Web www.williambowles.info

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

Vietnam: They Stopped An Imperial War

“Sir! No Sir!” Available To People In All Branches Of The Service, Anywhere In The World Including In The U.S.

[Yesterday, David Honish, a member of Veterans For Peace, wrote GI Special asking if Sir! No Sir! could be shown to troops before they head off for Iraq. See his letter, reprinted below.

[The producer, David Zeiger, replied immediately. T]

From: David Zeiger, Producer, “Sir! No Sir!” displaced@mindspring.com
To: GI Special
Sent: April 20, 2006

Yes, the DVD is actually available to people in all branches of the service, anywhere in the world including in the U.S.

That should be clarified.

We also are working to get it seen around military bases here, including possibly guerilla screenings if we can set them up.

Any suggestions and help along those lines would be quite welcome.

David Zeiger, Producer, “Sir! No Sir!”
displaced@mindspring.com

[OK brothers and sisters, there’s your answer. Now it’s up to all of us to make it so.]

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

[Here’s the letter from David Honish:]

Let The Troops At Home See “Sir! No Sir!” Too!

From: David Honish, Veterans For Peace
To: GI Special
Sent: April 19, 2006
Subject: A Step In The Right Direction

The recent announcement in GI Special # 4D19 that 500 DVD’s of “Sir, No Sir!” are being made available free to active duty troops in Afghanistan or Iraq by the IVAW and displaced films is a step in the right direction.

My immediate reaction to seeing this film in a showing at the VFP National Convention last AUG was inspired by the Navy Nurse featured in the film who dropped leaflets from a light aircraft over military bases.

I thought that if I was a millionaire, I’d like to buy enough DVD copies of this film to air drop them over every US military base worldwide.

Perhaps a bit of an unrealistic goal?

Still, while putting 500 copies of “Sir, No Sir!” in the hands of those already in combat is a good idea, it might be a bit of ‘locking the barn after the horse is already out?’

I would hope that the film’s producers would not overlook the decimated divisions that are currently back in the USA refitting and training up replacement personnel before yet another deployment to SW Asia?

If prevention is better than a cure, perhaps making this film available for showing near US military bases to troops not yet deployed would pay off larger dividends?

While I would not expect the ideal of having the film distributed in the PX theater chains on post to happen, perhaps showings could be arranged off post near Ft. Hood, Ft. Campbell, Ft. Carson, etc.?

Might it not be more effective to encourage dissent of troops before they deploy, instead of once they are already in Iraq?

Sir! No Sir!
The Soldiers Who Fought The War:
Film Chronicles The GI Resistance During Vietnam

April 21, 2006 Review by Michael Hoffman, Socialist Worker

Sir No Sir! The Suppressed Story of the GI Movement to End the War in Vietnam, produced, directed and written by David Zeigler.

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

THERE IS a myth of the “spat upon Vet.” The tale goes that the soldiers of Vietnam came home to a radical fringe movement that spat on them as they unloaded onto the tarmac. This myth has served to all but erase the real history of the Vietnam antiwar movement from U.S. consciousness.

David Zeigler’s film Sir No Sir! The Suppressed Story of the GI Movement to End the War In Vietnam lays this myth completely to rest by telling the inspiring story of a movement that shook the very foundations of U.S. military power.

Through interviews and stock footage, this powerful documentary tells the story of how thousands of U.S. soldiers, through their first-hand experience on the ground, came to realize that the war in Vietnam was an unjust travesty.

The film opens with soldiers who joined the Army ready to “serve their country” but later came to actively oppose the U.S. military endeavor.

Starting in 1965, just a few years after the start of the ground assault in Vietnam, a handful of soldiers began refusing orders and seeking conscientious objector status. The response of GIs to the military’s repressive treatment of these early objectors helped to reveal the widespread discontent within the military, foreshadowing the tremendous upsurge to follow.

The glaring hypocrisy of U.S. policy in Vietnam became increasingly apparent as the war escalated.

By 1968, there were dozens of underground newspapers, antiwar coffeehouses for active GIs, and a variety of antiwar organizations founded specifically for soldiers and veterans.

The incident that puts the GI movement into the national spotlight is the emergence of the “Nine for Peace,” nine active-duty officers who released a pamphlet announcing their opposition to the war and their resignation from the military. In mid-July of 1968, the nine staged a 48-hour protest where they chained themselves to priests and marched to several churches in San Francisco.

They were eventually arrested and sent to different military prisons around the country. In San Francisco, one of the Nine for Peace, Bill Mather, was sent to the Presidio Stockade where he faced intensely overcrowded, degrading and unsanitary conditions, laying the basis for the next major upturn in the GI movement.

On October 14, 1968, prison guards shot and killed a young mentally disturbed soldier while he was trying to escape. Outrage swept the prison and the next day 27 prisoners broke ranks and staged a sit-in on the yard.

They were afterward dubbed the “Pentagon 27,” and hundreds of protesters showed up in solidarity.

