“Just Say NO”
“i ain’t dying for the price of gas
yo, uncle sam, you can kiss my ass!!!”
“Going Directly To The Troops Is The Ultimate Way To Support Them. They Need To Be Made Aware Of Our Efforts On A Daily Basis”

“Just Say NO” was sent as a cassette all over the world. It was hidden by soldiers in their baggage who were enroute to the Gulf War in 1991 and secretly distributed there. It even made it’s way to George Bush’s daddy’s presidential desk.

From: Stop The War Brigade” stopthewarbgde@hotmail.com
To: GI Special
Sent: September 10, 2006
Subject: RE: “Just Say NO”

My name is Darnell Stephen Summers. I’m sending you the text of the Rap, “Just Say NO”.

This rap has been around since before the first Gulf War. It was written at my home in Worms Germany, in August 1990 shortly after Iraqi Forces invaded Kuwait.

At that time I was a member of a band that included four active-duty soldiers and several veterans.

The day of the invasion was a long day for us because we had an unusually long rehearsal and everyone was tired and a little frustrated. Everyone ended up at my house and we sat down in front of the TV to chill out and check out the News to see what was happening in the world and it was then that we learned of the invasion.

We just looked at each other and sensed that this was a very significant point in world history. These events were going to affect all of us in one way or another.

There was a consensus that we should write something and we knew that if could get something together we could get it out and, at the very least, we’d be able to distribute it to the soldiers in our immediate vicinity.

We all went to the back porch and sat down and the words just began to flow.

It’s amazing when you consider that we even predicted the Oil Fields would be set ablaze during the hostilities.

Now you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out but a lot of people, supposedly intelligent and informed people, were shocked to see all of the black smoke billowing over the battlefield. The consequences of that fiasco have yet to be fully determined.

Suffice it to say that a lot of Soldiers will incur life-long illness and perhaps even death as a result of the criminal & reckless behaviour of “their” government and its incompetent, lapdog military leadership.

We had no idea, in 1990 how successful Rap would be, but it was the beginning of a cultural movement within the “Stop The WAR Brigade” which is still in motion today.

More than 100 artists and musicians have participated in the project to date and we’ve traveled to many places(Spain, Germany, Austria, USA, Turkey etc.) to perform and we are ready to move out at a moment’s notice.

The “Just Say NO Posse” was born out of the circumstances surrounding the never-ending War on Iraq and its neighbors in the region. We, “Stop The War Brigade”, still concentrate most of our efforts on active-duty military personnel.

“Just Say NO” has been played at many demonstrations around the world. In fact, “Just Say NO”, was the sign-on music for RADIO 100 Berlin, 1991, every day until the war ended.

It also premiered on the Pacifica Network(Washington D.C. Affiliate) the day of the US-led Coalition’s invasion of Iraq during a live remote interview from my home which included interviews from high school and college students who had walked out of their classes on that fateful day, and also activists and of course veterans.

Peace activists here in Germany set up loudspeakers outside military installations and blasted them with the Rap.

It seems to be everywhere but there are still many people who do not know of its existence and its history.

I hope that this email will serve to correct that situation and encourage everyone to create more Art, Music & Literature that will serve to bolster our struggle. Going directly to the troops is the ultimate way to support them. They need to be made aware of our efforts on a daily basis.

We’re definitely for the “up in your face” approach to this War.

We must continue to be innovative and 10 steps ahead of the fanatic opposition.

Ciao,
Darnell
“Stop The WAR Brigade”

www.stopthewarbrigade.com
www.archive.org/details/DarnellStephenSummersGITalk
www.archive.org/details/ddtv_55_just_say_no

P.S. Everyone should see David Zeiger’s Film,”Sir, No Sir”. I have the honor of being one of the participants in the film. It’s a tremendous film and one that will go down in history as a guiding light to all soldiers who have the will to resist and who break out of the cycle of blind obedience and stand shoulder to shoulder to confront all warmongers with a singleness of purpose and determination.

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

“Just Say NO”

(i)read the newspaper just the other day
heavy storm clouds are moving are way.
(they) wanna to send me to the desert,
to play a deadly game
armed to the teeth homeboy,
ready to murder and maim.

got no say in this matter
did you ask how i feel?
chumps like me a-dime-dozen,
think we don’t know the deal?
i ain’t dying for the price of gas
yo, uncle sam, you can kiss my ass!!!

so when they tell you to go
just say no
to the flow
because we’ about to G.O.
and you know
we’re gonna break these chains of the mind
and i find
it’s a race for mankind
the people, the populace blind to the fact
that the cards are stacked
in his favor
well tell me suckers, do you taste the flavor?
hard beats and rhymes is what he gave ya.

don’t wanna be hero,
can’t stand john wayne
to go and die for you,
i’d have to be insane.
there’s no glory in disaster,
once the wheels of war start to turn.
tell me, what’s the next step sucker,
when the oil-fields start to burn?

new york, paris, london, rome.
young men and women
dragged away from their homes
sydney, berlin, Baghdad, tel aviv.
facing of at each other
for the sultans of greed.

brothers will be dying – mothers will be crying
and what’s it all for, just another rich man’s war!!!

