Vietnam Days
[Thanks to Ward Reilly, Veterans For Peace, who sent this in.]

Pentagon Traitors Busy Again:
Soldier-Murdering Shitbags Refuse To Deploy Proven Anti-RPG System So Their Pet War Profiteers Won’t Lose Money

[Here it is again. Same old story. To repeat for the 3,461st time, there is no enemy in Iraq. Iraqis and U.S. troops have a common enemy. That common enemy owns and operates the DoD for their own profit. That common enemy started this war of conquest on a platform of lies, because they couldn’t tell the truth: this war was about making money for them, and nothing else. Payback is overdue. T]

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[Thanks to David Honish, Veteran, who sent this in.

[He writes: Editor: I think the story at the link below of the administration’s refusal to purchase off the shelf systems from Israel that could save lives today deserves wider coverage. Waiting five years for an untested system from Raytheon makes sense only to those who get campaign contributions from Raytheon, not to the troops who are dying today needlessly.]

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For families of soldiers like Denny Miller, any delay in getting help to the troops is unthinkable.

As Miller’s mother, Kathy, put it, “Do they have children over there? Do they have husbands or wives over there? They need to sit back and look at it maybe from a different angle. I just think it’s ridiculous!”

Sept 5, 2006 By Adam Ciralsky, Lisa Myers & the NBC News Investigative Unit, WASHINGTON

Rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs, are a favorite weapon of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are cheap, easy to use and deadly.

RPGs have killed nearly 40 Americans in Afghanistan and more than 130 in Iraq, including 21-year-old Pvt. Dennis Miller.

“They were in Ramadi, and his tank was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade,” says Miller’s mother, Kathy. “Little Denny never knew what hit him.”

Sixteen months ago, commanders in Iraq began asking the Pentagon for a new system to counter RPGs and other anti-tank weapons.

Last year, a special Pentagon unit thought it found a solution in Israel: a high-tech system that shoots RPGs out of the sky. But in a five-month exclusive investigation, NBC News has learned from Pentagon sources that that help for U.S. troops is now in serious jeopardy.

The system is called “Trophy,” and it is designed to fit on top of tanks and other armored vehicles like the Stryker now in use in Iraq.

Trophy works by scanning all directions and automatically detecting when an RPG is launched. The system then fires an interceptor, traveling hundreds of miles a minute, that destroys the RPG safely away from the vehicle.

The Israeli military, which recently lost a number of tanks and troops to RPGs, is rushing to deploy the system.

Trophy is the brainchild of Rafael, Israel’s Armament Development Authority, which has conducted more than 400 tests and found that the system has “well above 90 percent” probability of killing RPGs and even more sophisticated anti-tank weapons, according to reserve Col. Didi Ben Yoash, who helped develop the system. Ben Yoash says he is “fully confident” that Trophy can save American lives.

And officials with the Pentagon’s Office of Force Transformation (OFT) agree.

Created in 2001 by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, OFT acts as an internal “think tank” for the Pentagon and is supposed to take a more entrepreneurial, and thereby less bureaucratic, approach to weapons procurement and other defense issues, and to get help to troops in the field more quickly.

OFT officials subjected Trophy to 30 tests and found that it is “more than 98 percent” effective at killing RPGs.

An official involved with those tests told NBC that Trophy “worked in every case. The only anomaly was that in one test, the Trophy round hit the RPG’s tail instead of its head. But according to our test criteria, the system was 30 for 30.”

As a result, OFT decided to buy several Trophies, which cost $300,000-$400,000 each, for battlefield trials on Strykers in Iraq next year.

That plan immediately ran into a roadblock: Strong opposition from the U.S. Army.

Why? Pentagon sources tell NBC News that the Army brass considers the Israeli system a threat to an Army program to develop an RPG defense system from scratch.

The $70 million contract for that program had been awarded to an Army favorite, Raytheon.

Col. Donald Kotchman, who heads the Army’s program to develop an RPG defense, acknowledges that Raytheon’s system won’t be ready for fielding until 2011 at the earliest.

That timeline has Trophy’s supporters in the Pentagon up in arms. As one senior official put it, “We don’t really have a problem if the Army thinks it has a long-term solution with Raytheon. But what are our troops in the field supposed to do for the next five or six years?”

Kotchman, however, says the Army is doing everything prudent to provide for the protection and safety of U.S. forces and insists the Israeli system is not ready to be deployed by the U.S. “Trophy has not demonstrated its capability to be successfully integrated into a system and continue to perform its wartime mission,” he says.

That claim, however, is disputed by other Pentagon officials as well as internal documents obtained by NBC News. In an e-mail, a senior official writes: “Trophy is a system that is ready, today… We need to get this capability into the hands of our warfighters ASAP because: (1) It will save lives!”

Officials also tell NBC News that according to the Pentagon’s own method of measuring a weapons system’s readiness, Trophy is “between a 7 and an 8" out of a possible score of 9. Raytheon’s system is said to be a “3.”

