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Tuesday, January 24, 2006 10:10 AM

thomasfbarton@earthlink.net Print it out: color best. Pass it on.

[Thanks to John Gingerich, who sent this in.]

Soldiers’ Wife Asks:
“How Can All These Lies Be Stopped?”

From: Soldier’s Wife G
To: GI Special
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Subject: Saw your GI Special and hoped you could get the word out

I was intrigued and very angry about what I saw on the GI special.

I feel as though, now I may have some people that will hear what I have to say.

My husband is currently serving in Iraq, his 2nd tour in 2 1/2 years.

After coming home from the first tour, he was very different and not at all the man I was married to. He eventually became a born again Christian, and since then, he has been given extra duties, given extra CQ duties, money taken from his check and much more.  It really began to put a strain on out marriage.

Actually the day my husband joined the army, our marriage was on the rocks.

We have had nothing but lies told to us.

My husband and I met with his commanding officer and told him our concerns and what effect it was having on our children and our marriage.  The CO suggested that we file for a hardship discharge.  However, after doing so, the CO denied it.

After it went through the ranks, it was denied.

When I spoke with JAG the guy there said that we couldn’t appeal it, and that I would just have to suck it up, deal with the fact that my husband was going to Iraq no matter what.

He then proceeded to tell me that if I couldn’t hack it, that I should move back in with my parents.

I am a 33 year old woman with 3 kids and my husband and I had just bought our first home.  When I told him that, he said, just sell it.

Needless to say, I was pretty upset.

My husband was then advised, by GI rights, that with our beliefs and what was going on, that my husband should file for a conscientious objection status.  Long story short, they denied the packet 2 days ago.

They told him he has 10 days to file an appeal.

However, the army has all his paperwork in Iraq, and me and our lawyer are here in the states.

On top of that, the commanders are continually shutting down the internet and phones for a week at a time.

They are making life very hard on my husband and it blows me away to know that soldiers, American soldiers are treated this way.

I can guarantee that if it was some muslim, or buddhist that they would be shown more respect.  

How can all these lies be stopped?  

I just had to tell someone.  

Thanks.

[Reply:

There’s bad news and good news.

The bad news is that army command doesn’t really give a shit what religion a soldier has when he’s standing up for his rights. He can worship fish six times a day, or whatever, but if command thinks he wants no part of this war, tough luck. Protestant Christians have it easiest, being most socially acceptable and least controversial.

The good news is that there’s an outfit that might help, organized by military family members: ArchAngel (ArchAngel1BL@aol.com.) Your letter is being forwarded on to ArchAngel. Also, in case they’re not already involved, the GI Rights Hotline is a resource accustomed to dealing with problems like you describe, at www.objector.org/girights/ Definitely worth checking out if you’re not already in contact. 

GI Special is honored to help get the word out. You’re right to make the issue known, so others can learn from what you’re going through.

T

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Two Marines Killed In Haqlaniyah

January 21, 2006 MNF Release A060121c

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq: Two Marines assigned to Regimental Combat Team 2, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), were killed in action by a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (SVBIED) while conducting combat operations in Haqlaniyah Jan. 20.

U.S. Copter Down In Baghdad

Jan 21 (Reuters)

BAGHDAD – A U.S. helicopter made a precautionary landing in northern Baghdad late on Friday. The crew were unhurt and the aircraft was transported to a U.S. base, a military spokesman said.

Notes >From A Lost War:
“Attention”
“There’s An Ambush With American Snipers Inside The Building”

A few hours later one of the battalion’s Humvees was hit by a roadside bomb less than a mile from the spot where the lieutenant and his men had lain in wait. This time there were no injuries.

1.13.06 By Michael M. Phillips, Wall St. Journal [Excerpts]

RAMADI, Iraq — On Christmas Day, Cpl. Alberto Reyes began to wonder if something had gone wrong with his ambush.

He and his Marines had arrived under cover of darkness Christmas Eve and selected a good position: The second story of an empty house with a clear view of a route insurgents were likely to travel if they wanted to plant bombs near a provincial government center. 

But no insurgents came their way. Instead, as the day wore on, Cpl. Reyes noticed that Iraqi civilians passing by on the street below consistently slowed to take a look at the front of the building.

Finally, the next day, the Marines called it quits. As they left the house, they found a handwritten note on a piece of cardboard taped to the front door. “Attention,” said the Arabic-language note, which the Marines have kept. “There’s an ambush with American snipers inside the building.”

Score one for the insurgents in a tit-for-tat guerrilla war in which Iraqi fighters try to ambush U.S. troops with powerful hidden bombs, and U.S. troops try to ambush the ambushers.

“I was stunned,” says Cpl. Reyes, a 22-year-old squad leader in Kilo Company, Third Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment.

