GI SPECIAL 4E26

[Thanks to David Honish, Veterans For Peace, who sent this in.]

“Shitty Imperial War
+ GI Resistance +
Modern Technology = Antiwar GI Podcast!”

[This Is A Podcast From Camp Anaconda, Iraq.]

[Thanks to Joshua Karpoff who sent this in. He writes: Antiwar GI podcasts from Iraq!!! Shitty Imperialist War + GI Resistance + Modern Technology = Antiwar GI Podcasts!!!!]

07 Watch It Burn
May 14, 2006 10:01PM

Back on the regular schedule with an episode about a hero of mine, Dave Rabbit, the much celebrated pirate radio DJ of Saigon.

Also in the mix, a segment about the movie “Sir, No Sir!”, the story of the GI anti-war movement of the same period.. Enjoy.

godlesskinser.podomatic.com/

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

North Dakota Guardsman Killed

Spc. Michael L. Hermanson, of Fargo, N.D., died on May 23, 2006 when the vehicle he was in was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade while his unit was on patrol. Hermanson, 21, was assigned to the Army National Guard’s 164th Engineer Battalion, Minot, N.D. (AP Photo/U.S. Department of Defense )

BAGHDAD ROADSIDE BOMB KILLS 2 MND B SOLDIERS

5/25/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-05-02C

BAGHDAD, Iraq: Two Multi-National Division Two Baghdad Soldiers were killed at approximately 2 p.m. May 25 when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in southern Baghdad.

Minnesota Marine Killed

Marine Lance Cpl. Robert Posivio III, 22, looking over the memorial for Lance Cpl. Stephen J. Perez on April 28, 2006, at Camp Falluja died May 23, 2006, by a roadside bomb in Al Anbar Province. (AP Photo/U.S. Marines, Gunnery Sgt. Mark Oliva)

May. 24, 2006 Associated Press

SHERBURN, Minn.

A Marine from the southern Minnesota town of Sherburn was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, a spokesman for the family said Wednesday.

Lance Cpl. Robert Posivio III died Tuesday while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in the Al Anbar Province, said Tom Hawkins, Posivio’s godfather.

Hawkins said Posivio was a passenger in a high mobility multipurpose vehicle that was hit by an improvised explosive device.

Posivio, 22, the son of Robert Posivio Jr. and Patti Posivio of rural Sherburn, had been recently sent back into combat after being injured in a mortar attack on April 13. His unit came under fire in Al Anbar Province near Fallujah and suffered two deaths in the earlier attack.

About three weeks after that attack, Posivio’s mother told the Sentinel of Fairmont that her son had suffered a severe concussion and shrapnel wounds.

She said one of the Marines who was killed then, Lance Cpl. Stephen Perez, died while saving Posivio’s life.

A photo posted on a Marine Corps Web site shows Posivio kneeling before a memorial made from a helmet resting on a rifle with a set of identification tags and a pair of combat boots during a memorial service for Perez on April 28 at Camp Fallujah in Iraq.

Patti Posivio told the Sentinel her son was sent back into the field on April 30, and that the family didn’t expect they’d hear back from him until the end of May.

She said Posivio joined the Marines four years ago right out of high school, and that he was in his third tour of duty in Iraq. He was due to be discharged July 28.

The loss is the second in two years for the Posivio family. Robert Posivio’s younger brother, Daniel, 19, was killed in a car accident in July 2004 while on leave from the U.S. Navy.

Sherburn is about 15 miles west of Fairmont.

Posivio was the 37th person with Minnesota ties to die in connection with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Knox County Soldier Dies Of Wounds Suffered In Iraq

May. 25, 2006 Associated Press, KNOXVILLE, Ill.

A Knoxville soldier, Army Pfc. Class Caleb Lufkin, died Thursday while under treatment for severe wounds he suffered early this month from a roadside bomb in Iraq, family members said.

“They were doing surgery today to put a plate in Caleb’s left leg, and he went into cardiac arrest,” said Lufkin’s stepfather, Dennis Gorsline of Knoxville. “They tried to revive him but couldn’t. He’d had a number of surgeries before, first in Germany, and then at Walter Reed.”

Lufkin, 23, was a member of Company B of the 5th Engineering Battalion, based out of Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.

Army officials said that on May 4, the vehicle Lufkin was riding in was struck by a bomb in south-central Baghdad.

According to his mother, Marcy Gorsline, Lufkin suffered a fractured left femur, tibia and fibia, as well as a fractured right foot. He also suffered shrapnel wounds and burns on his face and neck. A severed artery in his wrist was surgically repaired at an Army hospital in Germany.

Lufkin was flown to Walter Reed on May 7.

In addition to his mother and stepfather, Lufkin is survived by his father and stepfather, Tammy and Karen Lufkin of Galesburg, and two brothers, Lance, 17, and Taylor, 14.

Local Marine Killed in Iraq

May 22, 2006 KTEN

A local marine serving in Iraq has died. He was a US Marine from Marietta, Oklahoma. The family was notified early Sunday morning that their son was killed when his Humvee struck a landmine.

