“Let The Tattoos Sail”

June 05, 2006 Army Times [Excerpts]

Letters from readers objecting to the Army’s decision to loosen its regulations on tattoos — “Damn the tattoos,” April 24 issue — prompted another wave of letters, mostly defending an individual’s right to get inked wherever he or she pleases. Here’s a sample:

“Tattoos Are Not The ‘Unprofessional’ Thing Here”
“The Stereotypical Prejudice Is More Unprofessional”

It has to become a norm and not an exception for people to view the person, not the tattoo. But until inked soldiers make their way to leadership positions, there will be an unwritten prejudice.

It happens with race, gender and religion. Are we now to add ink to the list of stereotypical prejudices soldiers face when it comes time for favorable actions?

The Army could change in the future to allow some personal modifications. I have not seen regulations prohibiting faddish dental work and, personally, I find a mouth of shiny gold teeth as detracting to professionalism as some do tattoos.

The younger generation is coming of age, and with that, many changes will come, just as changes came with previous generations.

If you do not like what is happening, there are a few options. One, get over it and move on. Two, when it comes time to raise your hand again, opt for the door.

Tattoos are not the “unprofessional” thing here; the stereotypical prejudice is more unprofessional.

Spc. Nicholas Zamniak
Aurora, Mo.

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

“Let The Tattoos Sail”
“Let Soldiers Have Long Hair”
“Let Them Wear Civilian Clothes To Work On Fridays”

Get with the times. The Army is changing. By complaining, you sound outdated and prejudiced against those with tattoos.

Many people look at the military as trained killers, ready to snap. Do you think a tattoo on a soldier’s hand is going to make them think differently? Of course not.

If the Army is going to take on the warrior ethos for every soldier to be a rifleman first and military occupational specialty-qualified second, then let the tattoos sail.

Let soldiers have long hair.

Let them wear civilian clothes to work on Fridays.

If someone can man up and enlist, basically saying, “Yes, I have no problem dying for my country if I have to,” then a little freedom goes a long way. It certainly wouldn’t hurt retention numbers.

I’m working on two full sleeves, from shoulder to wrist, and I can’t wait to get home so I can start on my neck and hands.

I’m not saying I’m the best soldier, but I’m certainly not the worst.

Spc. Thomas Springsteen
Fort Gordon, Ga.

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

“Let Me Define Unprofessional”
“The Way Noncommissioned Officers Treat Soldiers: Yelling, Cursing, Degrading Soldiers Because They Know Soldiers Can’t Say Anything Back”

How does the body art on a soldier define professionalism? It doesn’t. It is a way for people to express themselves.

Let me define unprofessional.

The way noncommissioned officers treat soldiers: yelling, cursing, degrading soldiers because they know soldiers can’t say anything back and know that if they do, they will face repercussions even though Army regs say there can’t be any.

Listening to people every Friday at final work call give you a safety briefing, and everything they tell you not to do, you see them doing.

To be quite honest, I would rather have someone with an arm and a neck full of tattoos fighting beside me than someone like the soldiers mentioned above.

The Army’s new tattoo policy is great because it gives people who want to serve their country an opportunity, and that’s what the Army is all about — opportunity.

If you come in with the regulation changes, do great things for yourself, your family and this country, because the tattoos you have play no role in your character, your mind-set, your ability to be a professional or look professional. Keep that uniform squared away and those boots shined and do what you know is right and you will never be unprofessional.

Spc. Richard Thomas McGalliard
Temple, Texas

What do you think? Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Send to contact@militaryproject.org. Name, I.D., withheld on request. Replies confidential.

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Donalsonville Native Killed Serving In Iraq

June 11, 2006 WALB

Donalsonville: One of South Georgia’s own was killed in action serving in Iraq. US Navy Medical Corpsman Zachary Alday was on patrol with Marines when the humvee he was riding in set off a land mine. Twenty-two year-old Alday was a Donalsonville native stationed in Twenty-nine Palms, California.

It was 18 months ago when Navy Medical Corpsman Zachary Alday started out on his mission.

“Zack was a good boy, a good boy, and I’m glad he got to serve his country and I wish he was here with us today,” said Alday’s cousin Donnie Ray Miller.

Zack would joke around with older sister Mandy Barber. She was looking forward to raising her sons with Zack as he raised his one-year-old daughter Karmyn.

“Since he had his daughter we would just love having them together and we talked about how they were alike and how they were different,” said sister Mandy Barber.

The Navy seaman would go fishing with cousin Joel Alday, who says Zack’s service is something he’s very proud of. “It takes a lot of courage and bravery to fight in a war like that, when he entered the Navy the war was already going on, and he knew he’d probably be placed in this situation, and that took a lot of courage,” said Joel.

“I know he’s in heaven right now, with my grandmother, my grandfather, they’re looking down on us today I can’t wait for the opportunity,” said Joel Alday.

Zachary Alday was scheduled to be back in the states in September. His family was notified of his death on Friday.

Funeral arrangements are not finalized. Evans-Skipper Funeral Home in Donalsonville is handling the service.

Brookfield Soldier Severely Wounded

May 21. 2006 Observer-Dispatch

BROOKFIELD: A rocket-powered grenade took away both of Brookfield native Steven Anthony Smith’s legs and injured his arm and face.

But nothing can take away the pride and support the Iraqi War veteran is getting from friends, family and neighbors.

