BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

A weary U.S. soldier at the scene of a car bomb attack in Baghdad, February 3, 2005. (Stringer/Reuters)

1st ID Encounters 3,400 IEDs In Baghdad Since 1.1.06:
U.S. General Says Only 2,108 Detonated “Thanks To Tips, Training And Better Equipment”

Jun 16 AFP

Iraqi insurgents are using new “pop and drop” bombs that are quickly set down in the path of US or Iraqi forces, a US commander said.

Major General James Thurman, commander of multinational forces in the Baghdad area, said US forces have been effective in spotting and countering the new improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

“It’s where they put down some form of an explosive very quickly, thrown out of a car, that’s thrown out there, and we encounter it,” he said.

Since his US Army 4th Infantry Division troops deployed in the Baghdad area in January, they have encountered 3,400 IEDs, the general said.

US troops encountered 814 IEDs in the Baghdad area last month, but 38 percent were detected before they exploded thanks to tips, training and better equipment, he said.

[Lord Cornwallis reported today that of the 9,763 artillery shells fired by George Washington’s terrorist army against his forces in the Yorktown Green Zone, 38% have failed to explode.]

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

One U. Soldier Killed, Two MIA After Attack At Yusufiyah Checkpoint

June 16, 2006 KATU TV & 06/17/06 By Ibon Villelabeitia, Reuters

A soldier in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq was killed and two others were missing after an attack on a checkpoint southwest of Baghdad on Friday, the U.S. military said.

The attacked took place around 8 p.m. near the town of Yusufiyah, about 12 miles southwest of Baghdad.

“After hearing small arms fire and explosions in the vicinity of the checkpoint, a quick reaction force responded to the scene,” a military statement said. “Coalition forces have initiated a search operation to locate and determine the status of the soldiers.”

The statement didn’t provide any other information and the U.S. military in Iraq couldn’t immediately be reached.

U.S. military helicopters and divers searched for the two U.S. soldiers.

Teams of divers were working the canals and Euphrates river near Yusufiya, a rural area which has seen fierce fighting between U.S. forces and al Qaeda militants.

Local Marine Is Killed

June 7, 2006 By Jeff Long, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporter Kayce T. Ataiyero contributed to this report

Ryan Cummings signed the papers needed to enlist as a Marine on Sept. 10, 2001. The terrorist attacks the next morning only hardened the 17-year-old Streamwood youth’s resolve to serve his country, said his father, John.

“He was more gung-ho than ever that he did the right thing,” his father recalled Tuesday, as he mourned his son’s death in Iraq. “He said that was his sign that he did the right thing,” said Cummings’ stepmother, Melissa.

Cummings, 22, died Saturday after being wounded while on patrol in the Al Anbar province of Iraq, said the Department of Defense and family members in Crystal Lake, where he spent his boyhood. An improvised bomb exploded and his vehicle rolled over, said Marine Master Sgt. Reginald Ingraham.

Cummings lived in Crystal Lake until he was about 8, then moved to Streamwood with his mother after his parents divorced.

He graduated in 2002 from Hoffman Estates High School, where he earned straight A’s and played the French horn, family members said.

When he signed the papers to join the Marines, his recruiting sergeant told Cummings his test scores were good enough for any assignment he wanted, his family said.

He chose the infantry, a decision that worried his family.

“He said, `If you’re going to be a Marine, you have to be in the infantry. Because that’s what a Marine stands for,’” his father said. “He wanted to see combat. He wanted to see action.”

Family members said Cummings also was involved in relief efforts after the 2004 tsunami and helped build a medical facility in Africa during another tour, as well serving short stints in Iraq.

He volunteered to return to Iraq for a third tour of duty, which began in February.

Due home in August, Cummings was scheduled to leave the Marines in November and begin studying engineering in January at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“I was always afraid for him,” said Cummings’ brother Jason, 13. “Because I knew he was going to get killed if he was in the infantry.”

Although he was an excellent student, with a sharp wit and quick mind, Cummings craved the discipline of the military, his father said. And it worked.

Also surviving are his mother, Janice; another brother, Kevin; and a sister, Kristen.

2nd Shooting Kills Avon Soldier

June 9, 2006 By Jon Murray, IndyStar

Staff Sgt. Richard Blakley expected to meet his younger brother in Iraq this fall as his yearlong tour ended and his brother’s began.

Instead, Spc. Nathan Schauwecker, 20, will meet his big brother’s casket at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and escort it back home to Indiana. Blakley, a 34-year-old medic in the Indiana National Guard, died Tuesday after his patrol came under small-arms fire in a town west of Baghdad.

Blakley grew up in Hendricks County, graduated from Avon High School and lived there with his wife, Patricia, and two children, Whitney, 11, and Richard Jr., 9. Blakley’s two brothers and two sisters range in age from 17 to 32. Funeral arrangements were pending Thursday.

He was the 66th soldier, sailor or Marine with Hoosier ties to die in the Iraq war.

In civilian life, Blakley was a journeyman millwright, putting together machinery and heavy equipment. An avid Colts fan, he always wore a team T-shirt on game days — even if he was on patrol.

Janice Schauwecker said she was nervous when her son volunteered to go to Iraq. She is equally uneasy about Nathan’s upcoming tour with an Army unit — but supports their decisions.

“Rick always wanted to do what he wanted to do,” said Schauwecker, 53. “He was so proud of being a soldier and doing the best job he could — not just to be a soldier, but to be a good soldier.”