some people seem to think
it’ll all be over quick.
but what about vietnam, LBJ, and tricky dick?
george bush high-riding on a wooden horse,
charging in guns blazing,
and condemning deadly force.

they like to have us believe
they’re defending democracy.
but anyone with eyes can see, that’s a fallacy!
saudi arabia’s not a democratic state,
the women on the street,
can’t even show their face.

i’m tired of you waving
that flag in my face.
i ain’t gonna fight
for your fat-rat-race.
i’m not a sucker, politician
or a money hungry pig.
so, wake up, dig!!!

talking about drugs and crime in the street
poor walkin’ wounded picking through garbage,
trick or treat!!
hey boy, ya wanna a job then
just drop your nuts in the sand.
while i blow smoke up you ass,
drive you crazy, make you kill for the man.

you’re a jive mother-fucker and a hypocrite
you’d have to blind not
to see through this shit,
this is President Bush’s role show
he wants you to play a role.
meanwhile he’s out fucking ‘round
on the 14th hole

don’t believe cnn’s pig media shit.
i’m telling you brother,
we’ve got to resist!!
the army don’t care about heroes in saudi,
you gotta refuse, don’t be another body.

so when they tell you to go
just say no!!!

text/music: Just Say No Posse
images.indymedia.org/imc/mayday/radiomx.mp3

“Just Say NO” was sent as a cassette all over the world. It was hidden by soldiers in their baggage who were enroute to the Gulf War in 1991 and secretly distributed there. It even made it’s way to George Bush’s daddy’s presidential desk.

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

The 172nd Betrayed:
Rumsfelds’ First Kill,
Up Close And Personal

Sept 15, 2006 By Michael Hastings, Newsweek [Excerpts]

On the 33rd day of the Battle of Baghdad, Cpl. Alexander Jordan is killed by a sniper.

This week, NEWSWEEK begins “War Stories,” the first in its series of Web reports about the daily lives of the soldiers and families of the 4-23 infantry battalion of the 172nd Stryker Brigade.

Informed in late July that their yearlong deployment in Iraq would be extended for another four months, the soldiers are now fighting on the front lines of the Battle of Baghdad.

The impact of this move on the troops and their loved ones was the subject of the report, “Straight to the Heart,” in NEWSWEEK’s Sept. 18 issue. During the unit’s extended tour, which is expected to last until December, our reporters will continue to tell the story of the 4-23 through the individual tales of a small group of soldiers and the families who anxiously await their return back at Fort Richardson, Alaska, and in hometowns across America.

But as the close-knit 4-23 community learned this week, not everyone will be coming home now.

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

The call came over Capt. Brad Velotta’s radio with the audible clarity that only shocking news can bring. Shots fired, the voice said, with one soldier down, “shot in the head by a sniper.” Velotta and his men jumped up from the chai-and-chat session in the home of a local sheik in Baghdad’s Shaab neighborhood, just north of Sadr City. They had been discussing the role of Coalition forces, the purpose of the Stryker mission and even such concepts as war and peace. Now reality came crashing back in. “This is the kind of peace we were talking about,” Velotta remarked ironically as he hurried out of the house.

This account of that afternoon, and what followed at the hospital, is based on the recollections of NEWSWEEK photographer Lucian Read, who was embedded with the 4-23's Blackhawk Company. It was the 33rd day in what’s been dubbed the Battle of Baghdad.

It was the day when the battalion lost its first soldier, after having an almost unheard-of year with no deaths.

It was also the day when Velotta’s worst fear, the nightmare all leaders prepare for, came true. “ This is the best opportunity to be killed,” he had said the week before, noting the risk tended to be worst while a unit is new to an area. “The learning curve is steep.”

Now it had happened. When they heard the news, Velotta and his men sprinted down the street, keeping an eye out for the sniper. They piled into their Stryker armored vehicles and headed off in a convoy to the military hospital in the Green Zone. The men in Velotta’s vehicle didn’t know who had been hit. Names aren’t said over the radio, only the soldier’s battle number. “Who is it, who is it?” asked the unit’s translator, an Iraqi man who had been with the 4-23 for over a year.

Driving fast though the streets, they heard another, final, chilling call on the radio. It came from Capt. Patrick (Doc) Williams, a physician’s assistant and the battalion’s medic. A year earlier, on one of his first patrols in Iraq, Williams had saved the life of a soldier who was mortally wounded. His efforts won him the Silver Star for Valor.

“Based on the condition of the patient, we don’t need to drive in a way that puts more people at risk,” he said. Translation: the soldier didn’t make it.

When the body of Cpl. Alexander Jordan, 31, was unloaded at the hospital, it was already wrapped and covered. The doctors at the hospital prepared Jordan for a viewing in the morgue; cleaning his wounds, taping his eyes shut. The men filed in, faces stoic, shocked, teary eyed. The unit’s translator, whose name is being withheld for security reasons, did not contain his grief. He had lived and sweated alongside the men of Blackhawk Company for more than a year, volunteering to come with them from Mosul to Baghdad. He wailed, hiding his face against the blast walls. An hour of whispered and broken conversations passed. Williams said that he had never before lost a wounded man who had been under his care. His uniform and boots were darkened with blood. Before leaving, Velotta reminded his men: “Revenge is wrong, this can’t change the way we do our job.”

