“No One Wants To Be Here, You Know”
“This Is Like, What Did We Invade Here For?”
“The First Time Somebody You Know Dies, The First Thing You Ask Yourself Is, ‘Well, What Did He Die For?’”

The commanders in Baghdad and the Pentagon are “looking at the big picture all the time, but for us, we don’t see no big picture, it’s just always another bomb out here,” said Spec. Joshua Steffey, 24, of Asheville, N.C.

July 27, 2006 By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post Staff Writer [Excerpts]

BAGHDAD, July 26 Army Staff Sgt. Jose Sixtos considered the simple question about morale for more than an hour. But not until his convoy of armored Humvees had finally rumbled back into the Baghdad military base, and the soldiers emptied the ammunition from their machine guns, and passed off the bomb-detecting robot to another patrol, did he turn around in his seat and give his answer.

“Think of what you hate most about your job. Then think of doing what you hate most for five straight hours, every single day, sometimes twice a day, in 120-degree heat,” he said. “Then ask how morale is.”

Frustrated? “You have no idea,” he said.

As President Bush plans to deploy more troops in Baghdad, U.S. soldiers who have been patrolling the capital for months describe a deadly and infuriating mission in which the enemy is elusive and success hard to find.

But some soldiers in the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division — interviewed over four days on base and on patrols, say they have grown increasingly disillusioned about their ability to quell the violence and their reason for fighting.

The battalion of more than 750 people arrived in Baghdad from Kuwait in March, and since then, six soldiers have been killed and 21 wounded.

“It sucks. Honestly, it just feels like we’re driving around waiting to get blown up. That’s the most honest answer I could give you,” said Spec. Tim Ivey, 28, of San Antonio, a muscular former backup fullback for Baylor University. “You lose a couple friends and it gets hard.”

“No one wants to be here, you know, no one is truly enthused about what we do,” said Sgt. Christopher Dugger, the squad leader.

“We were excited, but then it just wears on you — there’s only so much you can take.

“Like me, personally, I want to fight in a war like World War II. I want to fight an enemy. And this, out here,” he said, motioning around the scorched sand-and-gravel base, the rows of Humvees and barracks, toward the trash-strewn streets of Baghdad outside, “there is no enemy, it’s a faceless enemy. He’s out there, but he’s hiding.”

After a five-hour patrol on Saturday through southern Baghdad neighborhoods, soldiers from the 1st Platoon sat on wooden benches in an enclosed porch outside their barracks. Faces flushed and dirty from the grit and a beating sun, they smoked cigarettes and tossed them at a rusted can that said “Butts.”

The commanders in Baghdad and the Pentagon are “looking at the big picture all the time, but for us, we don’t see no big picture, it’s just always another bomb out here,” said Spec. Joshua Steffey, 24, of Asheville, N.C.

The company’s commanding officer, Capt. Douglas A. DiCenzo of Plymouth, N.H., and his gunner, Spec. Robert E. Blair of Ocala, Fla., were killed by a roadside bomb in May.

Steffey said he wished “somebody would explain to us, ‘Hey, this is what we’re working for.’”

With a stream of expletives, he said he could not care less “if Iraq’s free” or “if they’re a democracy.”

“The first time somebody you know dies, the first thing you ask yourself is, ‘Well, what did he die for?’”

“At this point, it seems like the war on drugs in America,” added Spec. David Fulcher, 22, a medic from Lynchburg, Va., who sat alongside Steffey.

“It’s like this never-ending battle, like, we find one IED, if we do find it before it hits us, so what? You know it’s just like if the cops make a big bust, next week the next higher-up puts more back out there.”

“I mean, if you compare the casualty count from this war to, say, World War II, you know obviously it doesn’t even compare,” Fulcher said.

“But World War II, the big picture was clear, you know you’re fighting because somebody was trying to take over the world, basically.

“This is like, what did we invade here for?”

“How did it become, ‘Well, now we have to rebuild this place from the ground up’?” Fulcher asked.

He kept talking. “They say we’re here and we’ve given them freedom, but really what is that? You know, what is freedom? You’ve got kids here who can’t go to school. You’ve got people here who don’t have jobs anymore. You’ve got people here who don’t have power,” he said.

“You know, so yeah, they’ve got freedom now, but when they didn’t have freedom, everybody had a job.”

“We do an action, he counters it. It’s a constant tug of war,” said Sgt. 1st Class Scott Wilmot, an IED analyst with the battalion. “From where I sit, the (number of) IEDs continually, gradually, goes up.”

Each day, U.S. and Iraqi soldiers patrolling neighborhoods such as Sadiyah, al-Amil and Bayaa — an area of about 40 square miles where about half a million people live — encounter an average of one to two roadside bombs, often triggered remotely by someone watching the convoys, he said.

“Motorola radios, cellphones, garage door openers, remote-controlled doorbells. Anything that can transmit, they can, in theory, use,” Wilmot said.

