GI SPECIAL 4H16: 16/8/06

PAYBACK COME SOON

Seattle, August 11, 2006: Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Photo by Jeff Paterson, Not in Our Name; Indybay.org

Iraq Vet Says “It’s The Poor In Iraq Who Make Up The Resistance”
“The Rich Are Still Going To Get Theirs, Whatever”

2006 By William Tinker, Street News #6 [Excerpts]

[O]n May 20 US group Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) issued a statement that explained: “The massacre at Haditha is not an exception to the situation in Iraq, it is a punctuation mark in a longer atrocity, the war itself.”

The statement said that foreign troops “cannot simultaneously be empathetic to population and be obliged to control that same population by pointing guns at them, breaking into their homes, turning them into collateral damage, and taking vengeance on them out of the inevitable frustration of fighting an urban counter-insurgency”.

At the World Social Forum, held in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas in January, Green Left Weekly spoke to IVAW member Geoff Millard. Millard explained that US soldiers are forced to dehumanise Iraqis to carry out Washington’s brutal occupation policy.

He told GLW, “US soldiers are put into a situation where they are forced to brutalize, forced to racialism, forced to sexualize everyone in order to dominate and control a people”.

“So the racist, class brutality continues.

“The real Iraqis getting bombed are the poor. It’s the poor in Iraq who make up the resistance, just like anywhere, because the rich are still going to get theirs, whatever.”

Millard said that when soldiers who go home to the US suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), “the first thing the government does is deny all claims. Then they put you through an evaluation process, where doctors poke and probe; they’re not actually treating you.

“This can go on for a number of months, possibly years. Then they diagnose you as having bi-polar disorder, not PTSD, because with bipolar disorder, you don’t get a disability pension … or they say you have depression.

“Then they finally diagnose something, after god knows how long. Then they throw medication at you. You can take Prozac, or Xanax

“Whatever they prescribe is not working. They medicate and drug the veteran. Once this medication doesn’t work, they might look into real treatment for PTSD.”

Veterans of the Iraq war “want to go somewhere else for treatment, but all their records stay with Veterans Affairs. There are no medical records and no funding for treatment elsewhere”.

“We have spent US$440 billion on a war on Iraq to brutalise and destroy our own people at the same time.”

www.ivaw.net

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 WAR REPORTS

2 MND BAGHDAD SOLDIERS KILLED IN IED BLAST

8/12/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-08-01CL

BAGHDAD: Two Multi-National Division Baghdad Soldiers were killed when their dismounted patrol was struck by an improvised explosive device south of Baghdad at approximately 10:10 a.m. today.

Arkansas Staff Sgt. Killed In Baghdad

August 15, 2006 U.S. Department of Defense News Release No. 774-06

Staff Sgt. Kenneth A. Jenkins, 25, of Fouke, Ark., died in Balad, Iraq of injuries sustained on Aug. 12, when he came in contact with enemy forces using small arms fire during combat operations in Baghdad, Iraq. Jenkins was assigned to the Army’s 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

Park Graduate Wounded

August 15, 2006 By Scott Anderson, The Journal Times

U.S. Army Pfc. Andrew “Drew” Bouwma, a 2004 graduate of Park High School, is in serious condition after being struck in the hip by gunfire Thursday on combat duty in Iraq.

Kandi Bouwma, his mother, said several military officials called her and Drew’s father, Jim, that evening, informing them their son had been injured while on duty.

Piecing the calls together, they learned what happened to their son, an infantryman with the Stryker Corps.

Drew Bouwma, 20, was in a Stryker unit on duty in Mosul, Iraq, when something unexplained caused the soldiers to exit their armored combat vehicle. They exited the vehicle, encircling it, when Bouwma was hit.

Kandi and Jim spoke with Drew that night, his words carrying with them the comfort that their son’s challenges were behind him.

But as he was transported to a military hospital in Germany the next day, something went wrong.

His blood pressure changed rapidly, and fever-like symptoms appeared. Drew received emergency treatment. Doctors determined that he had suffered an apparent heart attack.

Bouwma received additional treatment and is in serious condition and under sedation, but will be in the company of family as Kandi, Jim and their daughter, Samantha, prepare to visit him in Germany.

The news of Drew’s condition came as a shock to the family, which is now preparing on short notice for a overseas flight to see him. They leave for Germany today.

“It’s being very hard on the family. They’re all taking it good and bad. Some moments in time are better than others,” Kandi said.

Although his condition is considered serious, military personnel told Drew’s parents he will recover from his injuries.

“I had a dream last night that I visited him. He opened his eyes for me,” Kandi said. “I would like to pat his fuzzy little head, though.”

Andrew was awarded the Infantry Combat Badge and the Purple Heart the day he sustained his injures.

If Drew’s recovery goes as expected, he could return to the United States as early as Friday, where he will receive treatment at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. before returning to Wisconsin.

