GI SPECIAL 4E23: 23/5/06
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[Thanks to David Honish, Veterans For Peace, who sent this in.]
“The Soldiers Have Become More Vocal In Expressing Their Opinions Against The War”
One of the things we discussed was the recent poll of troops in Iraq in which 72% stated that the US should get out this year.
One of the soldiers just back from Iraq told us “72 percent? It’s more like 99 percent!!!”
5.21.06 By Ron Ruiz (U.S. Army out of service): Member The Military Project Organizing Committee, and Veterans For Peace.
On May 20th members of the Military Project and Veterans For Peace launched another day of outreach action with soldiers of an Army National Guard unit in New York City.
This unit has many soldiers who have returned very recently from duty in Iraq.
We were successful in distributing the largest amount to date: more than 115 of the Traveling Soldier newsletter and a GI Special excerpt, and many GI Hotline cards and GI rights brochures.
Soldiers who stopped to speak with us told us the materials we’ve been distributing are being widely read, and we are also being asked to provide new materials as well.
We spoke to eight soldiers who just returned from Iraq.
One of the things we discussed was the recent poll of troops in Iraq in which 72% stated that the US should get out this year.
One of the soldiers just back from Iraq told us “72 percent? It’s more like 99 percent!!!”
At one point a sergeant nearby as we gave out materials to a small group of soldiers told us to “stop giving those things to my soldiers.”
The sergeant then turned to the group of soldiers and told them “I don’t want you to bring that stuff inside.”
As the other soldiers present nodded in agreement, one soldier, especially angry about Bush and the war, responded loudly in front of everybody. “He’s just saying that because he hasn’t been over there (Iraq)”
They paid no further attention to his demands, proceeding to openly “bring that stuff inside” the Armory.
It’s clear that we’ve made a significant breakthrough with our outreach work. The soldiers have become very receptive towards us and are recognizing our presence there. We are able to interact with them in an increasingly friendly and welcoming environment.
The soldiers have become more vocal in expressing their opinions against the war and are less hesitant now in making anti-war statements to us.
It’s important to continue building on the progress we are making.
Today was a significant turning point in our outreach work as it has become very clear and visible how strong and vast anti-war sentiment is among the troops and for the first time we witnessed soldiers openly dissenting.
Do you have a friend or relative in the service? Forward this E-MAIL along, or send us the address if you wish and we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Iraq or stuck on a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to the war, at home and inside the armed services. Send requests to address up top.
IRAQ WAR REPORTS
Another U.S. Marine Killed In Anbar
May 22nd BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP)
A U.S. Marine was killed in action in Iraq’s volatile western Anbar province, the U.S. Command said Monday. The Marine, assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5, died Sunday but gave no further details.
Funeral Services For Local Soldier Scheduled
[Thanks to David Honish, Veterans For Peace, who sent this in.]
May 22 KOCO ChannelOklahoma.com.
Funeral services have been scheduled for a hometown hero killed last week in Iraq.
Lance Cpl. Hatal Yearby’s funeral will be 11 a.m. Monday at Marietta High School.
Yearby died Sunday when his vehicle hit a mine. He was part of the 3rd Marine Regiment.
Bethesda Marine Dies Of Bomb Wounds
May 12, 2006 By Dan Morse, Washington Post Staff Writer
A U.S. Marine from Bethesda died Wednesday from wounds received in Iraq, 18 days before his first wedding anniversary.
“They had so many plans, so many things they wanted to do,” the Marine’s mother, Gilda Carbonaro, said when reached by telephone yesterday in Germany, where her son died at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.
Sgt. Alessandro Carbonaro, 28, was known as Alex. A reconnaissance Marine with numerous medals and commendations, he was wounded May 1 while involved in combat operations in Anbar province, according to the U.S. Defense Department. He was injured when the Humvee in which he was riding ran over an improvised explosive device. He suffered burns over 60 percent of his body, his mother said.
Carbonaro was on his second tour of duty in Iraq.
Carbonaro grew up in a red-brick home on a tree-lined street northwest of downtown Bethesda. His mother teaches Spanish at St. Albans School. His father, Fulvio Carbonaro, a native of Italy, is an information technology consultant. Alex was their only child.
As a boy, he hated seeing other children picked on, his mother said. He graduated from Sandy Spring Friends School. In his spare time, he and his buddies played in a basement rock band, with Alex on guitar.
He joined the Marines in 1998. Four years later, while home on holiday, he met his wife-to-be, Gilda, through friends of his parents. “Love at first sight,” a family member said.
Gilda was then a student at George Washington University. Her first name is the same as Carbonaro’s mother’s.
In 2004, Carbonaro took part in the assault on Fallujah, suffering a foot injury from an explosive device.
