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Sunday, January 29, 2006 9:53 AM

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THIS IS HOW BUSH BRINGS THE TROOPS HOME:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW, ALIVE

The casket of Lance Cpl. Brian Montgomery, killed in action in, at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport in Brook Park, Ohio August 6, 2005. REUTERS/Ron Kuntz

Majority Thinks Bush Second Term A Failure;
Majority Say War Most Important Issue

[If you’ve had enough of elitist snobs whining about how Americans don’t care about the war, and there have been a lot of them peddling that lie lately, shove this up their ass.

[You know, the ones who write those long silly self-referential articles for pseudo-left consumption about how dumb and reactionary most Americans are? About how working class people care about nothing but TV shows and eating at McDonalds and pay no attention to the war? Those snobs: the chatterers; the useless pieces of shit who infest the internet, who bemoan this and lament that as they boast of how enlightened they themselves are. The same ones who bowed down to kiss Kerry’s ass at the last election. The ones who won’t lift a finger to organize anything against the Empire that requires actual human contact with anti-war troops. Them. Fuck ‘em. 

[If you prefer class analysis, the great truth about this chattering class, otherwise knows as the petite bourgeoisie, is that they hate and fear the ruling class above them, and are terrified of the working class below them, including our troops, who generally regard them with well deserved contempt as a great concentration of useless, empty, pretentious bullshitters. T]

The war in Iraq topped the list of respondents’ concerns going into 2006, with 58 percent calling it extremely important.

January 27, 2006 (CNN)

A majority of Americans are more likely to vote for a candidate in November’s congressional elections who opposes President Bush, and 58 percent consider his second term a failure so far, according to a poll released Thursday.

Fewer people consider Bush to be honest and trustworthy now than did a year ago, and 53 percent said they believe his administration deliberately misled the public about Iraq’s purported weapons program before the U.S. invasion in 2003, the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found.

The war in Iraq topped the list of respondents’ concerns going into 2006, with 58 percent calling it extremely important.

Bush’s own approval rating remained at 43 percent, unchanged since mid-December, according to results released earlier this week. Another 54 percent disapproved of his job performance, that survey found.

Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed in the latest poll, 62 percent, said they were dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States, while 35 percent said they were satisfied.

And 64 percent said things in the United States have gotten worse in the past five years, while 28 percent said things have improved.

Most of those polled said they believe the United States will have a “significant number” of troops in Iraq for more than a year, with 47 percent believing the U.S. commitment will last one to three years and 33 percent believing the U.S. presence will last longer than that. [Meaning they do not believe the bullshit coming out of Imperial Headquarters in Washington, and the delusional sections of the anti-war movement who faithfully retail Bush’s’ propaganda, about how the politicians want the troops to come home this year before the fall elections.]

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Kansas Soldier Killed

In a photo provided by family Army Pfc. Peter D. Wagler, 18, who was assigned to the 1st Batallion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team stationed at Fort Hood, Texas is shown. He served with the Multi-National Division in Baghdad. Wagler died from injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle in Iraq on Jan. 23, 2006. (AP Photo/The Hutchinson News, via Wagler family)

Belleville Soldier Is Wounded In Iraq By Bomb Under Humvee

01/26/2006 By Denise Hollinshed, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Sarah DeAntoni now figures it was her intuition that kept her awake one night last week. Finally, at 3:15 a.m. on Jan. 17, she got a call from her husband, serving with the Army in Iraq.

She recalled: “He was like, ‘Are you sitting down? I got hurt.’”

Her husband, Army Spc. Marcus DeAntoni, 21, then told his wife, 19, about what happened when the Humvee he was in ran over a bomb near Karbala. DeAntoni suffered facial burns and leg wounds from shrapnel and an exploding bullet.

Sarah DeAntoni, a student at Southwestern Illinois College, said her husband was a gunner on the Humvee. He and the driver helped pull an injured Iraqi interpreter from the wreckage, she said.

She said she has worried a lot about her husband, and now will worry even more.

She saw him for five minutes Wednesday on a Web cam broadcast from Iraq.

“It made me cry,” she said.

Marcus DeAntoni recuperated for four days in a Baghdad hospital, then was helicoptered back to his base in an abandoned power plant on the banks of Karbala, on the Euphrates River.

He is scheduled to come home in April for at least a couple of weeks, she said. The couple married in 2004. She is a graduate of Belleville West; he went to Belleville East.

Marcus DeAntoni’s second call on Jan. 17 was to his father, Mark DeAntoni, 53, of the 100 block of Juanita Drive, Belleville.

