GI SPECIAL 4H23: 23/8/06

Marine Corps Runs Out Of Troops For Bush’s Wars:
Calling Up 2,500 From Inactive Reserves:
“There Is No Cap On The Total Number Of Marines Who May Be Forced Back Into Service”

[Thanks to David Honish & Ward Reilly, who sent this in]

August 22, 2006 By Lolita C. Baldor, ASSOCIATED PRESS & By John Hoellwarth, Marine Corps Times Staff writer

WASHINGTON: The U.S. Marine Corps said Tuesday it has been authorized to recall thousands of Marines to active duty, primarily because of a shortage of volunteers for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Up to 2,500 Marines will be brought back at any one time, but there is no cap on the total number of Marines who may be forced back into service in the coming years as the military battles the war on terror. The call-ups will begin in the next several months.

This is the first time the Marines have had to use the involuntary recall since the early days of the Iraq combat. The Army has ordered back about 14,000 soldiers since the start of the war.

Marine Col. Guy A. Stratton, head of the manpower mobilization section, estimated that there is a current shortfall of about 1,200 Marines needed to fill positions in upcoming unit deployments.

The call-up affects Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve, a segment of the reserves that consists mainly of those who left active duty but still have time remaining on their eight-year military obligation. Generally, Marines enlist for four years, then serve the other four years either in the regular Reserves, where they are paid and train periodically, or they may elect to go into the IRR.

Manpower officials are expected to request Marines based on their rank and military occupational specialty.

The IRR is composed of roughly 59,000 Marines who have completed their active-duty or Reserve contracts.

Marines in the IRR are only obligated to report one day a year but can be involuntarily recalled to active duty. Typically, an IRR Marine’s only duty is to keep MobCom informed about his address and phone number. [Obviously a really bad idea.]

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

A Town Mourns The Death of A Midland Empire Soldier

8/17/2006 KQTV

A small town mourns a big loss. Midland Empire soldier Kevin Zeigler, was killed in Iraq over the weekend.

In Braymer, Missouri…everybody knows everybody. But, now in this town of less than a thousand, talk surrounds the death of soldier Kevin Zeigler. Zeigler grew up Braymer and was killed in Iraq.

“He went to investigate a bomb and it turned out to be a dud…and they set another one off,” says Ziegler’s cousin, Brandy Clark.

It’s been nearly a week since the family got news of Ziegler’s death…”We expected him to come home…not this,” says Clark.

As reality sinks in, family members say it’s difficult to talk about. “Everybody’s been crying…can’t believe it,” adds Clark. But it’s not just a family in mourning…it’s the town. Flags flying at half staff…to honor…and remember.

“It’s really quite a blow to the whole town. The town hasn’t lost a military man since the second world war,” says Ziegler’s neighbor Bill Whitlock.

Braymer High School schoolmates remember Aeigler as the All-American kid.

“I just remember Kevin as a real outgoing…good guy. He was a great athlete very fast…good guy to know,” says schoolmate Lyndsey Hall.

Neighbor Bill Whitlock has known Zeigler for 10-years and was shocked when he heard the news. He says with one step son and daughter currently in Iraq …hearing this is a reality check.

“I emailed him what happened and told him to be careful, adds Whitlock.

And as Zeigler leaves behind four kids, and a wife, family member say he died doing what he believed in…and that’s fighting for his country.

“I think it’s good the way Braymer came out because it shows the family the support of their son…and that he paid the ultimate price,” says Whitlock.

Family members say Ziegler’s funeral will be in Kansas City, Missouri at Mt. Moriah Cemetery. Funeral details are pending.

Sun Valley Marine Dies

8/12/2006 KRISTIN LARSEN, RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL

An 18-year-old Marine from Sun Valley died Thursday while engaged in combat operations in Iraq, the Department of Defense said Friday.

Lance Cpl. Jeremy Long died while conducting Marine combat operations in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, the Department of Defense said. Those who knew him in Northern Nevada remembered him Friday as a proud Marine and determined athlete.