“Anybody who thinks they’re stupid is wrong.”

Comstock’s patrol stopped at Bayaa homes and shops to conduct a “SWET assessment”: checking the sewage, water and electricity services available to residents.

Most said the sewage service was adequate, but the electricity functioned no more than four hours a day. Some said they had little running water and dumped their trash along the main streets. Inner neighborhood roads were blocked with slabs of concrete and the trunks of palm trees. The most repeated concern among residents was a lack of safety.

“I can’t fix electricity or sewers all the time. We recommend projects to be done,” Comstock told Muhammed Adnan, a Bayaa resident. “Patrolling your neighborhood is one thing we can do. I hope that helps.”

“We just receive promises around here, nothing else,” Adnan, 40, told Comstock. “Three years, just promises, and promises and promises.”

Comstock wrote down the words: “only promises.”

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

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Four Marines Killed In Anbar

7.29.06 Reuters

Four U.S. Marines have been killed in action in Iraq’s western Anbar province, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

It said the Marines — three from the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division and the other from Regional Combat Team 5 — were killed on Thursday.

Marine From North Carolina Dies Near Ramadi

07/29/06 AP

GARNER, N.C. His grandmother says a Marine from North Carolina who died this week in Iraq wanted to join the Marines from the time he was about eleven years old.

Family members said yesterday that Private First Class Enrique Henry Sanchez died Thursday in Iraq when his Humvee ran over an mine near Ramadi. The 21-year-old from Garner was on his second deployment to Iraq.

Sanchez wanted to join the Marines right out of high school. He needed to lose weight before he could join the Marines, so he ran with an 80-pound backpack and dieted, eventually losing 152 pounds.

He went to Fallujah last year and served a seven-month tour. His grandmother, Pat Ayscue, said he was dark and brooding for the first few months after he returned.

REALLY BAD SHIT:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

U.S. military at the area of a car bomb attack July 5, 2006, in Mosul, Iraq. (AP Photo/Mohammed Ibrahim)

U.S. Command Shows Fear;
Barriers Ordered Removed To Protect Green Zone

July 29 (KUNA)

The US Army distributed a statement reporting that all concrete barriers and roadblocks are to be removed in certain areas in eastern Baghdad. The statement said the blocs are to be used to beef up security around government institutions.

TROOP NEWS

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

July 28, 2006, in Portland, Ore. Marine Capt. Christopher Pate was memorialized at Willamette National Cemetery in Portland, Oregon. Pate was killed in action in Iraq. (AP Photo/Torsten Kjellstrand, Pool)

The Coward Colonel Michael Steele:
As His Soldiers Face Murder Charges, He Runs Away;
Won’t Testify About What He Ordered Them To Do

July 28, 2006 By ROBERT F. WORTH, The New York Times Company [Excerpts]

For more than a month after the killings, Sgt. Lemuel Lemus stuck to his story.

“Proper escalation of force was used,” he told an investigator, describing how members of his unit shot and killed three Iraqi prisoners who had lashed out at their captors and tried to escape after a raid northwest of Baghdad on May 9.

Then, on June 15, Sergeant Lemus offered a new and much darker account.

In a lengthy sworn statement, he said he had witnessed a deliberate plot by his fellow soldiers to kill the three handcuffed Iraqis and a cover-up in which one soldier cut another to bolster their story.

The squad leader threatened to kill anyone who talked. Later, one guilt-stricken soldier complained of nightmares and “couldn’t stop talking” about what happened, Sergeant Lemus said.

When investigators asked why he did not try to stop the other soldiers from carrying out the killings, Sergeant Lemus, who has not been charged in the case, said simply that he was afraid of being called a coward. He stayed quiet, he said, because of “peer pressure, and I have to be loyal to the squad.”

The mission that led to the killings started at dawn on May 9, when soldiers with the Third Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division landed in a remote area near a former chemical plant not far from Samarra, according to legal documents and lawyers for the accused soldiers. It was the site of a suspected insurgent training camp and was considered extremely dangerous.

Just before leaving, the soldiers had been given an order to “kill all military-age men” at the site by a colonel and a captain, said Paul Bergrin and Michael Waddington, the lawyers who are disputing Sergeant Lemus’s account.

Military officials in Baghdad have declined to comment on whether such an order, which would have been a violation of the law of war, might have been given.

The colonel, Michael Steele, is the brigade commander. He led the 1993 mission in Somalia made famous by the book and movie “Black Hawk Down.”

The two lawyers say Colonel Steele has indicated that he will not testify at the Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing, or answer any questions about the case. Calls and e-mail messages to a civilian lawyer said to be representing Colonel Steele were not returned.

It is very rare for any commanding officer to refuse to testify at any stage of a court-martial proceeding, said Gary D. Solis, a former military judge and prosecutor who teaches the law of war at Georgetown University.

