TERRORISTS AT WORK:
NEXT TIME YOU HEAR SOMEBODY WHINING ABOUT RESISTANCE BOMBERS OR MISSILES ATTACKING PUBLIC PLACES IN ISRAEL, CRAM THIS PHOTO UP THEIR ASS WITH A SHARP STICK

Bodies of civilian adults and children are seen in and around the wreckage of their vehicles on the main road near the village of Ter Harfa, Lebanon, July 15, 2006. At least 12 Lebanese villagers, including women and children, were killed in an Israeli air attack on a convoy of vehicles evacuating civilians from a village in southern Lebanon. The convoy was leaving the village of Marwaheen, when it was attacked. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

MNC I SOLDIER KILLED BY SADR CITY IED

7/15/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-07-01C & Reuters

BAGHDAD: A U.S. military policeman was killed at approximately 11:25 a.m. today when the vehicle he was riding in struck a roadside bomb near Sadr City, an area in northeast Baghdad.

MND B SOLDIER KILLED BY SOUTHERN BAGHDAD IED

7/15/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-07-01C

BAGHDAD: A Multi National Division Baghdad Soldier died at approximately 3:55 p.m. today when he was hit by an improvised-explosive device in southern Baghdad.

Confirmed:
Resistance Shot Down U.S. Copter

7.15.06: Crashed US military helicopter southwest of Baghdad. (AFP/Jim Watson)

7.15.06 (Reuters)

The U.S. military said initial reports indicated that an Apache attack helicopter that crashed in a dangerous area southwest of Baghdad on Thursday was brought down by hostile fire.

U.S. Troops Attacked In Kirkuk;
No Casualties Reported [Yet]

7.15.06 KUNA

Multi-National forces were attacked in west Kirkuk by unidentified armed men, wounding an Iraqi soldier during an exchange of fire.

The source added that a missile was launched against a Multi-National forces site in southwest Kirkuk and a checkpoint was also attacked by a mortar shell but no casualties have been reported in both incidents

REALLY BAD PLACE TO BE:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

6.30.06: U.S. Army soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment patrol in Mahmoudiyah, May 28, 2006. (AP Photo/Ryan Lenz)

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Memories Of Soldier Ease Grief

An honor guard moves Joseph Fuerst III’s casket to its final resting place for a graveside service Thursday.

July 7, 2006 By KEVIN GRAHAM, St. Petersburg Times

Staff Sgt. Joseph Frederick Fuerst III called Chuck Paulk with a problem just days before his wedding.

“I don’t know how to dance,” he told Paulk, 53, of Tampa.

Paulk spent the three days before the ceremony teaching Fuerst and his soon-to-be-bride the two-step.

“I kept telling him to look at my eyes and not my shoes,” Paulk said. “It was hard for him to do with his arms around me.”

The newlyweds didn’t miss a beat during their first dance, he said.

Thursday morning it was the movement of soldiers’ marching feet that captured Paulk’s attention, as they carried Fuerst’s casket at Christ the King Roman Catholic Church in South Tampa.

The 26-year-old died June 24 of injuries from rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire in an attack on his Humvee in Afghanistan’s Panjway District. He would have celebrated a birthday in two weeks.

Fuerst’s was the first of three funerals planned for Tampa soldiers who died within a week while fighting in Mideast wars. Army Cpl. Aaron Griner, who grew up in Brandon, died June 28 in the deserts of Afghanistan. He was 24. Army Sgt. Bryan Luckey, 25, of Tampa, died June 29 in Iraq.

Fuerst and his wife Tara, 22, were both deployed to Afghanistan last summer as part of the Florida Guard’s 53rd Infantry Brigade. They married in March 2005. She was in Afghanistan when news came of her husband’s death.

Hundreds of mourners filled the pews in the sunlit church Thursday, and a hush settled on the crowd as the soldier’s family entered the foyer, accompanied by the flag-draped coffin and a uniformed escort.

With military precision, the troops lifted and folded the American flag, and the family draped the coffin with a Catholic ceremonial funeral cloth.

Tears began to fall as Father Desmond Daly sprinkled holy water on the casket. The mourners sang How Great Thou Art as a Boy Scout troop led the processional into the church.

Sgt. Jorge Pozo served with Fuerst in Afghanistan. He broke his right leg in the same firefight that ended Fuerst’s life, he said.

He was carrying a fallen soldier out of a kill zone when he broke his leg, but kept running to get to safety, making the injury worse. He attended Fuerst’s funeral on crutches.

