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

Empty Boots;
To Brian, My Beloved Son

Veterans For Peace Newsletter, Spring 2006

His boots are empty now
the hopeful one who wore them
ground beneath the juggernaut of war.

Where we laid him
a stone will stay,
flags flutter, and flowers sway,
watered by tears and rain.

War is cruel,
and love must suffer long,
but can it suffer so in vain?

Do you hear their voices calling
from out those deep empty boots?
We went where we were sent,
and there we faced the worst.

Upon our bodies
dare you take a stand?
Or will our deaths,
just like our lives,
be lost in desert sand?

Rosemarie Dietz Slavenas,
for my son Brian,
KIA, Falluja, Iraq,
11/12103

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Massachusetts Marine Killed

Cpl. Paul King, 23, of Tyngsboro, Mass., was killed June 25, 2006, in Al Anbar province. (AP Photo/U.S. Marines)

MARINE KILLED IN AL ANBAR

6/28/2006 06-06-02C06-06-02C

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq: A Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 died from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province Tuesday.

BAGHDAD SOLDIER KILLED BY ROADSIDE BOMB

6/28/2006 06-06-02CJ

BAGHDAD: A Multi National Division Baghdad Soldier was killed Tuesday at approximately 10 p.m. when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad.

Oklahoma Soldier Killed

06/28/06 Omaha World-Herald

Jeremy Jones, 25, died in Iskandariyah, Iraq, after he was hit with a roadside bomb on Tuesday morning, his family said. He’d been in Iraq since November, serving with the Army’s 1-67 Armor based in Foot Hood, Texas. Jones graduated in 1999 from Millard West High School, where he played football and wrestled.

Fox Lake Soldier Killed

Jun 28, 2006 WEEK-TV

Operation Iraqi Freedom has claimed another casulaty from the state of Illinois.

The Department of Defense said Sergeant Terry Lisk died Monday from injuries sustained in Ar Ramadi, Iraq when his unit received indirect fire from enemy forces during combat operations.

The 26-year-old from Fox Lake, Illinois was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division based in Friedberg, Germany.

Hardin County Native Killed

Jun. 23, 2006 Associated Press, ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky.

A Kentucky native was one of three Marines killed in an explosion in Iraq this week.

Pfc. Christopher N. White, 23, of Southport, N.C., was killed Tuesday in Al-Anbar Province, Iraq, the Department of Defense said on Thursday.

White graduated from Central Hardin High School in 2001.

“The love he had for all of us was so strong that he gave the ultimate doing what he believed was right,” said White’s brother, Mike. “Chris White will live on in all of us in some way, but to me he was the greatest brother one could ever have.”

White’s parents, William and Galia, owned a farm in Hardin County where Chris grew up.

“Christopher was a good kid,” William White said. “Everybody liked him. He was just a likeable guy.”

His friends said they remember an athletic guy who got into weightlifting in high school, and played football for a short time.

“He never met a stranger,” said Josh Garcia, who went to high school with White. “Everybody knew Chris White.”

He followed his father, who retired from the Army, into military service, but his brother said he dreamed of becoming a Marine.

“He talked about it all his life,” Mike White said.

White joined the Marines in May 2005. Assigned to the 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif., he deployed to Iraq in January.

White, a machine gunner, and four other Marines were riding in the last Humvee in a convoy when a roadside bomb exploded, William White said. White and two other Marines were killed in the blast.

Mike White said his brother had plans to wed his girlfriend once he returned home from the war.

“He was going to get married the day he came back,” Mike White said. “He only had a month and half left.”

A memorial service will be held in St. Louis, the family said.

Area Marine Killed In Combat

06/24/2006 By Benjamin Poston, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

A Marine who was a star athlete and prom king at Eureka High School and whose neighbors called him “a gem,” was killed Thursday in Iraq.

The Pentagon confirmed Friday night that Cpl. Riley Baker, 22, of the Pacific area, was killed during combat operations in Anbar province.

He had been assigned to the 3rd Battalion of the 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force out of Camp Lejeune, N.C.

A Brilliant Account Of A Lost War Of Occupation

[This is one for the textbooks. When people resist occupation by a foreign Imperial power, this is what it looks like. The rich collaborator, the scheming informers, the stubborn refusal to lift a finger to help the foreign invaders, the lies, the chaos, the confusion, the sabotage by malicious cooperation, and the inability to find out anything useful to the invading army could have been written about the German occupation of France, or the French or U.S. occupations of Vietnam, or any other failed effort to set up an Imperial military dictatorship, including the British in the USA in 1776.]