This, the first major act of organized resistance inside the military, launched a new wave of GI protest where active and AWOL soldiers began to feel their power and take the lead in a movement to end the war.

The naked hypocrisy of the U.S. government is a theme that runs throughout the entire film and is given repeatedly as the reason why the GI movement spread to all branches and ranks of the military.

The racism rampant in U.S. society and the confident lead of the Black Power movement gave way to an especially powerful resistance on the part of Black soldiers.

As one Black soldier says to a crowd of his comrades, “The only place where a Black man should fight is where he is oppressed.” In another scene we hear a Black veteran describing how he felt when he realized that the word “gook,” used profusely in the military, was actually a racial slur for the Vietnamese—much like the slurs used against Blacks in the U.S.

The disintegration of military discipline on the part of combat troops is exposed in the film as a major cause of the policy shifts taken by the U.S. “Vietnamization” is seen as a result of this; the U.S. was forced to rely on brutal air strikes to maintain its grip on the region.

This only served to deepen the resistance of enlisted personnel as Naval crews and Air Force intelligence officers refused to be a part of the bloodshed.

As the crisis for the U.S. deepened, the desperation of their military tactics and the brazenness of their lies was reciprocated by the men and women ordered to carry out the warfare with an increasingly bold resistance.

At the opening night of Sir No Sir! in San Francisco, two vets featured in the film addressed the crowd of some 200 people with a call for solidarity. “We want this film to be seen all over the U.S. and we need your support to make this happen,” said Michael Wong.

It’s a must that every person seeking social change go out and see this film. Its success in its initial showings will determine the length and breadth of its time in theaters.

Go to www.sirnosir.com to find local show times. Posters and T-shirts are also available to support the cause. Anyone currently in the military can receive a free DVD from the organization Courage to Resist.

So, spread the word.

It is the job of everyone against the current U.S. war in Iraq to help build a movement that embraces GI resisters and takes a stand against U.S. aggression.

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.

Sir! No Sir! OPENS for one week on Wednesday April 19th at the
IFC Center:
322 Sixth Avenue, at West Third Street,
New York City

Advance tickets on sale NOW through the IFC box office
Recording: 212-924-7771
Live box office: 212-924-5246
Online at www.ifccenter.com

Check out the trailer at www.sirnosir.com

Please contact max@riseup.net or celia@riseup.net for posters, postcards and flyers to help promote this event!

“‘ Sir! No Sir!’ has become the Trojan Horse of the Iraq War”
[Robert Sharlet, brother of Jeff Sharlet, Editor, Vietnam GI]

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Utah Native Fort Campbell Soldier Killed By Stop-Loss:
“He Never Got To Read My E-Mail Before He Died”

April 5th (AP) FORT CAMPBELL, Ky.

A Utah native 101st Airborne Division soldier who had been scheduled to leave the Army last winter until his service time was extended was killed Tuesday by a roadside bomb in Iraq, the Army said.

Spc. Ty J. Johnson, 28, of Elk Grove, Calif., died in Kirkuk when an improvised device exploded near the Humvee he was riding in. Johnson was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team.

Johnson entered the Army three years ago and arrived at Fort Campbell a few months later, the post said in a statement Wednesday night.

The deployment was Johnson’s second to Iraq. His wife, Corinne Johnson, told The Leaf-Chronicle of Clarksville, Tenn., that he would have gotten out in January but the Army extended his service with a “stop loss” requiring him to remain.

Corinne Johnson was visiting her mother-in-law in Elk Grove when someone came to the door Tuesday afternoon with the news Johnson had been killed.

“I’d received an e-mail from him the night before,” she said. “He always liked to talk to me before he’d go out on missions. “It made him feel better. He said he’d be back late that night. He never got to read my e-mail before he died.”

Johnson’s father, Johnny Johnson of West Jordan, Utah, said his son loved his family and his country. He said his son grew up in Sandy, Utah, and attended Jordan High School.

“I had sent him a little Tonka Truck because he loved Hot Wheels (toy cars),” Johnny Johnson told the newspaper. “The last e-mail I got from him, he was saying he gave it to one of the kids in Iraq. He loved the kids over there.”

Corinne Johnson said her husband helped carry ballots for the first election in Iraq and she felt he would go down in history as someone who had a purpose in fighting the war.

Besides his wife and father, Johnson is survived by a daughter, Kyrstin, and son, Rand, of Fort Campbell; and his mother, Lisarae Johnson of Elk Grove.

Johnson is the 137th member of the Fort Campbell-based 101st Airborne to be killed in Iraq since the war began. The sprawling base straddles the Kentucky-Tennessee border.

Trafford Native Killed

April 06, 2006 AP

Staff Sgt. Eric A. McIntosh, a highly decorated Marine from Trafford, died Sunday in combat in Iraq, the U.S. Department of Defense said.

Sgt. McIntosh, 29, joined the Marine Corps in September 1996, after graduating from Penn Trafford High School.