The U.S. military says the job of the 4-23 in Baghdad is to stop an Iraqi civil war. To do this, the 172nd Stryker Brigade is focusing on the neighborhoods in Baghdad that are “the fault lines of sectarian violence, the dead zones,” says Lt. Col. John Norris, the 4-23's battalion commander.

These are the places in the city where empty lots are dumping grounds for literally hundreds of bodies, places where the graffiti on the walls say things like AVENUE OF DEATH. In these neighborhoods, the mosques have become mini-fortresses with sandbagged fighting positions on the roof and the trash-filled streets are closed off by makeshift barriers of concrete blocks, concertina wire and stumps from palm trees.

It was in another Shiite neighborhood, Shaab, near Sadr City, where Cpl. Jordan was killed.

The peace was shattered by a sniper’s bullet.

Word spread quickly back home in cryptic e-mails and strained phone conversations with loved ones. The memorial service for Cpl. Jordan of Miami was held last night in Camp Stryker, Iraq. But the grieving for a fallen comrade and son will go on.

REALLY BAD PLACE TO BE:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

9.13.06 A US military convoy patrolling Baghdad’s Risalah neighborhood. (AFP/Paul Schemm)

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Soldier Killed In Attack On Occupation Base Near Pakistan;
Nationality Not Announced

Sep 16 By Robert Birsel, Reuters

The U.S. military said a U.S. coalition soldier training Afghan troops was killed in an attack on a base near the Pakistani border. Another coalition soldier and an unspecified number of Afghan soldiers were wounded.

Resistance Cuts Heart-Kandahar Road

Sep 16 By Robert Birsel, Reuters

The governor of the remote southwestern province of Nimroz appealed for help to clear Taliban fighters who have seized an area on the main road in the province, where attacks have been rare.

“We want the government to do something as soon as possible, this is a strategic place. This road links Herat and Kandahar,” the governor, Ghulam Dastagir, told Reuters, referring to the main towns in the west and south.

The Taliban also threatened to kill a Turk kidnapped in an ambush last month unless a Turkish construction company withdraws from the country in 24 hours, an Afghan news agency reported.

A blast hit a car on a road just to the south of Kabul, killing three Afghan aid workers and wounding one, police said. Kabul police official Alishah Paktiawal said he did not know which aid group they were from.

“The Popularity Of The Taliban Has Grown Enormously Since They Were Toppled From Power Almost Five Years Ago”

9.8.06 By Pham Binh, Letters To The Editor, Socialist Worker

JOHN GREEN’S letter on the Afghan resistance is wrong in every way (”Taliban not a step forward,” August 11). He falsely counterposes Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Taliban in Afghanistan, claiming that the former is leading (despite its socially reactionary politics) a genuine national liberation struggle while the latter “fails this criteria.”

His proof of their failure is that “most Afghans don’t support the Taliban’s fundamentalism, drug-trafficking and intimidation tactics.” This sounds a lot like the Bush administration’s rhetoric about the Iraqi resistance, minus the drug trafficking, and Green provides no evidence about what most Afghans support.

Green’s analysis leaves us totally unable to explain the new resurgence in the Taliban’s strength. Occupation forces in Afghanistan have raided homes and villages with impunity, engaged in torture and committed other atrocities. This is precisely why the popularity of the Taliban has grown enormously since they were toppled from power almost five years ago.

Like it or not, the Taliban is leading the resistance to Western imperialism in Afghanistan. Socialists should never hide our political differences and criticisms of Islamists, but any criticism can come only in the context of support for the struggle they are leading.

In this case, the struggle is one for an Afghanistan free of imperialist control.

Victory for the Taliban would not only be a blow to U.S. imperialism, but also a victory for the oppressed around the world, who are fighting the same enemy.

Pham Binh, New York City

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

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.

TROOP NEWS

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

The casket of Marine Lance Cpl. Philip A. Johnson at Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer in Enfield, Conn., Sept. 15, 2006. Johnson was killed in Iraq, Sept. 3, 2006, along with one other Marine, as his unit was traveling from Ramadi. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

why cant we protest over our dead sons;
rose gentle

[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. T]

From: Rose Gentle
To: GI Special
Sent: September 14, 2006
Subject: why cant we protest over our dead sons, rose gentle

GRIEVING FAMILIES OF SERVICEMEN KILLIED IN IRAQ AND AFGANISTAN HAVE BEEN
BARRED FROM STAGING A PEACEFUL PROTEST OUTSIDE LABOURS ANNUAL CONFRENCE

LABOUR RUN MANCHESTER COUNCIL/

THEY COULD NOT SET UP A PEACE CAMP FOR HEALTH AND SAFETY REASONS .

