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

U.S. Troops Rape, Butcher Iraqi Family:
Later, Iraqis Behead Two From Same Platoon;
U.S. Soldier Confesses And Under Arrest

The official told the AP the accused soldiers were from the same platoon as the two slain soldiers. The military has said one and possibly both of the slain soldiers were tortured and beheaded.

The official said the mutilation of the slain soldiers stirred feelings of guilt and led at least one of them to reveal the rape-slaying on June 22.

Jun. 30, 2006 RYAN LENZ, Associated Press

BEIJI, Iraq

The U.S. Army will investigate charges that American soldiers were involved in the killings of four Iraqi relatives, including a woman who had been raped, military officials said Friday.

Some of the five soldiers also allegedly burned the body of the woman they are accused of assaulting in the March incident, a U.S. military official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

The U.S. command issued a statement saying only that Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of coalition troops in Baghdad, had ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged killing of a family of four in Mahmoudiyah, south of Baghdad.

“The entire investigation will encompass everything that could have happened that evening. We’re not releasing any specifics of an ongoing investigation,” military spokesman Maj. Todd Breasseale said of the Mahmoudiyah allegations.

“There is no indication what led soldiers to this home. The investigation just cracked open. We’re just beginning to dig into the details.”

A U.S. official close to the investigation said at least one of the soldiers, all assigned to the 502nd Infantry Regiment, has admitted his role and been arrested. Two soldiers from the same regiment were slain this month when they were kidnapped at a checkpoint near Youssifiyah.

The official told the AP the accused soldiers were from the same platoon as the two slain soldiers. The military has said one and possibly both of the slain soldiers were tortured and beheaded.

The official said the mutilation of the slain soldiers stirred feelings of guilt and led at least one of them to reveal the rape-slaying on June 22.

According to a senior Army official, the alleged incident was first revealed by a soldier during a routine counseling-type session. The official, who requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said that soldier did not witness the incident but heard about it.

A second soldier, who also was not involved, said he overhead soldiers conspiring to commit the crimes, and then later saw bloodstains on their clothes, the official said.

He also said the four people killed included three adults and a child, and one of the adults was the woman who allegedly was raped.

One of the accused soldiers already has been discharged and is believed to be in the United States, several U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. The others have had their weapons taken away and are confined to Forward Operating Base Mahmoudiyah.

Senior officers were aware of the family’s death but believed it was due to sectarian violence, common in the religiously mixed town, a U.S. official said.

The killings appeared to have been a “crime of opportunity,” the official said. The soldiers had not been attacked by insurgents but had noticed the woman on previous patrols.

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

BAGHDAD SOLDIER KILLED BY ROADSIDE BOMB

6/30/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-06-03CP

BAGHDAD: A Multi-National Division Baghdad Soldier was killed at approximately 10:30 p.m.

Thursday as a result of injuries suffered from a bomb explosion while on a dismounted combat patrol south of Baghdad.

172nd SBCT SOLDIER KILLED IN MOSUL

6/30/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-06-03CP

TIKRIT, Iraq: A Soldier from the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team died Thursday from small arms fire in Mosul.

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

A U.S. Army soldier from the 101st Airborne Division points in the direction of sniper fire in Ramadi, June 20, 2006. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)

Missouri Soldier Killed;
Kirksville’s Rex Page Died When Humvee Came Under Attack

June 29, 2006 KHQA

A soldier from northeast Missouri has been killed in an ambush in Iraq.

Twenty-one year-old Private First Class Rex Page of Kirksville died yesterday when his humvee came under attack.

The military says Page apparently got out of the vehicle to help his fellow soldiers and was shot twice.

Page is a 2004 graduate of Kirksville Christian High School. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps in May 2005.

He had been in Iraq about eight months.

He comes from a military family. His father says Rex knew all his life that he wanted to fight for his country. The Marine Corps has honored Page several times for valor, at least once with the purple heart.

Page is the first soldier from Kirksville to die in the war on terror.

Willmar Guardsman Killed

Jun. 30, 2006 Associated Press

WILLMAR, Minn.: A National Guardsman from Willmar died in Iraq on Friday when an explosive device detonated near his convoy.

Guard Brig. Gen. Dean Johnson, who is also a state senator from Willmar, identified the soldier as Kyle Miller.

Miller was a member of the 682nd Engineer Battalion.

He’s the 40th person with Minnesota ties to have died in connection with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Two British Soldiers Killed

06/30/06 MOD

It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm the deaths of two British soldiers in Afghanistan.

During a planned operation in the Sangin valley, northern Helmand province, in the early morning of 27 June, a UK patrol came under attack. One further soldier was seriously wounded. His injuries are not thought to be life threatening.

British Fight Off “Fierce” Attack On Their Base

6/30/2006 BBC

British soldiers fought for more than four hours repelling a fierce attack on their base by Islamic militants late Wednesday in the desolate Musa Qala district of Helmand province, a hotbed of Taliban militant activity.