A Marine spokesman said yesterday that he was on at least his second tour in Iraq. He joined his unit in January 2004.

Sgt. McIntosh received numerous medals and awards, including the Combat Action Ribbon, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, National Defense Service Medal and four Sea Service Deployment Ribbons.

He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, based in Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Baghdad IED Destroys Armored Vehicle:
Two U.S. Troops Wounded

U.S. soldiers stand near a burning armored military vehicle after it was hit by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, April 20, 2006. (Ali Jasim/Reuters)

4.20.06 AP & REUTERS

A U.S. armored vehicle was hit by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) Thursday.

Iraqi police said two U.S. soldiers were wounded in the blast, which took place on a highway in the south Baghdad district of Sadiya.

Panicked Marine Command Trying To Hide Details Of Heavy Losses:
Was Outpost Overrun?

April 20, 2006 New York Daily News

Two U.S. Marines were killed last Thursday in Iraq’s Anbar province in a battle that injured 22 other Marines, one of the highest U.S. casualties from a single attack in recent months.

The Marines have refused to release details, but it was the latest evidence that U.S. troops in Anbar, the vast desert area west of Baghdad, are now facing large-scale assaults, with the enemy attempting to overrun outposts.

REALLY BAD IDEA:
NO MISSION;
HOPELESS WAR:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

U.S. Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, Kilo Company patrol in front of the destroyed Rashid Hotel Monday April 17, 2006 in Ramadi. Insurgents attacked several U.S. Marine positions with car bombs and rocket propelled grenades during a 90 minute battle Monday. (AP Photo/Todd Pitman)

Four Fiji Mercenaries Killed

April 20, 2006 PacNewsService

Four Fijian nationals working as security guards for a U.S. company have been shot dead in an ambush while transporting supplies to the U.S. airbase in Kirkuk.

While information is still sketchy and cannot be confirmed by Controlled Risks boss, Jonetani Kaukimoce, PACNEWS has established via email from two Fiji nationals in Iraq that the four men were in a convoy of vehicles guarded by American soldiers when they were ambushed.

Members of the Fiji security contingent in Kirkuk held a memorial service for the four men last night and their bodies are expected to be flown home by the end of the week.

PACNEWS understands that the men had completed their contracts with the U.S. company and were on their way home when they joined a Kuwaiti civilian company that transports supplies to U.S. bases.

Their names have not been divulged but it’s believed two are from Naitasiri, one from Ra and one from Tailevu.

Another former Fiji soldier also injured in the ambush is recovering at the U.S. army hospital in Kirkuk.

Kentucky Family Hears From Wounded Soldier

Apr. 20, 2006 Associated Press

KEVIL: It was a phone call she hoped she’d never get, but Makayla Summers said she was luckier than many other soldiers’ mothers.

Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Summers, 22, called home this week to tell his wife and parents that he had been wounded in combat. He suffered slight facial burns when Iraqi insurgents attacked two Humvees in Ramadi, about 50 miles from Baghdad.

“It was the first call that we’ve had like that, but we’d rather have the phone calls than have the military walk up to our door like others have done,” Makayla Summers said.

“I feel fortunate that Matthew was the least injured of all in his group.”

Another Kentucky Marine, 22-year-old Lance Cpl. Justin Sims, was killed Saturday in the same region of Ramadi, his father said. Sims, who lived in Covington, died when his Humvee struck a roadside bomb during combat operations. He was among four Marines killed in that incident.

The attack that injured Summers occurred a few hours before he called his family in Ballard County in western Kentucky.

“It was a very short conversation, just that ‘I’m OK, mom. We were hit,’” Makayla Summers said.

She said he indicated that four or five soldiers were burned, and another was shot in the leg while standing on a rooftop.

The family later turned on CNN to see gunfire and explosions in Ramadi.

“They showed a Humvee blowing up, and Matt said it could’ve been his,” Makayla Summers said. “He was in a Humvee, and the one in front got hit first. He just floored it to try to rush through the fire, and then his truck got hit.”

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Afghanistan War In The Toilet:
Resistance Has “Regrouped To A Troubling Extent”

April 20, 2006 USA Today

Fighting between allied forces and Afghan insurgents has increased. They have “regrouped to a troubling extent,” says Ted Galen Carpenter, a military expert at the Cato Institute. [That’s like saying New Orleans got flooded “to a troubling extent.”]

TROOP NEWS

Marines Not Impressed By Generals’ Cowardice In The Face Of The Enemy

April 20, 2006 Los Angeles Times

News that six retired generals recently called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign has been slow to reach many of the Marines stationed in Iraq’s restive and isolated Al Anbar province.

Some of those who had heard about the debate said they were unimpressed with generals who waited until retirement to speak out against their former boss.

Rumsfeld’s Micro-Brained Micro-Management

April 20, 2006 Christian Science Monitor

In their denouncements of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, seven retired generals have directed their criticism mostly toward his handling of the Iraq war.

In some respects, however, the issue goes much deeper.

