GI SPECIAL 4E12

ENOUGH:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Two American Soldiers Killed By IED Southwest Of Baghdad.

5/11/2006 06-05-01C

BAGHDAD, Iraq: Two Multi-National Division Baghdad Soldiers died at approximately 9 a.m. May 11 when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb during a patrol southwest of Baghdad.

Bomb Kills US Soldier Near Baghdad

May 11, 2006 The Age Company Ltd.

A US soldier was killed when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb southwest of Baghdad, the US military said in a statement.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO COMPREHENSIBLE REASON TO BE IN THIS EXTREMELY HIGH RISK LOCATION AT THIS TIME, EXCEPT THAT A CROOKED POLITICIAN WHO LIVES IN THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU THERE, SO HE WILL LOOK GOOD.
That is not a good enough reason.

U.S. soldiers of the 101st Airborne’s 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, during a gunbattle with insurgents April 22, 2006 in Ramadi.

U.S. soldiers patrolling in Ramadi say that enemy contact is so regular, they can make accurate estimates of how long it will take to be shot at after the start of their patrols. Estimates range from 45 minutes for one company to just 8 minutes for another. (AP Photo/Todd Pitman)

Marine Dies In Germany Of Iraq Wounds

May 11, 2006 U.S. Department of Defense News Release No. 429-06

Sgt. Alessandro Carbonaro, 28, of Bethesda, Md., died May 10, at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, from wounds received while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq, on May 1. He was assigned to 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Texas Soldier Dead In Non-Combat Incident

May 10, 2006 U.S. Department of Defense News Release No. 425-06

Spc. Aaron P. Latimer, 26, of Ennis, Texas, died in Mosul, Iraq, on May 9. Latimer was assigned to the 562nd Engineer Company, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Illinois Soldier Killed In Afghanistan Crash

(KSDK)

May 9, 2006

EFFINGHAM (AP): Christopher Donaldson’s mom was relieved when her son told her early this year that his first mission overseas as an Army pilot would be in Afghanistan, not Iraq.

“I didn’t fully recognize the dangers in Afghanistan,” Lynn Donaldson said in a telephone interview from her Effingham home. “I thought it was safer. Perhaps I was naive.”

Military officials knocked on her door Saturday in this southern Illinois town before midnight with news that her 28-year-old son was one of 10 soldiers killed when their CH-47 helicopter crashed during combat operations in eastern Afghanistan.

“They apologized and said it was the quickest they could get there,” Donaldson said about the late-night visit.

Donaldson, a U.S. Army Warrant Officer 2nd Class, graduated in 1995 from Effingham High School, where he played football.

He joined the Army two years later, eventually training as a helicopter crewman and then receiving his own wings in 2004.

“He assured me they wouldn’t send him abroad for a long time because he was in training,” she said.

“I was thinking it was a long way off and that the war would be over by the time he was done with his flight training. I was wrong, obviously.”

At least 234 U.S. military personnel, including those killed Friday, have died in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan and Uzbekistan since late 2001 when U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban regime, according to the Defense Department.

Chief Warrant Officer Killed

U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Eric W. Totten 34, died May 5, 2006, when a helicopter fell into a ravine in Kunar Province in Afghanistan. Totten was a career Army pilot who had been in Bosnia and Iraq and was on his second tour in Afghanistan, his brother Noel, said. (AP Photo/Family of Eric Totten)

Worcester, Mass. Soldier Killed In Kunar

May 10, 2006: Pfc. Brian M. Moquin, Jr., 19, a cavalry scout and native of Worcester, Mass., was killed while conducting combat operations in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, May 5, 2006. (AP Photo/U.S. Army, HO)

U.S. General Confirms Resistance Gaining Ground

5.11.06 USA Today

The Taliban has gained influence in three southern Afghan provinces during the past year, and the number of Islamic militant fighters in the area may have increased, the commander of the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan said during a Pentagon briefing on the war.

