GI SPECIAL 4C23

“This Is A Scar That Will Never Heal”

From: AM
To: GI Special
Sent: 3.24.06

I was Googling my nephew and stumbled upon your website: I was curious to see what the original article was about Charlie.

We are absolutely crushed about Charlie’s death.

My brother is Charlie’s father: neither of us voted for George Bush or supported this war.

We find it nightmarish and ironic that the only boy in our family was killed by the war and the incompetence and greed that drove it. Let your readers and everyone else know that elections do matter, and George Bush and his administration proved lethal for our family.

This is a scar that will never heal.

Sincerely,
AM

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Kentucky National Guardsman Dies

Mar 26, 2006 (AP)

A Kentucky National Guard soldier has been killed in Iraq, guard officials said Friday.

Thirty-year-old staff sergeant Brock A. Beery, of White House, Tenn., died Thursday when his armored vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device near Al Habbaniyah, west of Fallujah.

Beery was a member of the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 123rd Armor based in Bowling Green.

Beery is the ninth Kentucky National Guardsman to die in the Iraq war since it began three years ago. Staff Sgt. William A. Allers III, who died in October, was the last member of the Kentucky National Guard killed in the war.

He is survived by his wife, Sara, and seven-year-old daughter.

Three Mercenaries Wounded In Baghdad

Mar 26 2006 icWales

Three security contractors were seriously wounded in a roadside bomb explosion in north Baghdad.

Great Moments In U.S. Military History:
Occupation Troops Massacre Sadr Followers At Mustafa Mosque:
20 Reported Dead, So Far

[Thanks to Z, who writes: Ishikawa and Kuroshima would understand: insert troops into a hell on earth and there’s no way to prevent atrocities. Yet the real fiends in their capital suites are never spattered with a single drop of blood. Solidarity, Z]

26 March 2006 BBC

At least 18 Iraqis have died in clashes between US troops and militants loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr at a Baghdad mosque, Iraqi sources report.

The US military said it was investigating the reports, which came from Iraqi police, medical sources and Mr Sadr’s aides.

A militant spokesman said those killed were worshipping at the time.

In Baghdad, an aide to Mr Sadr accused the US of killing unarmed people at the mosque.

“The American forces went into Mustafa mosque at prayers and killed more than 20 worshippers,” Hazim al-Araji told Reuters news agency, citing a larger death toll than the 18 counted by medical sources.

AFP news agency said residents close to the scene reported hearing gunfire and ambulances, while black-clad members of Mr Sadr’s Mehdi Army could be seen in the streets.

Idiot General Lynch Doesn’t List Diyala As A Violent Province As
Resistance Launching Attacks In Force There

03.24.2006 By VANESSA ARRINGTON, Associated Press

In a rundown of recent military activity, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the U.S. military spokesman, told reporters Thursday that most Iraqi violence was focused in three central provinces, including Baghdad.

“There is not widespread violence across Iraq. There is not. Seventy-five percent of the attacks still take place in Baghdad, al-Anbar or Salaheddin (provinces). And in the other 15 provinces, they all averaged less than six attacks a day, and 12 of those provinces averaged less than two attacks a day.”

He said attacks nationwide were averaging 75 a day, a level that has been generally sustained since last August.

The three provinces he cited, however, are home to about 9 million people, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Planning and Development – a third of the country’s population of 27 million.

Lynch’s list omitted Diyala province, which stretches north and east of Baghdad to the Iranian border and is home to nearly 1.5 million people. It was the scene Tuesday of the first of the series of attacks on police facilities, when 100 insurgents stormed a jail and freed 33 prisoners, 18 of them their own men captured two days earlier.

That attack killed 20 police and wrecked the jail, police station and courthouse in Muqdadiyah, 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. Ten insurgents were killed.

[Ok, so now we know how the liars in command look at the world. With the head firmly implanted up the ass.]

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)

TROOP NEWS

“Walkin’ To New Orleans”

Iraq Veterans Against the War [Photo by Audrey Mantey]
Veterans and Survivors march from Mobile to New Orleans
[homepage.mac.com/union_county_labor/Veterans_for_Peace/PhotoAlbum126.html]

From www.bringthemhomenow.org [Check it out] [Excerpts]

When one thinks of the antiwar movement Prichard, AL is not the first place that comes to mind. But that is exactly where the Veterans’ and Survivors’ March to New Orleans is kicking off.

I arrived in New Orleans in the afternoon of March 13th and drove through the ravaged gulf coast to Prichard.

The extent of the damage along Interstate 10 was unbelievable and the lack of reconstruction was astonishing. For several miles at a time rows of homes could be seen with ripped open roofs and smashed windows.

