GI SPECIAL 4D5

“President Bush Misguided My Son To His Death”

4000 March In Atlanta: April 2, 2006 Photo: pkbarbiedoll

From: Mary Ann MacCombie
To: GI Special
Sent: April 02, 2006 10:58 PM

Attached is a copy of the presentation I made at the march/rally at yesterday’s demonstration in Atlanta, Georgia which an estimated 4,000 protesters attended.

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

My son, Sgt Ryan Montgomery Campbell, died while supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom just south of Baghdad almost two years ago, April 29, 2004. He and 7 other members of his battery were targeted and killed by the driver of a vehicle bearing an improvised explosive device.

A day has not gone by that I have not cried for my son. He was my child and my dear friend. I miss him so much.

And hardly a day has gone by that I have not blamed President Bush for my son’s death. I am so angry with Bush for deceiving us, the world, and especially for deceiving my son and his fellow troops.

My son arrived in Iraq in April 2003 believing that he would be confronting a well-trained, well-organized military resistance, believing we invaded because Saddam had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction, believing that Osama bin Laden was hiding out in Iraq, believing it would be a one-year tour of duty at the most and probably would be much less to complete the overall mission.

Misinformation at best. Very little military resistance, no weapons of mass destruction, no connection between Osama and Iraq and a tour of duty suddenly extended indefinitely.

Ryan was killed in the 13th month of his tour of duty, having launched mortars against the enemy exactly once during those many months in Iraq. At the time of his death, he was on an infantry mission. He never volunteered to serve in the infantry. He was field artillery. If he had wanted to spend his time on security patrols, he would have signed up to serve in the infantry.

He was well trained in field artillery both as a member of the army national guard and as a volunteer in the regular Army.

But, instead of firing cannons, my son became cannon fodder for the Bush war machine.

My son arrived in Iraq in the spring of 2003 with his vaccinations and his government-issue gas mask, presumably equipped to defend himself against weapons of mass destruction.

He died in the spring of 2004, with no way to defend himself against Bush’s weapons of mass deception.

We cannot bring my son back. He rests in Arlington National Cemetery.

We can support our troops. We can support our veterans. We can hold President Bush accountable. We can hold accountable every official we have elected or will elect to public office.

When he was a child, my son and I cross-stitched a wall hanging with a line from this quotation by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.” (Strength in Love (1963), Ch. 7)

When he was a soldier, my son learned Dr. King’s lesson well.

President Bush misguided my son to his death.

Atlanta: Iraq Veterans March Against The War

[Thanks to D for sending in the photo.]

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

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Marine Killed In Anbar

Marine Cpl. Brian St. Germain died April 2, 2006, in an accident in Al Anbar Province while serving his second tour of duty in Iraq. (AP Photo/St. Germain family )

New England Soldiers Killed Overseas

April 4, 2006 The Boston Channel.

BOSTON — Two Marines with New England ties have been killed in Iraq, officials announced Tuesday, one day after a Saugus Marine killed overseas was identified.

NewsCenter 5's Liz Brunner reported that the two Marines were killed when the truck they were in rolled over during a flash flood in Iraq’s Al Anbar Province on Sunday.

The family of 27-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Patrick J Gallagher said they were notified of his death on Monday. Gallagher, of Fairhaven, was married with a 2-year-old son. He worked as a heavy equipment operator.

Marine Cpl. Brian St. Germain, 22, of West Warwick, R.I., was also killed. St. Germain was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. He was working as a heavy equipment mechanic in the Marine Corps.

His death is the third Rhode Island military casualty in the last nine months.

On Tuesday, the family of Cpl. Scott Procopio, 20, said that he was killed in Iraq. Procopio was about two years into a four-year duty with the Marines when he was killed Sunday morning.

Procopio was a 2003 graduate of Saugus High School.

Clint, Texas Mourns Loss of Soldier Killed in Iraq

April 4, 2006 KTSM

Twenty-two year old Israel Devora was killed Saturday during his second tour of duty in Iraq.

Devora was a 2001 graduate of Clint High School. Teachers and staff at the school are reeling from the news of Devora’s death.

During his last visit home, Devora stopped by the campus to talk to his old teachers and students in the Junior ROTC program at Clint High.

Most of the teachers thought Devora was safe since he had finished his tour of duty. What they did not know is that he had decided to sign up for a second tour.

Marine From West Warwick Killed

April 4, 2006 By Eric Tucker, Associated Press

PROVIDENCE, R.I.: A 22-year-old Marine from West Warwick was killed in Iraq when the truck he was in rolled over during a flash flood.

Marine Cpl. Brian St. Germain died Sunday in an accident in Al Anbar Province while serving his second tour of duty in Iraq, the governor’s office said Tuesday.

St. Germain graduated from West Warwick High School in 2001. He was described as a hardworking honors student who was an all-state hurdler on the school’s track and field team.

“His junior year, they had one of the best track teams ever in West Warwick, and he was a star on that,” said William Izzi, the high school’s guidance department chair and one of St. Germain’s track coaches.

Izzi called St. Germain a “wonderful boy from a wonderful family.”

St. Germain was working in the Marine Corps as a heavy equipment mechanic and a martial arts instructor, according to a Web site for car enthusiasts, j-body.org.

