunuchs.

It’s all the fault of Al Jazeera that keeps showing those “anti-American” images. Let’s just have a good spinning a la Karl Rove to counter those images with great “pro-American” newsbites, visuals, and catchy slogans.

Hey, we could even try to plant an enterprising journalist searching for the truth, Judith Miller-style, at Al Jazeera.

This is an approach that has been advanced on a global scale by a White House that acted as though the war in Iraq were “a public relations problem first and a military problem second,” as Time columnist Joe Klein put it.

It assumes that if the administration was so successful in convincing Joe Blow in Peoria that Saddam was behind 9/11 and was planning to nuke Cincinnati, there is no reason that the administration can’t also make Ahab the Arab believe that the Bushies want to bring freedom to the Middle East and peace to the Holy Land.

All you need is not to deviate from a consistent message that you repeat several times a day like a parrot on crack: Democracy! Democracy! Democracy!

Eventually those guys in the Middle East will come to their senses and figure out that American intentions are good and that the country’s commitment to spreading democracy is not merely a hypocritical justification for getting rid of regimes that President Bush and The Weekly Standard dislike.

There are no signs that President Bush’s public diplomacy is helping win the hearts and minds of either the elites or the publics in the Middle East, or for that matter in most parts of the world, including among traditional American allies in Canada and Western Europe.

If anything, the discrepancy between the bombastic and misleading American message and the reality of U.S. policies on the ground in Iraq, Israel/Palestine, and elsewhere only helps fuel more anti-Americanism.

This discrepancy between the neocon propaganda and the outcome of Bush’s foreign policy is also responsible for the dramatic erosion in domestic public support for U.S. policies in Iraq as more and more Americans, including Joe Blow, seem to be deserting the faith-based community in favor of the reality-based one.

Rumsfeld Sorry Congress Exists:
[Troops Sorry Rumsfeld Exists]

12.16.05 Washington Times

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has flatly dismissed rumors that he might be stepping down, but yesterday he talked almost wistfully about the advantages of working in the private sector.

Answering a question during a town hall-style meeting in the Pentagon, Rumsfeld said things can get done more quickly in the corporate world, where decisions are not debated by 535 members of Congress.

WAR COST TOPS ONE ZILLION
Pentagon Renames Iraq Conflict “Operation Infinite Expense”

December 14, 2005 The Borowtiz Report

Just hours after the Pentagon estimated the cost of the war in Iraq at half a trillion dollars, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld revised that figure slightly upward, restating the cost of the war as one zillion dollars.

“In turns out that the half trillion figure left out some important budget items, and one zillion is actually a lot closer to the mark,” Secretary Rumsfeld told reporters. “My bad.”

To reflect the new, higher cost of the war, the Pentagon today officially renamed the conflict “Operation Infinite Expense.”

When asked to explain the upward revision, the defense secretary said that the half-trillion figure was based on projections of the war in Iraq lasting five to ten years, while the zillion dollar figure reflects the most up-to-date estimate of the war’s duration, which he characterized as “forever and ever.”

“Based on what we’re seeing on the ground in Iraq, the war will probably last longer than Vietnam but not quite as long as Cher’s Farewell Tour.”

Secretary Rumsfeld defended the new price tag for the war in Iraq, explaining, “When you keep in mind that this war is never going to end, and it will be around for our children and our children’s children, a zillion dollars is a bargain by any yardstick.”

At the White House, President Bush acknowledged that the zillion-dollar price tag was higher than he had originally anticipated, but added, “Freedom isn’t free – in fact, it costs one zillion dollars.”

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