His caller ID showed the call was coming from the government.

“It scared me to death,” DeAntoni said, but he was quickly relieved to hear his son’s voice.

Mark DeAntoni said he would prefer that his son recuperate at home.

“It doesn’t sound like that will happen,” he said.

DeAntoni’s wife, Victoria, died of a stroke three years ago when she was 53. DeAntoni is recovering himself from skin cancer surgery.

On Thursday, he recalled what his son said of his survival.

“He said, ‘Dad, you have no idea how lucky I am to be alive,’” the father said. “He said it’s unreal over there. He said you don’t know if a trash can is going to blow up or if someone smiling at you is going to shoot at you.”

Heavy Fighting Reported In Baghdad

01/27/06 AP

Fierce fighting between police and insurgents in southwestern Baghdad areas such as Jihad and Saydiyah began early Friday. Policemen blaring their theme song “Where is the terrorist today?” from car speakers raided homes in several suburbs, arresting about 60 people.

Two police commandos were wounded in the gunfight in the city’s Jihad neighbourhood.

Jihad was the scene of the fiercest street battles, with some insurgents brandishing rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

With U.S. attack helicopters flying overhead, insurgent snipers positioned themselves on rooftops and masked gunmen roamed alleyways in the cordoned-off area.

Remember All That Happy Horseshit About “Secure” Tal Afar Last Fall?

1/28/2006 Reuters

The U.S. military announced late Friday that three roadside bombings in the northern city of Tal Afar killed two Iraqis soldiers and a civilian. Six Iraqi troops were also wounded,

U.S. and Iraqi forces overran insurgent positions in Tal Afar, a mostly Turkomen city, last September but security remains uncertain there.

Remember All That Happy Horseshit About “Secure” Falluja Last Year?

Jan 28, 2006 DPA

Three policemen were killed while two policemen and three civilians were injured in a roadside bomb explosion targeting a police patrol in downtown Fallujah, police said Saturday.

Local police spokesman Ahmed Yassin said the explosion took place in Streets No.40 in the centre of the city at 11:30 am. One of the injured policemen was in critical condition.

Great Moments In U.S. Military History:
Occupation Forces Kill City Clerk

Jan 28, 2006 DPA

In Kut, a woman died of her wounds at hospital saturday after U.S. troops shot her in the western part of the city late Friday, hospital sources said.

The sources said Fatima Buayer, a 54-year-old service employee at the city hall, was in a pickup when troops opened fire. There was no immediate reason given for the shooting.

REALLY BAD PLACE TO BE:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

U.S. soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, patrol the village of Shakaria January 20, 2006 REUTERS/Staff Sgt. Kevin Moses Sr/U.S. Army/Handout

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

And Now For The Good News

27 January 2006 By Fran�oise Chipaux, Le Monde

“In virtually the entire South, not a single school is operational.  No state services function in 80% of the zone, and nobody works any more,” asserts a UN official.

“Attacks with explosives have taken place against ISAF (International Security and Assistance Force) troops in Mazar-e-Charif, Herat, and Baghlan,” the UN’s number one in Afghanistan, Jean Arnault, emphasized in his last report to the Security Council.

TROOP NEWS

“Enforcing Accountability For Prisoner Torture At The Bottom Of The Ranks, Without Any Serious Effort To Enforce It At The Top”

[Thanks to Anna B., who sent this in.]

Was it lost upon the jurors that the regimental commander, for whom Welshofer was his prized interrogation “subject-matter expert,” was now serving in a plum Pentagon post while Welshofer was facing life in prison?

This juxtaposition surely must have seemed discordant to the jury, especially knowing that the Army Field Manual, also known as the Army’s “operations bible,” states: “The commander is responsible for all his unit does or fails to do.”

Jan. 27, 2006 By Brig. Gen. David Irvine and David Danzig. Salon.com [Excerpts]

Earlier this week at Fort Carson in Colorado, the military jury that heard charges of murder against Chief Warrant Officer Lewis E. Welshofer delivered a bold and stunning version of justice, a sentence amounting to a slap on the wrist.  

Welshofer was on trial for the death of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush: After Mowhoush’s capture in western Iraq in November 2003, Welshofer, an experienced Army interrogator, bound him and stuffed him in a sleeping bag, and then sat on Mowhoush’s chest in an effort to pry from him information about the Iraqi insurgency. The Iraqi general suffocated.

