GI SPECIAL 4H5: 5/8/06

IRAQ: GAME OVER

8.3.06 AP & August 04, 2006 From James Hider in Baghdad, Times Newspapers Ltd. [Excerpt]

The country is now so dangerous that American commanders are having to shift more goods by air into their heavily defended bases.

“All battalion commanders try to minimise how often you have to go out,” said Major Doug A. LeVien, of the 548th Logistic Task Force. “Any time you go outside the wire, anything can happen.” “All battalion commanders try to minimize how often you have to go out. If you don’t have to go out, that’s a win.”

“When we first got here, all of our stuff was shipped out by ground,” said 1st Lt. Ted Mataxis, 29, of Raleigh, N.C., whose unit is responsible for assembling Humvee tires, engines and other repair parts for air transport.

Now “we’re sending the majority of our stuff by air,” he said. “The only stuff that goes out by ground are the big, bulky items.”

[hpbimg.hemaridron.com]

MORE:

“There’s No Plan”
“I Have Absolutely No Idea What We’re Going To Do”

August 5, 2006 McClatchy Newspapers

American soldiers, particularly the rank and file who go out on daily patrols, say they see no end to the bloodshed.

Higher ranking officers concede that the developments are threatening to move beyond their grasp.

“There’s no plan – we are constantly reacting,” said a senior U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I have absolutely no idea what we’re going to do.”

MORE:

U.S. Troops Dying In Vain;
But The Traitor Bush Won’t Get Out

August 5, 2006 By McClatchy Newspapers, BAGHDAD, Iraq

The Bush administration’s decision to move as many as 4,000 additional U.S. soldiers into Baghdad to quell sectarian warfare underscores a problem that’s hindered the American military from the beginning: There aren’t enough troops.

Many U.S. officials in Baghdad and in Washington privately agree.

When U.S. forces have cracked down in one place, Iraqi insurgents and foreign terrorists have popped up in another. Some towns have been pacified multiple times, only to return to chaos as soon as troop numbers are reduced.

That reality has taken a toll on American morale, undermined Iraqi confidence in the United States and cast doubt on the Bush administration’s hopes of beginning significant withdrawals of soldiers and Marines this year. There are 130,000 service members in Iraq.

“This is exactly what happens when there aren’t enough troops: You extend people, and you deplete your theater reserve,” said a U.S. defense official in Iraq, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“If you say something, you’re gone, you’re relieved, you’re not in the Army anymore,” the U.S. defense official in Iraq said.

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Vermont Marine Killed

Lance Cpl. Kurt Dechen from Springfield, Vt., was shot and killed Aug. 4, 2006, during combat in Iraq’s Anbar Province. Dechen was in the Marine Reserves with the 1st Battalion 25th Marines ‘C’ Company out of Plainville, Conn. (AP Photo/Dechen family)

REALLY BAD IDEA:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

712.06 US Army soldiers from the 1-68 Combined Armed Battalion 3rd BCT receive instructions from their company commander prior to setting off from their forward operating base near the city of Baquba. (AFP/David Furst)

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Foreign Occupation Soldier Dies In Kandahar;
Nationality Not Announced

5 August 2006 BBC NEWS

One soldier from NATO-led forces in Afghanistan has died when an armoured jeep crashed in the south of the country, a NATO statement says.

Three other soldiers from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were injured in the incident in the province of Kandahar.

It says the soldiers were accompanying a supply convoy. Their nationalities were not immediately known. The injured soldiers were airlifted to a local army hospital.

TROOP NEWS

Racist U.S. Officers Pushed ‘Kill Counts’
Leaders Of A Unit Accused Of Murdering Prisoners Fueled A Climate Of Hate

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

Mason depicted a unit that had embraced a violent ethos and was routinely hostile to ordinary Iraqis. Commanders encouraged soldiers to compete to rack up “enemy kills,” he said. A board at their headquarters that showed the numbers of Iraqis killed served to reinforce the message. “Let the bodies hit the floor,” read a phrase at the bottom of the board.

August 3 2006 By Borzou Daragahi and Julian E. Barnes, L.A. Times Staff Writers

BAGHDAD: Military prosecutors and investigators probing the killing of three Iraqi detainees by U.S. troops in May believe the unit’s commanders created an atmosphere of excessive violence by encouraging “kill counts” and possibly issuing an illegal order to shoot Iraqi men.