ITS NOT FOR HEALTH AND SAFETY, ITS BECAUSE ITS THE LABOUR CONFERENCE

AND THEY DONT WANT US GOING AND VOICING OUR OPINIONS. BECAUSE TONY BLAIR IS GOING TO BE THERE

WE HAD ORGANISED PEACE CAMPS OUTSIDE DOWNING STREET AND TRAFALGAR SQUARE
AND HAD NO PROBLEMS

FAMILIES OF BRITISH SOLDERS KIILLIED WILL CAMP OUT, NO MATTER WHOT
TONY BLAIR AND HIS PARTY THINK ,

WE WILL STAND UP FOR OUR BOYS IF I GET LIFTED
BY THE POLLICE TOO BAD,

LABOUR PARTY SPOKESMAN SAID THIS DACISON HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH US

MY ARS, SO MR BLAIR YOU WILL HERE US AND SEE US IN MANCHESTER

FROM 21ST SEPTEMBER TO THE 24 SEPTEMBER

MILITARY FAMILIES, BRING OUR TROOPS HOME

Merchant Marine Killed By Anthrax Shot

[Thanks to Garett Reppenhagen, Iraq Veterans Against The War, who sent this in.]

9/13/2006 San Francisco Chronicle

Jesse Lusian Age 24, died Saturday, September 2, 2006 from complications resulting from an anthrax vaccine he received while serving our country as a Merchant Marine on a cargo ship in Diego Garcia, a Navy Support Facility in the Middle East.

Jesse Lusian

Jesse is survived by his father Robert Lusian of Hemet; mother, Colleen Lusian-Halbohm and stepfather, Bruce Halbohm of Cloverdale; grandmothers, Dorothy Lusian of Hemet and Shirley Evelyn Smyth of Hillsborough; brother, Ralph Lusian of Tuscaloosa, AL; aunts, Kerry Taylor of Santa Rosa and Eileen Gordon and her husband Bob of Daly City; uncle, Gerald Lusian; “Uncle Fred” Spencer and his wife Sharon; Aunt Nancy and Uncle Geno Franconi; Shelly Pedersen; cousins, Kelly Gordon, Billy Spencer, Debbie Gallegos, Karla and Frank Bobadilla, Jason Russel, Marcus Ryan, Mikey Taylor; step-brothers, Ron and Ryan Flanders, Justin Halbohm; and step-sister, Heather Stasulat; and many, many more cousins, uncles and aunts.

He is also survived by the entire Irish clan of Smyth’s from Galway, Ireland and the Peter’s family, originally from the Azores in Portugal. The number of people who loved Jesse is very long, because Jesse was such a lovable guy. Jesse will also be missed by his many friends and classmates from Barrington, RI, and Piney Point, MD, at the Paul Hall Academy for Merchant Marines.

Jesse, my dear son, you will suffer no more. Our lives were forever changed by your love and we will never be the same without you.

Friends are invited to attend a Memorial Service on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 at 6:00 p.m. at SNEIDER & SULLIVAN & O’CONNELL’S FUNERAL HOME, 977 So. El Camino Real in San Mateo.

In lieu of flowers, please send a donation to Jesse Lusian Anthrax Vaccine Victims Fund for Merchant Marines, c/o The Law Offices of Jeanne Levin, 2455 Bennett Valley Road, Suite C107, Santa Rosa, CA 95404.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action

16 Sep 2006 Reuters & (KUNA) & By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD: Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and three wounded when a bomb exploded inside a car they approached that contained a body, an Interior Ministry source said.

A car bomb killed three police officers and wounded five people when it detonated next to a passing patrol in southeast Baghdad’s Zafaraniya district, police Capt. Ali Mahdi said.

A roadside bomb killed three policemen and wounded another when it blew up as a police patrol was passing in the restive town of Baquba, police said.

Iraqi police killed two insurgents after they repelled an attack by them on their checkpoint, just south of Kirkuk, police said. Two policemen were also wounded in the attack.

Three policemen were wounded when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in the in Somar suburb southeast Mosul.

In the volatile western city of Ramadi, a bomber on a motorcycle killed three Iraqi police officers outside a hospital and a car bomb killed four officers at a checkpoint, a police official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“The Pivotal Story Of The GI Anti-War Movement During The Vietnam War”

Les Wright, CultureVulture.net

A funny thing happened on America’s fast dash exit out of Vietnam in 1975. The war suddenly became a non-topic. In the perhaps stunned silence that followed the first war the United States could not categorically claim to have won, historical revisionism began immediately.

As the U.S. currently engages in another war many view as another Vietnam, the time has come to take a long, hard look back. David Ziegler has created a “must-see” documentary which seeks to return to the historical record the pivotal story of the GI anti-war movement during the Vietnam War.

The resistance movement began very small, but rapidly exploded. How powerful a force inside the U.S. military they became seems unimaginable today.

As individual GIs began to realize they were being ordered to participate in patently unethical murder and mayhem, more and more rank-and-file soldiers began to question and then refused to follow orders.

For example, because the progress of the war was measured in daily body counts, many GIs soon found they were being ordered to kill indiscriminately, to the sole end of having higher and higher (dead) body count numbers. Some balked in horror at being compelled to massacre innocent woman and children.

In the present Iraqi war such “collateral damage” is again blithely dismissed, by government officials and “embedded” journalists alike, and blame for publicly embarrassing atrocities, such as My Lai (then) and Abu Ghraib (now) is scapegoated onto low-ranking officers.

Drawing upon archival news footage, previously unseen home movies (super-8mm and 16 mm), an archive of over 200 GI-generated anti-war underground periodicals, and extensive then-and-now interview footage of active-duty antiwar activists, Ziegler demonstrates the material fact and scope of the backlash.

Over half a millions GIs deserted.