Long graduated in 2005 from Spanish Springs High School, where he played football, wrestled and was a member of the swim team. His coaches vividly remembered him as an athlete who played with grit under conditions when most athletes would give up.

“He was never the biggest kid, especially in football, but in practice he was one of the hardest workers” “that goes for football and wrestling,” said Art Anderson, his coach in both sports. “What he lacked in size he made up for in determination.”

When Long was a freshman, he broke his arm, Anderson said. As soon as his doctor said it was safe for Long to play, he was practicing with the football team again.

“Not very many want to come back and play after they break their arms,” Anderson said. “He had quite a few injuries, but that never deterred him.”

His other football coach Frank Sandomenico recalls a hard worker who couldn’t wait to be a member of the Marines. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force and was based in Twentynine Palms, Calif.

“I remember when the Lance Armstrong wrist bands became popular. He came up to tell me they made ones to support the military as well.” Sandomenico said. “He knew that’s exactly what he wanted to do.”

Long visited his teachers and coaches in early 2006 before he was deployed to Iraq. He went to Iraq in February. “He was very excited to be in the military,” Sandomenico said. “Just talking to him, it was amazing how fast he grew up in such a short time.

“Kids go from being seniors in high school — they’re just kids at that point — and in just a year, the way he talked and carried himself, he became a man.” Sandomenico said Long was a true team player, who supported his fellow players and never caused any problems. He always did as he was asked and never complained.

“He was one of the kids I didn’t get to play a whole bunch but he loved the game, loved his teammates and loved playing,” Sandomenico said.

Long’s sense of humor and kind-heartedness were unrivaled, but they were often hidden by his shy nature, according to an e-mail from a person who identified himself as Bradley Rose. Rose was contacted through Long’s myspace.com site.

“Around people he didn’t know, you’d be lucky to hear ten words,” Rose said in his e-mail “but once you got to know him, he was one funny guy. Among all else he must be remembered as a courageous person and a loyal man.”

Long’s awards include the National Defense Service Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the Sea Service Deployment ribbon.

Long is survived by his mother, Katheleen Hamilton, of Sun Valley, and his father, Rodney C. Long.

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.

1st Lt Amos Bock of 4th Battalion, 320th Field Artillery, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, stands guard in the stairway of an apartment building in east Baghdad early August 3, 2006. REUTERS/U.S. Navy photo by MC1 Keith W. DeVinney, Combat Camera/Handout (IRAQ)

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Jax Soldier Killed

Wakkuna Jackson

August 22, 2006 By Angela Williams, First Coast News

She was the youngest of three, but her father says she was the strongest.

“Everybody came to Wakkuna in this family if they had a problem. If the computer was going bad, get Wakkuna, if they couldn’t spell a word, get Wakkuna,” says her father Sherman Jackson.

But on August 19th, her life was cut short, after her platoon’s vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb, and then came under fire by Taliban extremists. Three coalition soldiers were killed, Wakkuna among them. But her dad says the military life was her passion.

“I didn’t try and talk her out of the service, that’s what she wanted to do, and me being an ex service man she knew the danger of it, and that’s why she wanted to go. She said ‘Dad if something’s going to happen to me its going to happen,’” says Jackson.

A graduate of Stanton high school, she was on the honor role, spoke Spanish, and taught herself to play the guitar.

Her father says she always put others before herself and was a born leader. The family says her name means princess in Hawaiian and that’s how they will remember her. “If Wakkuna was here today and if she had to do this again, she’d do it again, she’d do it again,” says her father.

Wakkuna was a member of the 710th Brigade Support Battalion of the 10th Mountain Division. Her unit was conducting combat operations in Kunar Province when they were attacked.

Her father tells us she just found out she was going to be promoted to Sergeant this October.

Wakkuna Jackson was 21.

Groton Soldier Severely Wounded

08/22/2006 KELOLAND TV

An attack in Afghanistan has injured a Groton soldier.