It seemed as if the area was abandoned and from what I hear local residents saying it was indeed. FEMA has been slow to respond to this disaster and six months after Katrina stuck it is difficult to see if anything at all has been done to restore the people of this area back to their communities.

When I arrived in Prichard a press conference was underway. Afterward members of the media conducted individual interviews with veterans and survivors.

As more marchers arrived there were hugs all around with Vietnam vets coming up to Iraq vets with greetings and praise.

Local Alabamans and relief workers mingled with veterans and family members smiling and hugging people they had just met.

The vibe here is incredible!!! I feel like this is going to be an historic event.

My heart is full with joy when I think about how far people came for this to show their solidarity with the people of the Gulf Coast and our service members overseas.

Bring the troops home now!!! Rebuild the Gulf Coast!!!

Jose Vasquez
Iraq Veterans Against the War
13 march 2006

********************************************

This is a red state!
You are going to get lynched!
Don’t go into the deep south!

These are the things that the lethargic pessimists said of this march but as we walk the love and support are overwhelming.

This is now at least a purple state if not a full blue state as the honks and peace signs shower us along.

I have to say that there are the middle fingers still every so often but not the hate I was expecting. These people are living off of nothing but love and it has overwhelmed and is helping to heel the wounded souls of the Iraq War vets. As I now prepare to eat some real Cajon gumbo I am revitalized to get into New Orleans with the new hope that the people can and will end the war and rebuild the gulf coast no matter what obstacles the government of the united states puts in our way!

Geoffrey Millard
Iraq Veterans Against the War
17 mar 2006

***************************************

The Green zone in Baghdad is the area where the coalition forces are “safe.”

Here in New Orleans there is no Green zone.

Here as we walked in, we entered the Baghdad of this war zone.

This war zone is just as much so as it is in Iraq and here too the war is a human cost more than anything else.

Here too the crime of it all is that this was preventable. All those who have been lost in Iraq and along the Gulf Coast have been needlessly lost.

There are cars here that look like a bomb dropped on them; there are houses that look like they have been mortared.

This place is a war casualty because the funds that could have prevented all of this have been used in Iraq.

New Orleans is the Baghdad of this war with its overwhelming devastation. Its comparisons are also there when it comes to the media as Baghdad and New Orleans may get the media attention but the entire area is hurt by these wars.

Iraq is being destroyed while the Gulf Coast is lying in its own death.

The look on the eyes here are the same as the eyes of Iraqis who have seen the horrors of war.

Americans cannot see this and cannot know they must do something, which is why the American people, not the government, are doing all the rebuilding. Save Our Self is as we speak doing the work that our government says cannot be done. As my boots leave this place tomorrow I will never again place them on my feet. My combat boots will be retired and set aside as a reminder of the two wars they saw the war in the Persian Gulf and the war in the Gulf Coast.

Geoffrey Millard
Iraq Veterans Against the War
18 Mar 2006

*************************************************

Where do I start? The raw sewage a few blocks away smells. We’re in a Vietnamese immigrant community and trash is piled into the middle of the street. Thirty years ago Vietnamese people were bombed and shot at by the military. Now, because the military is bombing and shooting in Iraq, Vietnamese in the US are getting F***** again.

Elsewhere immigrant workers from latin America are hired to rebuild. But they are not rebuilding. They clean up the streets and some debris but there’s no rebuilding.

That’s bad. It gets worse.

The workers have to pay for their 20 meters of land and a tent on the work camps.

It gets worse.

They get paid in company coupons. Regular stores don’t take coupons. Company stores do. Company stores have marked up prices.

Sometimes, in someplaces, when the work is done the company calls INS (homeland security these days). The workers get deported. The company keeps their pay. Money for contracts keeps flowing and Katrina survivors are fighting to keep their homes.

All this is very different from Iraq. KBR (haliburton) builds whole communities in days. But homes for poor people don’t keep the powerful in power and don’t make the rich richer. Oil does.

This is bigger than bush. It’s bigger than Cheney. It’s bigger than the democrats.

Iraq is only the latest in 200 years of wars for money.

The government is scared people will stop complaining and asking them to do things. I can’t wait for that day. We won’t complain, we won’t ask. We’ll just do what needs to be done. We’re far from that today. People are don’t care or are racist, sexist, or think they’re middle class when they’re not.

But it’s a long fight. And that’s ok because my anger is long too.

Fernando Braga
Iraq Veterans Against the War
19 March 2006

Garret Reppenhaggen, Iraq Veterans Against The War in Biloxi
Veterans and Survivors march from Mobile to New Orleans
[homepage.mac.com/union_county_labor/Veterans_for_Peace/PhotoAlbum126.html]

MORE:

Fallujah:
New Orleans:
Two Wastelands Brought To You By The Traitor Bush

March 23, 2006 By Mike Davis, The Nation [Excerpts]

A few blocks from the badly flooded and still-closed campus of Dillard University, a wind-bent street sign announces the intersection of Humanity and New Orleans. In the nighttime distance, the downtown skyscrapers on Poydras and Canal Streets are already ablaze with light, but a vast northern and eastern swath of the city, including the Gentilly neighborhood around Dillard, remains shrouded in darkness.