The mutinous strategy of fragging (ambushing superior officers with fragmenting grenades) became widespread on the ground in Vietnam.

Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland’s antiwar stage review “FTA” became very popular, playing off-base near US military encampments around the world. And GI coffeehouses sprang up off-base all over the U.S., as places where, off-duty, disaffected GIs could meet and communicate.

Ziegler interviews a number of those prominent in the GI antiwar movement. Among them are Donald Duncan, a member of the Green Berets, who resigned in protest in 1966 and whose article published in Ramparts magazine helped transform individual resistance into a GI movement.

Howard Levy was a dermatologist drafted in the early 1960s to teach simple treatments of skin conditions to GIs. He eventually refused to serve, was court-martialed and spent three years in prison.

Keith Mather, among the “Nine for Peace,” was one of the soldiers who took sanctuary in a San Francisco church. Once incarcerated in the Presidio stockade he helped organize a sit-down protest. Finding himself thereupon threatened with the death penalty on charges of mutiny, he escaped and fled to Canada where he lived for 18 years.

Near the end of the documentary, Ziegler turns his attention to the myth and reality of the “spat upon returning Vietnam vet” by interviewing Vietnam vet Jerry Lembcke.

After military duty Lembcke trained as a sociologist and investigated but could find no actual cases of GIs being spit upon by antiwar protesters. His research was published as The Spitting Image. Ziegler deftly juxtaposes this reportage with clips from Rambo, allowing the process and product of revisionism to speak for itself.

Sir! No Sir!:
At A Theatre Near You!
To find it: www.sirnosir.com/

The Sir! No Sir! DVD is on sale now, exclusively at www.sirnosir.com.

Also available will be a Soundtrack CD (which includes the entire song from the FTA Show, “Soldier We Love You”), theatrical posters, tee shirts, and the DVD of “A Night of Ferocious Joy,” a film by me about the first hip-hop antiwar concert against the “War on Terror.”

Do you have a friend or relative in the service? Forward 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.

Who’s On First?

From: Richard Hastie
To: GI Special
Sent: September 11, 2006
Subject: Vietnam Veteran at Veterans Day Parade

“I think it’s clear that we are safe—safer—but not really yet safe.”
Condoleezza Rice
September 10, 2006

Who’s On First?

Mike Hastie
Vietnam Veteran

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)

Supply Side Economics

From: Dennis Serdel
To: GI Special
Sent: September 14, 2006
Subject: Supply Side Economics by Dennis

[Written by Dennis Serdel, Vietnam 1967-68 (one tour) Light Infantry, Americal Div. 11th Brigade, purple heart, Veterans For Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against The War, United Auto Workers GM Retiree, in Perry, Michigan]

Supply Side Economics

Lieutenant Gary moved to his POINT man
SHOT in the mouth, the bullet exiting his CHEEK,
knocking him down in the cool morning jungle,
the sun flickering like FLASH bulbs from above.
TWO point men MEETING each other on a path,
the NVA point MAN laying dead.
His HELMET rolling not far away, his UNIFORM,
AMMO belt, CANTEEN looking like ONE
WAR PROFITEER supplied both sides.
Lieutenant Gary stayed
while others chased the NVA.
“HE’S DEAD” Gary smiled
down at his point man,
“and ALL you’re going to have is a SMALL scar,
a PURPLE HEART and what looks like
a brand new AK 47 as a SOUVENIR.”
Doc started patching up his cheek,
“You’re one LUCKY son-of-a-bitch,” Doc smiled.
“Yes, YOU are,” Gary continued,
the tone of the talk jovial.
“Now I have to find a clearing
to get you OUT of here.”
“YEAH,” Doc winked,
“get you in the back for a few stitches,
SMOKE some reefer, DRINK some cold beers,
go down to the whorehouse
get some PUSSY, relax, MILK it baby,
MILK IT.”

OCCUPATION REPORT

The Great Collaborator Army Goatfuck Rolls On:
“Steal Everything That Isn’t Nailed Down. And When You Find Something That Is Nailed Down, Go Find A Crowbar”

[As you read, keep in mind the 8 million pound gorilla in the room that the reporter, and the U.S. occupation command, can’t bear to look in the eye. The resistance has no logistical problems whatever. Gee, maybe that’s because they’re patriots fighting to free their country from a foreign invasion and occupation. The thieves and traitors collaborating with the Bush occupation, as you will read, steal the supplies as fast as they can. They know they have very short life spans if they don’t stack up lots of cash and get the fuck out of country before the whole house of cards comes down on their necks. Chop chop. T]

“The prevailing community standard is steal everything that isn’t nailed down. And when you find something that is nailed down, to go to find a crowbar,” Pike said.

9.16.06 By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press Writer

Iraq has one of the world’s largest oil reserves, but the Iraqi army can’t get enough fuel for its tanks. It also can’t get spare parts for its trucks or supply ammunition on its own.

In volatile Anbar province, a hot bed of insurgents, it has been especially challenging for the Iraqis to keep troops supplied with food and water.

The Iraqis use a low-tech system. Some is computerized. But records are mostly kept on paper, which means supplies can easily be lost or stolen before they get to the units that need them.

It’s a system ripe for corruption, said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a research group in Washington.