TROOP NEWS

Pentagon Rats Busy Again:
80% Of Middle East War Veterans Refused PTSD Counseling:
“Untreated PTSD Can Lead To Substance Abuse, Severe Depression And Even Suicide”

May 11, 2006 By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post Staff Writer

Nearly four in five service members returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who were found to be at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were never referred by government clinicians for further help, according to a Government Accountability Office report due for release today.

The report says Defense Department officials were unable to explain why only some troops were referred for help.

Many veterans groups have accused the government of playing down the risk of PTSD because of concerns over skyrocketing costs.

Service members were determined to be at risk for PTSD, a serious psychiatric disorder characterized by disruptive memories and anxieties following traumatic episodes, if they gave three or more positive answers on a screening questionnaire asking whether they had nightmares about frightening experiences, had avoided situations that reminded them of such events, were constantly on guard, or felt numb or detached from everyday life.

In all, 9,145 of 178,664 service members who took the screening test were found to be at risk.

Of those at risk, 22 percent were referred for help. The Army and Air Force each referred 23 percent of those at risk, the Navy 18 percent and the Marines about 15 percent, according to a draft of the report obtained by The Washington Post.

The final report will have the formal responses from the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments.

In the draft report, Pentagon officials are quoted as saying that not all service members who gave positive responses on the screening test needed help, but the report said the officials could not specify what factors are involved in referring some people but not others.

“You would think that (referrals for treatment) would be the point of the whole screening tool,” said Veterans Affairs spokesman Jim Benson. He said that the Defense Department was solely responsible for administering the screening test and making referral decisions.

After the questionnaire is completed, the responses are reviewed by a Defense Department health-care provider, who interviews the service member and decides whether to make a referral for a thorough mental health evaluation, the report said. Providers range from physicians to medical technicians.

Deciding whether to refer service members for help involves judgment, the report said, but the Defense Department “cannot provide reasonable assurance that all service members who need referrals for further mental health or combat stress evaluations receive such help.”

Rep. Michael Michaud (Maine), the ranking Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee on health, said screening service members for PTSD was the right thing to do, but questioned the utility of the screening if people at risk did not receive help. [Duh]

“When 78 percent of the service members who are at risk of developing PTSD do not get a referral for further evaluation, then it’s clear the assessment system is not working,” he said in a statement.

“Early assessment can prevent tragedy. Untreated PTSD can lead to substance abuse, severe depression and even suicide.”

“Michael Perished From The Psychic Wounds Of War”

May 4, 2006 By BOB HERBERT, The New York Times [Excerpt]

The list of names on the Department of Defense Web site is ever-expanding: Sakoda, Davis, Mills, Gomez …

Like a disease for which there is no vaccine and no cure, the war in Iraq drags on. American deaths have now passed 2,400. Tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children have died.

The suffering continues to spread like a fire sprayed with gasoline. Yesterday we heard the tragic story of Jose Gomez, a sergeant in the Army Reserve whose 21-year-old fiancée, Analaura Esparza-Gutierrez, a private, was killed by a roadside bomb in Tikrit in 2003. Last summer Sergeant Gomez, who had served in Iraq himself, was ordered to go back for a second tour. Last Friday he was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

The media are much more focused on the trendy problem of steroids in baseball than, say, the agony of the once healthy young men and women who are now struggling to resurrect their lives after being paralyzed, or losing their eyesight, or shedding one or two or three or even four limbs in Iraq.

The truth is that the suffering comes in myriad forms. I spoke by phone this week with Stefanie Pelkey, a former Army captain who lives in Spring, Tex., with her 3-year-old son, Benjamin. Her husband, Michael, a captain with the First Armored Division, was sent to Iraq just a few weeks after Benjamin was born. Michael was a big man, 6 feet 4? inches tall, who loved to play golf and, like President Bush, ride his bicycle.

