GI SPECIAL 4F3

“This Is Horribly Wrong”

June 12, 2006 By Evan Thomas and Scott Johnson, Newsweek [Excerpts]

In December, NEWSWEEK interviewed some Army soldiers going home as conscientious objectors.

To fight boredom and disgust, said Clif Hicks, who had left a tank squadron at Camp Slayer in Baghdad, soldiers popped Benzhexol, five pills at time. Normally used to treat Parkinson’s disease, the drug is a strong hallucinogenic when abused.

“People were taking steroids, Valium, hooked on painkillers, drinking. They’d go on raids and patrols totally stoned.” Hicks, who volunteered at the age of 17, said, “We’re killing the wrong people all the time, and mostly by accident. One guy in my squadron ran over a family with his tank.”

Hicks’s own revulsion peaked while he was on patrol in January 2004. He came upon a bloody scene in a Baghdad housing project, where some soldiers had mistaken celebratory shots fired at a wedding for an attack, returning heavy fire and killing a young girl.

“I looked in the door and she was dead, shot through the neck, Mom there, Grandma there, all losing it. Then I started thinking, this is really fucked up, this is horribly wrong.” Hicks stopped taking his malaria pills, hoping he’d get sick and shipped out.

He says that infantry soldiers sometimes stick their legs out of the Humvee under sniper fire, hoping to get a nonlethal wound.

Hicks claims that “there’s a lot of guys who steal from the Iraqis. Money, family heirlooms, and then they brag about it. Guys would crap into MRE bags and throw them to old men begging for food.”

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

U.S. Soldier Killed In Anbar Province

June 04, 2006 AP

BAGHDAD, Iraq: A soldier was killed “due to enemy action” in the volatile Anbar province, the military said Sunday.

The name of the soldier, who was assigned to the 2/28 Brigade Combat Team, was being withheld pending notification of next of kin, the military said.

At least 2,476 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

STRYKER BRIGADE SOLDIER DIES JUNE 1

6/2/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-06-02C

TIKRIT, Iraq: A Soldier from the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team died June 1 of a non-combat related incident.

Massachusetts Stryker Soldier Dies In Marez May 31

June 2, 2006 U.S. Department of Defense News Release No. 500-06

Sgt. Benjamin E. Mejia, 25, of Salem, Mass., died in Marez, Iraq, on May 31, of non-combat related causes. Mejia was assigned to the 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

Army Corporal From Caledonia Killed In Accident In Iraq

June 02, 2006 (AP) CALEDONIA, Mich.

Dawn Bucklin was on the phone with one of her sons, a soldier stationed in Germany, when two Army officers approached her home with tragic news about her other son: Army Cpl. Brock Bucklin had been killed in an equipment accident in Iraq.

Bucklin died Wednesday in Balad, Iraq, “of a non-combat related cause,’’ the Defense Department said. The accident occurred when soldiers were lifting equipment and a chain hoist broke, striking Bucklin in the neck and fatally injuring him, said his father, Duane Bucklin, of Caledonia.

Brock Bucklin, 28, joined the Army in August 2004, about a year after his twin brother, Brad, did.

“Were they close? When one brother follows his brother into the Army a year later, I guess they are close,’’ Duane Bucklin told The Grand Rapids Press.

Brock Bucklin, who graduated from Forest Hills Central High School in 1997, thrived in the Army, Duane Bucklin said. “He had worked at different jobs and never figured out what he wanted to do,’’ his father said. “The Army really seemed to work for him.’’

Brock Bucklin entered Iraq in December 2005 and often was assigned to help set up and maintain communications, his father said. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division in Fort Carson, Colo.

Dawn Bucklin said her sons had told her not to worry about them as long as the military didn’t show up at her door.

“Oh my gosh, the military is at the door,’’ she recalled telling her son on the phone Wednesday when she saw the two officers approach.

Brad Bucklin plans to escort his brother’s remains home from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

“He and Brock made a promise if anything ever happened, they would carry their brother off the plane,’’ Dawn Bucklin said. “He did not want to break that promise.’’

Iowa Marine Killed Near Baghdad

May 23, 2006 By ABBY SIMONS, REGISTER STAFF WRITER

A northwest Iowa Marine known among members of his tight-knit community for faith, athleticism and patriotism was killed Monday after he was struck by a bomb while on foot patrol in Al Anbar Province, Iraq.

Lance Cpl. William “B Jay” Leusink, 21, of Maurice died an hour after the device struck him while he was conducting a patrol in Haqlaniyah, according to a press release from Memorial Funeral Home of Sioux Center. Leusink was treated on the scene and evacuated to a nearby hospital where he died.

Leusink and his wife Miranda, originally of Chaska, Minn., lived in Honolulu where he was stationed prior to his deployment.

The son of William and Elaine Leusink of Maurice, he also leaves behind three siblings. His mother, Elaine, declined to comment.

Prior to his tour in Iraq, Leusink had also served in Afghanistan, said Pastor Wayne Sneller of the First Reformed Church of Maurice, who knew Leusink, since he was 7 years old.

Leusink is the forty-first Iowan to die in Iraq or Afghanistan from combat, illness or accident since the war began in March 2003.

A Last Son Lost In Iraq

Based at Camp Pendleton in California, Posivio was on his third tour of duty in Iraq and had long ago lost any sense of adventure for it.