At a military hearing Wednesday on the killing of the detainees near Samarra, witnesses painted a picture of a brigade that operated under loose rules allowing wanton killing and tolerating violent, anti-Arab racism.

Military officials are investigating Army Col. Michael Steele, the commander of the 101st Airborne Division’s 3rd Brigade, whose soldiers are accused of killing the three Iraqi detainees.

Investigators are trying to determine whether Steele issued an illegal order to “kill all military aged males” and encouraged unrestrained killing by his troops.

On Wednesday, a military court heard testimony from a witness who suggested that a culture of racism and unrestrained violence pervaded the unit.

The account of Pfc. Bradley Mason and other witnesses bolstered the findings of investigators who say the brigade’s commanders led soldiers to believe it was permissible to kill Iraqi men.

Mason said that just before “Operation Iron Triangle” began on an island in Tharthar Lake near Samarra, Steele and other officers ordered them to “engage and kill all military age men.”

The Defense official familiar with the investigation said that even if Steele did not issue a verbal order, many in the brigade believed that was what the commander wanted.

Mason depicted a unit that had embraced a violent ethos and was routinely hostile to ordinary Iraqis. Commanders encouraged soldiers to compete to rack up “enemy kills,” he said. A board at their headquarters that showed the numbers of Iraqis killed served to reinforce the message. “Let the bodies hit the floor,” read a phrase at the bottom of the board.

“That’s another terrorist down,” Mason quoted Girouard as telling soldiers after they killed someone. “Good job.”

Soldiers referred to ordinary Iraqis derogatorily as “hajis,” a reference to Muslims who have made the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, and considered the 10 or so Iraqi army soldiers and interpreters working for their unit as mostly “terrorists,” Mason said. Under questioning, Mason acknowledged saying that even before he arrived in Iraq, he asserted that “every man, woman and child in Iraq deserves to die.”

On May 8, the day before the raid, Steele reportedly addressed a group of about 100 soldiers.

“We’re going in tomorrow,” he told them, according to 1st Lt. Justin Werheim, another prosecution witness. “We’re going to hit the ground shooting, and kill all the Al Qaeda in Iraq insurgents.”

The rules of engagement were unambiguous, Werheim said, and came down “several times” via Capt. Daniel Hart, who also has requested immunity.

“We were to positively identify and kill any military-age male on the island,” Werheim said.

Another witness, Pfc. Jason R. Joseph, said the soldiers believed their orders were to kill any military-age males who were not surrendering. “They were to kill any males who didn’t have their hands in the air,” he said.

The soldiers arrived by helicopter as dawn broke, and Mason testified that they expected to take heavy fire after they landed. Mason said that as they approached one house, he unleashed a burst of six to nine rounds from his weapon, killing an “old man” standing in the window.

Mason testified that there was no Iraqi gunfire that morning. When defense lawyers asked him why he killed the man, Mason said those were his orders.

“We were told to kill all the males on the island,” he testified. “We don’t fire warning shots.”

Inside the house where Mason shot the man, soldiers found three men cowering behind a pair of women, Mason testified. The soldiers pulled the men outside and bound their hands with plastic handcuffs before searching the house. They found nothing but an AK-47 and a few rounds of ammunition, allowed by law.

Claggett and Hunsaker smiled when Girouard said they were going to kill the detainees, already handcuffed and disarmed, according to Mason’s account. “I told (Girouard) I’m not down with it,” he said. “It’s murder.”

Mason testified that he stayed in the house while the other four soldiers took the detainees outside. He heard Hunsaker yell out a profanity, and then heard automatic weapon fire, followed by two shots from a semiautomatic assault rifle, Mason testified. Prosecutors believe that Claggett and Hunsaker shot and killed the detainees.

Mason testified that Claggett told him two of the detainees had broken free of their plastic cuffs, and that one of them had lunged at Hunsaker with a knife, giving him a scratch. The other had punched Claggett in the face. The soldiers then shot and killed the three detainees.

But Claggett later told him that Girouard had punched Claggett and cut Hunsaker to justify the killings, Mason said, adding that men in the squad also began threatening and pressuring Mason to keep quiet. Mason said Girouard threatened to kill him if he informed.

Defense Department officials said that officers in Mason’s company and brigade failed to investigate the shooting, even after Mason and others raised concerns.