The lights have been out for six months now, and no one seems to know when, if ever, they will be turned back on.

In greater New Orleans about 125,000 homes remain damaged and unoccupied, a vast ghost city that rots in darkness while les bon temps return to a guilty strip of unflooded and mostly affluent neighborhoods near the river. Such a large portion of the black population is gone that some radio stations are now switching their formats from funk and rap to soft rock.

Mayor Ray Nagin likes to boast that “New Orleans is back,” pointing to the tourists who again prowl the French Quarter and the Tulane students who crowd Magazine Street bistros; but the current population of New Orleans on the west bank of the Mississippi is about the same as that of Disney World on a normal day.

More than 60 percent of Nagin’s constituents—including an estimated 80 percent of the African-Americans—are still scattered in exile with no obvious way home.

Meanwhile, Bush’s pledge to “get the work done quickly” and mount “one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen” has proved to be the same fool’s gold as his earlier guarantee to rebuild Iraq’s bombed-out infrastructure. Instead, the Administration has left the residents of neighborhoods like Gentilly in limbo: largely without jobs, emergency housing, flood protection, mortgage relief, small-business loans or a coordinated plan for reconstruction.

With each passing week of neglect—what Representative Barney Frank has labeled “a policy of ethnic cleansing by inaction”—the likelihood increases that most black Orleanians will never be able to return.

Peregrinacion Por La Paz:
2,500 Join Mexico To San Francisco March In Watsonville To Demand Peace And Justice

Photo by Jeff Paterson, Not in Our Name Mar. 25, 2006 [jeff@paterson.net]

March 25, 2006 IndyNews California

Watsonville, California: Over 2,500 Latino immigrants joined Gold Star Families for Peace member Fernando Suarez del Solar, and Iraq War resister Pablo Paredes for the 5 mile Watsonville leg of their 241 mile trek.

Along with chants for peace, many on the march were also moved to take a stand against the draconian anti-immigrant bill HR4437.

Along with “Out of Iraq” signs were hundreds of red United Farm Workers flags, a similar looking flags that read “paz” (peace).

For some marchers, they were nearing the 200-mile mark on a 241-mile march that started in Mexico and will end in San Francisco on Monday.

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

Army Spc. John Kulick is carried by Kulick’s colleagues from the Pennsylvania Army National Guard and the Fire Department during funeral services in Hatboro, Pa., Aug. 18, 2005. Kulick, who was a firefighter for the Whitpain Township Fire Department, was killed last week in Iraq along with four other Pennsylvania Army National Guardsmen. (AP Photo/Coke Whitworth)

Sgt. Says Troops Have The Right To Speak Up

[Thanks to Mark Levey for sending this in.]

March 25, 2006 Letters to the Editor, Stars and Stripes

I took the advice of the writer of “Contempt violates directive” (letter, March 20) and looked up the Department of Defense Directive 1344.10 to which he referred to in his argument that enlisted people could not express their views on politics.

Unfortunately for him, he failed to examine his own evidence.

In Paragraph 4.1.3., Enclosure 3 of the directive, Paragraph E3.2.6. expressly states that “a member on active duty may write a letter to the editor of a newspaper expressing the members personal views on public issues or political candidates, if such action is not part of an organized letter-writing campaign or a solicitation of votes for or against a political party or partisan cause or candidate.”

The second reference referred to Title 10 U.S. Code Section 888. The section states “any commissioned officer” … not enlisted members … “who uses contemptuous words.”

Tech. Sgt. Benjamin Kratzer
Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany

“I’m Glad I Departed The Military Before George W. Bush Took Office”

[Thanks to Mark Levey for sending this in.]

March 25, 2006 Letters to the Editor, Stars and Stripes

Re: Maj. Jeff Thornton’s March 17 letter “Where are the facts?,” George W. Bush’s own military records and history shows him to be unfit for the title of commander in chief.

That Mr. Bush “allowed himself” to be placed in front of many others in line for a slot in a Texas Air National Guard unit should have been enough to keep him out of the White House.

Let’s not concern ourselves with the fact that he did not complete his own military obligation. By right, he should have been placed on active duty after missing the number of meetings he missed.

But, for something a little more recent: On Jan. 14, 2003, I heard Mr. Bush say on national television that he had not made up his mind about invading Iraq.

We all know now that that statement was a lie and many of us knew it then.

I’ll always remember that date, because the next day my son left home to begin basic training.