At one point, Sergeant Lemus said in his statement, Sergeant Girouard gathered the men who had been present before the killing and told them “to be loyal and not to go bragging or spreading rumors” about what had happened.

Sergeant Girouard added that “if he found out who told anything about it he would find that person after he got out of jail and kill him or her.”

Sergeant Lemus said he laughed off the threat at the time.

But there may have been other threats.

In addition to murder, the four accused soldiers are charged with threatening to kill Pfc. Bradley L. Mason, one of the men in the squad, if he told what he knew about the shootings.

Ishikawa and Kuroshima would understand: insert troops into a hell on earth and there’s no way to prevent atrocities. Yet the real fiends in their capital suites are never spattered with a single drop of blood. Solidarity, Z

“When I Saw All Those Boots, I Just Wanted To Cry”

July 28, 2006 By Simon Shifrin, Times Herald-Record

The rows of black leather combat boots gave the well-manicured lawn of the Sullivan County Government Center the eerie quiet of a cemetery.

Each boot was tagged with a name: Spc. Carlos Gonzalez, 22, Middletown; Sgt. Eugene Williams, 24, Highland; and Pfc. Kenneth G. Vonronn, 20, Bloomingburg, were just a few.

Organizers of the traveling exhibit “Eyes Wide Open” hope the 122 pairs of boots, representing New York soldiers who have died in Iraq since 2003, show the human cost of war. Another 50 shoes represent the thousands of dead Iraqi civilians.

“When I saw all those boots, I just wanted to cry,” said Diana Foster of Beach Lake, Pa., who walked to the exhibit yesterday during a break from her job. Foster’s husband, Thomas Glendon, an Army reservist, returned from an 18-month stint in Iraq in December.

“He did see people get blown up,” she said while talking to Cissy Goldfarb of the anti-war group Sullivan Peace and Justice, the local sponsor of the exhibit, in the shade of a tent.

Robin O’Brien, 20, Monticello, paused when she saw the exhibit while walking up the walkway to the Government Center to wait for a shuttle.

“If they do it next year, it’s going to be a whole yard.”

Anti-War Activist, Ex-Military Wife, 75, Begins Jail Term

Bonnie McCormick, left, gives Claire Ryder a hug before McCormick surrendering herself at the Jefferson County Jail for a 10 day sentence because of her part in the No Blood for Oil case. McCormick, 75, is the oldest of 12 anti-war protesters sentenced for blocking access to a Lakewood military recruiting station on November. (Post / Daniel Zollinger)

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

7/28/2006 By Ann Schrader, Denver Post Staff Writer

Golden, Colorado

A 75-year-old anti-war activist said Friday that she is worried about America but not worried about starting a jail sentence for blocking access to a Lakewood military recruiting office.

Bonnie McCormick of Louisville reported to the Jefferson County Jail to begin the 10-day incarceration. She is one of 12 protesters sentenced Wednesday for trespassing and obstructing a passageway in the Nov. 18 incident.

“I’m not remorseful. I did it deliberately,” McCormick said of her actions. “And at my age, I may do it again.”

Five of the “No Blood for Oil” defendants chose jail time over community service. McCormick received a stay of her jail sentence so she could arrange care of her cat, Max.

McCormick said her family is grown and she has the “luxury” of going to jail to underscore her belief that America “is being sucked into a big, black hole” in Iraq.

McCormick wore her signature ball cap with a flower in back – on Friday, it was a sunflower – and she carried a small paper bag of items.

Other defendants and supporters were on hand to cheer her with a song and a school bus decorated with a long green dragon.

McCormick said she was proud to be a military wife years ago.

“There are some wars we have to be involved in,” she said. “This one was started for I don’t know what. Oilfields?”

Frustrated by not getting responses to letters sent to elected officials, McCormick said she turned to demonstrations.

“You don’t break laws easily, even if it’s not a big law,” she said. “You think a long time before you get to this point.”

Asked if she is a member of an action group, McCormick responded, “The McCormick family. That’s the groupiest I get.”

The jail has had other older inmates “and we’re prepared to provide whatever services

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.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action

July 29, 2006 Jeffrey Fleishman, LOS ANGELES TIMES & BBC & (KUNA) & Reuters & By RYAN LENZ, Associated Press

Seven police were wounded in a joint U.S. and Iraqi attack against members of the Mehdi Army, a powerful militia loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr. The incident took place in the town of Diwaniya, 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad, police and hospital sources said.

The western regional commander of the Iraqi Border Protection Force, Brig. Gen. Jawad Hadi al-Selawi, was killed in Karbala, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

In the Tikrit region, five gunmen in two cars opened fire on a house, killing two men employed at a nearby U.S. base.

Three police were wounded in a side-road explosion in Al-Waziriyah in northern Baghdad.

Police said they pulled two headless corpses wearing military uniform from the Tigris river in the town of Suwayra, 60 km (38 miles) southeast of Baghdad.