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

Rogue Officers Seize Control At Fleet Forces Command;
They Arrest Petty Officer And Hold Him In Secret For 4 Months:
They Openly Defy Military Law And Military Court Decisions

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Washington, said that, even in military courts, an order must be issued closing or sealing a case.

Brown acknowledged Thursday that “there is no order,” but said that the charge sheet in the Weinmann case would not be released.

August 4, 2006 By TIM MCGLONE, The Virginian-Pilot [Excerpts]

NORFOLK: A petty officer has been in the Norfolk Naval Station brig for more than four months facing espionage, desertion and other charges, but the Navy has refused to release details of the case.

The case against Fire Control Technician 3rd Class Ariel J. Weinmann is indicative of the secrecy surrounding the Navy military court here, where public affairs and trial court officials have denied access to basic information including the court docket – a listing of cases to be heard.

After months of requests, the Navy this week provided The Virginian-Pilot with Weinmann’s name, rank and the charges he faces.

In an e-mail, Theodore Brown, a spokesman for Fleet Forces Command, said, “It is sometimes a challenge to balance the desires of the media, the public’s right to know, and the rights of an individual accused of a crime.”

“In this case,” he concluded, the command “is attempting to provide as much unclassified information as is reasonable, while maintaining an appropriate concern for the privacy of the individual involved.”

The Navy’s position was challenged by military legal affairs experts and First Amendment advocates who say the nation’s courts, whether civilian or military, historically have been open to the press and public.

A docket listing Weinmann’s preliminary hearing, called an Article 32, was never produced. The Navy would not disclose when the hearing was held.

“That’s hogwash,” said Eugene R. Fidell, president of The National Institute of Military Justice and a Washington lawyer .

“I know of no authority to keep the proceeding closed,” he said. “I’ve never seen an Article 32 classified.”

The command’s e-mail to The Pilot this week said that Weinmann was arrested at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on March 26 after he had been listed as a deserter. Fleet Forces officials refused to release the so-called charge sheet, which would detail the accusations against the sailor. Weinmann had been serving aboard the submarine Albuquerque until he deserted in July 2005, according to Brown. Weinmann enlisted in July 2003, he said.

The enlisted man could face a court-martial. An investigative officer who presided over the Article 32 is expected to release a report to Weinmann’s command in the coming weeks. Besides espionage and desertion, Weinmann is charged with failure to obey an order and acts prejudicial to good order and discipline, according to Brown.

Espionage is defined, in part, by the Uniform Code of Military Justice as the communication to a foreign government of any information relating to U.S. national defense. It carries a maximum punishment of death.

Court precedents and federal laws have established the right of public access to court-martial proceedings, including Article 32 hearings, the lawyers and First Amendment advocates say.

The Army Court of Criminal Appeals said in a 1997 case involving an attempt to close a criminal proceeding, “We believe that public confidence in matters of military justice would quickly erode if courts-martial were arbitrarily closed to the public.”

The court said the public and the media have a right to attend military court proceedings, “absent extraordinary circumstances.”

The Supreme Court has ruled that the closure of a court proceeding or the sealing of any criminal case must be decided by a judge on a case-by-case basis.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Washington, said that, even in military courts, an order must be issued closing or sealing a case.

Brown acknowledged Thursday that “there is no order,” but said that the charge sheet in the Weinmann case would not be released.

Dalglish and others said protecting someone’s privacy has never been a legally acceptable reason to exclude the public from a court proceeding or to withhold the identity of someone who’s been in custody for four months.

“We don’t lock up people in this country secretly,” Dalglish said. “Personal embarrassment has never been found to be a justification for closing a proceeding.”

Other than the Weinmann case, Norfolk Naval Station has refused to provide The Pilot with copies of the military court docket since at least November. The docket lists cases heard in military court each day. In March, The Pilot filed a Freedom of Information request for the past year’s dockets but has received no written response.

Beth Baker, a spokeswoman for the Navy Mid-Atlantic Region, has said that computer problems have made it difficult for the Trial Services Office at Norfolk Naval Station to generate a docket.

In two e-mails sent to The Pilot in January and February, Baker said the dockets should be available “soon.”

“The docket for the Trial Service Office has been transferred to a new system that is not user friendly to us at all,” Baker told The Pilot in a March e-mail.

More recent requests for the docket went unanswered.