On the most elemental level, justice requires proportionality and comparability of punishment for criminal conduct of similar gravity.  Could the jury have been unaware that three Abu Ghraib defendants, who, unlike Welshofer, didn’t kill anyone, are serving prison terms of three, eight and 10 years?

Is there a different standard of punishment for junior enlisted reservists versus senior regular Army warrant officers?

While she acted inexcusably, Pvt. Lynndie England had received little to no training for her guard duties at Abu Ghraib; Welshofer, 43, was thoroughly trained as an Army interrogator and in what the Geneva Conventions require and allow.  

England will spend three years in the Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth; Welshofer, vastly senior in status, responsibility and experience, wasn’t even confined to his quarters. Until the Army can explain how Welshofer’s sentence meets a minimal standard of equal justice under the law, the disciplinary score card it trots out is meaningless.

The jury’s decision also underscores the pattern in the Army and at the Pentagon of enforcing accountability for prisoner torture at the bottom of the ranks, without any serious effort to enforce it at the top.

If Welshofer was singled out by prosecutors for “trying to save soldiers’ lives” under ambiguous or contradictory command guidance, which his defense attorneys hammered at over and over during the court martial, why hasn’t the Army focused its prosecutorial lasers on those generals who fumbled the command guidance, or upon those colonels who were responsible for seeing that only approved interrogation techniques were put to use?

One striking fact to come out of the Welshofer trial was that he was operating on his own, with little direct supervision by his company commander, or the commanders up the chain of command.

Were the jurors aware that of all the generals whose fingerprints were on Abu Ghraib, only one was ever disciplined by receiving a reduction in rank to colonel?

Was it lost upon the jurors that the regimental commander, for whom Welshofer was his prized interrogation “subject-matter expert,” was now serving in a plum Pentagon post while Welshofer was facing life in prison?

This juxtaposition surely must have seemed discordant to the jury, especially knowing that the Army Field Manual, also known as the Army’s “operations bible,” states: “The commander is responsible for all his unit does or fails to do.”

It may also have seemed discordant that an Army warrant officer alone was in the dock for alleged brutality and torture when “other U.S. civilians” involved in Mowhoush’s capture, presumably meaning CIA personnel and the Iraqi paramilitaries in their employ, severely beat an enemy army flag officer, who was clearly entitled to Geneva Conventions protections, within an inch of his life.

Since the Army seems to have no inclination to enforce the principles of command discipline and accountability among the senior ranks, the corrosive effects of U.S. torture in Iraq and elsewhere will continue to haunt any efforts to regain lost stature and credibility in the world.

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

citizen-soldier.org/

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.

Benecia:
The 150th Vigil Against The War:
Patrick Sheehan Says “They Are Continuing My Son’s Work”

[Thanks to H., Benecia, who sent this in. He writes:  Sorry to be out of the loop for so long. Keep up the good work.  Here is the story from a small town in California that never gave up hope.]

Patrick Sheehan, estranged husband of nationally known peace activist Cindy Sheehan, said their son Casey had volunteered on a military response team in Iraq that helped troops get home. Casey, 24, was killed in April 2004. “They are continuing my son’s work,” Sheehan said of Kneisler and the other protesters.

1/27/2006 By POH SI TENG, Times-Herald correspondent,Vallejo Times Herald

BENICIA – Patricia Kneisler ate baby food until she got sick.

The 53-year-old civil engineer forced herself to consume several dozen jars of apple, peach and pear-flavored baby grub so she could use the empty containers to hold tea-light candles for a weekly anti-war protest at City Park.  

She is a founding member of a nameless group that marked its 150th vigil on Thursday.

“That’s my little never-blow-out vigil candles,” said Kneisler, adding that the flames don’t extinguish in the jars.

Garbed in heavy coats, several layers of clothing and warm gloves, Kneisler and 14 other activists, including the father of slain Vacaville soldier Casey Sheehan, lined First Street, holding candles and anti-war placards as they have since the Iraq war began in March 2003.

While some citizens have supported the demonstration with honks and cheers, detractors have shouted vulgarities and complained to city officials.

“I certainly commend them for their commitment,” Councilmember Elizabeth Patterson said during a phone interview.  ”They are making a really important statement.”

She added that the protesters supported the troops.

But Patterson said some residents have complained that it is inappropriate for the protesters to demonstrate in front of the Benicia Memorial Veterans Hall, which is across the street from City Park.

Benicia Vice Mayor Alan Schwartzman said the protesters do not scream and shout, and have every right to demonstrate.

“It’s not disturbing me,” he said.  ”I do not think that they are disturbing the peace.”