So why would the Army block a solution that might help troops?

“There are some in the Army who would be extremely concerned that if the Trophy system worked, then the Army would have no need to go forward with the Raytheon system and the program might be terminated,” says Steven Schooner, who teaches procurement law at both George Washington University and the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s School.

Trophy’s supporters inside the Pentagon are more blunt. As one senior official told NBC News, “This debate has nothing, zero, to do with capability or timeliness. It’s about money and politics. You’ve got a gigantic program (FCS) and contractors with intertwined interests.

“Trophy was one of the most successful systems we’ve tested, and yet the Army has ensured that it won’t be part of FCS and is now trying to prevent it from being included on the Strykers” that OFT planned to send to Iraq.

For families of soldiers like Denny Miller, any delay in getting help to the troops is unthinkable.

As Miller’s mother, Kathy, put it, “Do they have children over there? Do they have husbands or wives over there? They need to sit back and look at it maybe from a different angle. I just think it’s ridiculous!”

The Pentagon is now trying to interest the Marine Corps in testing Trophy. But because of Army opposition, there are currently no plans to send the system to Iraq.

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

“20 Americans, Brits And Others Killed Or Wounded Every Single Day”

September 08, 2006 Robert Dreyfuss, Tompaine.com [Excerpts]

Attacks against U.S. forces have doubled since 2004, to a staggering 800 attacks per week, causing 17-20 casualties (killed and wounded) among U.S. and other coalition forces per day; that is, 20 Americans, Brits and others killed or wounded every single day.

According to the Pentagon’s report, although the violence is centered in Baghdad, it is spreading, with the pace of attacks up significantly in Kirkuk, Mosul and Diyala.

Soldier Dies From Injuries In Humvee Accident

Aug 28, 2006 By GWEN TIETGEN, Lincoln Journal Star

A Nebraska soldier injured in a Humvee accident in Iraq last week died Sunday, according to the Nebraska Army National Guard.

Staff Sgt. Jeffrey J. Hansen, 31, of Cairo, described by a fellow Guardsman as compassionate and “a leader of soldiers,” died at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany from injuries he suffered in the accident, the Guard statement said.

Hansen and three other soldiers, members of the Guard’s 1st Squadron, 167th Cavalry Regiment, were in the Humvee Aug. 21 when it went off a berm near Camp Anaconda and was submerged in a canal. Camp Anaconda is near Balad, north of Baghdad.

Among Hansen’s survivors are his wife, Jennifer, of Cairo, and his father, Robert Hansen of Bertrand. They were among family members with him in Germany when he died, said Guard Capt. Kevin Hynes.

Hansen was preceded in death by his mother, Deborah Hansen.

The Army is investigating the Humvee accident. Walcott’s uncle, Buck Walcott, said last week he was told the accident occurred when a road caved in as the soldiers were patrolling a military base.

Hansen graduated in 1993 from Bertrand Community High School and received his bachelor’s degree in athletic training from the University of Nebraska at Kearney in 1997.

He joined the Guard in January 2000 as a member of the cavalry regiment’s Troop A, based in Hastings.

During his years of service, Hansen served as an assistant squad leader, fire team leader and squad leader. His current assignment was as a fire support sergeant.

Hansen also served in Bosnia with the 167th Cavalry for six months from late 2002 to mid-2003.

Pinellas Park Soldier Wounded

Sep 7, 2006 By ROD CHALLENGER News Channel 8

PINELLAS PARK – A popular former Pinellas Park High football player has been critically wounded in combat in Iraq.

Lance Corp. Michael Delancey, 21, was shot in the back during a fire fight with insurgents on Friday.

The Marine Corps airlifted him to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Md., where he is in critical condition in intensive care.

Delancey grew up in Pinellas Park and played in the T-Birds youth football program, where his father is a coach for the past 10 years. He also played on the Pinellas Park High School football team for four years. He entered the Marine Corps in January 2003. He had been scheduled to leave Iraq at the end of this month.

FUTILE EXERCISE:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW!

U.S. soldiers at a crater caused by a roadside bomb, in Kirkuk, Sept. 9, 2006. (AP Photo/Yahya Ahmed)

One Day Of War:
Up Close And Personal

September 10, 2006 By THANE GRAUEL, THE JOURNAL NEWS

A Marine from Valley Cottage recently survived the blast of an improvised explosive device, a mortar attack and small-arms fire in the course of one day in Iraq.

Cpl. Megan Leavey, 22, a 2001 Nyack High School graduate, works with a 5-year-old explosives-detecting German shepherd named Rex. They are based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and now are deployed at Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi on their second tour in Iraq.

Leavey and Rex were working ahead of an Army scout unit, scouring the road as soldiers on foot and in Humvees followed. Rex found the pressure plate of an improvised explosive device, so Leavey marked it and they went around. She and the dog then approached a car to inspect it.

“The IED went off under us,” she wrote in an e-mail from Iraq. “It was buried deep in the road and sent us flying.