“The IEDs are the most frustrating,” says Cpl. Mark Dean, a 23-year-old from Owasso, Okla., on his third combat tour. “They blow up, and you can’t find the triggerman. You’re mad, and you just want to kill someone, and you can’t find them.”

The ambushes give the frustrated Marines a chance to fight back. Despite the failed Christmas ambush, Kilo Company’s commander, 36-year-old Capt. Phil Ash, believes his unit, one of four combat companies in Third Battalion, has killed as many as 30 insurgents in ambushes since November.

The Marines are wary of releasing details about how they operate their ambushes. But they emphasize that they frequently vary their techniques to remain unpredictable.

Sometimes they install themselves in empty buildings, many of which dot Ramadi’s shattered center. Sometimes they move into occupied homes, bringing toys and candy for the kids, then herding the family into a room and placing them under guard to prevent them from tipping off insurgents. 

Some Marines prefer occupied houses because they’re less likely to be booby-trapped , although they acknowledge the possibility that the families may later be targeted as collaborators. 

Others prefer abandoned buildings because involving the locals increases the odds of being compromised.

The ambushers always pick a perch where they can see avenues of approach for likely bombers, and they stay anywhere from a few hours to several days. When they see someone in the act of planting a bomb, their orders are shoot to kill.

Soon after the battalion arrived in Ramadi in September, one Marine sniper team set up an ambush in an occupied house with a good view of the streets. 

The owner of the house told them that insurgents had used the same window to ambush Americans not long before.  ”It’s a good area,” explains Cpl. Robert Bautzmann, a 23-year-old scout from Phoenix.

One night last week, a team from Third Battalion’s India Company set up ambushes in several houses in a residential neighborhood not far from a city cemetery. The Marines say they had been in place for 18 hours when they saw two men, about 75 yards away, with a heavy black bag and a spool of wire bend down over a spot previously used to hide bombs.

In the cold language of the company watch officer’s log book, the Marines “engaged two military-age males with IED. Killed one, hitting the other.”

When Marines went to recover the dead insurgent’s body, seeking intelligence on the rebellion, other insurgents opened fire, setting off a brief skirmish.

The company’s most lethal ambush so far was in October, when the Marines hid in an empty, half-finished, two-story house at a T-junction in the market district. Looking down the road toward a lone streetlight, the Marines spotted six men in civilian clothes leaving an alley and crossing single file less than 100 yards away, apparently headed toward the government center, a favorite insurgent target. The first five men carried automatic rifles at their sides, the Marines say. The sixth held a slender rocket-propelled grenade launcher, or RPG, on his shoulder.

Cpl. Reyes gave staccato orders to his men. “We have six insurgents going south…weapons…RPG last man,” he remembers saying. “Machine gun,” he said, addressing one of his men: “FIRE!”

His machine gunner swept the street from left to right, knocking the insurgent with the grenade launcher off his feet, Cpl. Reyes says. The other Marines opened up with rifles, grenades and a bazooka-like weapon.

The surviving insurgents circled back and approached the ambush house from the side. One of them angled a rocket-propelled grenade at the facade of the building. The explosive hit next to the window, spraying two Marines with hot metal shards.

After the shooting died down, the Marines recovered a grenade launcher and one body, a man with wire in his pockets that the Marines believed was intended for a detonator. That night the local mosque loudspeakers broadcast news that four fighters had been killed, the Marine say.  There were no U.S. fatalities.

It was, for the Marines, a moment to savor. “We can kill these guys,” says 2nd Lt. Anthony Atler, of Renton, Wash., Cpl. Reyes’s 24-year-old platoon commander. “They’re not that sneaky. No matter how sneaky they are, they still have to cross the street to get from one point to another. It was good for the Marines to realize that.”

The Marines left the site alone for months, then decided last weekend to see if it would be lucky for them again. Cpl. Reyes, on his third tour of Iraq, was by now just a couple of weeks from going home and getting out of the Marine Corps.

“I’ve got two weeks, but I can’t start thinking like that,” he said before he and his men left on the mission. “If I start thinking like that, that’s when something happens.”

After dark, Lt. Atler, Cpl. Reyes and their team set out for the ambush house, wading through shin-deep pools of rain runoff and sewage, sprinting from shadow to shadow, setting off a chorus of barking dogs in empty streets.

The Marines searched each room to make sure nobody had booby-trapped the house since they had last been there. Indeed a few things had changed, enough to make Lt. Atler uneasy. There were water bottles littering the floor, and someone had moved in refrigerators, water heaters and other household equipment.

Then the men settled into the moon shadows near the windows. For the next seven hours, they watched the street through the lime-green glow of their night-vision goggles, the silence broken by occasional whispered radio calls, the slow tear of Velcro pouches opening, and the splash of tobacco juice hitting the bare floor.