The next year, on May 28, he and Gilda married. By that time his priorities had changed, his family said. He was planning to get out of the Marine Corps by the end of next year. The couple wanted to live either in Georgia near her parents or in the Washington area near his parents.
The couple wanted to raise children, travel and have “long Sunday dinners with their parents,” his mother said.
On Monday, Carbonaro’s father warned neighbors that his son’s condition had deteriorated. “Our pain is unbearable,” he wrote.
Two days later, he wrote again: “Our dearest son Alex passed away at 10:30 this morning.” He wrote that four people — he, Alex’s mother, his wife and his mother-in-law — were at his side. “We held him in our arms until he exhaled his last breath.”
Dothan Marine Sole Survivor Of Humvee Attack
May 19, 2006 Lance Griffin, Dothan Eagle
A Marine from Dothan was seriously injured in Iraq on Sunday when the Humvee he was driving struck an improvised explosive device.
Lance Cpl. Adam McDuffie, a 2003 graduate of Northview High School, was driving the Humvee during combat operations in the Al Anbar province in northern Iraq. Three other Marines in the Humvee were killed. McDuffie suffered a severe arm injury. The extent of his other injuries are unknown.
According to information provided by the U.S. Marine Corps, McDuffie’s life may have been saved by his protective gear. He was reportedly wearing a newly issued Kevlar helmet, flak jacket with front and side protective plates, ballistic goggles, special gloves and throat and groin protector.
McDuffie was treated at the scene, then taken to Al Asad Surgical in Iraq for further treatment. Other information provided indicates he was transferred from there to Germany for more surgery.
McDuffie played four years of football at Northview as an offensive and defensive lineman. Members of his senior class elected him “Most School Spirit.”
“A Number” Of U.S. Soldiers Wounded In Baghdad
5.22.06 Indo-Asian News Service
Two Iraqi troops were killed in a roadside explosion aimed at their patrol in al-Adhamiya, a neighbourhood that also saw another roadside blast targeting a US patrol, leaving a number of soldiers injured.
The Battle That Never Happened:
The Coverup Continues
[Here again is the news story. Since then, over a month ago, nothing but silence from command. What happened? If you know, write GI Special. Confidentiality assured. T]
Panicked Marine Command Trying To Hide Details Of Heavy Losses:
Two Dead, 22 Wounded:
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.
FUTILE EXERCISE:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW!
A U.S. soldier inspects debris after a bomb attack along a road in Baquba, May 10, 2006. REUTERS/Helmiy al-Azawi
AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
Australian Soldier Wounded By Mine
May 22, 2006 AAP
AN elite Australian soldier in southern Afghanistan suffered shrapnel wounds after the special forces patrol vehicle he was travelling in ran over a mine, defence said today.
Australian Defence Force (ADF) chief Angus Houston said there were no serious casualties from the accident but one special forces member suffered minor shrapnel scratches.
The vehicle was badly damaged after running over the mine. “The vehicle was recovered by an Australian Chinook helicopter and will be returned to Australia in due course.”
Key Collaborator Killed
May 22, 2006 (RFE/RL)
The chief of police in Afghanistan’s Ghazni Province says a key ally of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the former governor of Paktika Province, has been killed.
Police Chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang said Mohammad Ali Jalali’s body was recovered today from a desert area in Ghazni Province.
Jalali and four others were abducted from a car on May 21 after attending a funeral service in the town of Chahar Diwar in Ghazni.
Sarjang said the other abductees were released alive.
A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yosuf Ahmadi, says Taliban fighters killed the former governor.
Jalali was a respected tribal leader in Paktika, a volatile province that borders Pakistan. He was also the first governor that Karzai appointed in the province after the ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001.
“Attacking And Then Melting Back Into The Population”
18 May 2006 By Alastair Leithead, BBC News, Afghanistan [Excerpt]
The Taleban fighters are still feared in villages across wide swathes of the country.
Even if they are not supported they are tolerated, and by attacking and then melting back into the population, they are a difficult enemy to fight for the coalition and NATO forces.
TROOP NEWS
THIS IS HOW BUSH BRINGS THE TROOPS HOME:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW, ALIVE
The body of Army Spc. Bryan Quinton, 24, during the graveside service at Green Hill Cemetery in Sapulpa, Okla., May 17, 2006. Quinton was one of two soldiers killed when a bomb went off near their vehicle May 4 in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Brandi Simons)
Support The Troops By Supporting Their Resistance And Rebellion:
“Thousands Of Active Duty GIs Were A Vital Part Of The Movement To End The War In Vietnam”
May. 18 by Mara Ortenburger, Indybay.org
If there is one thing that antiwar folks have heard over and over in the past three years, it is this: feel free to bash Bush, criticize Cheney, and hate on Rumsfeld until your voice is hoarse and your protest signs turn to dust, but, for the love of god, you had better support the troops and you had better support them no matter what.