“He was scared; he didn’t want to go,” Patti Posivio said. “But he loved his country and he wanted to serve it.”

May. 26, 2006 BY FREDERICK MELO and DAVID HAWLEY, Pioneer Press

SHERBURN, Minn.: When Robert Posivio saw two figures in Marine Corps uniforms walking across the lawn toward his farmhouse Tuesday afternoon, he desperately tried to deceive himself.

Perhaps, he thought, they were delivering the Purple Heart his son, Lance Cpl. Robert Posivio III, had earned when he was wounded April 13 during a mortar attack in Iraq’s Anbar Province.

But the two Marines were delivering the news that every military parent dreads.

“We got the Purple Heart the day after we heard he’d been killed in action,” Patti Posivio, the 22-year-old Marine’s mother, said Friday during a news conference held at Sherburn City Hall.

Called “Robbie” to avoid confusing him with both his grandfathers and father, Posivio had returned to duty less than a month ago after recovering from a severe concussion and shrapnel wounds in both arms. That attack killed two fellow Marines, including one who had been within touching distance of Posivio and had absorbed the full impact of the mortar blast.

On Tuesday, Posivio was riding in a military vehicle when he was killed by a roadside bomb. The attack, once again, was in Anbar Province near Fallujah.

Based at Camp Pendleton in California, Posivio was on his third tour of duty in Iraq and had long ago lost any sense of adventure for it.

“He was scared; he didn’t want to go,” Patti Posivio said. “But he loved his country and he wanted to serve it.”

Word of his death caused a torrent of mourning in Sherburn, a farming-oriented community of 1,100 about 15 miles west of Fairmont in southern Minnesota.

“Everyone has been in tears around town,” said Angel Bettin, who works in the local Cenex gas station.

The death was seen as particularly tragic for the well-known farm family because another son, Daniel, had died in a rollover car crash less than two years ago while home on leave from the Navy. He was 19.

“This is more than one family should have to bear,” said Randy Grupe, superintendent of Martin County Public Schools, where Robbie Posivio had attended before graduating in 2002.

An active high school student, Posivio played football and wrestled, sang in the school choir, played in the school band, and was a member of the local Future Farmers of America chapter. He was said to love fishing and motorcycles and he also helped with his church’s Sunday school classes.

His graduating class, with just 80 classmates, was part of a school and a town where “everybody knows everybody” Grupe said. “Losing somebody like this is difficult for the family and the community.”

Posivio joined the Marines right after graduating and would have finished his four years on July 28 — exactly two years to the day after the death of his younger brother.

“They fought up until they were in the military and then they really enjoyed each other’s company,” Robert Posivio Jr. said of his two sons. “The military brought them extremely close.”

Posivio was also extremely proud about being a Marine.

“When he was home on leave or visiting, he was always in military dress,” Grupe said. “He was very proud of that.”

On Friday, Posivio’s parents displayed photographs of their son at the wedding of his older sister, Sarah Peltier, taken last November. The young Marine stood straight in his dress uniform.

Posivio faithfully called his parents twice a week from Iraq and a year ago arranged for his father to fly to Hawaii to meet him for a military-sponsored “tiger cruise” on the USS Duluth to San Diego.

His plans involved taking over the family farm, his parents said. In October, while on leave, he fulfilled a fantasy to buy a new pickup truck.

“Thank God he bought it when he did,” Robert Posivio said Friday, adding that the last time they had seen their son was in December before his last deployment.

Reactions in Sherburn to the Marine’s death varied.

“I had a guy say, ‘What a waste. What does that accomplish?’ “ said Al Klein, publisher of the Martin County Star, the local newspaper. “You don’t hear that a lot. I think everybody supports the troops. But most of them now, after the fact, wonder why we’re over there and what does it accomplish?”

Jesse Bettin, who owns a cafe in Sherburn and is the husband of Angel Bettin, said Posivio was serving his fellow citizens. “They’re there so we can stand here on a street corner,” Bettin said.

Posivio was the 31st military member from Minnesota to die in connection with the war in Iraq.

With his death, Sherburn has lost one of its finest, most promising young men, Grupe said. “It’s been said that the Marines want the best,” Grupe said. “They got one of the best in Robert.”

Funeral arrangements are pending.

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.

A U.S. soldier at the scene of a car bomb attack in the Shula district in Baghdad May 21, 2006. REUTERS/Mahmoud Raouf Mahmoud

Two U.S. Soldiers Wounded By IED Near Samarra

6/2/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-06-02P

TIKRIT, Iraq: An improvised explosive device killed an Iraqi woman and wounded two Iraqi men as well as two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team June 1. The device detonated in the median of MSR Tampa west of Samarra at approximately 6:30 p.m.

The wounded were evacuated to coalition medical treatment facilities. Their conditions are unknown.

The Soldiers and the civilian victims were traveling in opposite directions on the highway when the bomb detonated near the southbound lanes.

Soldiers reported receiving small arms fire while searching the area around the blast site.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Afghanistan War Claims Jerseyan;
“All The Years We Didn’t Spend Together; Now I’ll Have Him Near Me For The Rest Of My Life”

May 23, 2006 BY RUSSELL BEN-ALI AND MARY JO PATTERSON, Star-Ledger Staff

Early in March, just before Army Staff Sgt. Christian Longsworth was deployed to Afghanistan, he came home to Newark one last time.