“I just remember feeling it go through my whole body and thinking I was about to die, then I couldn’t hear anything because it was so loud, and all I could see when I opened my eyes was smoke around us.”

She crawled into a ditch and checked on Rex.

“Then a soldier came up in the ditch with me and asked if I was OK, but I couldn’t hear him and I just said, ‘Do I look OK?’ “

She was shaken — and would later learn she had a concussion and burst blood vessels in her ears — but continued on the mission. “I was just going on straight adrenaline after that,” she said.

The team found wires leading from the IED to a detonator atop a house, but whoever had watched and triggered the blast had fled. Other IEDs were discovered.

While the Marines searched the house, mortar shells began falling. The team moved the Humvees away from the incoming rounds and waited for a bomb squad to arrive and destroy the other IEDs.

As they waited they were attacked by small-arms fire. The soldiers responded with an M-240 machine gun mounted on one of the Humvees.

They got back to Camp Blue Diamond at 7 p.m., 12 hours after departing.

“It was a long day, to say the least,” Leavey wrote. “Me and Rex must’ve had a guardian angel watching over us that day, that’s the only way I can explain it. We are both a bit shaken up and sore, but we are still here, so that’s what matters.”

IEDs have killed more than 1,000 service members in Iraq, and injured 10,000, according to the Pentagon.

Bill Leavey of Valley Cottage said his daughter called Monday and he could tell something had happened. “I could hear a little distress in her voice,” he said.

Megan Leavey, whose mother, Ellen, lives in Pearl River, was an all-county softball player in high school. Her work with Rex on a previous tour in Fallujah was detailed in a December 2005 article in The Journal News.

Leavey joined the Marines in December 2003 while attending St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill.

“College wasn’t really working for me,” she said in the 2005 story, “and I knew some people who died during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and thought, ‘Why not?’ “

Leavey’s second tour began in May and is expected to end in November. When her enlistment is up in December 2007, she hopes to get a law-enforcement job working with dogs.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Former CC Resident Killed In Kabul

September 9, 2006 By Barbara Ramirez. Caller Times

Sgt. 1st Class Merideth Howard loved being near water, whether it was in off the coast of Mexico or Hawaii, or even her hometown.

Howard, a former Corpus Christi resident, was killed Friday in Kabul, Afghanistan, after a car bomber smashed into an American Humvee carrying 15 other people. Howard and another U.S. soldier were killed in the attack, the Afghan capital’s deadliest suicide attack since the 2001 toppling of the Taliban.

Called to active duty on Dec. 8, the Army reservist was assigned to the 364th Civil Affairs Brigade in support of the 10th Mountain Division.

Her husband, Hugh Hvolboll, said he and his wife enjoyed traveling the world together, Mexico, Spain and Hawaii, where the two went snorkeling together. “She absolutely loved the water,” Hvolboll said.

Howard, 52, graduated from King High School in 1973 and earned a bachelor’s degree in marine resource management from Texas A&M University. She later moved to Alameda, Calif., where she met her husband.

Howard worked as a firefighter before starting a career as fire safety consultant before being called to active duty.

Services are pending.

Two Foreign Occupation Soldiers Killed;
Nationality Not Announced

9.10.06 Evening Echo

A US-led coalition soldier has been killed in combat in southern Afghanistan, NATO said today.

The soldier was killed late on Saturday in southern Zabul province, where he was embedded as a trainer with the Afghan army, a NATO statement said. It gave no further details.

A second coalition soldier died during the NATO-led Operation Medusa in Kandahar’s southern Panjwayi district, the statement said.

It added that the dead soldier had earlier been mistakenly identified as a NATO soldier – the sixth foreign soldier to die in the anti-Taliban operation that began on September 2.

NATO says more than 420 militants have died in the fighting.

The statement did not give the soldiers’ nationalities. Most of the 20,000 troops in the coalition are American.

Assorted Resistance Action

9.10.06 AFP

Hakim Taniwal, the governor of Paktia province in eastern Afghanistan, his nephew and chief bodyguard were killed Sunday in an attack claimed by the Taliban.

Taniwal, in his 60s, was a former sociology professor who previously lived in exile in Melbourne, Australia. He had also served as minister in the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The bomber had been waiting outside the gates of Taniwal’s office and blew himself up as the group left the building, interior ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai said.

Two policemen were killed when dozens of Taliban rebels attacked their post in western Farah province with machine guns and rockets on Saturday.

TROOP NEWS

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

The casket of Army Pfc. Shaun Novak of Two Rivers, Wis., who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, sits outside the cargo bay of Northwest Airlines commercial flight 1682 on the tarmac at General Mitchell International airport in Milwaukee, before being returned to Two Rivers, Sept. 7, 2006. (AP Photo/Darren Hauck)

Poll Shows U.S. Public Has It Right About Who Enemies Are

8 September 2006 Redress.btinternet.co.uk [Excerpt]

Fully 82 per cent of the public see the Iraqi government as not friendly, including 52 per cent who see it as an enemy.