Pvt. 2nd Class Smith, 19, was only in Iraq a few days when his humvee was struck by the grenade.

He studied welding at BOCES, and had planned to make it into a career, when he changed his mind and enlisted in the services in August 2005.

Smith is now in Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas, his mother Terrie Johnson by his constant side.

In his room are cards and messages of support that have flowed in from supporters – many of whom never met Smith but were touched by his story.

“Those have been a real support because I hold him, and when he’s going through a bad moment, we listen to a card,” Johnson said.

The 502nd Of The 101st:
15 Dead, 100 Wounded,
580 IEDs Since October ‘05

June 10, 2006 By RYAN LENZ, Associated Press

Soldiers in the battalion, the 502nd Infantry Regiment of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, have been struck by more than 230 roadside bombs since they arrived in Iraq last October, leaving 15 dead.

They’ve discovered about 350 more on the roads that crisscross their swath of desert.

More than 100 of the soldiers have been wounded, mostly on patrols in their sector south of Baghdad where Shiite and Sunni Arab tribes often clash with coalition forces.

Twenty-seven of those wounded were evacuated from Iraq and remain at hospitals in the United States.

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

A U.S. soldier prepares to raid a garden on the outskirts of Baquba May 29, 2006. REUTERS/Helmiy Al-Azawi

British Soldier Wounded;
The Rest Wisely Withdraw

June 11 (KUNA)

A British soldier has been wounded in the southern Iraqi city of Amara after insurgents attacked his unit, the British Ministry of Defense said.

A ministry spokesman said the unit came under fire while looking for the source of rockets launched against their base.

“We returned fire and some terrorists may have been killed. It was hard to tell because the unit withdrew,” he said.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

IED KILLS SOLDIER IN GHAZI PROVINCE

6/11/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-06-01CJ

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan: During offensive operations against Taliban extremists, a Coalition Soldier died today near the Yaquob village, Ghazni Province.

Afghan National Army and Coalition forces had been engaged with a small group of extremists when the enemy fled into the village of Yaquob . ANA and Coalition forces surrounded the village to search for the extremists. During the search, a Coalition up-armored Humvee struck an IED.

The Soldier was evacuated by air to a Coalition hospital, but later died of his injuries.

The joint forces continued searching the village, but were unable to locate the enemy fighters.

Notes From A Lost War:
“Most Afghans View The Americans As Outsiders And Occupiers”
“The ANA Won’t Go Out Alone Because They’re Scared To Go Up Against The Insurgents”

6.5.06 By Greg Grant, SPECIAL TO THE ARMY TIMES

LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan

On a recent spring day, American armored Humvees and Afghan national army pickup trucks crested the 9,000-foot Khowst-to-Gardez pass, rumbling along on the single dirt road that links American bases in the Afghan-Pakistan border region with me big air and logistics centers at Bagram and Kabul.

Beginning the long descent down the eastern slope, the patrol headed for a small village deep in the mountains. The villagers had reported large groups of armed men — Taliban insurgents, they suspected — moving on the remote trails used to smuggle weapons from Pakistan, said Lt. Dave Douchkoff, an infantry platoon commander in the 10th Mountain Division.

The patrol was a joint effort by U.S. and Afghan troops: something the American side should do more often, U.S. officers said. The Afghans bring unmatchable language and cultural skills; the Americans bring unmatched resources and the training and ethic of a professional fighting force.

“Working hand in hand with the Afghan army with them more in the lead, is where we need to go in this war,” said Lt. Col. Richard Kaiser, a battalion commander in the 10th Mountain.

But many things make that difficult.

The Afghan people have a strong warrior tradition, exemplified by the mujahidin who savaged the invading Russians, then turned on each other until the Taliban came to power in the 1990s.

Skilled in individual and small-unit hit-and- run attacks, they lack the discipline and experience to form a professional military force, said Maj. Tim Byrne, one of the embedded U.S. trainers who live with and mentor Afghan soldiers.

[Well, perhaps Tim ought to take himself off to Moscow, and explain to the Russian generals that they really won their Afghan war. They have the silly notion that these Afghan soldiers, who, Tim says, lack discipline and experience, destroyed the Russian occupation army and sent them home in shame and defeat. The Russian generals would surely find a brother in Timmy. He “thinks” just like they did, back in their day of disaster. Bullshit from the neck up. T]

This manifests itself in frequent desertions, which reduce the nominally 26,000-strong Afghan army to a somewhat smaller force. Each Afghan battalion is supposed to number between 600 and 800 men, but one senior U.S. noncommissioned officer said the Afghan army battalions he works with are typically at 30 percent of their paper strength.

[Note the reporter calls this “somewhat” smaller. Guess if they were down to 10% of paper strength, he would call that “moderately” smaller.]

“When they move into an area that’s far from their homes, a lot of the guys just up and go back borne. They don’t like moving away from their tribal areas,” said the NCO, who requested that his name not be used.

He also said drug use among Afghan soldiers is a problem. Many go on missions while stoned on hashish, which is readily available in a country that is also the world’s largest supplier of opium. [No wonder he requested his “name not be used.” The brasskissers in the Pentagon really hate soldiers who tell the truth.]

Byrne, the trainer, noted problems among Afghan army officers.