“The prevailing community standard is steal everything that isn’t nailed down. And when you find something that is nailed down, to go to find a crowbar,” Pike said.

The depot’s Iraqi deputy commander, who did not want his name used out of fear insurgents would kill him for working with the Americans, said shipping containers sometimes arrive without his staff having any idea what is in them before they are opened.

Iraqi commanders and troops in the field complain that Iraqi officials in Baghdad fail to get them essentials like fuel and spare parts for vehicles.

Lt. Col. Hassan Falah, with the highway police, likened the situation to carrying a block of ice from Baghdad to distant provinces: by the time it arrives, most of it has melted away. Falah said only four of his 20 vehicles were working due to lack of parts.

Adding to the supply problem, many Iraqi soldiers and police operate with an eclectic assortment of purchased and donated vehicles that run on various types of fuel and need different spare parts.

Then there are the fuel shortages.

An American soldier helping train the Iraqi border patrol said that when his unit pulls into a town or Iraqi base, Iraqi troops try to siphon off fuel from the U.S. Humvees because they are so low on supplies.

[Brig. Gen. Terry Wolff, commander of the Coalition Military Assistance and Training Team] said the defense forces aren’t allocated enough fuel from the Iraqi government. “Where do they sit on the pecking order? We believe that they’re on the bottom third,” he said.

In the past, when Iraqi units needed fuel, they turned to the Americans. But U.S. commanders say they have begun withholding supplies in an effort to force Iraqis to look to their own supply chains.

“For a while we really spiked where we were giving them, I would say, a majority of their fuel,” said Halstead, the 3rd Corps Support Command chief. “If I keep giving you something, you’ll just keep taking it.”

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

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

The War Candidates Who Fake Being Peace Candidates:
These Rats Oppose Immediate Withdrawal From Iraq;
Their “Anti-War” Pimps Are Looking For Your Vote

September 15, 2006 Interview with Michael Berg by Chris Murphy, Socialist Worker [Excerpt]

(MICHAEL BERG is the father of Nick Berg, an American contractor who was abducted in Iraq and executed, supposedly by a group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.)

CM: CAN YOU talk more about what’s wrong with the Democratic Party?

MB: FOR ONE thing, there are a lot of Democrats, my Democratic opponent included, who say they are pace candidates.

And you say, “Well, are you in favor of bringing the troops home immediately?” and they say, “Oh no, that would be irresponsible, maybe in six months or a year from now.”

So they aren’t the peace candidates. They’re the candidates that want the war to go on for another six months or a year.

[You notice these cowards won’t go fight there themselves. They just want others to stay there and die. Any politician who wants the troops in Iraq for one more day is a murdering, betraying piece of shit. There are no exceptions. Ever. But they’re doing their job; defending the Empire.

[The more disgusting traitors are the so called “leaders” of the movement against the war who kiss their ass, buddy up to them, and act like they’re our friends. Bullshit. They’re just the enemy in a different mask. Rip the masks off both sets of enemies, now.

[They merely confuse and demoralize decent people against the war, some of whom get sucked into their line of bullshit. The objective of the fake anti-war “leaders” is to attach people to their beloved Democratic Party, which has no intention of giving up Imperial war either.

[The elections are coming. That’s their priority, not stopping the war.]

MORE:

Leading The Rat Pack:
Lamont Of Connecticut:
More Dead U.S. Troops Just Fine With Him

We need to ask ourselves whether we are satisfied with punishing war supporters like Lieberman (or Bush) by replacing them with other war supporters.

September 8, 2006 Danny Katch, field coordinator, Hawkins for Senate, New York City [Socialist Worker]

JOE LIEBERMAN’S defeat in the Democratic primary in Connecticut for U.S. Senate put a smile on the face of anyone who hates the war in Iraq. But antiwar activists shouldn’t celebrate Ned Lamont’s victory as the beginnings of a Democratic Party shift away from its support for the war.

To begin with, Joe Lieberman is a fading star whose dismal 2004 primary run showed that his particular form of conservatism had begun to outlive its usefulness to the party—making it much easier for liberals like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to campaign for Lamont.

Next door in New York, Hillary Clinton has a hawkish record similar to Lieberman, but she is a favorite for the 2008 presidential nomination. Can you imagine Jackson or Sharpton campaigning for her opponent Jonathan Tasini? What’s that, you’ve never heard of him? Well, now you know why.

But the most important reason we should stay off the Ned Lamont bandwagon is Ned Lamont.

The cable company millionaire is described in both the mainstream and progressive press as an “antiwar” candidate. It’s true that he does call for troops to start leaving Iraq, but it’s easy for a politician to say something he knows most voters have been dying to hear.

The “issues” page of Lamont’s campaign Web site doesn’t present a plan for ending the war. Instead, it offers a string of contradictory sentences like this one: “[O]ur frontline military troops should begin to be redeployed, and our troops should start heading home.”

In classic Democrat fashion, Lamont offers phrases that most of us want to hear (troops heading home) and other ones (redeploy) meant for the political and business elites who decide with their checkbooks whether a candidate is “viable.”

Sometimes these messages are a little more subtle: “America should make clear that we have no designs upon their oil and no plans for permanent bases…[W]e will continue to provide logistical and training support as long as we are asked.”