It is a matter of the military’s distrust of its civilian decision-makers that emerged in Vietnam and has never fully dissipated.

It is concern over an administration that has sought not only to ramrod major changes through the military, but also, some say, to micromanage battlefield tactics.

The Bloody Handed Traitors Of The U.S. Congress And The Marine Corps Command At It Again:
They Cut Funds To Protect Troops So War Profiteers Can Keep Grabbing Money For A Useless, Deadly, Piece Of Shit

[Thanks to Ron R., Military Project, and U.S. Army vet, who sent this in. He writes: Fuckin Disgrace!!!!!]

[Said it before, say it again. There is no enemy whatsoever in Iraq. The Iraqis and U.S. troops have a common enemy killing them both: the Imperial politicians in Washington DC, and the corporations that buy and sell them like so many cheap suits. The Congress of the United States of America has become the worlds’ most expensive, exclusive and deadly whorehouse. Payback is overdue. T]

April 20, 2006 By Andrew Taylor, Associated Press

A Senate measure to fund the war in Iraq would chop money for troops’ night vision equipment and new battle vehicles but add $230 million for a tilt-rotor aircraft that has already cost $18 billion and is still facing safety questions.

President Bush’s request for the emergency appropriations to cover costs of the continuing war and Hurricane Katrina recovery operations included no money for the troubled V-22 Osprey, which takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies like a plane.

The Marine Corps, however, followed up with a letter to lawmakers endorsing additional V-22s, noting that it is the only active production line capable of replacing four Vietnam War-era CH-46 choppers lost since Sept. 11, 2001.

Critics maintain that it’s still a curious choice to be funded in a bill whose defining purpose is to replace equipment worn out or destroyed in Iraq.

The Osprey, manufactured by Bell Helicopter, a subsidiary of Textron Inc., has been in development since the 1980s and has cost the government $18 billion so far.

It has suffered numerous setbacks over the years, including two crashes in 2000 that killed 23 people.

The Marine Corps says the program has gotten back on track since then despite an incident last month in which a V-22 momentarily took flight on its own.

To pay for the Ospreys, the Senate Appropriations Committee, guided by the Corps, cut into funding for night vision goggles, equipment for destroying mines and explosives, fire suppression systems for light armored vehicles and new vehicles that can be transported into battle inside the V-22.

“They’ve hijacked the bill to spend money on their toys,” said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog group. “You have the V-22, which isn’t even ready for fielding and it’s getting money in the supplemental.”

Here’s Another “Fuckin’ Disgrace”:
“Veterans Waiting For Their First Medical Appointment Has Doubled In The Last Year”

April 20, 2006 By Rick Maze, Army Times staff writer [Excerpts]

The number of veterans waiting for their first medical appointment in the veterans’ health care system has doubled in the last year, according to information released Thursday by House Democrats.

Cited statistic provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Democratic staff of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee says 30,475 veterans are waiting for their first appointment at a VA facilities, compared with 15,211 at the same time last year.

Since 2004, the number of newly eligible people waiting for appointments has increased by 400 percent, according to the Democratic staff.

Rep. Michael Michaud of Maine, ranking Democrat on the veterans’ affairs committee’s health panel, said the situation is “simply unacceptable,” especially because the Bush administration has opposed efforts in Congress to increase the VA’s health care budget.

The Bush administration did not ask for any emergency funding for the VA, claiming that the 2006 budget, boosted by Congress last year after the VA admitted to funding shortfalls, is sufficient.

The 31,000 veterans waiting for their first appointment are those with service-connected injuries or who have little or no income.

Hey, Who Cares About Money To Help Busted Up Vets?
Here’s What’s Really Important:
Iraq Costing More Than Vietnam And Imperial Democrats Agree:
Keep On Pissing It Way

The bill is the fifth emergency defense request since the Iraq invasion in March 2003. Senate Democrats say that, in the end, they will vote for the measure, which congressional leaders plan to deliver to President Bush by Memorial Day.

April 20, 2006 Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post [Excerpts]

Washington: Annual war expenditures in Iraq will almost certainly come close to doubling since the U.S. invasion, as the military confronts the rapidly escalating cost of repairing, rebuilding and replacing equipment chewed up by three years of combat.

The cost of the war in U.S. fatalities has declined this year, but the cost in treasure continues to rise: from $48 billion in 2003 to $59 billion in 2004 to $81 billion in 2005 to an anticipated $94 billion in 2006, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

The U.S. government is now spending nearly $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from $8.2 billion a year ago, a new Congressional Research Service report found.

Annual war costs in Iraq are easily outpacing the $61 billion a year that the United States spent in Vietnam between 1964 and 1972, in today’s dollars.

The Iraq invasion’s “shock and awe” phase of high-tech laser-guided bombs, cruise missiles and stealth aircraft has long faded, but the costs of even those early months are just coming into view as the military confronts equipment repair and rebuilding costs it has avoided and procurement costs it never expected.