Rats Who Defrauded Troops With Fake Investment Scheme Forced To Refund Their Money

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

Aug 3 Reuters

A U.S. insurer will pay about $70 million in cash and noncash benefits to thousands of military personnel whose investments with the company earned most of them little or no money, authorities said on Thursday.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said that American Amicable Life Insurance Co. of Texas and affiliates targeted service personnel with a product, Horizon Life, and a “deceptive sales program that falsely suggested that investing in the company’s product would make one a millionaire.”

Since 2000, about 57,000 armed forces personnel bought the product, but “the vast majority earned little or nothing on their investment,” the SEC said in a statement.

In addition, American Amicable said it will continue an existing $1.4 million refund offer for service members who bought Horizon Life at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 2005. The company said it has paid out $630,000 under this offer.

The SEC said Horizon Life was marketed as a wealth-creating security, although it was actually an insurance product that most military personnel did not need because they have access to low-cost insurance through the government.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

“Thousands Massed To Mark The Second Anniversary Of Their Anti-U.S. Revolt”

Members of the Mehdi army march with their weapons and the holy book the Koran in the Baghdad’s Sadr City August 5, 2006. Thousands of members massed to mark the second anniversary of their anti-U.S. revolt and to show solidarity with Lebanese people. REUTERS/Kareem Raheem (IRAQ)

GET THE MESSAGE?

An Iraqi burns an American flag as one million Iraqis gathered in a mass demonstration chanting “Death To Israel, Death To America” Aug. 4, 2006, in the Sadr City area of Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

The Anti-War Movement In The Military:
“Many After Coming Back From Viet Nam Started Fighting The Us Military Itself”

Jun 12 By Kim Scripes, Working-Class List Serve [Excerpts]

Sir, No Sir,” a film by David Zeiger: An Appreciation and Some Comments

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 Forestall, 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.

(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/

The Sir! No Sir! DVD is on sale now, 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.

The Catastrophic Denial of Truth

From: Richard Hastie
To: GI Special
Sent: August 05, 2006
Subject: The Catastrophic Denial of Truth

The U.S. bombing campaign throughout the Vietnam War was relentless.

The U.S. Government bombed everything, absolutely everything.

When you read the history of the American War, from the Vietnamese perspective, you just cry. If the American people knew what their government did to the civilian population in Vietnam, they would have panic attacks.

What Israel is doing in Lebanon, is a microcosm compared to what the U.S. did in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

The U.S. war in Southeast Asia is still under lock and key. Americans do not know what their government does behind closed doors. It has been my experience, that they do not want to know. Because, it would dismantle their belief system.

I could not tell you how many times I have been interrupted when I tried to bear witness about the Vietnam War.

People treat you like you have a disease.

This is the haunted pain that most veterans carry to their graves.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child. And now that I am an adult and speaking the truth, I am forever banned from the witness stand.

May God have mercy on this country.

Mike Hastie
U.S. Army Medic
1st Squadron 10th Cavalry
4th Infantry Division
Vietnam 1970-71
August 5, 2006

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

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.

Bad News For Imperial Dreamers:
“The Growing Unwillingness Of Arabs To Be Afraid”

05 August 2006 Robert Fisk, The Independent

In fact, one of the most profound changes in the region these past three decades has been the growing unwillingness of Arabs to be afraid.

Their leaders – our “moderate” pro-Western Arab leaders such as King Abdullah of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt – may be afraid. But their peoples are not.

And once a people have lost their terror, they cannot be re-injected with fear.

Thus Israel’s consistent policy of smashing Arabs into submission no longer works.

It is a policy whose bankruptcy the Americans are now discovering in Iraq.

OCCUPATION PALESTINE/LEBANON

[Thanks to David Honish, Veterans For Peace]

Israel’s Vaunted Tanks Are Succumbing To Hezbollah’s Powerful Missiles

[Thanks to PB, who sent this in. He writes: IF I WAS AL-SADR OR SOME OTHER IRAQI RESISTANCE FIGHTER, I’D BE TRYING TO MAKE AN ARMS DEAL WITH HEZBOLLAH RIGHT NOW.]

August 4, 2006 BENJAMIN HARVEY, Associated Press Writer

Hezbollah’s sophisticated anti-tank missiles are perhaps the guerrilla group’s deadliest weapon in Lebanon fighting, with their ability to pierce Israel’s most advanced tanks.

Experts say this is further evidence that Israel is facing a well-equipped army in this war, not a ragtag militia.

Hezbollah has fired Russian-made Metis-M anti-tank missiles and owns European-made Milan missiles, the army confirmed on Friday.