But what does supporting the troops actually mean?
Funneling money into the magnetic ribbon industry? Sending telepathic messages to Iraq through prayer? Allowing military recruiters free access to our schools to bolster troop numbers? Blindly trusting that politicians and generals will conduct the war in the best interests of the soldiers?
While the definition of “support the troops” is vague at best, what it means to be unsupportive of them has been made crystal clear.
In fact, it has been burned into our mainstream collective consciousness through historical example: the treatment of soldiers during and after the Vietnam War is generally upheld as the epitome of citizen-soldier relations turned sour. The image of the enraged and irrational antiwar activist cursing and spitting on the stalwart, apolitical soldier returning from Southeast Asia is hauled out and dusted off at almost any indication of contemporary protest activity that goes beyond a meek request to give peace a chance.
This version of Vietnam War history has translated over the years into the idea that antiwar folks should avoid messages and tactics that directly engage members of the armed forces.
We are told that soldiers just follow orders and do not have the luxury of sharing our silly philosophical concerns with war because they are busy defending our freedom to have those concerns in the first place.
The implication for today seems to be this: if you absolutely must voice your opposition to the war in Iraq please do it in a way that the troops won’t notice because it will only hurt morale and interfere with their ability to fight this war (which, by the way, is going on whether you like it or not).
But this analysis obscures an important historical truth that has drastic implications for understanding what the phrase “support the troops” has meant in the past and what it can mean today: soldiers themselves, including thousands of active duty GIs, were a vital part of the movement to end the war in Vietnam.
Far from being political neutrals whose morale suffered as a result of antiwar activity at home, many members of the military actively protested the war from within the belly of the beast.
Sir! No Sir!, a new documentary by director David Zieger, chronicles these efforts for the first time on film and presents an impressive picture of the GI resistance movement that has been suppressed in mainstream accounts of history and in popular representations of the Vietnam War.
It was a multifaceted movement that included both individual and collective acts of rebellion at military bases in the US as well as on the frontlines in Vietnam.
Some of these acts of defiance happened spontaneously as individual soldiers reacted against unreasonable commands and degrading commanders.
In the beginning of the war, these acts were relatively rare and easy to punish with prison sentences. As the war escalated, however, rebellious acts became more frequent and more collective in nature as groups of antiwar soldiers began cultivating a thriving counter-culture of defiance among the ranks.
Between 1966 and 1971 the Pentagon recorded 503,926 “incidents of desertion.”
By 1971, entire units were refusing to go into battle.
Underground newspapers, with names such as “Fed Up!” and “The Retaliation,” began circulating to spread information within the movement: over 100 separate publications in all. Dozens of coffeehouses, such as the Oleo Strut in Killeen, Texas, were established on or around bases to provide a place for antiwar soldiers to communicate and organize.
One of the most popular entertainment shows for the troops was Jane Fonda’s Fuck The Army (FTA) Review.
May 16, 1970 was declared Armed Farces Day as thousands of soldiers and veterans staged mass rallies and protests of the war. By 1970, riots at military prisons, acts of sabotage and mutinies at bases, and incidences of “fragging” (officers being killed by their own troops) began occurring at rates that caused one military officer to conclude that “By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse.”
Although this rebellion within the military was well documented during the Vietnam years; a staggering amount of evidence is freely available in the public record; it has been almost entirely eradicated from our collective memory.
Sir! No Sir! describes an exerted effort by the government, the media, and Hollywood to suppress this history, including the development of the “myth of the spitting hippie,” a cultural fairy tale which was crafted to deemphasize the fact that some of the most effective and intense resistance to the war occurred from within the military itself.
Needless to say, the people in power who have crafted the US invasion and occupation of Iraq do not want this story to be told because it allows for a radical re-conceptualization of what it can mean to “support the troops.”
Support the troops by supporting their resistance and rebellion.
Support the troops by bringing them home now.
Supporting materials for this article can be found in the extensive archives of the Sir! No Sir! website.
The site includes official military reports and transcripts, material from underground GI newspapers, and a huge audio and video database documenting the movement. Check it out at www.sirnosir.com!
Sir! No Sir!:
At A Theatre Near You!
To find it: www.sirnosir.com/
MORE:
After Hearing Hueys And A Hunter In The Woods
[Thanks to Michael Letwin, NY City Labor Against The War, who sent this in.]
By David Connolly
David Connolly served honorably in Vietnam with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. He takes pride in having been, and continuing to be, a Vietnam Veteran Against the War. His collection of poems, LOST IN AMERICA, was published by Viet Nam Generation, Inc.& Burning Cities Press in 1994.
After Hearing Hueys And A Hunter In The Woods
His children urged him
so he went walking
in the almost nude,
late November woods,
flashing,
on what was a jungle
before the planes,
that he walked through
with other children once,
and still does some nights.