Cpl. Reyes examined the surrounding neighborhood with an infrared scope, a ghostly white image marking anything warm against the cold background. He spotted a few feral dogs, but no insurgents.

Just before 5 a.m., after finding nothing all night, the Marines packed it in and crept back to base. “A lot of times,” says Lt. Atler, “it’s hit or miss.”

A few hours later one of the battalion’s Humvees was hit by a roadside bomb less than a mile from the spot where the lieutenant and his men had lain in wait. This time there were no injuries.

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.

Soldiers from Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment conduct search and sweep operations in the village of Shakaria, Iraq January 4, 2006. REUTERS/Staff Sgt. Kevin L. Moses/Handout

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

“We Are Losing The War”

Jan. 19 By AMBIKA BEHAL, UPI Correspondent

Steadily rising violence in Afghanistan renews and raises key questions as to whether the United States is actually winning the war on terrorism in Afghanistan.

“We are losing the war,” said Steven Simon, senior analyst at the RAND Corporation and author of the recent book “The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting it Right.”

“I was surprised at the somberness of briefings,” said Gerard Baker, U.S. Editor and columnist for The Times of London, speaking of those given in Afghanistan.

“There are generally dark assessments about the state of affairs at the moment,” he said, adding that even the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan was not overly optimistic and warned that success is not guaranteed.

Baker spoke of the dissatisfaction levels with the United States and also the rampant deep cynicism as to whether the project in Afghanistan can go anywhere.

TROOP NEWS

Pissing In The Wind:
Military’s Monthly Iraq Costs Up To $4.5 Billion A Month

1.17.06 National Journal’s CongressDaily

DoD says it spent $4.5 billion per month on recurring operational costs in Iran in FY 2005, nearly $300 million more than the average monthly costs the previous year.

250 From Pendleton Off To Bush’s Imperial Slaughterhouse

January 21, 2006 Rick Rogers, UNION-TRIBUNE

CAMP PENDLETON – About 250 troops from the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment left the base yesterday to begin a seven-month deployment in Iraq.

The Marines and sailors are headed to Anbar province in western Iraq.

ENOUGH:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

Coffin containing Sgt. Jason Lopez Reyes at the burial ceremony in his hometown of Hatillo, Puerto Rico, Jan. 18, 2006.  Lopez died of wounds sustained Jan. 5 when a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy on the outskirts of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. At least 47 Puerto Rican soldiers have died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since 2001.  (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

Screw The Vets And Retirees:
We Need Money For Iraq

1.18.06 Norfolk Virginian-Pilot

The Pentagon hopes to get billions to pay for ships, aircraft and other weapons by doubling or tripling health insurance premiums paid by military retirees and driving 600,000 of those pensioners out of the military medical system, according to a coalition of veterans’ groups.

War Profiteer Rips Off Millions For Fucking Up

1.17.06 Los Angeles Times

The U.S. Army will probably pay Lockheed Martin tens of millions of dollars in contract termination fees for a botched effort to produce a spy plane that serves both the Army and the Navy.

Iraq?
Steal All You Want:
Nobody In The Bush Regime Gives A Shit:
It’s Their Buddies Stealing

1.17.06 Wall Street Journal

More than eighteen months after the Pentagon disbanded the Coalition Provisional Authority that ran Iraq, neither the Justice Department nor a special inspector general has moved to recover large sums suspected of disappearing through fraud and price gouging in reconstruction.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action

2006-01-21 Pravda.RU & CNN & Reuters & January 20, 2006 By ROBERT F. WORTH, New York Times Company

Five bodyguards of President Jalal Talabani were wounded in a roadside bomb blast in northern Iraq, police said Saturday.  Talabani was not in the convoy when it was attacked late Friday near the town of Salman Beg, some 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of the northern city of Kirkuk, said police Col. Abbas Mohammed.

The convoy of several vehicles was driving from Sulaimaniya to Baghdad, where the guards were to rotate out with other guards.

Police said an adviser to Talabani was among the wounded, but the extent of his injuries was not known.

Most senior Iraqi officials travel by air as many of Iraq’s roads, particularly the main routes leading north out of Baghdad, are too dangerous. The motorcades of Iraqi officials have come under frequent attack.

Guerrillas shot dead the Iraqi army major, his son and his bodyguard Saturday in a drive-by shooting as the three were heading to work, police Capt. Hakim al-Azawi said.  The attackers also wounded another of Maj. Raid Maamoun’s sons in the attack near Qadisiyah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Tikrit.

Police found the bullet-riddled bodies of Iraqi commando officer Ali Hussein in an open field near Karbala.