June 28, 2006 Tom Lasseter, McClatchy Newspapers [Excerpts]

TAJI, Iraq:

Capt. Carson Green walked slowly down the highway, simmering in the sun, looking for signs of a roadside bombing that had ripped both feet off an American soldier.

Green thought that if he could find the site of the bombing, he could figure out where witnesses might have been standing – at roadside groceries, houses, taxi stands – and, he hoped, ‘’flip’’ them into giving up the names of insurgents in the area.

But after a half-hour of going up and down the road, Green couldn’t tell the new bomb craters from the old ones. The heat had climbed above 110 degrees with no hint of wind, and the asphalt, stretching toward the horizon, felt like a stovetop.

Frustrated, Green muttered an obscenity. ‘’Let’s go,’’ he said.

Green, 26, has commanded Alpha Company of the 4th Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team since April, when a bomb killed his predecessor.

Most officers agree that victory in Iraq will be determined not by generals or weapons systems, but by captains like Green who decide how to fight an oft-unseen enemy in a land where they don’t speak the language or know whom to trust. [Meaning the effort is fucked from start to finish, and the notion of “victory in Iraq” would be laughable, were it not for the endless toll of the dead.]

Four days spent with Green recently showed just how difficult that battle is.

At every turn Green confronted situations that seemed to defy solution. Police were uncooperative, if not infiltrated, informants were coy, if not dishonest, and death or crippling injury was just a misstep away.

Green decided early in his command that the best way to pacify the insurgency and the militias was to rely on informants more than on raids, to be as much a detective as a soldier.

‘’You can’t fight a counterinsurgency by sweeping an area. You’ve got to collect intelligence on a specific cell leader,’’ said Green, who has a slightly pug nose and a sharp jaw line that tenses when he’s thinking. ‘’These big sweeps and roadblocks, you don’t catch anybody doing that.’’

But it’s also hard, he said, to catch anyone when you don’t know who’s telling the truth and who isn’t, who’s on your side, and who isn’t.

Green’s days and nights in Iraq are shadowed by the death of the man who came before him.

Capt. Ian Weikel was riding in a patrol on April 18, crossing a bridge north of Baghdad, when a roadside bomb erupted. Shrapnel tore into Weikel’s Humvee. The soldiers he commanded rushed to the vehicle and saw their captain slumped over, blood pouring from his head.

At the time of Weikel’s death, Green was a young staff officer waiting for a company command spot to open.

Green seems almost obsessed with finding Weikel’s killer. As he pieces together bits of information about the insurgency, and the Shiite militias it wars with, Green strains to find leads, pushing every informant for something, anything, that could lead to the insurgent who set off the bomb that killed Weikel.

The informants, knowing the value of such a tip, often dangle the possibility that they could help Green solve the case.

An informant recently led Green to a man who lived near the bridge where Weikel was killed. The Iraqi said in an initial interview that he had information about the insurgent cell that was behind the bombing. Green was planning to bring him into the base and question him for more details.

After searching for the bombing site that morning, Green and his men drove to the Taji police station to meet a high-ranking Iraqi officer. For three months, the officer has been giving Green information not only on Sunni insurgents, but also on Shiite militia members operating in the police force.

The informant – a Shiite who asked that his name not be used – has told Green several times that his police chief is a member of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. Green said he wouldn’t be surprised if that were true.

Walking into the informant’s office, Green shook hands and quickly got to the point: ‘’There was a bomb this morning. Who did it?’’

The informant gave three names – one of them Sunni and two of them Shiite.

Green raised his eyebrows. ‘’Shiites?’’ he asked. ‘’Why are they working together?’’

‘’Money,’’ came the answer.

At the end of the conversation – in which the informant gave long and often contradictory accounts about local insurgent cells – Green asked the officer if everything he’d told him was true.

‘’Maybe true, maybe false,’’ the officer said, giggling.

In the Humvee outside, Green was asked how much he trusted the informant.

‘’Who knows what his motivation is,’’ he said. ‘’But a lot of his information has been good in the past.’’

The next day, Green went to see another Iraqi. He waited until after dark so the neighbors wouldn’t see the long line of Humvees pull up in front of Abu Haider’s house. [Oh right, fucking brilliant, nobody’s going to notice “the long line of Humvees” because it’s dark, and Iraqis can’t see in the dark. Why, everybody knows that.]

Sometime after 11 p.m., Abu Haider walked in wearing a gray dishdasha, a traditional Arab tunic, and smoking Davidoff cigarettes. A gold watch hung loosely on his left wrist.

Abu Haider, who asked that his full name not be used, is a Shiite businessman and power broker who’s received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts from the U.S. military during the past three years. He’s also one of Green’s main informants and often a conduit to others. He lives in a compound of nice homes. [And all this is supposed to be some kind of secret?]