21-year-old Hatak Yearby was not only a Marine but he was a Native American dancer as well.

He was known in Love County for the tribal dances he performed. He had traveled all over the world with his family performing.

His father said it takes a village to raise a child and Love County was that village. “Flags are at half-mast in honor of my son,” says Justin Yearby, Hatak’s father. “It honors our family.”

Flags flew at half-staff throughout the county today. Yearby’s body will be returned to his family in the next seven to ten days.

He is survived by his mother and father, his two sisters, one of which is a Marine, and his wife, who he married last February.

He joined the Marines because Hatak, whose name means “free-man” was influence by past veterans, and past warriors.

The family says he treated his service in the United State Marine Corps just as he treated his tribe: with respect honor and dignity.

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

Marine Corps Sgt. Juan Morales, with 2nd Air-Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, lays down a barrage of gunfire to cover his fellow Marines during a firefight in Ramadi, Iraq, May 20. (Department of Defense/Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Samuel C. Peterson, U.S. Navy)

Two From Ft. Bragg Killed

May 19, 2006 Associated Press, RALEIGH, N.C.

Chief Warrant Officer 4 John W. Engeman, 45, and Master Sgt. Robert H. West, 37, of Elyria, Ohio, were killed in Baghdad when a bomb detonated near their Humvee. Both were assigned to 1st Battalion, 312th Regiment, 4th Brigade, 78th Division at Fort Bragg.

The Pentagon said Engeman’s home town was East North Port, N.Y. He moved two years ago to West Virginia, where he served as an active duty liaison between the National Guard and Army reserves, said his wife, Donna.

Engeman and West were trainers who went to Iraq in February. Engeman was married and a father of two. West was married and a father of one.

Engeman was killed one day after watching his wife graduate from Concord University in West Virginia via an Internet feed, Donna Engeman said.

“For him to be able to see me graduate was really special. He told me afterward that I looked great,” she told the Long Island, N.Y., newspaper Newsday. “Then he said, ‘I’ll call you tomorrow for Mother’s Day.’”

Engeman was killed before he could make the call.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Afghanistan Rising Against The Occupation:
“When This Sort Of Mass Resistance Starts, It Means That It Is A Collective Decision Of Afghans”
“The Whole Environment Is Now Conducive To Resistance”
“The Jirgas Are Unanimous: There Should Be All-Out War In Afghanistan”

May 26, 2006 By Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times [Excerpts]

KARACHI

The bulk of the fighting in Afghanistan in the past week, which has claimed more than 300 lives among the Taliban, US-led forces, the Afghan National Army (ANA) and civilians, has taken place in the southern Pashtun heartland of the country.

However, the Taliban’s spring offensive is fast turning into a massive resistance against the foreign presence all over Afghanistan, and already some influential characters are jockeying for a post-spring role.

And the indications are that the resistance could transcend a simple Taliban-led insurgency to evolve into a powerful Islamic movement.

Thousands of Taliban have emerged in the provinces of Helmand, Ghazni, Urgzan, Kandahar, Kunar and Zabul, and in all of them the story is the same: where allied forces have taken on the Taliban, the ANA holds the “fort”. In places beyond the access of allied forces, the Taliban are in control.

In the less-populated Farah and Nimroze provinces, where the Taliban have a nominal presence, violent incidents against the ANA have begun. The same is true in western Herat province on the border with Iran.

Former acting Afghan premier Engineer Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai commented by telephone to Asia Times Online from Kabul, “There are now sporadic incidents of violence in northern Afghanistan. We are hearing news that rockets are being fired on coalition forces in Maidan Shahr, and there have been incidents of bomb blasts and violence in the north.”

[A]sia Times Online spoke to a man who knows Afghan society and most of its characters inside out, former Pakistani army general and director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence Hamid Gul. Gul has for many years been associated with the various groups of the Afghan resistance, since the days it fought against the Soviets in the 1980s.

“Firstly, when this sort of mass resistance starts, it means that it is a collective decision of Afghans. So you can see that though the Taliban resistance is centered in a very specific area, sporadic incidents have erupted all over.

“To me, the Taliban may be one group, the HIA (Hizb-i-Islami) of Gulbuddin is a second and Khalis’ HIA would be another.

“But there are tribes as well who would be digging in against allied forces in their specific areas. This is a specific Afghan style of rebellion in which parties fight throughout Afghanistan under their flag, but the tribes restrict themselves to their areas. All fight for the same cause, but under their own disciplines. All fighting factions develop a sort of understanding with each other,” Gul said.

This kind of “netwar” is very much the case in southern Afghanistan. The Taliban are in action under their commanders and the overall field command of Jalaluddin Haqqani, while the HIA is fighting under its commanders and various tribes are coordinating with the resistance.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg you are watching; this situation will further escalate as the whole environment is now conducive to resistance,” said Gul. “Russia is annoyed with the Americans, Iran is hostile to Western interests and Pakistan is no more in a position to adhere to American directives.