Many came up in the Russian trained Afghan army, where they learned never to act on their own. “They have to call their higher command to get approval to make even the simplest decisions; everything is top down, with nobody willing to take any initiative,” Byrne said,

Many majors and colonels buy their assignments; it’s rumored that a battalion commander position goes for $5,000; an investment quickly recouped by skimming the troops’ payroll, he said.

When the U.S. military delivers payroll cash once a month, “the local Afghan general takes some off the top, then the colonel takes some more,” Byrne said. “By the time the money gets down to the soldiers, they’re screwed.”

Most Afghans view the Americans as outsiders and occupiers, a perception Byrne attributed at least partially to the legacy left by the Russians, who bombed indiscriminately and sowed the mountains with so many mines that Afghans still lose life and limb to the devices nearly every day.

“The ANA [collaborator troops] won’t go out alone because they’re scared to go up against the insurgents without U.S. support,” Douchkoff said, “which is a problem when we’re trying to get out of here.”

It Was A Close Race, Folks, But HERE HE IS:
THE WORLDS’ STUPIDEST IMPERIAL GOVERNOR!!

Jun 11 By Simon Cameron-Moore

U.S. ambassador Ronald E. Neumann [favoring arming local militias] told journalists in Kabul last week “We put probably a million weapons out in Vietnam to the rural and popular forces, and very few, if any, of those were turned against the government.”

[It’s not just that he knows nothing about Vietnam. It’s that, knowing nothing, he’s willing to babble this inane bullshit, completely oblivious to the fact that Afghan collaborator Officers will steal and sell anything that isn’t nailed down, as the story just above so carefully documents. The resistance could not have asked for a more incompetent Imperial representative to fight against if they had personally selected him. Who knows, maybe they did.]

“Do Not Send Your Children Here. We Will Kill Them”

June 10, 2006 Conn Hallinan, Portside.org [Excerpts]

How just like the old days it must be for British Lieutenant General David Richards, commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in southern Afghanistan NATO, taking over from the U.S., is pouring troops into Helmand Province, 8,000 of which will be British.

In truth, General Richards holds exactly the ground he stands on-so long as it isn’t nightfall.

After four years of war, the U.S.-led coalition is scrambling to contain a spreading insurgency, not only in the south, but the north and the East as well.

In late May, Taliban insurgents overran a district capital in Oruzgan Province, and according to the Financial Times, a government presence doesn’t exist outside the Helmand Province capital of Lashkar Gar.

What the British did not figure on was that in 2006 they would be fighting the same people who kept the colonial graveyards of India well populated with the young lads from Cork, Dundee and Suffolk who came down from the high passes in wooden boxes.

While the government of President Hamid Karzai is quick to blame Pakistan for the current fighting, Pushtun coming across the border from Pakistan is hardly a new development. Every day some 15,000 people cross from Pakistan to Afghanistan through Chaman alone. It is a ‘border’ drawn up in Whitehall, not Lahore or Kandahar.

Mullah Mohammed Kaseem Faroqi, the Pushtun Taliban commander in Helmand Province, recently told the London Times, ‘My message to Tony Blair and the whole of Britain is, “Do not send your children here. We will kill them.”

Assorted Resistance Action

June 11, 2006 By DANIEL COONEY, Associated Press Writer & UNION-TRIBUNE

In an apparent attempt to kill Kabul’s director of government intelligence, Humayoon Aini, a bomb ripped through the first car in his convoy late Friday, killing a local politician and two other people, said Kabul’s police chief, Amanullah Ghazar.

Aini, who was in the second car, was unhurt, Ghazar said. The intelligence director had been returning to the capital from a meeting in a neighboring district, Ghazar said.

Fighting yesterday killed six insurgents and three police officers, officials said.

TROOP NEWS

1600 More Troops Off To Bush’s Imperial Slaughterhouse

June 5, 2006 Army Times

About 1,600 troops officially said goodbye May 22 during a ceremony for the 41st Brigade Combat Team.

The team will be deployed to Afghanistan for a year as Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix V. The troops had 10 days of leave after the ceremony before they are scheduled to depart for Afghanistan.

About 900 soldiers are from the Oregon National Guard, another 430 soldiers are from Oklahoma and the remainder are soldiers, sailors and airmen from about 30 other states and Puerto Rico. The soldiers will serve as embedded trainers with the Afghan army, operating in 73 locations.

Marines will join the task force once it arrives in Afghanistan, according to a press release from First U.S. Army.

Congress To Reservists:
Go Fuck Yourselves

June 07, 2006 By Rick Maze, Army Times staff writer [Excerpts]

Congressional negotiators have rejected a Senate-passed plan that would increase pay for many mobilized reservists who are federal workers.

During late Tuesday voting on the emergency supplemental appropriations bill, House negotiators voted along mostly party lines to oppose an income protection amendment that would require the federal government to make up the difference between military and civilian salaries for federal workers who are mobilized in the National Guard or reserve.

About 120,000 Guard and reserve members mobilized since Sept. 11, 2001, are federal workers.

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., had been the chief Senate sponsor of the provision but Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., has been a long-time advocate for income protection for federal workers.

Durbin’s amendment had support from major military and veterans’ groups because it would have put the federal government among the many U.S. employers who ensure reservists do not lose income when called to active duty.

The Defense Department has been giving awards to private-sector employers who provide income protection to reservists even while the Bush administration has opposed providing similar protection for its own workers who are in the reserve components.