Former Benicia Mayor Jerry Hayes, who was at the vigil, has participated several times.

“It’s really important to remind people that this is the conscience of our community,” Hayes said.

Patrick Sheehan, estranged husband of nationally known peace activist Cindy Sheehan, said their son Casey had volunteered on a military response team in Iraq that helped troops get home.  Casey, 24, was killed in April 2004.

“They are continuing my son’s work,” Sheehan said of Kneisler and the other protesters.

As she demonstrated, Kneisler held a placard that decried the 2,239 deaths of military servicemembers in Iraq.  The Department of Defense count was actually one death higher Thursday.

“The fact that we stand out here week after week has got to change minds,” Kneisler said.

Silly Lt. Gen. Petraeus Caught In More Stupid Lies

27 January 2006 By Juan Cole, Salon.com [Excerpt]

When Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who was, until recently, responsible for training the new Iraqi military, was asked at a briefing last February what the religious-ethnic breakdown of Iraq’s security forces might be, he claimed to have no such numbers.

He was, however, being disingenuous. The U.S. command may not have had precise figures on the subject, but he certainly knew that the units being sent into largely Sunni cities and towns in the most rebellious parts of Iraq were overwhelmingly, provocatively, Shiite and Kurdish in their make-up.

Petraeus also deliberately misled the reporters at the briefing by stating that “regional forces, both local police and…the Iraqi National Guard …tend to reflect the ethnic makeup of their community.”

What he did not say is that this only applied to the Kurdish and Shiite sections of the country.  In Sunni cities and towns, the real policing was not being done by local Sunni forces but by Shiite and Kurdish commandos from elsewhere.

No Court-Martial For Vietnam-Era Deserter

Star-Telegram: Tom Pennington

[Thanks to Daivd Honish, Veterans For Peace, who sent this in.]

Jan. 26, 2006 By DEANNA BOYD, Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH: A Vietnam-era Marine Corps deserter was back home in Fort Worth Thursday after being discharged from the military without a court-martial.

Ernest McQueen, 55, was arrested Jan. 12 by Fort Worth police at the request of the Marines.  He was taken to Camp Pendleton in California.

No disciplinary action will be taken against McQueen, a Marine spokesman wrote in an e-mail to the Star-Telegram on Thursday.

“Based on all the circumstances of the case, the commanding general determined it was in the best interest of justice, the Marines Corps and Pvt. (McQueen) to be expeditiously separated from the service,” Lt. Lawton King wrote.

“Pvt. (McQueen’s) failing health was a factor in his decision as well.”

In a jailhouse interview Jan. 16, McQueen said he left Camp Lejeune, N.C., in November 1969 because he did not want to be a part of killing anyone in Vietnam.  

For three decades, he drifted, living in several states and marrying twice.  He has a son, 28, and a daughter, 22.  McQueen was living with a girlfriend in southwest Fort Worth when he was arrested.

McQueen, a carpenter, said he never told his wife, children or girlfriend about his military past.

He knew military police were closing in on him, McQueen said, but illness, including prostate cancer diagnosed about a year ago, left him too tired to run.  Authorities tracked him down based on information from a relative.

He flew home to Fort Worth from San Diego on Wednesday afternoon.

King declined to disclose the type of discharge McQueen received. McQueen said it was an other-than-honorable discharge.

Huge Gain In Profits For War Profiteers:
[War Is Good Business]
[Invest Your Son Or Daughter]

January 27, 2006 Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2006

Lockheed Martin Co., Honeywell International Inc. and Rockwell Collins Inc. reported double-digit profit gains in the fourth quarter amid steady defense spending and improved profit margins.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action

Damage on a police vehicle after a roadside bomb attack in Falluja January 28, 2006. Two policemen were killed and three wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in Falluja, police said. REUTERS/Mohanned Faizal

AP 01/27/06 & 1/28/2006 & 1/28/2006 Reuters & KUNA

TUZ KHURMATU; An oil tanker driver was killed and three tankers destroyed when a car bomb hit their convoy in Tuz Khurmatu, 70 km (40 miles) south of the northern oil city of Kirkuk on Friday, police said.

Police found a man’s bullet-riddled body slumped in a car in western Baghdad, said Dr. Muhannad Jawad of the Yarmouk hospital. Identity cards found among Hesham Ahmed Mahmoud’s belongings indicated that he was an interpreter for the U.S. military.

Guerrillas in the northern city of Mosul killed a policeman and wounded another 30 minutes before slaying another who had left the force, police said. 