Blakley called her and other relatives frequently, making his last call to his mother Monday. Each week since he left for Iraq in September, she sent him a package with anything he requested.

Sgt. 1st Class Gerald Karn of the Indiana National Guard got the call Tuesday telling him he’d be helping to notify a family of sad news, but he discovered the slain soldier was his friend of 14 years only during the car ride to tell Patricia Blakley.

“It’s the hardest and the worst thing I’ve had to do in 21 years of the military,” said Karn, 43. He helps oversee the readiness of Blakley’s home unit, Company E of the 38th Main Support Battalion, based at Stout Field in Indianapolis.

Karn and the other casualty notification officer told Blakley’s wife, then drove to the homes of Janice Schauwecker and Blakley’s father, James Blakley, both of whom are remarried and live in the Avon area.

Blakley served in Iraq with the Monticello-based 738th Area Support Medical Company. He was on patrol in Al-Khalidiyah when he was killed.

Blakley joined the Indiana Guard out of high school in 1989 and volunteered to serve in the Persian Gulf War and at U.S. ports in 2003 and 2004.

“It was just who he was,” Karn said. “He wanted to be where the action was. He wanted to help people as a medic.”

Patricia Blakley said her husband was “the strongest person I’ve ever known in my life.”

“He always made sure he was taking (care) of everybody that he loved,” whether family members or soldiers, she said.

During a two-week leave in March, Janice Schauwecker said, Blakley had birthday parties for his son and daughter.

Stout Graduate Injured By Roadside Bomb

06/16/06 By Sarah Ryder, Reporter, The Dunn County News

A local member of the United States Navy was injured in Iraq by a roadside bomb while riding in a Humvee on Monday.

Dean Berlin, 34, of Rock Falls is serving his ninth year as a Seabee reserve. His unit, based out of Minneapolis, was activated in January. After two months training in California, Berlin was sent to Iraq in March and has been stationed there ever since.

Berlin is suffering from a broken shoulder blade and four cracked vertebrae.

“He is quite sore. We’re thankful of the condition he is in,” his father, Cecil Berlin, said.

The Navy Seabee was scheduled to depart from a U.S. military hospital in Germany on Friday, but his flight was delayed. Instead, he will leave on Sunday and will be brought to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. On Monday, he will depart from Andrews and arrive in San Diego, Calif.

On Saturday morning, Cecil Berlin, along with his son’s wife, Amy, and the couple’s four daughters, are flying out to California. “We’ll be in San Diego when he gets there,” Berlin’s father said. “When he arrives, the doctors will give us more of a report.”

The last time the father and son talked was on Monday, when the family learned of Berlin’s accident. Since his accident, Berlin has talked with various members of the close-knit family. [Getting blown up by an IED is not a fucking “accident.”]

“He has good spirit and seems to be doing quite well, considering he was hit by a bomb,” his father said. [Somebody understands.]

Berlin’s father has witnessed military conflict firsthand while stationed on the water during the Korean conflict from 1951 to 1954.

Berlin graduated with an education degree from the University of Wisconsin-Stout in 2003.

He was employed by the Eau Claire school district and taught at South Middle School in 2004 and was a substitute at Memorial High School in 2005.

Titusville Soldier Injured

Spc. Nick King

June 05 By KAREN CLARK, The Derrick

A Titusville man serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq was injured Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded under the truck he was driving.

Spc. Nick King, son of Gary and Cheri Finlan of Dairy Street and the late Daniel King, escaped with mild injuries following the early morning mishap.

King’s truck was leading a convoy of more than 60 vehicles transporting fuel and explosives in northern Iraq when the roadside bomb went off, according to Cheri Finlan.

“From what I understand, they always try to get the (truck) in front, so that stops the rest of the convoy. After they hit the IED (improvised explosive device), their vehicle caught on fire and rolled a couple of times. They were medi-vaced out of there right away by a helicopter flying with the convoy,” Finlan said.

King, part of the 828th Quartermaster Company, 3rd platoon, was released from the hospital Sunday night and returned to his base at an undisclosed location.

“There were three in his truck. Nick has a head injury, one had a broken arm and the other one had a leg injury. He’s sore and bruised, but he’s all right,” Finlan said.

The Finlans received a phone call at 5:20 a.m. Saturday informing them of their son’s accident.

“I tried to be really calm. I was OK until I talked to him and then it was overwhelming. Of course, he says, ‘Mom, I’ll get a Purple Heart.’ I’m just glad he’s OK,” Finlan said.

Since the initial call, details of the situation have been gleaned in bits and pieces from King and others.

“The road was completely destroyed after the bomb went off. From what Nick says, there are smaller bombs that sometimes hit the trucks and just break the windshields, but this was a big one,” Finlan said.

King enlisted in the delayed entry program in the fall of 2003. He reported for basic training in the spring of 2004, and was deployed to Iraq last August. His tour in Iraq is scheduled for completion in January.

Logansport Marine Wounded

06/15/2006 WLFI-TV

A US Marine from Logansport was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq. 22-year-old Lance Corporal Mitchell Jensen was injured Monday night when an explosion rocked the vehicle he was in near Fallujah.

Jensen’s father, David Jensen, says Mitchell suffered injuries to his legs, foot and arm. He is now undergoing treatment in a medical center in Germany.