When Captain Pelkey left Iraq and rejoined his family in the summer of 2003, he seemed “really agitated,” Ms. Pelkey recalled. He was hyper-vigilant, she said, and insisted on keeping a loaded 9 mm pistol by the bed in their home in Lawton, Okla.

In testimony last year before a presidential commission examining the nation’s mental health system, Ms. Pelkey said, “If only the military community had reached out to family members in some manner to prepare them for, and make them aware of, the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, my family’s tragedy could have been averted.”

Captain Pelkey’s distress intensified over a period of several months. He became unusually forgetful. He developed high blood pressure and chest pains. Eventually he began to experience nightmares. He sought medical help, but it was a long time before anyone discussed the possibility of depression, or explored a possible link between the captain’s symptoms and his experiences in Iraq.

A civilian family therapist eventually told Captain Pelkey that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and recommended that he be put on medication.

Ms. Pelkey said her husband seemed hopeful after receiving the diagnosis, but just a week later he shot himself to death in their living room.

Ms. Pelkey told me that her husband had been reluctant to discuss his time in Iraq, but she knew that he had seen soldiers die, and that he had been affected by the sight of civilian casualties and the suffering of children.

In Ms. Pelkey’s view, her husband was as much a casualty of the war as a soldier killed in combat.

“Just as some soldiers perish from bullet wounds or other trauma of war,” she said, “Michael perished from the psychic wounds of war.”

[Impossible to be sure without knowing what the VA drugged him with, but he may have also perished of government medical murder. The Bronx VA in New York City was passing out thorazine and benzos to Iraq vets with PTSD. Thorazine has an interesting side effect: impotence. It used to be common in mental institutions, before malpractice suits started collecting huge dollar awards for the irreversible damage to the central nervous system in causes.

[As for benzos (Valium, Librium, Xanex, etc.): they are about as addictive a drug as you can find anywhere, as addictive as heroin or nicotine, and in some individuals, can lead to extreme mood swings and suicidal ideation. Yeah, that’s right, suicidal ideation. But hey, it’s cheaper to pass out drugs to Iraq vets than spend the money for effective PTSD counseling. That requires hiring real human beings to do the work, and the drug companies don’t make any money off that. Duh. T]

“Reserve Officers Have Sued The Army, Saying They Should Be Allowed To Get Out”
“They Are Saying They Can Keep You As Long As They Desire”

May 11, 2006 By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Army Reserve, taxed by recruiting shortfalls and war-zone duty, has adopted a policy barring officers from leaving the service if their field is undermanned or they have not been deployed to Iraq, to Afghanistan or for homeland defense missions.

The reserve has used the unpublicized policy, first adopted in 2004 and strengthened in a May 2005 memo signed by Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, its commander, to disapprove the resignations of at least 400 reserve officers, according to Army figures.

At least 10 reserve officers have sued the Army, saying they should be allowed to get out because they have finished their mandatory eight years of service.

Under another practice, known as “stop-loss,” thousands of active-duty Army and reserve soldiers have been temporarily prevented from leaving the military, either because their skills were needed or because their units were going overseas.

As of January, more than 13,000 soldiers were being kept in the service under stop-loss, a policy criticized by some as a “backdoor draft,” which the Army says it seeks to end.

But experts in military law say barring reserve officers from resigning is in some ways more expansive and open-ended than stop-loss. The policy applies to officers who do not fall under stop-loss.

At the heart of the controversy is whether a law stating that commissioned reserve officers are appointed “for an indefinite term and are held during the pleasure of the President” gives the government the power to force them to serve permanently – as Army lawyers say – or only to discharge them against their will.

“This is a dangerous precedent for the future of all officers. They are saying officer service is permanent,” said Capt. Bradley Schwan, who served six years on active duty before joining the Army Reserve.