In other words, we’re not interested in staying in Iraq—unless, of course. we’re “asked to” by the puppet government that we installed.

There’s nothing subtle about Lamont’s unambiguous support for Israel’s war on Lebanon and Palestine—which should wipe out any illusions in his being a candidate for the antiwar movement. According to Lamont, “It is not for the United States to dictate to Israel how it defends itself.”

Not only is it morally reprehensible to support a war which has killed over 1,000 Lebanese civilians and made a quarter of the population homeless, but it insults our intelligence to assert that Israel’s targeting of Lebanese homes, bridges and relief workers is an act of defense—or that the United States, which rushed an order of laser-guided missiles to Israel, doesn’t already influence Israeli policy.

These are lies as blatant as the ones about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

In fact, “defending Israel” is likely to be the next justification the Bush administration uses for keeping the troops in Iraq. It would certainly be more accurate than previous winners such as WMDs, stopping al-Qaeda or spreading democracy. The fact is that an Iraq without a U.S. occupation would be hostile to Israel, as would Egypt or Saudi Arabia if the U.S. didn’t back dictatorships to repress those populations.

The people of the Middle East (including Israel) recognize much more clearly than Americans that Israel is part of the project to eliminate all opposition to U.S. domination in the center of the oil-producing world. “Defending Israel” is code for defending American empire—for attacking all hostile forces from Hezbollah to Hamas to, inevitably, Syria and Iran. To call, as Lamont does, for ending the Iraq war and supporting the Israeli one is like telling your car to stop while you step on the gas pedal.

We need to ask ourselves whether we are satisfied with punishing war supporters like Lieberman (or Bush) by replacing them with other war supporters.

Those who are looking for strategies to actually get U.S. troops out of the Middle East need to look beyond the Democrats.

Green Party candidates for Senate like Howie Hawkins in New York (www.hawkinsforsenate.org) and Todd Chretien in California (www.todd4senate.org) are calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and to stop funding Israel’s wars and occupations in Lebanon and Palestine.

Many progressives will argue that supporting a third party is unrealistic, and that Ned Lamont’s primary victory is proof that they are “taking back” the Democratic Party.

It looks more like it’s the Democratic Party that is once again taking them for a ride.

MORE:

UFPJ:
Pimping For Imperial Democrats,
As Usual

9.8.06 Roy Rollin, New York City, Letters To The Editor, Socialist Worker

IN HER “Which Side Are You On” column, Sharon Smith correctly points out that “the weakness of the mainstream U.S. antiwar movement toward Israeli war crimes is not a temporary aberration, but a long-standing phenomenon.” (SW, July 28)

She backs this up by connecting the United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) leadership’s “repeat(ing) the mainstream media’s depiction” of the recent events in the Middle East to the position taken by their political predecessors (in many cases, the same people with the same politics) on the eve of Israel’s last invasion of Lebanon in 1982, when a massive peace that they organized rally in New York City’s Central Park conveniently made no mention of Israel’s bombing of Lebanon.

Both positions, however, stem from the “mainstream” liberal left’s main “weakness”—toward the Democratic Party, which, as Sharon shows, is even more staunchly pro-Israel than the Republicans are.

This “long-standing phenomenon,” whether it goes under the name of “popular front,” “lesser evil,” “ABB” or “taking back Congress,” subordinates any and every struggle and mass movement to the election of Democratic Party politicians to whatever office is being contested. (Remember how the reformists said that the “real fight” begins the day after Election Day…in 2004. Well, we’re still waiting.)

Since the mainstream left feels that anything else is an unobtainable pipedream, i.e., “another world” is not possible, its whole political universe revolves around putting more Democrats into office as the only “realistic” game in town, regardless of how right wing they are.

Since Israel is, as Smith points out, the “U.S.’s historic regional partner in enforcing its Middle East policy,” both Democrats and Republicans, as partner parties of the capitalist class, always close ranks when it comes to backing up Israeli aggression. That’s because imperialism is a system, and not a policy preferred by “unilateralists” or “neo-cons.”

But since electing those same Democrats in November is UFPJ’s top priority, any significant protest against Israel’s outrages in Lebanon and Gaza will just have to be put on the back burner, as was opposition to the Iraq war in 2004, when electing the pro-war (and pro-Israel) John Kerry took top priority.

For the UFPJ leadership, the “thousands of lives that are at stake” are apparently so much “collateral damage”; the price the Palestinians and the Lebanese will have to pay in order for the Democrats to “take back Congress.” Then they can continue to vote to give Israel even more money to carry out its endless acts of aggression as part of the bigger and better “war on terror” that the Democrats desire.

Indeed the Democrats recognize, no less than we do, that the one-sided “war” in Lebanon (and Gaza) is an important component of the war of terror to gain control of the Middle East, even if the leaders of UFPJ try to ignore or deny it.

After all, if the “maximum program” of the “politics of the possible” consists of replacing one set of pro-war capitalist politicians with another, you can’t take any unpopular positions. That might get in the way of their winning office, regardless of how many “lives are at stake” or how much it sets back building movements “on a principled basis”—i.e., independent of both bosses’ parties.

If the antiwar movement, or any other movement, for that matter, is to ever “revive” on that “principled basis” that Smith speaks of, it is necessary that those of us who are “principled” politically take on the mainstream left; not only by effectively exposing them, but by politically challenging and defeating them for leadership in these movements.