A large man given to sweeping hand gestures and the influence of sizable amounts of alcohol, Abu Haider punctuates his conversation with statements such as, ‘’Listen to me, Captain Green, I have worked with the coalition forces for three years and I have never told them a lie.’’

Green was there because he needed witnesses. His men had detained an insurgent named Bashir and had compiled a collection of sworn statements about his connection with kidnappings and killings.

But only one of the statements tied him directly to an attack – a roadside bomb – against U.S. soldiers.

Unless Green could come up with another statement or two linking Bashir to attacks against Americans, he’d have to turn him over to the Iraqi police, who’ve been known to release suspected insurgents for money.

Green explained the situation to Abu Haider.

‘’I know many people who can give you sworn statements about people putting bombs on the road,’’ Abu Haider said.

Green moved to the edge of the sofa and said to his translator, ‘’He says he has some witnesses. Do they know anything about Captain Weikel?’’

Abu Haider smiled.

‘’I can give you the names of three people who lay bombs,’’ Abu Haider said. ‘’On the same road where Captain Weikel died.’’

‘’What are their names?’’ Green asked.

‘’I don’t know,’’ Abu Haider said.

About half an hour later, a collection of local politicians and businessmen invited by Abu Haider walked into the living room. [Marvelous. That’s really total security. Since it’s open house for the whole world, what was all that silly bullshit before about keeping the “long line of Humvees” hidden in the dark. Looks like plenty of lies to go around, or maybe just plain stupidity.]

Green said hello, then made his pitch: ‘’In order to get Bashir in Abu Ghraib for a very, very long time, I need one more witness who has seen him put in an IED and attack coalition or Iraqi forces.’’

Several of the men promised to produce witnesses within the week. [For a bit of Abu Haider’s cash no doubt. Witnesses are on sale this week. Just write the script, and they’ll say whatever the foreigner wants.]

At least one of the three Iraqis had promised to become an informant. Now they were all dead. [Oops. Looks like somebody informed on the informants.]

Green got the orders from brigade headquarters: Go find the bodies and then find out who killed them.

1st Lt. Garrett Cathcart, 24, of Indianapolis, explained: The men had been detained by another company. One had agreed to become an informer in exchange for their release. They’d been shot in a taxi either by insurgents because they were traitors or by Shiite militiamen because they were Sunnis.

Green and his men drove to an apartment complex – home to a mixture of Sunnis and Shiites – where the men had slept the night before.

‘’The Shiite guys for the most part aren’t going to inform on other Shiites. They’re going to inform on Sunni neighbors,’’ said Green, who added that the same holds true for Sunnis. ‘’So you’ve got to play both sides.’’

A funeral was being held for the taxi driver. His car was there: bullet holes through the windshield, doors and seats. Blood was smeared all over.

The family said an Iraqi police lieutenant had come by that morning. He seemed to be working very hard to solve the case, they said.

Green headed to the Taji police station. He wanted to speak with the lieutenant, 1st Lt. Nadhum Ajeed.

The police had bad news: On his way back from investigating the informants’ murders, Ajeed had been shot to death.

Green asked to see Ajeed’s file on the informants. It’d been sent to Baghdad.

Well, Green said, where are the photographs of the dead informants?

1st Lt. Ayad Ahmed told Green that there were no photographs.

‘’Where the . . . are the pictures, man?’’ Green said. ‘’You guys always take pictures.’’

Ahmed said that, on second thought, the pictures were with another officer, but he lived far away.

‘’I think you’re lying to me. I think you have the pictures here,’’ Green said. As for the first, brilliant fucking deduction. As for the second, they’re not that stupid.]

Green asked Ahmed if he found it strange that the lieutenant investigating the deaths had been killed.

‘’These killings are a coincidence,’’ Ahmed said.

Green went to a smaller office across the hall, where a group of Iraqi officers was packed around a desk. A large photograph of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr hung on the wall behind them. On the facing wall, a smaller one showed Sadr at Mecca.

They said the officer who could answer Green’s questions about the deaths was on the way.

A few minutes later, the officer walked in, saw Green and smiled.

‘’Oh man, you’ve got to be . . . kidding me,’’ Green said.

Green’s men had arrested the Iraqi police officer recently for setting up a checkpoint and robbing truck drivers.

The officer said he had no information about the killings.

The next day, Green checked back with police. There were still no pictures.

‘’They’re being really weird about it,’’ Green said. ‘’Maybe they killed those guys – I don’t know.’’

Green’s mood was low. When Green’s soldiers brought in the informant who lived near the bridge where Weikel was killed, the man turned out not to know much. Or at least he wasn’t willing to say much.