A shooting left an Iraqi Army soldier dead and another wounded in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora. The soldier was a member of the Iraqi Army’s Lion Brigade and died in a firefight.

Baghdad: An Associated Press photographer watched as guerrillas shot dead two men trying to flee Jihad on Friday. Residents said the two were killed because they were collaborating with the Americans.

ISHAAQI; Guerrillas killed an Iraqi employee of a U.S. military base in his house in Ishaaqi, 90 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

TIKRIT: Four Iraqi National Guards were killed and five wounded when a car bomb exploded next to their patrol in Oweija, 10 km (6 miles) south of Tikrit, police said.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“No Administratively Designed Security Will Protect The Government Officials Who Sent These Soldiers, From The Rage That Will Have Accumulated”

From: Alycia A. Barr
To: GI Special
Sent: January 27, 2006
Subject: American Gestapo

Letter to the Editor,

As we watch the death toll climb for our U.S. soldiers over in Iraq, comfort as best we can our military families those troops have left behind, we sometimes overlook the daily increasing tally of wounded.

They are the ones who will have to contend with the scars this conflict has left them to bear throughout their lives.

Some have obvious disfigurements, missing limbs, and a myriad of other visible distortions. Then there are those whose wounds cannot be seen. Not just loss of hearing, or the ever increasing number of brain trauma cases, but those whose memories are now seared with horrific images of incidents they have seen or participated in. 

Most military families know it as PTSD, or post traumatic stress disorder.  If left unnoticed or untreated can, and has, become deadly to both its carriers and victims.

The Marine’s motto is “Death before dishonor.” Eighty Three Marines attempted to take their own lives in 2003.  Twenty Four were successful, and 33 committed suicide in 2004. Twenty Four soldiers have committed suicide since returning home. You tell me what would drive a highly trained warrior to end their own life.

The Iraq war will eventually come to an end for the majority of Americans. For these survivors it will continue for the span of their lives because of its horror, especially those who see it in their own reflections daily. If you have any doubt of this, ask a combat Veteran of any war.

This war’s Vets will be faced with a similar scenario as those of another unpopular war in Vietnam, after an end is declared. Some soldiers already realize that those who truly “support the troops” are not only fighting to bring it to a close but fought valiantly to prevent its start. 

Polls now show the general public overwhelmingly does NOT support this war or the policies of it. A poll taken by the “Military Times” reveals active duty members approval of bush’s Iraq policies are at only 53%, down from 60% last year. Only 58% believe bush has the military’s best interest at heart, down 11 points from last year.

Has this administration taken into account the Vets coming home from this war marred for life, whose dreams were shattered because of injuries received in what they now know to be an unjust, illegal and immoral war, whose numbers will only continue to grow with each passing day?  These soldiers, thus far, may have lashed out at those closest to them or even themselves.  Make no mistake, eventually, as Fred Reed wrote in the” American Conservative” magazine, January 31, 2005 issue, we will find out, “They don’t hate America. They hate those who sent them.”

This will be the foreseeable future for Iraq Veterans whose fellow country men have nothing positive to say about a war in which these Vets may have lost a buddy, or a limb, or their morals, or their minds. 

No administratively designed security will protect the government officials who sent these soldiers, from the rage that will have accumulated over the next 3 to 5 years because of what these troops will be left to struggle with from this war.

Think long and hard the next time you hear someone say “we’re fighting over there so we won’t have to do it here.” 

Ask a military family whose soldier has returned with PTSD if they are now not in the fight of their lives to recover the man or woman they once knew, and possibly fighting for that soldier’s life. Maybe now is the time to ask yourselves how it is that you “support the troops?”

In Peace and Humanity,
Alycia A. Barr

[So what gives her the right to come on like this? Maybe because her son served in combat in Iraq. T]

“George Bush And His Minions Are Not An Aberration. They Are The Natural And Expected Fruit Of Capitalism Run Amok”

And who will tell the people
that free speech is a ruse;
The corporations run the country
and then they make the news.
Is it media or mind control
heroic victories or crime?
Who will tell the people…
that we are living in these times.
Song by Willie Nelson
[quoted By By Sheila Samples, 01/27/06 ICH]

01/27/06 By Charles Sullivan, ICH 01/27/06 [Excerpts]

Imagine, if you will, that you are fielding a baseball team. You are a player on a team that possesses immense talent. Your opponent has never lost a game. The opposition is undefeated not because its players are superior to your own, but because it makes the rules of the game to assure its own victory. It wins because your team has to play by a fixed set of rules that it does not.