The bill is the fifth emergency defense request since the Iraq invasion in March 2003.

Senate Democrats say that, in the end, they will vote for the measure, which congressional leaders plan to deliver to President Bush by Memorial Day.

San Francisco State University Management Shitheads At It Again:
“Open Letter To SFSU President On Student Protest”

President Robert A. Corrigan, Ph.D.
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94132

(415) 338-1381
corrigan@sfsu.edu

Dear Dr. Corrigan:

On Friday, April 14 ten SFSU students protested military recruitment at the university’s career fair.

Campus police interrupted their protest and physically took the students from the school’s gymnasium where they were protesting. The police then notified the students that they were banned from campus.

You officially confirmed the ban that same day, and the campus chief of police notified students that if they returned to campus prior to April 28th, they would be “subject to immediate arrest.”

When the students called to request a hearing, they were told they would have to wait until May.

We were glad to hear, for the sake of the students, that you withdrew the ban three days later, on Monday.

Several students who lived or worked on campus became instantly homeless or unemployed by your arbitrary action.

At this point, the students are waiting for the other shoe to drop, as they have heard no word as to whether disciplinary proceedings will come next. Students report that the university waited over a week to notify students of charges against them in a previous situation.

The world has witnessed a full display of intimidation tactics by SFSU against the students, from rough behavior when the police physically removed nonviolent students from the career fair, to your serving notice on them that they were banned — without a prior hearing — from campus for 2 weeks.

Any pretense of due process was thrown out the window when your office informed them that they could not have a hearing until after their banishment ended.

Now, they face the prospect of discipline. And for what?

They distributed anti-military recruitment leaflets, talked to recruiters and potential recruits, and chanted phrases such as, “Killing Iraqis is no career! Recruiters are not welcome here!” We understand that the chants were loud, but that the students were peaceful and committed to nonviolence.

We also understand that the police aggression came as a shock to the students, who hadn’t planned to get arrested or cited, and who were not given any warning prior to detainment.

Reportedly, police rapidly lined up in front of the students, intimidated them and began physically pulling students out of the career fair. Students say that this behavior breached a police policy against mishandling students.

This incident at SFSU has come at a time when students nationwide are facing oppression for protesting this academic year.

We have heard of the recent incident at UC Santa Cruz where police roughed up two female students who were leaving at the end of the protest.
Earlier this academic year, student protesters were threatened with serious discipline at Holyoke Community College (MA), George Mason University (VA), Kent State University, Wisconsin at Madison, Hampton University (VA), and Pace University (NY).

In each case, the university backed down in the face of an international outcry against repression of peaceful protests against war and military recruitment. Such an outcry is building now concerning SFSU’s actions.

As the students have pointed out, SFSU is a university with a legacy of protests, starting with the student strike of 1968. The 10 students with Students Against War, a chapter of the Campus Antiwar Network (CAN), were exercising their rights to free speech and carrying forth the proud tradition of students before them.

Indeed, this is not the first time SFSU has sought to suppress the speech of its students dissenting from recruitment to the war in Iraq.

Just over a year ago, on March 9, 2005, according to “A New Battleground on Campuses” by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, a member of CAN’s national coordinating committee, “200 students rallied against recruitment on campus in protest of the war and the discriminatory Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, ultimately driving recruiters out of the campus career fair with their peaceful chanting and placards.

The SFSU administration then decided to single out two student groups (among the six sponsors) and three students for disciplinary action.” Both student groups were put on probation and had their funding eliminated.

The three students, meanwhile, have never had their cases resolved – with SFSU neither disciplining them, nor being willing to forgo its claim to discipline them in the future for their protest last spring.

The lack of punishment so far may be attributable to the international outrage provoked by the case, as well as a sister case on the same day, where three students and a staff member at City College New York (CCNY) were assaulted by campus security, arrested, and banned from campus during a peaceful protest against military recruiters at their career fair. The community response to both cases led to the CCNY administration, and the New York District Attorney’s office, dropping all charges.

Let’s not forget what these students – “the SFSU 10?” – were protesting.

They were protesting the military’s recruiting students into ‘careers’ that would foster death, destruction and injustice.

They were trying to protect their fellow students from serious risks of their being among the tens of thousands of US troops killed, maimed or traumatized in Iraq.

They were trying to protect students from participating in war crimes – a war in which 100,000 or more Iraqis have been killed, according to the peer reviewed Lancet study; a war in which the US uses uranium, a radioactive neurotoxin, in munitions; a war in which 1 in 4 combat marines admitted to having killed a civilian, with 8 in 10 having reported seeing injured women or children whom they were unable to help (Boston Globe, July 1, 2004).

These horrors and crimes are not cited in military recruitment materials. Instead, students are fed lies about military careers and benefits.

If anything, the protesters should be praised.

You should be joining them in condemning recruitment that enables the continued occupation and destruction of Iraq.