‘’We didn’t get what we thought we would,’’ Green said. ‘’We’re sort of back to square one.’’

There was one bright note: Abu Haider, the informant, had delivered. An eyewitness came forward to say that he’d seen Bashir placing bombs targeting U.S. convoys. [Of course. As noted by the reporter, he’s “received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts from the U.S. military during the past three years.” That buys, among other things, all the witnesses you could ever need.]

It looked like Bashir was headed for a long stay at Abu Ghraib prison.

That, for Green, was something to hold on to. [And that is simply pathetic.]

From The Department Of Microscopic Optimism

Apparently, the more accurate phrase for Operation Forward Together, “total fucking failure,” wasn’t deemed politically correct enough to use.

Jun 27 2006 By Swopa,Needlenose.com

Some gallows-humor material from the Associated Press this evening:

The U.S. military issued a sober assessment Tuesday of the Baghdad security crackdown, saying violence had decreased slightly but not to “the degree we would like to see” in the two weeks since 75,000 Iraqi and American troops flooded the capital.

The evaluation came as 18 more Iraqis fell victim to sectarian and insurgent violence, including five people whose bodies were found dumped in Baghdad. The U.S. military also announced the deaths of a Marine and three soldiers; three of the deaths were west of the capital in volatile Anbar province, an insurgent stronghold.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, said the overwhelming security operation launched two weeks ago to rein in violence in Baghdad was moving more slowly than hoped.

“It’s going to take some time. We do not see an upward trend. We … see a slight decrease but not of the degree we would like to see at this point,” he said at a news conference in the heavily fortified Green Zone.

However, Caldwell added, “we don’t see this as turning into a civil war right now.”
“Right now.” They don’t think the situation in Iraq is becoming a civil war right now.

Apparently, the more accurate phrase for Operation Forward Together, “total fucking failure,” wasn’t deemed politically correct enough to use.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

FUTILE EXERCISE:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW!

US soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, patrol near a fortified position in a mountain at Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, Tuesday, June 20, 2006. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Foreign Occupation Soldier Killed, Three Wounded By Nawzad Mine:
Nationality Not Announced

Jun 28 By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer

A U.S.-led coalition soldier died in a land mine explosion.

The coalition soldier was killed and three were wounded in the Nawzad district of Helmand province, the military said. Their nationalities were not released, but British and American forces make up the majority of troops in Helmand.

The coalition patrol was conducting security operations when the armored vehicle struck a land mine.

Three German Soldiers Wounded

Jun 28 By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer

An attack near northern Kunduz province left three German soldiers slightly wounded Wednesday, the German military said.

Militants shot at a patrol of two German armored vehicles, and troops returned fire, Germany’s military command center said. It was the second time in two days that German soldiers had come under attack in the region.

Afghan Occupation?
“The Whole Thing Is In Utter Shambles”
“It’s A Total Disaster”

[Thanks to Phil G, who sent this in.]

June 28th, 2006 Democracy Now [Excerpts]

Christian Parenti, a correspondent for the Nation Magazine. He has reported extensively from Afghanistan.

Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani journalist based in Lahore.

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

CHRISTIAN PARENTI:

It’s no longer possible for Westerners to drive safely from Kabul to Kandahar. So — there’s also reports that Pashtun communities in the north of Afghanistan are also — now have Taliban activity in them.

So it’s a total disaster, and there’s a hope by the Europeans, who are picking up a lot of the slack, that they can do a better job than the Americans, and they claim they’re better at counterinsurgency, but I fear that the situation is really beyond that and that the cancer of the Taliban has set in too deep and the money that’s been spent so far has been wasted.

The U.S. forces, when I was with them, I was shocked at how little they knew.

Some soldiers around Bagram, who were responsible for securing that valley, were being attacked in some villages and not others, and it’s a mixed area between Tajiks and Pashtuns, and the lieutenant in charge of this group didn’t know the ethnicities of different villages and didn’t know that there might be some sort of political explanation that went along with that, as to why they were being attacked in what were actually Pashtun villages and not in Tajik villages.

So the whole thing is in utter shambles.

AHMED RASHID:

What has been, I think, totally criminal, that is the — Rumsfeld informed Karzai several months ago that the Afghan army, which the Americans are training and funding, would not be as large as originally planned.

They would get fewer weapons, and that from this year on, the Afghan government, which has absolutely no money, should be paying the salaries of the troops, rather than the Americans, who have been paying the salaries for the last two years.

Now, you know, I mean, in the midst of a Taliban offensive, for Rumsfeld to say something like that is not much of a morale booster if you’re an Afghan soldier or an Afghan general.