DUJEIL: Guerrillas killed an engineer working in a U.S. military base in Dujeil 50 km (32 miles) north of Baghdad as he drove out of the facility, Dujeil police said.

BAGHDAD: One policeman was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in the al-Rasheed area 35 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

BAQUBA: Two policemen were killed and six wounded when a car bomb exploded near their patrol in Baquba 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

Over the past few days, two tribal sheiks and a cleric from the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, have been killed. At least two of the men had taken part in a meeting on Sunday with Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari.

Sheik Turki identified the three as Nasir Abdul Karim al-Mukhlif of the Bufahad tribe, who was killed Monday; Abdul Ghafar al-Rawi, an imam who was killed Tuesday; and Muhammad Sadagh al-Shlebawi.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“This Administration Is Not Worth The Dust Off Of Our Troops’ Boots, Much Less The Blood That They Have Shed”
(Letters From Fort Lewis)

January 20, 2006 By Sgt. Kevin Benderman: Prisoner of Conscience, Conscientious Objector to War.

A disturbing report about the Pentagon’s refusal to purchase a more effective type of body armor for our troops in combat is indicative of this administration’s total lack of respect for the men and women who wear this nation’s uniform.

This administration is unwilling to spend the money needed for the highest quality body armor, which should have been a standard part of the available equipment issued to our soldiers as they put their lives on the line for what now can be see as a war based on lies.

But this administration is doling out cash by the handful to companies like Halliburton for contracts to rebuild what we have destroyed, with little accountability for where the money has gone and how it has been spent.

Think of that for a moment would you?

This administration has demonstrated its priorities clearly by its refusal to purchase better equipment that would have saved lives while granting unprecedented contracts to its benefactor companies.

This refusal came even after the Marine Corp paid over $100,000 for a study to see if indeed this equipment was more effective.  After the tests confirmed this, the Corp. made repeated requests for this type of more effective vests.

Nothing was ever done and as a result, people who placed “Duty, Honor, Country” before anything else were dishonored by men who have never seen a minute’s worth of combat.

They were dishonored and disrespected by men who, by their own admission, had more important things to do and could not be bothered with serving their country by wearing the uniform with honor.

I have said it before and I will say it again, this administration is not worth the dust off of our troops’ boots, much less the blood that they have shed or the lives they have given.

[For more Letters from Fort Lewis check out: Benderman Defense Committee: www.topia.net/kevinbenderman.html]

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.

Operation Non-Stop

Photo from the I-R-A-Q (I Remember Another Quagmire) portfolio of Mike Hastie, US Army Medic, Vietnam 1970-71. (For more of his outstanding work, contact at: (hastiemike@earthlink.net) T)

To: GI Special
Sent: January 20, 2006
Subject: Operation Non-Stop

The United States Government dropped so many bombs on Vietnam (the most bombed country in the world), that we should have renamed the country, “Vietbomb.”

Mike Hastie
Vietnam Veteran
January 19, 2006

One day while I was in a bunker in Vietnam, a sniper round went over my head. The person who fired that weapon was not a terrorist, a rebel, an extremist, or a so-called insurgent. The Vietnamese individual who tried to kill me was a citizen of Vietnam, who did not want me in his country. This truth escapes millions.

                                                                            Mike Hastie

U.S. Army Medic

                          Vietnam 1970-71

Anniversary

1.18.06 By Ron Kovic, Truthdig.com [Excerpt]

Thirty-eight years ago, on Jan. 20, 1968, I was shot and paralyzed from my mid-chest down during my second tour of duty in Vietnam.

It is a date that I can never forget, a day that was to change my life forever.

Each year as the anniversary of my wounding in the war approached I would become extremely restless, experiencing terrible bouts of insomnia, depression, anxiety attacks and horrifying nightmares. I dreaded that day and what it represented, always fearing that the terrible trauma of my wounding might repeat itself all over again. It was a difficult day for me for decades and it remained that way until the anxieties and nightmares finally began to subside.

(Photo: Zuade Kaufman / Truthdig.com)

I am the living death
The memorial day on wheels
I am your yankee doodle dandy
Your John Wayne come home
Your Fourth of July firecracker
Exploding in the grave

Got That Right X 2

The semi-oppositional stance of the Democrats to Bush takes as its starting point a common agreement between the two parties that the U.S. should be able to dominate the world. The worry is that Bush, despite the rhetoric, isn’t doing a very good job.  Paul D’Amato January 20, 2006 Socialist Worker

If Iran has avoided a U.S. attack so far, one major reason is the success of the anti-occupation resistance in neighboring Iraq, which has tied down U.S. forces.  ALAN MAASS, January 20, 2006 Socialist Worker

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.