Contacts in the Pakistani tribal areas of Bajaur and North Waziristan tell Asia Times Online that at least seven different tribal jirgas (councils) are meeting on a daily basis among the Afghan population.

And Miranshah Bazaar in North Waziristan is once again full of posters of Osama bin Laden and Hekmatyar, while slogans are written in support of the Taliban.

The jirgas are unanimous: there should be all-out war in Afghanistan.

Five Canadians Wounded In Gumbad Roadside Bombing:
Idiot Canadian General Calls IEDs “Crude”

May 25, 2006 KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP)

The latest roadside bomb in Afghanistan wounded five Canadian soldiers and an Afghan Thursday in an area where Taliban insurgents have repeatedly used explosive devices to attack coalition vehicles forced to move along certain routes by the rugged terrain.

Their light armoured vehicle, or LAV III, took the brunt of the explosion and likely shielded them from more serious injuries, said Lieut. Mark MacIntyre, a spokesman for the Canadian Forces at the main coalition base at Kandahar Airfield.

The soldiers and their Afghan interpreter were evacuated from the blast site in the Gumbad area to the Kandahar base hospital for treatment.

Asked about the Canadians, MacIntyre said: “All five are in stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries.” “I can tell you that of the five soldiers that were wounded, four were able to call home immediately after the attack to let their next of kin know they were OK.”

The attack occurred at 1:40 p.m. along a route near the platoon house in Gumbad, about 75 kilometres north of Kandahar.

The soldiers were on a patrol to demonstrate the coalition’s presence and meet local elders in the region known for Taliban activity. [It would appear that “demonstrating their presence” is wholly unnecessary. The resistance knew they were coming. Duh.]

“The LAV III light armoured vehicle in which they were travelling stood up to the force of the explosion and limited the extent of the injuries,” MacIntyre said. The vehicle was damaged by the blast.

The Gumbad region is generally treeless mountains and dry uplands, interspersed by parched fields where poppy is grown and river beds where only a trickle of water flows most of the year.

The terrain limits the number of vehicular routes through the area, and Taliban insurgents use it to their advantage in setting roadside bombs in their fight against coalition and Afghan government forces.

Generally, MacIntyre said, “the targeting mechanisms are fairly crude” on roadside bombs; the military calls them improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

MORE:

What The Idiot Canadian General Doesn’t Have A Clue About

25 May 2006 By Laurent Zecchini. Le Monde [Excerpts]

Now Taliban fighters systematically use “IEDs (improvised explosive devices). In that particular, “one finds everything,” he remarks, “from the most simple to the most sophisticated”: like the infrared beams that set off a delayed explosion in the middle of a convoy of vehicles.

On a tactical level, the Taliban are indulging more and more in attacks with a high number of fighters (100 to 200) using sophisticated combat methods:

“Their ambushes are well set-up; they know the habits of Western forces and are clearly battle-hardened,” indicates the same source.

U.S. Occupation Dictator Helps Build The Resistance:
Condescending Asshole Sneers At Local Leaders

25/05/2006 BAKU TODAY

Afghan President Hamid Karzai made a rare visit to southern Kandahar province and called for calm amid a dramatic spike in Taliban-linked violence.

The president told a gathering of about 150 elders from across the insurgency-hit province, the birthplace of the Taliban movement, that he was working with Afghanistan’s international partners to halt the violence.

“Eat your shorba (a popular Afghan gravy) and take your afternoon nap. But at the same time take care of the security of your villages, districts and cities and leave the major things for me,” he said.

Karzai was escorted from the airport by about 10 armed vehicles from the Canadian military

U.S. Military Supply Convoy Attacked

May 25, 2006 ASSOCIATED PRESS

Militants killed three truck drivers hauling food for the U.S. military.

Meanwhile, the United Nations said a funding shortfall may force it to cut food aid to some 2.7 million Afghans, warning that such reductions could further destabilize the country.

The killings occurred Wednesday as three Afghan drivers were taking containers of food from Bagram, the U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan, to a base in Paktika province, said Interior Ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanezai.

Attacks on trucks contracted to haul fuel, equipment and other gear for the military are common.

TROOP NEWS

“The Film That Tells The Long-Suppressed Story Of The G.I. Movement Against The War”
“A Level Of Resistance That Led To The Pulling Out Of The Ground Troops In The Early 1970s”

[Thanks to D, who sent this in.]

May 24th, 2006 Democracy Now [Excerpt]

Democracy Now interviews:

David Zeiger, producer and director of “Sir, No Sir” which is currently playing in theaters nationwide. His production company is Displaced Films and he has made films that have been shown on PBS, HBO and at festivals all over the world.

[W]e’re going to turn right now to an excerpt of the film, Sir, No Sir…

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

WALTER CRONKITE: A new phenomenon has cropped up at several army bases these days: a so-called underground G.I. press which consists largely of anti-war newspapers. Military authorities are clamping down hard on the papers.