He made a point of spending time with his mother, Cecilia, to whom he was devoted, and his girlfriend, Jessica Cruz, whom he loved. He also found time to pal around with the young men with whom he had grown up.

“It was kind of weird. He was getting in touch with all these people who had been an influence in his life,” one of those friends, 25-year-old Devin Carroll, recalled yesterday. “It was almost like he had a premonition about what was going to happen to him.”

Yesterday, many of the same people Longsworth sought out that week got together at his mother’s house in Newark to mourn him.

Longsworth, 26, who was with the Special Forces, was killed Friday in Afghanistan. The Defense Department, which announced his death yesterday, said Longsworth died in Oruzgan province after his convoy came under small-arms fire. The soldier was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Longsworth is the fifth soldier from New Jersey, or with ties to the state, to be killed in Afghanistan since December 2002.

Friends cried and laughed as they recalled his life. Longsworth was one of those young men who had seemed to find himself in the military, they said.

He was proud of being a soldier, positive about the cause, realistic about the danger — he had been wounded by a grenade in Iraq — but upbeat.

“He said, ‘I’m not afraid to die,’” said Cruz, his girlfriend.

“If there were bullets flying, Chris didn’t back down. I know he was the first one that would protect the group,” said Miguel Ramos, 27, another friend. “That was his responsibility. That was it. He would never allow any of his guys to go down before he did.”

In the living room of her home on Smith Street, his mother, a native of Honduras, wiped away tears. “He’s a hero,” Cecilia Longsworth, a home health aide, said in Spanish, holding up a wooden plaque given to her son by the Army.

His father, Roy, a longshoreman at Port Newark who came to this country from El Salvador, died six years ago.

Longsworth was born in the Bronx and moved to Newark with his parents and older brother, Roy Jr., when he was 2. He attended St. Joseph’s Elementary School in East Orange and, for three years, Essex Catholic High School, also in East Orange.

He spent his final year of high school at Newark’s West Side High School and graduated in 1998. At West Side, Longsworth played a number of sports, including soccer, wrestling, track and baseball.

After graduation, he was not sure what to do. His brother, Roy, a make-up artist who lives in Puerto Rico, flew to New Jersey to give him advice. Though Roy was 17 years older than Christian, the two were very close.

“He was more than a brother, he was like a son,” Roy Longsworth, 42, said yesterday at his mother’s home, a two-family house near the East Orange border. “I said, ‘You have to do something with your life. Either get a job or go back to school.’”

Christian decided to enlist in the Army. Proud of his decision, he went back to his old elementary school and told a former teacher, Sister Antoinette, what he planned to do.

“She said, ‘This is the first time I saw him so focused,’” his friend Carroll said yesterday.

Longsworth served with the 31st Infantry Regiment at Fort Drum, N.Y., for two years. In 2001, he became a member of the training cadre for the 6th Ranger Training Battalion at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. Three years later, he volunteered for Special Forces.

Last year, Chris, Roy and their mother celebrated Christmas together for the first time in 18 years. The reunion took place in Puerto Rico.

The following month, Chris telephoned Roy, saying he wanted to return to Puerto Rico.

“I asked, “Why, what’s wrong?’” Roy Longsworth said yesterday. “He was like, ‘Don’t worry. I just want to be with you.’”

Christian visited again. When he left, he told his brother he was about to go on a mission.

Roy Longsworth wept yesterday while recalling his last words: “He said he was not sure he would be coming back because he knew someday something could happen.”

In March, a month after completing Special Forces training, Longsworth was deployed to Afghanistan.

In addition to his mother and brother, Longsworth is survived by a daughter, Jaylin Araya, 5, of Newark.

His body was due to arrive home today.

Longsworth will be buried in Puerto Rico, according to his brother.

“He loved Puerto Rico. I know he’ll be happy there,” Roy Longsworth said. “All the years we didn’t spend together; now I’ll have him near me for the rest of my life.”

Assorted Resistance Action

June 04, 2006 By EDWARD HARRIS, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS & AFP & June 2, 2006 By NOOR KHAN/Associated Press Writer & 06-03-2006 (AFP)

In northern Baghlan province, guerrillas fatally shot an Afghan aid worker Friday, said Mohammad Qasim Amirzai, a deputy local police chief.

An Afghan soldier was killed by “the enemy” on Saturday while on patrol in the eastern city of Jalalabad, security officials said Sunday.

Suspected Taliban militants searched out and killed two government loyalists living in the same southeastern Afghanistan village, officials said Friday.

The militants targeted a highway policeman and a man close to local administrators overnight in the Ghazni province town of Zabet, killing them both, said Gen. Ali Ahmad, a top regional official. One man was slain inside his home, Ahmad said.

Four policemen were wounded after police resisted an attack on a checkpost in southern Kandahar province late Friday.

In neighbouring Helmand province, police rounded up 18 suspects after another police checkpost was raided, officials said Saturday.

Taliban militants were Saturday the main suspects in the murder of a tribal chief who had been helping to persuade members of Taliban regime to work with the new government, police said.