“The (British) patrol base was receiving small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire, and British forces responded with small arms and mortars,” said Maj. Quentin Innis, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition forces.

“We estimate 12 militants were killed.” There were no coalition casualties during the battle. [Shit, if you won, just go count ‘em. Problem with that?]

Italy To Withdraw 400 Soldiers

6.28.06 New York Times

Italy’s governing coalition agreed to withdraw as many as 400 soldiers from its 1,400-member force in Afghanistan. They have already committed to removing all troops from Iraq by year’s end.

Informers Won’t Inform:
Too Many Getting Killed

6.28.06 Christian Science Monitor

Informants in Afghanistan are too often killed by those inform on to U.S. led forces. That’s why it is hard to get them to cooperate unless they get guarantees for their security.

TROOP NEWS

Kentucky Guards Off To Bush’s Imperial Slaughterhouse

Members of the Kentucky National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 149th Infantry stand during a departure ceremony June 29, 2006, at Knox Central High School in Barbourville, Ky. The soldiers, known as the ‘Mountain Warriors’ of eastern Kentucky, will leave for Camp Shelby, Miss., soon and then head to serve in Iraq. (AP Photo/Debbie Caldwell)

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

The remains of Army Pfc. Kristian Menchaca are unloaded in Brownsville, Texas, June 26, 2006. Menchaca was killed recently in Iraq. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Anti-Gay Bigots That Picket Troops’ Funerals Back Again

Wikipedia.org

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

Jun-28-2006 Tim King, Salem-News

(MADRAS): The anti-gay hate group from Topeka, Kansas that operates the Website godhatesfags.com, has announced that they will protest the funeral of Pfc Thomas Tucker of Madras, Oregon this weekend and the funeral of Pfc Kristian Menchaca of Houston, Texas, the two soldiers kidnapped and killed recently in Iraq.

The group that hails from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka is headed by the notorious Pastor Fred Phelps. He claims that American soldiers are dying in Iraq because homosexuality is condoned in American homes.

According to the rumor mill, very little proof of that theory exists in Topeka, Kansas.

The group has been traveling to the funerals of soldiers to stage protests in recent months, using each tragedy to bring attention to themselves, and drawing the ire of citizens nearly everywhere they go. One veteran described their actions as “The single most disrespectful act anyone from a supposedly Christian church has ever attempted. It is no wonder they are getting attacked nearly everywhere they go.”

Proof of that is found on the group’s Website. Video clips show them being assaulted as they attempt to leave a soldier’s funeral in a city van, which the angry mob broke the windows out of, as members waved tauntingly back at them. [That’s a start, but a big more vigor may be necessary to communicate a fully effective message: do not ever do this again.]

Both soldiers were with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Thomas Tucker’s service will be held Saturday, July 1st at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds Expo Center, 3800 SW Airport Way, Redmond, Ore. at 1:00 PM. A private internment will follow at the Mt. Jefferson Memorial Park Cemetery in Madras.

The public is invited to the service.

Guantanamo:
THIS IS NOT A SATIRE:
Just A Stupid Freak In Command

6.28.06 Miami Herald, June 28, 2006

Terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo continue to plot suicide attempts in what the prison camp’s commander cast as jihad warfare.

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

MORE:

SHUT DOWN GUANTANAMO

6.26.06 Edge Left: An Occasional Column by David McReynolds. (David McReynolds served for many years on the staff of War Resisters League and was twice the Socialist Party’s candidate for President)

Witness Against Torture is not a mass movement.

It is, perhaps, only a cry of conscience in a nation which has somehow gotten used to Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, Gonzalez, and their wars and tortures.

Organized by a group largely drawn from the Catholic Worker communities, Witness Against Torture had, some months ago, sent a team into Cuba, without permission of the Cuban authorities, to walk to Guantanamo and witness against the cold reality of torture at the hands of the US government.

By now one would think the matter had been settled. The United Nations has come out against Guantanamo, there is a documentary film now making the rounds which records the facts in detail.

Bush himself, in Vienna, said he would like to close down Guantanamo. But of course it has not been settled. Bush, the self-proclaimed “decider” cannot seem to decide on the very simple course which is open to him: release all those prisoners against whom no case can be brought, and try in US courts any against whom the government feels there is solid evidence.

Meanwhile, of course, if one argues that these prisoners are part of the war on terror, they must be treated under the Geneva Conventions. But Rumsfeld has said the US isn’t bound by the Geneva Conventions.

Personally I’d like to see Rumsfeld before the international court in the Hague for his violations of various international treaties – but then I’m an old radical who thinks the law should apply across the board, even to Defense Secretaries and Presidents.

There should be a mass movement against Guantanamo.

There should be an opposition party in Congress, but that is a role the Democrats long ago surrendered.

When three prisoners recently committed suicide at Guantanamo the US government had the weirdly bad taste to suggest the suicides only a clever tactic on the part of the prisoners.