He knew he would hear them
even before he did
but that didn’t help.
The other noise,
unconnected,
but inseparable to him,
started also.
Not the innocuous “KPOW”
that we used as children
but the “KUSSSH” that killed,
that looked for us
in woods like these.
He doesn’t know how many times
his oldest said, “Dad,”
or how long the little one cried,
as he ran, low and loping,
dragging them along,
away from the danger in his mind.
The older one, at ten, knew,
and comforted him
as if he were her child.
“It’s OK, Dad, really.”
The younger one, at seven,
didn’t know,
but without his explanation said,
“I was scared cause you were scared,
but I wasn’t scared of you, Dad.”
Sir! No Sir!:
At A Theatre Near You!
To find it: www.sirnosir.com/
Just In Time For Memorial Day:
House Of Representatives Cowards Dishonor Troops Who Fall In Battle, Again
May 22, 2006 By Rick Maze, Army Times staff reporter
The House of Representatives has defeated an attempt to allow media coverage of the arrival and departure of the bodies of service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, tried Friday to repeal the March 2003 public affairs guidance prohibiting media coverage of the coffins being shipped from the war zone.
“What a shocking statement to make to the nation that when our soldiers fall in battle or when they lose their lives as members of the United States military there is a blanket order, an executive order, an order of this administration not to pay honor and tribute to them,” Jackson-Lee said.
[In Great Britain and Italy, among other nations, government officials publicly honor the return of service members killed in war, going personally to meet the planes. Although huge majorities in both countries oppose the war in Iraq, their government officials are unashamed and unafraid to do the right thing by their troops. The rats in the U.S. House Of Misrepresentatives are obviously both ashamed and afraid. They should be afraid. Very, very afraid. Payback for this evil Imperial war is long overdue. T]
Personal Data On 26 Million Vets Stolen:
VA Fool With IQ Of 3 Tells The World Through Media Announcement That Thieves “Do Not Know What They Have”
5.22.06 By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer & By Gordon Lubold, Army Times staff writer
A common house burglar has in his hands the names, Social Security numbers and other personal information of more than 26 million veterans and a Department of Veterans Affairs employee is on administrative leave after an incident of misjudgment and bad luck.
Thieves took sensitive personal information, including birth dates, after a Veterans Affairs employee improperly brought the material home, the government said Monday.
The information involved mainly those veterans who served and have been discharged since 1975, said VA Secretary Jim Nicholson. Data of veterans discharged before 1975 who submitted claims to the agency may have been included.
“It’s highly probable that they do not know what they have,” he said in a briefing with reporters.
The department has come under criticism for shoddy accounting practices and for falling short on the needs of veterans.
Last year, more than 260,000 veterans could not sign up for services because of cost-cutting. Audits also have shown the agency used misleading accounting methods and lacked documentation to prove its claimed savings.
War Profiteers Caught Fucking Up Abrams Tanks
May 19, 2006 By Jeffrey Gold, Associated Press
NEWARK, N.J.: A defense contractor, its president and three employees were indicted Thursday on charges they conspired to produce thousands of substandard air filters for the Army’s main battle tank, putting soldiers and Marines at risk.
Lawyers for Parmatic Filter Corp. and the other defendants denied the charges, handed up by a federal grand jury in Newark, and said their clients would plead innocent. All remained free.
The filters, for the M-1 Abrams tank, were to protect occupants from nuclear, biological and chemical contaminants.
“This was a fraud with potentially grave consequences for military personnel,” U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said.
“The allegations suggest that the defendants acted to cut corners and commit fraud to increase profits while potentially putting service men and women at risk on the battlefield.”
The filters are the size of a trash can and weigh about 35 pounds, said James W. Murawski, the resident agent in charge of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, which is continuing its probe of the matter.
Parmatic, which had been based in Denville, won a $1 million contract in 1996 to make nearly 2,000 filters and a $5 million contract in 1997 to make about 9,600 filters. The filters were shipped to the military from August 1997 to April 2002, the indictment said. The company is now in Branchville.
The government investigation appears to have been aided by insiders. The indictment cites an unindicted coconspirator who was Parmatic’s plant manager from 1991 to 2001, identified only as R.J.S., as well as a Defense Department employee, L.E.N., who until 2002 was assigned to ensure that Parmatic filters met contract specifications.
In addition to the company, the 13-count indictment charges its president, John Parkinson, 84, of Randolph; production manager Brett J. Halpin, 62, of Ocean City, Md.; program manager David D. Sward, 61, of Randolph; and foreman William I. Schwartz Jr., 42, of West Milford.
U.S. Court Of Appeals Recommends Reconsideration Of Feres Doctrine
January 2006 Prison Legal News
The Unites States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that the Feres doctrine, adopted by the United States Supreme Court in Feres v. United States, 340 U.S. 135 (1950), bars suits brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) by military prisoners.