On the Web site, he lists his hobbies and interests as “working on my truck, 4-wheeling and shooting stuff.” He also said he was involved in a long-term relationship.

St. Germain belonged to the 1st Marine Logistics Group, 1st Marine Expeditionary Group in Camp Pendleton, Calif. He was promoted to corporal during his first tour in Iraq, according to the governor’s office.

At least two other soldiers with ties to Rhode Island have died in Iraq within the last nine months.

2 Army Rangers Are Killed

March 22, 2006 The Seattle Times Company

Fort Lewis:

Two Army Rangers assigned to this post south of Tacoma have been killed in Iraq, the Department of Defense said Tuesday.

Staff Sgt. Ricardo Barraza, 24, of Shafter, Calif., and Sgt. Dale G. Brehm, 23, of Turlock, Calif., died March 18 in Ramadi, Iraq, when they came under enemy fire, the department said in a news release.

Both were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, a special-forces unit.

Barraza enlisted in the military after graduating from high school in 1999, his family told The Bakersfield Californian on Monday. Relatives said he was shot in the chest while helping evacuate a building in Iraq. He had been in Iraq since 2002.

Brehm joined the military in 2001 after graduating from Turlock Adult School. He had been married for two years, and Tuesday would have been his 24th birthday, according to the Modesto Bee.

Kentucky National Guardsman Dies

March 27, 2006, (AP)

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

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

Beery was driving a fully armored light medium tactical vehicle when the explosion occurred. Two other soldiers were injured in the attack, which happened in one of the most dangerous areas of the war-torn country.

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

“Brock was a loving husband, and a very devoted dad. He enjoyed his family, off road four wheeling adventures, collecting guns and hunting,” Beery’s wife, Sara, said in a statement. “Brock was devoted in the business of taking care of his soldiers and meeting their needs.”

Beery is the ninth Kentucky National Guardsman to die in the Iraq war since it began three years ago. He is survived by his wife, Sara, and seven-year-old daughter.

There are about 550 Kentucky Guardsmen in or on their way to Iraq, said Col. Phil Miller of the National Guard.

Marine From Valdosta Wounded

April 03, 2006 Kenna Walsh, South Georgia Media [Excerpt]

VALDOSTA: Fourteen days ago Cody Finniessee endured a sleepless night. He strapped on gear and headed out on a routine patrol in Fallujah, Iraq.

Like most nights, Finniessee, a Valdosta native and corporal with the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines, was alert and focused on the mission at hand.

Minutes after the clock struck 10 p.m. Finniessee’s view on the reality of war changed.

He was team leader in a convoy of six; four men in the back seat with a driver and passenger in the front. The vehicle was en route to Fallujah and had just passed a mosque when a loud explosion rocked the convoy and thrust Finniessee toward the front.
“I was forced to the front and tried to get up when I realized my face had blood on it,” Finniessee said. “I told the team I was hit.”

His team members panicked, but Finniessee remained calm and told them to find his field dressing. He put a bandage on the wound and applied pressure.

“I would stay calm and give orders,” he said.

The convoy proceeded to a medical center in Fallujah where Finniessee was taken by helicopter to a larger hospital.

Surgeons cleaned out shrapnel and packed the wound, which stretched across the left side of his face. His jaw was fractured.

Shrapnel from the explosion, caused by an improvised explosive device, hit Finniessee’s helmet and shattered the microphone on the side of his face. A small scar above his eye marks where his eyewear hit and nearly missed his eye.

YOU DON’T WANT TO BE HERE;
THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO BE HERE:
SOLUTION OBVIOUS:
GET THE FUCK OUT AND COME HOME, ALIVE AND WITH ALL BODY PARTS INTACT
WHILE THAT IS STILL POSSIBLE

A U.S. Marine patrols near the Abu Ghraib prison, April, 2006. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)

Kato Soldier Wounded

April 03, 2006 By Dylan Thomas, The Free Press

MANKATO: When Ruth and Thomas McNamara answered the phone the night of March 13, the Army company commander on the other end of the line could only provide sketchy details.

Army Spc. Jason McNamara, their son, had been on a nighttime mission clearing improvised explosive devices with his unit near Aramadi, Iraq. They were called to assist another Army unit taking enemy fire, and rushed over in their armored Humvee.

“They no more than pulled up to the scene … and an IED went off,” Thomas said.

Jason was injured, the commander told them. They wouldn’t know anything more until the next day.

“It was devastating news,” Kristin Conrad, Jason’s sister, said. “We didn’t know what kind of condition he was in, just that he had been hit by an IED.”

In that moment, Conrad said, she faced for the first time “the reality of the war.” It was a revelation news reports and even stories from two brothers who had fought in the conflict could not bring about.

Since March 19, Jason, 23, has been recovering from serious injuries to both his legs at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

In fact, as readers pick up the paper today, the 2002 East High School Graduate may be undergoing another in a string of surgeries to repair his shattered legs and ankles.

“I’m doing all right,” Jason said when reached by phone last week. “I just can’t wait to get out of here.”

“I’m looking forward to coming back home and just relaxing a little bit.”