“He’s happy-go-lucky, joking, he’s got other guys cracking up. He doesn’t seem to be so concerned like we are. It’s great to hear his voice. It’s like somebody tells him to call me, and he does, and I feel better,” said David Jensen.

Lance Corporal Jensen called his family on Thursday. He told them he is scheduled to be in Maryland by Sunday.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

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.

U.S. marines from the I Marine Expeditionary Force take their position near colored smokes to cover their movement during a firefight with insurgents in Ramadi June 15, 2006. REUTERS/Petty Officer 2nd Class Samuel C. Peterson/Handout (IRAQ)

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

“As The Coalition Claimed New Successes, It Lost Two U.S. Troops”

Jun 17 by Nasrat Shoib, AFP News & By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer

As the coalition claimed new successes, it lost two US troops in Asadabad district, eastern Kunar province, when a patrol vehicle struck a bomb in the road as they were conducting a security sweep of the area, the coalition said.

Afghan and coalition forces conducted a raid on a Taliban compound near Tarin Kowt, the capital of Uruzgan, killing five insurgents, the military said. They also seized about eight pounds of opium.

One U.S. soldier was wounded in the raid. He was later listed in stable condition.

Australian Soldier Wounded

June 16, 2006 ABC

An Australia soldier has been injured while on duty in Afghanistan.

The soldier, who was serving with the Special Forces Task Group, was wounded during an engagement with militia.

Defence Force Chief Air Marshal Angus Houston says the soldier was initially treated by his colleagues. He was evacuated to a coalition medical facility where he was operated on.

The soldier has since returned to Australia for ongoing medical treatment.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) will not release details on who the soldier is, how he was injured or the nature of his injuries.

“A U.S. Base Erected In The Middle Of Nowhere”
“There’s No Doubt That Taliban Fighters Are Watching The Base”

U.S. soldiers take cover after a Chinook helicopter dropped them off at “a U.S. base erected in the middle of nowhere” outside the village of Musa Qala, Helmand Province June 17, 2006. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Jun 16 By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer [Excerpts]

A week ago, this spot of land outside the village of Musa Qala was nothing but a barren, dusty patch of desert, seemingly devoid of value.

By Thursday it was a bustling outpost protected by 105 mm howitzers, sniper riflemen and a growing wall of sand; a U.S. base erected in the middle of nowhere to support an offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan’s volatile south.

The sand here is so fine it blows everywhere and covers everything. A nonstop wind cakes soldiers in dust, and the daily temperature nears 110 degrees.

Sgt. Ryan McIntosh’s opinion of his new home is in line with most of the soldiers’ here.

“Think of the worst place you can think of and times that by 50,” said McIntosh, a heavy equipment adviser from Delta, Ohio.

Lt. Col. Chris Toner, the commanding officer, said the base will house supplies, “food, fuel and ammunition,” to help support Operation Mountain Thrust, a new offensive against Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan.

“I’ve got everything I need here to conduct sustained operations,” he said.

The outpost is 180 miles from the nearest permanent base in Kandahar, a huge distance, Toner said. It’s about 5 miles outside Musa Qala, a small village in northern Helmand province where Taliban fighters have been active.

The distance “is very extreme, but it allows me to operate out of here and extend my reach,” he said.

Toner said there’s no doubt that Taliban fighters are watching the base. Howitzer cannons fire rounds into the desert night; harassment fire, in military terms.

“We do it so they know it’s here and they know it could be pretty bad for them,” said Lt. Col. Chris Toner, commanding officer at the base located 180 miles from the nearest permanent base in Kandahar.

“This terrain up here favors the defender. I’m sure they know how many vehicles we have here, that we have artillery here, but that’s OK I know what they know.”

There is a surgeon in the small first aid tent, and a makeshift kitchen prepares breakfast and dinner. But there is no running water, and soldiers slept under the stars for the first couple of days here, covering themselves in sleeping bags to hide from the blowing sand.

More than a dozen Humvees ring the camp’s exterior, providing a security cordon until soldiers finish building an 8-foot-high wall of sand around the camp.

The base is surrounded by miles of flat desert interrupted by rocky mountain peaks. A patrol of 11 Humvees scouted a peak only a couple of miles from the base earlier this week that could be used as high ground by militant fighters.

The patrol wound its way through dry riverbeds and desert plains, broken only by the occasional mudbrick home.

The soldiers waved to the locals, and although many wave back in other parts of the country, they did not here.

Halfway around the mountain, someone spots what appears to be a manmade cave, perhaps 500 feet up the 1,600-foot mountain.

Before Lt. Will Felder, the platoon leader, hikes up the hill with five soldiers, he makes a prediction of what they’ll find: “Probably nothing.”

The soldiers, weighed down by more than 50 pounds of gear, hike up the steep, rocky ledges until they find the “cave,” a dark spot of rock hidden among shadows.

“It was a waste of time,” Felder says on the way down. “Unfortunately, the thing is, if there had been someone in there, they could pretty much see the entire valley, which is our approach to base camp.”

MORE:

Now For Reality:
U.S. Sgt. Killed At Musa Qala

June 16, 2006 U.S. Department of Defense News Release No. 559-06

Sgt. Roger P. Pena Jr., 29, of San Antonio, Texas, died in Musa Qulah, Afghanistan, on June 14, when his convoy came under enemy small arms fire during combat operations. Pena was assigned to the 10th Sustainment Brigade, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.