He is suing Defense Department leaders to be allowed to resign, after being turned down twice. He is awaiting a ruling on a government motion to dismiss his case by a judge in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

“What the Army is saying is even though you are promised up front eight years as a reserve officer, they are saying they can keep you as long as they desire,” said Stuart Slotnick, a lawyer involved in Schwan’s case and four similar cases since 2004. Another pending case involves Capt. Jonathan O’Reilly, who has tried to resign five times in two years but was required to report to Fort Hood, Tex., on Monday to prepare to go to Iraq, said his attorney, Donald G. Rehkopf Jr.

Helmly cited the heavy operational demands combined with officer shortages as the main reasons for setting down new guidelines to curtail resignations, a move that led the Army Reserve to turn down 176 resignation requests in 2004, 190 in 2005 and 34 so far this year, the Army said.

The May 2005 memo states that to be allowed to resign, a reserve officer must first either serve a term supporting military operations in Iraq, in Afghanistan or for homeland defense; be assigned to a job specialty that has at least 80 percent of its personnel; or suffer a recent family death or financial trouble that would lead to serious, permanent hardship unless the resignation is granted.

General Admits “At Least” 100 Reserve Units Fucked Over By Pentagon Incompetence

May 10, 2006 The Associated Press

WASHINGTON: More than three years into the Iraq war, the Pentagon’s method of calling up reservists remains “fraught with friction” and is a key reason why they decline to re-enlist, a senior general said Wednesday.

“There are a lot of people who would have just said, `I’ll do anything for my country but I don’t need to torture myself,’ and this process has been almost torturous in some cases,” said Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve. He was referring to the process of pulling reservists out of their civilian jobs to serve on active duty.

In citing the problems with the Pentagon’s mobilization system, Helmly described the case of an Army Reserve maintenance unit in Texas that was called to active duty, then one day later notified that the mobilization order had been canceled. By that time the 75 or 80 people in the unit had already left their civilian jobs, Helmly said.

They returned to civilian life, only to get a new mobilization order a few weeks later.

He said this was not an isolated incident. He estimated that similar things happened to at least 100 other units.

Twisted Freaks At DoD Spied On Gay Troops’ Legal Organization

April 11, 2006 by PageOneQ

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network has released documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the Department of Defense, which confirm the military’s surveillance of organizations working to repeal the Military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy, PageOneQ has learned.

“The very idea that the federal government believes freedom of speech is a threat to national security is unconscionable,” Steve Ralls, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network’s Director of Communications told PageOneQ today.

“The Pentagon has acknowledged that collection of the information was perhaps inappropriate,” Mr. Ralls said as he cited an earlier report by United Press International on the Pentagon’s admission.

Mr. Ralls also explained that Servicemembers Legal Defense Network fully expects the federal government to “discontinue surveillance because there was no legitimate reason to begin it in the first place.”

The Department of Defense, according to the 16 pages of documents it released, monitored protests against the DADT policy at college campuses in New York City, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz.

A counterintelligence agent reported on the protests against Military recruitment on campuses had “a strong potential for confrontation at this protest…” Discounting a theory that the protest was taking place in a separate location from Military recruiting, the agent wrote “tactics have included using mass text paging to inform others of the location of the recruiters.”

The Department of Defense has indicated that it’s search for documents relating to surveillance of groups opposed to Don’t Ask, Don’t tell continues.

“Nightmares About Sailors In Their Dungarees Carrying M16s”

From: NA
To: Firebase-news
Sent: May 08, 2006
Subject: Sailors and Airmen

A and I were reading the USA Today when another administration secret was revealed. Sailors, Airmen land new role…I think that all the members here should read this article and see how our military is really being used to fight the war on terror.

As a former sailor, I am insulted and find it a personal affront that our sailors and airmen are being trained to fill in for an Army that cannot meet its recruiting goals. 8000 sailors are on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq with a projection of 12,000 sailors by December doing one year rotations.

They are being given “crash” courses at Ft. Jackson, Columbia, SC staffed by Army Instructors. 200 sailors are being trained every 2 weeks. It stresses rifle skills, troop movements, first aid, convoy security and roadside bomb recognition.