Mr. Bush has given many different reasons as to why he invaded Iraq.

He will not acknowledge he went into Afghanistan with too few troops, boots on the ground.

He is responsible for those of us not supporting the decision to go into Iraq being labeled “unpatriotic.”

He was directly responsible for the display of the banner reading “Mission Accomplished” on the ship. Mr. Bush was directly responsible for sending too few troops into Iraq and without the equipment needed to fight the war.

More recently Mr. Bush lied about not knowing that the damage from Hurricane Katrina would be as bad as it was.

Now what else would Maj. Thornton and those who think like he does about their beloved George W. Bush want to know?

I served in the military during five different administrations and never was I ashamed to call any of our presidents during that time my commander in chief.

I’m glad I departed the military before George W. Bush took office.

Sgt. 1st Class Bobby McGill (retired)
Valrico, Fla.

“Humble” Troops Meet Blinding Flash Of The Obvious

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

Globalsecurity.org [Excerpt]

Camp Taji

Housed in an unassuming concrete structure, the remnant of a prior regime, a small group of men humbly awaits their next mission. Their job requires strength, humility, teamwork and courage. They are the firefighters of Camp Taji. Assembled from the Puerto Rico National Guard’s 215th Engineering Detachment and Massachusetts-based Army Reserve units, the 287th and 356th Engineering Detachments, the 1st Cavalry Division fire-fighters on Camp Taji play a pivotal role as first responders to a variety of situations ranging from hazardous material clean-up to crash and rescue services.

In mid-September 2004, as part of an Army-wide effort to give its facilities around Baghdad friendlier connotations, and try to resolve the issue of constantly-changing facility names, Camp Cooke was renamed Camp Taji, with its Arabic translation “Camp Taji”.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Falluja Cops Go On Strike To Protest Murder By Collaborator Troops

March 24 By Fadel al-Badrani, (Reuters)

FALLUJA, Iraq

This week, the mostly Arab Sunni police staged a strike to protest what they said were abuses committed by Shi’ite Muslim soldiers. The police have returned to their posts, but the mistrust remains.

“The soldiers attacked a 17-year-old grocer and took him away to an area where he was found dead two hours later,” said a police major, who asked not to be named. He said the youth had been shot in the eye and his stomach ripped open.

“The army raided my shop a few days ago and they beat and kicked me,” said Alaa Majeed, a mobile telephone dealer. “They stole my money and the mobiles I had left. I closed my shop because I don’t want to be robbed again.”

Residents support the estimated 1,200 policemen mainly because they are Sunnis from Falluja, but they loathe the soldiers, who are Shi’ites from other towns and are seen as close to Iraq’s former war foe, Shi’ite neighbour Iran.

Residents say Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, is still recovering from the 2004 U.S. air strikes, artillery and tank fire that left most of the city in ruins.

Insurgents have crept back. [Translation: multiple press reports of armed attacks on U.S. and collaborator troops over the past six months, complete with photographs of resistance soldiers walking around the streets fully armed, indicate that the resistance in Falluja was never eliminated.]

Aside from renewed violence, residents complain of sporadic electricity, poor water supplies and slow reconstruction.

But one of their biggest problem appears to be the Iraqi forces charged with protecting [translation: charged with enforcing the U.S. occupation on] them.

“As long as Iraqi army troops are in our city we will never see any security or feel any relief. Most attacks are carried out by them because they do not want to see any stability here,” said Fahd Saadoun, 30, a teacher.

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

GET THE MESSAGE?

Iraqi soldiers protect Iraqis shouting anti American slogans, during a protest march after Friday prayers, in Baghdad March 24, 2006. (AP Photo/ Karim Kadim

Assorted Resistance Action

Mar 26, 2006 By DPA & By SINAN SALAHEDDIN (AP) & icWales & (Reuters)

Four Iraqi policemen, including an officer, were wounded in blast targeting their patrol and an American patrol was targeted by an explosive-laden car near the Technology University in eastern Baghdad.

Security guards for the Iraqi finance minister were attacked while driving in western Baghdad before they had picked up the minister. One guard was killed, and a bystander wounded, police said.

Several guerrillas killed a policeman and his cousin as they walked in an area 15 miles north of Baquoba

Police Lt. Col. Ahmed Fadhil was being treated for multiple gunshot wounds after being attacked on his way to work, police said.

Guerrillas killed two policemen in Wajihiya, northeast of Baghdad, police said. Three guards of the mayor of Wajihiya were wounded by a roadside bomb as they headed to the scene of the attack, police added.

Security guards for the Baqouba mayor were wounded in a bomb attack on their way to pick up the mayor.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“Soldiers, Brothers!”
“Stop Obeying Orders”

[Thanks to Z, who sent this in.]