Although you have an excellent pitcher on the mound, the strike zone is microscopic and in constant flux. Your opponent’s pitcher, however, enjoys a huge strike zone. Your opponent also owns all of the umpires officiating the contest. Who but a fool would play such a game with the expectation of competing, much less winning?

The outcome of that game, no matter how well your team performs, has already been determined.  To participate in such a charade is an exercise in futility.

Those of us who demand a better America find ourselves the unwitting participants in just such a game.

We are in good faith trying to operate in a system that is inherently unjust.

Corporate lobbyists have overrun the capitol, as well as every branch of government, including the judiciary.

Corporations lord immense power over both people and process, when they should be servants to the people.  Legislation is sold to the highest bidder.  Workers, comprising some ninety percent of the populace, have no representation or protection against the industry predators that exploits them.

We are bound by rules that our rulers are not.  We cannot possibly compete in this system; much less create democratic freedoms and equality.  The system operates on monetary capital, not moral capital.  The system does not deserve our loyalty or our participation.  The time has come to create a new game with a level playing field.

Thinking that we can reform a system of economics and politics that is rotten to the core only serves the interest of wealth and power.  Reform can do no more than maintain the status quo; it will assure the continuation of the present system in which power and influence is concentrated in the hands of a few, at the expense of the many.

Let us finally have the courage to acknowledge that the root cause of virtually everything that ails America can trace its origins to capitalism in its various incarnations.  We have built our political and economic institutions upon a rotten foundation.  The system cannot long stand.  Under capitalism, the large majority will always be subservient to the small minority.

To call this form of plutocratic despotism a democracy is an insult to our intelligence. How can any nation declare itself free when the great majority of its people are wage slaves to plutocrats and corporations?  When they are cannon fodder for its powerful military?

If ever we are to have a chance at becoming a free and democratic society, rather than the permanent war economy we have become, capitalism must go.  Working class people must come to see capitalism as the enemy it is.  The way to democracy lies in putting the means of production into the hands of the workers themselves.  But first the economy must be pried lose from the fingers of the plutocrats and the corporatists who claim to own it.

Political freedom can only occur through economic emancipation. Power to the people means that those who produce should enjoy fully the fruits of their labor, not merely a small percentage of it.

George Bush and his minions are not an aberration.  They are the natural and expected fruit of capitalism run amok.

To illustrate this point, consider the difference between George Bush and John Kerry in the last presidential election was more a matter of semantics than of substance.  

Both men are the product of wealth and privilege; neither of them represents the great majority of the people, the working class. Neither do their cohorts in Congress, an increasing number of which are millionaires. The appearance of choice is only an illusion, designed to deceive and to paralyze.

History bears me out on my assertion that capitalism has never served the interest of ordinary working people.  It never will.  The sooner we understand this fact, the better.

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

December 13, 2004

OCCUPATION REPORT

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

An Iraqi man watches as U.S. Marines with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) search his house near Hit January 25, 2006. REUTERS/Bob Strong

[Fair is fair. Let’s bring 150,000 Iraqis over here to the USA. They can 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, have the absurd notion that it’s bad their country is occupied by a foreign military dictatorship, and consider it their patriotic duty to fight and kill the soldiers sent to grab 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? You’d want that in your home town, right?]

Bush’s Terrorists Murder Prominent Critic Of Occupation

Jan 28, 2006 Reuters

Gunmen shot dead a prominent Iraqi academic and political analyst in his car in a Baghdad street on Saturday, police said.

Abdul Razak al-Na’as, a familiar face on Al-Jazeera and Al- Arabiya Arabic satellite television channels, had just left his offices at Baghdad University’s College of Information in the center of the capital, police said.

Gunmen blocked his car with their own and then opened fire, killing him instantly.

The Sunni academic had often condemned the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and criticized the Kurdish- and Shi’ite-led government, saying it was unable to run the country.

The Iraqi Accordance Front, the biggest Sunni political grouping, said Na’as had “paid the price for his noble stances”.

“I hold the American forces and the Iraqi government responsible for protecting Iraqi academics and politicians,” Front spokesman Zafir al-Ani told Reuters.  [Wrong. They’re responsible for murdering them, not protecting them. Get real.]

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

So Much For That “Sovereignty” Bullshit:
Governor Of Basra Demands Release Of Police Arrested By Occupation Military Dictators

January 27, 2006 By BUSHRA JUHI & ABBAS FAYADH, Associated Press

The governor of the southern city of Basra threatened to stop dealing with British forces unless they release five Iraqis detained three days ago, including policemen suspected of links to local killings and kidnappings.