WELCOME TO MUSA QALA:
HAVE A NICE DAY

Army Times

Assorted Resistance Action

6.16.06 ABC & Jun 17 by Nasrat Shoib, AFP News & By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer

Two men employed by a Turkish road construction company were killed when a bomb exploded under their vehicle in south-western Nimroz province.

An Afghan man contracted to the UN de-mining agency was killed in another bomb blast on a vehicle in the same province, a spokeswoman for the organisation said.

A bomb blast in Kandahar city killed 10 Afghans on Thursday, most of them employees of the US-led coalition.

On Saturday a bomber with explosives strapped to his body blew himself up near an Afghan army vehicle in the southwestern province of Nimroz.

The attack wounded three civilians and two soldiers, an official said.

Four highway policemen were killed in southern Kandahar province when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle, provincial officials said.

“WHEN WAR’S OUTCOME IS IN DOUBT, USE THE GOOD OLD BODY COUNT!”

[Thanks to PB, who sent this in. He writes: NEW PENTAGON MODUS OPERANDI: WHEN WAR’S OUTCOME IS IN DOUBT, USE THE GOOD OLD BODY COUNT!]

Jun 17 By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer

Coalition forces pressed forward with a major offensive in southern Afghanistan, killing an estimated 45 insurgents in attacks on two Taliban militant camps, military officials said Saturday.

Earlier this week, coalition forces said they killed an estimated 40 militants in a remote, mountainous area of southeastern Paktika province in operations in support of Mountain Thrust.

TROOP NEWS

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

The casket of Sgt. Daniel Robert Gionet during the military graveside service at Gibson Cemetery in Pelham, N.H., June 16, 2006. Gionet, a newlywed and Army medic, was killed June 4 when an explosion hit his tank in Taji, Iraq. He was 23. (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter)

“One Of The Least-Told Stories Of The Vietnam War Is That Of The Antiwar Struggle Within The American Military”

June 16, 2006 Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe

One of the least-told stories of the Vietnam War is that of the antiwar struggle within the American military.

The current presumption is that war protests started on college campuses, but they were actually sparked by the soldiers themselves.

Disillusioned by, among other things, the enormity of their orders, the soldiers started the GI Movement. They printed newsletters, mounted protests against the war they were fighting, and even deserted — according to the Pentagon, more than half a million soldiers did — galvanizing a larger antiwar movement.

David Zeiger’s sobering documentary “Sir! No Sir!” recounts the struggles of the men and women who audaciously challenged the American government and its reasons for remaining in Southeast Asia for so long.

The movie features astounding archival footage: news reports, documentary interviews, and combat footage (the film opens with the jarring, slowed-down image of a village bombing campaign). It also catches up with dozens of antiwar veterans who recall their involvement with the GI Movement. They share crisp memories of their awakenings, their actions, and the government’s reactions.

A Navy nurse was arrested after she flew a plane over military bases in San Francisco that dropped antiwar leaflets, two black soldiers were given eight to 10 years for attempting to organize a discussion group that asked whether black soldiers should be participating in the war, and hundreds of other soldiers were jailed for any number of reasons.

Decades later, the veterans Zeiger talks to still seem completely astonished, shell-shocked as it were, by both the confusing scope of the war itself and by their ability to resist it.

As it happens, Zeiger was part of the Movement, too. He worked as a civilian in one of the many antiwar coffee shops that sprang up on military bases around the country and served as havens for dissenting soldiers. (His was the Oleo Strut in Killeen, Texas.)

Zeiger helped put together demonstrations in the 1960s and ‘70s, and his participation affords ``Sir! No Sir!” an authenticity that’s both personal and political. He also has such awesome access to so many people and so many facets of the war that it warps the structure of his movie and makes it hard to absorb.

In less than 90 minutes, Zeiger gives us a staggering overview that you wish he’d been allowed to extend, perhaps as a documentary miniseries.

That way he could explore all this information rather than drive by it.

We get glassy-eyed reminiscences from Jane Fonda, who along with Donald Sutherland formed a troupe that performed irreverent but emotional cabaret for the troops. (Fonda’s son, Troy Garity , narrates the film.)

We hear about the stark moral Catch -22s in which soldiers found themselves.

We get a cogent debunking of the cultural misperception that there hadn’t ever been an antiwar strain within the military, brilliantly capped by a comical clip of Sylvester Stallone in “Rambo” railing against civilian antiwar activism.

A lot of the film is roughly assembled, but on the movie’s website Zeiger implies that his 84-minute movie is just a version, and perhaps he’s working on something longer.

In any case, ``Sir! No Sir!” is a valiant enterprise.

Like last year’s re release, ``Winter Soldier,” a film of the informal but crucial Vietnam hearings mounted by antiwar soldiers, Zeiger’s movie is a timely salute to the risky and brave men and women who had the temerity not only to think for themselves but to speak their minds.