Twenty-year-old Specialist Nick Bratland is from Groton and was serving with the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, New York.

Bratland’s Hum-Vee was hit by a roadside bomb on Saturday. It caught on fire, and badly burnt more than half of Bratland’s body.

Bratland is now in the intensive care unit at a military hospital in Germany.

Canadian Soldier Killed,
Three Wounded In Panjwayi;

Aug 22 Reuters & AP & Canadian Press

A car bomber hit a Canadian resupply convoy in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Tuesday, wounding four NATO soldiers and a passer-by, a spokesman for the force said.

The attack happened in the heart of the city close to a NATO base.

A Canadian LAV-3 light armoured vehicle burned for hours after the massive explosion.

Another, lesser-armoured G-Wagon utility vehicle was also destroyed.

The bomber was killed in the blast, an Afghan official said. NATO troops quickly cordoned off the site.

The initial explosion described by witnesses as enormous could be heard across Kandahar.

Thick plumes of black smoke billowed from the wrecked vehicles.

Every few seconds after the initial attack, there were more explosions, from bullets, grenades and other armaments that were cooking off in the intense heat.

Fire from the attack also damaged small shops in area.

The attack took place just outside Camp Nathan Smith, the base that’s home to Canada’s provincial reconstruction team in the city.

The convoy was attacked on a main highway that troops have been trying for weeks to secure and where four Canadians were killed and 10 wounded in a single day of violence this month.

“A Canadian convoy was moving down Highway One and in Panjwayi district it was ambushed by Taliban forces,” the spokesman told AFP.

Highway One links Kandahar, the biggest city in southern Afghanistan, with the western city of Herat near the border with Iran, one of the country’s main trading partners.

What they (the Taliban) are trying to do is control the highway because that would cut off Kandahar from Herat,” [Major Quentin] Innes said.

Two Canadian Soldiers Wounded Near Kandahar;
Stupid Asshole In Command Brags “In Most Of The Ambushes, We Actually Do Very Well”

Aug 22 Canadian Press

An attack late Monday on a treacherous highway in southern Afghanistan to the southwest of Kandahar city left two Canadian soldiers injured, one seriously.

“The incident of last night was an ambush,” said Lt.-Col. Ian Hope, the outgoing commander of Canada’s battle group in Kandahar.

The patrol was struck at around 9:30 p.m. local time while driving on Kandahar’s infamous Highway One, in an area known by Canadian soldiers as ambush alley.

“There have been dozens of ambushes on that highway in the past two or three months,” said Lt.-Col. Hope.

“There were dozens last year as well.”

The two Canadians were hurt when their patrol came under small-arms fire about 20 kilometres west of Kandahar.

One of the injured, Cpl. Jesse Melnyck based at CFB Petawawa in Eastern Ontario, was listed in stable, non-critical condition in Kandahar before being flown to a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany for further treatment.

The other soldier was in hospital at Kandahar Air Field, and was in good condition. His name was not released.

The patrol was on its way back to Kandahar Airfield from the Zhari District centre, very near where Canadian and Afghan government soldiers fought intense battles with Taliban forces over the weekend in the volatile Panjawaii District, west of Kandahar.

Lt.-Col. Hope predicted further ambushes along Kandahar’s Highway One were inevitable but said Canadian soldiers are well equipped to take the hits.

“In most of the ambushes, we actually do very well,” said Lt.-Col. Hope. [”We?” “We” are safely sitting on our ass in perfect safety. Put this empty suit in one of those underarmored tin cans the Canadian troops have to use for transportation, and see how “we” feel about that. He might find that burns over 70% of his body are a very educational experience about who does “very well” and who does not.]

Out Of Control Canadian Troops Recruit More Resistance Fighters;
They Kill Kid And Shoot At Reporters

22/08/06 Canadian Press

Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan are preparing for a backlash after shooting dead a young Afghan boy and injuring another Tuesday. [”Backlash?” Let’s be honest. “Preparing for death” would be more accurate.]