You should support students who are trying to protect their peers from the untold physical and mental risks of war, whether it’s this one or the one that the US is planning against Iran. You should be proud of students who will not condone hate against their peers by a homophobic and sexist military.

Further, SFSU professes to be part of and to care about the Bay Area community.

Do you care what your community thinks about the war and military recruitment?

As Bonnie Weinstein of the Bay Area United Against the War has pointed out in a letter to you, in November, 2005, the voters of San Francisco voted to stop the war in Iraq and to bring troops home immediately, and they voted to get the military out of San Francisco schools.

And, in the San Francisco Unified School District, 95 percent of parents signed the district’s Opt-Out form, making it clear that they don’t want the military in contact with their children. As she wrote in her letter, “the least that all school administrations could do is actively fight the No Child Left Behind Act and stand in full support of all those who protest the militarization of our schools and the ongoing presence of the military whenever they show up.”

We stand in defense of the SFSU protesters and call on you to take no disciplinary action against them and to apologize to them for violating of their civil liberties and human rights.

We believe the university should also compensate any of the group who may have become homeless or otherwise suffered economic hardship because of the SFSU actions.

And we invite you to join us as we renew our efforts to build the movement to end this war, bring all the troops home now, and institute reparations for the people of Iraq.

Sincerely,
The undersigned:*

Ahmed Shawki, editor, International Socialist Review and board member of the National Council of Arab Americans;

Alan Maass, editor of Socialist Worker newspaper;
Annie and Buddy Spell, Covington Peace Project, Covington, LA;
Anthony Arnove, author, “Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal,” co-editor with Howard Zinn, “Voices of a People’s History of the US;”

Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War;
Brian Kelly, student organizer and victim of repression; Pace University Campus Antiwar Network and Students for a Democratic Society;

S. Brian Willson, J.D., LL.D.; Member, coordinating Committee, Humboldt Bay Veterans For Peace, Arcata, CA; Commissioner, Arcata City Nuclear Free Zone and Peace Commission;

Camilo Mejia, war resister who spent six months in military prison for refusing to return to Iraq;

Carolyn Fuller, Senior Analyst/ Programmer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology;
Charles Jenks, Chair of Advisory Board, Traprock Peace Center;

Charles Peterson, member of the International Socialist Organization and student victim of repression at Holyoke Community College;

Charlie Jackson for Texans for Peace;

Christopher Schwartz, Co-president of the UNI Students for Social Justice; Coordinating Committee member of the Campus Anti-War Network (CAN); President of Cedar Valley United for Peace & Justice; Publisher of The Legacy; Editor and Chief of College Not Combat; Organizing Committee of the Midwest Social Forum;

Cindy Sheehan, co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace and mother of Casey Sheehan, who died in Iraq;

Dahr Jamail, indepdendent journalist;
David Rovics, progressive songwriter and musician;
Dave Stratman, Editor, NewDemocracyWorld.com;
David Swanson, co-founder, AfterDowningStreet.org, DontAttackIran.org;

Denis Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary General who resigned in protest as the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq;

Dennis Kyne, Gulf War veteran and activist;

Dirk Adriaensens, coordinator of SOS Iraq and member of the Executive committee of the Brussels Tribunal;

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, NYU, national coordinating committee of Campus Antiwar Network;

Eric Ruder, writer, Socialist Worker;

Gabriele Zamparini, independent filmmaker, writer and journalist living in London; co-producer with The Cat’s Dream;

Hans-Christof von Sponeck, former UN Assistant Secretary General who resigned in protest as the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq;

Jacob Flowers, Director, Mid-South Peace and Justice Center, Memphis;

John Robinson, student organizer who faced repression at Hampton University (Virginia);

Hadi Jawad, Crawford Peace House;
Judy Linehan, MFSO mother of Iraq War Veteran;
Kathy Kelly, Voices of Creative Nonviolence;
Katrina Yeaw, SAW/CAN at San Francisco State University, studying in Italy;
Kelly Dougherty, co-founder Iraq Veterans Against the War;

Kevin Ramirez for the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors and Military Out of Our Schools-Bay Area;

Kristin Anderson, student organizer, SAW/CAN, SFSU;
Lindsey German, convener, Stop the War Coalition (UK);

Marc Herold, Professor, Departments of Economics and Women’s Studies, University of New Hampshire;

Medea Benjamin, cofounder, Global Exchange and CODEPINK;
Michaelann Bewsee, Director, Arise for Social Justice (MA);

Michael Smith, Bay Area activist; a founding member of the Campus Antiwar Network who faced campus repression as a member of the “Berkeley 3;”

Natylie Baldwin, Mt. Diablo Peace & Justice Center;
Nick Mottern, National Director of Consumers for Peace, ExxonMobil War Boycott;
Nikki Robinson, student organizer, KSAWC/CAN, Kent State University;

Norman Solomon, author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death;”

Paola Pisi, professor of religious studies (Italy) and editor of uruknet.info;
Pav Akhtar, Convenor, NUS (UK) Internationalism Campaign;