One policeman was killed and another wounded when guerrillas opened fire in a drive-by shooting on their patrol in the oil refinery city of Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

In Fallujah, four including one policeman were wounded in an mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attack, police said.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

SIR! NO SIR!, THE FILM THAT IS ROCKING THE COUNTRY, IS NOW ON DVD

From: David Zeiger – Director of Sir! No Sir!
To: GI Special
Sent: July 26, 2006
Subject: Sir! No Sir! is now available on DVD at www.sirnosir.com

A powerful documentary that uncovers half-forgotten history, history that is still relevant but not in ways you might be expecting. Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Speaks not just to the legacy of our misadventures in Vietnam, but to the entire uncertain future of a nation at war. Bill Gallo, Village Voice

Superb…moves with nearly as much breathless momentum as the movement itself. Chuck Wilson, L.A. Weekly

A film that threatens the war movement with every showing, the Bush administration should outlaw it from all theaters within fifty miles of an armed forces recruiting station. Ron Wilkinson, Monsters and Critics

If I had seen this film while I was in Iraq, things would have been much different. Garett Reppenhagen, Army Sniper and OIF Veteran. Iraq Veterans Against the War

This is powerful stuff, offering us not only a new look at the past, but unavoidably relevant insights into the present. Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

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

Displaced Films is proud to announce the release of a Limited Edition DVD OF Sir! No Sir!

In response to your requests, we’ve rushed to bring you this special offer in advance of the retail DVD which will be available in December.

The DVD, which is only available at www.sirnosir.com , includes the film, theatrical trailer and the flash animation ‘Punk Ass Crusade’ from Not Your Soldier and Ruckus Productions.

You can buy it now only at www.sirnosir.com for $19.95 plus shipping.

We encourage individuals and activist organizations to organize public screenings of Sir! No Sir!, both to show the film as broadly as possible, and to support your organizing work.

On the site you’ll find details on how to purchase the DVD for personal use and tools for organizing a house party. You’ll also find details for public screenings and using Sir! No Sir! as a fundraising tool for your organization while also supporting the film by promoting DVD sales.

Finally, academic institutions can link from our site to obtain the film for educational use!

Also available NOW is the Sir! No Sir! film Soundtrack on CD which includes the stirring and innovative score written by Buddy Judge, and all of the songs in the film including Soldier We Love You by Rita Martinson. This is the only CD available with Rita Martinson’s incredible tribute to GI resisters that stirs audiences at every screening of the film.

The unstoppable pirate DJ Dave Rabbit of “Radio First Termer” fame also makes several appearances.

In addition, A Night of Ferocious Joy is available on DVD—a film that chronicles an audacious, in-your-face concert held on Mother’s Day, 2002, to confront the “war on terror” that brought together Ozomatli, The Coup, Blackalicioius, Dilated Peoples, Saul Williams, Mystic and many others. A film for everyone looking for inspiration and hope in a dangerous world.

In coming months, additional great films, music and books will be added to the list of products available, so keep a close watch on the site as we are working to make www.sirnosir a central resource for all things relevant to GI resistance then and now.

In December, an expanded DVD of Sir! No Sir!, with a wealth of additional material included, will be available at stores and on web sites everywhere. Included will be several additional stories from that GI Movement, an exclusive interview with pirate radio DJ Dave Rabbit, the court-martial of Iraq war resister Camilo Mejia, and presentations by Jane Fonda, Cindy Sheehan, and many more.

Once again, thank you for the tremendous support you have given Sir! No Sir! this year. We hope you will spread the word and help share this important film far and wide.

Peace,

David Zeiger
Displaced Films
3421 Fernwood Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90039
323-906-9249
www.displacedfilms.com

Sir No Sir! Email News and Updates at www.sirnosir.com

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

Another Generation Discovers The Truth

From: Richard Hastie
To: GI Special
Sent: July 28, 2006
Subject: Nixon

Another generation discovers the truth about “Madman Nixon.”

Nixon never passed up a civilian village in Vietnam he didn’t bomb.

By the time I left Vietnam in 1971, American soldiers were calling
him every vile name they could think of. The graffiti was the best
oneliners I have ever read.

When the Iraq veterans find out the
real truth about George Bush, and what a murdering weasel he
is, their hatred will top Nixon.

Mike Hastie
Vietnam Veteran

Photo and 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)

“These Individual Examples Of Resistance Would Crescendo Into Mutinies And Desertion, As Whole Groups Of Soldiers, Sailors And Pilots Refused To Fight The War”

9.2004 By Joe Allen, CounterPunch

Vietnam Veterans are “quite different from veterans of earlier wars,” observed Ralph Nader in 1973—then at the height of his fame as a consumer advocate. No prior war, Nader pointed out, had “witnessed such a moral dissent by soldiers and new veterans.”