Troops Risk Undetected Brain Injury:
Concussions From Blasts Often Missed

6.7.06 USA Today

Thousands of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan may be risking permanent brain damage by returning to combat with relatively minor but undiagnosed concussions, often caused by bomb blasts, according to military researchers. The injuries frequently go undetected because there may be no visible wounds or the soldier may be unaware that he suffered a concussion.

Peace Has No Borders:
A Festival of Resistance
Support Our War Resisters Who Are In Canada

From Veterans For Peace:

Join us and don’t miss this historic event which will have music, speakers, good karma, great people and support our war resistors both politically and financially. You will not want to be left out of this one.

16 –17 June 2006, Buffalo, NY
Friday 16 June 7 PM:
Kleinhan’s Music Hall, Buffalo, NY

Some of the growing list of speakers and musicians are Cindy Sheehan, Dede Miller, Bill Mitchell, Steven T. Banko III, David Cline, Michael McPherson, Jim and Paula Hart, Goeffrey Millard, Lee Zaslofsky, Michelle Robidoux, Col. Ann Wright. Special Musical Guests: Jesse Dyen and Charlie King and MC for the event will be political satirist and comedian Barry Crimmins.

Saturday 17 June 1 PM: Lions Sugarbowl Park, Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada (corner of Central Avenue and Gilmore Road)

Peace Festival/Picnic in solidarity with the War Resistors Support Campaign and U.S. soldiers who are seeking asylum in Canada. $15 tickets should to bought ahead at peacehasnoborders.org All proceeds go to the War Resistors Support Campaign. Donations are appreciated to help Iraq Veterans and the less fortunate attend the event. If you can’t attend you can join with us by donating. For more information: information@peacehasnoborders.org or Bruce Beyer 716-854-1659 or Geoff Millard, 716-940-4682

Our list of speakers and entertainers:

Cindy Sheehan and Bill Mitchell are founding members of Gold Star Families for Peace whose sons were killed in Iraq on the same day.

David Cline is a Vietnam veteran from Buffalo whose brother Bruce was arrested with me in the Unitarian Church in 1968. He is the national president of Veterans for Peace. Col. Ann Wright spent twenty nine years in the US Army and thirteen years in our diplomatic corps. In protest, she resigned her position as US Ambassador to Mongolia the day the US invaded Iraq.

Paula and Jim Hart are the parents of Iraq war resister Patrick Hart. The Harts are from Buffalo and Patrick was a nine year Army Sergeant when he quit the military and went to Canada in August of 2005. Geoffrey Millard is an Iraq war veteran, still on active duty with the New York National Guard and an outspoken member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Michael McPherson was a Captain in the US Air Force who served in the Gulf War and is now the executive director of Veterans for Peace.

Peace Has No Borders: A Festival of Resistance will be an historic opportunity for concerned citizens from the United States and Canada to join efforts in support of the U.S. Iraq war resisters who have crossed the border to find refuge in Canada.

Participants from both sides of the border are calling for an end to the occupation of Iraq, and pressuring the Canadian government to provide asylum to U.S. war resisters. According to the War Resisters Support Campaign, there are known to be about twenty former soldiers and Marines of the US military, who, like over 50,000-100,000 of their forefathers from the Vietnam era, are seeking sanctuary in Canada for themselves and their families. They estimate between 150 and 200 more are living under the radar in Canada.

During the period of 1965-1973, more than 50,000 Americans made their way to Canada, refusing to participate in an immoral war. Today, tens of thousands of Canadians, including several hundred former resisters from the Vietnam era, have been petitioning their government to provide refuge for this new generation of conscientious objectors.

Former Vietnam war resister and Buffalo native Bruce Beyer explains, “Never, in the history of our nation, has such a gathering taken place on the border of our country. Our goal is to inform people and raise support for the growing number of Iraq war resisters living in this country and abroad.”

To purchase tickets for the Buffalo event, visit www.peacehasnoborders.org For more information on the Fort Erie event, visit www.resisters.ca, or call 416.598.1222.

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.

National Guard Command In California An Incompetent Zoo

6.7.06 San Diego Union-Tribune

The California National Guard misused federally funded troops and anti-drug money to create unauthorized programs and failed to get state approval for an intelligence unit that monitored a Mother’s Day peace rally last year, state auditors reported. The audit paints a portrait of a Guard in disarray, with 95 of its 109 armories in need of repair or improvements that would cost a combined $32 million.

War Profiteer Bribes Powerful Congressman By Paying Off His Stepdaughter

6.8.06 Los Angeles Times

A political fundraising committee headed by a defense contractor has paid thousands of dollars in fees to the stepdaughter of House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis at a time when the contractor has been lobbying Congress for funding, according to campaign finance records. Lewis’ stepdaughter, Julia Willis-Leon was paid more than $42,000 by the Small Biz Tech Political Action Committee. The PAC is led by Nicholas Karangelen, founder and president of Trident Systems Inc.

Judge Orders Army To Stop Protecting War Profiteer

6.8.06 The Hill

A federal judge has ordered the Army to release nearly 100 pages of records it had attempted to withhold from a Freedom of Information Act request sought by Judicial Watch. The documents are in connection with a multibillion-dollar, no-bid contract awarded in 2003 by the Army to KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, to fight oil-well fires in Iraq and restart oil production.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

“The Resistance Remains As Resilient As Ever”

10 June 2006 Issue By A.K. Gupta, The Indypendent [Excerpt]

The fact that in just weeks ago the Pentagon announced that it was sending more troops to Iraq (to the resistance hotbed of Ramadi) indicates that the war is long since lost.