Meanwhile, day by day, Witness Against Torture has become the one sure clear voice that is raised steadily against Guantanamo, against torture in any form, by any government, anywhere on the planet, but with special focus on the tortures and renditions of our own government.

So today in the grey drizzle of a New York early summer, a fairly large group of about a hundred gathered at Dag Hammakskojd Plaza across from the United Nations to walk to the US Mission to the UN, where a rally was held, with speakers that cut across the religious spectrum – Muslim, Jew, Protestant, and Catholic were all on hand to give voice to their own serious war on terror – the terror the Administration has unleashed on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on our own Constitution, and on the prisoners in Guantanamo.

After the speakers, (including one from the Center for Constitutional Rights, a group which has done extraordinary work on behalf of the prisoners), something like twenty of the group sat down to block the doors to the US Mission. A similar demonstration had taken place on May 1st, but the police had declined to make any arrests. Today they did. Off went the men and women of the Catholic Worker – and some non- Catholics as well.

Among those arrested was Father Dan Berrigan, who celebrated his 85th birthday only a couple of weeks ago. He looks 85 now, fragile, but not too fragile to accept another arrest.

Off went my old friend Tom Cornell, who led the draft card burning in 1965 in which I took part. Off went Rabbi Arthur Waskow. (And, had it not been for a sick cat at home, I would have joined them).

Those who want information on what is happening, and what they can do, should visit the Witness Against Torture website: www.witnesstorture.org. You can also send an email to Frida Berrigan: Frida.Berrigan@gmail.com.

There are T-shirts available for $10 with “Close Down Guantanamo” on the front (mine was waiting in my dirty laundry bag, so I arrived without it).

These are bright orange – the color the men at Guantanamo wear. It is the color I’d love to see worn by every member of the President’s cabinet. One of these days!

You don’t need to be Catholic to join the protests. You don’t need to be religious at all. Opposition to torture is as American as apple pie, and the reality of heavy duty torture is so real, so documented, that one cringes when Rumsfeld categorically denies it happens, or when, after the journalists who were there last week were summarily expelled, the Fox News Channel was invited down for a guided tour! It is as if our government didn’t know the meaning of shame – or the irony of inviting Fox when it wouldn’t let the UN in.

Guantanamo is so embarrassing now for the US Government that it is fairly certain to be closed – but barring a wave of outrage from the public, the torture and renditions will be decentralized, to other more secret locations. What has happened to our nation that our government so easily deals in torture?

Of course what we need is a government that believes in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights – but while that long wait continues, each of you can do something aside from wringing your hands.

Contact the web site above, wear a T-shirt – and write a letter to your member of Congress, to your Senator. Make yourself be heard. Others are gradually taking up the issue. Ask Hillary Clinton if she has any interest in the Bill of Rights.

Ask your City Council if they would consider a resolution on the matter. Ask Witness Against Torture for a speaker who could come to your area.

If you do nothing else, you could send this brief column to a friend who may rejoice to know that an 85 year old priest still had it in him to get arrested – but let me say, as a devout atheist, no Jesuit priest can act on my behalf, or ours – this struggle is one where our voices and bodies must count.

Today’s news of the attacks on the New York Times by Congressman King from Long Island, and the shabby “terrorist conspiracy” in Miami, cobbled together by our Attorney General, tells us that if we wait for others to act we will have waited too long.

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

TWENTY FIVE ARRESTED AT THE US MISSION TO THE UNITED
NATIONS:
SAYING NO TO TORTURE, SHUT DOWN GUANTANAMO

Three Activists Arrested With the Names of the Men who
Committed Suicide at Guantanamo on June 10, 2006.

June 26, 2006 Contact: Frida Berrigan 347-683-4928, Amanda Daloisio 201-264-4424

Undeterred by inclement weather, more than 60 people marched in a solemn procession from the United Nations to the US mission to the United Nations.

Carrying signs that read Shut Down Guantanamo, the group marked the United Nations Day for the Victims of Torture.

The procession, which included rabbis, priests, nuns, college students and human rights activists, was led by a cage on wheels representing the Guantanamo prison cells in which over 400 men remain, some for more than 4 years.

Upon arrival, Witness Against Torture- a Campaign to Shut Down Guantanamo- moderated a press conference in which distinguished religious leaders, legal experts and the nephew of a Guantanamo prisoner addressed Ambassador John Bolton directly, calling on him to heed international demands to shut down Guantanamo.

The press conference was co-sponsored by Riverside Church, Rabbis for Human Rights and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Immediately following the press conference, twenty five of those gathered sent a strong message to end torture, stop indefinite detention and shut down Guantanamo to the US Ambassador to the UN by blocking the doors of the building; saying they would stay until the international consensus against these illegal acts is respected, heard and acted upon.

While the activists were removed after 20 minutes, a new page in the movement to shut down Guantanamo was turned.