Some Success Stories:
Resistance Movements Against U.S. Imperial War

1-16-06 By Lawrence S. Wittner, History News Network [Excerpts]

On the other hand, there are instances in which the peace movement brought an end to U.S. wars.

The Mexican War of the 1840s provides us with one example. Condemned from the start as a war of aggression and as a war for slavery, the Mexican War stirred up remarkably strong opposition.

Thus, although the war went very well for the United States on a military level and President Polk pressed for the annexation of all of Mexico to the United States, when Nicholas Trist, Polk’s diplomatic negotiator, disobeyed his instructions and signed a treaty providing for the annexation of only about a third of Mexico, Polk felt trapped. In the face of fierce public opposition to the conflict, he did not believe it possible to prolong the war to secure his goal of taking all of Mexico. And so Polk reluctantly backed Trist’s peace treaty, and the war came to an end.

Yet another example of the peace movement’s efficacy occurred in the context of the Reagan administration’s determined attempts to overthrow the Sandinista-led government of Nicaragua. As in Vietnam, despite the immense military advantage the U.S. government enjoyed against a small, peasant nation, it was unable to employ it effectively.

Popular pressure against U.S. military intervention in Nicaragua not only blocked the dispatch of U.S. combat troops, but led to congressional action (i.e. the Boland amendment) cutting off U.S. government funding for the U.S. surrogates, the contras.

Although the Reagan administration sought to circumvent the Boland amendment by selling U.S. missiles to Iran and sending the proceeds to the contras, this scheme backfired, and did more to undermine the Reaganites than it did the Sandinistas.

When the hawkish Reagan administration revived the Cold War and escalated the nuclear arms race, these actions triggered the greatest outburst of peace movement activism in world history.

In the United States, the Nuclear Freeze campaign secured the backing of leading religious denominations, unions, professional groups, and the Democratic Party, organized the largest political demonstration up to that time in U.S. history, and drew the support of more than 70 percent of the public.

In Europe, much the same thing occurred, and in the fall of 1983 some five million people turned out for demonstrations against the planned deployment of intermediate range nuclear missiles.

Reagan was stunned. In October 1983, he told Secretary of State George Shultz: “If things get hotter and hotter and arms control remains an issue, maybe I should go see Andropov and propose eliminating all nuclear weapons.” Shultz was horrified by the idea, but agreed that “we could not leave matters as they stood.”

Consequently, in January 1984, Reagan delivered a remarkable public address calling for peace with the Soviet Union and for a nuclear-free world. His advisors agree that this speech was designed to signal to the Russians his willingness to end the Cold War and reduce nuclear arsenals.

We might also give some thought to the wars that, thanks to peace movement activism, did not occur.

Historians have maintained that the anti-imperialist crusade against the Philippines war blocked the occurrence of later U.S. wars of this kind and on this scale. They have also suggested that peace movement pressures helped to block war with Mexico in 1916 and helped to soften the U.S.-Mexican confrontation of the late 1920s.

OCCUPATION REPORT

Turkey Cuts Off Iraq’s Refined Oil Supply

2006-01-21  (Xinhuanet)

Turkish companies have decided to halt supply of refined oil to Iraq due to Baghdad’s overdue debts, a cabinet minister said on Saturday.

Foreign Trade Minister Kursad Tuzmen was quoted by the semi-official Anatolia news agency as saying that Turkish companies have stopped shipping refined fuel to Iraq as of Saturday because Iraq has failed to pay debts totaling 1 billion U.S. dollars.

Tuzmen said that the decision was made although Iraq promised on Thursday to pay the debts within 15 days.

But the minister said that if Iraq pays the debts, the supply will resume.

Turkey has been an important supplier of refined oil product to Iraq, a country hungry for fuel despite large oil reserves. Turkey’s oil halt is seen as likely to aggravate the already severe shortage of fuel in Iraq as people have been lining up at gas stations.

“Power Production Is Lower Than Before The March 2003 US-Led Invasion”

2006-01-18 Mohsen Shlash, Middle East Online

Total power production is lower than before the March 2003 US-led invasion, at about 3,700 megawatts, because of insurgent attacks and other reconstruction problems, according to a Western diplomat with expertise in the sector.

The United States earmarked 4.7 billion dollars for the neglected electricity sector in 2003, but much of the money has gone and there is little to show for it, Mohsen Shlash, the Iraqi electricity minister, said.

“The American donation is almost finished and it was not that effective. They did a few power plants, yes, but that definitely is not worth 4.7 billion dollars,” said the minister, noting that some of the work carried out was worth just one-tenth of the money being spent.

But now the capital and much of the central regions are suffering some of their worst power shortages, with just two to six hours of electricity per day.