“He loved his wife, and he loved what he was doing,” Pozo said.

Fuerst joined the Army in 1998, after graduating from H.B. Plant High School. Paulk, the man who taught Fuerst to dance for his wedding, met him when Fuerst was a junior. Fuerst had gone to Paulk’s home to cut his lawn. From that grew their friendship.

They last spoke two months ago during an hourlong telephone conversation. Fuerst talked about the war, how frequently he saw his wife and joked about how Paulk could send him a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey without anyone noticing.

“He was a pretty simple guy,” Paulk said. “You could always count on him to show up and buy the next round of drinks. Just showing up is what it’s all about. He would do just that.”

Fuerst and his wife had bought an acre of land in Brooksville where they planned to settle down and have children after he got out of the military in October, Paulk said. A police academy graduate, Fuerst had started applying for jobs as an officer.

“I don’t look at this as a loss,” Paulk said. “The 26 years he was here, it was a gift.”

Two British Troops Wounded At Sangin

15/07/2006 Telegraph Group Limited 2006.

An Army spokesman said that nearly 1,000 British soldiers, including some in support roles’ were involved in an operation in Sangin.

Two British troops were injured but both are expected to make a full recovery.

Another Silly Occupation Fiasco:
While British Troops Are Surrounded & Helpless & Must Have Water Supplied By Air Drops:
“Single-Biggest Coalition Operation In Afghanistan In Three Years Fails To Find Taliban Targets”

There have been daily battles in the area between British troops and insurgents for some time, with the British running so low on supplies that soldiers were forced to drink from the Helmand River, their situation dire enough that late last night, a chopper left the main Coalition base at Kandahar Air Field to drop off emergency rations of bottled water to them.

“They’re the besieged soldiers waiting for the cavalry,” is how the Canadian officer described the British.

7.15.06 CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD, Globe and Mail, KANDAHAR

Six hundred Canadian soldiers, working with U.S. infantry, early this morning put the squeeze on a Taliban stronghold in the badlands of Helmand Province so that British paratroopers could storm several compounds.

The raid took place about 150 kilometres northwest of Kandahar in two pockets of the volatile Sangin area, not far from where earlier this spring Canadian Private Robert Costall was killed at remote Forward Operating Base Robinson.

Before dawn, Alpha and Charlie Companies of the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry moved into the area from the south, with U.S. troops of the 10th Mountain Division doing the same from the north, as the Coalition converged most of its military assets in southern Afghanistan on a handful of mud-walled compounds for what a senior Canadian army official called “one brief, shining moment.”

With the Canadians providing a block at the north end of Sangin district and the Americans doing the same from the north, 300 paratroopers from the British 3rd Battalion of The Parachute Regiment were dumped from helicopters onto key rooftops of the compounds.

Intelligence considered highly reliable led Coalition forces to suspect there may be have been as many as 300 insurgents, including some mid-level Taliban leaders, holed up in the area.

But early reports, Coalition spokesman Major Scott Lundy said today, suggest that against all predictions, insurgents may have opted not to make a stand this time, but rather melt away into surrounding districts, lending credence to the description offered by the senior Canadian official about the difficulty of fighting an insurgency moving on its home turf : “Like punching flies.”

Ten Taliban fighters were killed in the battle, Maj. Lundy said, with Coalition forces suffering no casualties.

The Taliban, as did the mujahedeen before them, recognize the value of a strategic retreat. It is one of the frustrations of a counter-insurgency that it is the insurgents who usually dictate the where and when of battle.

There have been daily battles in the area between British troops and insurgents for some time, with the British running so low on supplies that soldiers were forced to drink from the Helmand River, their situation dire enough that late last night, a chopper left the main Coalition base at Kandahar Air Field to drop off emergency rations of bottled water to them.

“They’re the besieged soldiers waiting for the cavalry,” is how the Canadian officer described the British.

TROOP NEWS

Air Force Officer Who Wrote “Fuck Bush” On Pro-Bush Bumper Stickers Gets Two Years Deferred Sentence

[Thanks to PB, who sent this in.]

Jul 14 By ROBERT WELLER, Associated Press Writer

An Air Force officer pleaded guilty Friday to defacing cars with bumper stickers supporting President Bush, and was given a two-year deferred sentence. Lt. Col. Alexis Fecteau, a decorated officer who flew 500 combat hours in the Gulf War, Kosovo and Bosnia, pleaded guilty to felony mischief and must pay restitution to the owners of the damaged cars to clear his record.