The novel: Militarized Streets, banned by the Japanese imperial government in 1930, censored by US occupation authorities in 1945.

Fully translated from the Japanese in A Flock of Swirling Crows & Other Proletarian Writings, University of Hawaii Press, 2005.

***********************************************

The scene: a Japanese factory in Tsinan (Jinan), China

Time: spring 1928, during a Japanese military intervention

Author: Kuroshima (1898-1943), a former soldier, lifelong antimilitarist and anti-imperialist

Militarized Streets [From Chapter 21]

There was a disorderly profusion of knapsacks, blankets, tents, and overcoats. Empty cans swarmed with cigarette butts like maggots. The workers’ smell of garlic and spring onions, mingled with the soldiers’ smell of sweat and leather, seemed to adhere to the thick and heavy walls of the dormitory.

Walking on tiptoe, he moved toward the eastern entrance through which acacias were visible. His feet rustled against something scattered on the floor. He saw that they were leaflets.

Startled, he looked around again carefully. Pieces of paper were inserted into the creases of similarly folded overcoats, blankets, and tents. Some were entirely hidden within the creases while others showed their edges like tongues. He took one and looked at it.

Those were the leaflets that were feared like scorpions.

“Well, well!” Kantar™ marveled that such leaflets were smuggled in unobserved past a most stringently guarded boundary.

He read the following words:

***************************************************************

Japanese Soldiers, Brothers!

Japan’s imperialistic bourgeoisie has rushed you to the province of Shantung, armed with rifles and cannons. And so the military partition of China has already begun.

Have you really come to protect the lives of the Japanese residents? Have you really come to protect the residents’ property? No!

Absolutely not! Look for yourselves: you are actually protecting neither the lives nor the property of the impoverished residents scattered along the waterfront.

You are only protecting factories, banks, and hospitals. And who owns the factories, banks, and hospitals?

Brothers! You who have been workers and farmers! You must not be misled by words about protecting lives and property, or respecting the flag.

In the farming villages and factories of Japan you were exploited by the capitalists and landlords, and in China they are trying to make you risk your lives in fighting a bloody war for the benefit of the imperialistic bourgeoisie.

Who will pay the huge cost of the intervention? Every cigarette you smoke, every packet of sugar you consume, every pair of underpants you buy is indirectly charged to you without fail and paid for by your taxes.

Having drowned the national revolutionary movement of China’s workers and peasants in blood, the imperialist powers are trying to shift from intervention to land grabbing. Utilizing its advantageous strategic position in order to be the first among the land-grabbers, imperialist Japan has dispatched you to this province.

Japan is attempting to turn Shantung into an enslaved colony as it has done with Manchuria. Have you obtained even a penny of profit from the South Manchurian Railway Company or the Fushun Coal Mine? Have your lives been made the slightest bit easier by the South Manchurian Railway Company or the Fushun Coal Mine?

Manchuria is only making big capitalists and big landowners still larger. The big fat capitalists are buying out class traitors like Suzuki Bunji and Matsuoka Komakichi to make exploiting you even easier — impoverishing your wives and children until they go hungry, and consolidating a reactionary stronghold that will strangle you too.

To crush China for the sake of partitioning it — that is the imperialists’ policy. The imperialists have already realized the first phase of their hateful plan through the combined military intervention against the national revolution. The military occupation of Shantung marks the opening of the second phase of this plan. There is abundant possibility that an imperialist war may break out over colonial repartitioning.

Think, brothers! Tanaka, the general and despot who is sending you to Shantung, is your worst class enemy! He is exploiting and trampling Japan’s workers and farmers. He is imprisoning your brothers and fathers, and mistreating your wives, children, and mothers.

Japanese soldiers, brothers! Stop obeying orders to invade Shantung! Stop brandishing bayonets against the people of China! Join hands with the Chinese workers, peasants, and soldiers, and spare no sacrifice to attain an unbreakable union of revolutionary solidarity. Let us cut through the counterrevolutionary front from both sides.

Combine forces with China’s workers, peasants, and soldiers, for the sake of defending the Chinese revolution!

*****************************************************************

“Hey, hey, what’s this? This was stuck in my jacket.”

Returning from duty, the soldiers noticed the strange pieces of paper. One such leaflet caught the noodle-maker Tamada’s eye too, as he unwound his leggings and approached his knapsack. Nasu picked up a slip of paper too.

“Hey, we have to report this.”

“Wait, wait! Can you report something if you don’t know what it is?!”

Takatori’s authoritative voice stopped the training institute graduates.

Evening had come. In the dim dormitory they began reading the leaflets. When they had finished, they looked at each other. Then, hiding their faces in the shadows, they stealthily smiled.

“This is quite something… There are some pretty interesting people around.”