The shooting took place after a Canadian soldier was killed and three others injured in a suicide attack in Kandahar City.

Several hours after the attack, an Afghan teenager was shot dead by Canadian soldiers and a young boy was injured when their motorcycle approached a security perimeter around the bombing site.

The shooting of the Afghan teenager and boy riding the motorcycle is being investigated by the military’s National Investigation Service.

The incident is sure to be used by the Taliban as propaganda to persuade more young Afghans, angry at foreign soldiers being on their soil, to join their cause.

Afghan journalists also reported being fired upon by the Canadians when they tried to capture video and pictures at the bombing site.

Assorted Resistance Action

Aug 21 AFP & 8.22 AP

A roadside bomb hit a police vehicle in southern Afghanistan and killed three policemen, a provincial government spokesman said.

The remote-controlled bomb exploded on Sunday in the southern province of Helmand, spokesman Mohayedin Khan told AFP. “Three police were martyred,” he said on Monday.

Insurgents also ambushed a police vehicle near the Pakistan border in southeastern Paktika province Tuesday, leaving five officers dead, said Abdul Malik, the governor’s spokesman.

Another insurgent ambush in neighboring Ghazni province left four officers wounded.

Insurgents ambushed a police vehicle near the Pakistan border. Police say a district police chief was among those killed.

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“Chicken Cheney”
[Take Three]

From: Richard Hastie
To: GI Special
Sent: August 17, 2006

“Chicken Cheney”

Kick ass and take names.

Mike Hastie
Vietnam Veteran
August 17, 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)

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

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

The coffin of U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kurt Dechen in Springfield, Vt., Aug. 11, 2006. Dechen was killed Aug. 3, his 24th birthday, last week in Fallujah, Iraq. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)

“Why After A Month Of War Did So Few People Come Out To Protest?”
“Where Were The Anti- War Groups Such As United For Peace And Justice Or Moveon.Org?”

August 15, 2006 By TODD CHRETIEN, CounterPunch

Todd Chretien is the Green Party candidate for US Senate, running against Sen. Dianne Feinstein in California. He can be reached at: ToddChretien@mac.com

On August 12, 2006, some 25,000 people in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and other cities took part in protests against the Israeli/American war in the Middle East. Probably around 50 per cent of the marchers were Arab or Muslim.

These protests showed the Arab world, and specifically our brothers and sisters in Lebanon and Gaza that there is opposition to the U.S. government’s policies. That’s a good start.

But you have to ask the question: Why after a month of war did so few people come out to protest? Where were the “anti-war” Democratic leaders? Where were the anti- war groups such as United for Peace and Justice or MoveOn.org?

There is no need to expound on the blame the American corporate media shares in many good people’s profoundly bad understanding of what is happening. However, media lies are not sufficient to explain the American anti-war movement’s passivity.

Deeper political explanations are required.

While 60 per cent of the American population opposes the endless occupation of Iraq, the anti-war movement itself still accepts many ideas that weaken it. These ideas will not be overcome quickly, but they must be openly raised and debated.

The Right To Self Determination

The United States dominates the Middle East. It occupies Iraq, funds Arab client states and arms Israel to the teeth. In this situation, the U.S. and Israel government are brutally oppressing the majority via military power and economic robbery.

Basic democratic principles require Americans to oppose our government’s actions and to stand squarely for the right to self-determination by the Arab people.

It is not the American anti-war movement’s job to lecture the people of the Middle East on how to conduct their resistance. You do not have to agree with all of Hezbollah’s ideas to support their resistance to Israel.

Condemning “both sides” in the Middle East is just like condemning “both sides” in the American Civil War. During the Civil War, with all its complications, one side fought for slavery and the other fought for emancipation. Today in the Middle East, one side fights to rob and pillage, the other seeks self-determination and dignity.

Vilification Of Islam

Democrats and Republicans alike have vilified Islam.

Bush’s latest phrase is “Islamic fascists.”