If the U.S. is increasing its presence after three years of increasingly destructive warfare, more than $10 billion spent on barely operational Iraqi security forces, perhaps 200,000 Iraq civilian deaths and 2,700 foreign troops, then why would one man’s death change anything?

Even though the mainstream media has lost interest in reporting it, U.S. deaths are averaging close to 60 a month this year, essentially the same rate as the last two years.

In other words, despite the fact that the Pentagon has used almost every weapon and tactic in its arsenal, the resistance remains as resilient as ever.

UNCONQUERED
UNCONQUERABLE

Iraqi children throw stones on the British tanks patrolling the streets of Amara June 11, 2006. REUTERS/Sala Thani (IRAQ)

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

Assorted Resistance Action

6.10.06 Reuters & By HAMZA HENDAWI (AP) & June 11, 2006 Newsday & Reuters & (AP)

One policeman was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near his patrol in central Kirkuk on Friday night, police said.

In the capital, a roadside bomb exploded in the Karadah area, targeting a police patrol; and wounding three officers.

In northern Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi police car near a mosque, killing one officer and wounding three others.

Police found the beheaded body of an Iraqi soldier thrown in a river near Tikrit 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

A roadside bomb seriously wounded a senior police officer, Major General Ali Hussain, in northern Baghdad, police said. A policeman who was driving Hussain’s car was killed and another was wounded in the attack.

A car bomber slammed into a security checkpoint outside Baqouba on Sunday, police said. The explosion occurred around 8:40 P.M. near a checkpoint Iraqi soldiers had put up a day earlier to provide security in the aftermath of a U.S.-led bombing on a safe house being used by al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in the blast.

Among those injured in the attack were seven Iraqi soldiers and one civilian. Three other Iraqi soldiers and women were injured in the attack.

RAWA: Insurgents killed four Iraqi soldiers after they attacked an Iraqi desert army base in Anbar province, police said.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

The Resistance?
“We Killed The Dumb Ones”
[Oh, Those “Tricky” Iraqis]

June 05, 2006 By Gina Cavallaro, Army Times staff writer [Excerpts]

Working with the Iraqis can be tricky.

[Another blind reporter. Working with these traitors can be tricky indeed. But, for some odd reason, it would appear that resistance fighters do not need years of “training,” do not “sit on the ground,” do not need motivational lectures and speeches, and have no problem whatever taking initiative. Could it be that people fighting a foreign Imperial power presided over by a murderous piece of shit like Bush have patriotism as their motivation. Shall we ask Patrick Henry, George Washington and Tom Paine? Or do you already know the answer to that question? T]

Taking their cue from the U.S. soldiers, the Iraqis followed along, looked through holes in the smooth boulders and kept watch when they were told to. Some sat on the ground when the search seemed to stall.

“The [SF] teams taught them how to go out in the population and look for guys, but we’re trying to teach them the rules of law and order, how to get the evidence,” said squadron commander Lt. Col. Arthur Kandarian, 42, from Cumberland, R.I., who works closely with Iraqi army commanders on thinking of new ways to catch elusive attackers.

“We killed the dumb ones,” he said about the invasion more than three years ago. “Now it’s a game of chess.”

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“You Are Permitted To Shoot Anyone Who Resists, Civilians Included”
Episode From An Occupation:
China 1937

From: C
To: GI Special
Sent: June 10, 2006
Subject: Episode from an occupation: China 1937

Tatsuzo Ishikawa, ‘Soldiers Alive.’ Translated by Zeljko Cipris. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003. Pages 135-137. (Original manuscript, February 1938)

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

Nanking.

The city was on everyone’s mind. To enter it alive or dead but by all means to live until the start of the Nanking offensive. If a man escaped death long enough to march into Nanking, he could wash off the dust of the last month’s battles and recuperate at leisure.

If the fall of the capital brought an end to the war, he might even see the great day when he and his comrades marched home in victory.

It was around noon on the fourth of December, the second day of their stay in Tan-yang that an incident occurred which sent a shudder through the soldiers just as they had begun to entertain those hopes and dreams.

Second Lieutenant Kaname of the Third Battalion was killed while returning from guard inspection. He was walking past a girl of eleven or twelve standing absentmindedly in the sunlight at an alley corner. The girl was staring up at his face, but he passed by, taking no notice of her. Before he had taken three steps, he was shot in the back with a handgun; he crumpled to the pavement and died on the spot.

The girl dashed into a house, but the soldiers who had heard the shots ran up, encircled the house, and crashed through the door. They found her crouched, staring at the floor, next to a Chinese-style bed carved with arabesques, and promptly felled her with a hail of rifle fire. There was an old man in the same house and he, too, was summarily shot.

It was not in the least surprising that a soldier should be fired upon in an occupied city, but the fact that the assailant was indisputably a noncombatant, and eleven years old at that, infuriated the soldiers who heard of the incident.

“Fine! If that’s what the Chinese have in mind, we’ll kill them all. We’d be idiots not to wipe them out!”

With such sentiments prevailing, it became impossible to estimate the number of Chinese that were killed for arousing the most trivial suspicions or committing the vaguest offenses.