While this paradoxically requires the broadest possible unity with these same forces, in order to expose them in action before their supporters, it also requires that we recognize them for what they are: the left lieutenants of the capitalist class within the mass movements, as the early American socialist Daniel DeLeon described the trade union bureaucracy, and deal with them as such.

THE CHICKEN

September 12, 2006 Windbear, Firebase Humor [Excerpts]

After many decades of arguing, at the behest of the Booo$h Administration, the U. $. Congre$$ allocated 100 Billion dollar$, for a study, using your Tax Dollar$, to once and for all times, to answer the one question that has plagued mankind for millennia.

Many well known celebrities where hired for their brilliance and advice in this monumental task.

Here is their results.

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road…

GEORGE W. BUSH:
We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

DONALD RUMSFELD:
Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

ANDERSON COOPER/CNN:
We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

JOHN KERRY:
Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken’s intentions. I am for it now, and will remain against it.

PAT BUCHANAN:
To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

JERRY FALWELL:
Because the chicken was gay! Can’t you people see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the “other side.” That’s why they call it the “other side.” Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media white washes with seemingly harmless phrases like “the other side.” That chicken should not be free to cross the road. It’s as plain and simple as that!

IRS:
We don’t care why. The chicken gained “income” in the form of blacktop from crossing the federal road, hence he must pay a tax. Some will argue that crossing the road (Rte 861) is not income but rather an equal exchange of one side of the road for the other. Indeed there are some people who promote such schemes to avoid paying taxes. But be aware that court decisions have held such “equal-side-of-road” arguments as frivolous.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
See IRS. If the chicken refuses to file with the IRS we will prosecute that chicken for “income-road evasion.” He gained an “income” of blacktop. Hence he is subject to income tax. Just prosecuting a few chickens for such silliness will keep the other chickens in line.

FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT
See IRS and DOJ. We will judge that chicken and get an easy conviction by telling jurors of the chicken’s-peers their job is to solely judge the facts on the basis of the law we give them. We will never tell the jurors they have the power to also judge the law itself. Shhhh! This is the secret for how we control chickens.

DICK CHENEY:
I’m so sorry. While I was busy watching the chicken cross the road, I accidentally shot my friend.

HILLARY CLINTON
It’s just proof that it takes a community of such roads to raise a chicken.

CALIF. GOVERNOR ARNOLD
I apologize for fondling that chicken so much that it crossed the road.

PRESENT ADMINISTRATION
As usual no answer given, just a press release:
“We need the power of something ironically called “The Patriot Act” to nationalistically inquire into the affairs of chickens. All chickens hate us because of what we stand for. That chicken was an enemy combatant and was hiding weapons of mass destruction. The terrorists are chickens. We send all chickens to Guantanamo. These chickens will get a fair trial in a military tribunal.”

CONGRESS
Shhh! A perfect “Weapon of Mass Distraction”! Let’s debate it and then use it to pass some worthless laws and pork in place of what we really should be doing.

EXECUTIVE BRANCH AND CONGRESS
It’s the “War on Chickens”. (Look you moronic chickens. In case you haven’t figured-it-out fear is how we control you. So many wars…so little time: Vietnam, Korea, War on Drugs, War on Poverty, War on Terror, War on Mexicans. Plus all the other labels such as liberal and conservative and non-sense issues such as gay vs straight and gas prices. If you are distracted and only blame others, you don’t focus on the 40% of your paycheck you volunteer, do you?)

TSA
Was the chicken carrying a water bottle? Maybe we should frisk the chicken! Did the chicken carry a government picture ID? Is there any way we can extend our authority to roads? It worked for the Nazi’s—”Hey chicken…your papers please!” Only chickens must trade rights and freedom for security.

COLIN POWELL
You ask how and why a chicken could cross a road in Russia? Its simple…Russia does not have a Social Security Number system they can use track-down citizens like what we do in the US. Whoops…I revealed something to all chickens in the US (in an inadvertent slip during a news interview about WMD).

ISRAEL
We don’t care as long as the Arab states get no benefit.

FEMA
The chicken should have stayed in New Orleans inside the stadium. He could get hurt crossing the road.

A.G. GONZALES
We will legally wire-tap the chicken to find out why. I assure you we violated no rights of that chicken. And just like Frank Perdue, everything our administration will do to the chicken will be legal.

BILL GATES:
I have just released eChicken2006, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your check book. Internet explorer is an integral part of eChicken. The Platform is much more stable and will never cra…#@&&^( C \… reboot.

BILL CLINTON:
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE:
I invented the chicken!

Received:

“Now We Are Sending 50 Year Old Women Into Combat????”

From: J [Special Forces Vet]
To: GI Special
Sent: September 14, 2006
Subject: Re: GI Special 4I14: They Just Sent Her Over There [State’s Oldest War Casualty In At Lease 50 Years Felt She Lacked Training]

Now we are sending 50 year old women into combat???? What the hell kind of society have we become????

Women in combat should NEVER be allowed in the first place, but 50 years of age???? I’m still amazed God has not judged this country yet…in his time, I suppose.

Reply: “The Lord helps those who help themselves.” T

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

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