MONTAGE: Fort Knox, Kentucky, Fun, Travel and Adventure, Fort Gordon, Georgia, The Last Harass, Fort Lewis, Washington, Fed Up, Fort Benning, Georgia, Chanute Air Force Base, Four Year Bummer, Fort Dix, New Jersey, Shakedown, Fort Hood, Texas, Fatigue Press is published by a group of radical soldiers stationed at this Army base.

DAVID CLINE: And we used to distribute it clandestinely on base. We’d go around and leave bunches of them in barracks, as we’d go through barracks at night and leave them in foot lockers. If you were caught distributing literature on base, that was a court-martial offense.

NARRATOR: Despite the military’s best efforts, the underground press became the lifeblood of the G.I. movement, as the Army’s own recruiting slogan, “Fun, Travel and Adventure,” turned into the popular G.I. expression, “Fuck the Army.”

SOLDIER: There must have been close to 300 anti-war newspapers written, produced and published on bases all throughout the world. It was wherever there were G.I.s, American G.I.s in the world.

SUSAN SCENALL: We got together a number of times and talked about how we were going to organize active-duty G.I.s go to the peace demonstration.

And then I remember also hearing about the B-52 bombers that were dropping leaflets on Vietnam, urging the Vietnamese to defect, and I thought, well, if they can do it overseas, then we can hire a small private plane, load it up with leaflets, and drop the leaflets on military bases in the San Francisco Bay Area, thousands and thousands of leaflets. At one point I know we were a little concerned about getting shot down, but nothing happened. Evidently they landed pretty accurately. That’s what they testified at the court-martial.

JANE FONDA: I grew up believing that if our flag was flying over a battlefield that we were on the side of the angels. My father fought in the Second World War. He won awards and medals, and, you know, I grew up during the “good wars.”

JANE FONDA: (playing Pat Nixon) Mr. President, there’s a terrible demonstration going on outside.

MICHAEL ALAIMO: (playing Richard Nixon) Oh, there’s always a demonstration going on outside, Pat.

JANE FONDA: Yeah, but Richard, this one is completely out of control.

MICHAEL ALAIMO: What are they asking for this time?

JANE FONDA: Free Angela Davis and all political prisoners, out of Vietnam now, and draft all government officials.

MICHAEL ALAIMO: Well, now we have people to take care of that. They’ll do their job, you do your job, and I’ll do my job.

JANE FONDA: But Richard, you don’t understand. They’re storming the White House.

MICHAEL ALAIMO: Oh, in that case I’d better call out the Third Marines.

JANE FONDA: You can’t, Richard.

MICHAEL ALAIMO: Why not?

JANE FONDA: It is the Third Marines.

MICHAEL ALAIMO: Oh.

JANE FONDA: What if we put together an antiwar show that’s, you know, the opposite side of the coin from the Bob Hope show?

FREE THEATER ASSOCIATES: (Singing) I went down to that base. / They took one look at my face / and read out an order to bar me. / I said, “Foxtrot Tango Alpha / Free The Army!”

JANE FONDA: “Fuck the Army.” We always said, “Free the Army!” or “Fun, Travel and Adventure,” but it really meant, “Fuck the Army.”

DR. HOWARD LEVY: I think the most startling thing to me occurred, however, as the court martial began. What would happen was, we would walk from the parking lot to the building where the court-martial was being held, and it was the most remarkable thing when hundreds, hundreds of G.I.s would hang out of windows out of the barracks and give me the v-sign or give me the clenched fist.

This was mind-boggling to me.

This was a revelation, and at that point it really became crystal clear to me that something had changed here, and that something very, very important was happening.

NARRATOR: And with soldiers beginning to question the war in the wake of the Tet Offensive, thousands began going AWOL, or Absent Without Leave. Many found their way to San Francisco, where a series of events brought the emerging G.I. antiwar movement onto the national stage.

INTERVIEWER: Have you given much thought to the penalty of being AWOL?

AWOL SOLDIER: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Can I see your chains, please?

OLIVER HIRSCH: We joined together in July 1968. We took sanctuary in a church and chained ourselves to ministers. We essentially called the press and said to them, “We’re not going to Vietnam. We’re refusing our orders, and, in fact, we’re resigning from the military. Come and get us.”

KEITH MATHER: They had nothing to lose, and they had no idea what was going to come, and that’s a free place. It’s a really free place, you know? You don’t know what’s going to happen, don’t know where you’re going, but you know what you’re doing.

And that was my introduction to the San Francisco Presidio stockade.

REPORTER: For 19-year-old private, Michael Bunch, life in the Army had been little more than a series of AWOL violations. His last stop was here at the Presidio stockade, where he was fatally shot last Friday while trying to escape from a work detail.

KEITH MATHER: So we reacted viscerally and with anger and disgust and outrage. And then things started to calm down, because we started to plan. We came to a decision that the best thing we could do was to have some kind of a demonstration.

SOLDIER PROTESTER: At a certain point, the commandant came out and read us the mutiny act, and we just kept singing louder and, you know, kind of linked arms and sing and sing.