What was it about the Vietnam War that produced this high level of opposition within the military? And what role did this resistance and organizations like VVAW play in ending the war in Vietnam?

The war that the U.S. fought in Vietnam was a war against a people who had been trying to free their country from foreign domination for many decades. A powerful movement—known as the Vietminh and led by Ho Chi Minh—defeated the Japanese occupation of Vietnam during the Second World War.

In 1945, the Vietminh declared Vietnam independent from its colonial master France. The French tried to re-colonize Vietnam, but they were defeated by the Vietminh movement after a nine-year war.

By the time large numbers of U.S. troops arrived in Vietnam, the country had been partitioned, and in South Vietnam, a new revolutionary nationalist movement had arisen called the National Liberation Front (NLF)—known to the Americans as the “Viet Cong.” By 1965, the NLF had been waging a war for several years against the corrupt, dictatorial South Vietnamese government in the southern capital of Saigon.

The U.S. invaded to prevent the NLF from coming to power. Washington sent a huge army, eventually reaching more than 500,000 troops, and it employed the most destructive weapons to destroy the bases of the NLF in the countryside.

For the mainly working-class soldiers who the U.S. sent to fight the Vietnamese people, the war was a huge shock. The young troops had been told that all “struggles for national liberation” were Communist conspiracies, emanating from the ex-USSR or China. They were trained for a war like the Second World War, involving set-piece battles between great armies.

Instead, U.S. GIs found themselves fighting a peasant guerrilla army of young men and women. Washington’s strategy was for a “total war”—so soldiers were ordered to burn down villages, destroy large areas of the countryside and kill as many NLF fighters as possible. The war sickened many U.S. soldiers, seeming to be a pointless exercise in destruction.

Others began to realize that they were fighting on the wrong side.

Bill Ehrhardt, a Marine in Vietnam, said the reality of the war produced a “staggering realization.” “In grade school, we learned about the redcoats, the nasty British soldiers that tried to stifle our freedom,” he wrote. “Subconsciously, but not very subconsciously, I began increasingly to have the feeling that I was a redcoat.”

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

GI RESISTANCE to the war began much earlier than people realize today. In June 1965, Capt. Richard Steinke, a West Point graduate stationed in Vietnam refused to board an aircraft that was supposed to take him to a remote Vietnamese village. “The Vietnamese war,” Steinke said, “is not worth a single American life.” He was court-martialed and dismissed from the Army.

In February 1966, ex-Green Beret Master Sgt. Donald Duncan, who had served in Vietnam, published a powerful indictment of the war titled “The whole thing was a lie!” in the left-wing Ramparts magazine. Duncan was a militant anti-Communist, but his experience in Vietnam transformed his view of the war. Duncan became convinced that the majority of the South Vietnamese were “either anti-Saigon or pro-Viet Cong or both.”

The Fort Hood Three, a trio of U.S. Army privates—James Johnson, Dennis Mora, and David Samas, all members of the 2nd Armored Division stationed at Fort Hood, Texas—refused to serve in Vietnam. The three were from working-class families, and they denounced the war as “immoral, illegal and unjust.” They were arrested, court-martialed and imprisoned.

In 1967, U.S. Army Dr. Howard Levy refused to train Green Berets at Fort Jackson, S.C. Levy argued that the Green Berets were “murderers of women and children” and “killers of peasants.” He was court-martialed and sentenced to 27 months in a military prison. The colonel who presided at Levy’s court-martial said: “The truth of the statements is not an issue in this case.”

As left-wing historian Howard Zinn wrote, “The individual acts multiplied. A Black private in Oakland refused to board a troop plane to Vietnam, although he faced 11 years at hard labor. A navy nurse, Lt. Susan Schnall, was court-martialed for marching in a peace demonstration while in uniform, and for dropping antiwar leaflets from a plane on navy installations.”

These individual examples of resistance would crescendo into mutinies and desertion, as whole groups of soldiers, sailors and pilots refused to fight the war. One U.S. colonel described the collapse of U.S. forces as equivalent “to the breakdown of (Russia’s) Tsarist armies during World War I.”

In 1967, the growing antiwar movement at home led to the founding of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) by Jan Barry. Barry was an army veteran who had been stationed in Vietnam in 1963. He was disturbed by what he saw there and later dropped out of West Point to pursue a writing career.

During 1967 and 1968, hundreds of veterans joined the VVAW, but the organization virtually disappeared into Eugene McCarthy’s campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1968. The group revived over the next two years as a result of a political awakening of Vietnam veterans—around such issues as their ill treatment at Veterans Administration hospitals, public exposure of the war crimes committed at My Lai, and the killing of student antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University following Richard Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia in 1970.

This revival brought new members who came from mostly working-class families—and who had witnessed some of the worst combat of the war. The most famous was Ron Kovic, whose life was depicted in the film Born on the Fourth of July. Al Hubbard, a Black veteran, raised the need to address the racist treatment of African American soldiers and veterans.