His parents, who traveled from Mankato to stay with him at Walter Reed, said they don’t know when that day will come. He must stay off his feet for three months, and likely has many weeks of recovery ahead.

“We got a tremendous amount of support, phone calls from friends and family,” Ruth said. “That has just helped so much.”

The McNamaras now know the full story of the night Jason was injured.

He was riding in the gunner’s turret of the Humvee when it hit the IED. The explosion blew the doors off the vehicle. The driver, who had joined the unit only a few days earlier, was killed.

A large piece of shrapnel fractured Jason’s right leg in three places, and was tangled in the sling that served as his seat in the turret.

“(Jason) said he couldn’t see his legs, he couldn’t feel his legs,” his father said. “He ended up cutting himself free, and then the other soldiers pulled him out of the back of the Humvee.”

On the way to an aid station, two more IEDs exploded.

“I had a lot of close calls before this one,” Jason said.

On two out of three missions, he estimated, his unit made some kind of contact with enemy forces.

The thought of her son’s serious injury or death was never far from Ruth’s mind.

“Every day I was so grateful that it was another day he remained safe, unharmed,” Ruth said. “But, yes, it was a constant fear.”

It is a fear she said will grow when her youngest son, Joshua, who is also in the Army, deploys to Iraq for his second tour. That could happen as soon as this fall.

“I felt that it will be even scarier this time,” she said.

The oldest McNamara brother, Ryan, shares her concern.

“It will probably be more tense, because the threat will seem more real,” he said.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Five U.S. Troops Wounded

4.4.06 Wall St. Journal

Five U.S. troops were injured by an Afghan IED.

Incredible Silly Bullshit:
“People Are Going To See Us Here For A Long Time To Come”

4.3.06 The Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan: Afghanistan’s Taliban-led insurgency is likely to worsen this year as new NATO troops replace battle-hardened American forces in some areas and the government pushes ahead with an aggressive anti-drug campaign, a senior U.S. envoy said.

The warning by Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, comes after an uptick in attacks in recent weeks as spring weather melts snow on high mountain passes the rebels use.

U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann, speaking alongside Boucher, said the Taliban have the impression that with time, they will gradually wear out the patience of foreign governments to keep their troops deployed here.

“There was a Taliban leader who said to one of our folk that the coalition has all the clocks, but we have all the time,” Neumann said. “That is the way they tend to see the world, that they can out-wait the foreigners.”

But Boucher said U.S. forces were going to stay.

“People are going to see us here for a long time to come,” he said.

In neighboring Helmand province Sunday, a firefight between a group of insurgents and police left one officer and a rebel dead, and two police wounded, said Mohanned Qasin, a local government chief.

TROOP NEWS

[Thanks to Phil G, who sent this in.]

My Boy:
GORDON SHOULD NOT OF BEEN IN IRAQ, TO START WITH

[This is a message to Americans from Rose Gentle. Her son Gordon was killed in Iraq. She leads a campaign to bring all the Scots and other troops home from Iraq, now. Her words carry more weight, and contain more truth, than 5000 pages of bullshit from the politicians. T]

From: Rose Gentle
To: GI Special
Sent: April 04, 2006
Subject: my boy

ARMY BOARD OF INQUIRY INTO THE DEATH OF FUSILIER GORDON GENTLE:

THE ECM EQUIPMENT WAS AVAILABLE ,BUT HAD NOT YET BEEN FITTED.
THE RHF HAD A PHONE CALL TO LIFT THE EQUIPMENT.
ON THE 12TH OF JUNE, 04 BUT DID NOT GO AND GET IT TILL THE 28TH

THE
DAY MY BOY WAS KILLIED,

THE MOD [Ministry Of Defense] HAVE NOW MADE 12 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FUTURE

SADLY, NOTHING CAN CHANGE WHAT HAPPEND TO FUSILIER GORDON GENTLE, I HOPE THE REPORT WILL HELP HIS FAMILY UNDERSTAND THE
EVENTS OF THAT DAY,

UNDERSTAND

I HAVE TOLLD THIS STORRY FOR 18MONTH THEAT MY BOY DID
NOT HAVE THE WRIGHT EQUIPMENT, MY BOY SHOULD BE HERE TO DAY

THE MOD THINK THAT NOW I HAVE THE REPORT THAT I HAVE TO SHUT UP,

GORDON SHOULD NOT OF BEEN IN IRAQ, TO START WITH ,

THAY ARE AT FOLLT FOR GORDON GETING KILLIED

THE EQUIPMENT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON MY BOYS SNACH LAND ROVER TO START WITH

NOT JUST 2 HOURS AFTER HE WAS KILLIED,

WHOT GOOD ARE THE 12 RECOMMENDATIONS. TO MY GORDON,

ROSE GENTLE M.F.S.O.

Rumsfeld Babbles More Incoherent Bullshit

3/31/2006 M. Kane Jeeves (sometimes credited as Ed Naha), Mkanejeeves.com [Excerpt]

It was Donald Rumsfeld who took first place in spin, last week, by blaming the media for America’s current revulsion re: Operation Boondoggle. After giving America’s propaganda effort to spread the good news a “D,” Rumsfeld used a press briefing and the radio airwaves to talk about Americans’ misconception of what’s going on in Iraq and why the press should do more to accentuate the positive.