Too many anti-war activists have bought into the lie that Islam is a danger. The idea that Islam’s ideas are more “conservative” than Christianity or Judaism is ridiculous.

The media-created myth that Arabs and Muslim’s aren’t “ready for democracy” or they “just like to kill each other” are racist to the core.

Muslims and Arabs in the U.S. bare the brunt of the “war on terror.”

The anti-war movement needs to shake off its Islamophobia and make sustained efforts to reach out to Arab and Muslim community in the United States to bring them into the heart of the anti-war movement. The past month has seen largest mobilizations of anti-war Arabs and Muslims since the Jenin massacre in Palestine in April of 2002.

Building concrete solidarity, in deed not just in words, with these forces must be a priority.

U.S. Aid To Israel

The leader of the South African trade union COSATU recently stated that he thinks that the Palestinians face worse conditions than Blacks faced during South African Apartheid. There will never be peace in the Middle East as long as the Zionist state is given a blank check from the United States to have separate laws for Arabs and Jews and treat the Palestinian people as less than human.

Israel is part of the American empire and is key to the U.S. plans for permanent domination of the Middle East. If we ever want to see our troops come home from Iraq, then the anti-war movement must fight to cut off all American aid to Israel. This will mean a fierce debate amongst liberal organizations, unions, etc. But it is necessary and now is the best time to raise it.

Waiting For Hillary

In addition the Democratic Party continues to exercise a profound influence on the anti-war movement.

Just as in 2004, when the movement demobilized to get behind John “I’ll send more troops to Iraq” Kerry, today, the movement is paralyzed waiting for Hillary Clinton, or some other savior to “end the Bush regime.”

(This line of reasoning even leads some people to think that Al Gore or John Kerry should give it another go!)

Bush is a problem, but he is not the problem.

Of course, no serious anti-war person believes the Democrats will bring peace to the world; however, too many anti-war people still believe that the Democrats will bring us closer to peace. This idea has a real impact on political organizing.

For instance, rather than throwing its weight behind the August 12 protests, United For Peace and Justice merely asked people to call their Congressional representatives “every day.”

The Peace Campaign on their website listed events from August 6 to Sept. 21, without listing Aug. 12 mobilizations , thereby failing to identify with the thousands of Arab and Muslims who took to the streets?

Three-and-a-half years after the invasion of Iraq, the anti-war movement must put itself on a new footing.

We must build a movement that stands for self-determination, rejects vilification of Islam and openly embraces Arabs and Muslim forces, fights to cut ties with Israel and severs its allegiance to the Democratic Party.

This will not happen overnight, but the people of Lebanon and Gaza have paid too high a price in their own blood for us to not take these lessons to heart here in the belly of the beast.

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.

Quit Whining About Neo-Cons;
They Don’t Run The Show;
[Any Show Anywhere]

So let’s be done with baby talk and comic books, with the comforting fairy tale that the vast crimes we are witnessing are the work of a few cranks who have somehow hijacked the noble U.S. government and are using it for their own purposes, or Israel’s purposes, or whatever.

It is the American elite, pursuing, as always, the enhancement of its own power and privilege, heedless of the consent of the governed or the genuine interests of the American people (or the Palestinian people or the Israeli people or the Lebanese people or the Iraqi people) that bedevils us.

August 15, 2006 CHRIS FLOYD, CounterPunch

It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it: it’s time to take up the cudgels for the poor neo-cons.

Day after day, these dedicated public intellectuals and hardworking federal officials are calumnied from coast to coast, accused of every crime under the sun.

Who misled us into the bloodsoaked mire of Iraq? Who’s pulling strings to foment a new war with Iran? Who’s fanning the flames of Israel’s assault on Lebanon, hoping to turn the entire Middle East into an arc of “creative destruction” that will transform the region into a pacified, profitable oasis of American power?

Why, the neo-cons, of course, guilty on every count, or so we’re told.