Jeffrey Schnitzer was confined in the Unites States Disciplinary Barracks (USDB) in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, following court-marshal convictions for kidnapping, rape and murder.
During his confinement, Schnitzer was injured “when a portion of a ceiling at the USDB collapsed on him “while he was watching television. The accident allegedly “caused permanent injuries, including headaches, nausea, vision problems, a loss of manual dexterity and chronic pain. At the time he was injured, Schnitzer remained an active duty member of the U.S. Army.”
Schnitzer brought an FTCA action for damages “for the Army’s allegedly negligent maintenance of the USDB facility.” Applying the “incident to service” test of Verma, US., l9F3d646 (DCCir. 1994), the district court “found that Schnitzer’s injuries occurred incident to his primary military duty of confinement and thus were barred because “the Feres doctrine applies to military prisoners” the court noted that “(e)very circuit to consider the issue,…has found the doctrine to apply without modification.”
Most significantly “(t)he Tenth Circuit, in which the USDB located, has resolved several cases involving military prisoners.” See: e.g., Walden v. Bartlett, 840 F. 2d 771 (10th Cir. 1988 “The Tenth Circuit has held that Feres applies even when the prisoner has been discharged from active duty.” Ricks v. Nickels, 295 F 3d 1124 (10th Cir. 2002).
“Discerning no reason that military prisoners should not be subject to the same legal standards as non-incarcerated personnel,” the court “adopt(ed) the approach of (its) sister circuits and appl(ied) the Vern test without modification to military prisoners.
“Therefore, the court upheld the dismissal of Schnitzer’s action.”
The court also rejected Schnitzer’s argument that “under Feres, the district court, in creating a class of service members (military prisoners) who are unable to recover under the FTCA, ran afoul of the equal protection component of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.”
The court found that military prisoners are outside the scope of Feres under the “admittedly narrow exceptions” of eating, sleeping and attending voluntary religious observances.
Most significantly, however, the court concluded that “Schnitzer’s argument is more properly directed to a reconsideration of the Feres doctrine itself, not to the doctrine’s applicability to his case.”
See: Schnitzer v. 389 F.3d 200 (DC Cir. 2004).
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
Notes From A Lost War:
“When An Insurgent Was Released From Prison, Officers At A Station In Al Hawd Fired Their Weapons To Celebrate His Freedom”
May 22, 2006 By MICHAEL MOSS, The New York Times Company [Excerpts]
In recent background checks, police investigators found more than 5,000 police officers with arrest records for crimes that included attacks on American troops, American officials said.
The Iraqis have reined in some units, but others have received less attention. In one notorious incident, a brigade in northern Baghdad is suspected of kidnapping and killing 36 Sunni Arab men last August. Although a judge ordered the unit’s commander, Brig. Gen. Bassem al-Gharrawi, arrested for murder, the arrest warrant was never executed, according to court records.
One of the grimmest dispatches came from Mosul, where a police general reported militant “schools” operating inside a nearby prison teaching detainees insurgent tactics and extremist views. When an insurgent was released from prison, another general reported, officers at a station in Al Hawd fired their weapons to celebrate his freedom.
In Nineveh Province in northern Iraq, an alert major crimes unit stopped a car after noticing that it had a jerry-rigged bumper and that hidden inside were all the tools for an insurgent attack; mortar tube and shells, ski masks and AK-47 rounds. But just to the south in Al Tamin, a police officer seriously injured himself trying to disarm a roadside bomb by shooting it.
American intelligence officers operating in Basra who passed on tips, like the location of people suspected of being insurgents, had to make their reports vague on the assumption they would get leaked to the militants.
Yasir Thamir Muhan, a 20-year-old recruit from Tikrit, said he fell into despair six days after joining the force. On March 2, when he and others were leaving training camp, insurgents drove up to their unprotected ragtag convoy and shoved a machine gun through the sunroof of their sedan. Five recruits were killed.
When he helped rush the wounded to a nearby village, people there panicked and forced them to drive off, too scared to be seen helping the police.
Assorted Resistance Action
Iraqi medics treat fatally wounded Kirkuk police general Nadhim al-Obeidi at a hospital in the city of Kirkuk. (AFP/Marwan Ibrahim)
May 22 (Reuters) & The Associated Press & (KUNA)
Four policemen were killed when a roadside bomb went off near a joint U.S. forces/Iraqi police patrol in Jurf al-Sakhar, about 85 km (53 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
A roadside bomb killed four police officers after exploding next to a patrol in Musayyib, about 40 miles south of Baghdad, police Col. Ahmed Mijwel said.
The body of a police captain who had been shot in the head was found in the Aziziya area, south of Baghdad, officials said.
One policeman died in hospital after gunmen shot at him in central Hawija, 70 km southwest of Kirkuk, police said.