Western Wisconsin Soldier Recovering

Aug 14, 2006 WXOW/WQOW Television

A local soldier is taking steps to recovery. Last month, Pvt. Second Class Wesley Peck was shot twice in Iraq. He’s now recovering at a hospital in San Antonio. The 22-year-old is from Prairie Farm.

Shortly after Peck arrived in San Antonio, he suffered pneumonia and developed a 107 degree fever. News 18 talked to Peck’s father Monday and he says his son’s temperature is now normal and he’s awake and alert. On Saturday he started walking again. The family hopes he can come home sometime in December.

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

U.S. Marines walk by the abandoned Anbar provincial police headquarters in Ramadi, July 9, 2006. The station has been abandoned since officers refused to be based there after a string of insurgent attacks. U.S. Marines in the compound now defend the ailing local government offices from frequent insurgent attacks. After three years of war in Ramadi, the U.S. military has yet to move from combat to stabilization operations in most of this city of 400,000 people and capital of Sunni-dominated Anbar province. (AP Photo/Antonio Castaneda)

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Famous Last Words From Gen. Peter Pace

August 14, 2006 By Matthew Cox and Gordon Lubold, Army Times Staff writers [Excerpts]

The number of U.S. troops wounded in Afghanistan each week, which had long languished in the low single digits, has been in double digits for the last seven weeks, according to Pentagon data. During the week of July 31, there were 12 U.S. casualties, and two weeks earlier, for the week of July 10, there were 18.

Seven members of the NATO force that has begun to assume responsibility for security in southern Afghanistan were killed in the first few days of August.

According to a report from the Council on Foreign Relations released earlier this year, the number of coalition fatalities topped 300 in 2005, up from slightly more than 50 in 2002.

But the Taliban’s newfound muscle-flexing poses only a short-term challenge to coalition forces because the group does not have the ability to sustain itself, said Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, on a trip through Afghanistan last month.

Big Surprise:
Afghan Collaborator Army Is Useless

8.15.06 London Daily Telegraph

The Afghan National Army is an ill-disciplined force weakened by drug abuse and desertion, according the British military trainers.

Assorted Resistance Action

08/15/06 Reuters & Gulf Times Newspaper & USA Today

Taliban guerrillas killed six Afghan policemen in an ambush on Tuesday, officials said.

A bomber blew up his car at a bazaar in southeastern Afghanistan, killing himself and wounding six soldiers and a civilian.

Taliban rebels attacked a police post in the Kajaki district of volatile Helmand province, sparking a firefight that lasted two hours, deputy provincial governor Mullah Amir Akhundzada said. One policeman was killed and another two were wounded.

Militants killed four policemen in Ghazni who were going to help a local official ambushed by insurgents.

TROOP NEWS

If A 172nd Soldier KIA?
Tough Shit;
Airline Ticket “Nonrefundable”

[Thanks to Z, who sent this in. He writes: Pentagon clearly sees these soldiers as yoyos, and not at all as human beings. High time to resist! Solidarity, Z]

August 14, 2006 By Michelle Tan, Army Times Staff writer

The Army has set up family assistance centers at Alaska’s Fort Wainwright and Fort Richardson to help families of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team cope with their soldiers’ extended deployment in Iraq.

The centers are open seven days a week to deal with problems ranging from financial difficulties and child care to legal issues and housing and transportation concerns, said Maj. Kirk Gohlke, a spokesman for U.S. Army Alaska.

The soldiers of the 172nd were extended just days before they were scheduled to redeploy to Alaska. The extension, approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and announced July 27, is for up to 120 days.

Carol Ernst of Centennial, Colo., had planned to fly to Fairbanks to welcome home her nephew.

Ernst, who declined to provide her nephew’s name for publication but said that he’s an officer, got a refund for her plane ticket after several terse conversations with airline employees.

“The first lady I talked to said it was nonrefundable,” Ernst said.

“I said, ‘What would your policy be if my soldier didn’t come back?’ She said, and this is a direct quote, I wrote it down, I almost fell out of my chair, ‘Well, it’s a nonrefundable ticket.’ I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.”

[www.bringhome172nd.org/stryker/]

Sgt. Has Terrific Ideas To Improve Life For Active Duty Personnel!

Letters To The Editor
Army Times
8.14.06

The way the Army is going — toward letting people do what they want to, when they want to — the next thing you know, soldiers will be able to leave a wake-up call so they can get up when they want to show up and do what they want to.

Wait! They can pretty much do that now.

What else will the Army come up with to make soldiers happy? Let them sleep in the same bed together?

Tattoos are just a start.

Sgt. 1st Class Paul J. Smith Sr.
Fort Meade, Md.

Rumsfeld’s Plan For 2024 Recruiting

August 14, 2006 By Gayle S. Putrich, Army Times Staff writer [Excerpt]

The price of six birth control drugs will soon jump for women in the military and anyone else using Tricare’s prescription drug plan.

A new formulary will bump the price of drugs up to $22 for a 30-day supply when the medications are demoted to “third tier,” or nonformulary, drug status under Tricare.