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

NEED SOME TRUTH?
CHECK OUT THE NEW 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)

1. Iraq GI says: “Iraqis are not the threat or the enemy. We are the threat and the enemy to them.” www.traveling-soldier.org/7.06.enemy.php

2. Laughin’, Cryin’, Livin’, Dyin’, Hee Haw! Who’s the jackass now? – a reprint from Vietnam GI on the original Haditha: My Lai. www.traveling-soldier.org/7.06.VGI.php

3. “Soldiers Have Become More Vocal In Expressing Their Opinions Against The War” – a report from the anti-war group Military Project. www.traveling-soldier.org/7.06.MPreport.php

4. Iraq vet: “Bush has shredded the Constitution and killed over 2,200 good soldiers.” www.traveling-soldier.org/7.06.Harmon.php

5. “It would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq” – Dick Cheney. A reprint of Cheney’s words of wisdom. www.traveling-soldier.org/7.06.Cheney.php

6. Words from the front-lines. www.traveling-soldier.org/7.06.words.php

7. Download issue 13 to print and distribute. www.traveling-soldier.org/TS13.pdf

Endless War Deployments Ahead For Guard And Reserves

June 19, 2006 By Rick Maze, Army Times staff writer [Excerpt]

The current demands of military service on reservists, their families and employers are unsustainable given the structure of the reserve components, according to a preliminary report from a congressional commission.

“I really do believe we have the most complex security environment we have ever seen,” said retired Marine Reserve Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro, chairman of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves. The commission has been given one year to come up with recommendations on how to update reserve component force structure and its place in the nation’s security strategy.

Punaro said he does not see any way to eliminate the need to mobilize Guard and reserve members for long periods of time to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan.

But he worries that extended and multiple call-ups will result in problems for reservists, their families and their employers. [No shit?]

In Heartland Central Illinois,
“We Realize That Support For Keeping U.S. Troops In Iraq Is Weak”

June 15, 2006 KATHY KELLY, CounterPunch [Excerpt]

In the towns that we visit, here in Central IL, I don’t think many people are thinking much about small town Iraq. Some people firmly believe the U.S. war in Iraq is necessary. “Gotta fight ‘em there or they’ll attack us here,” a trucker told us, leaning out of his window, “I wish we would have just dropped a big bomb and done the job.”

But while we walk along the road, we realize that support for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq is weak. “Thumbs up” signs, friendly waves, and encouraging honks far outnumber the negative responses to our placards that say “End Iraq War” and “Rebuild the U.S. Rebuild Iraq”

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.

Fuck The Troops’ Pay Raise:
Congressional Crooks Need Their Pork

June 19, 2006 Army Times Editorial

In a cheap and short-sighted move, a House panel has decided not to approve the $300 million needed to bump up the Bush administration’s proposed 2007 minimum military pay raise.

The proposed hike of 2.2 percent would match average private-sector wage growth, but it would be the lowest annual pay hike in 14 years and would not even keep pace with inflation.

To its credit, the House Armed Services Committee felt troops deserved more at a time when they continue to die in war zones at the rate of two to three a day.

So the committee approved a 2.7 percent raise, hardly enough to make anyone rich, but enough to continue whittling the gap between military and private-sector pay, still at almost 5 percent. Just as important, it would be a symbolic recognition of the wartime sacrifices being made by our troops.

What rankles most about the pay-raise rejection is that the defense bill is routinely stuffed with wasteful pork projects that total far more than $300 million.

Details of the still-evolving 2007 defense funding bill are not available, but a small sample of items that appropriators added to this year’s funding bill, none requested by the Pentagon, boggles the mind:

• $8 million for breathalyzers.
• $5.6 million for California’s Ernest Gallo Research Clinic to study “the effects of alcohol and drug abuse on the brain.”
• $1 million for a distance-learning initiative at a private Utah college with no discernible ties to the military.

The defense bill is brimming with such nonsense. A few million here, a few million there, and soon you’re talking real money, a staggering $14.9 billion in pork, according to the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste.

When the 2007 defense bill is debated on the House floor, someone on the armed services committee should ask why a fair pay raise for the troops ranks below such critical programs as winery grants, breathalyzers and distance-learning programs on our nation’s priority list.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action

15 June 2006 Aljazeera & AFP News & Pakistan News Service & June 17 (KUNA)

An Iraqi group says it has abducted a Turkish technical expert and his translator and are demanding the withdrawal of Ankara’s ambassador from Iraq.

The Imam Ali Brigade gave the Turkish government a week to meet its demands, which included “banning Turkish companies from ferrying material to US bases in Iraq”.

Video footage from the group aired by Aljazeera on Thursday showed the alleged hostage against a wall and holding up an identity document. He was named as Hasan Eskinutlu. The nationality of the translator was not specified

An Iraqi army soldier was shot dead by guerrillas in the northern town of Hawija.

Three Iraqi policemen were wounded when four mortar rounds landed at about 7:00 a.m. (0300 GMT) on a police station of Ameriyat al-Fallujah town, 7 km south of Fallujah, the source said.

An Iraqi police source in Mosul told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that three Iraqi soldiers were killed when an explosive device targeted a military patrol in Talafar in western Mosul.

In a similar attack, three Iraqi policemen were wounded in a blast that targeted a police patrol in the village of Tal Abtah.

A policeman was killed and two others were wounded due to militants fire near the area of Mahalabiya in western Mosul.

A car bomb, targeted an Iraqi army-police patrol in central Baghdad around 11 a.m. One Iraqi soldier was killed and 15 people were wounded, including eight soldiers and three police.

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“Why Did The British Have To Leave India?”
“In The Bombay Mutiny Their Fleet Rose Against Them”
“They Had Lost The Control Over Their Army”

Al-Intiqad’s Interview With Swedish Activist And Writer Jan Myrdal

Imperialism will in the long run not be able to sustain itself. It conducts its wars on borrowed money.