Tragic incidents were difficult to avoid when combatants could not be clearly distinguished from noncombatants.

There were more than a few cases similar to that of the young girl, but what particularly exasperated the soldiers was the Chinese regulars’ unfailing practice of throwing away their uniforms when cornered, then mingling with the populace.

Even many of the so-called peaceful citizens wearing their Rising Sun armbands were most likely Chinese army runaways. It was obvious, moreover, that the closer Nanking came, the more widespread grew anti-Japanese sentiment further intensifying the soldiers’ distrust of the population.

An order was handed down by the military high command immediately following the Lieutenant Kaname incident: “Because from this point westward, anti-Japanese thought is known to be strong even among ordinary individuals, extreme caution is to be exercised even when dealing with women and children. You are permitted to shoot anyone who resists, civilians included.”

“The Military Transplanted Jim Crow Racism From The South Into Parts Of The Country Where It Had Not Previously Existed”

[Thanks to Mike Woloshin, Veterans For Peace, who sent this in. He writes: I think you will find this interesting about the impact of Jim Crow racism on African-American volunteers and servicemen during WW-II. This shit continued into Vietnam and beyond! You may want to run this in G.I. Special!]

By the middle of the war, maltreatment of black soldiers had spawned race riots on so many military posts that the Army seemed to be shaking itself to pieces.

June 10, 2006 By BRENT STAPLES, The New York Times Company

Nations tend to write their histories by forgetting the shameful parts. In America, once-buried issues associated with slavery and the genocide against Native Americans have resurfaced and been incorporated into the national memory.

But World War II has thus far been held apart as an era that is almost beyond reproach. Indeed, the people who led the country in the 40's and fought the war have been transformed from mere mortals — with faults like the rest of us — into sudden secular saints. They were dubbed “the greatest generation” and made out to be peerless in bravery and moral rectitude.

But when it comes to racial justice, any claim of moral superiority is false on its face.

Franklin Roosevelt and the national political leadership failed when tested on the great moral issue of the 20th century. It was within Roosevelt’s power to strike Jim Crow segregation from the military — which is precisely what Harry Truman would do three years after the war ended.

Roosevelt, however, embraced apartheid segregation, actually spreading it from the Army, where it had been long established, into other major branches of the military.

Historians now agree that in the process, the military transplanted Jim Crow racism from the South into parts of the country where it had not previously existed. It further legitimized retrograde racial attitudes by enforcing apartheid policies in the towns where troops spent leisure time.

Beyond that, providing racially segregated living and training arrangements — as well as separate command structures — taxed the country’s resources and created a logjam among black recruits. With too few segregated outfits to hold them, hundreds of thousands were either turned away when they volunteered or simply passed over by the Selective Service when they became eligible for the draft.

Black recruits who actually made it into the military were often greeted by a racial nightmare, especially when they waited out the war in Southern camps. There they faced legendary cruelty from white officers who resented having to command them at all, as well as hatred and harassment from townsfolk who were more favorably inclined toward German prisoners of war than toward black Americans in uniform.

By the middle of the war, maltreatment of black soldiers had spawned race riots on so many military posts that the Army seemed to be shaking itself to pieces.

African-Americans who lived through this humiliating experience have typically been hesitant to discuss it, and most have taken their experiences with them to the grave. The distinguished historian John Hope Franklin, now 91 years old, broke the silence thunderously in his memoir, “Mirror to America,” which offers a clear-eyed but also heart-wrenching portrait of one black family’s struggle to serve with honor in a nation that regarded them as less than fully human.

Dr. Franklin was a newly minted Harvard Ph.D. at the start of the war. Like most black intellectuals at the time, he was well aware of the nightmare life that awaited educated black men who were drafted into the Army. He hoped to escape that fate by “selling” himself to the Navy, which was desperate for men after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The recruiter seemed stunned as Dr. Franklin reeled off his qualifications, which included shorthand and typing (at 75 words per minute) as well as his doctorate. But the recruiter, he writes, “said simply that I was lacking in one important qualification, and that was color.”

He next turned to the War Department, which was hiring dropouts from Harvard to write the official history of the war. He submitted his qualifications, which included a book already in press, and even solicited support from the first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, all to no avail.

“I decided that they did not want to win the war,” he told me in an interview, “they wanted to win the status of white people in this country.”

His older brother, Buck Franklin Jr., had a different, and even worse, experience. He was drafted, despite being married, over 30 and a high school principal, by a bigoted draft board that seemed determined to bring an “uppity” black man down.

Assigned to a white officer who appeared to have hated him from the start, he fell into a depression from which he never recovered. He died in 1947, after he either fell or jumped from a hotel window. Dr. Franklin, known throughout his career for his evenness of temper, still refers to his brother’s death as murder.

The forces of nostalgia see Jim Crow segregation as a minor blemish on the otherwise noble effort that was the great war.

But government-enforced racism was actually at the very heart of the enterprise.

It undermined the war effort, further poisoned an already racially troubled society and took a savage toll on families like the Franklins.

It would be a crime in itself for the country ever to forget that.