Said Rummy: “In a situation like exists in Iraq today, one measure of what is happening is to note things that are not happening. Admittedly, that’s a difficult thing to do. (Note: Even more difficult to understand what the heck he’s saying.) “It’s far easier to report about a bomb that goes off than to note a bomb that doesn’t.” (Note: how about a plane that crashes as opposed to a plane that lands?)

“A car bomb that kills Iraqis outside a police recruiting station makes for a clearly understandable story compared to the fact that hundreds of Iraqis volunteer the next day, to step up to volunteer despite that attack.” (Note: To get blown up in a second attack.)

Rumsfeld pointed out: “If you read the press and listen to the television around here you’d assume that everything was just terrible, the whole country was in chaos. Well, it isn’t in chaos.” (Note: Okay. Can we agree on mere state of total pandemonium?)

As for why all the bad news is so prevalent, he blames it on our enemy’s spin machine. “It’s very difficult to compete with people who lie consistently.”

[Wrong. Rumsfeld lies consistently and anybody with an IQ greater than that of a cup of coffee can spot it.]

MORE:

Rumsfeld Wants Good News From Iraq?
OK
HERE IT IS!

3/31/2006 M. Kane Jeeves (sometimes credited as Ed Naha), Mkanejeeves.com [Excerpt]

Actually, I’ve been doing some research and there ARE a lot of good news stories to be reported.

The Iraqi real estate market, for instance, is literally booming with many craters going for as little as two chickens and a goat.

Work on the theme park Depleted UraniumLand is near completion with most of the rides not exactly hair-raising as opposed to hair-losing.

The opening of the George W. Bush Freedom High School has been delayed, unfortunately, because of a problem with textbook quizzes. No matter what the subject, all the answers read: “9/11.”

The first Fallujah Barbecue Jamboree was held, with citizens providing the livestock and the U.S. military dropping in with tons of white phosphorous and MK-77 firebombs. You haven’t tasted beef until it’s been liquefied. Yummm.

The first Iraqi “Iron Man” competition, held at Abu Ghraib, is ready to take off. The winner gets a pardon and complimentary medical treatment.

The Najaf 500 was recently held, based on the Indy 500. The winner was the car that didn’t blow-up.

The Little Theater of Baghdad Theater troupe staged their production of Robert Lewis Stevenson’s “Kidnapped.” It was considered a great success until it was noted, by play’s end, a third of the audience had gone missing.

A new, U.S.-sponsored Iraqi TV network, Al-Bizarro, made it’s debut, offering such quiz shows as “Truth or Consequences,” “Jeopardy” and a revival of Groucho Marx’s golden-oldie “You Bet Your Life.”

An Iraqi version of the American TV show “Extreme Makeover” also premiered, with players watching their existing homes vaporized by U.S. bombs and, then, envisioning their new home with no money nor tools to build it.

Sailors Get (GASP) 12 Days Training On How To Survive As Desert Ground Troops:
[Then, It’s Off To Die In Iraq]

April 4, 2006 By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes

Sailors know the walk, when it’s from stem to stern. It’s the walking in formation that has some feeling like fish out of water.

With more than 10,000 Navy “individual augmentees” deployed around the world, of which 7,000 are in the U.S. Central Command’s combat zones, the Navy is training its sailors like soldiers more than ever before.

“You take a sailor . who has lived on a 564-foot ship, and all of a sudden, you’re integrating him into a ground combat environment. It’s night and day for us,” said Master Chief Petty Officer Anthony Evangelista, fleet master chief for U.S. Naval Forces Europe/6th Fleet.

“We’ve done a phenomenal job with taking a unit, prepping it, getting the ship ready, deploying it, and bringing it back. What we haven’t done so well, and are fixing, is the individual augmentee. We don’t train to do that as an organization.”

Not until recently, that is.

With the Pentagon’s call on the Navy to provide forces to ease the strain on Army and Marine Corps ground units, naval individual augmentees are flocking to South Carolina to learn the basics of ground combat.

During the 12-day training program, sailors are taught lessons that range from the proper way to carry weapons to basic warfare marksmanship, convoy operations, urban operations, battlefield first aid and land navigation, said Lt. Col. Douglas Snyder, battalion commander of Task Force Marshall and head of the Individual Augmentee Training Course at the Army’s McCrady Training Center, Fort Jackson, S.C.

The Navy’s individual augmentees deploy downrange from, and return to, Fort Jackson, complete with necessary gear and proper uniforms, to include the Army’s new digital battle uniforms, if they are heading to Army units.

Some sailors, such as several Navy military dog handlers from Naval Support Activity Naples Italy, have deployed to Iraq with little or no training on how to survive in a ground combat zones. [Right. And 12 days is oh so much better than “little or no training.” And don’t miss the DVD of Mutiny On The Bounty. Or maybe Battleship Potemkin. Those films do teach very useful lessons indeed.]

“He Only Lived A Short Time After That”
“But, That Is What The Montgomery VAMC Wanted In The First Place”

From: LG
To: Firebase
Sent: March 17, 2006

My Uncle, who had Alzheimers, had a stroke and the VA clinic in Pensacola would not help him.

We had to get an ambulance to take him to Montgomery VAMC.