“It Wasn’t Terrorists Who Laced Our Cups And Bathtubs With These Poisons – It Was Private Contractors Employed By The Air Force”

Citizens, who pay for the military budget with their tax dollars, are also paying with their health and sometimes their lives.

04 August 2006 By Sunaura Taylor and Astra Taylor, AlterNet [Excerpts]

Last week a study was released by the National Academy of Sciences, raising already substantial concerns about the cancer risks and other health hazards associated with exposure to TCE, a solvent used in adhesives, paint and spot removers that is also “widely used to remove grease from metal parts in airplanes and to clean fuel lines at missile sites.”

The report confirms a 2001 EPA document linking TCE to kidney cancer, reproductive and developmental damage, impaired neurological function, autoimmune disease and other ailments in human beings.

The report has been garnering some publicity, but not as much as it deserves. TCE contamination is disturbingly common, especially in the air, soil and water around military bases.

The report urges the EPA to amend its assessment of the threat TCE poses, an action that could lead to stricter regulations. Currently the EPA limits TCE to no more than five parts per billion parts of drinking water. Stricter regulation could force the government to require more thorough cleanups at military and other sites and lower the number to one part per billion.

The EPA found it impossible to take such action back in 2001, because, according to the Associated Press, the agency was “blocked from elevating its assessment of the chemical’s risks in people by the Defense Department, Energy Department and NASA, all of which have sites polluted with it.”

We didn’t know it when we lived there, but our Tucson neighborhood’s public water supply was one of thousands nationwide contaminated with TCE (along with a medley of other toxic chemicals including, ironically, arsenic). It wasn’t terrorists who laced our cups and bathtubs with these poisons – it was private contractors employed by the Air Force.

Beginning during the Korean War, military contractors began using industrial solvents, including TCE, to degrease airplane parts. Hughes Missiles Systems Co. (which was purchased by the Raytheon Corp. in 1997) worked at the Tucson International Airport, spilling chemicals off the runway and letting them sink into the soil of a city entirely dependent on its underground water supply.

What didn’t seep into the earth was dumped into unlined pits scraped into the desert floor. Over the course of many years Hughes used barrels and barrels of TCE at the airport hangars and at weapons system manufacturing facilities on government-owned and contractor-operated land not far from where we lived. As late as 1985, 2,220 pounds of TCE was still being dumped in Tucson landfills every month.

Like so many other toxic hotspots, Tucson’s southside is primarily a working-class community called home by many people of color. It is situated near the San Xavier Indian reservation, which also had residential areas affected by runoff.

Generally, fines associated with hazardous waste laws are up to six times higher in white communities than their minority counterparts.

What has happened in Tucson since the early ‘80s reflects this unevenness. There has been only one legal case against the military and its cohorts, a lengthy personal-injury lawsuit filed in behalf of 1,600 people against the aircraft manufacturer, the city of Tucson and the Tucson Airport Authority (citizens are not allowed to sue the federal government over such matters).

The case excluded thousands of potential plaintiffs and did not include funds from which future claimants could collect for illnesses like cancers, which typically do not appear until 10 or 20 years after chemical exposure. As a result, many southside residents have yet to be compensated and probably never will be. To this day, some area wells remain polluted, and most estimate cleanup will not be completed for another 20 to 50 years. Meanwhile, residents have the small consolation their water supply is being monitored.

But people who have lived on the southside of Tucson don’t need experts to verify that TCE is deadly.

Some estimate that up to 20,000 individuals have died, become ill, or been born with birth defects.

Providing further proof, the Tucson International Airport area is one of the EPA’s top Superfund sites. Arizona state guidelines also assert that TCE is toxic; they say one gallon of TCE is enough to render undrinkable the amount of water used by 3,800 people over an entire year. Over 4,000 gallons drained into Tucson aquifers. As a result of this week’s report, Arizona’s environmental quality chief says the state is independently and immediately going to adopt stricter TCE soil standards.

It’s an ugly truth that manufacturing weaponry to kill abroad also kills at home.

The process involves toxic chemicals, metals and radioactive materials. As a consequence, the U.S. military produces more hazardous waste annually than the five largest international chemical companies combined. The Pentagon is responsible for over 1,400 properties contaminated with TCE.

Citizens, who pay for the military budget with their tax dollars, are also paying with their health and sometimes their lives.

21-Day Incarceration Decreed On Israeli Reservists For Refusing To Serve In Lebanon

August 15, 2006 From Sergeiy Sandler Via Max Watts and David Mcreynolds

Below is a brief news update (from Ynet – the most popular web news service in Israel) about five Israeli soldiers imprisoned for refusing to go on missions in Lebanon.

According to this piece (and we have not checked it yet, as we were not contacted by any of them so far), the grounds for refusing to enter Lebanon were not stated in political or ideological terms, so we are talking about a form of grey refusal.

Other news reports in Israel indicate that such refusal had much more significant dimensions in fact.