Shlash said US reconstruction money would have gone further in the hands of Iraqi contractors who charge a fairer price and carry a lower security risk.

Had this happened, “by now we would have had very little power problems or maybe no power cuts at all,” said Shlash.

Daily attacks on power stations and transmission lines further damaged the infrastructure, destroying or delaying repair work.

The Scissors Crisis:
As Resistance Cuts Supplies,
“The U.S. Military’s Energy Consumption In Iraq Is Soaring”

Thus, keeping each of the 153,000 American soldiers on the ground in Iraq requires the consumption of about 19.6 gallons of fuel per soldier per day. That’s double the amount in January 2005, when each soldier in Iraq was consuming on average about 10 gallons of fuel per day.

17 January 2006 By Robert Bryce, Salon.com [Excerpts]

From the outset, America’s game plan in Iraq has depended on the ability to control the flow of energy. 

Whether for the gargantuan amounts of fuel needed by U.S. troops on the ground, the export of Iraqi crude, or the production of motor fuel at the refineries in Baghdad and Baiji, the U.S., as Wolfowitz suggested, was depending on Iraq’s vast oil reserves to keep the Iraqi economy afloat and to sustain the rebuilding process in the post-Saddam era.

Meanwhile, the insurgents are targeting every part of the energy infrastructure – crude oil, electricity, refined products, and the American military has been able to do little to stop the destruction. And it’s killing the Iraqi economy.

While fuel prices are surging, a key concern is supply, which is being hampered by both corruption and insurgent attacks.

There are conflicting accounts of a Jan. 4 attack on a fuel tanker convoy that was to replenish service stations in Baghdad. Reuters reported that 20 of the 60 trucks in the convoy were destroyed. Other reports said fewer trucks were destroyed, but whatever the actual number, tanker trucks are now a prime target of the insurgents, who have been attacking them for months.

The U.S. military’s energy consumption in Iraq is soaring. According to recent data from the Defense Department, the U.S. military is now using about 3 million gallons of fuel per day in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Thus, keeping each of the 153,000 American soldiers on the ground in Iraq requires the consumption of about 19.6 gallons of fuel per soldier per day. That’s double the amount in January 2005, when each soldier in Iraq was consuming on average about 10 gallons of fuel per day.

Meanwhile, according to a recent New York Times report, the city of Baghdad is now using about 2.4 million gallons of motor fuel per day, so the average Iraqi among the 5.9 million residents of the war-torn capital is using less than a half-gallon of fuel per day.

That means that the average American soldier in Iraq is using nearly 40 times more fuel per day than the average Iraqi.

That disparity will only compound resentment of the U.S. presence, says retired Army Lt. Gen. Jerry Granrud, who served during both the Vietnam War and the first Gulf War.

If Iraqis are waiting for hours in line to get fuel while the Americans are driving around in their Humvees and other vehicles, Granrud says, “They’ll get madder than hell at their government and at U.S. forces.”

“Until there’s security they can’t develop the oil resources they need to fund their security. And I don’t know how that endless cycle stops.”

Resistance Keeping Out The Oil Predators

19th January 2006 By TARIQ KHONJI, Gulf Daily News

MANAMA: Terrorism and instability has brought Iraq’s oil industry to a standstill, an official declared in Bahrain yesterday. The result is starvation of investment and technology, the same problem the industry has suffered for 35 years, said Oil Ministry public relations manager Mohammed Ali Mustafa.

“Iraq has been isolated from the rest of the world for all this time, especially since the start of the Iran-Iraq war, but of course, the problem reached its peak following the invasion of Kuwait,” he said.

“But terrorism has meant that we are not getting the foreign investment that we desperately need to get back on our feet.

“In all this time, not a single major oil industry-related contract has been awarded and no joint venture projects announced.”

So Much For That Bush Bullshit

1.18.06 London Financial Times

The Tel Afar district, some 180 miles northwest of Baghdad, is held up by the U.S. military as one of the success stories of the “multi-national” forces in Iraq.  Insurgent attacks continue.

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

OCCUPATION PALESTINE

Zionist Soldier Killed By Resistance Fire

18 January 2006 Imemc.org

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, claimed responsibility for the killing of an Israeli soldier on Wednesday, Maan News Agency reported.

The agency added that the soldier was killed near the buffer zone east of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.

The group issued a statement on Wednesday confirming that one of its snipers killed the soldier adding that Israeli soldiers and ambulances arrived at the scene after the shooting.

The statement concluded that this operation came in response to the latest Israeli assassination of an Al Qassam leader yesterday in Tulkarem.

[To check out what life is like under a murderous military occupation by a foreign power, go to: www.rafahtoday.org The foreign army is Israeli; the occupied nation is Palestine.]