“Huh, this is the Chinks’ work.”

“Nothing special. Even I know this much!” The taciturn Nasu was intently rereading the leaflet.

“‘Spare no sacrifice to attain an unbreakable union of revolutionary solidarity.’” Takatori reread the closing section aloud. “‘Let us cut through the counterrevolutionary front from both sides. Combine forces with China’s workers, peasants, and soldiers, for the sake of defending the Chinese revolution!’

“That’s right, that’s absolutely right!”

In no time, the dormitory and the factory were thrown into an uproar.

The soldiers were made to stand at attention where they were. The manager, the staff, the company commander, Lieutenant Shigefuji, and the special duty sergeant major all ran around in consternation. Pockets were searched, faces were slapped. Mats, blankets, knapsacks, and personal belongings were all turned upside down.

The source of the smuggled leaflets was investigated rigorously. The two hundred and fifty or so workers were stripped naked one by one. Even women workers were stripped to the skin. Suspected workers were bound to pillars, like Christ himself.

The workers’ dirty flat-bottomed shoes repeatedly and painfully kicked against the air. The leaflets might as well have been smuggled in by the legendary ninja Sarutobi Sasuke. However thoroughly they searched, they never found out who had done it.

The soldiers’ battered cheeks were still smarting. Takatori, always a prime suspect in cases like this, had bumps on his head like horns. They cleaned up the mess and went to sleep.

Despite the thrashing, inwardly they were amused. Seized with an unbearable desire to laugh, they found it impossible to fall asleep.

No sooner did one fit of laughter subside than someone else would helplessly burst out laughing. “Pf-f-f-f!… Let us cut through the counterrevolutionary front from both sides!”

They were delighted to see the superiors run about in confusion with their masks off, delighted that the perpetrator was never found, and that it was none of them.

Takatori had pulled the blanket over his head and repeatedly tried to fall asleep. But he was soon distracted by someone’s words or by childlike laughter ringing out through the cave-like quarters.

“The Enemies Are Those Higher-Ups That Make The Soldiers Fight In The First Place”

In 1917, French soldiers had a widespread but sadly unsuccessful mass mutiny, and in Russia the soldiers revolted and refused to fight any longer in the imperialist war. And in 1918, German sailors rebelled and participated in the German revolution that led to the end of the war.

March 24, 2006, Film Review by Donny Schraffenberger, Socialist Worker

Joyeux No‘l (Merry Christmas), directed by Christian Carion, starring Diane Kruger and Benno Fürmann. French with subtitles.

JOYEUX NOèL tells the incredible story of the 1914 Christmas truce on the Western Front during the First World War.

In August 1914, the major European powers of Britain, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany began what would become one of the deadliest wars in history. Within a few months, hundreds of thousands of soldiers had been killed.

On the Western Front, the German offensive was stopped outside of Paris in September, and by December, the infamous trenches of World War One extended from Switzerland to the English Channel.

Joyeux No‘l (”Merry Christmas” in French) was nominated this year for an Oscar for best foreign language film.

The beginning of the film portrays school kids from the warring countries reciting jingoistic passages, implying that the support of war must be taught and is not inherent in human nature.

Also, we get a quick overview of some of the main characters’ civilian lives at the outbreak of war, for most of the soldiers were reservists and later on drafted troops. The movie has a hellish scene of a Scottish and French attack on a German trench, with scores of dead and wounded men littered across no man’s land.

By December, most soldiers on all sides have become weary of the conflict. A French soldier longs to have coffee with his mother, who lives a few miles down the road in German-occupied France.

A German officer recalls his honeymoon in Paris with his French wife. Soldiers miss their families, and their civilian lives.

Joyeux No‘l contrasts the soldiers’ humanity against the Scottish, French and German generals’ cold-hearted militarism. The movie doesn’t take sides on which country’s soldiers were the “good guys” and the “bad guys”—rather the enemies are those higher-ups that make the soldiers fight in the first place.

During that first Christmas of the war, a truce actually happened among the warring sides on sections of the Western Front. Soldiers stopped killing each other, exchanged food and drink, and played cards and soccer. They sang familiar songs and recalled their stays in each other’s countries.

In the movie, this fraternization helps break down their dehumanization of each other, so much so that the soldiers become concerned for one another’s safety.

When the top brass on all the sides find out of this affair, they break up or move the soldiers to different locations, for fear that this comradely attitude could spread throughout the front. [Which is exactly how to spread the attitude throughout the front. Duh.]

Although Joyeux No‘l only depicts the Christmas truce of 1914, eventually the rebellions that the generals fear did take place.

These well-grounded fears of fraternization, and the need to squash it, are illustrated in the movie when a high-ranking church official sanctimoniously orders Scottish troops to kill Germans because it is God’s will. Likewise, a French and German general are upset and punish “their” soldiers for taking part in the unofficial truce.