OCCUPATION REPORT

The Great Iraqi Collaborator Troop Fiasco Rolls On:
“I’ve Been Here Three Months, And I Haven’t Been Paid Yet”
“There Are No Iraqi Military Hospitals”
“I’m Talking About The Guys Killed In Action. Their Families Haven’t Been Paid”

June 10, 2006 Ben Gilbert, San Francisco Chronicle Foreign Service, Baghdad

Iraqi Army soldier Ali Katham Hussein would have a Purple Heart if he were in the U.S. Army. But he’s received no medals for valor. He can’t even afford to have the shrapnel and bullet lodged in his chest removed.

Neither can the Iraqi army.

“In Saddam Hussein’s time, if you got hurt, you received compensation,” he said.

Three months ago, insurgents ambushed Ali Katham Hussein’s unit near Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad. Hussein was shot nine times in the attack — bullets pierced his chest, stomach, arm and leg.

Leaning on a crutch on a dusty, trash-littered Iraqi army base in west Baghdad, he pulled up his shirt to reveal two moist bandages taped to his chest.

“After I got shot, I didn’t get treated in a military hospital,” he said. “I paid from my own pocket to get treatment.”

In fact, there are no Iraqi military hospitals.

Like all injured Iraqi soldiers, Hussein had to pay for his own treatment at an Iraqi civilian hospital. The first surgery damaged nerves in the young soldier’s arm. Now his hand is contorted into a claw.

“They take (injured soldiers) to the nearest hospital,” said U.S. Army Maj. Dennis Grimsley, an adviser to the Iraqi unit. “Maybe they didn’t think the injury was that bad.”

Hussein’s injuries eventually became infected, and Grimsley helped him obtain additional surgery by an American doctor at a U.S. military hospital. But Hussein says the Americans can’t do anything for the other Iraqi soldiers with less serious injuries who still face a life of incapacitation.

Nor can the Americans do anything for those killed in action. And neither, it seems, can the Iraqi Ministry of Defense.

“There’s got to be some kind of compensation — there’s a lot of people like me and actually worse,” Hussein said. “I’m talking about the guys killed in action. Their families haven’t been paid. They have wives and kids. Who is going to provide food for those families?”

Hussein’s friend Abbas Amran Hassan was killed in the same ambush. “My friend was killed, and after he died, his family didn’t get paid,” he said. “They got no compensation, his monthly pay stopped, and he has seven kids.”

Even the amount of compensation is in dispute. Hussein’s battalion commander, Col. Daif, who declined to give his full name for fear he would be targeted by insurgents, says the Ministry of Defense provides a dead soldier’s family with the equivalent of the man’s monthly income for 15 years.

Grimsley says the family receives a one-time $2,500 payment. But both Daif and Grimsley agree that applying for compensation is a complicated process that can take up to a year to complete.

In early April, 21 soldiers from Daif’s battalion were recovering at home from combat injuries. At the same time, 70 more soldiers were absent without leave on any given day, so his unit has only about 60 to 70 percent of its full strength of 750 soldiers. The lack of sufficient staffing has put a strain on the unit.

“The shortage we have is that we just don’t have enough recruited people,” Daif said. “There’s not enough pay, and there’s no hazard pay.”

An average Iraqi soldier makes around $317 per month. Hazard pay, Daif said, would nearly double soldiers’ salaries and give them more incentive to stick around. He’s also trying to get them regular vacations, because the dangerous job of patrolling day after day quickly leads to burnout and homesickness.

“The number of (absent soldiers) usually increases with any religious celebration,” Daif said. “Also, when people get paid, they go back home to give the money to their family. And then there are irresponsible people.”

In the all-volunteer new Iraqi army, even if soldiers disappear for more than the seven-day grace period they get before being considered deserters, penalties are light — they simply lose their salary and position.

Inefficiency and corruption add to the organizational problems at the ministry.

“I’ve been here three months, and I haven’t been paid yet,” said Ferahz Zaydan, a newcomer to the unit. “Supposedly, this month I will get paid. But I’m still here, fighting the insurgents.”

Hussein, the injured Iraqi soldier, is still living on the Iraqi army base that is in the midst of a $30 million American-funded reconstruction. He will continue to receive his monthly wages for as long as he remains in the army. Beyond that, everything is uncertain.

“Even if I can get out of the army, I still can’t find a job outside,” he said. “My arm and leg are messed up, and I can’t move my wrist and fingers. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Some Iraqi Collaborator Soldiers Mutiny;
Others Just Quit;
“I Think That All The Soldiers Will Go Home And Not Come Back”

[Thanks to Mark Shapiro, who sent this in.]

June 11, 2006 By Andrew Tilghman, Stars and Stripes

HADITHA, Iraq

Iraqi soldiers in Al Anbar province are leaving their army in droves, draining much-needed manpower from fledgling Iraqi security forces and preventing U.S. troops from reducing troop strength in the volatile region, U.S. and Iraqi military officials say.

Lousy living conditions, bad food and failure to receive regular pay are the main reasons behind the exodus, which is running at least several hundred soldiers a month, the officials say.

“Many of my soldiers have not gotten paid in six months. Sometimes, they don’t eat for two or three days at a time. I tell my commander, but what else am I supposed to do?” said Lt. Moktat Uosef, a 29-year-old Iraqi army company commander based in Husaybah.

Uosef’s brigade is one of the most troubled. The 4th Brigade of the 7th Iraqi Army Division has lost nearly half its soldiers during the past six months, dropping from 2,200 troops in December to fewer than 1,400 in May, according to Marines who work with the Iraqi unit.