Intiqad.com/english/ [Excerpts]

Summary: Jan Myrdal, born in 1927, is one of the most renowned intellectuals and writers in Sweden in the last 40 years and is also an important voice in Leftist circles in Western Europe.

Jan Myrdal has earned himself a name as a writer engaged in questions concerning the Third World, National Liberation struggles, anti-imperialism, as a vehement critic of the US so called “War against Terrorism”, and also as a writer engaged on issues of freedom of speech and intellectual freedom. Jan Myrdal has written 80 books and countless of articles on this and other subjects and has on several occasions been confronted by the repressive forces of the Zionist thought police.

Jan Myrdal stems from a family who has made huge imprints in modern Swedish society: his father Gunnar Myrdal was a professor of International Economics, Minister of Commerce and a Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences in 1974 (sharing the so called “Nobel Prize of Economics”). Jan Myrdal’s mother Alva Myrdal, on the other hand, was also a politician, top ranking UN diplomat and peace activist, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982. The elder Myrdal couple were also something of the founding fathers of the visions of the Social-Democratic Party, the leading political party in Sweden.

It is a great honour to present Al-Intiqad’s exclusive interview with Jan Myrdal, where he to our readers speaks out on important current issues such as the Palestinian question, the imperialist schemes against the Middle East and the Moslem world, and the need to resist these strategies.

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JAN MYRDAL: Where there is oppression people will rise in revolt. The ideologies will be different according to the time and the history but if people are oppressed they will react and revolt and their struggle will be just.

Today in many countries of the world – especially in Asia – Moslem or Islamic ideology has become a driving force in the popular resistance against oppression. The situation and thus the ideologies were different for the patriots of Europe or China during the second World War. But then as now: To revolt against oppression is just.

I believe that you will ultimately prove successful. Imperialism will in the long run not be able to sustain itself. It conducts its wars on borrowed money. In the long run theirs is a no-win situation. Though the run can be long!

AL-INTIQAD: You once said in a speech that if you cannot win outright over an occupation force, at least you should try to make the occupation uncomfortable for the oppressor.

JAN MYRDAL: Yes, this is true. Let us take the reason why it is correct to struggle in a situation where it is not immediately profitable. You can take a simple situation from European history; during the Second World War, you had the “Résistance” – de Gaulle and others – in France. They struggled with popular support but without strong military means. Then you had the really militarily strong Allied invasion in Normandy in 1944.

The United States had already printed occupation money for a France liberated by the Allies. France was going to become a minor European state under United States suzerainty. Then de Gaulle managed by nearly a “coup” to re-establish the independent French state when the Allies allowed him to step ashore in Normandy.

After that de Gaulle and the Communists agreed that the population of Paris had to liberate themselves, in armed struggle. The Americans said that it was not necessary. The Allied armies would do it. But de Gaulle and the Communists organised the armed rising in Paris, many people were killed. One can say that if the Parisians had been sitting quietly on their bottoms they would have been liberated anyway by the Americans. Thus many would have survived. But in a subordinate France!

In the rising of 1944 many died, others were disabled, but the French liberated Paris by themselves and went on to fight against the German forces and France thus exists today as a nation.

AL-INTIQAD: The Palestinians are fighting for a democratic state, also the Islamists envision that; a state with equal rights where Moslems, Christians and Jews can live. Israel is not for a democratic state. Should this be accepted? Should the Palestinians just capitulate to the stronger part and accept this Apartheid state?

JAN MYRDAL: The decision what the Palestinian people should do must be in the hands of the Palestinian people. They can get support from abroad, also from us in Europe, but they have to decide.

The demand for a democratic state with equal rights where Moslems, Christians and Jews can live is one that before 1948 had strong support from the circles I grew up in. It still seems to me the only solution for a peaceful development in the region. But how to reach that aim, to decide which struggles that are necessary, must be for the Palestinian people to decide.

AL-INTIQAD: How come it is the Islamists that today carry the torch of resistance against the world hegemony, against different forms of domination, imperialism and neo-colonialism?

JAN MYRDAL: This is an important question.

The United States imperialism has long been a direct threat to the interests of the peoples in different parts of the world. Take the Philippines as an example. The United States occupation was a focal point for the anti-imperialist movement a century ago. The indigenous Christians struggled against that.

Mark Twain wrote about it (the United States soldiers tortured Christian priests in the same horrible way they now torture Moslems).

Now, due to a popular struggle the United States has had to leave their bases. The struggle still goes on. It has thus kept on for many, many generations under different slogans, partly armed, partly political.

In Bolivia the ideologies behind the struggle for liberation from United States imperialism have other roots. In many parts of Latin America the Christian Liberation Theology has – as Castro said – played a positive role against the rule of United States imperialism.

All this can be analysed just as the behaviour of the different classes in society can be analysed.

In many countries in what is called the Third World the middle class, the “bourgeoisie”, they too want to have independence.

So it is a very complicated situation.

It is evident that Moslem – Islamist if you want to express it that way – groups have taken the lead in large areas of the world.

To a large part it is because important segments of the intellectual Left decayed as revolutionaries (their social background was often from the middle classes), became co-opted to the Compradore class and lost their legitimacy as representatives of the oppressed masses.

I’m of course not a Moslem and I’m not religious but I am not a liberal. I see religion as a very real and important force in society. If you go to Swedish history, you will note that the first popular democratic movements in the early 19th century were religious; Christian.