Israeli Channel 2 news yesterday carried a story on an entire battalion refusing missions in Lebanon, which they defined as ‘suicide missions’.

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

08.15.06 Y-Net

Five engineering soldiers in the reserves have been handed a 21-day incarceration after they refused to participate in the operational activities in southern Lebanon at the beginning of the week, fearing their lives. Another officer from the same platoon will be tried Tuesday.

It should be noted that the mission was cancelled, and ultimately was not actuallized for operational reasons, but the commander of the battalion decided to put the soldiers on disciplinary trial for their refusal to participate. (Hanan Greenberg)

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

(Graphic: London Financial Times)

Pro-Occupation Presidents’ Office Blown Up

8.15.06 AP & (Reuters)

A bomber on Tuesday exploded a truck rigged with a bomb outside the Iraqi president’s party headquarters in a northern city, killing nine people and wounding 36, police said.

Five Kurdish peshmerga militiamen were among the dead, police said. The blast outside the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, also wounded 24 militiamen.

The explosion occurred in the parking lot of a building housing President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in the northern city of Mosul, said police Col. Abdul-Kareem Ahmed al-Jibouri.

He said the blast damaged the one-story building, killing five people and setting five cars on fire.

Police Colonel Kareem Khalaf said the bomber detonated a dump truck at 10:45 a.m. (0645 GMT) in an eastern section of the city. Another police source said the truck may have been mistaken for a construction vehicle connected with work being done on the building.

Assorted Resistance Action

14 Aug 2006 Reuters & 8.15.06 Reuters & Gulf Times Newspaper

A roadside bomb exploded next to a bus carrying police recruits escorted by a U.S. patrol, killing one recruit and wounding 10 on the main road between Baghdad and Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of the capital, police said.

Nine Iraqi soldiers were wounded on Sunday night by a car bomb near their checkpoint in Tal Afar, about 420 km (260 miles) northwest of Baghdad, police said.

One policeman was killed and three people were wounded, including one civilian, when a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in a bus garage in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in Huwayder, north of Baquba, wounding three policemen, a police source said.

Guerrillas killed three bakers supplying bread for the Iraqi army and wounded a passerby in the town of Muqdadiya, 90 km (50 miles) north east of Baghdad, police said.

Two roadside bombs targeting police commandos exploded near the spiral minaret of Samarra, north of Baghdad, wounding three police commandos and destroying one vehicle, a joint U.S. and Iraqi policing centre said.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

Open Warfare Between Collaborator Forces And Karbala Resistance

Aug 15 By QASSID JABAR, Associated Press Writer

Fierce gunbattles broke out Tuesday between armed supporters of an anti-U.S. [translation: Anti-Occupation] Shiite cleric and Iraqi security forces after a raid on his office in this southern holy city, leaving many people injured, officials and witnesses said.

The two sides exchanged gunfire near one of Iraq’s holiest shrines containing the mausoleum of Imam Hussein, a revered figure in Shiite history.

The fiercely anti-American [translation: Anti-Occupation] al-Hassani is believed to have several thousand followers. His whereabouts have remained unknown since his office was raided in 2004 by Polish soldiers, part of the U.S.-led coalition force.

But his followers were out in force Tuesday, wielding AK-47 rifles, heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades that they fired at army patrols.

At least two soldiers lay motionless on the street, apparently shot. Minutes later, other soldiers lifted their limp bodies and ferried them away in trucks. It was not clear if they were alive. Four other soldiers also suffered gunshot wounds, but were on their feet.

The fighting, which began early Tuesday, spread to at least four other parts of Karbala by afternoon in violation of a curfew. Armed resistance fighters in civilian clothes could be seen firing AK-47 rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at army patrols and running away.

Soldiers fired indiscriminately at groups of fighters in the streets.

The violence started after Iraqi soldiers raided the office of cleric Mahmoud al-Hassani before dawn, apparently because his supporters had taken over a field behind the building for security reasons, said Ahmed al-Ghazali, an aide to the cleric.

He claimed the soldiers opened fire but the cleric’s supporters did not respond.

Al-Ghazali said that later in the day, armed supporters of al-Hassani attacked police stations and police checkpoints.

An indefinite curfew was imposed in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, after the clashes, said Ghalib al-Daami, a member of the Karbala provincial council.

“We have asked for extra forces from neighboring provinces to control the situation after clashes erupted between al-Hassani’s supporters and the security forces,” he told The Associated Press.

He said security forces would arrest anyone carrying weapons. But the troops appeared incapable of making any arrests as the militiamen openly violated the curfew and attacked security forces.

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

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

One day while I was in a bunker in Vietnam, a sniper round went over my head. The person who fired that weapon was not a terrorist, a rebel, an extremist, or a so-called insurgent. The Vietnamese individual who tried to kill me was a citizen of Vietnam, who did not want me in his country. This truth escapes millions.

