[Thanks to David Honish, Veterans For Peace]

“If These Troops Were Not In Iraq, This Wouldn’t Be Happening”

May 20 Iraq Veterans Against The War press release [Excerpt]

“There were massacres by ones and twos all over Iraq,” said Garrett Reppenhagen, who served as a sniper in Fallujah.

“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.

“There are a lot of reasons that lead to events like this, but the thing you can’t get way from is that if these troops were not in Iraq, this wouldn’t be happening.

“Don’t be surprised when a lieutenant is the highest-ranking person prosecuted. The order to annihilate Fallujah came from the very top, and none of them are doing the duck walk. They never will either.”

MORE:

Atrocities:
“They’re Inevitable In Insurgencies”

Jun 4, 2006 PHILIP CAPUTO, Time Magazine: A former Marine lieutenant, Caputo is the author most recently of the novel Acts of Faith

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

Incidents like this are not just likely; they’re inevitable in insurgencies. They happened in Vietnam and even to the British, who committed atrocities during the American Revolution.

They happen because one of the things an insurgent does is attack the counterinsurgent’s state of mind.

The insurgent makes the counterinsurgent feel constantly insecure, constantly scared and constantly unaware of who or where the enemy is. The guy fighting the insurgent often feels lost in a hostile sea.

One of the reasons I wrote the Vietnam memoir A Rumor of War was to show how that kind of war can bring out a psychopathic streak in men of otherwise normal behavior and impulses.

When a soldier is fighting guerrillas, he can often feel like a helpless victim. I imagine that must be especially true in Iraq with these roadside bombs. After a while, that’s got to bring out a killer instinct in even the best troops.

And soldiers in combat get very close to one another. That’s one of the saving graces of battle, but it can work against you if the loss of a beloved comrade drives a soldier to go over the edge and seek revenge.

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

When troops are far away from home, exercising power over people that they don’t understand, knowing that the population harbours those who would kill them if they could, their anger and fear and frustration turns into a hatred of all “micks” or “gooks” or “hajjis”. George Monbiot, The Guardian, June 6, 2006

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

[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]

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

American Soldier Killed By Baghdad IED

6.6.06 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-06-06C

A 49th Military Police Brigade Soldier was killed when insurgents attacked his convoy with an improvised explosive device at approximately 8:23 p.m. on June 5 in Baghdad, Iraq.

FUTILE EXERCISE:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW!

U.S. soldiers inspect the wreckage of a car used as a car bomb after an attack in Baghdad May 22, 2006. REUTERS/Namir Noor-Eldeen

Roseville Naval Reservist And Streamwood Marine Killed In Iraq

Marine Cpl. Ryan J. Cummings, 22, of Streamwood, Ill., died June 3, 2006, from wounds he received during combat operations in Al Anbar province in Iraq. Cummings was a member of the 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, Marine Expeditionary Force out of Camp Pendleton, Calif. (AP Photo/Hoffman Estates High School)

Jun. 06, 2006 Associated Press, ROSEVILLE, Ill.

Two more Illinois servicemen have been killed in Iraq, family members, friends and military officials said Tuesday.

Gary Rovinski, 44, of Roseville, was killed Monday in a roadside bomb explosion in western Iraq shortly before noon there, said his wife, Jennifer. He was assigned to a Navy convoy support team that escorted supplies, she said.

“The biggest thing I’m thinking right now is that if he could choose a way to go, it would be exactly the way he did,” she said. “He believed in what he was doing.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Defense announced Tuesday that a 22-year-old suburban Streamwood Marine died Saturday from wounds he received during combat operations in Al Anbar province.

Cpl. Ryan J. Cummings was a member of the 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, Marine Expeditionary Force out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., according to a DOD statement. A telephone listing for a Cummings in Streamwood could not be found Tuesday, and military officials declined to provide more information.

Rovinski was in the Navy Reserve and had been in Iraq since early March, his wife said. He was with the Seabees naval construction force and died of a head injury received after a roadside bomb exploded, said Bill Hart, a friend and spokesman for the family.

Rovinski was the father of two daughters, ages 10 and 13.