It’s certainly a pretty tale, satisfyingly simple like most cartoons, well-suited for a stirring film adaptation, a la “V for Vendetta.” (Given the religious heritage of many neo-cons, perhaps Mel Gibson could be induced to take it on.)

We’d watch the sinister Machiavels plot in the shadows, pouring their leperous distilments into the ears of government leaders who, zombified by this dark enchantment, mindlessly drive the nation into ruin.

Yet if these dastards can be routed in the last act by some hero, a “straight-talking” senator from Arizona, say, or a tough and savvy former First Lady, or even a clean-limbed knight stepping forth from the mists of the blogosphere, then all will be well with the Republic.

Well, as Brick Pollit told Maggie the Cat: “Wouldn’t it be funny if that was true?”

Unfortunately, the reality of our political and moral predicament is not so neat and tidy, nor so easily resolved.

If the neo-cons all hopped a spaceship for the Hale-Bopp comet tomorrow; indeed, if the cult had never arisen at all; we would still be right where we are today: neck-deep in the Big Muddy.

That’s not to say, of course, that we weren’t misled into Iraq, or that strings aren’t being pulled for a war on Iran, or that flames aren’t being fanned to widen the Middle East war, or that the gaggle of third-rate thinkers and first-class troublemakers loosely grouped under the rubric “neo-con” aren’t intimately involved in all of these affairs. They are, in spades.

But to accuse them of playing the central role in America’s on-going Götterdämmerung gives them an importance they don’t deserve, and unduly mitigates the guilt of the true culprits: the good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon boardroom buccaneers of the American Establishment, bred for generations to feast on war and rumors of war, and to regard the hoi polloi as mere cannon fodder and cash cows to be mulched and milked as needed.

For what’s the underlying implication of the “neo-cons über alles” meme?

It’s that hard-core, down-and-dirty inside operators like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who have spent their entire adult lives at the dark heart of the government-corporate-warbiz-spygame power nexus, are actually innocent lambkins led astray by the wicked blandishments of Richard Perle.

It’s that the world-striding oil barons, Wall Street dynasts and CIA scions of the Bush Faction are just wide-eyed rubes bamboozled into acting against their own interests by the dazzling sophistry of William Kristol and Michael Leeden.

It’s that no U.S. administration would ever undertake the kind of rapacious policies we’ve seen in the last five years, unless they’d been tricked into it by wily Zionists and their ideological outriders.

It is, in short, our old friend “American exceptionalism,” decked out in dissident drag.

Shakespeare pegged the neo-cons’ true place in the scheme of things more than 400 years ago in Julius Caesar.

Listen to Marc Antony dismissing his fellow triumvir Lepidus, and you will hear the authentic voice of Great Gamesters like Cheney, Rumsfeld and James Baker, dicing for world empire and using anything at hand—neo-cons, evangelicals, Caucasian despots, Arab tyrants, Israeli proxies, British lapdogs, Shiite death squads, to further their ambitions: “This is a slight unmeritable man, meet to be sent on errandsand though we lay these honours on this man, to ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads, he shall but bear them as the ass bears gold, to groan and sweat under the business, either led or driven as we point the way.

“And having brought our treasure where we will, then we take down his load and turn him off, like to the empty ass, to shake his ears and graze in commons.” Or at the World Bank, as the case may be.

Again, this is not to deny that neo-con fingerprints are all over the various shivs and bludgeons that the Bush Regime has used in its whack jobs on the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, the Magna Carta and the Ten Commandments.

After all, the veritable blueprint for the whole godawful shebang—the infamous “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” document of September 2000—was concocted under the aegis of that quintessentially neo-con think tank, the Project for the New American Century. It was all spelled out there, long before 9/11: the invasion of Iraq (regardless of whether Saddam Hussein was still in power); the vast explosion in military spending; planting new U.S. bases in Central Asia and the Middle East to secure dominance over world energy sources; embracing aggressive war as national policy—and the openly stated notion that only a “new Pearl Harbor” could “catalyze” the American people into readily accepting the need for these radical measures.