In the Emergency Room they tied him in a wheelchair and left him against the wall for 3 hours.

Finally, my Aunt got them to listen to her and had him put on a gerny.

He laid there another 4 hours.

My Aunt called me in Pace, FL. I contacted the VAMC, and our Congressman.

Finally, the ER got a doctor to him. He only lived a short time after that.

But, that is what the Montgomery VAMC wanted in the first place.

Got Your Back,
LG, Misssissippi

Senate War Profiteers Busy

April 4, 2006 The Hill

Sen. Thad Cochran, Appropriations Committee chairman, and Sen. Trent Lott earmarked $1 million in the FY 2006 defense appropriations bill to qualify for military use a three-part shaving system made in their state, Mississippi.

The money will go to the Army’s research and develop coffers to study the efficiency of a shaving system that goes easy on facial bumps.

“March To Redeem The Soul Of America” Starts At Exxonmobil Headquarters:
“Beatrice Saldivar Held A Picture Of Her Nephew Killed In Iraq”

From: Charles Jenks, Traprock Peace Center
To: GI Special
Sent: April 04, 2006
Subject: March to Redeem the Soul of America Starts at ExxonMobil Headquarters

The March to Redeem the Soul of America was launched with press conferences and marches in Irving, Texas on April 1 and Dallas on April 2, beginning a 120-mile walk that will arrive in Crawford, Texas on Thursday, April 13. The March will participate in “Easter in Crawford” – with President Bush planning to take his usual Easter vacation at his ranch – and the celebration of the third anniversary of the Crawford Peace House.

The unifying themes of speakers on the first two days was the need for citizens to begin to get control of the combine of government and major corporations – not only to stop the Iraq war, but to protect human rights and civil liberties. The March organizers and participants are asking communities to join their calls for an end to war profiteering and an end to the occupation of Iraq.

In Irving, people gathered outside ExxonMobil’s world headquarters and called on the oil giant to work to end the Iraq war and to spend $7 billion in undeserved 2005 war profits to meet human needs related to the Iraq war and ExxonMobil operations. Speaking were Nick Mottern, Director, ConusmersforPeace.org and the ExxonMobil War Boycott campaign; Rev. Roy Malveaux, Beaumont, Texas; State Rep. Lon Burnam, Fort Worth; Maureen Haver, Jumpstart Ford Campaign; Hadi Jawad, Crawford Peace House and Dallas Peace Center; Rev. Peter Johnson, Dallas civil rights leader; Margarita Alvarez, United Voices for Immigrants; Judith Kaufman; and Valley Reed, chief organizer, March to Redeem Campaign. The AP covered the press conference; it’s report was published by many newspapers.

Rev. Roy Malveaux from Beaumont Texas explained how ExxonMobil has rejected any responsibility for severe health problems in his community, located next to an ExxonMobil Refinery.

Sunny Miller, Traprock Peace Center, lead the song “Step by Step” as the press conference ended and the March began with people marching past ExxonMobil’s main gate.

On April 2nd in Dallas, the march held a press conference outside the County Courthouse and Jail. Joan Cobici; American Civil Liberties Union and Beatriz Saldivar, Gold Star Families for Peace (her nephew was killed in Iraq) joined Reed, Mottern, Johnson and Jawad as speakers.

Beatrice Saldivar held a picture of her nephew killed in Iraq and a picture of Rex Tillerson, Chair and C.E.O. of Exxon Mobile, saying, “Do you think Mr. RexTillerson, the Chief and CEO of ExxonMobil will ever go to Iraq? Do you think he will ever put himself in a jail like this where they are putting our Hispanics and our African Americans.”

Speakers at the Dallas Jail said money is needed for programs and jobs for young people to keep them out of jail. Money and management changes are also needed to deal with serious health problems, such as HIV and hepatitis, that are spread into the community when prisoners go home, according to Rev. Peter Johnson, Dallas civil rights activist. $3.3 billion in federal tax dollars has gone to the Iraq war from Dallas County alone, according to the National Priorities Project.

Texas has spent $25.6 billion on the war.

Marchers then crossed the Trinity River and met again outside the VA Hospital. Marchers received an enthusiastic reception, with banners, drumming (provided by Drums not Guns) and food (courtesy of Food Not Bombs). Rev. Diane Baker, Dallas Peace Center; John Fullenwider, High School teacher (speaking on the cost of war); Michael McNeil, veteran of Desert Storm (Marine Corps) and member of Code Pink; Jim Goodnow, Veterans for Peace; and John Wolf, founder of Crawford Peace House added their voices.

Speakers addressed the need for quality medical and psychological services for veterans, and the under reporting of war casualties.

Nick Mottern, Director of Consumers for Peace, said the War Boycott is calling on ExxonMobil to give $630 million directly to the Veterans Administration to supply money for mental health care, prosthetics and catastrophic care.

This is the amount in a supplemental appropriations bill that was blocked by House Republicans several weeks ago.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action

Apr 4, 2006 (AP) & Times Daily & KUNA & Middle East Online

A car bomb parked near the home of a city council member in Samarra exploded as his son was leaving the house about 8 a.m., police said. The son was not harmed, but one of his security guards was killed, and four other guards were wounded in the attack, police Capt. Laith Mohammed said.