John Kerry also joined at this time. But what made him so different was that he was from a wealthy background and had political connections at the upper levels of the Democratic Party.

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

THE TWO historic events organized by the VVAW that would catapult the organization into the leadership of the antiwar movement were the Winter Soldier Investigation and protests in Washington, D.C., called Dewey Canyon III.

The VVAW gave the name “Winter Soldier” to its war crimes investigation as a reference to Tom Paine’s tribute to the soldiers who stayed the course during the darkest days of the American Revolution in the 18th century. The “new winter soldiers,” as they saw themselves, hoped to end the Vietnam War by exposing U.S. war crimes. Al Hubbard said that the purpose of the investigation was to show that “My Lai was not an isolated incident,” but “only a minor step beyond the standard official United States policy in Indochina.”

The Winter Soldier Investigation (the full transcript of testimony is available online) took place in Detroit in January and February of 1971. During that weekend, more than 100 veterans from Vietnam testified about the atrocities that they participated in or witnessed. Another 500 to 700 veterans came from across the country to listen.

The statements of the vets were painful, gut wrenching and tear-filled, riveting and shocking everyone present. Sgt. Jamie Henry said that he witnessed the murder of 19 women and children during his tour of duty, which he reported to superiors, but got no response.

Henry explained how the racism ingrained in soldiers made such atrocities possible. “You are trained ‘gook, gook, gook,’ and once the military has got the idea implanted in you that these people are not humans…it makes it a little bit easier to kill ‘em,” he said.

Hundreds of veterans flooded into the VVAW after the hearings—a sign of how dramatically the Winter Soldier Investigation spoke to their own experiences. Other hearings modeled on the ones in Detroit were held across the country, and members of Congress publicly called for official investigations into the charges that the Winter Soldiers raised.

Next came Dewey Canyon III. The five days of protest in April 1971 were named after Dewey Canyons I and II, Pentagon code names for two “limited incursions”—translation: invasions—of the country of Laos, which bordered Vietnam. The VVAW described the demonstrations as a “limited incursion into the country of Congress.”

As many as 2,000 Vietnam veterans came to Washington to protest the war and the treatment they received from the government that sent them to fight. The protesters mercilessly harassed the political establishment in Washington. They sat in at the U.S. Supreme Court to protest the illegality of the war. They humiliated Strom Thurmond, the racist bigot and pro-war senator.

Veterans and Gold Star mothers who had lost a child in the war succeeded on a second attempt to make their way into Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath for the U.S. dead in Vietnam.

Jan Barry presented a Congressional delegation with a list of 16 demands from the VVAW, which included: “immediate, unilateral, unconditional withdrawal” of all U.S. forces from Indochina; amnesty for all Americans who refused to fight in Vietnam; a formal inquiry into war crimes; and improved veterans benefits.

There were two high points to Dewey Canyon III. One was Kerry’s powerful speech before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which he asked, “How can you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How can you ask a man to die for a mistake?” The moment made Kerry into one of the most recognized figures in the antiwar movement.

The second—and far more important—was a ceremony in which veterans “returned” their medals to the U.S. government, by throwing them over a fence in front of the U.S. Capitol building. Jack Smith, a highly decorated ex-Marine sergeant, was the first to go. He said that his medals were a “symbol of dishonor, shame and inhumanity.”

Smith offered an apology to the Vietnamese people “whose hearts were broken, not won,” because of “genocide, racism and atrocity.” Hundreds of veterans followed him.

The Dewey Canyon III demonstrations were the lead story every night on the television news—and on the front page of newspapers across the country. The face of the antiwar movement—until then associated mainly with college students—had changed for millions of people.

The Vietnam War ended for most Americans in January 1973, when Richard Nixon announced a peace settlement—though, in fact, the fall of Saigon, which marked Washington’s final defeat, was still two years away.

The VVAW played an important role in bringing about the end of that war—and to this day, the organization continues, having joined the protest against Bush’s latest invasion of Iraq.

The struggle of U.S. soldiers against the war—and their organization, the VVAW—should be remembered, celebrated and defended. That means challenging the Swift Boat Veterans’ version of history. And it also means challenging the John Kerry of today, who wants to run away from this antiwar legacy.

Speech of Hizbullah’s Hassan Nasrallah
[Excerpts On The Military Situation]
“Since Two Days, The Enemy Has Been Saying That It Was Now Controlling Bint Jbail. They Did Not Control The City Of Bint Jbail”

Since two days, the enemy has been saying that it was now controlling Bint Jbail, with the aid and propaganda, unfortunately, of many Lebanese and Arab media means. They did not control the city of Bint Jbail. The entire city of Bint Jbail is still under the control of the Mujahideen until the recording of this message. They are fighting, facing and maintaining their steadfastness.