Phil Gasper, Chair, Department of Philosophy & Religion, Notre Dame de Namur University;

Josey Foo for San Juan Peace Network (New Mexico);
Sanford Russell, veteran and moderator of BoycottUS yahoo group;
Sara Flounders, International Action Center co-director;
Sharon Smith, author of “Women and Socialism: Essays on Women’s Liberation;”
Sheila Rosenthal, Lafayette Area Peace Coalition (Indiana);
Sunny Miller, Executive Director, for Traprock Peace Center;

Tariq Khan, George Mason University student and Air Force vet assaulted and arrested for peaceful protest;

Dr. Thomas Fasy, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine;
Thomas F. Barton, editor of “GI Special;”
Tim Carpenter, National Director, Progressive Democrats of America;
Todd Chretien, Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate in California;
Valley Reed, March to Redeem the Soul of America, Texas;
Vicky Steinitz, Associate Professor (retired), U Mass/Boston;

Ward Reilly, SE National Contact – Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, Baton Rouge;

Wes Hannah, Cornell University, Campus Antiwar Network national Coordinating Committee;

William McAvinney, Information Architect, MIT

*Affiliations are for identification purposes only, except as indicated.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action

2006-04-20 Middle East Online & Reuters

Two policemen were killed in a roadside bombing against a passing patrol in Al-Khalis, 80 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Baghdad.

One policeman was killed and two others wounded in a similar roadside bombing also against a police patrol in the restive city of Baquba, 60 kilometers (36 miles) northeast of Baghdad.

A roadside bomb against a convoy carrying General Mohammed Namah, the head of operations command in the interior ministry, killed one civilian, a ministry official said.

Namah’s four bodyguards were wounded in the blast.

Gunpersons killed two civilians who worked at an Iraqi army base in Khalis, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police said.

Two police were killed and four others wounded when a roadside bomb hit their patrol in Tal Afar, about 420 km (260 miles) northwest of Baghdad, a medical source said.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“As A Draftee Serving With The 25th Inf. Div. In Cu Chi, I Recall Fondly The Newspaper Vietnam GI”

From: G, Charles
To: GI Special
Sent: April 20, 2006
Subject: VietNam GI newspaper

As a draftee serving with the 25th Inf. Div. in Cu Chi, I recall fondly the newspaper Vietnam GI.

It was the only one I wouldn’t use for toilet paper.

(Oh! the pleasure of carefully cutting Nixon’s face from the front page of the Stars and Stripes.)

If I remember correctly, the original founder of Vietnam GI was killed in action, and was quite a charismatic figure. Do you recall his name?

I’ve often thought he should be more widely known and his efforts publicized and appreciated.

Sincerely, Charlie G

[Yes, he should be, so, thanks to you, below is a contribution to that effort. T

[Jeff’s’ brother Robert has this to say about your letter: “Marvelous letter, many thanks. T-paper ref reminds me of my year at Moscow University Law School, early ‘60s. Public bathrooms were abominable even in fine buildings. When one would see someone enter a bathroom with a copy of the day’s ‘Pravda’, it was not to read, but to use it. It wasn’t a political statement, simply that the real thing was hard to find in that consumer goods scarce society. That was precisely the year Jeff was serving in Nam.”]

VIETNAM GI
August 1969

Many good men never came back from Nam. Some came back disabled in mind. Jeff Sharlet came back a pretty together cat—and he came back angry. Jeff started VGI, and for almost two years poured his life into it, in an endless succession of 18-hour days trying to organize men to fight for their own rights.

On Monday, June 16th, at 2:45 pm, Jeff died in the Miami VA Hospital. He died of a sudden heart failure, brought on by the uncontrollable growth of the cancer that had earlier destroyed his kidney. There was no way to save him. He was only 27 years old.

Rather than wait for the draft, like so many others Jeff went RA. With dreams of seeing Europe, he applied for “translator-interpreter”, and found himself at the US Army Language School at Monterey, California. But instead of French, Czech or German, he was assigned a strange language called “Vietnamese”—. spoken in a country he couldn’t even find on the map. For eleven months in 1962 he was drilled in Vietnamese.

In 1963 he was assigned to Army Security Agency, and left for his first tour in Nam. Stationed in Saigon awhile, Jeff witnessed the ARVN coup that overthrew Saigon dictator Ngo Diem. On his second tour his ASA unit was stationed near Phu Bai. Engaged in top-secret work monitoring, decoding and translating North Vietnamese radio messages, they wore AF uniforms and worked at a small air base. But every time they went into the bars, every bargirl could reel off all the facts about their mission.

Speaking the language well, Jeff could talk to many Vietnamese about what was happening to their country. He spent long hours questioning ex-Foreign Legion men, who’d settled in Vietnam after the French left, peasants, ARVN officers, students, and even suspected VC agents. By the time he ETSed in July, 1964 he’d put a lot of pieces together.