Attorney Patrick Mulligan said his client, a 20-year veteran, has submitted his retirement papers. Negotiations are under way to determine at what rank and with what benefits he will be retired.

Fecteau originally faced 13 charges for defacing vehicles at the Denver airport from January to July 2005. Fecteau admitted to investigators he had vandalized cars starting around the time of the November 2004 election, but pleaded guilty to a single charge of criminal mischief that named all 13 victims.

Fecteau blacked out pro-Bush bumper stickers and then spray-painted an expletive over them. [Press reports at the time said what he wrote was “Fuck Bush.”] After the charges became public, Fecteau was removed as director of operations for reserve forces at the National Security Space Institute at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.

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

Family members of Army Spc. Christopher D. Rose, nephew of Rose, Lee Hoffman Jr., left; Rose’s sister and Lee’s mother Marianne Hoffman, second left; and parents Margaret, second right, and Rudy Rose, look at Rose’s casket at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, Calif., July 11, 2006. Nearly 200 mourners paid their respects to Rose, who was killed by a roadside bomb last month. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

“Our Own Military Leadership Are Free To Rape At Absolute Carte Blanche”
Female Soldiers Treated ‘Lower Than Dirt’

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

July 14, 2006 By Rose Aguilar, AlterNet [Excerpts] Rose Aguilar is a San Francisco-based journalist who is writing a book about her road trip through the “red states.”

U.S. Army Specialist Suzanne Swift will spend her 22nd birthday tomorrow confined to the Fort Lewis base in Washington, where she is awaiting the outcome of an investigation into allegations that she was sexually harassed and assaulted by three sergeants in Iraq.

When Swift’s unit redeployed to Iraq in January 2006, she refused to go and instead stayed with her mother in Eugene, Oregon. She was eventually listed as AWOL, arrested at her mother’s home on June 11, sent to county jail, and transferred to Fort Lewis.

“She’s miserable and isolated,” says Sara Rich, Swift’s mother. “It’s not good to have an idle mind while you’re dealing with PTSD and sexual trauma. I want them to release her so I can get her the care she needs. I’m tired of waiting.”

“Regrettably, Suzanne Swift is not the first,” says Anita Sanchez, communications director of the Miles Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides services to victims of military violence.

“There have been several young women who have been declared AWOL for seeking treatment due to sexual assault, but most of them are too scared to speak out.”

Since the fall of 2003, the Miles Foundation has documented 518 cases of sexual assault on women who have served or are serving in Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain and Qatar.

The foundation has counselors on staff around the clock and often receives midnight phone calls from service members or their family members. After counselors and attorneys help the women access medical care and explain the reporting process, they try to transport them to a safe place for care and treatment.

Another recent case involved a young American woman who was raped by a Coalition partner in a rural area.

Sanchez says it took two weeks to get to a one-room medical facility in Kabul. “They had no facilities to do a rape testing, so they couldn’t test for pregnancy or HIV. An American doctor literally handed her high dose antibiotics and told her, ‘This will kill anything you’ve come in contact with.’” The young woman is now recovering in the states.

Sanchez says another woman was told she would receive the morning-after pill a few days after she was raped, but received birth control pills instead.

While these cases aren’t officially documented within the government, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense both conduct general studies of sexual assault, but the findings can be difficult to obtain.

Last year, Rep. Lane Evans (D-IL), the ranking Democratic Member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, criticized the Bush administration for failing to release a Veterans Affairs study on military sexual trauma among the National Guard and Reserve. It found sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape among females is 60 percent and 27 percent among males. The estimated prevalence for rape among females is 11 percent and 1.2 percent among males.

The report, which was originally due by March 2001, was released last September.

In 2003, Congress began requiring the Department of Defense to report the number of sexual assault cases on file. In 2005, military criminal investigators received 2,374 allegations of sexual assault involving members of the armed forces worldwide. “That number is a 40 percent increase from 2004. The ‘04 number is a 25 percent increase from 2003, so that’s a 65 percent increase in two years. That’s substantial,” says Sanchez.

While there has been an increase in sexual assault in reports, Sanchez says there hasn’t been an escalation in the number of prosecutions. “Of those cases, only two to three percent go to court martial and those who are convicted get only a year in jail.”

Rev. Dorothy Mackey, executive director of Survivors Take Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel (STAAMP), was raped and assaulted while serving as a U.S. Air Force Captain and Commander from 1983-1992.