In the last two days alone, these missiles have killed seven soldiers and damaged three Israeli-made Merkava tanks – mountains of steel that are vaunted as symbols of Israel’s military might, the army said. Israeli media say most of the 44 soldiers killed in four weeks of fighting were hit by anti-tank missiles.

‘’They (Hezbollah guerrillas) have some of the most advanced anti-tank missiles in the world,’’ said Yossi Kuperwasser, a senior military intelligence officer who retired earlier this summer.

‘’This is not a militia, it’s an infantry brigade with all the support units,’’ Kuperwasser said.

Israel’s Merkava tanks boast massive amounts of armor and lumber and resemble fortresses on tracks. They are built for crew survival, according to Globalsecurity.org, a Washington-based military think tank.

Hezbollah celebrates when it destroys one.

‘’A Zionist armored force tried to advance toward the village of Chihine. The holy warriors confronted it and destroyed two Merkava tanks,’’ the group proclaimed on television Thursday.

The Israeli army confirmed two attacks on Merkava tanks that day – one that killed three soldiers and the other killing one. The three soldiers who were killed on Friday were also killed by anti-tank missiles, the army said.

It would not say whether the missiles disabled the tanks. [Right. Let’s keep that a big secret. As if.]

‘’To the best of my understanding, they (Hezbollah) are as well-equipped as any standing unit in the Syrian or Iranian armies,’’ said Eran Lerman, a retired army colonel and now director of the Israel/Middle East office of the American Jewish Committee. ‘’This is not a rat-pack guerrilla, this is an organized militia.’’

Besides the anti-tank missiles, Hezbollah is also known to have a powerful rocket-propelled grenade known as the RPG29.

Heroic Zionist Extermination Action Kills More Lebanese Untermensch

[Thanks to JM, who sent this in.]

August 2, 2006 Rory McCarthy in Metula, Ewen MacAskill and Clancy Chassay in Beirut, The Guardian [Excerpt] & Aug 4, By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer

Witnesses in Baalbek reported seeing dozens of Israeli helicopters hovering over the town and said a private hospital in Baalbek, filled with patients and wounded people, was bombed by Israeli helicopters.

Israeli airstrikes flattened two southern Lebanese houses Friday and more than 50 people were buried in the rubble, security officials and the state news agency said. Israel denied attacking the villages.

The number of dead was not immediately known.

One attack flattened a building in Aita al-Shaab, a mile inside Lebanon, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported. A large number of civilians were inside at the time, but the exact number was unknown, it said.

Lebanese security officials said the number of occupants was around 50, and that they were still buried in the rubble there.

Warplanes also hit Taibeh, about 3 miles from the Israeli border, destroying a house where 17 people had taken refuge, the news agency reported. It said an unknown number of people were killed, and several others were wounded.

Zionist Military Fuck Up At Baalbeck:
A World-Class Combination Of Stupidity And Savagery

August 04, 2006 By Saree Makdisi, The Palestine Chronicle

Israeli commandos staged a daring raid the other night on the ancient Lebanese town of Baalbeck, catching Hassan Nasrallah asleep, bundling him into a waiting helicopter, and spiriting him back to Israel.

But as the dust settled and reports from the ground began to emerge, it turned out that the Hassan Nasrallah that Israel’s most elite military unit had captured-with the assistance of the formidable intelligence capabilities of the legendary Mossad-was apparently not Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizballah, but rather Hassan Nasrallah, the owner of a small toyshop on the dusty outskirts of Baalbeck.

They also nabbed his son, another relative, and a neighbor for good measure. Israel claims that the men are members of Hizballah, albeit not the ones they were hoping for. Their relatives and neighbors, and Hizballah itself, deny this.

The raid was focused on the Dar al Hikma hospital, which was heavily damaged by the Israeli raiders and supporting fire from aircraft. The hospital, however, was found to be empty. The kidnapped men were, according to local sources, taken from their homes.

To provide cover before and during the raid on the hospital, Israeli aircraft subjected residential neighborhoods of Baalbeck and neighboring towns to a withering bombardment, in which seventeen people, almost all of them civilians, were killed.

The dead included the son of the mayor of al Jamaliyeh, his brother, and five other relatives. The mayor of al Jamaliyeh, incidentally, held a distinctly anti-Hizballah position in local politics.