Mike Hastie
U.S. Army Medic
Vietnam 1970-71
December 13, 2004

The Scream In Front Of The White House

From: Richard Hastie
To: GI Special
Sent: August 15, 2006
Subject: The Scream In Front of The White House

The Scream In Front Of The White House

I’ll tell you what is wrong with America: Our Government Is Barbaric!!

This truth was revealed to me when I was in a padded cell of a psychiatric
hospital in 1994, just after returning from a trip back to Vietnam.

After I was released from the hospital, my rage opened a profound door of truth,
which I have never shared before in print:

The Vietnam War Was A Lie, and quite simply put, I served on the wrong side.

Bury my heart in Vietnam, welcome home.

Mike Hastie
Vietnam Veteran
August 15, 2006

U.S. Bombs Away in Lebanon
The lies go on and on and on…

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

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

OCCUPATION PALESTINE/LEBANON

“It Is Now Clear That The 30,000-Strong Israeli Army Reported To Be Racing North To The Litani River Never Existed”

15 August 2006 Robert Fisk, Independent News and Media Limited [Excerpts]

Srifa, or what was once the village of Srifa, is a place of pancaked homes, blasted walls, rubble, starving cats and trapped corpses.

But it is also a place of victory for the Hizbollah, whose fighters walked amid the destruction yesterday with the air of conquering heroes.

There was no doubt what the village mukhtar thought. As three Hizbollah men – one wounded in the arm, the other carrying two ammunition clips and a two-way radio – passed us amid the piles of broken concrete, Hussein Kamel el-Din yelled to them: “Hallo, heroes!” Then he turned to me. “You know why they are angry? Because God didn’t give them the opportunity of dying.”

You have to be down here with the Hizbollah amid this terrifying destruction – way south of the Litani river, in the territory from which Israel once vowed to expel them – to realise the nature of the past month of war and of its enormous political significance to the Middle East.

Israel’s mighty army has already retreated from the neighbouring village of Ghandoutiya after losing 40 men in just over 36 hours of fighting.

It has not even managed to penetrate the smashed town of Khiam where the Hizbollah were celebrating yesterday afternoon.

In Srifa, I stood with Hizbollah men looking at the empty roads to the south and could see all the way to Israel and the settlement of Mizgav Am on the other side of the frontier. This is not the way the war was supposed to have ended for Israel.

Far from humiliating Iran and Syria, which was the Israeli-American plan, these two supposedly pariah states have been left untouched and the Hizbollah’s reputation lionised across the Arab world.

The “opportunity” which President George Bush and his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, apparently saw in the Lebanon war has turned out to be an opportunity for America’s enemies to show the weakness of Israel’s army.

Indeed, last night, scarcely any Israeli armour was to be seen inside Lebanon, just one solitary tank could be glimpsed outside Bint Jbeil and the Israelis had retreated even from the “safe” Christian town of Marjayoun.

It is now clear that the 30,000-strong Israeli army reported to be racing north to the Litani river never existed.

In fact, it is unlikely that there were yesterday more than 1,000 Israeli soldiers left in all of southern Lebanon, although they did become involved in two fire-fights during the morning, hours after the UN-ceasefire went into effect.

Down the coast road from Beirut, meanwhile, came a massive exodus of tens of thousands of Shia families, bedding piled on the roofs of their cars , many of them sporting Hizbollah flags and pictures of Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah’s chairman, on their windscreens.

At the massive traffic jams around the broken motorway bridges and craters which litter the landscape, the Hizbollah was even handing out yellow and green “victory” flags, along with official notices urging parents not to allow children to play with the thousands of unexploded bombs that now lie across the landscape.

Far from driving the Hizbollah north across the Litani river, Israel has entrenched them in their Lebanese villages as never before.

“In The First War We Got To The Litani After Four Or Five Days,” He Said”
“This Is Different”

[Thanks to Katherine GY, who sent this in.]

August 14, 2006 By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr., NY Times

BINT JBAIL, Lebanon, Aug. 12 [Excerpts]

Not long ago, this town was known as “the capital of the resistance,” the most important Hezbollah stronghold in the southern reaches of Lebanon.

Now Bint Jbail appears largely deserted. Most of the homes are damaged, some pockmarked by bullets or shrapnel and others reduced to piles of stone and concrete by Israeli artillery that continues to pound the village.

But while Israeli troops have pushed farther north, Bint Jbail remains a very dangerous place for Israeli soldiers and a fitting illustration for why the war has become so frustrating for troops who had come to expect a swift and deep push into Lebanon.

Late on Wednesday night, Israeli soldiers from the elite Golani Brigade hiked five miles through darkness over tall hills carrying full packs, rifles and heavy jugs of water, arriving here a few hours before dawn. Accompanied by a reporter, they holed up in the second story of an unfinished house.

Hezbollah attacked a few hours later, at 8 a.m., firing a powerful missile into a Merkava tank in front of the house, wounding two crewmen.

Two hours later, a second antitank missile slammed into the top of the three-story house with a thunderous crack, shattering some of the few remaining windowpanes and shaking the home violently.