Guerrillas killed Colonel Basheer Qadoori from Samarra police in a drive-by shooting in central Samarra, 100 km north of Baghdad, police said. One of the attackers was wounded and then detained by police, they said.
Police General Nazem Al-Obaidi, chief of the citizenship and passports department in Kirkuk was gunned dead Monday.
A senior official in the Kirkuk Police Department told KUNA that Al-Obaidi was attacked on the Baghdad road near Al-Mansour Mosque and was transferred immediately to Kirkuk’s general hospital, where he succumbed to his wounds.
An exploded artillery shell was used as a car bomb which killed two police officers and injured four people when it detonated next to an Iraqi police patrol in the southeastern Zafaraniya neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq.
IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION
FORWARD OBSERVATIONS
Two Messages From Iraq:
Writers Say Marines Lying About Going Hungry And Asking Iraqis For Food
[Below these emails is the original story that led the writers to comment. T]
From: Hugh MacLachlan
To: GI Special
Sent: May 09, 2006
Subject: Hugh in Iraq
Hugh MacLachlan
Al Hillah, Iraq 09332
I read your article on the US Marines begging for food- that is ridiculous.
The Iraqis practically force food into your hands because it is their custom to share everything, esp. with strangers.
As for “our” food, MREs are terrible… they make me nauseous! Heck, I would beg too, but policy states unless otherwise indicated, that you are not to partake in the generosity of the Iraqis because of possible additives to the food, i.e. too much shelf life, poisons, etc. It may cause digestive problems.
Don’t get me wrong, the Iraqi food is delicious, and very fresh… just don’t tell anybody! Policy!
The Iraqis are the nicest people you would ever want to meet, and for the most part, the Iraqis are glad we’re here. We should sincerely hope that they will have a bright future.
Unless you have ever visited Iraq, use your journalistic skill to at least add a disclaimer to your writings by stating, “Even though my sources suck…”
Otherwise, you sir, are an idiot.
Love,
Hugh from Iraq
MORE:
From: Duncan MacLachlan
To: GI Special
Cc: bmac7@wingsisp.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 9:55 PM
Subject: Hungry Marines Asking Iraqis For Food
The problem I have with this story is the utter falsity of it.
I work as a private contractor here in Iraq and I talk to marines everyday.
However, I do not see Iraq at all as I am confined and isolated to base. Yet, I get the same exposure to media that you do, via the internet. I get an extra that many people back home do not, I actually get to talk to the troops.
The only story I read that might have a connection to ‘Hungry Marines’ is about troops out in the field on battle patrol. Still, they get two MRE’s and a hot meal a day. Could that be where the hunger story originated?
The base where I am has literally hundreds of pallets of MRE’s, enough to feed 10k troops for three months, and other bases are the same, with hundreds if not thousands of MRE pallets (at over $5k a pallet retail, that’s alot of mullah).
For any Marines to go hungry is beyond imagination.
Even helicopters could airdrop MRE’s. They did it to the Afghans in the early part of the war. In fact we have five kinds of MRE’s. The normal one, halal, kosher, humanitarian and some other one.
Additionally, any US military command would absolutely prohibit troops asking for anything from the local populace (except information?).
Heads would roll from the top down if troops were begging for food. Wouldn’t that make sense?
Therefore, I question the validity of the article.
If anything, I’m thinking those troops referenced in the article are sick of MREs and the hot chow and instead are playing a ploy for people to send them cookies, crackers and candy.
It is a sorry joke.
[Here is the original news story:]
U.S. Marines Go Hungry;
Beg Iraqis For Food
02 MAY 06 By BOB KERR, The Providence Journal
The Iraq war has been the war fought on the cheap: not enough body armor, not enough armor on vehicles, not enough night vision equipment.
It has been the war in which packages from back home have had to fill some crucial needs.
Now, we have chow call at the Greenwood Credit Union in Warwick, R.I. It’s the latest in home-front intervention. It’s partially in response to the unthinkable image of U.S. Marines approaching Iraqi citizens and asking for food because they do not have enough.
There’s a big barrel in the lobby of the credit union on Post Road in Warwick. It’s decorated with ribbons and it’s there because Karen Boucher-Andoscia’s son, Nick Andoscia, called and asked his mother to send food.
Nick’s a Marine corporal. He was in Afghanistan last year, where there was enough to eat. He’s in Iraq now even though his enlistment was up last year.
He’s one of those Marines who can’t walk away. His unit, the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Marines, was headed for Iraq and he just couldn’t head for civilian life while those he had served with were heading to their second war.
“He extended,” says Karen. “He told me, ‘I really have to go. I can’t let my guys go alone.’ “
There are a lot of stories like that. We don’t hear them much. They’re kind of personal.
So Nick Andoscia went to Iraq. And hunger soon followed.