“To me, the most special thing about Gary was his smile and his love for people,” his wife said. “He always tried to treat them more highly than himself.”

Funeral arrangements were pending, Hart said.

Rovinski was employed at the Henry Hill Correctional Center in Galesburg, where he had worked for more than five years before his deployment.

Rovinski is the second Galesburg-area serviceman to die of injuries in Iraq in the past two weeks.

Army Pfc. Class Caleb Lufkin, died May 25 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where he was being treated for wounds he suffered earlier in May from a roadside bomb in Iraq.

Roseville is about 21 miles southwest of Galesburg in west-central Illinois.

Streamwood is about 30 miles northwest of Chicago.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Roadside Bombs Kill 2 U.S. Soldiers

Jun 6 Reuters & BBC

Two US soldiers and two Afghan soldiers were killed in separate roadside bomb attacks in the provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar on Tuesday, officials said.

The US military in Kabul released a statement saying that the soldiers in Nangarhar were on patrol “conducting combat security operations” when the roadside bomb exploded.

The statement said that a third soldier and an Afghan interpreter were wounded, and that the vehicle they were driving in was badly damaged.

A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to a Reuters correspondent in the provincial capital of Jalalabad.

Another soldier was wounded along with an Afghan traveling with them in a Humvee, while out on patrol in Khogyani district of Nangahar province.

“Their vehicle was completely destroyed, I can still see smoke rising from the wreck,” Qari Ismatullah, a resident of Khogyani, told Reuters.

The attack in Kunar province’s Wattapour district which killed at least two Afghan soldiers also left five others injured, an Afghan security official told the BBC.

U.S. SOLDIER DIES AT BASE SALERNO

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

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan: A U.S. Soldier died June 5 at Forward Operating Base Salerno, Paktika Province. The exact cause of death has yet to be determined; however, neither enemy action nor foul play is suspected.

Car Bomb Wounds Three U.S. Troops In Khost, Two Seriously

Jun 6 By Kamal Sadat, Reuters & By Amir Shah, Associated Press

YAQOOBI, Afghanistan:

A teenage Taliban bomber rammed his taxi into a U.S. coalition convoy in southeast Afghanistan on Tuesday, blowing himself to pieces and wounding three U.S. soldiers, officials and witnesses said.

The bomber struck the combat patrol just 15 km (10 miles) north of Camp Salerno, the coalition’s main base in Khost, a small mountainous province bordering Pakistan’s militant infested tribal region of North Waziristan.

“The car bomb exploded as it passed the convoy moving in the opposite direction,” a U.S. military spokesman said.

The provincial deputy police chief, Gen. Mohammed Zaman, said the attacker maneuvered a car packed with explosives, including dozens of mortar rounds, into the coalition convoy before triggering the blast.

The explosion was so powerful that it melted asphalt on the road, he said.

A Taliban spokesman, Mohammad Hanif, called the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency to say that a fighter named Gul Agha had killed himself in the attack that also damaged a mosque and blew out the windows of houses nearby.

The wounded coalition troops were evacuated by a helicopter and a U.S. military statement said that two of three soldiers were seriously wounded.

5 Afghan Policemen Kill 7 Others;
Join The Resistance

6.6.06 Washington Post

Five Afghan policemen fatally shot seven fellow officers as they slept, then defected to Taliban guerrillas fighting in southern Afghanistan, a provincial official said.

TROOP NEWS

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

The remains of Tech Sgt. Jason Norton of Miami, Okla. and Staff Sgt. Brian McElroy of San Antonio, Monday, June 5, 2006, at Arlington National Cemetery. Norton and McElroy were killed in action while serving in Iraq. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Lieutenant Defies Army Over “Illegal” War:
“Oppose This War And End It So That All Soldiers Can Come Home”

U.S. Army Lt. Ehren Watada (AP Photo/Courtesy attorney Eric A. Seitz)

“My son has a great deal of courage, and clearly understands what is right, and what is wrong,” Bob Watada said yesterday. “He’s choosing to do the right thing, which is a hard course.”