No soldiers had been on the top floor, and no one was hurt. But after two close calls, commanders herded a dozen enlisted men into the room thought to offer the most protection from missiles, an unfinished bathroom on the first floor. A few other members of the 20-man unit lay down outside the room, in an area between thick concrete walls.

The unit that had taken shelter in this house, part of the Golani Brigade’s 51st Battalion, spent the next 36 hours sitting cramped-legged on bathroom tiles, dozing while leaning on one another, their rifles and their buddies’ legs on top of them. Hezbollah missiles continued to occasionally explode nearby.

[T]he Israeli troops in Bint Jbail now dread the Hezbollah missiles that have forced the Israelis to alter much of its battle plan, as troops in Lebanon tailor their moves in fear of the militia’s modern and accurate weapons. After first pushing into Lebanon in heavy armor, the Israeli forces are doing much more on foot and also walking at night to avoid giving the Hezbollah missile units an easy target, commanders here said.

Even in areas well behind the front lines, the soldiers’ days are spent hiding away from windows in reinforced, interior rooms to avoid the danger demonstrated by Thursday morning’s near misses.

After Thursday’s missile strikes, Col. Omri Bar-David peered through pieces of glass still hanging in a window frame and pointed to a ridge about two miles away being bombed by Israeli jets. That, he said, is where the missiles were launched.

Both missiles that struck Thursday were Russian-made Kornets, with a range up to about three miles, said Colonel Bar-David, a reserve commander of another battalion, and a corporate lawyer in civilian life, who had made the trip with the Golani soldiers.

Hezbollah fighters, he added, are skilled and resilient. “From the point of view of the individual soldier, they are better than the Arab armies that surround us,” he said, referring to other Middle Eastern nations.

The missile attacks on Thursday morning were dangerous, but nothing like earlier battles in Bint Jbail and nearby villages. In one attack, Hezbollah militiamen struck a house of Israeli soldiers with three missiles, killing two men and wounding 30 — everybody in the house, said Joel Abel, a sergeant and medic for a unit of paratroopers that had been engaged in fierce fighting in Bint Jbail, Aita al Shaab and Marun al Ras.

Interviewed in northern Israel as he waited for his unit to return to Lebanon, Sergeant Abel described how missile attacks and cramped quarters had taken their toll on some younger soldiers in his unit who had been holed up in houses attacked by Hezbollah.

“They were quite hysterical,” he said. “They sat on the side and didn’t know what to do. It was the first time they’d ever seen that kind of fighting,” he said, fighting “you don’t see from the Palestinians.”

At one point, Sergeant Abel said, a soldier preparing to fire at a Hezbollah position dived into a small room with five other soldiers to avoid another incoming missile. He said the Israeli soldier accidentally fired his weapon, severing the leg of another soldier who screamed, “My leg is boiling. Save me!”

During a moment of relative quiet at the house in Bint Jbail, a few younger troops listened as the most experienced soldier in the house, Col. Shlomo Parente, 48, who first fought in Lebanon during Israel’s occupation more than two decades ago, tried to put this war into some perspective.

“In the first war we got to the Litani after four or five days,” he said, referring to the river. “This is different. Hezbollah doesn’t run, they know how to fight, and they are fanatics.”

“Arab Majesties, Excellencies And Highnesses, We Spit On You”:
Nasrallah “Succeeded In Making The Army Of Israel A Joke For The World To Laugh At”

August 14, 2006 BY HUSSEIN DAKROUB, ASSOCIATED PRESS [Excerpts]

BEIRUT: Despite the toll in death and destruction in Lebanon, even enemies and critics say the stature of Hizballah’s leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has risen dramatically from his guerrillas fighting toe-to-toe with the Israeli army.

“Hassan Nasrallah has won militarily and politically and has become a new leader like Nasser,” Lebanese lawmaker Walid Jumblatt, a critic of Hizballah’s alliance with Iran and Syria, said in an interview.

Hizballah already was popular among Lebanon’s 1.2 million Shi’ites, mainly from the armed struggle that led Israel to end an 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon but also because of the group’s network of social services and charities for poor people.

Now, Israel’s bombing has rallied many more Lebanese around Hizballah, regardless of politics or religion, said Gen. Antoine Lahd, who led a now-defunct militia that helped Israeli troops police the occupation zone before they withdrew six years ago.

Beirut’s leading newspaper, An-Nahar, has long been critical of Hizballah — especially its harassing rocket attacks on Israel before the war began — but it urged all Lebanese to stand behind Nasrallah’s group to achieve victory against the Jewish nation.

“When we look around, we find in this battle two commanders: On the battlefield, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and on the political and diplomatic front, Prime Minister Fuad Saniora,” An-Nahar executive editor Edmond Saab wrote.

Some of the strongest sentiment in support of the militant Shi’ite cleric has come during anti-Israel and anti-U.S. protests in predominantly Sunni countries like Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait, all U.S. allies in the region. Demonstrators have voiced outrage at their leaders for failing to back Hizballah and Lebanon.