Three of those arrested took on the names of men who died at Guantanamo- reportedly by suicide- on June 10, 2006. “With humility and sadness that I commit this act of nonviolent civil disobedience as Ali Abdullah Ahmed,” said one of those who refused to give his own name.

“Ali was 29 and originally from Yemen. Despite being held for 4 long years, no US judge ever heard his case.

It is our intention to bring his name, and the names of Manei Shaman Turki al-Habadi and Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, into the US criminal justice system in the hopes that no more men die or are killed before justice and mercy are shown.”

Witness Against Torture began as a walk to visit the prisoners in Guantanamo in December. Twenty four U.S. Catholics walked more than 100 kilometers to resist the war on terrorism and respond to its victims. Upon return, along with countless others, they initiated a National Campaign to Shut Down Guantanamo.

For more information, visit: www.witnesstorture.org

The Ultimate In Contempt:
Army Says Soldiers Have To Be Taught How To Think For Themselves!!

6.28.06 Christian Science Monitor

The war on terror has changed how the Army educates its members to make war, including teaching soldiers how to think for themselves.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action;
U.S. Convoy Ambushed

June 30, 2006 By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer & by Mona Salem, Agence France-Presse

Taliban militants ambushed a U.S. convoy Thursday in eastern Kunar province, sparking a firefight that killed one civilian and wounded two, a police official said.

In southern Zabul province, Taliban fighters attacked a local district chief’s office Thursday.

Police chief Abdul Jalal said three civilians were wounded in the clash, one fatally.

Rebels captured an Afghan security worker in southern Afghanistan.

The man working for USPI, a US private security firm, was captured Thursday in the southern province of Ghazni which has seen frequent Taliban attacks, provincial police chief Tafsir Khan said.

During a hunt for the rebels police detained six men for suspected involvement. There was no news on the fate of the security worker.

Five Iraqi soldiers were killed in an assault against a checkpoint in the Jibal Hamreen area south of the northern oil hub of Kirkuk, the army said.

An Iraqi army soldier was killed and eight others wounded when a roadside bomb went off targeting their patrol west of Kirkuk, military sources said.

Another three Iraqi soldiers were wounded south of Kirkuk in a similar attack.

In Mosul, a colonel in Iraq’s security forces was killed and his wife badly wounded when guerrillas showered their car with bullets.

In Daliqiya, snipers killed the head of the police force, Col. Sami Abbas Hassan, and his two bodyguards. U.S. and Iraqi forces, backed by air support, then tried to restore calm, engaging in a fierce gunbattle that left three fighters dead and three wounded, the U.S. military said, adding that four suspects were detained.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“At school the rich teach us about their democracy. Here, we show them ours.” Sixth grader protesting attacks on immigrants, with 100,000 others, April 9 in San Diego. Quoted by Justin Akers Chacon, International Socialist Review, May-June 2006

“GIs And Marines Started Fighting The US Military Itself”

But the real importance of this is for today. It is to show US military personnel on active duty now that they can resist, they can organize, they can work to end the war in Iraq.

In other words, while strongly rooted in the past, this movie is intended for the present and the future. It’s about hope.

July 2006 By Kim Scipes (USMC, 1969-1973), Substance News

Kim Scipes, Ph.D., was trained as an Avionics Technician while on active duty (1969-73). He also spent 18 months working in a “human relations” program that was designed to cover the Lifers’ asses if a race riot had jumped off at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona where he spent most of his enlistment.

With the guidance of three African-American Marines who he worked with, they made fighting the racial oppression of the Marine Corps—both personal and institutional—a real effort.

Scipes, who was not offered a re-enlistment opportunity, got out in early 1973 to go to college.

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

I just got back from watching David Zeiger’s brilliant new film, “Sir, No Sir,” about the resistance movement WITHIN the US military during Viet Nam, or more correctly, the war in Southeast Asia.

I want to share some thoughts. This is from an activist who is a Viet Nam era veteran (USMC, 1969-73, stayed in States all four years, honorable discharge, rank of Sergeant), and even though I work as an academic today, I have never studied the war academically, and definitely do not see myself as an “expert.”

Two quick thoughts and then some details: First, Zieger has done an excellent job on this movie—he brings to life the largest working class movement in the country’s history since the late 1940s: the anti-war movement in the military.

Second, folks, we’ve GOT to do a better job in getting people into the theaters to see this film. We who call ourselves leftists, progressives, liberals, what ever, need to get our asses into the theaters for this one and take our friends. I’m quite serious about this.

Let me recount: during the Viet Nam war, as GIs and Marines began to understand what they had gotten into (whether volunteer or draftee)—many after coming back from Viet Nam—they started fighting the US military itself, and particularly officers and staff NCOs

(Non-commissioned officers—these are senior enlisted folks who have re-enlisted at least once in the military and usually see it as a career: often, along with “gung ho” officers, referred to with great disdain as “lifers”).

This resistance movement—in my opinion—came very close to causing the US military to implode. It affected the military not only in Viet Nam, but around the world, including the US.