Her cases were never prosecuted after a Justice Department attorney stated they “could not bring this case to trial for national security reasons; to do so would be contrary to good order, morale and discipline in the military.”

“If a woman is raped overseas, she better pray she has a good commander who has the clout to get her medical treatment and then get her out,” she says.

STAAMP’s toll-free number for sexual assault victims in the military has received 5,200 calls since 1997, including many from women and men now serving in the Middle East.

“These kids are trying to figure out how to survive. The system is shutting down on them and putting them at risk,” Mackey says.

“We’ve been able to get some of them out of the military by going directly to the Pentagon and saying, ‘We are telling you about a criminal incident. Here are the people who are raping and abusing. We are now putting you on notice that if anything else happens to this person, we will expose you,’” she says.

Mackey says Specialist Suzanne Swift should be commended for speaking out knowing what the consequences would be.

“It’s not easy because you’re either told to keep your mouth shut or threatened,” she says.

“This administration justified going to war because we said we wanted to stop Saddam’s rape rooms. This administration said we can’t afford to have priests raping and yet in the same breath and lack of action, our own military leadership are free to rape at absolute carte blanche.

“This has been going on for too long. We must hold the government accountable for refusing to deal with this issue.”

UGLY

CALENDAR YEAR 2005 REPORT: SEXUAL OFFENSES INVOLVING MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES

Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program, Department of Defense

[Thanks to M, who sent this in.]

“Two Male Air Force Privates Will Wed This Summer”

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

Jun 28 (AP)

MADRID, Spain

Two male air force privates will wed this summer, taking Spain’s new gay marriage law to the ranks of the military for what is believed to be the first time.

Their union may not be well-received in the military but they don’t care, said one of the two Seville-based men, both of whom are named Alberto. Their last names were not released.

“We know we are in the armed forces and this is touchy because we are not gardeners but rather soldiers. I know there are superior officers who will make life difficult for me, and they are already doing so,” said one of the Albertos, according to the Cadena Ser radio station.

The wedding is scheduled for September in Seville.

The Defense Ministry said it was aware of the wedding plans through news reports but had no comment other than to say it was a personal matter and the men have every right to marry under the gay marriage law that went into effect in Spain on Jan 1.

The men received permission to wear their military uniforms during the wedding but in the end decided against it to avoid antagonizing the military, said Beatriz Gimeno, president of Spain’s main federation of gays, lesbians and transsexuals.

So far 4,500 same-sex couples have wed under the legislation, according to the Justice Ministry.

Besides Spain, the Netherlands, Canada, Belgium have legalized same-sex marriage, while Britain and other European countries have laws that give same-sex couples the right to form legally binding partnerships.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Shi’a Tribes Meet Last Week:
Threaten A General Uprising And Massacre Of Occupation Forces

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

July 15, 2006 By Raed Jarrar, Arab American News

A few months ago, Abir Al-Janabi was just another 14-year-old Iraqi girl in a small town called Al-Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad.

Both of her parents are from the Al-Janabi tribe, one of the biggest tribes with Sunni and Shia branches.

Omar Al-Janabi, a neighbor and relative, was informed by Abir’s mother that the young girl was being harassed by U.S. soldiers stationed in a nearby checkpoint. That is why Abir was sent to spend the night in her neighbor’s home.

The next day, Omar Al-Janabi was among the first people who found Abir, with her 34-year-old mother Fakhriyah, her 45-year-old father Qasim and her 7- year-old sister Hadil, murdered in their home.

Abir was raped, killed by a bullet in her head and then burned on March 12, five months before her fifteenth birthday.

Iraqi tribal leaders had a number of meetings across the country last week on the anniversary of “Thawrat Al-Eshrin,” the 1920 revolution against the British occupation.

The largest meeting was that of the mostly Shi’a Middle Euphrates Tribes.

During this meeting, they threatened to initiate a full-scale revolution against the occupation, similar to what happened in 1920, unless the U.S. army hands over to them all soldiers accused of raping the “Al-Mahmudiyah Virgin,” as she is now known.

The uproar created in the wake of the death of Abir is but the culmination of over three years of pent-up frustration and rage the Iraqi people feel.

It will only end with the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

What is happening in Iraq is the rape of a nation, not just the rape of a 14-year-old girl, and it has to be stopped as soon as possible.

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

Assorted Resistance Action

July 15 (AP) & (KUNA) & (Reuters)

Heavy clashes between Iraqi soldiers and guerrillas in downtown Baghdad on Saturday left 11 people wounded, police said.