Overall, Joyeux No‘l pulls at your heartstrings. At times, the movie is somewhat over the top in its sentimentality but makes up for this shortfall with its antiwar message. No, it isn’t a classic like Lewis Milestone’s 1930 film All Quiet on the Western Front, Jean Renoir’s 1937 Grand Illusion or Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 Paths of Glory—films all dealing with the horror of the First World War.

Nevertheless, in this time of war when the U.S. government and the media portray Arabs and Muslims as barbaric terrorists, it’s good to have a movie that shows the comradeship of the common soldiers contrasted against their barbaric Christian ruling-class generals.

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.

The Virus

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)

From: Richard Hastie
To: GI Special
Sent: March 26, 2006

Taken at anti-war rally in Portland, Oregon.

The Bush Virus is spreading across the globe faster than a sent e-mail.

Every area of American society will be contaminated by his ruthless values.

Mike Hastie
Vietnam Veteran

Self Defense 101:
“Never, Never Talk To The FBI Without A Lawyer”

March 24, 2006 David Florey interviews MICHAEL RATNER, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York City. [Excerpt]

DF: WHAT SHOULD activists know in order to protect themselves from the government at demonstrations or in our day-to-day activities, that kind of thing?

MR: YOU SHOULD always bring identification and have the name of a lawyer. There’s a whole series of things.

Never, never talk to the FBI without a lawyer.

Even lawyers and activists will get called by the FBI, and they think they can outsmart them. If they knock on your door, never talk to the FBI without consulting a lawyer. It’s like eating potato chips: once you start, you can’t stop, and they’ll use you as an informant for the rest of your days.

The main thing, though, is you have to stay active.

People have to be demonstrating and not be intimidated and say, “I’m not doing anything that I should go to jail for.”

The biggest message from me right now is that this is a time in this country where protests should be everywhere—every college, every neighborhood. This is really a time when Martin Luther King would be calling for widespread civil disobedience around this country—around every issue from Iraq to torture to domestic surveillance.

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

OCCUPATION REPORT

2003: Sowing The Wind
2006: Reaping The Whirlwind

Soldiers with an arrested Iraqi citizen during a raid at Khaldiyah, Iraq June 16, 2003. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)

“In the States, if police burst into your house, kicking down doors and swearing at you, you would call your lawyer and file a lawsuit,” said Wood, 42, from Iowa, who did not accompany Halladay’s Charlie Company, from his battalion, on Thursday’s raid. “Here, there are no lawyers. Their resources are limited, so they plant IEDs (improvised explosive devices) instead.”

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

UFPJ [United To Fuck Peace And Justice] Leaders Betray Iraq Troops Again, And Again, And Again, As Usual

Murtha is no peacenik. He’s a Marine veteran and a leading recipient of campaign contributions from defense contractors. He’s emerged as the mouthpiece for sections of the Pentagon brass who oppose the Iraq war because it undermines the U.S. ability to fight other wars in the future.

That’s why it’s completely wrong—and politically damaging—for the antiwar coalition United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) to include Murtha’s proposed legislation on Iraq on a list of “antiwar” initiatives in Congress.

March 24, 2006, Editorial, Socialist Worker [Excerpt]

On no issue is the Democrats’ crisis more profound than Iraq, with the party unable to articulate any coherent position, much less join the majority of public opinion in opposing the war and calling for the U.S. to get out.

Some in the antiwar camp have endorsed the Democrats’ duck-Iraq approach as smart politics. “(A) call for withdrawal would be treated in the conservative punditocracy as the equivalent of a call to ‘cut and run,’ wrote Nation columnist Eric Alterman, “and hence would open the entire ‘weak on defense’ Pandora’s box that almost always dooms Democrats in national elections.”

In other words, the Democrats should be for ending the war later by continuing to support it now—never mind the estimated 100,000-plus Iraqi deaths, more than 2,000 U.S. soldiers killed and new revelations of torture by U.S. troops.

But the Democrats’ silence on the war is about more than cowardice and political calculation.

It reflects the fact that the Democrats accept the Republicans’ political framework—including using the September 11 attacks as an excuse to project U.S. imperialist power.

In fact, the Democrats’ most prominent critic of the war, Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, supports pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq not to abandon the Middle East, but to better secure Washington’s control over the region.

“You redeploy to the periphery so that we, if we have to, can go back in,” Murtha said March 19 on the NBC television Meet the Press. “Mr. President, let’s go back to fighting the war on terrorism,” Murtha continued. “Let’s reduce our presence in Iraq, let’s start to rebuild the Army, because the Army’s broken as far as I’m concerned. And the military commanders know this.”