Jeff went back to school, and got his college degree (with honors) from Indiana University in 1967. During his “GI Bill years” he joined the peace movement, and became chairman of his local chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. But he had become increasingly disillusioned about the student movement, and felt that its shallowness and snotty attitude towards other people made it ineffective.

That summer he went to New York City to work with Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and it was there that he decided to try to organize other GIs to fight the brass. Jeff had won a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for graduate study at the University of Chicago. He enrolled and” picked up his check. From then on all his time and money were sunk into starting a newspaper for servicemen.

After two years of endless traveling, fund-raising and writing, Jeff’s drive started to fade. That restless energy that had brought him countless miles to base after base wasn’t there. After his last trip to Ft. Hood in the Fall of 1968, Jeff complained that he was really beat, burnt out. We all agreed that he should go “on leave” and take a rest.

It was while visiting friends in Boston that the first really severe pains started. Jeff flew home to Florida, and entered the hospital. From there it was steadily downhill all the way. The removal of his left kidney, massive radiation treatments, drugs—nothing stopped the growth of his cancer. At the end he was weak and emaciated, without enough breath in his lungs to speak for more than a few sentences. He said that he had many new ideas for our fight, but was just too exhausted to talk about them.

Jeff was a truly rare man. He was our friend and comrade, and those of us who came together in this fight will never forget him. VGI, the paper that so many readers called “the truth paper,” will go on fighting.

Vietnam GI: Reprints Available

The Military Project has copied complete sets of Vietnam GI. The originals were a bit rough, but every page is there.

Cost: $15 if picked up in New York City. For mailing inside USA or APO add $5 for bubble bag and postage.

Checks, money orders payable to: Thomas F Barton (MPOC)

Orders to:
GI Special
Box 126
2565 Broadway
New York, N.Y.
10025-5657

All proceeds are used for projects giving aid and comfort to members of the armed forces opposed to today’s Imperial wars.

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

Mike Hastie

U.S. Army Medic

Vietnam 1970-71

December 13, 2004

Declared Bill Ehrhart, a Marine in Vietnam:
“In grade school we learned about the redcoats, the nasty British soldiers that tried to stifle our freedom… Subconsciously, but not very subconsciously, I began increasingly to have the feeling that I was a redcoat. I think it was one of the most staggering realizations of my life.”

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.

The Soldiers

April 25, 1915: Australian and New Zealand troops landed at Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli peninsula, the beginning of the biggest military defeat Australia has ever suffered in any war, so far.

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

The Soldiers

Down some cold field in a world unspoken
the young men are walking together, slim and tall,
and though they laugh to one another, silence is not broken;
there is no sound however clear they call.

They are speaking together of what they loved in vain here,
but the air is too thin to carry the things they say.
They were young and golden, but they came on pain here,
and their youth is age now, their gold is grey.

Yet their hearts are not changed, and they cry to one another,
‘What have they done with the lives we laid aside?
Are they young with our youth, gold with our gold, my brother?
Do they smile in the face of death, because we died?’

Down some cold field in a world uncharted
the young seek each other with questioning eyes.
They question each other, the young, the golden hearted,
of the world that they were robbed of in their quiet paradise.

Humbert Wolfe, Requiem: The Soldier (1916)

“On This Subject, I Do Not Wish To Think, Or Speak, Or Write, With Moderation”

January 1, 1831: William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist, announces his newspaper, The Liberator

“I am aware that many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for severity? I will be harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice.

“On this subject, I do not with to think, or speak, or write, with moderation.

“No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to sound a moderate alarm…but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present…

“I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD.”

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

New Element Found; Bushcronium

[Thanks to Mary R., who sent this in.]

By Prof. Richard Wilk, Gender Studies and Anthropology, Indiana University

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

A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element has been named “Bushcronium.”

Bushcronium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an Atomic mass of 311. These 311 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since Bushcronium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.

A minute amount of Bushcronium causes one reaction to take over 4 days to complete when it would normally take less than a second. Bushcronium has a normal half-life of multiples of 4 years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Bushcronium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Bushcronium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as “Critical Morass.”

When catalyzed with money, Bushcronium activates Foxnewsium, an element which radiates orders of magnitude, more energy, albeit as incoherent noise, since it has 1/2 as many peons but twice as many morons.

[Thanks to Brother Z, who sent this in.]

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

All GI Special issues achieved at website
www.militaryproject.org/
The following have also posted issues; there may be others:

gi-special.iraq-news.de
www.notinourname.net/gi-special/
www.williambowles.info/gispecial
www.traprockpeace.org/gi_special/
www.albasrah.net/maqalat/english/gi-special.htm
www.uruknet.info/

GI Special distributes and posts to our website copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. We believe this constitutes a “fair use” of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law since it is being distributed without charge or profit for educational purposes to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for educational purposes, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.  GI Special has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor is GI Special endorsed or sponsored by the originators. This attributed work is provided a non-profit basis to facilitate understanding, research, education, and the advancement of human rights and social justice Go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml for more information. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. 

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