Seven people were wounded in a mortar attack near Haifa Street in downtown Baghdad, just blocks from the Green Zone which houses U.S. and British embassies and the Iraqi government, 1st. Lt. Muhammad Khayoun said.

Provincial police in Ramadi on Saturday also confirmed that militants had killed a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party.

Three policeman were killed and at least 19 others were wounded Saturday in a car explosion targeting a police patrol in Mosul.

A car bomb exploded near a police commando checkpoint in eastern Baghdad killing two police commandos and wounding four, police said.

A security force in the Interior Ministry said that a booby-trapped vehicle driven by a bomber blew up near Maysaloon square in southeast Baghdad.

Unidentified armed men killed three brothers in an eastern village in Baqouba. A security source in the joint coordination center in Diyala told KUNA that three brothers, one of them a soldier, were killed during an armed attack.

An Iraqi police officer was also wounded in an armed attack carried out by an unidentified group in southwest Baqouba.

Guerillas killed three brothers, two of them Iraqi soldiers, 20 km (12 miles) southeast of Baquba.

In other developments, an Iraqi police source in Irbil said that unidentified armed men opened fire against a vehicle in Kirkuk killing a civilian and wounding a policeman.

A policeman and nine civilians were wounded when a car bomb exploded in the northern oil capital of Kirkuk as police were investigating a suspect parked vehicle, police said.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

“If You Thought (Iraqis) Weren’t Going To Resist When They Spent A Good Part Of The 20th Century Trying To Get The British Out Of There, You’re Out Of Your Mind”

“We thought we were going to be there permanently,’’ Turnbull said. “Everything seemed fine and normal and then the revolution came out of the blue.’’

July 15, 2006 By ANTONIO CASTANEDA, Associated Press Writer

HABANIYAH, Iraq

Lying at the edge of this vast military base, the quiet cemetery of 300 tombstones is a crumbling vestige of the British Empire. Once a Royal Air Force hub, the base now serves U.S. forces.

To historians, the base at Habaniyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, represents one of many parallels between past and present.

Older Iraqis remember the British base as a symbol of foreign domination that stoked the country’s nationalist movement. Today, Habaniyah’s American occupants face similar hostility as they struggle to stabilize [translation: occupy] Iraq.

“Habaniyah was the focus of the most intense Iraqi resentment toward the Brits,’’ said Professor Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University and a critic of the U.S.-led invasion.

“If you thought (Iraqis) weren’t going to resist when they spent a good part of the 20th century trying to get the British out of there you’re out of your mind.’’

Neil Turnbull, who served in Habaniyah as a corporal and left on the second-to-last plane out of the base, remembers nearby Fallujah as particularly hostile.

Fallujah was “very anti-British the whole time. They would throw stones at buses and wagons that would pass,’’ said Turnbull, now 69.

Arriving in Iraq after World War I the British quickly ran into resistance. In 1920, in Fallujah, an Iraqi assassinated a senior British commander, Gerald Leachman, sparking a violent uprising against British rule. RAF warplanes crushed the uprising, but Fallujah remained the capital of anti-British resistance.

Today, the grandson of Leachman’s assassin is secretary-general of the Sunni Muslim Scholars’ Association, the influential group linked to the insurgency.

“This is an old area with an old, ancient Sunni Arab population,’’ said Amatzia Baram, a professor of Middle East history at the University of Haifa. “If you hurt them and their interests … they’re not going to like you.’’

“Habaniyah has such memories for Iraqis of a former generation. It was infamous in the same way that Abu Ghraib is today,’’ said Hala Fattah, director of the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq.

There’s another echo of the past in the bridge across the Euphrates River at Fallujah, from which a mob hung the charred torsos of two U.S. contractors in March 2004. The bridge was built by the British in the 1920s to move troops more quickly to Baghdad and became a point of frequent conflict.

Christopher Morris was a 10-year-old living on the Habaniyah base when his father was stationed here in 1955.

At one point it was the RAF’s largest overseas base, with dozens of planes and up to 3,000 Britons, he said. It had an Olympic-size swimming pool, soccer fields, tennis courts, theater, horse racing track, three churches and gardens of roses and hibiscus. Morris was a choirboy in a base church and listened to children’s radio programs, including one transmitted from London.

Habaniyah, he said, “was a jewel in the desert.’’

Christians and Kurds serving as Britain’s proxy soldiers lived in a separate part of the base lived an arrangement similar to the present one in which Iraqi and American soldiers live separated by barbed wire.