As I pointed out in Jordan, the whole structure of Swedish “Folkrörelser”, i.e. “Popular Movements”, that have shaped modern Sweden, also the Labour movement, was formed by these religious movements of the early 19th century. Most Swedes don’t realise this today, but that’s another thing.

If you go back still further, to the period of the large peasant struggles in the 15th, 16th centuries, you will see that they were successful in Sweden, Switzerland and Northern Finland. That made our countries somewhat different from the rest of Europe.

But in Germany the peasant wars were religious movements. Take a great historical figure and democratic martyr like Thomas Müntzer; he was a leader of the peasant revolution. But he was so as a religious teacher. His translation of the Bible was of importance, it was there he found his truth which drove him to lead a revolution. If I had been suddenly transferred to the 16th century and gone up to Müntzer and said; “Dear friend, I know that you are a peasant revolutionary”, he would have looked at me and said; “No, no, no. I’m fighting for God!”

I want you as Moslems to understand that from the outside – as a non-Moslem – I can se the role of an organisation like Hezbollah as mainly anti-imperialist. I can say that this is an objective reality. But I know and respect that the motivation for the anti-imperialist stance of Hezbollah is religious; the Divine Word. To say this is not to denigrate religion in any way.

AL-INTIQAD: The Zionists demand a humiliating capitulation for the Palestinians, Iraqis, Lebanese and the Afghans. To just capitulate and share the same fate as the North American native Indians – will not such a capitulation just give birth to even larger conflicts and wars?

JAN MYRDAL: I don’t think the question of capitulation exists. It is not an option. You can say that many of the feudal rulers in India in the 18th, 19th centuries accepted the British rule. In the official propaganda the British ruled peacefully until they left India out of their own will. But that is a lie!

First the British got the big war of 1857– the First War of Independence – they struck back with sadistic mass-violence.

Then there was a continuous popular struggle against British Imperialism. Gandhi was a very great historical figure. But the struggle of the Indian people was conducted by all methods – peaceful and violent.

My first father-in-law was what the British seventy-five years ago called a “Bengal Terrorist” and he had much to tell. Then in 1942 the “Quit India” Movement was both strong and extremely violent.

And why did the British five years later have to leave India, the “Crown Jewel” of their empire? Because: a) they had lost their investments during the Second World War, b) in the Bombay Mutiny their fleet rose against them, c) they had lost the control over their army.

They were not able to sentence even the leaders of the Indian National Army that Subhas Chandra Bose – Netaji – had led in war against them. The British were not able to keep India without a bloody war – that they would lose.

Hezbollah like the Afghans and the Palestinians and the Chinese, Koreans, Indians and all others before them, can not put their trust in a change of heart among the oppressors and their kin.

What will happen in Iraq?

It depends partly on how great the losses – in men and dollars – for the United States will be. You could say that every dead GI increases the possibility of a retreat. But first they will try to get their willing allies do the dirty work (see Afghanistan). At the same time the United States will try to Balkanize, incite one group against another; if they can achieve a civil war between different groups among the people of Iraq, then the US could continue making profits and their troops could stay in their cantonments for a long time to come.

One thing is to say that the United States domination is doomed, no tree grows up into heaven. Or to look to the economic side; an empire like the United States that lives on borrowed money will crash sooner or later.

One day China or Saudi Arabia or Japan will have to refuse to take paper currency without real value. As yet they are afraid to make the international monetary house of cards tumble down. But sooner or later they will have to, to protect their own interests. But to wait for that can be a long wait.

Take the experience of my generation in Europe during the Second World War. We knew from December 1941, when Hitler could not take Moscow and had to retreat, that the Third Reich was doomed – but it took a long time, many years and millions of dead before the end came.

AL-INTIQAD: The conflict is no more between Israel and Palestine, the wars that are being prepared against Syria, Iran and Lebanon have their basis in the fact that they support the resistance of the Palestinians and the Hezbollah. What are your views on these coming conflicts?

JAN MYRDAL: The United States is forced by the very momentum of the struggle for energy resources and military bases to protect these, to continue the wars.

On the other hand their military resources and their monetary base is already getting strained. It is touch and go. Which way the cat will jump is not self evident.

If the United States can blackmail the European Union to become a willing supporter it is of course possible that it extends the armed conflict to Iran and/or Syria. But it is easier to start a war than to end it.

I think they might be a little careful before they start a new war.

They made a mistake in Iraq.

They could tumble Saddam Hussein, but they have not been able to achieve a victory. If they extend the war certain people will get very rich in the United States, the Halliburton crowd, oil companies and armament industry, but many in the United States, among the pro-imperialists too, are already uneasy.

This seems not the best way to secure profits. Also their present policies lead to ever increasing contradictions between the United States and powers like Russia, and China. Even those states of the European Union that recently behaved as servile client states are getting un-easy.

What we can do in our countries that is of course to increase the knowledge of this, to increase the solidarity, strengthen the Anti-war Movement.

AL-INTIQAD: You have civil courage and say what most people dare not. Your engagement in these issues gives the Palestinians and other oppressed peoples hope. How come you are so engaged in these issues, and can you really work freely, or are they trying to restrain and censor your work?

JAN MYRDAL: I might be stubborn. That is all. Like many in my generation in Europe I had to take a stand as a young man – a boy you could say – during the Second World War.