“Arab majesties, excellencies and highnesses, we spit on you,” read a banner at one of the near-daily rallies in Cairo that have lashed out at Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for what’s seen as his failure to support Nasrallah and his fighters.

In Kuwait, thousands of people have taken to the streets in several demonstrations — two in front of the U.S. Embassy — to protest the Israeli offensive.

Abdul-Mohsen Jamal, a Shi’ite former lawmaker and columnist, wrote in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas on Saturday that even though Nasrallah had no military training “he succeeded in making the army of Israel a joke for the world to laugh at.”

[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

Then

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

Major General Politely Says Bush A Lying Stack Of Shit

August 15, 2006 By A, Anti-Allawi-group

Bush Blames Iran For Backing Iraq Insurgency

“Iran must stop supporting armed groups trying to derail democracies in Iraq and Lebanon, President Bush said on Monday, casting the war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas as part of a wider struggle against terrorism.

“The president has repeatedly blamed Iran and Syria for supporting Hizbollah in Lebanon, but on Monday his emphasis was on Tehran — saying it must back off supporting fighters in both Iraq and Lebanon.

“’In both these countries, Iran is backing armed groups in the hope of stopping democracy from taking hold,’” Bush said.

Reuters, 14/8/06

General Says No

“There is no evidence the Iranian government is stirring trouble in Iraq, a U.S. general said on Monday, playing down suggestions that Tehran will retaliate for U.S. backing of Israel’s war on Hizbollah.

“’There is nothing that we definitively have found to say that there are any Iranians operating within the country of Iraq,’ Major General William Caldwell, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, told a news conference.”

Reuters, 14/8/06

U.S. Terrorist Chief Tells Stupid Lie:
Claims Israel Had A Victory In Lebanon

Terrorist chiefs Bush and Cheney in Washington 8.15.06 . Bush said that the month-long Lebanon crisis had ended with Hezbollah’s defeat. (AFP/Tim Sloan)

They Really Do Hate Our Freedom:
NY City Cops Trying To Make Their Twisted Police State Dream Come True

July 27, 2006 Street Activist Network

Stop the NYPD’s bid to require everyday walkers and bikers to obtain onerous “parade permits.”

On July 18, 2006 the New York City Police Department proposed changing City rules regarding parade permits.

The changes will put bike rides, walks, jogs and other events under the Police Department’s direct control and will greatly discourage walking and biking.

Under the NYPD’s proposed rules:

Any group of two (yes, 2) or more cyclists or pedestrians traveling down a public street, who violate any traffic law, rule or regulation can be arrested for parading without a permit;

Every group of 20 or more cyclists must obtain a permit and approved route from the NYPD;

Every group of 35 of more pedestrians must obtain a permit and approved route from the NYPD.

These proposed rules will affect:

Thousands of formal and informal runs, walks, walk-a-thons, charity runs, tours and bike rides

Thousands of routine training runs and bike rides

School field trips

School walks to the park

Site seeing tours

Historical, cultural, environmental & neighborhood walks and tours

Funerals

These proposed rules could be used to stop anyone in New York City from walking and biking and will essentially give the NYPD carte blanche to arrest any two or more persons they want.

Anyone who walks to the park with their child, friend or neighbor and jaywalks could be arrested;

School teachers who walk their classes to the park would have to get parade permits;

Any two cyclists who do not have bells on their bikes, do not ride in bike lanes or take their feet off the pedals (violating NYS VTL 1232) could be arrested;

You could not invite twenty friends to go for a bike ride without applying for a permit and getting your route approved by the NYPD, nor could you invite thirty-five friends to walk to the park for a concert or other event without applying for a permit and getting an approved route.

There will be a public hearing on these proposed parade permit changes on August 23rd, at 6pm, at One Police Plaza, Manhattan, and the proposed changes could go into effect as soon as August 24th, 2006.

Here’s what you can to do to stop these proposed changes:

Testify at the August 23 public hearing and attend the rally outside in opposition to the changes. To testify, send notice to:

Assistant Deputy Commissioner Thomas P. Doepfner
New York City Police Department
1 Police Plaza, Room 1406
New York, NY 10038

State that you intend to testify in opposition to the NYPD’s proposed changes to Chapter 19 of Title 38 of the Official Compilation of Rules of the City of New York at the public hearing on August 23, 2006 at 6pm at 1 Police Plaza.

Contact T.A. with examples of groups, events and activities that will be affected by the proposed changes: info@transalt.org.

If you are involved with these groups, tell them about the proposed changes and urge them to contact T.A. and attend the August 23rd hearing.

Contact your City Councilmember, tell them you’re outraged over the NYPD’s proposed changes to the parade permit rules and ask your City Councilmember to speak out about them at the August 23rd hearing. Look up your Councilmember at:
www.nyccouncil.info/constituent/index.cfm

Under the NYPD’s proposed changes all formal and informal bike rides, walks, jogs, runs and other events would have to go through the Police Department’s bureaucratic permitting process. All routes would have to be cleared by the NYPD, and any group that leaves its permitted route could be arrested.