The “deep penetration” raid on Baalbeck was meant to show off the capabilities of Israel’s armed forces, to make up for their humiliating performance on the ground and their repeated massacres of civilians from the air, including the refugees sheltering in Qana (an event whose cover story has gone through at least three variations, none of them convincing to anyone other than the Israelis themselves).

Instead, it left a hospital in ruins, more than a dozen civilians dead, and elite forces in possession of an unfortunate middle-aged shopkeeper and an assortment of his friends and relatives.

Surely this would be the right moment for Israel to give up and call it quits.

MORE:

“Was My Wife A Fighter? Was The Baby Inside Her Belly A Guerilla?”

[Thanks to Max Watts, who sent this in.]

05aug06 Peter Wilson, Baalbek, The Australian,

ISRAEL’S audacious helicopter raid on Baalbek this week was instantly deemed a success as it lifted the Israeli public’s morale and showed its Hezbollah enemies that Israel could strike almost anywhere within Lebanon.

The 20-odd people killed or seized during the night-time commando raid on an abandoned hospital deep inside Lebanon were all Hezbollah militants, according to Israeli spokesmen, who argued that the exercise could help to bring peace by convincing Hezbollah supporters that their armed campaign was doomed to fail.

That is not quite how Mohammed Salloum sees it.

The 29-year-old mechanic was driving to another hospital on Tuesday night with his wife Nisrine, who was 34 weeks pregnant and suffering contractions. Their 18-month-old daughter, Nour, was also in the car.

Nisrine was killed by fire from a helicopter gunship. Her unborn son was blasted from her womb and died beside her on the road.

Members of Nisrine’s large extended family say her death has turned them and their neighbours into passionate and permanent haters of Israel, filled with the sort of venom that is likely to poison generations to come.

“We all support Hezbollah but until now none of my relatives is a member, let alone a fighting member,” said her 21-year-old cousin Mohammed, home on holidays from his studies in France.

“How do you think we will all respond now?”

Nisrine’s husband, still partly deafened by the blast, sat quietly on the balcony of his father-in-law’s farmhouse in Yuneen, a village 20km from Baalbek, as relatives and neighbours visited to mourn and offer prayers.

A tray carrying 10 different brands of cigarettes was passed around as about a dozen men sat quietly with Nisrine’s husband and her father, also Mohammed, who was treated as the primary mourner.

Every now and then a woman could be heard wailing inside the house but the men broke down only once. When the elder Mohammed’s brother arrived to pay his respects he shook the hands of the dozen or so assembled men, like all the previous visitors, but when he got to his brother he hugged him and the two men sobbed on each other’s shoulder for about 10 seconds. Everyone on the balcony cried at the sight.

A cousin quietly confided that Nisrine, the youngest of his four children, had always been his favourite.

Nisrine’s husband said the Israeli Defence Force’s description of the dead as Hezbollah militants was ridiculous.

“Was my wife a fighter? Was the baby inside her belly a guerilla?

“And what about me? If someone is going to fight, does he take his little daughter along with him?”

Mohammed said he and Nisrine, also 29, were first cousins who married three years ago and moved to the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Their apartment had not been damaged by the past three weeks of bombing there but it was close to the devastated patch of buildings where Hezbollah offices had been flattened. Nisrine was worried about giving birth early and thought it would be safer to go back to their village.

On Tuesday night, they made the three-hour drive over Lebanon’s main mountain range and into the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold where the radical group’s flag and posters of its heroes fly above almost every road.

A permanent sign painted outside a high school just outside Baalbek, the valley’s main city, reads simply: “Israel must be erased from existence.”

Ali Abdul Sater, a gynaecologist and co-owner of Jabal Amel hospital, said Nisrine, who was on maternity leave from her office job in a Beirut hospital, had visited his hospital a month earlier and had rung ahead on Tuesday to say she was suffering contractions and feared she was giving birth.

A few hundred metres short of their hospital, the family were caught up by the Israeli attack on the nearby Dar al-Hekma hospital, an Iranian-funded facility that had sent its patients to other hospitals at the start of the conflict for fear that it would be bombed because of its Iranian connections.

“The first hit didn’t seem to have much impact but it damaged the engine and stopped the car,” Nisrine’s husband said. “I took my daughter from my wife and got out and went to the front of the car. Nisrine went to the back (of the car) and I told her to take shelter in the closest house.