Haji Mursalen was shot dead in Kunar province while praying in a mosque Friday, police said.

More On The Kabul Uprising:
“Shouts Of ‘Down With Karzai’ And ‘Down With Bush’ Were Heard”

A U.S. military vehicle is the target of stones. (By Fraidoon Pooyaa — Associated Press)

On one private videotape of a street incident, a guard could be heard shouting in the Dari language, “I am a Muslim. I am not an infidel. I am not an American. Please let me go.”

May 30, 2006 By Pamela Constable and Javed Hamdard, Washington Post Foreign Service

The Afghan capital erupted Monday in the worst street violence since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, following a fatal traffic accident involving a U.S. military truck.

Hotel windows were raked with gunfire, a foreign aid agency was torched and looted, and numerous police posts were destroyed. Some rioters [translation: patriotic Afghan citizens] brandished AK-47 assault rifles; gunfire sounded throughout the city and clouds of black smoke wafted in the air. Dozens of vehicles were smashed and burned.

The riots exposed the bitter resentment that many Afghans harbor toward the U.S.-led military forces that have been stationed here since the Taliban was driven from power. [Duh.]

Witnesses said clusters of 200 to 300 men and boys roamed the streets all morning carrying heavy sticks. Some of the leaders carried banners saying “God is Great.”

Others carried posters of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the anti-Soviet guerrilla leader who was assassinated in 2001. Shouts of “Down with Karzai” and “Down with Bush” were heard.

Rioters tried to reach Karzai’s palace but were stopped by police. They managed to destroy a giant portrait of him that covers an entire wall of the downtown municipal building.

At the offices of Ariana television, one of two new private [collaborator] stations here, broadcasters appealed on the air for help as sounds of banging and shouting outside could be heard. They pleaded repeatedly with the Interior Ministry to send troops to save their building, but the attackers eventually left before help arrived.

Schools were let out at midmorning and many teenage boys with book bags joined in the looting and destruction [translation: anti-occupation uprising], witnesses said. The streets were virtually deserted until late afternoon.

The rioters tried to break into numerous buildings, including banks, guesthouses and aid agencies. In several places they exchanged fire with police and security guards, witnesses said.

On one private videotape of a street incident, a guard could be heard shouting in the Dari language, “I am a Muslim. I am not an infidel. I am not an American. Please let me go.”

Among the worst-damaged buildings were the offices of CARE International in the Qalaifatullah district, which was badly burned and ransacked, with computers and other office equipment stolen or smashed. At midafternoon, firefighters were still putting out the blaze and office debris covered the street outside.

Another high-profile target was the Serena Hotel, a recently opened luxury hotel that the government hoped would attract foreign visitors and investors. After the rioters passed, every large display window in the elegant building was riddled with hundreds of bullet holes.

The War In Afghanistan:
Up Close And Personal

May 29, 2006 Bob Weber, Canadian Press, KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP)

Five more Canadians were wounded and narrowly escaped more serious injury when a Taliban rocket hit their armoured vehicle near two open ports during an ambush early Monday in ongoing fighting in Afghanistan’s Panjwai area.

The firefight erupted about 1:30 a.m. as the patrol, comprised primarily of the Edmonton-based First Battalion of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery from Shilo, Man., was returning from a village in the Zhari area and surprised a group of insurgents setting up an ambush.

“They were trying to ambush the ambushers,” said Maj. Mario Couture.

Sgt. Vaughan Ingram was inside his light armoured vehicle when he first heard the chatter of Taliban AK-47s.

“I heard small arms first, then seconds after that – not even – an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) hit,” said Ingram, his combat uniform still stained with blood.

“I ducked down, the RPGs kept coming and I saw a big flash inside the vehicle. That’s when I felt the side of my face tore up and my shoulder and that’s when we went down.”

Although all five soldiers inside the LAV III were wounded, they drove on in their still-functioning vehicle.

“We kept going, then stopped and patched each other up,” said Ingram.

Ingram took shrapnel in his shoulders and wrist and suffered cuts to his face.

If, however, the rocket had landed a foot or two in either direction, it could have exploded inside the vehicle and injuries would have been far worse. As it was, all the injuries were non-life-threatening, Couture said.

Three of the wounded were Patricias. One was from the artillery and one was a medic.

The Zhari region is adjacent to the Panjwai district which has seen hundreds of Canadian troops involved in fierce, off-on fighting for two weeks.

Monday’s encounter was the latest in a series of short, sharp skirmishes Canadian soldiers have fought over the last two weeks in what has become known as the Battle of Panjwai, where large concentrations of Taliban fighters have chosen to stand and fight rather than melt away into the maze of lanes and compounds of the region’s mud-walled villages.

The hide-seek battle involves hundreds of Canadian soldiers, dozens of armoured vehicles, several artillery detachments and occasional air support from U.S. helicopters and airplanes.

In addition to the five Canadians wounded Monday, an Afghan interpreter was badly wounded Thursday in another ambush, which saw a infantry patrol forced to fight for its life to escape a Taliban trap sprung on them in the Panjwai-district village of Banzya.

One officer from the Afghan National Army has also been killed in the fighting.

Suspects are searched and questioned.