In southern Iraq, guerrillas killed a policeman and wounded another as the two were driving in the city of Basra, police said.

Assailants killed a judge driving in eastern Baghdad and a receptionist who works at the United Arab Emirates Embassy and his friend as they were leaving the embassy in the upscale Mansour neighbourhood.

Two truck drivers from a US base near Dujail were shot dead by rebels.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“The Soldiers Groaned, Barely Able To Breathe”

MILITARIZED STREETS is a fact-based novel banned by the Japanese imperial government in 1930, and censored by the US occupation authorities in 1945.

It has been fully translated by Zeljko Cipris from the Japanese in D. Kuroshima, A Flock of Swirling Crows & Other Proletarian Writings, published by the University of Hawaii Press, 2005.

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

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

Time: spring 1928, during a Japanese military intervention

Author: Denji Kuroshima (1898-1943), a soldier in Japan’s imperial army during the Siberian Intervention who became a lifelong antimilitarist and anti-imperialist

From Chapter 20

The worker had gradually lost his fear of the soldiers. They formed a circle around this man who smelled of garlic, fat, and strange tobacco.

“Over there near barrack is English hairnet factory. My young sister work there, every day she breathe only hair dust and trash.” Shih I-li resumed talking. “Young sister smell like hair and trash. Her chest, bad. TB. .. English company, broker and police rob people… English, American, German, Ja—” (Shih I-li stopped himself) “…all make suffer China farmer, worker. Our life, hard!”

“Ahem!” A thundering cough and the rattle of a military sword and shoes rang out right behind the soldiers. Lieutenant Shigefuji had come up undetected and was standing behind them. They started.

Shih I-li fell as silent as a deaf-mute. The lieutenant was glaring at him with steely eyes. Like a criminal, his head sadly bowed, the Chinese stood up. Weakly shrugging his soldiers, he left without a sound.

“So he’s come to fill your heads with propaganda. Even in this factory there are Reds. Letting someone like that brainwash you with communist propaganda is a stain on your honor!”

“Lieutenant, sir, he was just telling us funny stories. That Chink knows a little Japanese,” Takatori said.

“Don’t you lie to me! I heard him!” The lieutenant’s face turned suddenly fierce. “Stay away from them, funny or not! Break it up! Break it up! Break it up and go to sleep! You’d better be careful!”

“Sir. We will.”

The soldiers were drawn to Shih I-li’s story and had gathered around him. The lodgings were always dark. The walls were crumbling. The place felt like a cave where none but the oppressed and tormented gathered.

Were the soldiers and the workers not twins with the same destiny? The harrowing daily labor drove them both to utter exhaustion.

By bullying these Chinese workers we’re tying a rope around our own necks. Bullied workers only make the Oi Corporation happy, nobody else. Takatori spoke of it simply. Some skeptically shook their heads.

Takatori spoke again. He elaborated. We come here thinking we’re serving our country. We think we’re protecting our national interests. So what policy does the fat bourgeoisie adopt? A strategy that will fatten the bourgeoisie. They’ll profit and squeeze the workers’ necks even harder. They might slip some money to corrupt labor leaders. But the best workers get choked more and more.

“What fools soldiers are,” Takatori said with profound emotion. “Though we’re poor farmers and workers ourselves, just because we’re wearing uniforms with stand-up collars we’re trying to break the workers’ and farmers’ resistance. We’ve been sent into a colony and we’re risking our lives to make the bourgeoisie richer and richer. We’re so blind we don’t understand what on earth we’re doing! We’re actually strangling ourselves with our own hands!”

All grew serious and thoughtful.

“Perseverance!” Kitani thought to himself. “We’ve got to duck the whip and rise up from below.”

Life here seemed just as painful as life in the factories and farming villages back home, maybe worse. They knew that for a full month now the workers had been forbidden to take a single step outside the factory compound. They were not receiving wages.

Among the youngest child workers, seven of them were just five years old. Five of them had been bought in perpetuity for ten or twelve yuan. Removing their jackets from thin chests with ribs sticking out, diligently the children were filling the boxes with matches. Their hands were too small to wrap around a matchbox. Unless there was an extra platform beneath their seats, they could not reach the worktable.

“Come to think of it, we too grew up with our parents telling us to work from about the age of five or six,” thought Tamada, recalling his childhood when he used to get up around one in the morning to start working in the noodle shop. “But we were never sold to anyone!”

Many of the Chinese workers had come from the countryside. They had quit farming and begun working in factories. The life of a peasant was even more miserable than that of a worker. Taxed extortionately by the ceaselessly feuding warlords backed by various imperialist powers, plundered by outlaws and runaway soldiers, the peasants could not make a living no matter how hard they tilled the soil and watered the livestock. There were droughts. There were plagues of swarming locusts. Entire harvests were seized by armed men.

Some people sold off their land, houses, and livestock, and emigrated to eastern provinces. Migrants were everywhere. In the course of migration many were set upon by soldiers on the march and robbed of what little they had. They could not proceed to their destination. Such people became factory workers.

Some people left their families in the villages and came in search of work. The families that remained behind gnawed on tree roots and chewed blades of grass. Some even died eating powdered stones.