TROOP NEWS

THIS IS NOT A SATIRE:
Torture Of Iraqi Prisoners Self-Inflicted Says US Army General

June 27, 2006 Simon Assaf, Socialist Worker (UK)

A recently revealed US department of defence report has sounded alarm bells among human rights groups. The report marks an attempt by the US military to reclassify the meaning of torture while discrediting its victims.

The 75 page investigation, concluded by Brigadier General Richard Formica in Autumn 2004, was made public earlier this month after a campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

According to ACLU the report is “a whitewash”.

It is a heavily censored military investigation into torture by US special operations forces in Iraq that reveals the extent of the cover up in the wake of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal in 2004.

It also unintentionally reveals the systemic brutality and torture that goes on in US camps around the world.

Formica investigated allegations of abuse of three Iraqis by special forces in early 2004 in one secret prison run by the US military.

One of the victims died under torture, and all references to him are blacked out. Two other prisoners made detailed claims of their maltreatment.

The detainees Formica interviewed had injuries that confirmed their allegations of torture.

They accused interrogators of stripping them naked, chaining them to the floor, playing loud music and sexually abusing them.

One detainee backs up his claims with medical reports that detail a fissure in his rectum caused by a “welded metal object”, cigarette wounds to his hands and legs, and a dog bite to his shoulder.

But far from investigating the allegations, Formica hunts down alternative explanations.

He concluded that prisoners who were stripped naked were not abused as the US troops only wanted “to wash their clothes”.

He also accused the detainee who was bitten by a dog of lying because the animal “was a pet and a distraction for team members”.

In another smear he accepts soldiers’ claims that blindfolded detainees were “hitting their heads against walls” in order to discredit the US army.

According to Formica, constant loud music, shouting and banging on cell doors with metal poles was simply to stop detainees talking to each other and “revealing tactical information”.

Formica found that chaining detainees to the floor of a cell four foot by four foot was acceptable “to prevent escape”.

In one of the most shocking statements, Formica claims that prisoners who were fed on bread and water for 17 days were not badly treated “because I found them in apparently good health”.

Socialist Worker contacted a nutritionist in the NHS who said that an average male requires 2,550 calories a day. Bread, which has little protein or vitamin C, and the quantities given would provide only around 70 calories a day.

The effect of vitamin and protein deficiency would be to delay recovery from injury. In the long term it can cause severe health problems.

Formica claims that bread and water was a good diet.

In another key passage it is claimed that a detainee who was bound, hooded and “transported in the trunk of a car” was not being abused.

It was done for “his protection”, the general concluded, “as there was a dangerous security situation at the time”.

Formica ruled that the prisoners’ statements could not be trusted because “of their association with high profile members of the former Baathist regime”.

He also distrusted them because they lived in Adhamiehâ; a Sunni Muslim district of Baghdad.

The general says that the interrogators did break some “guidelines”, but this was not deliberate as they were “unknowingly including the forbidden tactics”.

The interpretation of torture became the focus of the investigations into Abu Ghraib. By stating that special forces were not aware of recent changes in the rules, Formica attempted to excuse their acts.

“I didn’t find cruel and malicious criminals that are out there looking for detainees to abuse,” Formica said in an interview recently. It was just “regrettable” that the soldiers were given the wrong policy.

For more go to www.aclu.org

[And if the resistance gets hold of this piece of slime and jumps up and down on him for a couple hours wearing combat boots, they can issue a report saying they were just providing therapeutic treatment for muscle spasms. The idiots who did these things were certainly teaching how U.S. prisoners are to be treated.]

“A Long And Noble History Of Resistance Within The U.S. Military”
“Well Documented In Soldiers In Revolt By David Cortright, And The New Film Sir! No Sir!”

[Thanks to Katherine G.Y., who sent this in.]

While some GIs publicly resisted as individuals, or applied for Conscientious Objector status, most carried out their resistance in a more collective and quiet manner, slowing down the war machine by delaying and undermining their own mission (as anyone who has worked at a crappy job knows how to do).

June 12, 2006 Zoltan Grossman, Thankyoult.live [Excerpts]

The public refusals at Fort Lewis of Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada and Sgt. Kevin Benderman to deploy to Iraq are the most recent chapter of a long and noble history of resistance within the U.S. military.

To understand this history, and where it might lead, it helps to see how resistance varies strongly according to rank, class and race, and how difficult it is for resisters to express their patriotic viewpoints alone, without support from the larger peace movement.

Dissent from soldiers during foreign interventions has been reported throughout U.S. history, such as in Mexico in the 1840s and the Philippines in the 1900s.

Even during World War II, African American rebellions against internal racism shook the military, and eventually forced unit desegregation.

After the war ended in 1945, soldiers and sailors demanded a postwar demobilization and tickets home.

During the Vietnam War, the military ranks carried out mass resistance on bases and ships in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, U.S. and Europe. Military resistance was instrumental in ending the war by making the ranks politically unreliable.

This history is well documented in Soldiers in Revolt by David Cortright, and the new film “Sir! No Sir!.”

Servicemen and women were heavily influenced by the antiwar and African American liberation movements back home, as well as by personal contact with Vietnamese civilians. But this resistance took years to develop after the initial deployments in 1960, not catching fire until after the 1968 Tet Offensive showed that the war was ‘unwinnable.’

Personnel in all service branches carried out explicitly political actions-signing antiwar petitions, wearing buttons and patches, disobeying illegal orders, avoiding battles, passing information to the peace movement, and carrying out strikes, sit-ins, and rebellions, and well as sabotage of equipment.

At one time in 1972, three aircraft carriers on duty in the Western Pacific (off Vietnam) were simultaneously put out of commission-one by an African American uprising on board, and two by internal sabotage.

The U.S. mining of North Vietnamese harbors later that year was frustrated by the defusing of many ship mines by Naval Magazine personnel at Subic Bay Naval Base in the Philippines.

Some GIs refused to be deployed to Vietnam, including six at Fort Lewis in 1970. The “Fort Lewis Six” were beaten in the stockade, and sentenced to 1-2 years, creating a wave of local support for GI dissenters. (The support went both ways, when Native American soldiers organized to support and protect treaty rights activists on rivers next to the base.)

While some GIs publicly resisted as individuals, or applied for Conscientious Objector status, most carried out their resistance in a more collective and quiet manner, slowing down the war machine by delaying and undermining their own mission (as anyone who has worked at a crappy job knows how to do).

Some GIs sent out on patrol in Vietnam, for example, would simply have a little party, and later return to base with lurid accounts of encounters with the rebels.

U.S. military resistance was not simply sparked by the period of the Vietnam War and the military draft.

Cortright provides evidence that disobedience was in fact greatest not among draftees, but among enlistees, who had more of a working-class background, or who enlisted out of patriotism and expected more out of the service.

Selective Service was not an equal opportunity institution, since white and middle-class youth had social advantages to avoid the draft, just as they have had in the recruitment-based “poverty draft” since Vietnam.

Radicalism within the ranks led the Reagan-Bush Administration in the 1980s to turn increasingly toward air war strategies, proxy armies, and more capital-intensive, high-tech weapons systems which only smaller skilled units could operate.

The Navy restricted sailors’ access to parts of the ship where it might be “threatened from within…especially during times of great international tension.” Nevertheless, the unwillingness of the ranks to fight in another Vietnam contributed to the success of the antiwar movement in preventing a full-scale U.S. invasion of Nicaragua and El Salvador.

During the 1980s, anti-intervention and anti-nuclear activists who distributed peace literature to military personnel noticed widespread sympathy in the lower ranks.

I helped produce the About Face newspaper for GIs, and worked with veterans to educate activists in Europe and the Philippines on reaching GIs. This was possible because the military allows personnel one copy of literature. Department of Defense Directive 1325.6 Sec 3.5 still today states that “the mere possession of unauthorized printed material may not be prohibited…The fact that a publication is critical of government policies or officials is not, in itself, a ground on which distribution may be prohibited.”

During 1983 women’s peace actions against the deployment of nuclear missiles from a New York army depot, women who dialogued with Military Police were told by an MP officer: “My men are scared and confused. They want to come down and kill all of you. But they also want to come down and join all of you.”

His statement summed up the contradictory ‘dual consciousness’ within many soldiers, who may be open to dialogue with activists respectfully encouraging the positive part of their hearts and minds.

After the Gulf War, the Clinton Administration’s repeated bombings of Iraq, Serbia, and other countries created a public impression that warfare bore little if any cost for U.S. military forces.

This historic complacency ended with 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan, and occupation of Iraq. Military enlistees began to realize again that signing up and re-upping had real-life consequences, and recruitment became more difficult.

The Pentagon’s stop-loss policy forced Iraq War veterans and reservists back to the frontlines, angering even the most pro-war personnel and families. A major change since the Vietnam and Gulf wars is the Internet, giving personnel access to alternative sources of information and resources. The Internet was an important factor in Lt. Watada’s self-education, and it can be used by the military community to dialogue about the war and conditions outside official channels (since military culture intimidates most internal critics into silence).

Opposition within the military is far higher after three years of the Iraq War than it was three years into the Vietnam War.

The capture of Saddam and death of Zarqawi have ironically weakened Bush’s case that our troops need to stay to “protect” Iraqis against their will.