KEITH MATHER: We were scared, man. I’ll tell you, we were really scared, but we had them right where we wanted them. They were finally listening to us, man. That’s the first time I can ever remember anybody listening to us while I was in the military.

SOLDIER PROTESTER: The commanding general of the Sixth Army, which was the jurisdiction, and he said that they thought that the revolution was about to start and that they really had to set an example, you know, come down hard, and we were the guys that they decided to do that with, and they did. I mean, you know, we were on trial for our lives. You know, I kind of came in as an AWOL and within two days of hitting the stockade, I was, you know, I was facing the death sentence for singing “We Shall Overcome.”

INTERVIEWER: How did you come to the decision to desert?

TERRY WHITMORE: You know, when you laying on your back and you can’t move for day in and day out, you have a lot of time to think. So you think about what you did, you know, what you’ve done, things that you’ve gone through, the people that you’ve killed, the people that are dying.

Then you actually see what I saw, what was going on in the States. Dudes are running down the streets wearing the same kind of uniform that I got. They’re in Memphis. They’re beating up on people. Wait a minute. We’re over here beating up on people over here, and you’re beating up on black people. Dogs are running everywhere, tanks are on the streets.

NEWS ANCHOR: This was Armed Forces Day, and in many cities across the country there were the usual parades, displays and bands. But the recent surge of protest over the war in Indochina cast a shadow over today’s activities. This was even true at some military bases, where the presence of antiwar demonstrators led to the cancellation of planned observances.

DAVID CLINE: A thousand G.I.s marched the first year right outside the base, and they told people it was off limits, and they told people that if you went there, you were going to get arrested. Store owners downtown were putting up plywood coverings on their windows, because the cops told them it was going to turn into a riot, but then people decided to change it to “Armed Farces Day,” because, you know, we thought making fun of your enemy was as valuable as yelling at them.

The second year, 1971, there had to be three or four thousand on the streets.

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

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of the film Sir, No Sir, as we go to the phone right now to speak to its director, David Zeiger. Welcome to Democracy Now!

DAVID ZEIGER: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, it’s good to have you with us. At the top of this segment we were talking to Ann Wright, who was handcuffed on a military base for handing out the fliers that advertise this film. Your response?

DAVID ZEIGER: Well, this is the film that tells the long-suppressed story of the G.I. movement against the war, the scenes that you just showed.

It’s not surprising to me that the military responded this way.

This is something that over the last 35 years, particularly beginning with the Reagan administration, the government and the military has gone to great lengths to suppress any knowledge that this movement happened.

I mean, here is a movement that involved over 300 underground newspapers, thousands of G.I.s demonstrating, a level of resistance that led to the pulling out of the ground troops in the early 1970s, and yet no one knows anything about this movement.

It’s been replaced with the myth of G.I.s being spat on by antiwar activists when they returned.

So, of course, it doesn’t surprise me that it would be responded to by the military in this way, referring to it as sedition and whatever.

Our response is that it just brings out how important this story actually is. This isn’t just a story about history. It’s a story that really speaks to the situation that’s faced by hundreds of thousands of soldiers today.

AMY GOODMAN: According to the Pentagon, half a million soldiers deserted during the Vietnam War, and also what I think was so impressive about it is the military publications, the underground military publications, and how many there were around this country and the world.

DAVID ZEIGER: I don’t think there’s ever been something like this at any time in history. I mean, hundreds and hundreds of underground publications, mimeographed, printed. I mean, people were putting these things out daily, and sometimes it would be a couple hundred, sometimes it would be five thousand, fifteen thousand, and these were all put out by soldiers themselves.

Sir! No Sir!:
At A Theatre Near You!
To find it: www.sirnosir.com/

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

The coffin of Marine 1st Lt. Michael L. Licalzi arrives at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church for his funeral service in Garden City N.Y., May 20, 2006. Licalzi died May 11, 2006 in Al Anbar province, Iraq. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

General Says Marines “Indifferent To The Loss Of A Human Life”
Why Not?
Bush And Rumsfeld Set The Example

5/25/2006 By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

The top Marine general said Thursday that he feared, based on two recent cases of alleged killings of civilians in Iraq, that some Marines could become “indifferent to the loss of a human life.”

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

Sailors, Air Force Personnel Off To Bush’s Afghan Slaughterhouse

5.21.06 Norfolk Virginian-Pilot

With the war in Iraq straining U.S. Army and Marine units, Navy and Air Force missions in Afghanistan are increasing.

Cover-up!
Report On Dangerous, Unapproved Vaccine Given To Gulf War 1 Troops Mysteriously Missing

[Terri Tanielian, a senior researcher and co-director of Rand’s Center for Military Health Policy Research] said the report deals with the “health effects of immunization,” focusing on the anthrax vaccine and botulinum toxoid vaccines in particular.

According to Rand’s Web site, researchers “reviewed evidence in the scientific literature and elsewhere … pertaining to a possible connection between these two vaccines and chronic health problems reported in ill Gulf War veterans.”