“Even my mother, back in that sooty house on the edge of town, barely gets enough to eat by selling gloves,” thought the normally cheerful Takatori. “She is sixty-two already… so covered with wrinkles even a horny old man won’t come near her! She has no one! How can she keep her stomach full just by selling gloves?”

The soldiers found themselves comparing their lives at home with the lives of the workers here. Some recalled that wheat would soon be ripening in the villages and wondered how their fathers, starting to get slightly muddled with age, were managing.

“Wang Hung-chi wife give birth woman child,” Shih I-li told the soldiers, pointing to the good-natured Wang whose face looked rather slack, despondent and bitter.

“Oh, she gave birth.”

The eyes of more than twenty soldiers concentrated on Wang. Wang’s expression turned timid as though he were eager to hide.

“Wang, no money. Wife, no money. Boss give no money.”

“Hmm, the factory’s not handing over the wages.”

“Mother Wang carry big child, come to factory and cry. Factory man say mother cannot meet Wang.”

“Hmm.”

“Cannot give money, have no money.”

“Hmm.”

“Wife, no rice, cannot eat. Milk no come out. Baby cry.”

“Hmm.”

“Baby cry six day. Wife, hungry. Only drink hot water, hot water not enough. Cannot walk. Ten day, morning, baby no cry. She look. Baby dead. Mother run to factory. But police say cannot meet Wang. Mother talk outside fence. Wang listen inside. Wang cannot go home. Boss say nobody go out one step.”

“Hmm!”

Wang Hung-chi did not understand Japanese. But he realized from the soldiers’ and Shih’s strained expressions what Shih I-li was telling them.

“Factory buy children, more more bad,” Shih I-li resumed.

“Children work, work, get nothing. No haircut money. Cannot buy towel. Only New Year get fifteen sen. Children work one year, two year, three year. Always work. Always only New Year fifteen sen. Always cannot go out. Three year, eighteen children not go out one day. Only work.

“Have no hope. Hope no more.

“Child, only eight, nine, think better die. Take phosphorus, drink. February, two children dead. March, four children dead. Drink phosphorus, burn inside. Much pain. Small children body, only skin and bone, leg kick, kick… Factory man, boss laugh. Say China people have no pride, die because spite. Have no pride…”

“Hmm!”

The soldiers groaned, barely able to breathe.

[Thanks to the brother who sends in these selections. To be continued. T)

OCCUPATION REPORT

This Is Not A Satire:
Iraq’s Interior Ministry Refuses To Deploy US-Trained Police

April 4, 2006 Jonathan Steele in Baghdad, The Guardian

Iraq’s interior ministry is refusing to deploy thousands of police recruits who have been trained by the US and the UK and is hiring its own men and putting them on the streets, according to western security advisers.

The move is frustrating US and British efforts to build up a non-sectarian Iraqi police force which would not be infiltrated by partisan militias.

The interior ministry, which is controlled by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI), has not deployed any graduates of the civilian police assistance training team (CPATT), a joint US/UK unit, for the past three months.

The ministry’s refusal to use the new graduates is causing alarm. “There are concerns about the infiltration of the police by extremist groups and the coalition is right to be concerned about transparency,” a western security adviser told the Guardian.

Senior ministry officials say they refuse to deploy the graduates because they have no control over the CPATT’s selection process.

2003: Sowing The Wind
2006: Reaping The Whirlwind

U.S. soldiers try to keep back former Iraqi soldiers and army officers from a barricade as they demand payment of their wages for the past 3 months in Baghdad June 2, 2003. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)

[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?]

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

The Great Iraqi Collaborator Troop Training Fisco Rolls On:
U.S. General Says “There Have Been Negligent Discharges That Have Resulted In Non-Battle Injuries To Our Personnel”

Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, distributed a letter in October saying more than 75 coalition troops had been killed by misfires. He did not specify if the victims were Iraqis, Americans or others, and he also did not say who the shooters were.

Apr 3 By ANTONIO CASTANEDA, Associated Press Writer

The two bloodied, wincing Iraqi soldiers, bandages wrapped around their legs, hobbled onto the waiting ambulance, wounded during a house-to-house search near this farming town.

The culprit was a common one: not insurgents, but gunfire from fellow soldiers. U.S. trainers who mentor Iraqi troops say a lack of gun safety, or what they call “muzzle discipline,” has led to many injuries and deaths across the country.

In the Bidimnah case in late January, insurgents first fired on Iraqi and U.S. troops patrolling the rural area about 50 miles west of Baghdad. That prompted more than a minute of wild, continuous gunfire from the Iraqi troops. The two Iraqi soldiers were wounded while the militants escaped unharmed.

Other examples are rife and often startling:

In December in the town of Adhaim north of Baghdad, an Iraqi soldier stepped out of a vehicle with his safety lever turned off and accidentally shot himself point-blank in the chest. Minutes later, as a U.S. helicopter carried the dying man away, an Associated Press reporter saw a frustrated American soldier storm up and lecture another Iraqi soldier, who also did not have his safety on.

During a large-scale operation last summer in Baghdad, an antsy Iraqi soldier took aim at what he thought was an insurgent, prompting several other Iraqi soldiers to drill hundreds of rounds into an empty home. No one was injured.