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

DC Politicians Just Love “Africa’s Chief Merchant Of Death”

1.23.06 New Republic

Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer, operates one of the largest private air fleets in the world. He has made millions flying lethal cargo to many of the planet’s worst elements. Bout’s activities have earned him the label “Africa’s chief merchant of death.”

The consequences of Bout’s continuing operations have been devastating, both in human terms and for U.S. foreign interests.

If the U.S. government truly wants to remove a threat to international peace, then it must stop giving lucrative contracts to Bout.

DumbFuck Mountain:
A STORY ABOUT A FORBIDDEN AND SECRETIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TWO COWBOYS AND THEIR LIVES OVER THE YEARS. 

(Spectrumz.com)

Bush Approval Dips Again To 39%:
“Investor Class” Turning Against Him

January 15, 2006 Zogby.com

President Bush’s job approval rating has slipped into a post-holiday funk, again dipping below 40%, a new telephone poll by Zogby International shows.

The deterioration in the President’s numbers appears to be the result of eroding support among the investor class and others who supported him in his 2004 re-election bid, said Pollster John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International.  

And the problem is the Iraq war: just 34% of respondents said Mr. Bush was doing a good or excellent job managing the war, down from 38% approval in a Zogby poll taken in mid-October.

Bush’s overall job approval rating in that poll was at 46%.

Among investors, Bush’s support for managing the war dropped five points since October, from 45% to 40%, Zogby data shows.

Supreme Rats Say No Free Speech For Americans Outside Of “Free Speech Zones”

Bursey was holding a sign that said “No more war for oil, don’t invade Iraq” when he was told to go to a distant “free speech zone” or be arrested on local charges of trespassing. “I told the police that I was in a free speech zone called the United States of America,” Bursey said.

January 17, 2006 Scpronet.com/

Today the US Supreme Court declined to hear Brett Bursey’s appeal of his Free Speech case, ending a four-year legal battle that began when he refused to go to a “free speech zone” while protesting President Bush’s visit to Columbia in 2002.

Bursey is the Director of the South Carolina Progressive Network, an 11-year-old coalition of organizations and individuals.

Bursey was holding a sign that said “No more war for oil, don’t invade Iraq” when he was told to go to a distant “free speech zone” or be arrested on local charges of trespassing. “I told the police that I was in a free speech zone called the United States of America,” Bursey said.

The trespassing charges were dismissed four months after the arrest, and the Secret Service immediately brought federal charges.

Bursey is the first and only person to ever be prosecuted under the federal statute that governs Threats to the President.  After being refused a jury trial, he was convicted and given a $500 fine.

Bursey still owes thousands of dollars for taking the case to the Supreme Court, and also now must pay the $500 fine.

“As this ruling limits everyone’s free speech, I am looking for 499 other Americans who are as angry as I am over the loss of constitutional rights under George Bush to join me at the federal court house and pay a dollar each.”  Bursey said he will announce a date to join him in paying the fine.

Secret Service and State Law Enforcement Agents acknowledged that there were other people in the area when Bursey was arrested and trial testimony made it clear that the area was not restricted according to the law.

“The courts allowed the Secret Service to pick Mr. Bursey out of a crowd because he was opposed to the President’s pending war with Iraq,” Pitts said.  ”This is a disturbing precedent that will limit the First Amendment rights of all Americans.”

Substantiating Pitt’s fear, SC Secret Service Director Neal Dolan said in Charleston last year, “If Bursey’s prosecution holds, we have another dozen cases” across the country.

“I’m outraged that the courts have allowed the Secret Service to play fast and loose with the law,” Bursey said.  

The court opinions cited “this age of suicide bombers” and the need for “flexibility” in giving latitude to the Secret Service to not follow the statute.

“Unless we continue to exercise and fight for our rights, the Secret Service will assume the legal authority to create huge, unmarked restricted zones around the president, insuring that those opposed to the president’s policies will be kept out of sight.”

At his sentencing, Bursey told the court, “I may lose the battle today over the restricted area, but I believe we will win the fight to keep America a free speech zone.”  Today Bursey reiterated, “The fight for free speech and the rule of law does not end with this ruling; it must intensify, or we will soon not recognize our own country.”

Contributions to the Free Speech Fund can be made at South Carolina Progressive Network web site by clicking on the “Donate Now” button or by calling 800-849-1803.

Congressional Weasel For Sale:
Helps War Profiteers For Only $110,000

1.19.06 USA Today, January 19, 2006

A New York investment group raised $110,000 for GOP Rep. Jerry Lewis:-the next day, the House passed a defense spending bill that preserved $160 million for a Navy project critical to the firm.  Lewis steered the bill through to passage.