Thus I had the good fortune to be branded as a “red” by the Swedish Security Police (and the United States embassy) even before I was eighteen; this effectually stopped me from becoming a normal loyal and serving European intellectual – even if I had wished to be one. (Which I did not!)

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.

OCCUPATION REPORT

Latest Bullshit Report

17 June 2006 Reuters

New Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who is under pressure to rein in violence that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, on Wednesday launched a much-trumpeted security sweep with 50,000 Iraqi forces backed by 7,000 U.S. troops to pile pressure on al Qaeda.

Four days into the crackdown, the Interior Ministry has not announced any arrests or other results.

Good News For The Iraqi Resistance:
More Unarmed Civilians Butchered:
“They Were Not Armed And There Were No Gunmen In The House,” Says Officer From The Joint Coordination Center”

June 15, 2006 Karen Button, Uruknet.info [Excerpt]

According to surviving family members, US troops killed three unarmed civilians, one a mentally disabled man, in their home on the evening of 4 May and then attempted to cover their tracks.

Around 5pm an IED exploded on Al-Burahman Street. Afterwards, US forces blocked the area and closed the streets. When a sniper shot at troops from a location close the Khalis family home, soldiers stormed the house.

Fifteen people were crammed into one room, huddled together for safety. According to witnesses, troops broke down the door to the house when as they raided it, and began “shooting everywhere”.

The “Americans were yelling, ‘fuck you, shut up,’” says one of the survivors, 36 year-old Shireen, whose mother, brother and sister were killed in the incident. There were mostly women and children in the room, she says.

Shireen’s mentally disabled brother, 40 year-old Khalid Zaidan Khalif, put his arms around his 66 year-old father, Zaidan Khalif Habib trying to protect him. Troops shot Khalid and then pushed the father onto the floor, says Shireen.

It all happened so fast she says that, “I couldn’t see anything, I just heard the shooting.” Her sister, 20 year-old Emam Zaidan, was holding Shireen’s 18 month-old son in her arms when the shooting began.

“After the terrible shooting was a terrible silence. I thought they killed my father. I tried to talk to my sister. She was in her last year at school, studying for her final exams. I asked her, ‘is my son ok or he is dead?’ She didn’t respond. She was slumped against the wall. I tried to touch her shoulder and my son’s clothes were filled by blood. Then I realized she was dying.”

“I tried to talk to my mother, ‘why are you laying down like this?’ I asked her. When I tried to make her sit up I saw something white hanging from her eyes. It was one of her eyes.” Sixty year-old Khairiya N’sses Jasim had also been shot, her “other eye was stuck to the wall”.

Her sister didn’t die immediately. Shireen says in her last moments Emam begged the soldiers in English to help her. They left, she says, and brought back a military doctor, but Emam died almost immediately.

After the three were killed, Shireen says, the troops apologised, saying they killed the wrong people.

According to Reuters, a spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division (which controls the area) claimed that soldiers from its 3rd Brigade Combat Team had “killed two unnamed men and a woman in a house who had ‘planned to attack the soldiers’”.

Yet, according to Iraqi police who said they witnessed the event, the civilians were unarmed.

“They were not armed and there were no gunmen in the house,” said an officer from the Joint Coordination Center, which acts as liaison between Iraqi and US security forces.

In a statement of what appears to be sheer fabrication, Master Sergeant Terry Webster of the 101st Airborne told Reuters that an injured woman who was taken from the scene “confessed that the three people killed had planned to attack the soldiers as they drove by the house.”

Instead, according to survivors, troops attempted to cover up their wrong doing by methods becoming disturbingly more common.

Shireen says before leaving, soldiers dragged her brother out into the corridor, shot him in the chest three more times, placed a gun next to his legs to make it appear he was armed, and then took pictures.

[Fair is fair. Let’s bring 150,000 Iraqis over here to the USA. They can kill people at checkpoints, bust into their houses with force and violence, butcher their families, overthrow the government, put a new one in office they like better and call it “sovereign,” and “detain” anybody who doesn’t like it in some prison without any charges being filed against them, or any trial.]

[Those Iraqis are sure a bunch of backward primitives. They actually resent this help, have the absurd notion that it’s bad their country is occupied by a foreign military dictatorship, and consider it their patriotic duty to fight and kill the soldiers sent to grab their country. What a bunch of silly people. How fortunate they are to live under a military dictatorship run by George Bush. Why, how could anybody not love that? You’d want that in your home town, right? T]

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

Notes From A Defeated Occupation::
A Battalion Of Troops And Several Hundred Mercenaries Required To Provide Security For U.S. Civilian Advisers Outside The Green Zone”

June 19, 2006 By Gordon Trowbridge, Army Times staff writer [Excerpt]

The military should not expect more help from the State Department in addressing Iraq’s chronic economic and political problems, a top diplomat said June 6.

Commanders in Iraq often say that the State Department and other federal agencies should send more manpower and resources to the country, and a number of outside analysts have said civilian agencies are not doing their part.

But Ambassador James Jeffrey, State Department coordinator for Iraq policy, said putting more civilian experts on the ground is neither possible nor necessary.

The problem, he said, is that this would require tens of thousands more military personnel to provide security for them, “and that’s a very big issue.”

Jeffrey said a battalion of troops, along with several hundred security contractors, is required to provide security for roughly 100 Baghdad-based civilian advisers when they travel outside the capital’s heavily fortified Green Zone.

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

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