“Sir, No Sir” tells the story of this resistance movement, showing its growth.

Zieger interviews a number of vets (and in one case, a family) to tell the story of this resistance movement, and shows how it grew over time.

Eventually, entire military units in Viet Nam refused to fight in combat—which, under military law, is a death penalty offense; over 500,000 service men and women deserted; there were over 1,400 DOCUMENTED cases of “fraggings” (where soldiers would try to use fragmentation grenades to kill officers and/or staff NCOs; and some military units brought to help control the riots expected around the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968 were not used because their reliability as repressive forces could not be guaranteed.

Towards the end of the war, and especially as Nixon and Kissinger began shifting to greater and greater reliance upon air power, the resistance movement spread into the Air Force and Navy.

(Not mentioned in the film, but one large aircraft carrier—I believe it was the Forrestal, but I’m not certain—had one of its main drive shafts damaged so badly by sabotage that it was in dry dock for a year and a half before it could be used for combat operations!)

In this film, David Zieger interviews a number of men and women—overwhelmingly men, as that what our military was like during those times—and has them talk about what they saw and did.

This is not theory—these folks took some serious risks, and a number ending up serving years in prison for their efforts, such as publishing anti-military newspapers while still on active duty (over 300 were created). Some of these folks acted on their own, and some recognized they were part of something larger, and acted accordingly and/or joined organizations, or created their own, like Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), which still exists today. (www.vvaw.org )

Importantly, Zieger includes Jane Fonda in the film, and recognizes the importance of her traveling anti-war show, “FTA.” (A take off on the Army’s recruiting slogan, “Fun, Travel and Adventure,” it was translated in polite company as “Free the Army” and among the troops as “Fuck the Army.”)

Fonda, along with folks like Donald Sutherland and Holly Near—and many others whose names, unfortunately, I don’t know—traveled around the Western Pacific, giving shows in Japan, Okinawa, and the Philippines to the vets, and SUPPORTED THEIR RESISTANCE! Jane, who’s been vilified so badly by the right over the years, gets her say, and I’m glad Zieger included her. One mention is of a show or probably a series of shows—it wasn’t clear to me—that played to over 60,000 active duty US troops!

But why do I think this film is so important?

A number of reasons.

Most importantly, it tells part of the war that has been all-but expunged from history. How many people know that by 1971-72, the US military came within a hair of imploding internally?

Another reason is that it validates the general anti-war movement: I’ve seen many debates over the years of the impact of the 1960s protest movement on the war, and while we can—and I’m sure will—debate the direct effect, what I KNOW is that the anti-war movement in the streets had a powerful positive affect on the troops in the military and encouraged us to act.

And then, when vets came back, and VVAW held its Winter Soldier investigations in Detroit in 1971 that revealed the war crimes that the US military was committing in Viet Nam—the film of the hearings is now on DVD and is available from VVAW—and then their action in Washington, DC called Dewey Canyon III where vets threw their medals back at Congress in disgust, the vets reinvigorated the anti-war movement.

This was the first war when US combat troops came back and repudiated what they had done, and the political leadership that had sent them.

But the real importance of this is for today. It is to show US military personnel on active duty now that they can resist, they can organize, they can work to end the war in Iraq.

It can show high school students why they shouldn’t go into the military. It can show college students, whose chances of being faced with decisions regarding a draft increase as long as W wants to keep troops in Iraq, that they can learn from the past. (If you think it’s not saying anything today, go to the movie web site (www.sirnosir.com ), click on the Rukus Society’s Flash “Punk Ass Crusade,” on the right hand-side of the screen, and then tell me again!)

In other words, while strongly rooted in the past, this movie is intended for the present and the future.

It’s about hope.

Hope that the troops will come to understand what they’re part of, and get them to stop participating in the killing machine.

(When you go to the movie’s web page, you can click on “Free DVD for Active Duty and Deployed Soldiers,” and find that the Iraq Veterans Against the War” will send 500 free copies to people on active duty.)

We’ve got to make this movie an organizing tool and get people in to see it. And then we’ve got to ask them, ok, now what are YOU going to do to help end this war?

Now, while being overwhelmingly positive about “Sir, No Sir!”, there are some things to say.

First, as good as this film is—and I think it really is quite good—it is only a beginning report on the GI movement.

There was a LOT going on not mentioned, or just barely mentioned in the film. The resistance movement was not just in Viet Nam, nor was it just by vets back from Viet Nam. It took place in the States and in Europe, and by men and women who hadn’t gone to Viet Nam but who were on active duty and began to understand what they were a part of.

Second, the resistance was not just against the War—in fact, my experience was that much of the resistance, at least among folks at my base, was against the hierarchy and authoritarianism of the military.

I think a better way to understand the movement it was that for some folks, the war (and later, the Empire, although it wasn’t often called that) was the problem. For some, the authoritarianism was the problem. And for some, it was both.