Damning stuff.

But without the presence of long-time Establishment power players like Cheney and Rumsfeld on the PNAC board, the plan would have remained the pipe dream of a few curdled academics and comb-licking policy wonks.

Indeed, it was the Great Gamesters themselves who set the neo-cons to work on devising ways to extend the “unipolar moment” of unchallenged American power that arose after the collapse of the Soviet Union; the first version of the PNAC plan was drawn up at Cheney’s order by Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter “Leaker” Libby in 1992, in the last months of the Bush I administration.

Under Bush II, the neo-cons were brought in as shock troops; their mindless zealotry was a perfect tool for implementing the plans drawn up by the real players in the new regime: Cheney’s notorious “Energy Task Force” and the much lesser-known “Joint Task Force on Petroleum” formed by the Council on Foreign Relations and—who else?—the James Baker Institute at Rice University.

It was here that the final solution for Iraq was hammered out: regime change with the aim of locking up, not unleashing, Iraq’s massive oil reserves, to keep energy prices high and steady (Saddam was mischievously bouncing them all over the place) and to preserve the power of OPEC under the leadership of those time-honored pals and business partners of the American Establishment, the Saudi royals.

These are dark days, serious times. The whiff of apocalypse is in the air.

So let’s be done with baby talk and comic books, with the comforting fairy tale that the vast crimes we are witnessing are the work of a few cranks who have somehow hijacked the noble U.S. government and are using it for their own purposes, or Israel’s purposes, or whatever.

The reality is that Iraq was invaded because a powerful faction of the old-line American Establishment wanted to do it and the rest of the Establishment, the Democrats, the media, the “respectable” intelligentsia, countenanced the crime.

It is the American elite, pursuing, as always, the enhancement of its own power and privilege, heedless of the consent of the governed or the genuine interests of the American people (or the Palestinian people or the Israeli people or the Lebanese people or the Iraqi people) that bedevils us.

The emergence of the cretinous neo-conservative cult is just a symptom of a deeper moral corruption coursing through the dominant institutions and structures of American society.

The body politic is rotting from the head.

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.

OCCUPATION PALESTINE/LEBANON

Last Letter From Beirut:
“The Story Of A Great People, One That Never Lost Faith Despite All The Crimes, Pains And Injustices”

Beirut aug 15th , 2006 Hanady Salman, Uruknet.info [Excerpt]

This would probably be my last letter to you.

I will miss you all. Some of you I never met, but I feel that you are all so close to me.

More than that, you probably already know it: without you I would not have made it throughout this hell. You were there, by my side and that made me stronger. Everyday, you gave more meaning to all this: people’s stories were heard, people’s suffering was shared.

This was what I could do to my people: tell some of their stories. Knowing that you will listen, knowing that you will care made the whole difference.

As of yesterday, new stories will unveil: those returning to find .. nothing.

Those returning to find their loved ones under the rubble.

But returning anyway. 7 a.m. (or 8) was the official time for the cease fire on Monday morning. People were on the roads at 7 sharp. I am so proud.

Sad, hurt, but proud. Proud of my people, proud of their resistance, proud of their commitment and dignity.

Hussein Ayoub, my colleague, finally found his mother today.

Ten minutes ago actually.

He went to Aynatha in the morning and the rescuers were able to pull her out of the rubble of a house where she, and some 17 other people had taken refuge. We don’t know when she was killed. But at least he was able to recognize her body. She was 75. His father was killed by the Israelis in 1972.

We will be fine, I hope.

We will burry our dead, the way they deserve to be buried, we will remember them as long as we live.

We will tell their stories to our children; they will tell their own children the story: the story of a great people, one that never lost faith despite all the crimes, pains and injustices.

One that started rebuilding the minute the fighting stopped. Rebuilding although they know that the enemy might destroy everything again, as it did so many times before.

We will also tell them the stories of our enemy: how they killed our children, our elderly, how they hit us from the air, from the sea and from the ground and how we prevailed.

How they starved our families in their villages, killed them on the roads, bombed their houses, their shelters, their hospitals, they even bombed vans carrying bread to them; and how in return we did not give up.

My grandmother used to tell me how people starved during World War One.

I used to think I would never have similar stories to tell Kinda. Kinda, my heroine, Kinda my sweet little heroine who now, every time she hears the sound of a plane, rushes to my arms, points to the sky and says: Israel, Hweiyda wa wa.

Kinda my baby who survived her first Israeli aggression.

To that, I will always be grateful, and I promise I will never forget that other babies were not spared.

For them, I will keep telling Kinda the story.

For them, Kinda will never leave this land.

Kinda will know who her enemy is. Kinda will know this enemy can not beat us. Kinda will grow to respect all the men who fought for her on the front lines, and those who will rebuild her country again.

Kinda will also grow to know how important you, all of you, were part of her life during a long painful month in the summer of the year 2006.

To those I knew through this list: I hope I will get to meet you one day. To all of you: thank you for your support, your encouraging messages, your prayers, and your feelings for Kinda.

My love and gratitude to all of you.

Hanady Salman

[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 Mark Shapiro, who sent this in.]

CLASS WAR REPORTS

Racist Idiots Out Of Control:
Iraqi Peace Activist Forced To Change T-Shirt Bearing Arabic Script Before Boarding Plane At JFK

[Thanks to PB, who sent this in. He writes: The fruits of Islamophobia sown by our ruling class…]

August 21st, 2006 Democracy Now [Excerpts]

On a trip back from the Middle East, Iraqi blogger and activist Raed Jarrar was not allowed to board a flight at JFK airport because he was wearing a T-Shirt that said “We will not be silent” in English and Arabic. Representatives of Jet Blue Airways forced him to change his T-Shirt saying wearing it was like “going to a bank with a T-Shirt reading ‘I am a robber.’”

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RAED JARRAR: I made it back to the United States in a very easy way. In fact, the incident that happened in JFK was not related to my trip, because I went back to D.C. I spent a day in D.C. Then I took the bus to New York. I spent a couple of days in New York. There was an event there.

Then I was supposed to take my airplane, my Jet Blue airplane from JFK to Oakland in California last Saturday. So I went to the airport in the morning, and I was prevented to go to my airplane by four officers, because I was wearing this t-shirt that says “We will not be silent” in both Arabic and English.

And I was told by one of the officials that wearing a t-shirt with Arabic script in an airport now is like going to a bank with a t-shirt that reads, “I am a robber.”

AMY GOODMAN: That’s what the security said to you?

RAED JARRAR: Yeah. I was questioned by four officials from — I think some of them were from Jet Blue and others were maybe policemen or FBI. I have no idea. I took their names and badge numbers, and I filed a complaint through ACLU against them, because I asked them very directly to let me go to the airplane, because it’s my constitutional right as a U.S. taxpayer and resident to wear a t-shirt with Arabic script.

And they prevented to let me exercise this right, and they made me cover the script with another t-shirt.

AMY GOODMAN: So they said you could not fly if you wore your t-shirt that said, “We will not be silent”?

RAED JARRAR: Yes. They said that very clearly.

AMY GOODMAN: I was just looking at another piece in the Daily Mail of Britain, which says, “British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny — refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed. The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus (…) minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am.

Others waiting for (another flight) in the departure lounge refused to board it (until the men speaking Arabic were taken off the plane).”

RAED JARRAR: And, Amy, there was a similar story from San Francisco last week, with a Canadian doctor called Ahmed Farooq, who was prevented to complete his airplane, because he was praying in his seat. So, I think, you know, these incidents are increasing, because of the latest alleged terror attack.

AMY GOODMAN: Also in this article it talks about others, as you were just talking about. “Websites used by pilots and cabin crew were (…) reporting further incidents.

In one, two British women with young children on another flight from Spain complained about flying with a bearded Muslim even though he had been security-checked twice before boarding.”