The British era ended when rebels executed Iraq’s royal family and closed in on Habaniyah’s base. The next year, the British military withdrew entirely, leaving the bases to the new Iraqi government.

“On the day of the revolution, they just took over the camp, took over the armory, the transport,’’ said Turnbull, the ex-corporal, who remembers being pushed into one corner of the camp as rebels took over most of Habaniyah. “They weren’t shooting us, but they were hostile.’’

The abrupt takeover was a shock.

“We thought we were going to be there permanently,’’ Turnbull said. “Everything seemed fine and normal and then the revolution came out of the blue.’’

Saddam came to power in 1979, and in the spring of 2003, Habaniyah was taken by coalition forces. It is now a sprawling logistics hub supplying U.S. Marines.

Today, the swimming pool holds murky rainwater. Only one of the churches still stands, stripped of its crosses and converted into a mosque. Propaganda murals from the Saddam era adorn the theater.

The headstones on most of the British graves lie in the dead grass. But at the request of British relatives of the dead, U.S. soldiers have cleaned up the cemetery and laid wreaths. [Living and occupying the base on borrowed time. “If you hurt them and their interests … they’re not going to like you.’’]

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“The Little Known Inside Opposition That Helped End The War”

July 2006 By Jean Lowerison, San Diego Metropolitan

General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.

— Bertolt Brecht, untitled poem

Politicians got us into the Vietnam War, but they were not the ones to end it.

This most unpopular incursion was stopped by a combination of citizen action and opposition within the military itself; the kind of opposition that led to more than 500,000 “incidents of desertion” between 1966 and 1971, and troops in the field that simply refused to kill any more.

Filmmaker David Zeiger left college for Texas in the late ‘60s to help in the military antiwar effort in Oleo Strut (named for a shock absorber in helicopter landing gear), a coffee house outside Fort Hood frequented by military personnel, which became one of many headquarters and distribution points for underground antiwar newspapers.

“Sir! No Sir!” is his story, and the wider saga of the little known inside opposition that helped end the war.

Among those opposed were Louis Font, the first West Point graduate to refuse to serve. And nurse Susan Schall, court-martialed for making antiwar comments while in uniform. And Dr. Howard Levy, a dermatologist drafted to train Green Beret medics, who spent three years in prison for desertion.

Some of this information will probably be familiar to many. Most of it was news to me, largely because I spent those years out of the country and didn’t hear much about happenings in the U.S. (or in Vietnam, for that matter).

I didn’t know, for example, that in addition to the tank episode for which Jane Fonda is still being pilloried, she and Donald Sutherland did many off-base USO type shows.

They were called FTA (fuck the army) and not allowed on base, but they performed close to many bases in Nam, to crowds of sympathetic soldiers.

Filmmaker Zeiger says the reason for the delay in making this film was the fear that audiences would ho-hum it as just another film about the ‘60s.

But 9/11 changed that, and the incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq make it more relevant than ever.

Whatever political side you’re on, you owe it to yourself to see “Sir! No Sir!”

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

The Sir! No Sir! DVD goes on sale July 15, exclusively at www.sirnosir.com.

Also available will be a Soundtrack CD (which includes the entire song from the FTA Show, “Soldier We Love You”), theatrical posters, tee shirts, and the DVD of “A Night of Ferocious Joy,” a film by me about the first hip-hop antiwar concert against the “War on Terror.”

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.

USA? A Democracy?
Silly Lying Bullshit!

In the last Senate, 52 members, a majority, represent the 26 smallest states with only 17.06% of the U.S. population. In other words, a majority in the Senate, with the power to dictate law to the whole country, represent only a tiny fraction of the American people.

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.

And The Winner Is…
SSG Kevin Craver

[This is an award for writing a parody of really awful fiction. Thanks to KGY, Military Project, who sent this in. T]

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2005 Results

Winner: Fantasy Fiction:
SSG Kevin Craver
Fort Polk, LA

“Why does every task in the Realm of Zithanor have to be a quest?” Baldak of Erthorn, handyman to the Great Wizard Zarthon, asked rhetorically as he began his journey to find the Holy Hammer of Taloria and the Sacred Nail of Ikthillia so Baldak could hang one of Zarthon’s mediocre watercolors, which was an art critique Baldak kept to himself unlike his predecessor, whom Zarthon turned into the Picture Frame of Torathank.