“The failure to properly clear weapons and maintain muzzle awareness led to these unnecessary losses,” Casey wrote in the letter, which was posted at bases across Iraq and viewed by an AP reporter.

Warning signs also are posted at U.S. bases across Iraq, such as one at Camp Ar Ramadi that instructs U.S. soldiers to be alert to the threat.

“Recently there have been several negligent discharges that have resulted in non-battle injuries to our personnel,” read the sign.

“Hold our partnered Iraqi forces to these same standards,” it warns, after listing safety rules.

Roadside bomb blasts that target Iraqi patrols are often followed by aimless gunfire from the Iraqis, usually useless since most attackers hide before they detonate bombs. And Iraqi soldiers sometimes clear traffic from roads by firing into the air.

“It’s kind of scary to see a PKC gunner doing a 360 (degree-turn) in a turret and painting his name in the air,” Neary said.

Cultural issues also exacerbate the problem. Many Iraqi soldiers swagger with their guns and neglect to use safety levers as a sign of manliness.

In western Iraq, Col. Daniel Newell, who heads a team of Marine trainers there, estimates his Iraqi trainees suffer about one accidental shooting a week, but stresses they have improved.

In January, Sheik Fewaz al-Jerba, a member of the Iraqi parliament, was shot in the leg — by his own bodyguard.

And in December, after a soccer match between Iraq and Syria, bursts of celebratory gunfire briefly put U.S. troops on alert — and demonstrated that the tradition, common across the Mideast, is still part of Iraqi life.

The same thing occurred after Iraqi troops successfully completed a mission in the Syrian border city of Husaybah in February.

After he realized the gunfire wasn’t hostile, one Marine could only mutter: “I’ll strangle them if they do that again.”

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.

CLASS WAR REPORTS

Another Million Demonstrate Against The French Government

Demonstration against the French government in the center of Nantes, France, April 4, 2006. (Daniel Joubert/Reuters)

[Thanks to A, who sent this in.]

April 4, 2006 The Associated Press

PARIS: Demonstrators opposed to a new jobs law swarmed parts of downtown Paris on Tuesday, throwing stones, tearing down street signs and ripping up park benches. Riot police, firing tear gas canisters and making several charges, carried away protesters in handcuffs.

Police said at least 1 million people poured into the streets around the country in the latest protests against the law, which makes it easier to fire young workers. Organizers said 3 million people marched.

A nationwide strike shut down the Eiffel Tower and snarled air and rail travel for the second time in a week while students barricaded themselves in schools.

It was the second time in a week that unions and student groups had succeeded in mobilizing such numbers. The largest march, in Paris, drew at least 80,000 people, while 935,000 marched in other parts of the country, police said.

Violence erupted at the end of the largest protest on the fringes of working-class neighborhoods, with youths in Place d’Italie pelting police with stones, fighting and using metal bars to break up chunks of pavement that they hurled at helmeted riot officers.

Officers carrying batons and shields charged several times, making arrests.

Protesters have mounted ever-larger demonstrations for two months against the law. But President Jacques Chirac signed it anyway Sunday, saying it will help France keep pace with the global economy.

He offered modifications, but students and unions rejected them, saying they want the law withdrawn, not softened.

“What Chirac has done is not enough,” said Rebecca Konforti, 18, who was among a group of students who jammed tables against the door of their high school in southern Paris to block entry. “They’re not really concessions. He just did it to calm the students.”

By midday, police said at least 100,000 people had hit French streets, including buoyant students parading through Marseille under a sunny southern sky and major marches from Nantes in the west to Saint-Etienne in the southeast. Protests even reached the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion, where 2,000 people marched.

Some 60 students lobbed eggs and other objects at police in the northern city of Lille, and at least one person was detained. At Paris’ Saint-Lazare station, riot officers with weapons and a police dog pulled over train travelers disembarking from the suburbs, searching their bags and checking identities.

Tourists, meanwhile, stood bewildered before closed gates at the Eiffel Tower. Parisian commuters flattened themselves onto limited subway trains. Garbage bins in some Paris neighborhoods stood overflowing and uncollected by striking sanitation workers.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin devised the disputed “first job contract” as a bid to boost the economy and stem chronic youth unemployment. He maintains it would encourage hiring by allowing employers to fire workers under 26 during their first two years on a job without giving a reason.

Critics say it threatens France’s hallmark labor protections, and the crisis has severely damaged Villepin’s political reputation.

Chirac stepped in Friday to order two major modifications — reducing a trial period of two years to one year and forcing employers to explain any firings — in hopes of defusing the crisis. In so doing, he dealt a blow to Villepin, his one-time top aide and apparent choice as successor next year.

In an apparent first in France, Chirac signed the original measure into law this weekend, as promised, but also effectively suspended it with an order that it not be applied. The 73-year-old president’s legal sleight of hand kept the law alive while a new version is in the works.

The head of the governing UMP party’s bloc in parliament, Bernard Accoyer, told reporters he had invited labor leaders to talks. Two labor leaders — CFDT union chief Francois Chereque and CGT union chief Bernard Thibault — suggested they would attend. But both said they hoped the law eventually would be rejected.

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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