With about a dozen public refusals to deploy, and a recent Zogby poll that shows 72 percent of troops stationed in Iraq support a withdrawal within a year, the military resistance will only grow.

But resisters need public support, particularly from their local communities.

Some media expressed surprise that Lt. Watada refused deployment so soon after the Olympia protests against armored vehicle shipments from his Stryker Brigade. Yet soldiers and antiwar protesters have something very crucial in common: they both take the war seriously, and take risks because of it.

At a June 2 ceremony marking the Stryker deployment, Fort Lewis Commander Lt. Gen. James Dubik observed that “Less than 1 percent of the nation is carrying 100 percent of the burden of this war.” As Lt. Watada agreed five days later, “Soldiers who come back from Iraq say they get the impression many people don’t know a war is going on; they say even friends and family seem more involved in popular culture and American Idol. People are not interested in the hundreds of Iraqis and the dozens of Americans dying each week.”

When soldiers see hundreds of people in the street protesting the war, they can realize (whether they agree with the message or not) that at least the protesters are interested and care that there’s a war on, and are sacrificing some comfort and daily routine because of the war.

In this way, visible antiwar actions can spread the “burden” to a wider circle, and help build a bridge to military personnel and their families, but only if the protesters also open a respectful dialogue with them.

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

Do you have a friend or relative in the service? Forward this E-MAIL along, or send us the address if you wish and we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Iraq or stuck on a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to the war, at home and inside the armed services. Send requests to address up top.

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

Henniker, N.H. residents line Main Street to pay their respects to 23-year-old fallen soldier U.S. Army Sgt. Russell M. Durgin, as the funeral procession makes its way to the cemetery, June 24, 2006. Durgin was killed earlier this month in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter)

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Resistance Promises Truce To Withdrawing U.S. Forces

June 27, 2006 Robert Dreyfuss, www.tompaine.com [Excerpt]

According to resistance leaders I have spoken with, the insurgents are willing to declare a truce in order to allow U.S. forces to carry out an orderly withdrawal from Iraq, but they aren’t willing to make a deal that tolerates the continuation of the occupation.

Assorted Resistance Action

28 Jun 2006 Reuters

Guerrillas killed two policemen on Tuesday in Falluja.

A bomb seriously wounded two policemen who had rushed to a Shi’ite mosque after another bomb had exploded without causing casualties in the same mosque in the city of Baquba, police said.

A policeman was killed and three wounded on Tuesday night when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol in Mahaweel, 75 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

After a new study showed that boys with older brothers are more likely to be gay, President Bush proposed a constitutional amendment banning older brothers.
June 27, 2006 The Borowitz Report

Iraq: The Winners Are…

June 25, 2006 James Patton, anti-Allawi-group [Excerpt]

And just maybe, no matter what happens in Iraq now, this bloody war is already a huge victory for certain interests – oil companies have limited supply, driving up prices; the military/industrial complex is raking in squillions; Halliburton’s profits are doubled; the treasury is being looted; freedom is being destroyed – yep, no failure here.

This nasty little war is an unparalleled success!

James the cynic. (or should that be ‘James the realist’?)

Uncle Sam And His Endless Body Bags

From: Richard Hastie
To: GI Special
Sent: June 27, 2006

Uncle Sam And His Endless Body Bags

The reason the past always repeats itself,
is because the past was a repetitious lie
to begin with.

Mike Hastie
Vietnam Veteran
June 27, 2006

Photo from the I-R-A-Q (I Remember Another Quagmire) portfolio of Mike Hastie, US Army Medic, Vietnam 1970-71. (For more of his outstanding work, contact at: (hastiemike@earthlink.net) T)

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

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

U.S. OCCUPATION RECRUITING DRIVE IN HIGH GEAR;
RECRUITING FOR THE ARMED RESISTANCE THAT IS

U.S. Marine drinks water during questioning of Iraqi citizens in their living room in Ramadi June 25, 2006. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)

[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?]

“What Have They Done To This Country?”
“Is This What They Mean When They Say “Freedom Is Messy”?

But (and this is our problem) we still love something that was called Iraq. Will you save what is left of this Iraq? What have they done to this country? Is this what they mean when they say “Freedom is messy”?

June 27, 2006 Shalash al Iraqi, glimpseofiraq.blogspot.com [Excerpt]

We have had enough.