OCCUPATION REPORT

Nominee For Fat Traitor Of The Month:
[Check Out Who You’re Fighting For]

Bush servant visits Cairo: Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari in Cairo July 15, 2006. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem (EGYPT)

Collaborators Have A Limited Life Expectancy:
“Agents And Eyes Everywhere, And You Can’t Trust Anybody”

Jul 15 By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer

Sometimes George says he drives a cab. Other times he passes himself off as an Agriculture Ministry employee. He feels that anything is safer than the truth, that he’s a translator for the U.S. military.

The 33-year-old Iraqi is among thousands who resort to disguises and subterfuges, who endure white-knuckle commutes through potentially lethal roadblocks, just to make a living.

George is the name he got from his American employer. To reveal his real one could be his death.

“It’s bad to lie to people, but the situation is very bad,” he says. “I don’t want to lose my head.”

His wife has tried to persuade him to quit, but he stays on the job because he feels his work, helping the Americans to avoid language misunderstandings, is important.

Besides, his salary of $900 to $1,050 is about 10 times the monthly average.

For the young woman who calls herself Ismaeel, her father’s name, even a minor inconvenience can be a big one. Like the time the helicopter flying her back to Baghdad from an out-of-town job was late. Her family thought she worked for an Internet cafe. How would she explain the delay?

“It’s not a normal life,” she said. “It’s a very hard situation we suffer from. I hope it will pass and everything will be fine. We’ll see.”

She varies her commute to make sure she isn’t followed to the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and British embassies and the Iraqi government offices. To avoid drawing attention, she wears a head scarf and cumbersome cloak. In her office, she switches to jeans.

“You face a lot of people every day and you don’t know who’s your enemy,” she said. “You can’t trust anyone. It’s hard to start a relationship with anybody these days. You depend on your old friends.”

Ismaeel, who keeps her full name secret, worked as an administrative assistant at the Industry Ministry during Saddam Hussein’s regime. She said she let her mother and two siblings in on the secret of her new job, but not her father because he tends to gossip.

When the helicopter was late, she told him she had to take her brother to the dentist, then asked not to be sent on any more out-of-town missions.

About two years ago her colleague, an ambitious young woman who despite many warnings refused to hide her long, dark hair or take other precautions, was shot to death by insurgents who followed her to work.

“They were watching her. They threatened her,” Ismaeel said. “She didn’t listen. She challenged the situation.”

One 40-year-old journalist said she stopped using her byline on stories because her newspaper is often accused of publishing American propaganda [translation: takes money from the U.S. occupation to publish U.S. propaganda supplied by occupation command press staff].

She asked to be identified only as Um-Mustafa, or mother of Mustafa. “I’m proud of what I’m doing, but I feel that I have to work secretly,” she said.

“I know a lot of people in this situation, especially female journalists,” she said. “A lot of friends have stopped working and are staying at home now.”

She said she coaches her children, ages 8 to 13, not to talk about her job at school.

“I was not threatened personally,” she said, but her enemies “usually have agents and eyes everywhere, and you can’t trust anybody.”

OCCUPATION PALESTINE

“All They Could Find Of A Baby Was Its Head And Torso Which A Young Villager Brandished In Fury In Front Of The Cameras”

[Thanks to JM, who sent this in.]

Jul 14, 2006 by Robert Fisk, The Independent [Excerpt]

All night I heard the jets, whispering high above the Mediterranean. It lasted for hours, little fireflies that were watching Beirut, waiting for dawn perhaps, because it was then that they descended.

They came first to the little village of Dweir near Nabatiya in southern Lebanon where an Israeli plane dropped a bomb on to the home of a Shia Muslim cleric.

He was killed. So was his wife. So were eight of his children.

One was decapitated.

All they could find of a baby was its head and torso which a young villager brandished in fury in front of the cameras.

Then the planes visited another home in Dweir and disposed of a family of seven.

NEXT TIME YOU HEAR SOMEBODY AND WHINING ABOUT RESISTANCE BOMBERS OR MISSILES ATTACKING PUBLIC PLACES IN ISRAEL, CRAM THIS PHOTO UP THEIR ASS WITH A SHARP STICK

A United Nations medic holds the body of one of the children butchered near the village of Ter Harfa, Lebanon, July 15, 2006. At least 12 Lebanese villagers, including women and children, were killed in an Israeli air attack on a convoy of vehicles evacuating civilians from the village in Lebanon. The convoy was leaving the village of Marwaheen, when it was attacked. REUTERS/Haidar Hawila (LEBANON)

“By Israel’s Logic, Palestinians Should Have The Right To Wreck Israel’s Infrastructure, Assassinate Its Prime Minister And Kill Countless Civilians In Retaliation”

July 14, 2006 ERIC RUDER, Socialist Worker [Excerpt]

ISRAEL’S BLOODY crackdown in Gaza following the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants has captured headlines around the world. But if your only guide were the U.S. media, you will quickly find yourself lost in an inverted world in which victims are aggressors and aggressors victims.