“I got a letter,” says Karen. “And he had called me before that. He said, ‘Send lots of tuna.’ “
Nick told his mother that he and the men in his unit were all about 10 pounds lighter in their first few weeks in Iraq. They were pulling 22-hour patrol shifts. They were getting two meals a day and they were not meals to remember.
“He told me the two meals just weren’t cutting it. He said the Iraqi food was usually better. They were going to the Iraqis and basically saying, ‘feed me.’ “
Karen started packing in that wartime tradition as old as mothers and sons. She packed a lot of the packaged tuna, not the canned.
She happened to mention her hungry son to people she works with at Greenwood Credit Union, where she is a teller and has worked for 30 years.
Pounds and pounds of food started showing up amid the daily business of loans and deposits and withdrawals. Marianne Barao, the branch manager, said it could be done, the credit union could become the place where people help feed hungry Marines who are risking their lives on a skimpy diet.
“We sent out 51 pounds this week,” says Karen. “There are customers coming in saying, ‘What do you need?’ “
The credit union is paying the cost of packing and shipping.
Any packaged food is welcome. So are baby wipes because showers are even rarer than a full meal. And foot powder.
Nick Andoscia, who is 22, is due to come home later this year. He wants to study criminal justice, his mother says, then go to work for a fire or police department.
But for the next few months he will be on patrol in western Iraq, dealing with the heat and the dirt and the danger.
The last thing he should have to worry about is an empty stomach. The last thing he should have to do is approach Iraqis and ask for food.
You have to wonder what the gracious hosts must think when a fighting man from the richest country on earth comes to their door in search of something to eat.
What do you think? Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Send to thomasfbarton@earthlink.net. Name, I.D., address withheld unless publication requested. Replies confidential.
OCCUPATION REPORT
Ugandans Report Rape By U.S. Officers At Alasad Airbase:
Former Base Commander Investigating
May 12 (Xinhua)
A senior U.S. officer has been working to restore the morale of some 600 Ugandan guards, most of them serving abroad for the first time, following the allegations that they were sexually abused while working with the U.S. forces in Iraq.
Some of the Ugandan recruits at Alasad Airbase, northwest of Iraq, one of the biggest U.S. fortresses, were allegedly sodomized by foreign soldiers and admitted at the Gettysburg health facility inside the fortress, according to a report of Daily Monitor on Thursday.
Sources said two Ugandans, Enock Bashaija and Geoffrey Kawuka, slipped into a coma due to brutal assaults at the hands of foreign officers at Alasad Airbase after they queried terms of the contract.
Ugandans would have gone on strike to protest the beatings of Bashaija and Kawuka, if it has not been intervened by Fred Lynch, the retired Commanding Officer of the US army at the airbase and Paul Hegue, the executive officer of SOC-SMG, a private security management firm that manages the airbase, according to the report.
Documents obtained from sources in Iraq and Kampala said all is not rosy between Ugandans and the private firms contracted by the U.S. government to recruit them. Ugandans are unhappy that after leaving Uganda they are forced to change from one contractor to another, some reported to be middlemen.
Ugandans guard U.S. military bases, oil fields, airports, highways, towns water and electricity installations among others under multinational forces to pacify the volatile Iraq.
Ugandan employees can earn 1,000 U.S. dollars with 100 dollars deducted at source as out of pocket allowance, leaving 900 dollars which is wired to their accounts back home, while laborers from other countries doing similar work get 4,000 dollars with allowances.
As a result of grumbling and unrest in camp, authorities have so far deported 15 Ugandans from Camp Victory and Camp Gettysburg, all in Alasad Airbase, accusing them of being the ringleaders of the uneasiness at the base.
OCCUPATION ISN’T LIBERATION
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK
This Is Best News They Can Find?
“Those Among The 25,000 Crowd Who Gave Her A Standing Ovation Outnumbered Those Who Sat In Silence”
Boston College professors hold signs in silent protest as Secretary of State Rice speaks during commencement ceremonies at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts May 22, 2006. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
[Thanks to PB, who sent this in.]
May 22 By Jason Szep (Reuters)
Dozens of faculty and students turned their backs and waved protest signs when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice received an honorary degree from Boston College on Monday.
But the protest against Rice, a central player in President George W. Bush’s Iraq policy, was smaller than had been expected and those among the 25,000 crowd who gave her a standing ovation outnumbered those who sat in silence.
At one point, a propeller plane flew overhead dragging a sign saying: “Your war brings dishonor.” About 100 protesters outside chanted “Stop the Lies. Troops out now” and waved placards including one reading “No degrees for terrorism.”
Bush Urges Iraqi Resistance Movement To Remain United
“Iraq’s new leaders understand that so long as they remain united there is no limit to the potential of their country,” the president said. May 23, 2006, AFP
“Human Compassion In Action”
[Thanks to David Honish, Veterans For Peace, who sent this in.]