The fearsome nights are stifling us and we now have come to hate the Fall (of Baghdad); we hate Liberation; we hate Sunnis; we hate Shiites; we hate turbans and sidaras (Baghdadi head gear; a reference to Adnan al-Dulaimi a ‘Sunni’ politician); we hate Jihad and Jihadists, resistance and resistors; we hate concrete; we hate streets and sidewalks; we hate the Ministries; we hate Establishments; we hate news channels and news and communiqués; we hate the Parliament that has now become a venue for swearing-in ceremonies and nothing else; we hate songs; we hate commercials; we hate newspapers; we hate cars and car-depots; we hate conferences; we hate ‘surprise visits’; we hate neighboring countries; we hate the ‘multinational forces; we hate the night; we hate the day; we hate Summer; we hate the sun that sends hell; we hate sleep; we hate water and electricity; we hate petrol and corruption and theft; we hate sectarianism; we hate sectarian ‘allocation’; we hate Reconciliation; we hate the government of national unity; we hate committees and Commissions of Integrity, Trash, Rehabilitation and Silliness; we hate parties and organizations; we hate assemblies, demonstrations, banners and chants; we hate laughter; we hate crying; we hate work; we hate study; we hate each other.

And we hate ourselves.

But (and this is our problem) we still love something that was called Iraq.

Will you save what is left of this Iraq?

What have they done to this country?

Is this what they mean when they say “Freedom is messy”?

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

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

ROVE, SATAN PLOT G.O.P. FALL STRATEGY

June 21, 2006 The Borowtiz Report [Excerpt]

At a joint press conference today in Washington, White House advisor Karl Rove said that he would be plotting the Republican Party’s fall election strategy with his longtime comrade-in-arms, Satan.

The Prince of Darkness, wearing his traditional red horns and cape and carrying a smoldering pitchfork, appeared to beam as Mr. Rove, his protégé, talked about how much he was looking forward to working with him on the fall campaign.

“Every time Satan and I get together, good things happen,” Mr. Rove said, adding, “Or should I say – bad things happen!”

The two of them then dissolved in laughter, demonstrating an easy collegiality that has made them an unbeatable team in past G.O.P. campaigns.

While Satan let Mr. Rove have most of the spotlight in the hour-long press conference, he did take the microphone to say that he had been “relieved” recently when the White House advisor was cleared of all charges in the CIA leak investigation.

“I can’t imagine running a Republican campaign without my buddy here,” he said, giving Mr. Rove a bear hug. “There are plenty of Satans out there, but there’s only one Karl Rove.”

SATAN

“The marines that I have had wounded over the past five months have been attacked by a faceless enemy. But the enemy has got a face. He’s called Satan.” US Marine Colonel Gareth Brandl (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

At Least Iran And The U.S. Have Common Ground

June 27 2006 By dedalus Blah3.com

Boy, for one of those “Axis of Evil” guys, Iran knows how to get our backs when it comes crunch time in the UN.

Who says they don’t understand values?

January 2006 The U.S. joins with Iran to deny consultative status to two gay rights groups at the U.N.

September 2005 The U.S. and Iran try to water down a U.N. World Summit agreement affirming international responsibility to protect civilians from war crimes and genocide.

March 2003 The U.S. sides with Iran in a failed attempt to delete a condemnation of the use of “custom, tradition, or religious consideration” to justify violence against women in a declaration by the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.

May 2002 The U.S. unsuccessfully teams up with Iran to edit out references to birth control and sex ed in a U.N. declaration on the rights of children.

July 2001 The U.S. and Iran are the only countries to object to language in a special U.N. report on children that prohibits the death penalty for crimes committed by minors.

See, we do so have some things we can talk about…

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

NEED SOME TRUTH? CHECK OUT TRAVELING SOLDIER

Telling the truth – about the occupation or the criminals running the government in Washington – is the first reason for Traveling Soldier. But we want to do more than tell the truth; we want to report on the resistance – whether it’s in the streets of Baghdad, New York, or inside the armed forces. Our goal is for Traveling Soldier to become the thread that ties working-class people inside the armed services together. We want this newsletter to be a weapon to help you organize resistance within the armed forces. If you like what you’ve read, we hope that you’ll join with us in building a network of active duty organizers.  www.traveling-soldier.org/  And join with Iraq War vets in the call to end the occupation and bring our troops home now! www.ivaw.net

All GI Special issues achieved at website
www.militaryproject.org/
The following have also posted issues; there may be others:

gi-special.iraq-news.de
www.notinourname.net/gi-special/
www.williambowles.info/gispecial
www.traprockpeace.org/gi_special/
www.albasrah.net/maqalat/english/gi-special.htm
www.uruknet.info/

GI Special distributes and posts to our website copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. We believe this constitutes a “fair use” of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law since it is being distributed without charge or profit for educational purposes to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for educational purposes, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.  GI Special has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor is GI Special endorsed or sponsored by the originators. This attributed work is provided a non-profit basis to facilitate understanding, research, education, and the advancement of human rights and social justice Go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml for more information. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. 

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