July 28, 2006 Imad Khadduri, Free Iraq

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s address at 01:00 am on 25th July 2006 via Al-Manar TV. [Excerpts]

Regarding the confrontations on the field, I wish to draw your attention to the nature of the psychological war which the enemy employs and to which we, as resisting militants and people, must give attention.

I can assure you that we will be transparent and honest with you. We do not hide our martyrs. If anyone of our leaders or cadres gets killed we will declare it with pride. If the number of our martyrs inclines we will be proud of it. If the enemy captures any wounded or people we will not deny it. If there will be injuries or prisoners we will not deny it. This is our way.

Even when the fight took place in Maroun el-Rass, we said that there was fighting. And when we departed we said that Maroun el-Rass was over.

You must listen to us, not to the psychological war which the Israeli enemy employs.

Since two days, the enemy has been saying that it was now controlling Bint Jbail, with the aid and propaganda, unfortunately, of many Lebanese and Arab media means. They did not control the city of Bint Jbail. The entire city of Bint Jbail is still under the control of the Mujahideen until the recording of this message. They are fighting, facing and maintaining their steadfastness.

The enemy keeps talking about the occupation of cities and villages as well as the killing of large numbers of people in order to hurt the morale of the Mujahideen and people. I say to you, do not believe these lies, and listen to us.

When some of our men die we will declare our martyrs.

When we depart a village after fighting like heroes we will declare that we departed. We do not lie to our people, but it is the enemy that lies to its people, and it is the one that practice censorship.

The enemy does not tell the facts to its people or the world. This is a sign of its weakness. On the other hand, our transparency and clarity is the proof of our strength and willpower.

Second, regarding the situation on the battlefield, until now, the resistance combatants have accomplished great achievements and inflicted upon the enemy great losses including officers, soldiers, warplanes and tanks.

Today, we are fighting in Bint Jbail and we will fight in Bint Jbail like we fought in Maroun el-Rass and like we will fight in each town, village, outpost and position.

I said a few days earlier that we were not a classical army and that we do not form a classical defensive line. We are fighting using the way of the guerillas.

Everyone knows the way of the fight. What is important regarding the battlefield is the losses the will be inflicted upon the enemy.

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

OCCUPATION REPORT

War Profiteers Got $50 Million To Build Hospital Promised By Laura Bush:
Took The Money And Didn’t Do Shit

July 28, 2006 RAWYA RAGEH, Associated Press Writer

The high-tech, two-story children’s hospital in Basra was intended to provide state-of-the-art care in Iraq’s second-largest city. The first lady and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke highly of the project.

But U.S. officials dropped contractor Bechtel Corp. from the project after it missed deadlines and ran up big cost overruns, Dr. Chasib Latif Ali, executive director of the Health Ministry, told The Associated Press.

Ali said the Basra hospital was just one example of health projects that the U.S. had promised but failed to deliver.

“The Americans have made a lot of promises to us, but not even 10 percent of them have materialized,” Ali said.

He said that, of nearly 180 medical facilities promised by the U.S., contracts were awarded for 142. Only six have been completed and turned over to the Iraqis and those “are not even fully complete.”

“This comes as a sharp contrast to the Japanese,” Ali said. “They have promised and delivered 13 hospitals around the country, including three cutting-edge cancer centers. The Japanese have been very faithful to us, unfortunately, the Americans aren’t like that.”

Bechtel, which holds major contracts for reconstruction work in Iraq, was put in charge of the project in 2004, with an initial budget of $50 million. The facility was expected to be completed by Sept. 2006, “but now the money has ran out and the project has been postponed indefinitely,” Ali said.

Bechtel spokesman Drew Slaton said the company’s involvement in the hospital project will end Aug. 31 because costs had soared well beyond a $50 million cap.

Before being told to shut down, Bechtel had projected a July 2007 completion date. Now, the company said it has serious doubts whether anyone will be able to finish the job.

“We would like to see it completed, but we don’t think it’s practical under the current security conditions,” Slaton said.

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

OCCUPATION PALESTINE/LEBANON

Israeli “Justice” Minister Calls For Holocaust Against South Lebanese:
Exterminate Them All

Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery [Netschoolbook.gr/images]

28/07/2006 By Harry de Quetteville in Jerusalem, Telegraph Group Limited (UK)

Everyone remaining in southern Lebanon will be regarded as a terrorist, Israel’s justice minister said yesterday as the military prepared to employ “huge firepower” from the air in its campaign to crush Hizbollah.

“Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hizbollah. Our great advantage vis-a-vis Hizbollah is our firepower, not in face-to-face combat.”

The country’s biggest-selling paper, Yedioth Ahronoth, said the army had raised the threshold of response to Katyusha rockets.

“In other words: a village from which rockets are fired at Israel will simply be destroyed by fire,” it said.

“This decision should have been made and executed after the first Katyusha. But better late than never.”