CLASS WAR REPORTS

Congress Slashes Help For Working Poor, Ill Elderly, Student Loans To Fund More Tax Cuts For Millionaires

Illustration by Ed Sorel (Rolling Stone)

Three-fourths of all Americans will not see a dime from the president’s move to make permanent his cuts on dividend and capital-gains taxes, while the nation’s richest 1 percent will reap more than $25 billion. By 2010, thanks to Bush, America’s millionaires will enjoy annual tax cuts of $130,000.

1.26.06 By Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone [Excerpts]

Budget cuts will drive college students deeper into debt and deny child support to poor kids, all to pay for more tax cuts for the rich.

Vice President Dick Cheney was on a rare mission abroad, expressing his support for the millions left homeless by a massive earthquake in Pakistan, when he received a summons to return to Washington immediately.  His vote was needed to break a tie on the Senate floor, where five Republicans had broken ranks to oppose the president’s Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

Racing halfway around the world on a trans-hemispheric red-eye, Cheney arrived on December 21st, just in time to cast the decisive vote.

His “aye” gave Republicans a 51-50 victory on the budget cuts: a measure that will saddle low-income college students with debt, cheat poor kids out of $8 billion in child support and deny medical care to as many as 100,000 people living in poverty.

In public, Republican budget hawks insisted that they made these “tough choices” to stem the “rising tide of red ink in Washington.”  But, in November, behind closed doors, House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas confided to a group of lobbyists that the GOP slashed social programs for the poor by $40 billion to help pay for $90 billion in new tax cuts, almost half of which will go to wealthy Americans with incomes in excess of $1 million.

The net result of the Deficit Reduction Act will be a $50 billion increase in the deficit. In the bizarro world of President Bush’s doublespeak bills, the new spending measure takes its place alongside the Clear Skies Act, which sought to increase air pollution, and the Healthy Forests Initiative, which opened America’s woodlands to more clear-cutting. “If this is deficit reduction,” says Bob McIntyre, director of the nonpartisan advocacy group Citizens for Tax Justice, “then up is down, down is up and George Orwell is president.”

As if this assault on the poor wasn’t enough, Republicans also gutted another $3 billion from social programs in a separate bill on discretionary spending, a measure that flew through Congress in such a pre-Christmas flurry as to make the Deficit Reduction Act seem well considered.

The bill received so little public scrutiny that the Senate was even able to duck a traditional roll-call vote, leaving no record of which GOP senators voted to slash job training for the poor, cut funding for community colleges and kick as many as 25,000 kids out of Head Start.

Nor will the budget cuts do anything to reduce the deficit, which is projected to hit $365 billion.

Thanks to tax cuts expected to be finalized early this year, most of the money will go directly into the pockets of the country’s wealthiest citizens.

Three-fourths of all Americans will not see a dime from the president’s move to make permanent his cuts on dividend and capital-gains taxes, while the nation’s richest 1 percent will reap more than $25 billion.  By 2010, thanks to Bush, America’s millionaires will enjoy annual tax cuts of $130,000.

“I don’t know of any religion practicing in America today that preaches from the pulpit that what one should do is take from the least among us to give to those who have the most,” says Sen. Conrad. “But that’s what this budget is about. It’s so profoundly wrong.”

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)

Received:

Concerning GI Special Web Site

From: A
To: GI Special
Sent: January 18, 2006
Subject: Concerning GI Special web site

[Re: The notice below this letter:]

Isn’t it interesting how 9 year old kids can easily find web-sites out there with women proudly humping animals for the camera; and how somehow no-one complains enough for those web-sites to go away.

You advance some legitimate alternative to mindless barbarism though, and the whole fucking capitalist clique is out to get you.

T, get back in the ring and fuck em up good for us!

A

---

From: GI Special
Subject: Concerning GI Special web site
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006

Thanks for your inquiry concerning why the GI Special web site is not accessible.

The web site provider is under pressure from sources that do not care for the views expressed in GI Special about Bush, the war, etc.

Although, like Truthout and Veterans For Common Sense, and many others, GI Special reprints material published elsewhere, and does so under the Fair Use provisions of the law, which appear in each issue of GI Special, anyone with enough money can sue anyone for anything, and this is being used to frighten the web site provider.

Parallel are situations where local unions on strike have been sued by corporations for libel for passing out information to the public about why they are striking. All concerned know such suits have no hope of success. The point is to cause the union to exhaust all its financial resources hiring attorneys to defend against the suit, bankrupting the local.

Most web site providers are in business to make a profit, not fight for civil liberties and free speech.

Until the problem is solved, GI Special will be made available to you another way.

If it’s too large for your email system, let me know.

Another option: the PDF version is also available and requires less capacity. It is much more difficult to copy material from that version, however.

Solidarity,
T

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