If grounds for suspicion are uncovered – pockets full of batteries and Pakistani rupees, or evidence the suspect has recently fired a gun – the suspect is arrested and turned over to Afghan authorities. [Battery peddlers take notice, especially battery sellers taking Pakistani currency instead of the worthless Afghan shit. Also anybody who fires any weapon for any reason at all. Off to the tender mercies of the Afghan occupation police for you. To prepare, hang yourself by the arms from hooks in the ceiling of some friendly neighborhood house.]

Ambushes such as Monday’s encounter are expected to continue for some time, said Couture. [Wow! Stunning flashes of the obvious like that must be why they made him a Major.]

“It’s a continuity of what we’ve seen for the past weeks, so it’s part of the big picture of Panjwai and this could remain for a couple of days to come.” [Try a couple years. You do remember what happened to the Russian occupation army, don’t you?]

TROOP NEWS

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

Memorial service for Sgt. David Christoff Jr., 25, at All Saints Catholic Church, May 29, 2006, in Rossford, Ohio. Christoff was killed while serving his second tour of duty in Iraq while on foot patrol in or near the city of Haditha in the al Anbar province, May 21. Christoff was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Kaneohe, Hawaii. Christoff’s family accepted his second purple heart during the memorial. (AP Photo/J.D. Pooley)

Haditha:
“Marine Commanders In Iraq Knew Within Two Days”

June 3, 2006 By REUTERS

Marine commanders in Iraq knew within two days of the killings in Haditha in November that gunfire, not a roadside bomb, had killed Iraqi civilians but they saw no reason to investigate further, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

A senior Marine officer told the Times that commanders informed investigators they had not viewed the early discrepancies in accounts about how the two dozen Iraqis died as unusual, and that they had no information at the time suggesting that any civilians had been killed deliberately.

But a senior Marine general familiar with the investigation told the newspaper “It’s impossible to believe they didn’t know,’’ referring to mid-level and senior officers. “You’d have to know this thing stunk,’’ the general, who was granted anonymity along with others who described the investigation, was quoted as saying.

The general also told the Times that it had not yet been determined just how high up the chain of command culpability for the killings went. He also said there were strong suspicions that some officers knew that the Marine squad’s version of the incident had enough holes and discrepancies that it should have been questioned and investigated more fully.

MORE:

“Any Normal Human Being Can See Their Morals Degenerate So They Can Do These Things”

[Thanks to JM, who sent this in.]

June 4, 2006 Paul Harris in New York, Peter Beaumont in London, and Mohammed al-Ubeidy in Baghdad, The Observer [Excerpt]

American veterans of the war in Iraq have described a culture of casual violence, revenge and prejudice against Iraqi civilians that has made the killing of innocent bystanders a common occurrence.

American veterans have told The Observer of a military culture that places little practical emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties in the heat of battle, although they also point out the huge problems of urban fighting against a tough enemy that often hides within the civilian Iraqi community.

‘In these circumstances you would be surprised at how any normal human being can see their morals degenerate so they can do these things,’ said Garrett Reppenhagen, a former US sniper.

At the same time, the marines and sailor being investigated in the killing of a civilian in Baghdad also appear to have attempted to cover up the death by planting evidence on the body.

It is a practice that Reppenhagen, who is now a senior member of peace group Iraq Veterans Against the War, said had happened before. ‘We have members who can tell you about carrying shovels in their vehicles to throw down next to killed civilians as “proof” that they were planting IEDs,’ he said. [See the next story.]

Few veterans believe that serious charges will travel very far up the chain of command. After Abu Ghraib, it was only low-level soldiers who stood trial. Many now expect a similar result from the new investigations.

[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]

MORE:

Eight Marines Jailed For Murdering Lame Old Man:
He Refused To Be A Traitor

Jun. 03, 2006 By Nancy A. Youssef, Knight Ridder & Associated Press

AL-HAMDANIYAH, Iraq: Before people talked about how Hashim Ibrahim Awad was killed, his friends shared tales about how the Americans wanted him to be an informant.

U.S. Marines had approached him several times, Awad’s friends say he told them, asking him to help them find who was planting explosives in this small village outside Baghdad.

Every time, Awad, in his 50s with a lame leg and bad eyesight, refused. His family considered the job shameful.

In an exclusive interview with Knight Ridder on Friday, Awad’s family gave their version of what happened to him in the early morning hours of April 26.

They said U.S. Marines dragged Awad from his home, killed him and then planted an AK-47 assault rifle and a shovel next to him to make him look like a terrorist.

The family members said American investigators have since harassed them, questioning their allegations in hours-long sessions that begin in the dead of night and last past dawn. They said they once were taken for questioning to nearby Abu Ghurayb prison, the scene of previous allegations of American abuse.

There was no way to confirm the accounts. U.S. officials have declined to provide details of the allegations that led them May 25 to announce that they were investigating the death of an Iraqi civilian and “several service members from 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment . . . were removed from operations and have returned to the United States.’’

But the probe of the case has turned up enough evidence against Marines that eight individuals have been jailed and four others have been told not to leave their base at Camp Pendleton.

Lt. Lawton King, a Camp Pendleton official, said Friday that 1st Marine Division commander Gen. Richard F. Natonski ordered the eight into “pretrial confinement’’ after an “evaluation of the ongoing investigation.’’

King declined to identify the eight by their branch of service and said all but one had appeared before a magistrate. He said no charges have been presented, however.

Al-Hamdaniyah is on the far western edge of Baghdad province. Insurgents are active in the area, and kidnappings and other violence are common. The town is obscure enough that U.S. officials incorrectly rendered its name as “Hamandiyah’’ in their official announcement.

Awad’s family showed Knight Ridder a sheet of paper that appeared to be part of a report on the incident. On the paper is a statement purportedly from a Marine sergeant stating that his unit killed the man because he was “digging on the side of the road from our ambush site. I made the call and engaged. He was pronounced dead at the scene with only a shovel and AK-47.’’

Local tribal leaders said the Americans brought Hashim Awad’s body, the shovel and the AK-47 to the local police station and reported that they had caught the man digging a hole and planting an explosive device, so they killed him. The police took the body to the hospital.

Shortly after the funeral, residents showed the family a flier Marines were circulating. The flier said Hashim Awad had been killed because he was a terrorist planting explosives and “lethal force will stop that.’’

“It looks like the killing of Iraqi civilians is becoming a daily phenomenon,” the chairman of the Iraqi Human Rights Association, Muayed al-Anbaki, said Friday after video ran on television of children and adults slain in a raid in March on the Iraqi village of Ishaqi north of Baghdad.

MORE:

Iraqi Leader Says U.S. Command Lying About Ishaqi Massacre:
“We Expect The American Soldiers To Commit Any Crime To Control This Country”

Jun 3 By Mariam Karouny and Fredrik Dahl, Reuters

Iraq vowed on Saturday to press on with its own probe into the deaths of civilians in a U.S. raid on the town of Ishaqi, rejecting the U.S. military’s exoneration of its forces.

Adnan al-Kazimi, an aide to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said the government would also demand an apology from the United States and compensation for the victims in several cases, including the alleged massacre in the town of Haditha last year.

“We have from more than one source that the Ishaqi killings were carried out under questionable circumstances. More than one child was killed. This report was not fair for the Iraqi people and the children who were killed,” he told Reuters.

The U.S. military had issued a statement about Ishaqi saying allegations that U.S. troops “executed a family … and then hid the alleged crimes by directing an air strike, are absolutely false.”

Police in Ishaqi say five children, four women and two men were shot in the head, and that the bodies, with hands bound, were dumped in one room before the house was blown up.

Maliki, who took office two weeks ago at the helm of a U.S. backed national unity government, is battling a widespread public perception that U.S. troops can shoot and kill with impunity and Iraqi leaders are too weak to do anything about it.

“Ishaqi is just another reason why we shouldn’t trust the Americans,” said Abdullah Hussein, an engineer in Baghdad.

“First they lied about the weapons of mass destruction, then there was the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal and now it’s clear to the world they were guilty in Haditha,” he told Reuters.

A tribal leader in Ishaqi said it was clear that U.S. forces were above the law in Iraq.

“We expect the American soldiers to commit any crime to control this country,” added Sarhan Jasim, 55.

One man in the town, 40-year-old Obeid Kamil, said on Friday that U.S. soldiers had a “license to kill” Iraqi civilians.

“Their action is always to open fire and kill people, which is proof that they are afraid,” he said.

“More And More Soldiers And Units Refused To Go Into Combat”
“Some Chose To Kill Their Own Cruel Officers Rather Than Murder Vietnamese People”

2006-04-27 Jay Hauben, Oh My News

Did you know that there was an antiwar movement within the U.S. military during the Vietnam war?

It started with individual acts in 1965-66, escalating until it affected the whole military by 1973. At the time, the U.S. news media reported on this movement of GI desertions, GI antiwar newspapers and coffeehouses, about GIs refusing to ship out and GIs appearing at or organizing antiwar demonstrations.

This widespread opposition to the Vietnam war by active duty GIs seems little known or remembered today. Why?

One reason is of the 190 or so fiction and non-fiction films made in Hollywood and elsewhere portraying the Vietnam war, not one U.S. film mentions this aspect of the war and its contribution to the defeat of the U.S. in Vietnam. That is until now.

For one week in mid April in New York City there was a showing of “Sir! No Sir!,” a new film by David Zeiger. The filmmaker combines archival film footage and current interviews with participants into a 75 minute documentary of the history and importance of the GI anti-war and anti-military movement.

The U.S. Pentagon acknowledged that there were 503,926 “incidents of desertion” between 1966 and 1971. But desertion was only one means of opposition. Howard Levy, a doctor drafted to teach Special Forces medics rudimentary skin disease treatment procedures, refused to continue working for what he believed was a purposely brutal war. He was court-martialed and served three years.

After a guard shot to death an emotionally disturbed prisoner who was walking away from a work gang at the Army’s Presidio stockade, 27 other prisoners staged a sit-down demonstration, singing “We shall Overcome.”

They were court-martialed for mutiny, a capital offense, and sentenced to long terms of hard labor. But the national outcry over long sentences for singing “We Shall Overcome” forced the military to release them within a year or two.

Two marines were sentenced to six and 10 years of hard labor for holding discussions at Camp Pendleton asking whether Black Americans should fight in Vietnam.

But the harsh sentences did not have the effect the military desired.

“Sir! No Sir!” begins with early acts like these of more or less individual resistance and goes on to examine how the movement grew and spread.