Third, despite interviewing a number of African-Americans, the movie really doesn’t address the incredible racism within the military. By 1971, the Marine Corps—the most disciplined of all the military branches—had a race riot in every major Marine facility in the WORLD except one!

Blacks and whites were being disarmed in some places in Viet Nam when they came out of the bush, because there were a number of places where whites and blacks had fire fights against each other. Blacks were being imprisoned at rates far beyond whites. Etc., etc. This story remains to be told.

Also, while “Sir, No Sir!” focuses on the politics of the movement, other than the FTA show, a little bit on the coffee houses, and some on the GI newspapers, it does not give enough attention to the culture that emerged among the junior troops (we called ourselves “snuffies” in the Marine Corps, basically, first term enlisted types).

Most especially, there was almost nothing about the music and the drugs. Where would the movement have been without the Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of this Place,” and many others? Hendrix, of course, was big, as was Janice Joplin, the Doors and so many others, including Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs. (Ochs’ “I Ain’t a Marchin’ Anymore” would have been perfect for this movie!)

It also ignores the drugs. They were all over. They were used both to resist the military—Marines could get YEARS in prison for a few pot seeds if found, and a undesirable discharge—and they were used to build solidarity.

I’m not just talking pot here: I had a friend who was the Quality Assurance person in our (air wing) squadron who just couldn’t work right if he wasn’t tripping on acid. In Viet Nam, people smoked pot and opium, and a considerable number tried heroin. (Which was flown in to Viet Nam on the CIA’s airline, Air America, after they flew it from the highlands to Bangkok for processing and then on to Saigon for distribution. See Alfred W. McCoy’s THE POLITICS OF HEROIN IN SOUTH EAST ASIA for details.) This is in addition to alcohol.

While not having read a lot on the war, the two best books on the anti-war movement in the US military that I have read are Richard Moser’s THE NEW WINTER SOLDIERS: GI AND VETERAN DISSENT DURING THE VIETNAM ERA (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996)—which I reviewed in the VVAW Newspaper, “The Veteran,” back in 1996 at www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=298 —and Richard Stacewicz’ WINTER SOLDIERS: AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE VIETNAM VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997).

The “classic” book on the subject is David Cortwright’s SOLDIERS IN REVOLT: THE AMERICAN MILITARY TODAY (Garden City, NY: Anchor Doubleday, 1975 but which I understand has been republished more recently.)

In short, an excellent film that deserves wide spread publicity and circulation. We’ve got to get the word out: if you find these comments useful, then forward them on to at least 10 friends, and ask them to do the same thing. Tell people to go to the web site, find out when the film is appearing in their area, and then have them go see it! We need to get people to see it, and talk about it, and spread the word: this is too important not to do so.

It challenges the myths of the idiots on the right in ways few movies do: it challenges their interpretations of Viet Nam, of the role of the US in the world, and it ultimately challenges our military war on Iraq, and all the other crap that Bush has planned.

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.

George (Cotton Balls) Bush And His Toy Soldiers

From: Richard Hastie
To: GI Special
Sent: June 28, 2006

George (Cotton Balls) Bush and his toy soldiers.

Mike Hastie
Vietnam Veteran
June 28, 2006

Photo and caption 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)

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

Good News For The Iraqi Resistance!!
U.S. Occupation Commands’ Stupid Terror Tactics Recruit Even More Fighters To Kill U.S. Troops

Foreign occupation troops interrogate Iraqi citizens after forcing their way into their home in Ramadi, June 29, 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, 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?]

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

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

Thieving Baghdad Collaborators Grab Money Belonging To Oil Workers Union Opposing Oil Privatisation

June 20th, 2006 From Naftana

We have just confirmed reports that the Iraqi regime has frozen all the bank accounts of the Iraqi oil workers’ union, both abroad and within Iraq.

Wave of anti-union activity by government:

The Iraqi regime’s decision comes in the wake of a series of anti-union measures, including the disbanding of the council of the lawyers’ union, freezing the writers’ union accounts and the September 2005 decree making all trade union activity illegal. For that anti-union act the regime used the pretext of promising the promulgation of a future law to ‘regulate’ trade union organisations and their activities.

This action follows in the footsteps of US administrator Paul Bremer In 2004 Paul Bremer, the occupation’s then pro-consul in Iraq, declared trade union activity in the state sector illegal. That decision re-enacted Saddam Hussain’s 1987 decree banning workers’ unions in the state sector by declaring them to be ‘civil servants’ rather than ‘workers’.

Hamstringing opponents of oil rip-off:

Iraq’s enormous oil wealth is being groomed for Production Sharing Agreements, which would transfer effective control over all aspects of oil policy, production and marketing to multination oil companies.

The oil workers’ union is one of the most effective opponents of this policy, organising an anti-privatisation conference last year and another one to come this year.

Act now to show your solidarity with the oil workers union. Naftana member Ewa Jasiewicz is prepared to deal with enquiries. You can call her on 07749 421576.