May 22, 2006 By Gayle S. Putrich, Army Times staff writer [Excerpts]

The Defense Department, Congress and the Rand Corp. are at odds over a mysterious report on Gulf War illnesses that was commissioned in 1999 but still has not been released.

At a May 9 hearing of the House Government Reform national security subcommittee on the status of anthrax vaccine and detection programs, Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., the panel chairman, questioned Pentagon officials on the report’s status and who is responsible for its release being delayed.

Ellen Embry, deputy assistant secretary of defense for health affairs for force heath protection and readiness, said she had contacted Rand in anticipation of Shays’ question but had not yet heard back.

Embry said it is her understanding that publishing the report was Rand’s responsibility, but the nonprofit research firm was not ready to release it because “Rand would have to sign their company’s name to it.”

Lawmakers were not satisfied with Embry’s explanation.

“We paid for it; we own it,” Shays said, referring to the taxpayers who fund the Pentagon budget. “I don’t think DoD would want to imply that any time they contract something, it belongs to the contractor.”

The Pentagon commissioned 12 reports from Rand following the Persian Gulf War. All but this one, which Rand’s Web site indicates has to do with vaccines and Gulf War illnesses, have been released.

The missing report is said to be massive, about 600 pages, with extensive details on vaccination reports from the early 1990s.

Subcommittee aides said after the hearing that both the Pentagon and Rand have been contacted; each blames the other for the holdup, and no one seems to know — or at least won’t say — exactly what is in the report.

“According to Rand, they are waiting for final clearance from DoD,” one aide said.

Botulinum toxoid vaccine is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the vaccine should be administered only to those at high risk of exposure to Clostridium botulinum, a potent nerve agent.

Rand also looked at whether administering those two vaccines together or in combination with other vaccines had any link to symptoms experienced by Gulf War veterans.

“Rand additionally investigated the efficacy of the anthrax and botulinum toxoid vaccines and reviews the history of anthrax vaccine production. The results of that review will appear in a forthcoming Rand report, which is expected to be published in 2005,” the Web site says.

MORE:

Pentagon Liars Blame Rand For Not Releasing A Report They Own:
“Questions About What’s In That Report, And Why Defense Officials Seem So Keen To Keep It Under Wraps”

Editorial
Army Times
5.22.06

When it comes to dealing with veterans’ health issues, Pentagon officials again have shown that they still don’t seem to get it.

At a May 9 House Government Reform Committee hearing, defense officials played dumb — there’s no other way to describe it — about a 1999 Rand report that still has yet to be released.

Without going into specific details, Rand says the report discusses the “health effects of immunization” among 1991 Persian Gulf War veterans, with a focus on vaccines to protect against anthrax and botulinum toxoid, a potent nerve agent.

At the hearing, Ellen Embry, deputy assistant secretary of defense for force health protection and readiness, tried to claim releasing the study is Rand’s responsibility, even though the Pentagon contracted for and funded it.

But committee aides say Rand officials have told them they are awaiting final clearance from the Pentagon to release the report.

The Pentagon’s attempt to put the onus on Rand brought a justifiably angry response from Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., who has been dogging this phantom document for several years. “We paid for it; we own it,” he said, referring to taxpayers.

The Pentagon has a history of foot-dragging on atomic radiation, secret germ warfare trials, Agent Orange, Gulf War illness and other health issues, none of which came to light without public outcry and congressional pressure.

The way this episode has been handled cannot help but raise questions about what’s in that report, and why defense officials seem so keen to keep it under wraps.

If the Pentagon has nothing to hide, it should release the report.

If it is hiding something, the House and Senate armed services committees should demand answers.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action

May 25, 2006 Reuters & AFP & KUNA

Guerrillas shot and seriously wounded a senior Defence Ministry official in Baghdad, police said, in what appeared to be part of a campaign against the top echelons of Iraq’s US-backed administration.

Brig. Gen. Khalil al-Abadi, head of the Defense Ministry logistics office, was ambushed as he was driven to work in the Zafraniyah district, police said. His driver was also wounded.

Dujail judge Walid Ahmed was traveling on a highway between Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit and the city of Samarra when he was abducted from his car on Wednesday, an interior ministry source said. “There are reports that many judges, especially those working on terrorism or serious criminal cases, are facing intimidations or threats,” it added.

Muthana Yunis al-Hamdani, a member of the regional council of the northern Mosul province, and his driver were killed in drive-by shooting in the Sukkar neighborhood in the western side of Mosul as they were heading to the Mosul administration building, police said.

On Baghdad’s main throughways, Palestine Street, a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol injured two police officers, the source added.

Two other officers were hurt in a bomb attack in the Al-Jedidah area.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“The War Tapes”
Troops Make Their Own Film About Iraq;
“Overwhelming Frustration; With Themselves, Their Situation, The U.S. Government And Its Policies”

May 22, 2006 By C. Mark Brinkley, Army Times staff writer [Excerpt]

For “The War Tapes,” a gritty look at the lives of National Guardsmen from Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry Regiment, five soldiers volunteered to film their year in Iraq beginning in early 2004.