Seventy-seven per cent regard the Afghan government as unfriendly.

In both countries, of course, American troops are fighting to keep these governments in power. [And both just love George Bush and the wars that keep them in power, which makes them indeed the enemy of every U.S. citizen who doesn’t profit from Imperial war.]

“HE SACRIFICED MY BOY BY SENDING HIM TO IRAQ. AND THE WORLD IS LESS SAFE NOW”

[This is a message to Americans from Rose Gentle. Her son Gordon was killed in Iraq. She leads a campaign to bring all the Scots and other troops home from Iraq, now. Her words carry more weight, and contain more truth, than 5000 pages of bullshit from the politicians. T]

From: Rose Gentle
To: GI Special
Sent: September 10, 2006
Subject: BLAIR ITS TIEM TO GO; LOOK OUT LABUR HERE WE CUM.. ROSE GENTLE, MILITARY FAMILIES

MILITARYFAMILIES IN GB ARE LONCHING PARLIAMENT CANDIDATES
TO STAND A GENST PRO WAR MINISTERS

WE IN TEND TO HAVE A FAMILY MEMBER
STAND IN EVERY CONSTICHUNSY ANDTHE PARTY WILL BE CALLD SPECTRE,

WE INTEND TO START IT ON THE 24 OUT SIEDTHE LABUR PARTY CONF IN MANCHESTER WHERE
TONY BLAIR WILL BE,

WE WOULD LIKE TO VOICE OUR SUPPORT TO THE BRAVE PERSONNEL
CURRENTLY INVOLVED ALL OPERATIONS

WE WILL BE CAMPING OUT IN MANCHESTER TO TELL TONY BLAIR THIS INVASIONWASILLEGAL.

TONY BLAIR SAYS MY SON GORDON MADE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE FOR HIS COUNTRY
TRYING TO MAKE THE WORLD A SAFER PLACE,

HE SACRIFICED MY BOY BY SENDING HIM
TO IRAQ. AND THE WORLD IS LESS SAFE NOW,

BLAIR AND BUSH HAVE TO GO

I HAVE 3 DAYS IN COURT WITH 3 HIGH COURT JUGES IN NOVEMBER TO SEE IF WE CAN GET TONY BLAIR IN COURT OVER THE WAR IN IRAQ,

ROSE GENTLE MUM OF GORDON GENTLE

KILLIED IN IRAQ O4

Get Troops Out, Say Sisters Of Fijian Soldier Killed By Taliban

[Thanks to Rose Gentle, who sent this in.]

10 September 2006 By Severin Carrell, Independent News and Media Limited (UK)

The sisters of a Fijian soldier killed by the Taliban have called for British troops to be pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan, as anti-war campaigners prepare for mass protests at Labour’s conference.

Ranger Anare Draiva, 27, was shot dead nine days ago repelling an attack by the Taliban in Helmand, southern Afghanistan, becoming one of three Fijian-born British soldiers to have died in action this year.

Three of his sisters have now signed an anti-war petition organised by Military Families Against the War, set up last year by Rose Gentle and Reg Keys, which urges the Prime Minister to withdraw British troops from both countries.

The campaigners are now preparing to stage a “peace camp” and a mass protest at Labour’s annual conference in central Manchester, which starts in a fortnight, where they will launch a new anti-war party called Spectre to contest parliamentary seats held by pro-war ministers.

The Draiva family warned that other Fijians, who are among some 2,000 highly regarded Fijian volunteers now in the British army, could also be killed in the “war on terror”. Several cousins are also joining up.

Ranger Draiva’s sister, Akosita, said her brother – described by his commanding officer as a “superb, strong and courageous soldier” – had called home a few hours before he was killed “sounding depressed”.

She added: “He told us how unstable Afghanistan was and how he wished everything could just be over.”

The anti-war group said Mr Blair’s announcement last week that he would resign as party leader within a year did not weaken their demands for the UK to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Do you have a friend or relative in the service? Forward GI Special 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 VA Is NOT Driving Disabled Vets To The Poorhouse:
It’s Making Them Drive Themselves

September 09, 2006 Windbear, firebase-news

It seems to me that just a few years back (2003?), an “attempt” to raise the travel allowance for vets was proposed and submitted through CON-gress, only to be way-laid by the SVAC and HVAC, who managed to “kill” it in committee.

“Das Booo$h” und Herr Rum-Dum didn’t feel the “lowlife vets” needed the help, even though the price of gas went beyond most of us …

My little antique Japanese pickup gets pretty decent mileage, yet to travel 115 from my home to the VA hospital requires a full tank of gas … about $40 these days, at 3.15 a gallon) … yet I managed to get a whole “budget-busting” $17.10 to cover costs (230 miles round trip).

This of course, is after they docked me the $6, to help finance the VA Secretary’s retirement party.

It further pisses me off, because they didn’t even pay for my lunch (”per Diem” is authorized!!!), considering I had to be there for some 10 continuous hours!

The so-called proposal was to raise the travel allowance to somewhere around 65 cents a mile, which is one hell of an improvement. Unfortunately, IRAQ and Halliburton comes first in the eyes of Herr Ober-Reichsfuerhr Rum-Dum, und das Booo$h.

Maybe next year … but please don’t hold your breath

especially if we fail to vote the filth out of the Congress.

Damn … its thrilling to be a 100%’er! I’m so excited, I could just…

Generals Defy Bush On Terrorism Trials

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

“I’m not aware of any situation in the world where there is a system of jurisprudence that is recognized by civilized people where an individual can be tried and convicted without seeing the evidence against him,” said Brig. Gen. James Walker, U.S. Marine Corps staff judge advocate. “I don’t think the United States needs to become the first in that scenario,” he said.

Sep 7 By Kristin Roberts, Reuters & 08 September 2006, By Julian E. Barnes, The Los Angeles Times

The U.S. military’s top legal officers on Thursday criticized a White House plan for military tribunals to try foreign terrorism suspects because it would allow convictions based on evidence never seen by the defendants.

The military judge advocates general, senior legal advisers to their branches of the armed forces, told Congress the plan failed to give suspects enough legal rights because it restricted their access to evidence.

The right to a full and fair hearing requires the accused have access to the evidence used to convict them, even if it is classified information, the military advisors told the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

“I’m not aware of any situation in the world where there is a system of jurisprudence that is recognized by civilized people where an individual can be tried and convicted without seeing the evidence against him,” said Brig. Gen. James Walker, U.S. Marine Corps staff judge advocate.

“I don’t think the United States needs to become the first in that scenario,” he said.

Military leaders argued this week that they did not believe abusive tactics worked in extracting information.

“No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tell us that,” said Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for intelligence.

U.S. military lawyers in recent years have resisted several steps taken by civilian leaders of the Bush administration related to detainees, including interrogation tactics and trial rules.

30,000 Protest:
“Reserve Soldiers Were Sent To War Without Ammunition, Without Protection, Without Food And Without Water. Soldiers Who Hadn’t Trained In Years”

‘ Do you have a conscience?’ reservists write. (Photo: Niv Calderon)

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

September 10, 2006 Gush Shalom

Yesterday night, Sept 9, Gush Shalom went to the Rabin Square to the reservists’ demonstration demanding a Judicial Commission of Inquiry on the latest Lebanon War.

While many in that demonstration want questions to be investigated such as Why the IDF was not better prepared / Why the IDF did not win we decided it is important to spread there our questions – Why at all this terrible war was started, a war with a purpose impossible to achieve by force, and why it was continued during more than a month with a heavy price in blood and destruction on the two sides of the border.

The Geneva Initiative people who tried to set up a table were forced to fold up, and some communist youths trying to spread their general ideas were not treated friendly either.

But the Gush Shalom leaflet, calling for a judicial commission but with our specific questions, were in general received peacefully.

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09.09.06, Miri Chason, Ynetnews.com [Excerpts]

Almost a month after the end of the second Lebanon war, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel (MQG), in conjunction with the Baltam Forum – representing reserve soldiers – gathered in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, under the banner ‘State Commission of Inquiry Now’.

Some 30,000 protestors attended.

Carrying signs reading, among others, ‘What is there to hide?’, ‘Conscience demands inquiry’ and ‘State, state, state’, protestors demonstrated their disapprobation of Olmert’s investigative efforts thus far.

Chairman of the Baltam forum Roi Ron told Ynet: “We demand a state commission of inquiry to determine how reserve soldiers were sent to war without ammunition, without protection, without food and without water. Soldiers who hadn’t trained in years.”

“Military Secrecy Run Amok”
“The Military Has Withheld Information From Dozens Of Families About How Their Service Members Died”

September 11, 2006 Editorial, Army Times

Official secrecy is a vital part of national security. Particularly in wartime, certain things must be kept under wraps: infantry tactics, radio frequencies, a submarine’s crush depth.

But the military can, and does, go overboard. Recent case in point: The Pentagon and Energy Department have reclassified the number of nuclear weapons once possessed by the U.S.

Officials are stripping numbers from charts made public decades ago, blacking out the numbers of Minuteman missiles (1,000); Titan IIs (54); and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (656) that were once upon a time in the U.S.’s Cold War arsenal.

Indeed, these figures and more were made public by Pentagon leaders in the 1960s and ’70s. What possible reason could there be to make them secret now?

Yet this is a comparatively innocuous instance of military secrecy run amok. The Defense Department has a long history of trying to hide information under the guise of national security, often to the detriment of troops and veterans.

The list of episodes in which health data was kept under wraps — sometimes for decades — ranges from atomic tests in the 1950s to germ warfare tests in the ’60s, Agent Orange in the ’70s and Gulf War illness in the ’90s.

More recently, the military has withheld information from dozens of families about how their service members died in the war zones and about alleged war crimes. Basic data about the makeup of the armed forces, from race and gender information to job specialties, education and other demographic information, is routinely withheld.

Part of the emphasis on information security is due, of course, to the post-Sept. 11 environment. But it also reflects a rise in secrecy for secrecy’s sake among government officials that, as with hiding decades-old statistics, seems ridiculous.

“Loose lips sink ships” may be a time-honored military adage. But tight lips also have consequences when information is withheld in an effort to protect the institution at the expense of the individual.

When accountability vanishes, harmful things tend to happen.

“I Look Forward To The Day When I Separate And Say ‘Enough Of The Nonsense And The Stupidity’”

Letters To The Editor
Army Times
September 11, 2006

Like everything else the military buys, the new Army Combat Uniforms are not what people were hoping for.

For the people who work in offices and never get the chance to dirty up a pair, let me explain.

The fabric is so poor that wearing a weapon slung either on your back or on your front will chafe a hole in it: no joke. I have been wearing battle dress uniforms for years and never had this problem.

After opening the pockets once or twice, the generic “hook and loop” doesn’t stick closed. I gave up reminding soldiers that their pockets are undone. I now know that it won’t stay closed. Is this the reason for the rubber bungee cord attached to the top of the pocket?

I had the crotch of all my pants sewn — whether they needed it or not — because I could foresee it needing to be done anyway. I had two pairs rip.

The Army spends ludicrous amounts of money on technology and replacement parts, but it can’t equip us with quality uniforms?

I am old-school, I guess, because I like the old-fashioned uniforms, old-fashioned equipment and the simplicity of wearing Interceptor body armor with the stuff attached to it.

I look forward to the day when I separate and say “enough of the nonsense and the stupidity.”

The military would never survive if it were a regular business.

If stockholders were as poorly informed about the company’s expenditures as taxpayers are of what is being bought, the company would go belly-up almost immediately.

Sgt. Christopher Parkhurst
Wiesbaden, Germany

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

“The Policy Of Dividing Iraqi Movements Into Shia, Sunni And Kurd, Is Cracking”

09 September 2006 Hana Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Brusselstribunal.org/ [Excerpts]

There is an up swell in mass struggle in the Arab world, in each country and in the region as a whole.

What are the realities of this struggle that heralds a new Arab world?

If we take Iraq as an example, we witness the following developments.

First, the policy of charming some groups of the Iraqi resistance or their supporters in order to divide them and isolate the resistance has failed completely. Despite repeated declarations made by Jalal Talabani, resistance groups are united in their position.

Second, the policy of dividing Iraqi movements into Shia, Sunni and Kurd, is cracking: large movements of opinion insist on the unity of Iraq. More and more groups in the south enter the struggle against the occupation and its government.

When dealing with the subject of the future of Iraq, they increasingly appear as Iraqi rather than Shia or Sunni or Kurd, etc.

Examples include the unity of Turkomen, Assyrians and Arabs on the fate of Kirkuk; the deepening of tribal solidarity; spreading demands for a large political national front; demonstrations in the north, ever unifying positions towards the occupation, Iraq’s oil wealth, etc.

No one in the Arab world can anymore defend the Pax Americana.

The war on Lebanon demonstrated to Arabs that the only possibility for defending themselves and to build a democratic, advanced life is to unite behind the three resistances: Iraqi, Palestinian and Lebanese.

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

Assorted Resistance Action

Sep. 10, 2006 The Jerusalem Post & Reuters & AFP News

Insurgents killed police General Majeed al-Mani and two of his bodyguards while he was on a shopping trip in Baquba, police said.

A parked car bomb exploded behind a police station in the al-Alwiya district, Baghdad, killing a police officer and wounding five police commandos and two civilians, police Lt. Col. Mohammed Abbas Salman said.

A roadside bomb killed an Iraqi soldier and wounded three others in Ishaqi, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad.

In Baghdad’s Karrada district a car bomb exploded in the street killing three and wounding 14 people, mostly policemen.

The chief of traffic police in Falluja, Brigadier Ahmed Diraa, was ambushed and shot dead in his car by guerrillas.

A roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol, wounding two policemen in eastern Baghdad neighbourhood of Jadida, an Interior Ministry source said.

One policeman was shot dead in the town of Muqdadiyah.

A local municipal council member from the town of Khalis and his bodyguard were also wounded when guerrillas shot at them.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

Declared Bill Ehrhart, a marine in Vietnam:
In grade school we learned about the redcoats, the nasty British soldiers that tried to stifle our freedom… Subconsciously, but not very subconsciously, I began increasingly to have the feeling that I was a redcoat. I think it was one of the most staggering realizations of my life.

Come One Come All:
“The Sociopaths In Office Now Could Care Less About Their Pawns Fighting Right Now Or Their Pawns Who Fought In The Past”

September 08, 2006 IS, Dennis Serdel, Vietnam Infantry

Just received today a Secretary of Veterans affairs letter from R. James Nicholson.

He is trying to settle our shattered nerves by informing us that the lap top and hard drive on the “stolen” computer with all our information, has been retrieved by the FBI.

This is the second time this has happened, so what are us veterans supposed to think about this?

When it happened the first time, were we supposed to relax and feel this could not happen a second time?

But it did happen a second time, so now are we waiting for it to happen a third time?

In this second time, the VA employee took it home and his home was burglarized and the lab top and hard drive were stolen.

Perhaps we need “Home Land Security”
to check all VA employees, so they do not take their lab top and hard drive home
with them.

Is there corruption going on, is the information being sold to companies so they can send us something to buy?

Is this just old capitalism in action?

What a disgrace, it just shows that the Sociopaths in office now could care less about their pawns fighting right now or their pawns who fought in the past.

Here Rests In Emotional
Silence An American Soldier Known But To God

From: Richard Hastie
To: GI Special
Sent: September 06, 2006
Subject: Historical Silence

Historical Silence

Homeless Vietnam Veteran in Portland, Oregon 20 years ago.

Fast forward 30 years, and this man is an Iraq Veteran.

When You Erase The Blackboard of History, You Get Breaking News.

War profiteering, lies and betrayal, it is the same dog and pony show
that fills military graveyards all across America.

Here Rests In Emotional
Silence An American Soldier Known But To God.

Mike Hastie
Vietnam Veteran
September 6, 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.

OCCUPATION PALESTINE/LEBANON

The “Two State” Option Is Dead;
[Good Riddance To U.S. Imperial Rubbish]

09 September 2006 Hana Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Brusselstribunal.org/ [Excerpts]

By attacking Lebanon, Israel destroyed the idea of its possibility to live in peace with the Arab people and the possibility of a two-state option in Palestine.

When witnessing the bellicosity of the Zionist state, its readiness to bomb Lebanese civilian infrastructure, use unconventional weapons, kill scores of civilians, how could one advocate for an unarmed Palestinian entity existing side by side with a fully armed and aggressive Israel?

The only defendable position is an Arab Palestine consisting in a secular, democratic state of the citizens of all of Palestine after the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes according to UN resolution 194.

[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

Democrat And Republican Senators Agree 100%;
Let’s Have More Dead U.S. Troops And More Dead Iraqis Now;
[Yes, That Includes Feingold And Kucinich]

[After a year of slobbering all over Senator Russell Feingold and Senator Dennis Kucinich, will the babblers running mass “anti-war” organizations learn anything from this? Of course not. They’re in the business of ass kissing the Democratic Party, not organizing to stop the war. Duh.]

September 08, 2006 By Andrew Taylor, Associated Press

The Senate agreed to spend an additional $63 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as lawmakers on Thursday passed a massive bill that funds the Pentagon.

The bill sailed through by a vote of 98-0 after senators added money to help track down al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and fight the opium trade in Afghanistan that is helping fuel the Taliban’s resurgence.

Wow!
Big Surprise!
Bush Regime Committed High Treason:
Republican Senate Report Says Whole Iraq War Based On Stupid Lies

08 September 2006 Noquarter.typepad.com/ [Excerpts]

Consider for a moment that a Republican controlled Senate Intelligence Committee released the reports today that are so damning to the lies Bush and Cheney repeated ad nauseum for the last three and a half years.

What the hell is in the three additional reports that they don’t want to release until after the November elections?

It is difficult to imagine the truths still to be told.

The first section deals with the WMD issues.

Here are the conclusions from the report:

“Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Information obtained after the war supports the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s (INR) assessment in the NIE that the Intelligence Community lacked persuasive evidence that Baghdad had launched a coherent effort to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program.

“Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessment that Iraq’s acquisition of high-strength aluminum tubes was intended for an Iraqi nuclear program. The findings do support the assessments in the NIE of the Department of energy’s Office of Intelligence and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) that the aluminum tubes were likely intended for a conventional rocket program.

“Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessment that Iraq was “vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake” from Africa. Postwar findings support the assessment in the NIE of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) that claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are “highly dubious”.

“Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessment that “Iraq has biological weapons” and that “all key aspects of Iraq’s offensive biological weapons (BW) program are larger and more advanced than before the Gulf War.”

“Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessment that Iraq possessed, or ever developed, mobile facilities for producing biological warfare (BW) agents.

“Concerns existed within the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Directorate of Operations (DO) prior to the war about the credibility of the mobile biological weapons program source code-named CURVE BALL. . . .

“Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessments that Iraq “has chemical weapons” or “is expanding its chemical industry to support chemical weapons (CW) production.”

“Postwar findings support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessment that Iraq had missiles which exceeded United Nations (UN) range limits. The findings do not support the assessment that Iraq likely retained a covert force of SCUD variant short range ballistic missiles (SRBMS).

“Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessments that Iraq had a developmental program for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) “probably intended to deliver biological agents: or that an effort to procure U.S. mapping software “strongly suggests that Iraq is investigating the use of these UAVs for missions targeting the United States.” Postwar findings support the view of the Air Force, joined by DIA and the Army, in an NIE published in January 2003, that Iraq’s UAVs were primarily intended for reconnaissance.

WANTED:
FOR PREMEDITATED MURDER AND HIGH TREASON

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

CLASS WAR REPORTS

You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide

9.9.06: Hundreds of protesters with a variety of placards critical of the Bush administration, including the US-led war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and the minimum wage, confront Bush in Kansas City, Missouri. (AFP/Tim Sloan)

More Premeditated Murder:
Government Officials Knew Ground Zero Toxic Fumes Were Deadly And Deliberately Lied About It;
Records Falsified;
Public Told Death Zone Was Safe;
Wall St. Came First

[Thanks to Greathouse, who sent this in.]

The two devastating memos, written by the U.S. and local governments, show they knew. They knew the toxic soup created at Ground Zero was a deadly health hazard. Yet they sent workers into the pit and people back into their homes.

September 8 2006 Steve Watson, Infowars [Excerpts]

A spate of stories have emerged in the mainstream media this week concerning the fact that government officials knew that rescue workers at ground zero in New York were being exposed to harmful and deadly toxins in the aftermath of the attacks on 9/11.

Not only did the government know on the day itself that rescuers were being exposed to harmful dust, they also ordered misleading information to be given to the public, they ordered scientific research results on the air to be falsified, they allowed residents to return to their homes in the immediate vicinity knowing the air was corrosive and lethal and, to top it all off, they have since embarked on a collective program to block compensation and funding of health programs because that would be an admission of guilt.

“Only 30 percent of the firefighters working at the site in October were wearing any protection at all,” according to Thomas Cahill, professor of physics and atmospheric sciences, who was called in to analyze the air from a station one mile north of the burning WTC rubble.

“You had the workers working on top of a huge incinerator in the rush to get Wall Street going again, it was really dumb.” Cahill said. Ground zero workers, volunteers and firefighters have since suffered from lung diseases and cancers, many have died.

The New York Times reported earlier this year that the Fire Department tracked a startling increase in cases of a particular lung scarring disease, known as sarcoidosis, among firefighters, which rose to five times the expected rate in the two years after Sept. 11.

The latest study, by the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan, has revealed that nearly 70 percent of the rescue workers who toiled in the dust and fumes at Ground Zero after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks suffer breathing problems.

Add to this the fact that the Government ordered the EPA to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers on September 12 it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available and Asbestos levels were known to be three times higher than national standards.

Further documents have since been obtained by CBS news, revealing that Lower Manhattan was reopened a few weeks following the attack even though the air was not safe.

The two devastating memos, written by the U.S. and local governments, show they knew. They knew the toxic soup created at Ground Zero was a deadly health hazard. Yet they sent workers into the pit and people back into their homes.

“Not only did they know it was unsafe, they didn’t heed the words of more experienced people that worked for the city and E.P.A.,” said Joel Kupferman, with the group Environmental Justice Project.

Last month Dr. Cate Jenkins, a scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency, wrote a letter to Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and other members of the New York congressional delegation blasting the EPA for hiding dangerous toxins from Ground Zero workers in the aftermath of 9/11.

The Letter claimed that EPA-funded research on the toxicity of breathable alkaline dust at the site “falsified pH results” to make the substance appear benign, when it was, in reality, corrosive enough to cause first responders and other workers in lower Manhattan to later lose pulmonary functions and, in some cases, to die.

Jenkins wrote: “These falsifications directly contributed not only to emergency personnel and citizens not taking adequate precautions to prevent exposures, but also prevented the subsequent correct diagnosis of the causative agents responsible for the pulmonary symptoms.

“Thus, appropriate treatment was prevented or misdirected, and loss of life and permanent disability undoubtedly resulted.”

Ground Zero worker Sgt. Matthew Tartaglia revealed in an interview with Alex Jones on March 30 2005, that there were only certain parts of the site that you could not legally leave without going through decontamination. He recounted the personal health problems he and many other workers have since suffered:

“Most everybody has chronic sinusitis. They have ringing in the ears. Some people’s teeth and gums are bothering them. In the last year, I’ve lost seven teeth. They have just broken while I was eating. I have three or four more teeth that are just dying. And my dentist says, “I’ve never seen anything like this in someone who’s healthy. There is something wrong with you but I cannot find what it is. And I can’t stop it either.”

The New York Times reported in 2004 that the Bush Administration is PURPOSEFULLY blocking millions in health compensation programs for ground zero workers and attempting to stonewall the issue because to do otherwise would be an admission of responsibility for exposure to harmful substances after the government had already given the all clear.

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

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

All GI Special issues achieved at website
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gi-special.iraq-news.de
www.notinourname.net/gi-special/
www.williambowles.info/gispecial
www.traprockpeace.org/gi_special/
www.albasrah.net/maqalat/english/gi-special.htm
www.uruknet.info/

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