In Haditha, the Iraqi army brigade has been losing about 100 soldiers a month, dropping from more than 2,000 at the beginning of the year to fewer than 1,600 in May, Marines said.

Logistics has been the Iraqi army’s primary problem here. The Iraqis complain most about the persistent problems with food and pay rather than the bouts of combat and casualties.

The problem came to a head in April, when hundreds of Iraqi soldiers in western Iraq went “on strike” and, under orders from lower-level officers, refused to go out on patrol or stand guard at the many bases they share with the Marines.

The Iraqi soldiers’ refusal to work strained their relationship with some Marines, who in turn refused them access to the televisions and gyms that the troops typically share at small bases.

The “strike” ended after two days, but it underscored the abysmal morale that affects many Iraqi units in the area.

Iraqi army soldiers do not sign enlistment contracts, allowing them to leave the army whenever they choose.

“You can’t call it unauthorized absence — they can just say ‘Hey, I found something better,’” Kenny said.

Morale is also strained by the fact that many of the Iraqi soldiers are from the southern, mostly Shiite, areas of Iraq, and they consider the assignment in western Anbar to be the most dangerous, remote and unpleasant posting in the country.

Uosef, who lives with dozens of Iraqi troops at a small patrol base near the Syrian border, said his soldiers are brave and eager to fight when needed. But the day-to-day living could prove to be the Army’s fatal flaw.

“It’s a big problem,” Uosef said. “If nobody does anything, I think that all the soldiers will go home and not come back. And without soldiers, what will we do?”

“We won’t make any real progress until we stop hemorrhaging the personnel,” said Lt. Col. Jeffrey Kenny, who commands the Marines working with the 2nd Brigade, 7th Army. [And that means never.]

Baghdad “More Insecure Now Than It Was A Few Months Ago”

June 11, 2006 By Brian Knowlton International Herald Tribune

Despite billions of dollars spent to restore electricity and bring security to Baghdad, power flows there only five to eight hours a day, and the U.S. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, said Friday that the city was “more insecure now than it was a few months ago.”

“We Would Just Go To That House At Three In The Morning”
“We’d Break The Door, And Break Everything In The House”

Jun 6 Aaron Glantz and Alaa Hassan (IPS) [Excerpt]

Joseph Hatcher served in the western Iraqi town of Dawr from February 2004 until March last year. He said his cultural training before deployment consisted of a three-hour class and a pamphlet he was given.

“It’s just here’s where you are on a map, because you’d be surprised how many people don’t know that,” Hatcher told IPS.

“The only language training we received was a hand-out flip book type flyer which was how to say things like ‘go down on your hands and knees’ and ‘don’t resist’. We didn’t learn how to make any kind of conversation.”

During his time in Iraq, Hatcher took part in many house-to-house raids similar to the one in Haditha. He said none of the members of his unit spoke Arabic, and usually they went in without a translator.

“We would use very little language at all in house raids,” he said.. “You point a barrel of a gun at somebody and pull them to the ground. It’s fairly standard. There’s no way to know if you’re getting anyone of value.. You just arbitrarily raid an entire block.”

Salam al-Amidi worked as translator for the U.S. military in the northern city of Mosul, which has been controlled by insurgents for over a year. He said he was the only translator for more than 5,000 U.S. troops.

He said the U.S. military relies mostly on paid informants in deciding which houses to raid.

“Maybe that person wanted revenge on that family and came and told us that he saw someone selling weapons. We would just go to that house at three in the morning, we’d break the door, and break everything in the house.”

MORE:

“In the States, if police burst into your house, kicking down doors and swearing at you, you would call your lawyer and file a lawsuit,” said Wood, 42, from Iowa, who did not accompany Halladay’s Charlie Company, from his battalion, on Thursday’s raid. “Here, there are no lawyers. Their resources are limited, so they plant IEDs (improvised explosive devices) instead.”

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

U.S. OCCUPATION RECRUITING DRIVE IN HIGH GEAR;
RECRUITING FOR THE ARMED RESISTANCE THAT IS:
Bush Regime Tells Iraqis They Intend Occupy Their Country Forever

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

Jun 9 By Richard Cowan, Reuters

Congressional Republicans killed a provision in an Iraq war funding bill that would have put the United States on record against the permanent basing of U.S. military facilities in that country, a lawmaker and congressional aides said on Friday.

As originally passed by the House of Representatives, the Pentagon would have been prohibited from spending any of the funds for entering into a military basing rights agreement with Iraq.

A similar amendment passed by the Senate said the Pentagon could not use the next round of war funding to “establish permanent United States military bases in Iraq, or to exercise United States control over the oil infrastructure or oil resources of Iraq.”

The Bush administration has said it does not want to place any artificial timelines on a U.S. presence in Iraq and that it wants to begin withdrawing troops when Iraqi security forces are better able to protect the country. But it has not ruled out permanent bases in Iraq.

“The perception that the U.S. intends to occupy Iraq indefinitely is fueling the insurgency and making our troops more vulnerable,” said Rep. Barbara Lee (news, bio, voting record), a California Democrat who won House approval of her amendment on permanent bases.

“The House and Senate went on record opposing permanent bases, but now the Republicans are trying to sneak them back in the middle of the night,” Lee said.

[Thanks to N, who sent this in. He writes: Here’s a true “no-brainer”, by Steve Bell, in response to the plea of ignorance over the CIA’s rendition flights.]

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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