For example, Israel is using the soldier’s capture as a blanket justification for Operation Summer Rain, the euphemistic name Israel has given to its military rampage through Gaza, which has included the destruction of a Gaza power plant providing electricity to hundreds of thousands of residents, the arrest of 64 Palestinian elected officials and the threat to assassinate Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh.

But Israel currently holds roughly 9,000 Palestinians as political prisoners, including nearly 400 children.

By Israel’s logic, Palestinians should have the right to wreck Israel’s infrastructure, assassinate its prime minister and kill countless civilians in retaliation.

Lebanese Missile Takes Out Zionist Warship Attacking Beirut

15 July 2006 The Associated Press

The strike on the warship off Beirut’s coast Friday night was the first direct Hezbollah hit on Israel’s military since Wednesday’s raid. Israel said the strike was carried out with a radar-guided C-102, missile.

Earlier, the military said the ship was hit by an unmanned, remote-controlled aircraft loaded with explosives. One Israeli soldier was killed and three were missing from the attack, which set the ship ablaze.

“He Broke Mr. Olmret’s Window And That Boy Got What He Deserved”

July 15, 2006 By Hesham Tillawi, PhD, Via The Anti-Allawi Group [Excerpt]

A Golf ball landed in my front yard. It came from the direction of my neighbor across the street. I was not sure if one of my neighbor’s kids threw it on purpose or by accident.

My seven year old son threw it back in the direction of the house were it came from and broke a window.

The neighbor came over to my house, broke the front door, entered the house, killed my wife, my 4 months old baby, my elderly mother, my seven year old son, raped my 12 year old daughter, and then burnt my house.

I survived the attack just because I was out of the house at the time. When I got home people in the neighborhood were out looking at my burning house, and began what sounded like a chant. I thought they were upset at what happened to my family and my house.

After my initial shock subsided, I was able to comprehend what my neighbors were saying. They actually were screaming and pointing their fingers at me saying,

“Your son started it! He broke Mr. Olmret’s window and that boy got what he deserved.”

My big brother, who happened to live two houses down, saw everything from the balcony of his 4-story villa while he was smoking his Cuban Cigar, sipping on his Jack Daniels whiskey, and running his fingers through his latest young blonde’s hair. He struggled to stand up.

“I told you that boy was going to be trouble one day.” He added: “Now we might have some quiet in this neighborhood.”

For the first time in my life I am actually free.

I am free of a life long complexity that I have held along with one-and-a half Billion Muslims and Arabs: the legend of the superiority of the Zionists in the Middle East. We were told that Israel defeated seven Arab armies.

We were told that Israel is so strong that it can do whatever it wants and no one can challenge her. We were raised to actually believe that.

Israel’s war program can actually be defeated and lasting peace can finally reign on the most troubled area in the World.

The Arabs can and should defeat Israel’s war program designed for the region. Now the Arabs and Muslims must stand together to put some sense into the beast’s head.

Instead of pointing fingers at the Palestinians and the Lebanese, they should enter the war that is killing little children and destroying the livelihood of these two peoples.

[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

Babies Know The Evil One;

SATAN WALKS THE EARTH IN HUMAN FORM

The evil one in Trinwillershagen, Germany, July 13, 2006. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, desolation and destruction are in their highways.

The way of peace they know not, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked, no one who goes in them knows peace. —The book of Isaiah, chapter 59. [Thanks to Michelle, Veterans For Peace Discussion, for posting.]

Received:

RE: MILITARY PERSONNEL MARCH AGAINST THE WAR ON VIETNAM

From: JL
To: GI Special
Sent: July 15, 2006
Subject: MILITARY PERSONNEL MARCH AGAINST THE WAR ON VIETNAM

Dear GI Special,

‘MILITARY PERSONNEL MARCH AGAINST THE WAR ON VIETNAM’

Great Stuff! Thanks for reprinting this. I’m sure licom.org is a great site, but you have to know the stuff is there to find it.

Good to read the history that’s been consigned to the black hole of forgetfulness by those in power and their minions in the mainstream media.

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

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

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www.albasrah.net/maqalat/english/gi-special.htm
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