They were warriors. They were embedded media. Walking contradictions.

Three men; Staff Sgt. Zack Bazzi, Sgt. Stephen Pink and Spc. Mike Moriarty; became the focal point of the documentary, offering a candid, first-person look at fighting a war, against the enemy overseas and against their own emotions back home.

Director Deborah Scranton declined an offer to embed with the unit in favor of arming the soldiers with their own cameras and giving them free rein to choose when and what to film. “I wanted to work with them to tell their story through their eyes,” she said.

Their footage tells a story of both pride in the mission at hand and of overwhelming frustration; with themselves, their situation, the U.S. government and its policies.

Bazzi is a Lebanese-born American whose fluency in Arabic makes him a valuable asset to his unit.

The soldier’s dual heritage pulls at him throughout the film. He’s one of the only soldiers in the unit capable of communicating with the locals; “hajjis,” to his friends and co-workers, an otherwise respectful term he regrets seeing used as an epithet; in their language.

But his language skill works to his disadvantage, and the young noncommissioned officer eventually refuses to translate because all the news he’s handing out is bad.

The soldiers filmed the bad with the good, and the documentary mixes firefights and roadside bomb explosions with happy moments between friends. But even these lighter scenes carry the smell of death.

In one, Pink recounts a heated debate between soldiers over how to describe a severed limb.

“It was a genuine argument between the guy who swears it resembles hamburger, ground up but uncooked, and the guy who believes it looks more like a raw pot roast,” Pink says, reading from his journal. “There is no argument, however, that human intestines are pink pork sausage links.”

The irony of the deployment is perfectly illustrated during one such “light” moment, when a group of soldiers forces a scorpion and a spider to fight to the death in a makeshift sand arena, not the first time they’ve held such a bout.

“The last scorpion died when the spider bit it in the face,” one soldier says. But the spider does not fare as well this time, succumbing to the scorpion’s blows.

“Just goes to show you,” another soldier says, either unaware or just unmoved by the big picture, the larger similarities between the soldiers in Iraq and these two unwilling insect opponents dropped into a deadly desert battle.

“There’s always a bigger bad a—.”

OCCUPATION REPORT

Welcome To Liberated Baghdad:
World Class Disaster

5.24.06 San Francisco Chronicle

Getting electricity, water and food has become a problem in Baghdad.

Water runs only an hour a day, power is on for 4 hours, and sewage runs in the streets

Three years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, during which time most of the Iraqi capital’s infrastructure collapsed, rudimentary services remain sporadic at best.

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

“The Nickname We Had For KBR Was Kill ‘Em, Bag ‘Em And Replace ‘Em”
“They Could Have Been Using That Money To Armor-Plate Our Trucks”

Rocks thrown at windshield are commonplace. Truckers say rock-throwing children are common along their routes, and they’re expert shots. “They could make a million dollars on a baseball field,” one trucker says. (Photo: Roger Dixon)

Austin Dunn said the truckers might have been more understanding if it weren’t for the fleets of luxury SUVs that KBR brought in for other employees.

“What in the world do you need a $55,000 Ford Excursion for one guy to drive from his office to the PX to the chow hall back to his office?” Dunn says. “It’s just amazing the kind of money they were wasting. They could have been using that money to armor-plate our trucks.”

5.25.06 by John Burnett, All Things Considered [Excerpts]

It’s another day on the job of a truck driver for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“It’s such an unusual type of job,” says driver Scott Hodges. “For the people who do it and are successful at it, there’s a real kinship, there’s a real brotherhood there.”

Michael Vick says young Iraqi rock throwers “can hit inside your cab while you’re moving at 50 miles an hour.”

Billy Garsee has no plans to return to Iraq.

“Every convoy we’d pull out on would get rocked or shot at or something. There was always some kind of conflict going on on every convoy,” Garsee says.

“The good Lord saw fit to bring me home alive the first time. I’m not gonna contest him a second time.”
Austin Dunn was a 55-year-old professional truck driver, down on his luck in Houston.

“The (KBR) recruiter says, ‘How would you like to make $100,000 a year?’ Well, I just lost my job here in Houston and my wife and I were struggling, we were living in a little one-bedroom apartment. Didn’t have anything. And soon as he said that $100,000, I’m just like the other guys; set the hook.”

KBR has 700 trucks rolling across Iraqi on any given day. The need for drivers is constant because the turnover is so high.

The biggest complaint is when they go “outside the wire,” when they leave camp on a convoy mission.

“The armor in the KBR trucks was not adequate to protect us at all,” says Terry Steward, of Weiser, Idaho. He almost died from gunshot wounds last year when his convoy drove into an ambush. Three drivers were killed. Steward believes most of the bloodshed could have been avoided that day if the trucks had been bulletproofed.

“The issue of inadequate armor had been brought up by me and other people to KBR,” Steward says. “We needed something done.”

Scores of drivers told NPR they frequently raised the issue of inadequate armor to KBR managers.