The NYPD is proposing these changes in reaction to a New York State Supreme Court decision regarding Critical Mass bike rides that ruled that the City’s parade permit rules are too broad, but these changes will give the NYPD control over all protests, marches, vigils, walk-a-thons, charity runs, tours, bike rides and similar events in the city.

MORE:

The Real Intent?
Attacking Political Demonstrations The Cop Command Cowards Don’t Like

July 24, 2006 Alex S. Vitale, NYC-Justice [Excerpts]

What the NYPD’s proposed regulations do is create a legal situation in which no one will be able to predict whether or not they are really in violation of the law and potentially subject to enforcement action because the definitions they use a too broad and enforcement too arbitrary.

According to their proposal, if a family of four wants to ride their bike to Coney Island, they would need to get a police permit. Similarly, if a wedding is held in a church and people want to walk to a reception at a restaurant on the same block, they would need a permit.

Of course the police have no intention of enforcing the law in such cases.

In fact, they have pretty much said it will be used only against people engaged in political demonstrations. Well, that is unconstitutional on its face.

The police can’t create laws to be used only when they feel like it and they certainly can’t discriminate in enforcement based on the political character of the event.

In essence, these regulations make the law more not less vague and more and not less subject to discriminatory application by the police.

This is a power grab designed to give the police more tools in restricting and controlling political demonstrations including, but not limited to Critical Mass.

It is consistent with their overall move towards micro managing protests through restrictive permitting processes and aggressive policing and is a dangerous assault on the First Amendment and our democracy.

This is also part of the NYPD’s ongoing efforts to use the threat of terrorism to enhance their powers.

This is at best a cynical effort, since it is clear that Critical Mass rides and small unpermitted political demonstrations are less of a threat to the City’s emergency response capabilities than a summer street fare or the New York Marathon.

MORE:

ASSEMBLE FOR RIGHTS NYC:
NEW YORKERS DEDICATED TO KEEPING FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND ASSEMBLY ALIVE AND WELL

CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS AND COMMUNITY LEADERS TO SPEAK ON NYPD POWER GRAB IN CHANGES TO PARADE PERMIT LAWS PEOPLE’S PUBLIC FORUM

Thursday, August 17, 7:00 PM,
St. Mark’s Church on the Bowery

August 15, New York, NY:

Under the guise of protecting public safety, the New York City Police Department announced plans to expand its control over street and sidewalk activity by labeling common street and sidewalk uses “parades.”

The proposed rules, significantly lowering the threshold for what constitutes a parade, will apply to thousands of groups that travel in NYC and events, including tours, athletic events, school trips and artistic performances that can currently occur without government permission.

This expansion of the law would give NYPD unprecedented power to control group conduct beyond reasonable time, place and manner, and would silence public dissent.

In response, at 7pm on Thursday August 17th at St. Mark’s Church located at East 10 Street at Second Avenue, City Council members including Rosie Mendez and Alan Gerson will be joined by civil liberties attorneys Norman Siegel and Bruce Bentley and community representatives including NYC Housing Works Advocate Terri Smith-Caronia at the People’s Public Forum to discuss the proposed changes and how to defend the civil liberties of New Yorkers from this attempt by the NYPD to rewrite the law.

The “People’s Public Forum” is free and open to the public, and is being organized by The Assemble for Rights NYC coalition, whose sponsors include the National Lawyers
Guild, the New York City Bike Coalition, and United for Peace and Justice.

“The solution is for Mayor Michael Bloomberg or the City Council to reject the current proposal and to move permit responsibility out of the Police Department,” state New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman and Associate Legal Director Christopher Dunn in the New York Times.

Civil Rights Attorney Norman Siegel recently said “It’s antithetical to the principles and values of the right to protest that New York is associated with.”

RIDE A BICYCLE TO THE FORUM: A group bicycle ride leading directly to the People’s Public Forum will leave from the South side of Union Square at 6:00 p.m.

The People’s Public Forum is being held one week before the NYPD holds its own hearing on the proposed rule changes at 1 Police Plaza, August 23, at 6:00 p.m.

Additional info: call the Time’s Up! Ride line 212-802-8222 see: assembleforrightsnyc.blogspot.com/

“Be it Resolved, that the Community Board 2, Manhattan, expresses its profound concern at the City Administration’s decision to violate many of the most sacred provisions of the Constitution as enumerated in the Bill of Rights; notably, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom to assemble.” Community Board No. 2 resolution dated April 21, 2005

Press contacts:
Mark Taylor (646) 338-5643 email: Mark.taylor@brooklaw.edu
Robert Pluma (646) 505-9382 email: Robert@puremix.net
Caroline Samponaro (203) 536-2067 email: Carolinesamponaro@yahoo.com