June 06, 2006 William Cole, The Honolulu Advertiser & By ELIZABETH M. GILLESPIE, The Associated Press

In one of the first known cases of its kind, an Army officer from Honolulu is expected to refuse to go to Iraq this month with his unit, citing what he calls the “illegal” and “immoral” basis of the war, his father confirmed.

The officer, 1st Lt. Ehren K. Watada, 28, son of former state campaign spending commission executive director Bob Watada, is believed to be one of the first military officers to publicly take steps to refuse his deployment orders.

“My son has a great deal of courage, and clearly understands what is right, and what is wrong,” Bob Watada said yesterday. “He’s choosing to do the right thing, which is a hard course.”

Watada declined further comment until a news conference planned for 11 a.m. tomorrow at the state Capitol. His son is with a Stryker unit out of Fort Lewis, Wash., and is expected to participate by teleconference.

Jeff Paterson, a former Kane’ohe Bay Marine who refused to board a transport in 1990 heading to the Gulf War and now works as an anti-war activist with the organization Not In Our Name, said a second news conference will be held in Tacoma, Wash.

On the Web site www.thankyoult.org., which Paterson said was created by friends and family, the “Lt.” is quoted as saying: “I refuse to be silent any longer. I refuse to watch families torn apart, while the President tells us to ‘stay the course.’ … I refuse to be party to an illegal and immoral war against people who did nothing to deserve our aggression. I wanted to be there for my fellow troops. But the best way was not to help drop artillery and cause more death and destruction. It is to help oppose this war and end it so that all soldiers can come home.”

First Lt. Ehren Watada submitted a letter to his command in January stating he had serious reservations about the Iraq war and felt he could not participate in it, Watada’s lawyer, Eric A. Seitz, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

A couple months later, at the Army’s suggestion, Watada resubmitted his request to resign, Seitz said.

“They took their time but then they informed him in early May that they were not going to let him resign,” Seitz said in a phone interview from his office in Honolulu.

Watada, who is not seeking conscientious objector status, but rather has moral objections to the Iraq war, faces the possibility of a court-martial, dishonorable discharge and several years in prison if he refuses the war orders.

Watada graduated from Hawai’i Pacific University in 2003, joined the Army shortly after, went to Officer Candidate School, and incurred a three-year obligation.

The Hawai’i man is with the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry, at Fort Lewis. The unit is part of a larger 3,600-soldier Stryker brigade combat team similar to a unit being developed in Hawai’i with about 300 eight-wheeled armored vehicles.

The Fort Lewis brigade is heading to Mosul in northern Iraq, and the soldiers are expected to leave this month and into July.

National Guardsman Defies Order To Patrol Border With Mexico

“I can’t conscience being a hypocrite,” he added, reflecting on the difficulties faced by his great-great-grandfather Louis Feldser, who achieved U.S. citizenship for himself and his wife by falsely claiming that the documents they needed had been lost in a fire.

26 May 2006 By Joshua Yaffa, Forward

While the Senate expressed its approval Monday of a Bush administration plan to deploy the National Guard along the U.S.-Mexican border, a Jewish member of the Pennsylvania force is publicly refusing to accept such an order.

Brian Kresge, a seven-year veteran of the armed forces, first articulated his position on his personal blog last week.

“I cannot point a gun at folks crossing a border when I am a scion of the same thing,” he wrote. “Life was hard in the Pale of Settlement, and though today’s illegals aren’t necessarily fleeing pogroms, they likely have the same fears.”

In a conversation with the Forward, Kresge elaborated on his initial statement. “The president’s speech (last week on immigration) got me thinking about my own ancestry,” he explained. “My family came to this country in the bottom of a ship, without papers, without records.”

“I can’t conscience being a hypocrite,” he added, reflecting on the difficulties faced by his great-great-grandfather Louis Feldser, who achieved U.S. citizenship for himself and his wife by falsely claiming that the documents they needed had been lost in a fire.

Under the plan first proposed by President Bush during his prime-time May 17 speech, up to 6,000 National Guard troops would be sent to the southern United States to support ongoing Border Patrol operations.

Rabbi David Lapp, director of the JWB Jewish Chaplains Council, is not convinced by Kresge’s arguments.

“Once he joins any military force, he swears to do what the commander in chief orders,” he told the Forward when informed of Kresge’s stance. “If everyone in his own mind were to judge where to serve and where not to serve, we would not have an Army.”

Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia countered by pointing to the “thirty-some times the Torah says that you shall treat the foreigner with respect and equality.”

“Remember that at one time,” Waskow continued, “the Jewish community in the Lower East Side of New York was looked upon with great contempt and disgust by most of the country.”

Rabbi Philip Bentley, honorary president of the Jewish Peace Fellowship, suggested that his organization would be willing to help Kresge should he encounter future legal trouble. “That is what we exist to do,” Bentley said, adding that “for Jews, the closing of borders has a very powerful resonance.”

“In 1924,” he said, “they shut the U.S. borders for European Jews; this current measure should be something that disturbs us greatly.”

Kresge said that he is not keen to make his initial statement into a larger issue, especially considering the recent comments of Pennsylvania’s Jewish governor, Ed Rendell, who expressed opposition to a long deployment of the state’s National Guardsmen to the border. The guardsman insisted that he was very eager to serve his country.

“Refuseniks can get painted as malcontents and people who don’t want to serve, but that’s not the case here,” Kresge said. “I’m a proud soldier, but I have to answer to my faith, as well.”

“Black Soldiers Voiced Growing Discontent At Fighting A White Man’s War In A Faraway Land”

Vietnam: They Stopped An Imperial War

Full Review for Sir! No Sir!
2006 By Ken Fox, TV Guide

The fact that so much of David Zieger’s documentary about the GI anti-Vietnam War movement comes as news goes a long way toward proving an important point made by writer Jerry Lembcke late in the film:

So many national memories about the Vietnam War era have been reconstructed that the antiwar movement’s history has begun to disappear.

Zieger’s thoroughly researched film is a vital reminder that beginning in the mid-’60s, a few conscience-stricken military individuals, including dermatologist Dr. Howard Levy, sickened by cynical attempts to win Vietnamese “hearts and minds” through medical treatment, and Navy nurse Susan Schnall, who wore her uniform to a civilian antiwar demonstration, actively and openly voiced peace sentiments.

Returning GIs spread the word about what went on in that country; activist coffeehouses sprang up in towns around Army bases, and underground GI newspapers found an international audience for their corrosive attacks on “Nixon’s war.”

Zieger dusts off the names of groups like the Nine for Peace, soldiers who, in 1968, defied orders to deploy to Vietnam and chained themselves together in a Haight-Ashbury church, and the Presidio 27, inmates at the infamous military stockade who demonstrated after a young soldier was shot to death during an escape attempt.

Issues of class and, particularly, race often came to the fore; black soldiers voiced growing discontent at fighting a white man’s war in a faraway land, while others on riot duty at home balked at drawing weapons on their brothers and sisters in the convulsive wake of Martin Luther King’s assassination.

The penalties were severe: Many were court-martialed and sentenced to prison for mutiny.

And while the government steadfastly maintained that there was no GI antiwar movement, stories of the soldiers who remained at odds with the war at home emerged even as the seemingly endless war dragged on.

Zeiger assembles his history through the firsthand accounts of men and women who were there, illustrating their recollections with a fascinating array of material: clippings from the GI underground press, recordings from a disgruntled Army unit close to the Cambodian border where U.S. troops were officially not stationed, and snippets from the infamous FTA tour; an antiwar revue that toured Asia and starred the likes of Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda, who also lends her voice and perspective to this important and compassionate film.

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.

Bribe Offered To Iraqi Family To Lie About How U.S. Troops Murdered Disabled Civilian

[Thanks to JM, who sent this in]

June 6, 2006 By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

U.S. military investigators believe the killing of an Iraqi civilian on April 26 was planned by a small group of Marines who shot the man and then planted a shovel and an AK-47 rifle at the scene, a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday.

The official, who has direct knowledge of the investigation under way by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said evidence found thus far indicates Marines entered the town of Hamdaniya in search of an insurgent and, failing to find him, grabbed an unarmed man from his home and shot him.

The AK-47 and the shovel, which were taken from another home before the shooting, were meant to make it look like the man had been digging a hole for a roadside bomb and was killed in an exchange of gunfire, the official said.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that the Iraqi victim at Hamdaniya was Hashim Ibrahim Awad al-Zobaie, a 52-year-old disabled man shot four times in the face.

His family told the Post that a small group of U.S. servicemen came to them last week and offered the family money in exchange for supporting the Marines’ version of the killing

Veterans Groups Sue Over Data Theft;
V.A. Now Admits “Personal Data On More Than 2.2 Million Active-Duty Military Were Among Those Stolen”

June 6, 2006 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) Personal data on more than 2.2 million active-duty military personnel, not just 50,000 as initially believed, were among those stolen from a Veterans Affairs employee last month, the government said Tuesday.

VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said the agency was mistaken when it said over the weekend that up to 50,000 Navy and National Guard personnel, and no other active-duty personnel, were affected by the May 3 burglary.

His announcement came shortly after the Pentagon distributed a briefing memo to Congress — obtained by The Associated Press — that said the 50,000 figure cited over the weekend was understated.

The disclosure is the latest in a series of revisions by the government as to who was affected since publicizing the burglary on May 22. At the time, the VA said the stolen data involved up to 26.5 million veterans discharged since 1975, as well as some of their spouses.

It also came as a coalition of veterans’ groups charged in a lawsuit against the federal government Tuesday that their privacy rights were violated by the theft. The class-action lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, is the second suit since the VA disclosed the burglary two weeks ago.

Veterans advocates immediately expressed outrage.

‘’The magnitude of this data breach is simply breathtaking and overwhelming,’’ said Rep. Lane Evans, D-Ill., the top Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. He called on the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, to launch an investigation and get a full accounting.

‘’Instead of continuing to eke out the information, drip by drip, on an almost daily basis, adding to the list of those whose personal information is at risk, the Department of Veterans Affairs must get to the bottom of this now, fix the problem and put veterans’ minds at ease,’’ he said.

Joe Davis, a spokesman for Veterans of Foreign Wars, said the VA must come clean after three weeks of ‘’this debacle.’’

‘’This confirms the VFW’s worst fear from day one; that the loss of data encompasses every single person who did wear the uniform and does wear the uniform today,’’ he said.

The VA initially assumed its data would only include veterans, but upon closer investigation it realized it had records for active-duty personnel because they are eligible to receive certain VA benefits such as GI Bill educational assistance and the home loan guarantee program.

The VA previously has said that veterans discharged before 1975 might also be affected if they submitted claims.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday demands that the VA fully disclose which military personnel are affected by the data theft and seeks $1,000 in damages for each person; up to $26.5 billion total. The veterans are also seeking a court order barring VA employees from using sensitive data until independent experts determine proper safeguards.

‘’VA arrogantly compounded its disregard for veterans’ privacy rights by recklessly failing to make even the most rudimentary effort to safeguard this trove of the personally identifiable information from unauthorized disclosure,’’ the complaint says.

In response to the lawsuit, the VA said it is in discussions with credit-monitoring services to determine ‘’how veterans and others potentially affected can best be served’’ in the aftermath of the theft, said spokesman Matt Burns. [Fried, baked, or broiled?]

Veterans groups have criticized the VA for a three-week delay in publicizing the burglary. The VA initially disclosed the burglary May 22, saying it involved the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers — and in some cases, disability codes — of veterans discharged since 1975.

Since then, it also has acknowledged after an internal investigation that the data could also include phone numbers and addresses of those veterans.

The five veterans’ groups involved in the lawsuit are Citizen Soldier in New York; National Gulf War Resource Center in Kansas City; Radiated Veterans of America in Carson City, Nev.; Veterans for Peace in St. Louis; and Vietnam Veterans of America in Silver Spring, Md.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

IRAQIS SHOWING THEIR LOVE FOR THE U.S. OCCUPATION

Thousands of armed Iraqis demonstrate in the Shula district of Baghdad June 5, 2006 in protest against a raid by U.S. forces on one of Muqtada al-Sadr’s offices in Baghdad, and demanding the release Iraqi citizens arrested by occupation troops. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

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

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

Barhopping:
“Joe, The Name The Marine Gave Me, Told Me He Was Anti-War”

From: Alan Stolzer, The Military Project
To: GI Special
Sent: June 05, 2006
Subject: Barhopping

Since, at Fleet week in New York City, almost all military passersby wouldn’t even give our Military Project table a sideglance, we discussed why and figured they’d been warned against anti-war groups and we were too close to the ships (making troops fraternizing with us easily observed) in any case.

What to do?

The Fleet’s in and we’re out?

Not a wholesome thought.

Since the formal didn’t work it became reasonable to think the informal might.

There’s plenty of bars in the neighborhood so I “volunteered” to make contact with sailors or marines between brews. One might call this “social lubrication.”

Sure enough a young marine appeared a few stools away and it was easy to make conversation. After a few preliminaries such as: “been over there yet?” or “what’s your outfit?” it was easier to inquire as to his feelings about the war.

Joe, the name the Marine gave me, told me he was anti-war.

That’s all I needed to know. In short order he received five copies each of Traveling Soldier and GI Special plus my name, address, e-mail and phone should he want to recontact.

It turns out Joe hasn’t been to Iraq or Afghanistan yet, is out of Camp Lejeune and most likely headed to Okinawa. If so he’ll have read what I gave him and, hopefully, distributed same to others in his outfit.

Everyone’s pretty much the same height on a bar stool so go ahead and try it – that is drinking with the troops.

If I did it so can you.

“I Can Safely Say That In My Case I Would Dedicate The Rest Of My Life To Maiming, Attacking And Killing The Occupying Forces”

June 2, 2006 by Mark G. Brennan, LewRockwell.com [Excerpts]

Wednesday afternoon the Associated Press reported that U.S. forces had killed two Iraqi women when the car in which they were riding failed to stop at an American “observation point” near the city of Samarra. One of the women, 35 year-old Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, was about to give birth and her brother, Khalid, was rushing her to the hospital for the delivery.

The article quoted the distraught brother as saying, “I was driving my car at full speed because I did not see any sign or warning from the Americans. It was not until they shot the two bullets that killed my sister and cousin that I stopped.”

Granted, in the heat of the moment, those with guns fire them without perfect information. We occasionally see it happen here when a police officer shoots an unarmed citizen. It is terribly unfortunate but it happens.

What we don’t usually hear from the victim’s surviving relatives is how Mr. Jassim finished his anguished testimony: “God take revenge on the Americans and those who brought them here. They have no regard for our lives.” And by the way, the baby died too.

Mr. Jassim’s blood must be boiling. I imagine his thoughts are running along the lines of dedicating the rest of his life to killing as many Americans as he can before he gets caught or killed himself.

The military’s explanation and pseudo apology will only serve to further enrage him.

A military spokesman said of the incident (and added insult to injury by using imperfect perfect grammar), “The loss of life is regrettable and coalition forces go to great lengths to prevent them (sic).”

Remember, his sister, his cousin and his unborn niece or nephew were all just murdered and he himself barely escaped dying in a hail of gunfire.

This terrorist was made not born and the American taxpayer holds the copyright.

Here is a quick thought experiment.

The Chinese military occupies your city and sets up roadblocks that make DWI checkpoints seem fun by comparison.

Each and every time you approach a checkpoint the soldiers signal to you in a strange (that is to say, foreign) manner which not only confuses you but inevitably leads to them further reprimanding you. Before proceeding you must come to a complete stop while they search your car.

As a result your daily commute is 20 minutes longer each way. After they wave you through while barking at you in Chinese or broken English you remain uncertain if they deem you a threat or merely the harmless starched-shirt business drone that in fact you are.

This annoyance persists for 3 years and while you detest the process and the occupying force, there is not a whole lot you can do to stop it. Life goes on and this is just a major inconvenience.

Then one day while watching TV at home, your wife, who is in the ninth month of her pregnancy screams, “My water just broke!”

You jump in the car to make a mad dash to the hospital for the eagerly awaited birth of your first child whose name you have already selected and whose room you lovingly decorated. You remember that there is a Chinese checkpoint on the main road to the hospital but in your glee you errantly think that the Chinese soldiers will remember you from your daily transit and quickly wave you through.

Forgetting the rigor of their procedure, you drive at a greater than usual speed considering the urgent circumstances.

One of the Chinese soldiers, nervous about protecting himself while in enemy territory, opens fire on your car for not slowing down soon enough and your wife takes it in the chest.

You storm past the barricades to get her to the hospital all the while watching the bloodstain on her chest grow. You finally get her to the hospital and carry her into the emergency room while screaming for help.

After the nurses escort you from the table on which your wife lays mortally wounded, you collapse in the waiting area praying that the staff can save her. Twenty minutes later a doctor comes out of the emergency room, his scrubs covered in blood and his brow heavy with sweat. Without introducing himself, he shakes your hand, looks down and says “I’m sorry.”

You shriek, “But what about the baby?” The doctor apologizes again and adds, “We could not save her either.”

What kind of anger or hatred would that generate in the average expectant American father?

I can safely say that in my case I would dedicate the rest of my life to maiming, attacking and killing the occupying forces. Mr. Jassim might think the same way.

Today’s bad news, coming on the heels of the alleged massacre in Haditha and the anti-American riots in Afghanistan, points to the fact that while war is indeed ugly, subsequent occupations can be even uglier.

In a war civilians inevitably die. We can euphemistically call their deaths “collateral damage.” Even in a just war civilians are slaughtered.

However, when the Commander-in-Chief lands on the deck of an aircraft carrier to announce the successful completion of wartime hostilities we reasonably expect the slaughter of innocents to subside.

Today we still have American troops killing Iraqis several years after our leader told us the war was effectively over.

Even the most diehard proponents of preemptive war, unjust war, or even murder, should pause for a second to reflect on how this “accident” will make them any safer.

In fact it will make all of us less safe as Mr. Jassim, his friends, and fellow countrymen deepen their hatred of the occupying forces for killing the next Iraqi generation represented by the child who died before being born.

In their growing resentment of the occupying US forces, Iraqi anger will first be directed at soldiers from places like Girard, Kansas and Irving, Texas, both cities which lost servicemen fighting there over the past week.

US soldiers must now toe the microscopic line that separates their need to defend themselves against deadly attack from the mandate not to shoot innocent civilians.

We can thank the Cheneys and Rumsfelds of the world for putting these GIs in this lose-lose situation.

If they don’t shoot at a suspicious car approaching their checkpoint they might pay the ultimate price when the driver detonates himself. Shoot too soon and they risk court martial and murder charges for killing an innocent civilian just trying to live his life in his occupied homeland.

If the perpetually adolescent Bush twins, the Oxford-educated management consultant Chelsea Clinton, or the “sexually proud” Mary Cheney does not have to make this life or death choice on a daily basis, then no American GI should have to do the same thing.

In theory we send our military in to win wars, not to perpetually occupy foreign lands.

In reality this is exactly what our government does.

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.

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

[Thanks to David Honish, Veterans For Peace]

Rumsfeld In Indonesia Gets Verbal Ass-Whipping:
“The United States Is Overbearing, Over-Present And Overwhelming”
And He Replies With Another Stupid Lie

June 06, 2006 By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press

JAKARTA, Indonesia: The United States needs to let other countries determine how best they want to fight terrorism to counter perceptions that the U.S. is overbearing, Indonesia’s defense minister lectured visiting Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld Tuesday.

“As the largest Muslim country, we are very aware of the perception … that the United States is overbearing, over-present and overwhelming in every sector of life in many nations and cultures,” said Sudarsono, seen as a close U.S. ally in the war on terror.

Otherwise, he said, the United States risked angering “many groups across the world” who already feel threatened by the country’s “powerful military and its powerful economy.” There is a feeling, he said, that “the sun never sets on the back of an American GI.”

Rumsfeld, the latest in a string of U.S. officials who have visited Jakarta, defended U.S. policy, saying “I never have indicated to any country that they should do something they were uncomfortable doing.”

Congressional Pigs Took $50 Million For Their Vacation Travel

06 June 2006 By Kate Phillips, The New York Times

Washington: Congressional aides took $30 million in trips paid for by private groups from 2000 through mid-2005, surpassing the privately sponsored travel of their bosses by nearly $10 million over the same time, according to a new analysis of publicly disclosed travel expenses.

Together, aides and members of the House and Senate filed 23,000 public disclosure forms on their individual trips, the survey found, for an estimated price tag of about $50 million.

Among the most popular destinations were Paris (at least 200 times), Hawaii (150) and Italy (140).

Welcome To Occupied America:
Twisted Freaks Running High School Take Doors Off Toilets So Everybody Can Watch;
“We Can Vote. We Can Go To War. We Should Be Able To Pee Whenever We Want”

June 6, 2006 By Ian Shapira, The Washington Post [Excerpts]

WASHINGTON – Even though Daniel Thornton occasionally needed to go to the bathroom during his AP history course last year, he also needed a B on the midterm to maintain his grade. So he did what lots of students at Forest Park Senior High School in Woodbridge do in their Darwinian pursuit of academic success: Thornton endured a full bladder and instead hoarded his two restroom passes, which, unused, were worth six points of extra credit.

It was enough to bump the 18-year-old’s midterm grade from a C-plus to a B.

At many schools, doors to boys and girls restrooms have been removed altogether. In Montgomery County’s Montgomery Blair High School, students can see boys standing at urinals and girls entering and exiting stalls in the bathrooms near the front office.

Although advocates say the passes, which can be used for numerous destinations — maximize classroom time, critics say it is unfair to give anyone an academic advantage based on something as unacademic as bathroom habits.

“What’s the correlation between holding your urine and succeeding on a history test?” asked Kevin Barr, principal of Georgetown Day School, a private school in the District. “My basic assumption is always that kids need to be comfortable and safe to excel in the classroom.”

The Spanish class Carol Wesley’s 15-year-old daughter takes at W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax County offers hallway extra credit. Although Wesley sympathizes with teachers trying to maintain order, she said, “It’s absurd to reward people for not taking care of simple human bodily functions when necessary.”

Other schools use a more archival approach to keep track of students and their bathroom habits: log sheets on which students must jot down the time they need to leave class and their destination. A teacher’s initials are also needed.

The log sheets — in a small agenda book given out at the beginning of the year — help teachers check how often students use the restroom during class — indicating which ones may be cadging a break. In one agenda book, the log sheet is euphemistically called the Hallway Passport.

Some students who use the log sheets prefer them because they don’t have other people’s germs and they’re never scrounging for a pass. Other students, such as Samantha Mosquera at Forest Park, find the log absurd.

“Sometimes, I’ll just go through the book, and I’ll see how many times I’ve gone to the bathroom in the year, and I’m like, ‘What the heck?’ It’s a lot,” said Mosquera, 18, a senior on the crew team, who noted that she has to drink water all day to stay hydrated for her tough afternoon practices.

“It should be like college, especially for seniors. We can vote. We can go to war. We should be able to pee whenever we want.”

Received:

Somalia

From: A
To: GI Special
Sent: June 06, 2006
Subject: Somalia

Somalia has long suffered under every imaginable affliction known to man; with the source of almost all of their misery coming from western sponsored warlords; who’ve found profit for themselves in reeking utter havoc throughout the country.

The vast indigenous majority has finally tired of watching it go on and on, and have moved to stop it. And in the process, they have remarkably caused little damage compared to what Somalis suffer through day in and day out.

Now that, for the first time in generations, there’s a semblance of order, peace, and real optimism about the future, this is what our state department has to say about it:

“It’s a tragic situation for the Somalian people. It’s a real source of concern for the international community”

And what has the last half century been for Somalian people, if not a tragic situation?

The Somali people have done what the u.s. government said they were trying to do in the early 1990s, and now our government is unhappy about it?

What could our government be thinking?

Solidarity,
A

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

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