Murtha is part of a bigger operation by the Democratic establishment to salvage—not dismantle—U.S. imperial power in the wake of the Iraq disaster. Thus, leading Democrats kept quiet when the White House recently updated the National Security Strategy document spelling out the “Bush doctrine” of pre-emptive warfare and citing Iran as a prime threat.

The document does, however, include bows to multilateral alliances—prompting a told-you-so response from Ivo Daalder, a National Security Council official in the Clinton administration. “In some notable ways, the new strategy document represents a return to the foreign policy of Bill Clinton,” wrote Daalder.

It’s a shared imperialist political consensus—not just a reluctance to take risks—that keeps the Democrats from clearly opposing Bush on Iraq.

Looking to the election of Democrats as a means to advance the antiwar movement—an approach advocated by leading figures in UFPJ—only undermines the effort to create an independent movement that is clear on what growing numbers say they want: U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

Rumsfeld Taken Prisoner:
Search For Bush Underway

(AP Photo/Maneul Balce Ceneta)

March 28, 2007: Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld surrenders to a combined strike force from the 3rd ID and the 82nd Airborne at the Pentagon, March 27, 2007.

The troops, who placed their officers under arrest last week and elected new ones, including members of the Iraq Veterans Against The War, moved into the nations’ capital unopposed yesterday, cheered by tens of thousands of Washington citizens, who threw flowers as the troops moved towards the Pentagon and White House.

An active search is under way for the traitor Bush, who is reported to be hiding in a spider hole near Rock Creek Park.

CLASS WAR REPORTS

“A Demonstration So Massive That Few Causes In Recent U.S. History Have Matched It”
“We’re Like The Ancestors Who Started This Country, They Came From Other Countries Without Documents, Too”

[Thanks to PB, who sent the photo in.]

25 March 2006 MSNBC

LOS ANGELES: They surprised the police, and maybe themselves, their T-shirts turning block after block of downtown Los Angeles streets white in a demonstration so massive that few causes in recent U.S. history have matched it.

Police said more than 500,000 people marched Saturday to protest a proposed federal crackdown on illegal immigration. Wearing white as a sign of peace, and waving flags from the U.S., Mexico, Guatemala and other countries, they came to show that illegal immigrants already are part of the American fabric, and want the chance to be legal, law-abiding citizens.

Police used helicopters to come up with the crowd estimate. “I’ve been on the force 38 years and I’ve never seen a rally this big,” said Cmdr. Louis Gray Jr., incident commander for the rally.

In Denver, more than 50,000 people protested downtown Saturday, according to police who had expected only a few thousand.

Phoenix was similarly surprised Friday when an estimated 20,000 people gathered for one of the biggest demonstrations in city history, and more than 10,000 marched in Milwaukee on Thursday.

The demonstrators oppose legislation passed by the U.S. House that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally. It also would impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants, require churches to check the legal status of parishioners before helping them and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border.

“I think it’s just inhumane. … Everybody deserves the right to a better life,” said Elger Aloy of Riverside, a 26-year-old premed student who was pushing his 8-month-old son in a stroller at the Los Angeles march.

Many protesters said lawmakers were unfairly targeting immigrants who provide a major labor pool for America’s economy.

“Enough is enough of the xenophobic movement,” said Norman Martinez, 63, who immigrated from Honduras as a child. “They are picking on the weakest link in society, which has built this country.”

Many of the demonstrators who weren’t immigrants said they had relatives who were.

“My mom came from Mexico, she had to cross the river, and thank God she did,” said David Gonzalez, 22, who held a sign saying, “I’m in my homeland.”’

Gonzalez rejected claims by advocates of the legislation that it would help protect the nation from terrorism, noting that it would hurt Hispanics the most.

“When did you ever see a Mexican blow up the World Trade Center?” he said. “Who do you think built the World Trade Center?”

Arvada resident Elsa Rodriguez, a pilot who came to Colorado in 1999 from Mexico to look for work, said she came to the Denver protest because she just wants to be considered equal.

“We’re like the ancestors who started this country, they came from other countries without documents, too,” said Rodriguez, 30. “They call us lazy and dirty, but we just want to come to work. If you see, we have families, too.”

Between 5,000 and 7,000 people gathered Saturday in Charlotte, N.C., carrying signs with slogans such as “Am I Not a Human Being?”

In Sacramento, more than 4,000 people protested immigration legislation at an annual march honoring the late farm labor leader Cesar Chavez.

About 200 people protested outside a town hall-style meeting held by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., a leading sponsor of the House bill.

Since Thursday tens of thousands of people have joined in rallies in cities including Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Atlanta, and staged school walkouts, marches and work stoppages.

The demonstrations are expected to culminate April 10 in a “National Day of Action” organized by labor, immigration, civil rights and religious groups.

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

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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