Basra Governor Mohammed al-Waeli called for a demonstration on Sunday outside the British consulate in downtown Basra to demand the release of the five men. They were among 14 Iraqis with links to police services detained Tuesday. The other nine have been freed.

Basra’s provincial council and all government offices will suspend all kinds of dealings with the forces at all levels if they don’t release the detainees, Mr. al-Waeli told the Associated Press.

Occupation Lt. Says Cops Kill Flying Woman

01/27/06 AP

An Iraqi woman was shot dead in western Baghdad’s Baiyaa district by policemen firing into the air while trying to clear blocked traffic, police Lt. Aqil Fadil said.

OCCUPATION PALESTINE

“Even A Three-Year-Old, Needs To Be Killed”

Who the Palestinians choose to represent them is entirely their affair.  If the violations suffered by the Palestinian people had been heaped upon us, we hope we would show a fraction of the courage shown in Gaza and Jenin.

From: Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign
To: GI Special
Sent: January 28, 2006 2:57 PM

The crimes of Western governments are sowing dragon’s teeth in the whole Arab world.

It is impertinent of Western governments and pundits to criticise the democratic decision by the people of Palestine to evict the governing party and replace it with Hamas.

Those same powers who have financed and suppported Israel as it dismembered the living body of Palestine, should recall the bitter words of the great German poet Brecht, hurled at another violent and unjust regime faced with revolt, that “it would be easier / To dissolve the people / And elect another.” 

The West refuses to concede ‘Palestine ‘s right to exist’ in secure borders: Israel eats away at what is left of Palestine daily.  For Israel and Tony Blair, Arabs do not merit the same rights as Israel.

The Hamas victory is directly related to Western governments’ contempt for international law, for example in violating the ruling of the International Court that Israel’s vast ghetto-building project in Occupied Palestine, known as the Wall, must be dismantled. The British government works to undermine the ruling of the Court, which ruled that every government adhering to the World Court must act to bring about the dismantling of this ghetto system, the “Wall”.

The West also refuses to countenance a nuclear-free or WMD-free Middle East, insisting on Israel having massive arsenals of H-bombs and other WMDs.  

Hamas has not invaded any foreign countries or killed tens of thousands of civilians. Israel has.  It begs the question, who has the right to call whom a terrorist!

The Palestinian popular will has emerged as a roar of defiance, even under the guns of their tormentors, and with millions scattered voteless around the world by Israel ‘s past ethnic cleansings.  These people will not be “dissolved,” as the Zionist project envisages; they are continuing to resist in the face of overwhelming odds, against the complicity of Western and Arab goverments in Israel ‘s ongoing ethnic cleansing. Palestinians have shown that they are not a people to be despised, nor pitied, nor to be violated.  Bush and Blair and their allies are sowing dragon’s teeth.

Only somone lost to all human decency can fail to be inspired by a people in mortal danger every day of their lives, who are living through yet another nakba (catastrophe,) yet who refuse to kiss the whip of their racist occupiers and discover yet again fresh reserves of ability to resist.

Only one unable to remember the history of last week could forget that the Israelis have always refused to negotiate with the natives they found and despised and violated, treating them as merely another dark-skinned people, far below the level of European whites.  The Zionists always refused to negotiate with Arafat, or, which is exactly the same thing, agreed to negotiate interminably as long as they could steal land and water and deepen the hold of their apartheid system during every day that the “negotiations” charade went on.

Every corrupt Arab government is weakened by such courage in the face of the local superpower: unpredictable emotions and fresh dreams of escape from their own debased conditions are even now flowing from Palestine to millions of Arabs groaning under their own police regimes.

Those police who do the bidding of their pro-American princes and monarch-presidents may soon begin to be unreliable when they see the people of Palestine defy overwhelming naked power. They can see: they have Al Jazeera while we are fed state-acceptable versions of reality by the bulk of the British media.

They can see that Israeli killings of children and adults continues almost daily. A nine-year old girl, Aya-Al Astal, was shot dead by Israeli snipers yesterday, possibly friends of the same child-killing Israeli captain who killed Iman Al Hams, a terrified 13-year old the soldiers thought was ten.  Captain R’s words were played on Israeli TV saying that “even a three-year-old, needs to be killed”.

Walled up in ghettoes, killed like dogs by an illegal 38-year old Israeli occupation, the indomitable people of Palestine have shown a brutal soldiery and ruthless generals that they are still determined to resist their dehumanisation. 