A Lt Col Carl Ey says the training gives commanders more flexibility and doesn’t signal a shortage of soldiers.

I haven’t even gone to sleep yet but am having nightmares about sailors in their dungarees carrying M16s…this is one of the most absurd things I have heard of this administration doing to this date.

Bull****. This does signal a shortage in the Army. It shows that recruiting efforts have failed to fill the shortage.

Thanks for listening.

N and A
Former ET1 (SW), USN, 1979-1992 and Former AT1 (AW), USN, 1982-1993

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)

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

WELCOME TO RAMADI:
HAVE A NICE DAY

An insurgent with a shoulder-fired rocket in Ramadi. (AFP)

Assorted Resistance Action

May 11, 2006 The Age Company Ltd. & By Mariam Karouny, Reuters & Sapa-AFP & The Daily Starr

In central Baghdad guerrillas shot dead a judicial investigator near a courthouse, police said.

Khalid al-Sadoun, a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a major Sunni [collaborator] party, was killed along with two aides on Wednesday in the small town of al-Zubeyr, near Basra.

Two Iraqi army soldiers were also killed and four others wounded near Balad, north of Baghdad, when a roadside bomb went off near an army patrol.

In oil-rich Kirkuk, gunmen ambushed and killed a police lieutenant colonel.

South of Baghdad police found the body of a policeman with his hands bound, signs of torture and shot in the head

Meanwhile, escapees from one of the US-led coalition’s main prisons were still at large Thursday even as a major search involving US and Iraqi forces was underway for them around Sulaimaniyah in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region.

The head of security in the Kurdish area Seif al-Din blamed the negligence of prison guards for Tuesday’s escape of several Sunni Arab prisoners, charged with terrorism, from Fort Suse.

Five of the Kurdish guards in the US-administered prison have been arrested for questioning, and Al-Din added that the prisoners escaped through air ducts.

A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi Army patrol near the central neighborhood of Karrada killed one soldier.

Dead policeman following an attack in Baghdad, May 10, 2006. Insurgents opened fire on two officers, killing both in the Mansur area in western Baghdad. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

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

Battle Hymn Of The Republic (Brought Down To Date)

Mark Twain 1905
[Concerning the U.S. Governments’ Occupation of the Philippine Islands]
[From The Southern “I” March 2006]

Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword;
He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger’s wealth is stored;
He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe and death has scored;
His lust is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the Eastern dews and damps;
I have read his doomful mission by the dim and flaring lamps —
His night is marching on.

I have read his bandit gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my pretensions, so with you my wrath shall deal;
Let the faithless son of Freedom crush the patriot with his heel;
Lo, Greed is marching on!”

We have legalized the strumpet and are guarding her retreat;*
Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgement seat;
0, be swift, ye clods, to answer him! be jubilant my feet!
Our god is marching on!

In a sordid slime harmonious Greed was born in yonder ditch,
With a longing in his bosom, and for others’ goods an itch.
As Christ died to make men holy, let men die to make us rich
Our god is marching on.

*NOTE: In Manila the Government has placed a certain industry [houses of prostitution] under the protection of our flag. (M.T.)

“Amazingly, Bush And His Team Have Yet To Be Removed From Office, Prosecuted, Convicted Of Treason, Imprisoned Or Executed”

For the defense contractors and oil companies, America’s defeat has actually been a significant win! After all, somebody has to profit off a $320 billion fiasco, and the companies that produce and sell weapons and petroleum have made a fortune on the so-called “lost war.”

May 1, 2006 Sploid, Sploid.com [Excerpts]

It remains one of the proudest moments in American history, and it was only three years ago today.

On May 1, 2003, the president piloted a military jet onto an aircraft carrier and told a cheering crowd that we had won the war in Iraq.

“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed,” President George W. Bush said to wild applause.

On May 1 of 2003, America had lost 139 troops to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Today that number stands at 2,400.