GI antiwar newspapers began to appear in 1967 at military bases in the U.S. and abroad. Produced by GIs, sometimes with civilian help, these papers expressed the grievances and resistance of the GIs they were written for.

Eventually, over 300 such papers appeared, produced by hundreds of GIs, distributed by thousands and read by tens of thousands. Most of the articles and cartoons were anonymous to protect the writers and cartoonists. The papers were conscious of themselves as part of a movement and covered the harassment that each other experienced.

Coffeehouses setup near U.S. bases were popular with GIs. At these coffeehouses, GIs could relax, discuss their situation with each other, read antiwar literature and work on their underground newspaper or on planning antiwar activities.

The civilian antiwar movement took notice and allied itself with the GI antiwar and antimilitary movement.

The film documents the growing revulsion of ordinary GIs to the brutality they were ordered to commit. The need for indiscriminate killing of Vietnamese is tied in the film to the need the Pentagon felt for large body counts.

In response, more and more soldiers and units refused to go into combat. If pushed enough, some chose to kill their own cruel officers rather than murder Vietnamese people. The U.S. Congress held hearings in 1973 about the “fragging of officers,” which the Pentagon was reporting responsible for hundreds of the U.S. deaths in the war.

The film included footage of the Winter Soldiers Investigation by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) where veterans and civilian contractors testified to the atrocities and war crimes they witnessed or participated in against Vietnamese people.

The atrocities were tied to military policy and were not considered in any way random, isolated or accidental.

The film also reminded me of the VVAW organized encampment and march. Six hundred Vietnam veterans filed passed the U.S. Capitol Building on April 24, 1971. Each recited the name or names of buddies who had been killed in Vietnam and flung his battle ribbons, metals or dog tags over the fence and onto the steps of the Capitol.

I believe that was the turning point that won over a great majority of the American people to a more active opposition to the war.

“Sir! No Sir!” includes many such scenes and interviews to demonstrate over and over again the growing disgust within the military and the whole American population with the Vietnam war and with the mistreatment and degradation of those sent to fight it.

Zeiger included interviews with a group of Air Force intelligence gathers who refused to send back reports of intercepted North Vietnamese messages they monitored during the Christmas bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong. Rebellious officers and sailors were also shown or mentioned.

The state of the military was attested to by quotes from active duty Marine historian Colonel Robert Heinl who wrote in a 1971 article in the Armed Forces Journal, “By every conceivable indicator, our army that remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse.”

Zeiger does an important service when he includes near the end of the film an interview with Jerry Lembcke. When he left the service, Lembcke trained as a sociologist. He did extensive research, looking for evidence for a story that began to be heard in the 1980s that returning GIs were spat on by antiwar hippies and others. Lembcke found no contemporaneous evidence from the 1960s or 1970s of such a homecoming. He did find much scholarship which concluded that “acts of hostility against veterans by protesters were almost nonexistent.”

Lembcke concluded by contending that the spitting image helps to tell a story that is not true, namely, that the United States lost the war in Vietnam because of betrayal on the home front.

To the question where did this story come from and how did it gain any credence, Zeiger includes a clip from a Rambo movie, where Sylvester Stallone says in disgust he will never let any protester spit on him again, documenting again the possible role of Hollywood in reactionary myth making.

“Sir! No Sir!” is beginning to be shown around the U.S.

It won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Its value and relevancy may be demonstrated by the fact that members of the Iraqi Veterans Against the War (IVAW) have attended showings of “Sir! No Sir!” and praised the film as full of lessons and encouragement.

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

“That Kind Of Spending Gives A Whole New Meaning To The Term ‘War Profiteer’”

04/25/06 By Stephen Lendman, Information Clearing House [Excerpt]

In fiscal year 2000 the military budget was $289 billion, but up it went steadily after that reaching $442 billion in 2006 and currently is requested to increase to $463 or higher in 2007.

Add to that over $41 billion for Homeland Security in 2006 (another public rip-off as part of a move toward a full-blown national security police state) and annual multi-billions in funding off the books for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that in fiscal 2006 alone amounts to about $120 billion now and may increase.

Add it up and the current budget for the military, 2 wars off the books and Homeland Security, and it comes to over $600 billion this year.

That kind of spending, with billions more available at the drop of an add-on presidential emergency request gives a whole new meaning to the term “war profiteer.”

And while the big defense contractors reap the biggest benefits, many thousands of US corporations are in on the take as the Pentagon is a big buyer of everything from expensive R & D and high tech weapons to breakfast cereals and toilet paper.

Using the false Bush slogan about leaving no child behind for his failed education program, the Pentagon for sure leaves no corporation behind in its generosity.

Corporations wanting a piece of the action need only remember and abide by the scriptural message from John 16:24: “ask and you shall receive.”
And probably a lot as the Pentagon is notorious about being sloppy, “spilling” more than many good sized corporations earn.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

(Graphic: London Financial Times)

Assorted Resistance Action

June 2, 2006 (AP) & (Reuters) & 6.3.06 Reuters & BBC & PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer & 04 Jun 2006 Reuters & (KUNA)

Seven Iraqi policemen have been killed and two wounded in an attack on a police checkpoint in the town of Baquba, 60km (35 miles) north-east of Baghdad, police say.