After one soldier pointedly questioned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld two years ago about similar vulnerabilities with Humvees, the military moved aggressively to armor its vehicles.

KBR trucks have lagged far behind, says Mark Overcash, who drove flatbeds for the company until last September.

“If you didn’t have armor on a truck, you’d try to scrounge you up something to put in there, get some more metal between you and your outside,” Overcash says.

“And you just had to scavenge it because… for some reason, KBR didn’t think it was necessary for everybody to have armor.”

Austin Dunn said the truckers might have been more understanding if it weren’t for the fleets of luxury SUVs that KBR brought in for other employees.

After 15 months driving a truck for KBR, Jim Bob Murray returned from Iraq. He says too many of his friends were getting killed, and he didn’t like the way the company treated the drivers.

“The nickname we had for KBR was Kill ‘em, Bag ‘em and Replace ‘em.

SCOTT HODGES:
Strongest memories:

“Mortaritaville. That’s what we called Camp Anaconda. Every night it gets mortared, like 60 mm mortars. We’d sit outside the hooches in the evening and smoke cigarettes and watch the mortars and rockets fly over.”

(Mark Overcash)

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

Forget That “Democracy” Bullshit:
Now The Bush Regime Loves Foreign Dictators And Tyrants

And, in a scenario familiar to veterans of Washington’s Cold War machinations against democratic but suspiciously left-wing governments, the administration is focusing its efforts at “regime change” against those Middle Eastern governments which, besides Israel, enjoy the greatest popular and electoral legitimacy in the region — namely, Iran and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

May 23 Analysis by Jim Lobe, (IPS) [Excerpts]

Less than 18 months after U.S. President George W. Bush declared in his 2005 Inaugural Address his unequivocal commitment to the “ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world”, tyrants, particularly in the Islamic world, are taking heart.

From North Africa to Central Asia, top U.S. officials are busy embracing dictators, and their sons, where appropriate, even as they continue to mouth the pro-democracy rhetoric that became the hallmark of the administration’s foreign policy pronouncements, particularly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq failed to turn up evidence of weapons of mass destruction or ties to al Qaeda.

Particularly notable in just the past month have been White House receptions for Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s heir-apparent, his son Gamal; the praise lavished by Vice President Dick Cheney on Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev during a recent visit to Almaty; and last week’s normalisation of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

“You add up all the pieces, and the message to the world is, ‘We have a lot of other business than just democracy in this region’,” according to Thomas Carothers, director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) here. “And that business means friendly relations with all sorts of autocrats.”

During her confirmation hearings as secretary of state on the eve of the 2005 inaugural, Condoleezza Rice also insisted that Bush had “broken with six decades of excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the hope of purchasing stability at the price of liberty”.

The Palestinian election in January — which Washington had insisted go forward despite Abbas’ and Israel’s concerns that HAMAS would win — appears to have marked a turning point.

As noted shortly afterward by the chairman of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee, Henry Hyde, “There is no evidence that that we or anyone can guide from afar revolutions we have set in motion.”

“It will be business as usual,” said Marina Ottaway, another democracy specialist at the Carnegie Endowment. “I think we can expect that the rhetoric and the funding for democracy-promotion activities through the Middle East Partnership Initiative — activities that are not dangerous to the regimes in power — will continue, but what we aren’t going to see too much of is high-level pressure on those governments to carry out reforms …and certainly not pressure on any country to rush into elections.”

“What has happened is what the realists predicted — that Israel and pro-American regimes in the region would be threatened by the democracy drive,” said Anatole Lieven, a foreign policy specialist at the New America Foundation.

“If you try to carry out democratisation while pursuing policies that the vast majority of Muslims detest and in countries where economic development is stagnant, democracy will of course lead to anti-American radicalism,” he added.

“The administration is trying to convince these countries to be allied with us against Iran,” noted Ottaway. “When you want them to help you, it’s not a good time to be critical.”

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.

Received:

Scholarships Offered To Children Of Military

From: Katherine Gorell Yung
To: GI Special
Sent: May 25, 2006
Subject: Scholarships offered to children of military

From: Kemp, Susan (OCFS) Susan.Kemp@ocfs.state.ny.us
Date: May 25, 2006 3:42 PM

Freedom Alliance Scholarships provide financial assistance to sons and daughters of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Guardsman who have been killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty, or who are currently classified as a Prisoner of War (POW) or Missing in Action (MIA).

To be eligible for one-year scholarships, students must be high school seniors, high school graduates, or registered undergraduates at an accredited college or vocational institution. And they must be dependent sons or daughters of a military person who was killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty or currently classified as a POW or MIA. Deadline for receipt of applications is July 31, 2006.

For more:
www.freedomalliance.org/scholarship.htm

Susan Kemp, Assistant Commissioner
Director of Grants Management
NYS Office of Children and Family Services

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

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.

If printed out, this newsletter is your personal property and cannot legally be confiscated from you. “Possession of unauthorized material may not be prohibited.” DoD Directive 1325.6 Section 3.5.1.2