In the three years since we won the war, 17,000 more soldiers have been wounded — many of them mangled beyond recognition and doomed to live their remaining days without arms or legs.

The victory pushed “insurgent attacks” up from eight per day back in 2003 to 75 per day in 2006.

Three years after the war was won, the American price tag has risen from about $80 billion to more than $320 billion, and the commander in chief has dropped from a 70% approval rate to disapproval ratings unseen since the last criminal days of Richard Nixon’s presidency.

Almost all Americans now believe the president intentionally lied about every aspect of the Iraq invasion and occupation. And a dismal 9% believes the mission was accomplished, according to a new CNN poll.

But there’s some good news for the president on this third anniversary of the victory in Iraq: Despite everything that’s happened and everything that’s known, he remains a free man and still occupies the White House.

Amazingly, Bush and his team have yet to be removed from office, prosecuted, convicted of treason, imprisoned or executed.

And that’s a victory, too.

The administration’s few remaining supporters point out that “victory” is often in the eye of the beholder.

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 Predator State

04/29/06 By James K. Galbraith, Mother Jones [Excerpts]

WHAT IS THE REAL NATURE of American capitalism today?

Today, the signature of modern American capitalism is neither benign competition, nor class struggle, nor an inclusive middle-class utopia.

Instead, predation has become the dominant feature—a system wherein the rich have come to feast on decaying systems built for the middle class.

The predatory class is not the whole of the wealthy; it may be opposed by many others of similar wealth. But it is the defining feature, the leading force.

And its agents are in full control of the government under which we live.

Our rulers deliver favors to their clients. These range from Native American casino operators, to Appalachian coal companies, to Saipan sweatshop operators, to the would-be oil field operators of Iraq. They include the misanthropes who led the campaign to abolish the estate tax; Charles Schwab, who suggested the dividend tax cut of 2003; the “Benedict Arnold” companies who move their taxable income offshore; and the financial institutions behind last year’s bankruptcy bill.

Everywhere you look, public decisions yield gains to specific private entities.

For in a predatory regime, nothing is done for public reasons.

Indeed, the men in charge do not recognize that “public purposes” exist. They have friends, and enemies, and as for the rest—we’re the prey. Hurricane Katrina illustrated this perfectly, as Halliburton scooped up contracts and Bush hamstrung Kathleen Blanco, the Democratic governor of Louisiana. The population of New Orleans was, at best, an afterthought; once dispersed, it was quickly forgotten.

The predatory model can also help us understand why many rich people have come to hate the Bush administration. For predation is the enemy of honest business. In a world where the winners are all connected, it’s not only the prey who lose out. It’s everyone who hasn’t licked the appropriate boots. Predatory regimes are like protection rackets: powerful and feared, but neither loved nor respected. They do not enjoy a broad political base.

Predators compete not by following the rules but by breaking them. They take the business-school view of law: Rules are not designed to guide behavior but laid down to define the limits of unpunished conduct. Once one gets close to the line, stepping over it is easy. A predatory economy is criminogenic: It fosters and rewards criminal behavior.

That a government run by people rooted in this culture should also be predatory isn’t surprising—and the link between George H.W. Bush, who led the deregulation of the S&Ls, his son Neil, who ran a corrupt S&L, and Neil’s brother George, for whom Ken Lay sent thugs to Florida in 2000 on the Enron plane, could hardly be any closer.

Thinking wistfully, we assume that government wants to do good, and its failure to do so is a matter of incompetence.

But if the government is a predator, then it will fail: not merely politically, but in every substantial way.

Government will not cope with global warming, or Hurricane Katrina, or Iraq—not because it is incompetent but because it is willfully indifferent to the problem of competence.

The questions are, in what ways will the failure hit the population? And what mechanisms survive for calling the predators to account?

Unfortunately, at the highest levels, one cannot rely on the justice system, thanks to the power of the pardon. It’s politics or nothing, recognizing that in a world of predators, all established parties are corrupted in part.

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.