Guerrillas ambushed a police checkpoint in the capital, killing seven police and wounding five pedestrians.

Up to 10 people were also wounded when insurgents attacked the al-Razi checkpoint with rocket-propelled and hand grenades and small arms fire.

A roadside bomb targeted a patrol in the Mansour district in western Baghdad, wounding two policemen and damaging their vehicle, Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq said.

One Iraqi soldier was killed and four wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in the western Mansoor district of Baghdad, police sources said.

In northern Iraq late Thursday, police said Guerrillas opened fire on Col. Ziyad Tariq, deputy-commander of the oil protection force in Kirkuk, killing him and a bodyguard and wounding another bodyguard as they left a restaurant, police Brig. Sarhat Qadir said.

He also said a maintenance unit from the oil protection force was attacked by Guerrillas southwest of Kirkuk and two members were wounded.

Guerrillas shot dead a lawyer in Samawa, 270 km (168 miles) south of Baghdad, his family said. They said he used to work for British forces as an interpreter but that he quit several months ago.

Guerrillas killed four people working for a state-run communications company and wounded two others in Baghdad on Sunday, police sources said.

BAQUBA: Roadside bomb exploded outside a local army headquarters, wounding two military personnel, police said.

Iraqi Police in Mosul announced Sunday that six of its members were killed in attack by unknown militants.

A source from the police in Mosul told KUNA that unidentified militants opened fire on the policemen who were in a civilian car wearing civilian clothes in Al-Mothana district in the city’s center.

Also in Kirkuk, one policemen was killed and two others injured when an explosive device went off close to Tawareq police patrol in the heart of the city of Kirkuk.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

The Soldier And The Nun

June 03, 2006, By Windbear, Firebase Humor

A soldier came to a fork in the road and saw a nun standing there. Out of breath he asked, “Please Sister, may I hide under your skirts for a few minutes. I’ll explain WHY later.”

The nun agreed.

Just a moment later two Military Police came running along and asked, “Sister, have you seen a soldier running by here?” The nun replied, “He went that way.”

After the MP’s disappeared, the soldier crawled out from under her skirt and said, “I can’t thank you enough Sister, but you see I don’t want to go to Iraq.”

The nun said, “I think I can fully understand your fear.”

The soldier added, “I hope you don’t think me rude or impertinent, but you have a great pair of legs!”

The nun replied, “If you had looked a little higher, you would have seen a great pair of balls…I don’t want to go to Iraq either.”

“The Anglo-American Armies Need To Be Driven Out Of The Country, Bag And Baggage, For Iraq To Have Any Future”

March-April 2006 By TARIQ ALI, New Left Review 38 [Excerpt]

The reality is that there is only one way to halt this spiral of violence: the path refused by Sistani in 2004, and now taken up once again by Muqtada al-Sadr—a national agreement between Sunni and Shi’a leaders, the maquis in the provinces and the militias in the capital, to secure the expulsion of all occupying forces from the country without further ado.

‘Cut off the head of the snake and remove all evil’, as Muqtada exhorted on returning from Lebanon to a shattered Samarra and Baghdad. His militias, largely made up of the urban poor, are recruited in quarters that were once strongholds of Iraqi communism.

The expeditionary armies from America and Britain could not last a month in Iraq, if the Shi’a at large followed the example of their Sunni compatriots. Indeed, it would take only a vote in the puppet parliament demanding the immediate withdrawal of foreign forces to make the position of Washington and London untenable.

Given the modern history of Iraq, there would still be many grave tensions in the relations between the two communities, not to speak of the recent role of the Kurds as the Gurkhas of the invader.

But until the spreading poison of Western intrusion is removed, there is no chance of wounds, past or present, healing.

The Anglo-American armies need to be driven out of the country, bag and baggage, for Iraq to have any future.

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

Mike Hastie

U.S. Army Medic

Vietnam 1970-71

December 13, 2004

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

Welcome To Liberated Iraq
Occupation Police Shoot Strikers

04 Jun 2006 Reuters & (KUNA)

SAMAWA:

An Iraqi medical source said 17 were wounded on the heels of clashes between strikers and policemen in the Southern Iraqi city of Samawa, biggest cities of Muthanna governorate.

The source said, the injuries were sustained due to opening fire at the strikers during the demonstration.

About 500 demonstrators gathered outside a provincial government building to demand better services and an end to corruption, witnesses and police said. A curfew was later declared in the town 270 km (168 miles) south of Baghdad.

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

Received:

“We Are Looking To Speak To A Veteran Of Iraq”

From: Vladimir Hernandez
To: GI Special
Sent: June 02, 2006
Subject: Iraq veterans

Hello, I’m contacting you from the BBC World Service in Spanish, and we are looking to speak to a veteran of Iraq from your organization who can be able to speak in Spanish (but if not English speaking will be fine).

The subject we would want to talk about refers to the situation of the soldier/marine on the field that could result into innocents being killed.

We would like to make a testimonial interview about the experience first person of the veteran, who could explain what do soldiers face in the middle of an armed conflict which such characteristics as Iraq.

We hope you can give us answer as soon as possible.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us at 00442075573551

Best regards,
Vladimir Hernandez
BBC World Service Spanish
vladimir.hernandez@bbc.co.uk

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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