“She called out to ask the owner if we could come in and he said, ‘Yes, of course’. At that instant another missile hit. Nour and I were thrown about five metres in different directions and I passed out. Nour’s screaming woke me up and I picked her up and went over and found Nisrine dead.

“She was all burned and the baby was beside her on the road. I put him back on her stomach and thought she still had a bit of life so I spoke to her. She didn’t answer.

“I never even saw the helicopter but there was shooting and noise everywhere. I don’t know how many Israelis or resistance fighters there were and I don’t care.”

Nour suffered some minor cuts and her hair was slightly singed. Since the attack the little girl has clung to an aunt, screaming even when she is prised away to be put to bed.

Majority Of Lebanese Back Hizbullah
[Of Course]

3 – 9 August 2006 Lucy Fielder from Beirut, AL-AHRAM [Excerpts]

Despite the tendency of Hizbullah’s critics to dismiss its support-base as a hard core of brainwashed Shias, the last couple of weeks have seen a clear emergence of majority support for the self- styled ‘Islamic Resistance’, in fractured Lebanon as well as across the Arab world.

A poll by the Beirut Centre for Research and Information between 24 and 26 July found that 70 per cent of respondents, spread across Lebanon’s main sects, supported Hizbullah’s seizure of the soldiers on 12 July.

Support for Hizbullah’s current resistance against Israel rose to 87 per cent of the 800 respondents.

Silly Liars To The Contrary,
Hezbollah And Hamas Are Not Terrorist Organizations;
“They Are National Resistance Movements”

August 04, 2006 Patrick Seale, The Palestine Chronicle [Excerpt]

Hezbollah and Hamas are not conventional armies which can be wiped out on a battlefield, nor are they terrorist organizations with no claim to recognition or respect.

They are national resistance movements deeply rooted in the local populations they represent, whose rights and lives they seek to defend against Israel’s repeated aggressions.

[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 Katherine GY, who sent this in.]

Arab-Americans Tell FBI Spies To Fuck Off:
“If They Want To Prosecute Us, Prosecute Us. Let Them Get Their Buses, Line Them Up And Haul Us Out”

03/08/2006 By Reuters

U.S. federal agents are keeping close tabs on the Detroit area for activity linked to Hezbollah, as weeks of an Israeli offensive in Lebanon stirs growing discontent among southeast Michigan’s vibrant Arab American community.

Eric Straus, chief of the counterterrorism unit at the U.S. attorney’s office in Detroit, said that law enforcement authorities, including the FBI, renewing contacts with informants and monitoring the effect of the unrest in the Middle East on the local Arab American population.

While the U.S. has labeled Hezbollah a terrorist organization, many Arabs view the Shiite group as a legitimate resistance movement, and some Arab American community leaders say it is unlikely the government’s stepped up vigilance will diminish support in the area for the group.

“Who should they chant for? George Bush, the one who’s sending Israel bombs to kill their relatives, to kill more people?” said Osama Siblani, the publisher of The Arab American News and spokesman for the Council of Arab American Organizations.

“If they want to prosecute us, prosecute us. Let them get their buses, line them up and haul us out.”

The FBI has renewed contacts with informants, held private meetings with Arab-American and Muslim leaders and voiced concern about public support shown for Hezbollah at rallies in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb with a large Shiite Muslim community, the Free Press reported.

At some rallies, demonstrators held portraits of Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, chanting his name and Hezbollah, the newspaper said.

CLASS WAR REPORTS

Employees Unionize Chinese Wal-Mart

[Thanks to PB who sent this in. He writes: IT’S A SAD DAY INDEED WHEN THE CHINESE LABOR MOVEMENT IS FURTHER AHEAD THAN THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT, AND THEY HAVE TO DEAL WITH A POLICE STATE AND WE DON’T.]

Aug 5 SHANGHAI (Reuters)

Employees of retail giant Wal-Mart have set up their second trade union in China, pushing toward the Chinese labor federation’s goal of unionizing every Wal-Mart store in the country.

The second union was established by 42 employees of a Wal-Mart outlet in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

The U.S. retail chain, which employs more than 30,000 people at stores across China, has long resisted pressure to unionize its workers in the United States and elsewhere.

GET THE MESSAGE?

Turkish demonstrators set fire to U.S. and Israeli flags during a protest following the Friday prayer in Istanbul, Turkey, Aug. 4, 2006. Thousands gathered in an Istanbul square to protest U.S. backed Israeli attacks on Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer)