Because of time required to participate in organized outreach to anti-war troops, some coming GI Specials will be abbreviated, or delayed, starting now. T

General Concedes Anbar To The Resistance:
Not There To “Win Insurgency Fight”
Troops Pulled Back To Defend Baghdad

September 15, 2006 Radio Free Europe & 9/16/2006 AFP

A senior U.S. commander said today that the effort to subdue Sunni insurgents in Al-Anbar Governorate has become secondary to the “main effort” of securing Baghdad to avert civil war.

Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, the No. 2 U.S. general in Iraq and the top operational commander, acknowledged that commanders have siphoned troops from Al-Anbar, weakening the military’s strength there, to build up the U.S. presence in Baghdad.

The top marine commander in Iraq, Major General Richard Zilmer, told reporters on Tuesday that the primary mission of the marines in Al Anbar was to train Iraqi security forces.

If they took on a larger role “to win that insurgency fight, then that is going to change the metrics of what is needed out here,” Zilmer said.

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

2 Soldiers Killed Truck Bomb West Of Baghdad,
30 Soldiers Wounded

September 14, 2006 Multi-National Division Baghdad PAO RELEASE No. 20060914-10 & Sept. 15, 2006 RELEASE No. 20060915-06 By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq: Two Multi-National Division Baghdad Soldiers were killed and 30 Soldiers were wounded by a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device at approximately 2:50 p.m. today west of Baghdad.

The wounded Soldiers were evacuated by helicopter to a military hospital. Of the wounded, six have been returned to duty and 15 were listed as not serious.

The attack occurred Thursday, when a truck driven by a bomber exploded near an Iraqi power substation about 12 miles west of Baghdad, in an area where the U.S. troops were.

The soldiers had been guarding the power substation, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said, adding that the blast occurred near concrete barriers, causing debris and shrapnel to be scattered across the area and inflicting many of the wounds.

MORE:

One Soldier Missing After Successful Attack On U.S. Troops

Sept. 15, 2006 Multi-National Division Baghdad PAO RELEASE No. 20060915-06

BAGHDAD: A Multi-National Division Baghdad Soldier has been reported as Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown following an incident reported yesterday in which two fellow MND-B Soldiers were killed and 30 Soldiers were injured by a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device Thursday west of Baghdad.

Of those injured, one was listed as very seriously injured, one seriously injured, 17 not seriously injured and eleven were returned to duty.

Baghdad Soldier Killed By IED

Sept. 15, 2006 Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory RELEASE No. 20060915-04

BAGHDAD: A Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier was killed at approximately 9 p.m. Thursday when an improvised-explosive device exploded near his dismounted patrol northwest of Baghdad

Task Force Lightning Soldier Killed Near Mosul

9.14.06 MULTINATIONAL DIVISION NORTH PAO

TIKRIT, Iraq: A Soldier attached to the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, was wounded by enemy fire Wednesday near Mosul. The Soldier was transported to a military hospital where he later died of wounds.

Baghdad Soldier Dies From Wounds Following Small-Arms Attack

Sept. 14, 2006 Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory, RELEASE No. 20060914-07

BAGHDAD: A Multi-National Division Baghdad Soldier died at approximately 2:35 a.m. today from wounds he received when his unit was attacked by small-arms fire southeast of Baghdad.

Baghdad Soldier Killed By Roadside Bomb Thursday

Sept. 14, 2006 Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory, RELEASE No. 20060914-06

BAGHDAD: A Multi-National Division Baghdad Soldier was killed at approximately 10:45 a.m. today when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad.

Baghdad Soldier Killed By Roadside Bomb Friday

Sept. 15, 2006 Multi-National Corps Iraq PAO RELEASE No. 20060915-08

BAGHDAD: A Multi-National Division Baghdad Soldier was killed when the vehicle he was traveling in was struck by a roadside bomb at approximately 6:30 p.m. today south of Baghdad.

Washington Soldier Dies From August “Non-Combat Incident”

September 15, 2006 U.S. Department of Defense News Release No. 910-06

Spc. David J. Ramsey, 27, of Tacoma, Wash., was medically evacuated from Iraq on Aug. 24 and died from a non-combat related incident on Sept. 7 in Spanaway, Wash. Ramsey was assigned to the 47th Combat Support Hospital, 62nd Medical Brigade, Fort Lewis, Wash.

Soldier From Kingston Dies In Iraq

09/15/06 KTEN

KINGSTON, Okla. Another soldier from Oklahoma has died in Iraq.

The family of U-S Army Sergeant Clint Williams of Kingston has been told by the military Williams was killed by a roadside bomb.

The family lives in the Cryerville community west of Kingston.

Williams graduated in 2001 from Kingston High School where he was senior class president and played baseball.

He had returned to combat after being wounded two months ago and was due to leave Iraq in four months.

Marine From Fairborn Killed In Iraq Fighting

August 26, 2006 By Steve Bennish, Staff Writer, Dayton Daily News

A U.S. Marine from Fairborn was killed Thursday during combat operations in Al Anbar province, the U.S. Department of Defense announced Friday.

Staff Sgt. Gordon G. Solomon was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejune, N.C. He was 35.

Solomon was infantry unit leader in charge of a platoon, said 1st Lt. Barry Edwards, 2nd Marine Division spokesman. He enlisted in June 1990 and joined the 3rd Battalion in April 2006.

Some of Solomon’s decorations include five Good Conduct Medals, the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, a Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon, Iraqi Campaign Medal, and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.

He is the 121st U.S. casualty from Ohio in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Defense Department.

Another Marine Killed In Anbar

15 September 2006 Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory, RELEASE No. 20060915-05

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq: One Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7 died today from enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province.

Soldier Reported Being Caught In Crossfire Hours Before He Died

Sep. 15, 2006 BILL POOVEY, Associated Press

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.: Just hours before Army Sgt. David T. Weir was killed in Baghdad, he told his brother in a telephone call that he was in the crossfire of mortars not aimed at him, his brother said Friday.

“He called us pretty frequently,” said Chris Weir, one of the slain soldier’s five siblings. “He was saying we are just kind of stuck in the middle … Somebody threw mortars over them and then mortars came back, over the top of them. He said they weren’t targeting them. That was his words.”

Weir was trained to be a forward observer, calling in fire from air support to protect troops in combat, but his mission recently was more of a policing role, his brother said in a telephone interview from the family’s home in Cleveland.

He said Army officials had not yet provided all details about the death of his brother, a member of the 101st Airborne Division. He said they told him the telephone conversation was about four hours before the soldier was killed.

“All we know is they were a dismounted patrol doing security sweeps. He was shot. That’s all we know,” Chris Weir said as family friends continued to stop by to offer condolences.

Weir is also survived by his wife, Alison, and their 2-year-old son, Gavin.

Weir had just re-enlisted and his promotion to sergeant had been scheduled to take effect Oct. 1 but the Army awarded the rank posthumously, Chris Weir said. He said Army officials told the family not to expect the body to arrive home for five to eight days. Funeral arrangements were pending.

Chris Weir described his slain brother as a “lifelong military guy. That is what he always wanted to do.” He said their father is a Vietnam veteran.

“He (David) always made all of us watch military movies,” Chris Weir said. “He was just always military driven.” Chris Weir said his brother was “extremely proud he could be fighting them over there so we wouldn’t have to be fighting them here. He loved this country very much.”

Weir loved football and was a wide receiver at Bradley Central High School, his brother said.

“The boy, he ate and breathed football and the Army. We were always watching football. He was a big UT fan. He wanted to play in college. He was just too small … All our brothers and dad would sit around every Saturday and throw things at the TV. That was what brought us together, football.”

Chris Weir said his brother’s most recent visit home was a weeklong leave in March and the family spent the week at a chalet in Gatlinburg. “The bottom line is we just want everybody to know he died for you and me, no matter what our political view is. He was extremely proud to be able to do that.”

U.S. Patrol Bombed In Northern Baghdad:
Smoke Seen, Casualties Not Announced

9.14.06 Reuters

A bomb struck a U.S. military vehicle in Ur district, northern Baghdad, as the coalition forces were starting a search operation. Witnesses at the scene said smoke was rising from the area. The U.S. military said it was unaware of the incident.

U.S. Patrol Bombed In Southern Baghdad:
Humvee Burning, Casualties Not Announced

Sept. 14 (Xinhua)

A car bomber struck a U.S. patrol in southern Baghdad on Thursday, causing undetermined casualties, a well-informed police source said.

A bomber drove his explosive-laden car into a U.S. patrol near the al-Rashid whole sale vegetable market in Doura district,” the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The source said that a police patrol saw a U.S. Humvee caught fire by the blast.

U.S. Convoy Attacked In Diwaniyah:
Casualties Not Announced

9.14.06 AFP News & VOI

A civilian was killed and 17 others have been wounded after clashes broke out between US, Iraqi forces and militiamen in the central Iraqi city of Diwaniyah.

Hamid Jaathi, head of Diwaniyah’s health department said the wounded included a police colonel and two policemen.

“US forces are now spreading out in the city,” Jaathi told AFP on Thursday.

An AFP correspondent at the site reported that US military helicopters were also hovering over the city.

The clashes started after a US military convoy came under attack from resistance fighters in a market in the city, a police officer said.

FUTILE EXERCISE:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW!

A US soldier patrols the streets of southwest Baghdad’s Risalah neighborhood. (AFP/Paul Schemm)

9,100 Of The Wounded Were Unable To Return To Duty;
“The Human Body Literally Shatters And Tears”

September 15, 2006 By Cal Perry, CNN [Excerpts]

The U.S. military has now had more than 20,000 troops wounded in Iraq and nearly 2,700 more killed.

More than 9,100 of the wounded were unable to return to duty, their injuries taking them home to their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wives and children. In the statistical tables and graphs released by the military, they are just numbers with no mention of what combat wounds really look like.

At combat hospitals across Iraq, medics see limbs completely blown off, head “shots and blasts,” burns, contusions, compound fractures and bullet wounds to name just a few.

An improvised explosive device — the phrase the military uses to describe the deadliest of insurgent weapons — doesn’t just send shrapnel into the body, it tears the body apart. Americans hear this term every day, as if it’s another regular item in the daily news.

What they don’t see is what it does to the soldiers. The human body literally shatters and tears. As one doctor told me, “You realize that all we are is a very thin bag of water.”

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Idiot Canadian Command Terror Tactics Recruiting More Fighters To Kill Canadian Troops:
Reporter Admits That Occupation Offensive Forced Afghan Citizens To Get Out Of Their Homes “For Weeks”

September 14, 2006 Renata D’Aliesio, Calgary Herald

PASHMUL, Afghanistan: The school is nothing more than rubble now.

Today, it’s one of several buildings in the Pashmul area being controlled by NATO troops as they continue to navigate through a web of booby traps, mines and other explosives around Pashmul, roughly 20 kilometres southwest of Kandahar city.

NATO and Afghan soldiers must check every building and scour every inch of ground before victory can be declared and residents are allowed to return to their homes along a greenbelt of the Arghandab River.

Troops have been striking on either side of the river for weeks in attempt to box the Taliban into the Pashmul area.

This has been considered an insurgent stronghold. It has also been the scene of several Canadian deaths, including the seven who were killed near the Pashmul school.

As NATO troops forge ahead again today, they’ll be on the lookout for Taliban fighters. The insurgents had showed a stronger-than-expected resistance, but it now appears they’ve fled their stronghold, which some had suspected would serve as a last stand.

Their disappearance has stirred excitement and anxiety in Canadian troops. The worry is, if they’re not here, then where?

[The brain dead reporter hasn’t a clue. The brain dead reporter just reported why the occupation troops can’t find the resistance soldiers. The brain dead reporter just reported all the Afghans who lived there were forced out of their homes by the occupation troops and had to go someplace else. Now, can somebody add 2 + 2? Guess what: the Afghan citizens are the resistance warriors, fighting arms in hand to free their country from the Imperial politicians who invaded and occupied their country. Good for them. They are right to do so.]

“People Have Lost Their Trust, And The Americans Are Losing Support”

Sep. 10, 2006 By Andrew Maykuth, Inquirer Staff Writer [Excerpts]

“There’s just an obvious contradiction between building up an independent sovereign government on the one hand and maintaining a military force that operates on that state’s territory without being under the command of that government,” Rubin [Barnett R. Rubin of New York University, a leading author and scholar on Afghanistan] said.

Under growing political pressure to confront the Americans, Karzai in the last year has demanded that coalition forces restrain the use of aerial bombings and the house searches that have alienated Afghans.

But each incident – such as the U.S. truck accident that sparked off deadly riots in May – has ignited renewed denunciations of American military arrogance.

“People have lost their trust, and the Americans are losing support,” said Zaman Malang, a military commander who represented a delegation of Kunar province villagers visiting Karzai last week to complain about an American raid in August that left eight people dead, including a 12-year-old boy.

Afghanistan Occupation In Crisis:
Call For More Troops Goes Unanswered

14 September 2006 By Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian UK [Excerpts]

Nato was last night trying to head off a full-blown crisis of credibility as allied defence chiefs failed to offer any extra troops to help hard-pressed soldiers fighting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

“No formal offers were made at the table,” Nato spokesman James Appathurai said after a meeting of national defence chiefs at allied military headquarters in Mons, Belgium.

The British defence secretary, Des Browne, is engaged in a private round of talks with his Nato counterparts and the organisation’s secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, in the increasingly urgent search for an agreement. “There are still avenues to pursue,” a source close to Mr Browne said last night.

British Forces Have Lost 27 Men In Afghanistan In The Last Six Weeks

14 September 2006 By Chris Floyd, Truthout UK Correspondent [Excerpt]

British forces have lost 27 men in Afghanistan in the last six weeks; almost a quarter of the total 117 lost during three years in Iraq.

Soldiers report a lack of ammunition, armor and air cover. At times the Taliban has been able to keep British outposts under siege for days.

Assorted Resistance Action:
Afghan Whack A Mole Rolls On
150 Militants Storm Police HQ In “Calm” Area

9/14/2006 (AP) & (Xinhua)

Taliban militants attacked police headquarters in western Afghanistan on Thursday, raising fears that insurgents fleeing NATO attacks in the south are opening new fronts. Two police and two militants were killed.

Militants in dozens of pickups fired rocket-propelled grenades and surrounded the police compound in Bakwa, a town in Farah province, at 3 a.m., said Maj. Gen. Sayed Agha Saqeb, the provincial police chief.

Taliban forces held the compound for about one hour before police reinforcements arrived to push the militants out, Saqeb said. Two police and four militants were wounded.

Intense NATO-led offensives against Taliban forces in the south have forced insurgents to flee north and west into calmer areas like Farah, NATO and Afghan officials say.

Thursday’s raid was the second bout of Taliban violence in two days in Farah, and followed a roadside bombing there that wounded four Italian soldiers.

The early morning clash in Farah province came a day after Taliban insurgents ambushed a police patrol there, leaving four police and four militants dead.

NATO spokesman Maj. Toby Jackman said alliance forces were aware insurgents could be fleeing toward Farah.

“If there is the possibility of some sort of security deterioration in the area we will get onto it very quickly,” he said.

[”If?!]

Four Afghan soldiers were killed as a mine struck their van in the eastern Kunar province, the local Hindokosh news agency reported Thursday.

The incident occurred on Wednesday, the agency quoted Abdul Jalal Jalal, police chief of Kunar, as saying.

On Thursday, an Afghan commander Rahmatullah Raufi told Xinhua that two Afghan soldiers were injured as a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in Sori district in the restive southern Zabul province

Both soldiers are in stable condition while their vehicle was destroyed, he added.

TROOP NEWS

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

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

A horse drawn caisson carrying the casket of Marine Lance Cpl. Philip A. Johnson proceeds to a graveside service in Enfield, Conn., Sept. 15, 2006. Johnson was killed in Iraq in early September as his unit was traveling from Ramadi. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

(Graphic: London Financial Times)

Occupation Propagandist Executed

September 14, 2006 Julia Day, Guardian Unlimited

Freelance photographer Safa Isma’il Enad, 31, was shot in a photo print shop in Baghdad on Tuesday, according to the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi press freedom organisation run by local journalists.

Two gunmen entered the store and asked for Enad by his first name, a source told the CPJ. When the photographer replied, he was shot.

Enad had worked for the now-defunct Tikrit-based al-Watan paper, which was affiliated with the US-funded Iraqi National Movement. The paper, which closed two months ago due to lack of money, is trying to re-establish itself as a magazine.

Assorted Resistance Action

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer & (KUNA) & Reuters & 15 Sep 2006 Reuters & (KUNA)

A car bomb blew up near the government’s passport office in central Baghdad, injuring four police officers, said police Lt. Bilal Ali.

The blast created a large crater in the street in front of the office, destroyed at least three cars, scattered debris and knocked down the walls of a neighboring house, according to AP Television News video.

Guerrilla fighters in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killed two police officers in a drive-by shooting.

A senior traffic police officer was shot dead by insurgent fighters in front of his house in the Dura district of Baghdad.

In Mosul unidentified armed men killed a police lieutenant.

A bomber strapped with explosives detonated himself at a police checkpoint in Tal Afar, about 420 km (260 miles) northwest of Baghdad, killing one policeman and wounding two civilians, police and hospital sources said.

A police convoy was struck by a roadside bomb late on Thursday in the town of Mussayab, about 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. Three policemen were wounded in the attack, they said.

Kirkuk police source said that anonymous gunmen opened fire today to assassinate, Taha Mahmoud, the Mayer of Kaif Town, located South-West of Kirkuk. The source said police has been investigating the incident, but did not reveal any further details.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

Far Away From Reality

Picture of Kim Phuc, holding up the famous picture of herself after American pilots dropped Napalm on her and her village on June 8, 1972. I met her at a conference in Castlegar, Canada in July 2006. Her story had the audience in tears.

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)

From: Richard Hastie
To: GI Special
Sent: September 11, 2006
Subject: Far Away From Reality

Far Away From Reality

There is a horror show going on with Iraqi
civilians being killed by U.S. tax money.

It’s no different than Vietnam.

And while this is all going on, the American people
are being sidetracked by toxic T.V. — far away from reality.

Mike Hastie
Vietnam Veteran

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.

THE SUCCESSFUL ANTI-WAR REBELLION OF THE ARMED FORCES

Excerpts from an article by Col. Robert D. Heinl, Jr., North American Newspaper Alliance, Armed Forces Journal, 7 June, 1971

THE MORALE, DISCIPLINE and battleworthiness of the U.S. Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at anytime in this century and possibly in the history of the United States.

By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non commissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near mutinous.

Elsewhere than Vietnam, the situation is nearly as serious.

To understand the military consequences of what is happening to the U.S. Armed Forces, Vietnam is a good place to start. It is in Vietnam that the rearguard of a 500,000 man army, in its day and in the observation of the writer the best army the United States ever put into the field, is numbly extricating itself from a nightmare war the Armed Forces feel they had foisted on them by bright civilians who are now back on campus writing books about the folly of it all.

“They have set up separate companies,” writes an American soldier from Cu Chi, quoted in the New York Times, “for men who refuse to go into the field. Is no big thing to refuse to go. If a man is ordered to go to such and such a place he no longer goes through the hassle of refusing; he just packs his shirt and goes to visit some buddies at another base camp. Operations have become incredibly ragtag. Many guys don’t even put on their uniforms any more… The American garrison on the larger bases are virtually disarmed. The lifers have taken our weapons from us and put them under lock and key…There have also been quite a few frag incidents in the battalion.”

“Frag incidents” or just “fragging” is current soldier slang in Vietnam for the murder or attempted murder of strict, unpopular, or just aggressive officers and NCOs. With extreme reluctance (after a young West Pointer from Senator Mike Mansfield’s Montana was fragged in his sleep) the Pentagon has now disclosed that fraggings in 1970(109) have more than doubled those of the previous year (96).

Word of the deaths of officers will bring cheers at troop movies or in bivouacs of certain units.

In one such division — the morale plagued Americal — fraggings during 1971 have been authoritatively estimated to be running about one a week.

Yet fraggings, though hard to document, form part of the ugly lore of every war. The first such verified incident known to have taken place occurred 190 years ago when Pennsylvania soldiers in the Continental Army killed one of their captains during the night of 1 January 1781.

Bounties, raised by common subscription in amounts running anywhere from $50 to $1,000, have been widely reported put on the heads of leaders whom the privates and Sp4s want to rub out.

Shortly after the costly assault on Hamburger Hill in mid-1969, the GI underground newspaper in Vietnam, “G.I. Says”, publicly offered a $10,000 bounty on Lt. Col. Weldon Honeycutt, the officer who ordered (and led) the attack. Despite several attempts, however, Honeycutt managed to live out his tour and return Stateside.

“Another Hamburger Hill,” (i.e., toughly contested assault), conceded a veteran major, is definitely out.”

The issue of “combat refusal”, and official euphemism for disobedience of orders to fight — the soldier’s gravest crime – has only recently been again precipitated on the frontier of Laos by Troop B, 1st Cavalry’s mass refusal to recapture their captain’s command vehicle containing communication gear, codes and other secret operation orders.

As early as mid-1969, however, an entire company of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade publicly sat down on the battlefield. Later that year, another rifle company, from the famed 1st Air Cavalry Division, flatly refused — on CBS-TV — to advance down a dangerous trail.

While denying further unit refusals the Air Cav has admitted some 35 individual refusals in 1970 alone. By comparison, only two years earlier in 1968, the entire number of officially recorded refusals for our whole army in Vietnam — from over seven divisions – was 68.

“Search and evade” (meaning tacit avoidance of combat by units in the field) is now virtually a principle of war, vividly expressed by the GI phrase, “CYA (cover your ass) and get home!”

That “search-and-evade” has not gone unnoticed by the enemy is underscored by the Viet Cong delegation’s recent statement at the Paris Peace Talks that communist units in Indochina have been ordered not to engage American units which do not molest them. The same statement boasted – not without foundation in fact – that American defectors are in the VC ranks.

Symbolic anti-war fasts (such as the one at Pleiku where an entire medical unit, led by its officers, refused Thanksgiving turkey), peace symbols, “V”-signs not for victory but for peace, booing and cursing of officers and even of hapless entertainers such as Bob Hope, are unhappily commonplace.

Only last year an Air Force major and command pilot for Ambassador Bunker was apprehended at Ton Son Nhut air base outside Saigon with $8 million worth of heroin in his aircraft. The major is now in Leavenworth.

Early this year, and Air force regular colonel was court-martialed and cashiered for leading his squadron in pot parties, while, at Cam Ranh Air Force Base, 43 members of the base security police squadron were recently swept up in dragnet narcotics raids.

All the foregoing facts – and mean more dire indicators of the worse kind of military trouble – point to widespread conditions among American forces in Vietnam that have only been exceeded in this century by the French Army’s Nivelle mutinies of 1917 and the collapse of the Tsarist armies in 1916 and 1917.

Sedition – coupled with disaffection within the ranks, and externally fomented with an audacity and intensity previously inconceivable – infests the Armed Services:

At best count, there appear to be some 144 underground newspapers published on or aimed at U.S. military bases in this country and overseas. Since 1970 the number of such sheets has increased 40% (up from 103 last fall). These journals are not mere gripe-sheets that poke soldier fun in the “Beetle Bailey” tradition, at the brass and the sergeants. “In Vietnam,” writes the Ft Lewis-McChord Free Press, “the Lifers, the Brass, are the true Enemy, not the enemy.” Another West Coast sheet advises readers: “Don’t desert. Go to Vietnam and kill your commanding officer.”

At least 14 GI dissent organizations (including two made up exclusively of officers) now operate more or less openly. Ancillary to these are at least six antiwar veterans’ groups which strive to influence GIs.

Three well-established lawyer groups specialize in support of GI dissent. Two (GI Civil Liberties Defense Committee and new York Draft and Military Law Panel) operate in the open. A third is a semi-underground network of lawyers who can only be contacted through the GI Alliance, a Washington, D.C., group which tries to coordinate seditious antimilitary activities throughout the country.

One antimilitary legal effort operates right in the theater of war. A three-man law office, backed by the Lawyers’ Military Defense Committee, of Cambridge, Mass., was set up last fall in Saigon to provide free civilian legal services for dissident soldiers being court-martialed in Vietnam.

Besides these lawyers’ fronts, the Pacific Counseling Service (an umbrella organization with Unitarian backing for a prolifery of antimilitary activities) provides legal help and incitement to dissident GIs through not one but seven branches (Tacoma, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Monterey, Tokyo, and Okinawa).

Another of Pacific Counseling’s activities is to air-drop planeloads of sedition literature into Oakland’s sprawling Army Base, our major West Coast staging point for Vietnam

On the religious front, a community of turbulent priests and clergymen, some unfrocked, calls itself the Order of Maximilian. Maximilian is a saint said to have been martyred by the Romans for refusing military service as un-Christian. Maximilian’s present-day followers visit military posts, infiltrate brigs and stockades in the guise of spiritual counseling, work to recruit military chaplains, and hold services of “consecrations” of post chapels in the name of their saintly draft-dodger.

By present count at least 11 (some go as high as 26) off-base antiwar “coffee houses” ply GIs with rock music, lukewarm coffee, antiwar literature, how-to-do-it tips on desertion, and similar disruptive counsels. Among the best-known coffee houses are: The Shelter Half (Ft Lewis, Wash.); The Home Front (Ft Carson, Colo.); and The Oleo Strut (Ft Hood, Tex.).

Virtually all the coffee houses are or have been supported by the U.S. Serviceman’s Fund, whose offices are in new York City’s Bronx.

While refusing to divulge names, IRS sources say that the serviceman’s Fund has been largely bankrolled by well-to-do liberals. One example of this kind of liberal support for sedition which did surface identifiably last year was the $8,500 nut channeled from the Philip Stern Family Foundation to underwrite Seaman Roger Priest’s underground paper OM, which, among other writings, ran do-it-yourself advice for desertion to Canada and advocated assassination of President Nixon.

“Entertainment Industry for Peace and Justice,” the antiwar show-biz front organized by Jane Fonda, Dick Gregory, and Dalton Trumbo, now claims over 800 film, TV, and music names. This organization is backing Miss Fonda’s antimilitary road-show that opened outside the gates of Ft. Bragg, N.C., in mid-March.

Describing her performances (scripted by Jules Pfeiffer) as the soldiers’ alternative to Bob Hope, Miss Fonda says her case will repeat the Ft Bragg show at or outside 19 more major bases.

Freshman Representative Ronald V. Dellums (D-Calif.) runs a somewhat different kind of antimilitary production. As a Congressman, Dellums cannot be barred from military posts and has been taking full advantage of the fact. At Ft Meade, Md., last month, Dellums led a soldier audience as they booed and cursed their commanding officer who was present on-stage in the post theater which the Army had to make available.

Dellums has also used Capitol Hill facilities for his “Ad Hoc hearings” on alleged war crimes in Vietnam. ……the fact that five West Point graduates willingly testified for Dellums suggests the extent to which officer solidarity and traditions against politics have been shattered in today’s Armed Forces.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

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.

OCCUPATION REPORT

Bush’s Bully Boys Hard At Work:
Scum Sucking Bottom Feeding Generals In Command Of U.S. Forces In Iraq Order Detention Of Iraqi Member of Parliament For Wanting End Of U.S. Occupation

A worker of the Iraqi Council for National Dialogue, a Sunni Arab political party, picks up the Iraqi flag from their ransacked office in Baghdad Sept. 14, 2006. U.S. forces raided its Baghdad headquarters early Thursday and detained and interrogated one of its legislators. (AP Photo/Asaad Mouhsin)

9.14.06 By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer

An influential Sunni Arab political party said that U.S. forces raided its Baghdad headquarters early Thursday and briefly detained one of its legislators.

Ahmed al-Janabi a spokesman for the National Dialogue Council, a Sunni party that is part the Iraqi Accordance Front, a Sunni Arab coalition, said U.S. forces broke into the group’s offices in western Baghdad and detained and interrogated deputy Abdel-Nasir al-Janabi for two hours. The party has 12 deputies in the 275-seat parliament.

The reasons for the raid were not clear and coalition forces had no immediate comment, but al-Janabi alleged the raid seemed to be “an American message to the groups and lawmakers who demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq.”

Earlier in the week, a group of Shiite and Sunni legislators tried to take advantage of the unpopularity of U.S. troops to seek approval of a resolution setting a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops, which the mainstream Shiite-dominated government has so far refused to do.

The resolution was sent to committee, essentially shelving it for months.

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

Collaborator Cops Kill Citizens Protesting U.S. Forces

14 Sep 2006 Reuters

Ten people were wounded and one killed in clashes between protesters and guards at the governorate building in Diwaniya, a hospital source said.

The protesters were demonstrating against U.S. forces’ storming of an office of followers of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a Reuters reporter at the scene said.

This Is Not A Satire;
Lunatic Collaborator General Says Trench Will Be Built To Surround Baghdad

2006/09/15 BBC NEWS

Iraq’s interior ministry has announced plans to increase security in Baghdad by digging trenches around the city, and surrounding it with checkpoints.

The plan was unveiled amid continuing violence in the capital. At least 49 bodies have been recovered from the city’s streets in the past 24 hours.

A spokesman said the security plan was designed to prevent insurgents from getting into and out of Baghdad.

But correspondents say it could take months to dig trenches round the city.

The Iraqi capital has a circumference of around 80km (50 miles).

Brigadier Abdul Karim of the interior ministry told the BBC the plan would start coming into effect in less than three weeks.

Bullet Hits Japanese Envoy’s Car

Sep. 14, 2006 Associated Press

An official vehicle carrying Japan’s acting ambassador to Iraq was hit by a bullet on Thursday in Baghdad, but there were no injuries, the Foreign Ministry said.

The bullet cracked the windshield when it hit the car of Satoshi Ashiki, temporary charge d’affaires, near the Japanese embassy in Baghdad, the ministry said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear whether the shot was a stray bullet or specifically aimed at the diplomat.

Ministry official Kimitake Nakamura, citing witness accounts, said a convoy behind Ashiki’s car fired warning shots at a vehicle that was between them and the Japanese car.

“Judging from the circumstances when the bullet hit the car, it is unlikely that it was a terrorist attack aimed at us,” Nakamura said.

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
www.militaryproject.org/
The following have also posted issues; there may be others:

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/

GI Special distributes and posts to our website copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. We believe this constitutes a “fair use” of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law since it is being distributed without charge or profit for educational purposes to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for educational purposes, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.  GI Special has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor is GI Special endorsed or sponsored by the originators. This attributed work is provided a non-profit basis to facilitate understanding, research, education, and the advancement of human rights and social justice Go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml for more information. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. 

If printed out, this newsletter is your personal property and cannot legally be confiscated from you. “Possession of unauthorized material may not be prohibited.” DoD Directive 1325.6 Section 3.5.1.2