OCCUPATION PALESTINE

Israeli Response To Medical Request:
“Let Him Die In The House”

29 April 06 (Qalqilia) Mustafa Sabre, Palestine News Network

In the Israeli Civil Administration Center in Kadumim Settlement, 20 kilometers east of Qalqilia, an officer said, “Let him die in the house.”

Fahmi Qatqit needs a follow-up to his recent triple-bypass open heart surgery. His brother spoke to the Israelis to garner permission for the ill man to undergo the surgery in the same Jerusalem hospital. The Israeli officer’s response tells the story.

Fahmi Qatqit told PNN from sick bed at home, “We requested an entry permit to Jerusalem from the Civil Administration, with all the medical reports attached. It went through and I successfully had my operation. When I needed another follow-up surgery, my brother went to the Civil Administration in the Kadumim Settlement for another permit.

But this time they told him no, ‘so that Fahmi dies in the house.’”

He continued, “My brother asked why they refused to grant an entry permit when they had already granted one, which he brought as proof. The officer examined the permit, to check for forgery, and told him, ‘This was a mistake and we will not grant him another permit. We don’t make the same mistake twice.”

Fahmi added, “After they prevented me from returning to the Jerusalem hospital I was forced to go to a hospital in Nablus. Upon my arrival the doctor there, I awaited the Jerusalem doctor’s arrival. He said I had to wait while he followed the state of my health and conducted the necessary examinations.”

Lawyer Faris Abul Hassan commented on the Israeli policy of preventing Palestinians from receiving proper medical treatment by saying, “This is part of the racist measures that Palestinians are exposed to every day. They are prevented from going to Jordan to receive necessary treatment, as has just recently occurred, and prevented from reaching even their own Jerusalem for treatment.”

The lawyer continued, “This contravenes international law which allows for the freedom of any person to receive medical treatment at any time, anywhere, necessary. An occupying country is absolutely banned from preventing treatment for the occupied, yet the Israelis do this to the Palestinians on a regular basis.”

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

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

The Traitor Bush Ordered Spying On “Tens Of Millions” Of Americans And Lied About It:
NSA Secret Database Report Triggers Fierce Debate In Washington

On Capitol Hill, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy expressed outrage. “Are you telling me tens of millions of Americans are involved with al-Qaeda?” said Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. “These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything.”

The telephone database was built without court warrants or the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a panel of federal judges established to issue secret warrants, according to people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

[Thanks to PB, who sent this in.]

5/11/2006 By Susan Page, USA TODAY & By LAURIE KELLMAN and DONNA CASSATA, Associated Press Writer & By Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY

Lawmakers demanded answers from the Bush administration Thursday about a spy agency secretly collecting records of millions of ordinary Americans’ phone calls to build a database of all calls within the country.

With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans, most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime.

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

“It’s the largest database ever assembled in the world,” said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA’s activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation.

The agency’s goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation’s borders, this person added.

For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made – across town or across the country – to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.

The NSA’s domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop – without warrants – on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in the NSA’s efforts to create a national call database.

In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. “In other words,” Bush explained, “one end of the communication must be outside the United States.”

As a result, domestic call records – those of calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders – were believed to be private.

A fierce debate erupted Thursday over the legality and appropriateness of a massive secret database built by the National Security Agency that contains the phone records of tens of millions of Americans.

AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., and BellSouth Corp. telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers’ phone calls to the NSA program shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, said USA Today, citing anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement.

NSA collected records from landlines and cellphones at homes, businesses and government offices across the country, including calls by individuals not suspected of wrongdoing.

On Capitol Hill, several lawmakers expressed incredulity about the program, with some Republicans questioning the rationale and several Democrats railing about a lack of congressional oversight.

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy expressed outrage. “Are you telling me tens of millions of Americans are involved with al-Qaeda?” said Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. “These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything.”

Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he would call phone company executives to a congressional hearing “to find out exactly what is going on.”

Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s telecommunications and internet panel, had a different view: “The NSA stands for Now Spying on Americans.”

The furor threatened to ensnare the nomination of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to head the Central Intelligence Agency. Hayden, director of the NSA from 1999 to 2005, led the agency when the database project was launched and built.

Critics said the administration’s warrantless programs violate the Fourth Amendment — it bars “unreasonable searches and seizures” and requires warrants for searches — as well as the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that established the secret court.

Harold Koh, dean of the Yale Law School and author of The National Security Constitution, called the scope of the database “shocking.”

“If they had gone to Congress and said, ‘We want to do this without probable cause, without warrants and without judicial review,’ it never would have been approved,” said Koh, a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun. “I don’t think any FISA court would have approved this kind of scale of activity.”

As a general rule, telecommunication companies require law enforcement agencies to serve them with a court order before turning over a customer’s phone records. Under Section 222 of the U.S. Communications Act, telephone companies are prohibited from giving out information about their customers’ calling habits.

Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, questioned why the phone companies would cooperate with the NSA.

“Why are the telephone companies not protecting their customers?” he said. “They have a social responsibility to people who do business with them to protect our privacy as long as there isn’t some suspicion that we’re a terrorist or a criminal or something.”

The Intelligence Committee has oversight responsibilities for the NSA.

Senators on the Judiciary Committee complained that the news account was the first they had heard of the program. Specter said that made it impossible for the panel to “perform our constitutional oversight responsibilities to determine the constitutionality of the program.”

Skeptics question whether terrorists can be spotted in the same way that credit card scam artists can, making the databases a potential waste of resources in the war on terror.

They also warn that innocent people could be falsely identified as potential terrorists.

Customers’ names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of the program, USA TODAY reported.

But the telephone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.

“The Incumbent Democrats Have Pretty Much Been Complicit With Everything Bush Has Done Since September 11, 2001"

5 May 2006 Law Professor Francis A. Boyle, Talk Nation Radio [Excerpt]

My conclusion is that basically the incumbent Democrats have pretty much been complicit with everything Bush has done since September 11, 2001.

In the NSA spying scandal it came out that the leadership of the Democratic Party, the 14 top leaders in the House and the Senate, knew full well that Bush was spying on the American people and said nothing at all to the American people.

It was the New York Times as you know who broke the story, but they sat on it for a year. Well let’s put the New York Times responsibility aside, the Democratic leadership who knew should have said something.

Now they gave the lame excuse saying well the information was classified.

That’s baloney.

In the Constitution there is what is known as the speech and debate clause that gives any member of Congress absolute immunity from both civil and criminal proceedings to say anything he or she wants to say from the floor of the House or the floor of the Senate.

This happened in the impeachment campaign against Bush Senior where I was counsel to Congressman Henry B. Gonzales and did the first draft of his impeachment resolution that was introduced January 16, 1991, and in support of that resolution as matters went on Congressman Gonzales repeatedly got up on the floor of the House and released classified information.

Of course Bush Sr. went irate. He sicked the CIA to investigate Congressman Gonzales but nothing could be done because of the speech and debate clause.

As long as the member of Congress only talks on the floor of the House or the Senate they can say what they want.

They can’t go back and have a press conference on classified information. So everyone knows this and in my opinion my reading then went with the NSA spy scandal it came out that the Democratic leadership has simply been complicit with Bush.

They were complicit on the war against Afghanistan.

They were complicit in the war against Iraq.

We in the peace movement told the leadership of the Democratic Party that there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction for those of us who also have been following this matter for 20 years. You know, these are intelligent people, they had access to the same information I did and Ramsey Clark did and others.

So, the problem is we have a leadership in the Democratic Party that has been complicit in all of these Constitutional violations being inflicted by the Bush Administration.

“Father Of Terrorism: Bush”

Demonstration against United States asking its troops to withdraw from Iraq immediately in Bombay, India, May 10, 2006. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

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

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