MORE:

Union Bureaucrats Helping Bush And Blair Crush Independent Unions In Iraq

6.26.06 Leninology.blogspot.com

Dear Friend,

Please treat this as an open letter and feel free to circulate.

The head of the TUC European Union and International Department, Owen Tudor, has written a letter criticising Iraq’s oil workers’ union, for not building links with certain international union federations, and lambasting solidarity organisations for issuing statements alerting the trade unions and general public to the escalating anti-trade union measures and oil privatisation plans in Iraq.

Instead of directing his fire at the anti-trade union measures in occupied Iraq, Owen Tudor prefers to level a false accusation against a besieged trade union representing impoverished workers, languishing under a ruthless occupation. He also takes a swipe at “small” solidarity organisations in Britain and USA, and engages in diversionary nitpicking and making light of the grave problems facing the Iraqi people and trade unions.

But despite Owen Tudor’s attempt to cloud the issues and downplay the seriousness of the problems facing Iraq’s genuinely independent trade unionists, the facts are plain and simple to understand.

The Iraqi government has, in the past few months, accelerated the implementation of decree 8750.

The Iraqi Ministerial Council approved decree 8750 in August 2005 (probably not published in the official gazette till September) promising “a new paper on how trade unions should function, operate and organise,” dissolving one government committee and replacing it with a new ministerial committee that includes the minister for National Security, to be in charge of Labour and Social Rights, and stating that the new committee would control all trade union funds.

Using wording rivalling the deviousness of the Saddam regime’s 1987 anti-trade union law, decree 8750 does not ban trade unions. In 2004 US administrator Paul Bremer issued a notorious directive, still in effect, reviving Saddam’s 1987 anti-union decree, which also did not ban trade unions as such, but merely deemed all workers in the state sector to be civil servants. Civil servants were of course banned from joining trade unions.

Similarly, decree 8750 is worded such that it effectively makes all union activity illegal.

The decree states that the new ministerial committee “must take control of all monies belonging to the trade unions and prevent them from dispensing any such monies.”

How trade unions can function legally when it is illegal to dispense a penny on their activities, only Owen Tudor knows.

He also knows how to stay calm and not resort to “hyperbole” when “Unions in Iraq are clearly still functioning, and have been since the Decree was announced.” In English, this means that his TUC department will not launch a serious campaign to defend Iraq’s independent trade unionists until they all stop functioning.

While the country burned and cities were at the receiving end of trigger-happy US Marines, US air and land bombardment, and occupation-induced terrorist attacks, the government proceeded this year with the implementation of the anti-union policies and decrees.

As if it was not bad enough that his TUC department did not campaign to defend the Iraqi lawyers’ and writers’ unions, Owen Tudor tries to downplay nakedly anti-union measures by describing properly constituted unions, with elected officers, as “more professional associations than trade unions.”

In April the government accelerated the implementation of its 8750 anti-union decree. Contrary to Tudor Owen’s accusations of “hyperbole,” the Naftana statement below understates the scale of the problem facing Iraqi trade unions by highlighting the actual freezing of the accounts of only the oil workers’ union. The government decree in fact ordered control over the accounts of all trade unions (including those close to the government).

I find it astonishing that he chooses to accuse the oil workers union, whom the TUC officially invited to Britain last year, of not communicating with international union federations.

He knows very well that the oil workers’ union has been trying very hard to establish such contacts in the face of insidious, but polite and patronising disregard.

He also knows that this union is financially strapped -(the price of true independence under occupation)- and relies heavily on its supporters in Britain to communicate its news in English to the British and world trade union movement. Instead of publicly criticising the union, he should be writing to them expressing concern at the news of freezing their account, ascertaining the full facts and offering financial and other help. He should also be asking them how the TUC could help the union’s planned second anti-privatisation conference in Basra.

It is deeply regrettable that some in the TUC international department prefer to turn a blind eye to certain international events, which are seriously threatening trade unionists abroad, if such events are deemed to be politically embarrassing to Blair’s government.

For them Iraq is building a democracy, and strangling independent trade union activity does not fit in with that fictitious Blairite image of Iraq, an image designed to lull trade unionists into silence about the gravity of the situation in Iraq, and thwart calls for the swift withdrawal of the US and British occupation forces.

In the name of supporting a fictitious democratic process, they are in effect helping to crush democratic activity.

And by not exposing the consequences of the Blairite (Thatcherite) alliance with the Bush administration, some in the TUC international department are, probably with good intentions, helping prolong the occupation of Iraq and privatisation and theft of Iraqi oil and other wealth by the transnationals.

In doing this, they are also damaging the reputation and proud record of most of Britain’s unions, strongly opposed to the war and continuing occupation of Iraq.

Instead, Tudor Owen should also be alerting Britain’s unions to the fact that the Iraq’s oil minister is preparing the ground for signing privatisation agreements, deceptively called Production Sharing Agreements, with the transnational oil barons.