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

THIS IS DEDICATED TO NEO-NAZI SWINE WHO WOULD HAVE YOU THINK ALL JEWS ARE ZIONIST MASS MURDERERS, AND TO ZIONIST SWINE WHO DENY ISRAEL IS A TERRORIST STATE INTENT ON MASS MURDER

Jews from New York hold a banner and a Lebanese flag during a protest at the Israeli Embassy to the United States in Washington July 25, 2006. Hundreds of people took part in the protest against Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon, calling for an immediate cease fire. [English.people.com] [Thanks to Mark Shapiro, who sent this in.]

“Explain That To Me, O Brilliant Israeli Propagandist”

July 27, 2006 Angryarab.blogspot.com

This is a new standard of lies, even for Israeli propaganda: “Israeli commanders had earlier said the town was under control, but Shachar said the army never intended to conquer Bint Jbeil.

“Rather, he said, its goal was to “control the town from outside”.

Control from outside? How does that work?

Like, can I control Poland from my California?

Explain that to me, o brilliant Israeli propagandist.

Zionist Military Command Screwed Up:
Underestimated Enemy,
Let Supplies Run Down
And [Silliest Of All]:
Thought Air Power Could Defeat An Opponent

Today, Israel’s advanced technology has been unable to detect, let alone stop Hizbullah assaults. Military sources said Hizbullah quickly developed methods to penetrate Israel’s C4I (command, control, communications, computers and intelligence) border system, based on advanced sensors and heavy air surveillance.

July 21, 2006 SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

TEL AVIV

Israel’s new chief of staff, an air force general, believed that most of Israel’s future operations would be conducted from the air.

Military leaders were convinced that with superior communications and air power they did not even need new U.S. “bunker buster” munitions to root out terror leaders in underground hideaways.

Today, this vision of air power as a panacea has been shattered.

Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz and his advisers have been stunned by the failure of Israel’s air war against Hizbullah, which has shrugged massive air bombings on its headquarters in Beirut to maintain the rocket war against the Jewish state.

“Air power is not the answer here,” a senior officer said. ‘You have to go from one Hizbullah bunker to another. Some of these bunkers are seven meters deep and can’t be destroyed by aircraft, even if you could find them.”

Indeed, the air force did not even deem the purchase of deep penetration munitions a priority. Earlier this year, Israel decided against purchasing U.S.-origin bunker-buster weapons regarded as a requirement for any air strike against Iran or Syria.

Only a month ago, Lt. Col. Itay Brun explained the concept of Israel’s military. The concept envisioned an army based largely on special operations units and backed by air power.

As Brun described it, most of Israel’s operations would be conducted from the air. Fighter-jets would destroy guerrilla strongholds, helicopters would pick off enemy combatants while unmanned aerial vehicles would select and track targets. Most of the tactics would also be used in a conventional war.

“The next challenge is to win the war against terrorism and guerrillas from the air,” Brun, adviser to Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, told a military conference.

But he General Staff quickly learned that Hizbullah was not a Shi’ite version of the Palestinian insurgency in the Gaza Strip. For years, the air force boasted of its ability to kill Palestinian insurgency leaders while glossing over the failure to halt missile strikes from Gaza towns only three kilometers from Israel.

Reservists forgot what the inside of a main battle tank looked like. Army supplies dwindled way past the danger point as military intelligence dismissed the prospect of a conventional war against Israel.

Today, Israel’s advanced technology has been unable to detect, let alone stop Hizbullah assaults. Military sources said Hizbullah quickly developed methods to penetrate Israel’s C4I (command, control, communications, computers and intelligence) border system, based on advanced sensors and heavy air surveillance.

Hizbullah, the sources said, learned how to disable cameras and exploit blind spots to cut through the border fence and attack Israeli military positions.

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.

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

CHENEY SURRENDERS

7.29.08: Washington DC: Vice President Dick Cheney surrenders to forward elements of the 3rd ID and 101st Airborne supported by detachments from Iraq and Vietnam Veterans Against The War.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and a number of their co-conspirators are charged with premeditated murder and treason. They will be tried by a jury picked from among relatives of troops KIA in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The arrests were voted by delegates to the United States Armed Forces Council, composed of non-commissioned troops elected at military bases earlier this month. The Council now is in command of all United States armed forces. (AP Photo/Marc F. Henning)

Imperial Democrats Want Bigger Spending On War Supplies:
[Elect Us; We Promise More Blood]

July 28, 2006 By Joel Havemann and Noam N. Levey, L.A. Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON: The war on terrorism has already cost nearly two-thirds as much as the Vietnam War. But congressional Democrats, supported by top Army brass, complain that the administration is not spending enough to repair or replace weapons systems used in combat.

The top Democrats on the House Armed Services and Appropriations committees have held news conferences in the last two days, urging the administration to submit an emergency request for $17 billion for this year alone, an amount suggested by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff.

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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