Who the Palestinians choose to represent them is entirely their affair.

If the violations suffered by the Palestinian people had been heaped upon us, we hope we would show a fraction of the courage shown in Gaza and Jenin.

Our task remains the same; to deliver solidarity by building a movement of boycott, disinvestment and sanctions against Israel until it is forced to end the illegal occupation, and treat Arabs as full human beings.

Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign
c/o Peace & Justice Centre
2 Princes Street
Edinburgh EH2 4BJ
0131-620-0052 / 0780

“Maybe Our Democracy Has A Not Much Welcomed Face To The Westerners”

27 January 2006 by Alix Van Buren, La Repubblica (Italy). Interview with Khaled Meshal, Supreme Leader of Hamas

Mr. Khaled Meshal, what does victory taste like?

“You should ask that to the Americans and Israelis, judging by their dismay before the outcome of the elections.  Washington invokes democracy.  Well, the constituency expressed their vote.  Maybe our democracy has a not much welcomed face to the westerners: however, this is a great day for our nation.”

“Hammas Reply To Bush Saying They Are Terrorist”

From: JM
To: GI Specialo
Sent: January 26, 2006
Subject: Hammas reply to Bush saying they are terrorist

Below is the Hammas reply to being told they must renounce terror.  I have already pointed out that the violence in the previous months didn’t come from them.  Fatah has been responsible for a lot of it but those Bush likes escape media attention.  Abbas was the man Sharon and Bush wanted for president so his followers couldn’t be depicted as violent and corrupt.  This statement is wonderful and could bring peace if it succeeds in curbing the Israeli violence and murder.  It’s taken from this mornings Guardian.  Cheers J.

“Hamas has said its year-long ceasefire demonstrates that it is committed to the political path. But last night, Dr Zahar said his organisation reserved the “right to resist” Israeli attacks on its activists and Palestinian territory.

“We are under occupation. The Israelis continue aggression against our people: killing, detentions, demolitions. In order to stop this, we are entitled to self-defence by all means including using guns. If the Israelis stop their aggression, we will be committed to the quiet,” he said.”

Fourteen Of Newly Elected Palestinian MPs Are In Israeli Prisons

27 January 2006 FOCUS News Agency

Jerusalem. Fourteen of the newly elected members of the Palestinian Parliament will not be able to take part in the first parliamentary session because they are in Israeli prisons, Jerusalem Post reads today.

One of the new MPs is in a Palestinian prison.  The newspaper cites information circulated by protection of prisoners’ rights specialized organization.

According to Jerusalem Post out of 9,000 Palestinians who are in Israeli prisons 31 have put forward their candidatures in the elections.

[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

D.C. SATANIC CULT IN CONTROL:
“The marines that I have had wounded over the past five months have been attacked by a faceless enemy. But the enemy has got a face.  He’s called Satan.” US Marine Colonel Gareth Brandl

George W. Bush, Whited Sepulture, Limb Of Satan, and the Representative On Earth of the Unclean One, meets with acolytes to pray that His will be done on Earth as it is in Hell.  After a brief ceremony, they adjoured to the White House dining room to feast on the souls of the righteous and plan exciting new torments for U.S. troops and Iraqis.  (www.truthdig.com)

CHENEY DENIES KNOWING BUSH
Veep Putting Distance Between Himself And Embattled President

January 26, 2006 The Borowitz Report

Days after photos surfaced showing President George W. Bush together with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Vice President Dick Cheney attempted to put some distance between himself and the embattled president, telling reporters that he and Mr. Bush had never met.

“I do not know this person you call George W. Bush,” Mr. Cheney flatly stated at a press conference in Washington today.

Mr. Cheney explained that because he spent most of his time at his secure, undisclosed location, his path had simply never crossed with that of Mr. Bush.

The vice president’s claim that he did not know the president strained the credulity of the White House press corps, many of whom could recall seeing the two men together at one time or another.

But President Bush, aiming to put some distance between himself and the vice president because of Mr. Cheney’s possible implication in the CIA leak case, spoke to reporters later in the day and sounded the same notes that Mr. Cheney had earlier.

“Dick Cheney. sounds familiar, but doesn’t ring a bell,” he said.

At the president’s press conference, however, one reporter held up a file containing over 40,000 photos of Mr. Bush with Mr. Cheney and asked the president for an explanation.

“Trick photography?” the president said.

The day ended with a press briefing by White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who denied knowing either Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney.

Elsewhere, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld denied that the U.S. military was stretched thin and near the snapping point, but acknowledged that that was true of him.

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

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