The TUC is perhaps not aware that the occupation authorities have spent millions of dollars on so called civil society and other ‘sweetheart’ organisations to prop up activities designed to draw attention away from the war crimes of the occupation forces and plans to privatise Iraq’s oil and main industries.

The implementation, probably selectively, of decree 8750 will hit the genuinely independent organisations hardest, because they rely heavily on the pennies they collect from impoverished workers and donations collected by solidarity organisations .

Decree 8750 is aimed at strangling the truly independent trade unions and other mass organisations.

International solidarity helps them stay independent and to resist pressures to turn them into ‘sweetheart’ unions, docile apologists of the occupation and the transnationals.

Best wishes,

Sami Ramadani
26 June 2006

Finally Some Good News From Iraq:
Baghdad’s Rich Getting Hammered

6.28.06 Los Angeles Times

In a city where violence defies logic, and nearly anyone could be on a hit list, pretending to be somebody else makes sense.

Rich people in Baghdad hide their jewelry and dig frayed clothes from the back of their closets to evade ransom-seeking kidnappers. Even religious ties are falsely portrayed as Iraqis try to stay alive.

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

OCCUPATION PALESTINE

“The Enduring Fact Is That The Raid On The Kerem Shalom Tank Base Has Dealt Zionism A Political Blow”

The raid cannot easily be denounced as “terrorism”, and cannot easily be dismissed with the perennial slander of “anti-semitism”.

Clearly, the attack on one of the military installations that have been bombarding the people of the Gaza Strip for weeks was not “revenge” for the beach atrocity, and cannot be belittled as “martyrdom” or “jihad”.

June 25 & June 27, 2006 By Henry N. Lowi [Excerpts] Posted to the Anti-Allawi group by John Spritzler.

The attack by Palestinian guerrillas near Kerem Shalom has some important features:

1. It was a military attack on a military target.

2. It was an attack by partisans from the occupied population against active duty soldiers of the occupation army.

3. It used weapons and tactics suitable for the operation, and destroyed assets of the occupation army

4. It targeted the senior officers.

5. It caused consternation and demoralization among the occupation army and the population that supports it.

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

From the most brutal Zionists, to the most cultured, the strategic goal is, in the words of the late unlamented General Rafael Eitan, “to close the Palestinians up so that they scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.”

There is no possibility of peaceful coexistence between a Zionist state and a Palestinian national movement. One must subdue the other. Slicing the baby in half is not a realistic option.

The international and Israeli starvation blockade was obviously the prelude to military action, and had nothing to do with “punishing” the Hamas-led PLC.

The IDF has already begun its reprisal, according to its well-known modus operandi — destroying infrastructure, beginning with bridges and electric power stations.

The IDF says that this is to prevent the captors of Corporal Gilad Shalit from moving him around. The truth is that this is large-scale state terror against the Gazan Palestinian population and its refugees. We have seen it all before, in Lebanon, and everywhere else.

It has nothing to do with saving Corporal Shalit’s life. That would require a different set of tactics. His is another life that is expendable for the cause of Zionist domination.

The enduring fact is that the raid on the Kerem Shalom tank base has dealt Zionism a political blow.

The raid cannot easily be denounced as “terrorism”, and cannot easily be dismissed with the perennial slander of “anti-semitism”.

Clearly, the attack on one of the military installations that have been bombarding the people of the Gaza Strip for weeks was not “revenge” for the beach atrocity, and cannot be belittled as “martyrdom” or “jihad”.

It was an overtly justifiable act of self-defence by oppressed people. Furthermore, the demand to release female and juvenile political prisoners was reasonable.

Whenever the oppressed display skill and cunning and dedication, the oppressors are in a panic.

Enough to read the Israeli press to understand the magnitude of the political blow caused by the Kerem Shalom raid.

This action is similar, in kind, to the destruction of the Merkava tanks on the “Philadelphi” route, and to the hang-glider raid on the Nahal base (one of the triggers of the Intifada that began in December 1987).

In magnitude, it comes close to the scale of the October 1973 Yom Kippur sneak attack and the breach of the Bar-Lev Line. The Karameh battle of 1968 also comes to mind, and should now bear some lessons for the defenders of Gaza, as should Jenin 2002.

The staying power of Zionism is based on the myth of Israeli invincibility (combined with Jewish victimhood).

Challenge these, deeply, and Zionism falls apart.

“Invincibility” has suffered a blow. The political answer to the “victimhood” myth is the forthright proposal and forthright promise of a democratic, secular republic in all of Palestine.

In these circumstances, one wonders what Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh hope to achieve with their recently-negotiated agreement.

The only rational approach now is the united front to defend the people of Palestine, that must be organized diligently in the Gaza Strip, in Tel Aviv, and everywhere else.

[To check out what life is like under a murderous military occupation by foreign terrorists, go to: www.rafahtoday.org The occupied nation is Palestine. The foreign terrorists call themselves “Israeli.”]

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

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

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