May 15, 2006 Civillibertarian.blogspot.com [Excerpt]
Also in Kansas City, a law abiding 38 year old father of two has been victimized by anti-immigrant laws.
Adam Hernandez lived in the United States for 26 years and is married to an American citizen. Last week our federal government deported him to his native Honduras because he stole a car when he was a teenager.
Human compassion in action. [Wrong. This isn’t about humans. This is about the U.S. Imperial government. The two have nothing in common. And it’s not “our” government. It’s their government; the people who have the money to buy it that is. T]
Illinois Citizen Group To Build Wall On Indiana Border:
Governor Of Illinois To Call Up Four National Guard Troops To Keep Illegal Indianans Out Of Illinois.
16 May 2006 Brother Robert J. Elisberg Op Ed, Posted By Veterans For Common Sense.org
An outraged private citizens group in Illinois today announced plans to build a wall along the Indiana border to keep out those they say are streaming across the unprotected state line. The problem, they say, has been growing for the past 30 years.
“Ever since the oil refineries in Gary began closing in the mid-1970s, people there have had to find other income,” states the leader of the group, T. Herbert Duffy. “They’ve been streaming into Chicago ever since.”
Duffy’s organization was founded four months ago in mid-January. “We didn’t actually care about immigration,” (migration or whatever you call it),” he acknowledges. “We just got together because it was so butt-numbing cold that all anyone could do was sit in the basement shivering. So we came up with the idea of this club.”
At first, the only agenda item was to complain about shoveling snow. It was only after the Spring thaw came that the illegal Indianan idea popped up. “Our wives kicked us out of the basement, and we needed another problem or they’d make us come home. That’s when Phil started complaining about having lost his job, and blamed the Illegals from Indiana.”
Although the man had worked in a Galesburg tractor factory that had closed in order to manufacture cheaper overseas, the Minutepeople still knew they had their issue. “It just pissed us off, all those illegal Indianans sneaking into Illinois to steal our jobs and womenfolk. A couple of six-packs will do that.”
The mission grew from there. Starting from only five disgruntled men, they began recruiting, and found that there were enough people who wanted to get out of their house or meet singles that the club grew to its present total of 57 Minutepeople.
“That wasn’t our original name,” Duffy acknowledges. “We wanted to call ourselves Minutemen. We even had a lot of t-shirts made up. But someone thought there was another group with the name. Back in the Civil War or something. (Editor’s note: it was the Revolutionary War.)
“We figured it was better not to get sued, so we changed it.” A similar situation impacted the women in the club. “We had intended to call them Minutemaids, but we got a ‘Cease and Desist Order” from the orange juice company. So, we’re all Minutepeople.”
The name has its own sense of history, Duffy relates. “My wife would ask me to take out the garbage, mow the lawn, and I’d all always say, ‘In a minute, honey. In a minute.’ The name just stuck.”
As attention to the wall-building grows, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has announced that he is ordering members of the State National Guard to the Illinois-Indiana border.
“We will be sending four National Guardsman,” a spokesman for the Governor’s office reports. “There are going to be a lot of drunk guys with loaded firearms in the hot sun, and we don’t want another Dick Cheney incident.”
At present, the wall along the Illinois-Indiana border stretches 12 feet. The Minutepeople hope to have it completed by the end of August, though Duffy figures late-Autumn.
CLASS WAR REPORTS
USA: Prison Nation
One In 136 Americans Behind Bars
[Thank to Katherine G.Y., who sent this in.]
May 22, 2006 By ELIZABETH WHITE, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON: Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates each week for a year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars by last summer.
The total on June 30, 2005, was 56,428 more than at the same time in 2004, the government reported Sunday. That 2.6 percent increase from mid-2004 to mid-2005 translates into a weekly rise of 1,085 inmates.
The racial makeup of inmates changed little in recent years, Beck said.
In the 25-29 age group, an estimated 11.9 percent of black men were in prison or jails, compared with 3.9 percent of Hispanic males and 1.7 percent of white males.
OCCUPATION ISN’T LIBERATION
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
NEED SOME TRUTH? CHECK OUT TRAVELING SOLDIER
Telling the truth – about the occupation or the criminals running the government in Washington – is the first reason for Traveling Soldier. But we want to do more than tell the truth; we want to report on the resistance – whether it’s in the streets of Baghdad, New York, or inside the armed forces. Our goal is for Traveling Soldier to become the thread that ties working-class people inside the armed services together. We want this newsletter to be a weapon to help you organize resistance within the armed forces. If you like what you’ve read, we hope that you’ll join with us in building a network of active duty organizers. www.traveling-soldier.org/ And join with Iraq War vets in the call to end the occupation and bring our troops home now! www.ivaw.net
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